R. Bluefish

Origin Story: The Wish I Make (Part Four) With a flash of silvery-white light that for an instant turned night into day, Starlight stood on solid ground once more. She took in a reflexive breath as always, her ears popping at the sudden transition from vacuum to atmosphere. A glance at her surrounding confirmed her new location - the storage units Jasper had pointed her to. Three long, squat buildings of uniform grey concrete, little more than rows of adjoining garages. If Jasper was to be believed, Carl was in one of these. She tried to think of what she was going to say when he saw her. A threat? A one-liner? What did you say to someone who shot a child? What could you say? What words were there? She had to turn him over to the cops, she knew that. All the time she’d been searching for him, some dark voice in the back of her mind had been whispering to her to deal with him personally, make sure he never shot another kid. But once you started doing things like that you didn’t stop. And he wasn’t worth it. Not him. She wouldn’t become a killer for a thug with a gun. So what was he worth? A photon blast in the face? A punch in the gut? If he surrendered without putting up a fuss, was she supposed to just hand him over to the police, simple as that? So that he could go through some farce of a trial and be back on the streets before you knew it, selling poison and dropping bodies? Her boots clicked sharply on the asphalt as she strode down along the second row of storage units, scanning the stenciled-on numbers. Twenty-one…twenty-two…She could scare him, that she was sure of. But she doubted she could scare him badly enough to make a difference. Anyone who was dealing in this city had to have some kind of guts. Twenty-three…twenty-four… What kind of sentence would he even get? Maybe the law would take care of him after all. Accidentally or not, he did shoot a kid. The case had gotten media attention. There would be public pressure to see justice done. She gritted her teeth. And what if it didn’t happen like that? What if he pulled out some sob story, got a sweetheart deal? Did a few measly years - a mere slap on the wrist - and was a free man again, free to do something like this again? Twenty-six…twenty-seven… Or what if he walked? What if his lawyer pulled a fast one, got him off? It happened all the time. Twenty-eight. Then he’d get away with it. Shooting a little girl. A little kid. She realized she was breathing hard. Calm down, she told herself. For Christ’s sake, get a hold of yourself. Twenty-nine. She stood before the garage-style door, made of cold corrugated steel. If Jasper had lied to her, she was going to make him regret it. She knelt down next to the lock and extended her index finger, which began to glow with a white-hot inner light. Carefully, she pushed her finger straight into the lock, the smell of burning metal filling her nostrils as the mechanism melted into slag. Rising back to her feet, she took a moment to square her shoulders and compose herself. Just take him to the cops. Kick his ass if you need to, but no more. Let the legal system take care of the rest. The legal system. She snorted. Because it did such a great job on her. Starlight seized the handle of the door and heaved upward, the now-molten lock providing no resistance. The door opened with a deafening crash of metal, sliding up into the ceiling. Inside it was pitch dark, but her eyes easily pierced through the blackness. Jasper hadn’t been lying - the unit really was set up as a makeshift hideout. There were countless discarded fast-food wrappers, empty bottles of water, even a bucket she tried not to guess at the contents of. Is this guy hiding from the cops or trying to wait out a nuclear war? What held her attention, though, was the sleeping bag curled in the corner, unmistakably occupied. The figure didn’t move, even after the din of the opening door. She waved a hand and a globe of light appeared in the air before her, casting a pale radiance over the scene. She sent it flitting up to float near the ceiling of the unit and stepped inside. On the walls, shapeless shadows advanced with her, though there was nothing there to cast them. Still Carl didn’t move. This guy would probably sleep through a nuclear war. She walked over and looked down at him, curled up there like a baby. He shot a kid, then crawled away to his man-cave to pig out on cheeseburgers and lie around all day until the heat was off. Pathetic. She prodded him with her boot, none too gently, resisting the urge to kick him. “Rise and shine, s---bird.” He didn’t move. It was then that she saw the empty pill bottle in his hand, the half-open eyes, the flecks of white foam at the corners of his mouth. No. She was down beside him, seizing his shoulders, shaking him. “No, no, no!” An effort of will, a flash of light, and the storage unit was gone, replaced by clean white tiles and the smell of chemicals. Someone screamed, someone else cursed, there was what sounded like a tray of objects crashing to the floor. She paid no attention, seizing a man who wore a white doctor’s coat. She all but threw him at where Carl lay dying. “Save him!” she snapped.

Origin Story: The Wish I Make (Part Three) The sun shone with a clear, cold light that struggled through the banks of misty grey clouds. The sky was a passionless white, broken overhead by an arrow-shaped flock of geese, honking faintly as they flew south in the face of the coming winter. As she watched, the sun struck a chink in the clouds and pierced through eagerly, spearing painfully at her eyes, jolting her from her reverie. She looked down, blinking dancing stars from her vision, and realized that her cigarette had burned down to a mere stub with a withered stem of ash. Dammit. She removed it from her mouth and tapped the ash away against the wall, then dropped the butt and ground it out under her heel. The prison yard was already strewn with hundreds of the things, no one would care about one more. With her last cigarette wasted, she sighed and leaned back against the wall once more, hands jammed in the pockets of her garishly orange inmates’ jumpsuit. Her hands didn’t shake anymore. The pains of withdrawal had long since abated, but no matter how hard she tried to focus her thoughts on other things, still she found herself longing night and day. Every hour seemed to her an eternity. She found herself spending each day doing nothing but waiting for sunset, so she could once more escape from the world with a few hours of troubled, fitful sleep. “How long since and how long ‘til?” She started and looked up. A woman had sidled up next to her, dressed in the same orange jumpsuit as Sam, watching her with an expectant grin. Sam, in no mood for conversation, said, “The hell are you talking about?” The woman’s grin never flickered. She was short and stout, old too, probably in her sixties. Her hair was brown twisted with grey, long, draping over her shoulders. “How long since, and how long ‘til?” she repeated, slowly and clearly this time, as though talking to a child. “How long since you used, and how long ‘til you’re out?” Sam stiffened. “What makes you think I used?” The woman’s smile was almost grandmotherly. “Honey, I know ‘em when I see ‘em. I’m guessing coke?” Sam tried to stare her down, but gave up almost immediately. It was like trying to outstare a friendly brick wall. There didn’t seem to be any point in lying. “Coke. Three months and five years. Maybe less if I keep my nose clean.” The woman brayed a laugh. “Ha! Nose clean. That’s a good one.” She produced a pack of cigarettes and put one in her mouth, still chortling as she flicked the lighter. “Nose clean.” She took a drag, then looked at Sam and offered it to her. “Want one?” Sam hesitated, wary of seeming indebted, then caved. “Sure.” She took it and put it to her lips, drawing in the soothing smoke gratefully. The woman lit another one for herself. “Roxanne. You can call me Roxie.” “Sam.” Neither of them offered their hand. For a long minute, they smoked in silence. Then Roxie spoke again. “So, you in for the drugs?” “Yep.” “Anything else?” “No.” Roxie’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, as though she sensed the lie. Sam looked away hurriedly. “So, what about you? How long since and how long ‘til?” “First one’s never. Never gone near the stuff. It’ll f--k you up.” She shot a sly glance at Sam. “But I bet I don’t need to tell you that.” Sam stared straight ahead, the cigarette smoldering in her mouth. Roxie coughed. “Second one? Hell of a long time, I hope. I’m a lifer.” Sam found her curiosity aroused despite herself. “What’d you do?” The tip of Roxie’s cigarette flared as she took another drag. “That’s a bit of a tale.” “Oh, well better not then,” Sam said sarcastically. “I got someplace to be, you know?” “Point taken,” the older woman said with a snort. The silence returned. The wind blew a wave of withered dead leaves across the prison yard, making a faint skittering sound. The smoke from their cigarettes was momentarily stretched out into long, wispy trails of gray mist. Roxie broke the silence so suddenly and confidently it was as though she had received a cue. “So this was back in the seventies. Disco wasn’t dead, nobody knew who Franklin Moore was, and I weighed about a hundred pounds. So yeah, this was a long damn time ago.” She let out another braying laugh. Sam ignored the joke, which didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. “I was nothing back then, just another face in the damn crowd. Young, stupid. Up to my ears in debt. I bet you know that story, right?” Sam ignored this too. “So I need money. I’m flat broke, behind on the rent, car needs a new wheel, aunt needs a new hip, cat needs a new tail, you know the drill. And I - I can’t find a job for the life of me. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, I don’t know. Doesn’t matter now. All I know is, I need money fast. And what do I have? I have a gun. “So I gotta rob a place, right? But you gotta understand, trying to get away with an honest crime? In this city? It’s like ringing the dinner bell at a kennel. They just start coming out of the woodwork like they’ve got nothing else to do in the world.” Sam didn’t need to ask who “they” were. “If anything, it was even worse back then. All these costumed kooks, looking to prove something to somebody by dressing up in their old Halloween costumes and breaking your legs. You couldn’t get away with anything. “Now I fancied myself quite a thinker. So here’s my idea. What’s the one thing that keeps the masks from coming down on you? Them being busy. And that’s the thing, in this city you never have to wait long for something that’ll get a whole lot of super attention, fast. So that’s what I do. I wait. Barely sat a week before everybody on the TV starts pitching a fit about how tentacles are coming out of the sewers or something like that. So I think, great! Here’s my chance! Every mask in the city will be tripping over each other trying to deal with that, who’s gonna notice if I knock over a GO-Mart? “So I get my gun and I head on down. But you gotta understand, I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m sweating bullets before I even walk in the door. And then I see there’s other people in there shopping, so I gotta just hang around the aisles pretending I’m looking for something, waiting for them to leave. “Then finally everybody’s gone. Just me and the guy at the register. He’s this kid, looks barely out of high school. I walk up, and my nerves are just so totally shot. I try to tell him to give me the money, but it comes out this weak little mumble, and he’s like, ‘What?’ I go again, and now it’s this squeak.” She mimicked a high-pitched Mickey Mouse-style voice. “Gimme the money! And I don’t know, I guess it must have just seemed so ridiculous, the kid just looks at me and laughs. Sam, starting to see where this was going, looked away. “And I guess it made me mad, right? Just mad. So I take out the gun and put it in his face, and he just keeps laughing. But now I can see he’s scared, eyes are like dinner plates, but he keeps laughing like he can’t stop.” Sam spoke up. “So what’d you do?” Roxie made a finger-gun and touched it to her throat, where the Adam’s apple would be on a man. “Bang. Right here.” Sam shook her head. “Christ.” “I know. I know.” Roxie stared at the burning tip of her cigarette. “I know I shouldn’t have done that. But it’s done. He’s lying there dead, and I have the gun, and I know I need to go, now, but I can’t make myself leave the money. So I run around the counter, and damned if I can figure out how to open the cash register. It was like something out of a comedy skit. I’m pushing and pulling and banging, think I might’ve been crying, finally the thing opens, there’s all the money, and I realize I don’t have anything to put it in. Can you believe that? I do all this, didn’t even think to bring a bag. So now I’m tearing the place up, trying to find something big enough to hold all the money, I’m really panicking now, and then I hear the doors ding open. So I look up, and who do you think it is?” She was looking at Sam keenly, apparently waiting for a response. Sam hazarded a halfhearted guess. “A cop.” Roxie shook her head, grinning from ear to ear. “The Centurion.” “Bulls--t.” “Swear to God.” She used her finger to air-sketch an X over her heart. “The very man himself. Right there in the GO-Mart, hovering a foot off the ground, in all his blue-and-gold glory. I don’t even know how he got there so fast. I guess whatever was going on with the tentacles must not have been too serious. Maybe somebody reported the gunshot, or he heard it, sensed it, whatever. I don’t think anybody ever did figure out exactly how all his powers worked. “Now, you’re a young little thing, so you probably don’t remember what it was like having him in the city back then. You gotta understand, this was before T-Day, obviously, and he was…” she waved a hand is if she could conjure the perfect words from the air. “He was like a god to us. Like a part of the city. Even to the criminals. He’d been protecting the city for…what, forty years? And he hadn’t aged a day. He wasn’t just a hero, he was the hero. And he was in the room with me, and here’s me having just shot a guy and trying to rob the place.” She paused, as if to let the situation sink in. Sam pressed her. “So what’d you do?” Roxie started chuckling again, her shoulders shaking up and down with mirth as she blew out a serpentine coil of smoke. “Shot him.” “You shot him?” “Five times. Emptied the whole gun right in the chest.” Sam found herself at a loss for words. “You…shot…the Centurion?” “You need a hearing aid, honey?” Sam struggled for another moment, then asked, “Why?” Roxie shrugged. “Gotta try, right? Didn’t want to go to jail. Simple as that." “How’d that work out for you?” “Not so good, obviously. He-” Roxie cut herself off with a fit of hacking coughs. Sam stepped back instinctively, waiting for her to recover. Roxie regained control of herself after a minute, thumped herself on the chest, then spat off to the side. “Sorry. So anyway, I shoot him. What do you think happens? Bullets just go bouncing off his chest and flying every which way, like ping ping ping. He’s just standing there the whole time. And he has this look. Like, he wasn’t angry. I’m shooting him in the chest over and over, and he’s not angry at all. He looks at the guy I killed, looks at the money, looks at me, and I swear, he just looks sad. Disappointed, like. “And that’s the last thing I remember of that day, that look on his face. Next thing I knew I was waking up in jail with a headache the size of the West End. Never even saw him move. “So that’s how I wound up in here. Life without parole. Murder, attempted murder, robbery, possession of an illegal firearm, parking violations…” she waved her hand in an and-so-on kind of way. “And I think there’s some more.” Sam considered what she had heard, then asked, “Any of that true?” That seemed to amuse her. “Every damn word.” Sam’s cigarette was down to a stub. She took one last drag and flicked it away. “So in hindsight, maybe you shouldn’t have robbed that store.” “Maybe. Maybe not. I like to look at it this way. Whole reason I did the caper and got locked up was because I was tired of not having enough, right? Not having enough food, not having enough money. Not having enough respect. Whatever. But now,” she waved a hand expansively. “In this place? I got everything I want. People respect me in here. I guess you could say,” she cackled, “I got my wish.” Sam looked at her, quizzical. “What the hell’s so great about being in here?” A grin. “I’m very glad you asked that.” Roxie moved closer, a little inside Sam’s personal space now. “This goes all the way back to what I asked you before. About how long since and how long ‘til. What if I told you I can grant you a wish too? What if I told you got something that’ll make both of those numbers stop mattering?” “What?” Sam knew exactly what she meant. Her mouth was suddenly dry, her insides twisting with a horrible, sinking sort of anticipation. Roxie reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic packet filled with whitish powder. She held it between thumb and forefinger, letting Sam see it. “This? Right here? One shot of this, and suddenly you won’t have a care in the world.” Sam felt lightheaded. “I thought you never used.” “This ain’t using, sweetheart. This is dealing.” Somewhere in the back of Sam’s mind, a voice screamed at her to turn and walk away. The words came anyway, jerkily, painfully, as though dragged out on a jagged chain. “How…much?” Roxie took Sam’s sweating hand and pressed the packet into it. “This one’s on me, honey. For listening to my story. You need a set of works, I can hook you up with that too.” Sam stared at the bag in her hand, at the powder. My wish. “First one’s free, huh?” she said, not looking away from the packet. “That’s right, honey.” There no longer seemed to Sam to be anything grandmotherly about Roxie’s smile. “First one’s free.”

Origin Story: The Wish I Make (Part Two) The man walked quickly, shoulders hunched, hands jammed in the pockets of his sleeveless hoodie. Every minute or two he shot a look over his shoulder, as though wary of being followed. Not exactly the image of a model citizen. Even disregarding the fact that he was out in the Fens in the middle of the night, a time when most honest people who lived in this neighborhood - assuming there were any honest people in this neighborhood - preferred to be safely behind locked doors. He ducked into an alley, quickening his step slightly, plainly anxious to pass through the clutching shadows and reach the meager puddles of illumination cast by the streetlights at the other end of the alley. Starlight waited until he was barely a foot away before making herself visible. His curse echoed off the silent buildings as he fell back in shock, landing hard on his ass and trying to scrabble away from her backwards. She flicked a hand and the shadows in the alley came alive, lashing forth in black coils to snake around his arms and legs, lifting him bodily into the air. He tried to struggle free, cursing, and with another flick of her hand the shadows slammed him against the wall, just hard enough to rattle his teeth. He gave one more useless thrash before apparently thinking better of it and going limp, pinned against the brickwork. Smart. She leaned right into his face, letting him look into her cold grey eyes, the lower half of her face covered by her mask. “You know who I am?” He licked his lips and nodded. “Yeah.” “Good. That means we can skip the introductions and go right to the part where you tell me everything I want to know.” He started to open his mouth, but she interrupted him. “I’m looking for a friend of yours. Carl Moreland.” His brow furrowed. “Who?” She gestured impatiently. “Pipes.” “I already told the cops-” “I’m not a cop.” His eyes shot back and forth, looking for an escape. “This about that girl got shot?” “No, he’s been dodging his income tax,” she snapped. The shadows swirled silently around them. “Of course this is about the girl.” “He didn’t have nothing to do with that.” The words fell from his mouth as naturally as his own name. She slammed her fist into the wall next to this head, making him flinch violently. “You think you can jerk me around?” Her eyes flared into twin orbs of angry white light. “I’m not in the mood to stand here and listen to you bulls--t me. Gonna ask you one more time before I start getting mad: where is Pipes?” Sweat was shining on his forehead, and he swallowed several times before speaking, but when he did his tone was oddly calm. “I ain’t no snitch. And I don’t put in my friends. You gonna hurt me, hurt me.” Starlight stared him in the eye for several long moments. He stared back. She hated having her bluff called. With a grunt, she stepped back, frustrated. The shadows that bound him abruptly vanished, dropping him in an undignified heap. He groaned as he got to his feet, but didn’t bolt. “Nah,” she said, idly pulling a photograph from her pocket. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Jasper.” He flinched at the sound of his name. “Just gonna show you something.” He started to speak, but trailed off when she shoved the picture in his face. “Maria Estevez. Nice little girl. Going to be eleven next week. Of course,” she hardened her voice, “that’s assuming she survives the bullet your ‘friend’ put in her stomach.” She paused to let that sink in. “Either way, gonna be a bad birthday for her.” He stared at the photograph. She held it steady, watching his face. Finally he looked away. “He didn’t mean to do that,” he mumbled. “I don’t imagine he did. Doesn’t help her much though, does it?” She could see his resolve wavering, and she pushed harder. “Even if she makes it, there’s going to be pain. A lot of it. Plus they’re still trying to figure out if the bullet caught any spine on its way through. All that, just because your friend,” she spat the word, “caught some guy trying to break into his car and starting blazing away at him in the middle of a public street. Little Maria was just wrong place, wrong time, and she might die for it.” He rubbed his hand across his face, the movement quick and jerky. He moved away the her and paced back and forth restlessly, from one wall of the alley to the other. She let him. “I ain’t no snitch,” he said again, but this time he seemed to say it more to himself than to her. “Talking to capes isn’t the same as talking to cops. You know that. Everybody knows capes can be…persuasive.” Her body were tense, awaiting his next words. If he clammed up, she was back to square one. She’d already tried all of Pipes’ usual haunts: his relatives, the corners he dealt at, the bars he frequented. Wherever he was, he’d gone to ground, and he wasn’t likely to come out anytime soon. “I know about you, Jasper. You’re not a bad guy.” Relatively speaking. “You don’t like seeing people get hurt, you don’t sell to kids, you stick by your people. But Pipes shot a little girl. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re okay with that.” Starlight waited. A car roared past in the street at the far end of the alley. The passing headlights made strange shadows flicker across Jasper’s face. He broke the silence abruptly. “You find him, you gonna hurt him?” “Not interested in hurting him. Just don’t think he should get away with what he did.” He stared fixedly at the overflowing dumpsters, as though if by not looking at her he could pretend he was speaking only to himself. “There’s…you know those storage units over in Greenbank, near the car dealership?” “Yeah.” “He’s set up a little hideaway in one of those. Number 29. It’s where he goes to lay his head whenever someone’s beefing with him. If…” he seemed to have to force the words out, “…if the cops were after him, that’s where he’d go.” If he was a liar, he was a good one. And if he fed her bad information, she would just come back, only she would be in a considerably worse mood. “I’ll keep your name out of it.” “Appreciate it,” he mumbled. Storage units. Number 29. She had business in Greenbank, it would appear. First, though, she had one last thing to take care of here. A matter of routine. “You holding?” she asked him sharply. He shook his head mutely. “Carrying?” A nod. She held out her hand. “Give it to me.” He reached into his waistband and pulled out a gun. Big, black and silver, semi-automatic. He handed it to her grip-first. She weighed it in her hand. “I’m dumping this in orbit. You want it back, go get it.” “Okay.” He would have another by the end of the week, and they both knew it. Starlight turned on her heel and strode away. She reached the weak circle of yellowish light that lay on the ground around the streetlamp, then hesitated. Something made her stop and half-turn, looking at him over her shoulder. “This…” she searched for the words. “This doesn’t have to be your life, you know.” Jasper stood there in the shadows of the alley and stared back at her stonily. “What else am I gonna do?” Sirens wailed in the distance. A dog started barking. She sighed and looked down. “Yeah, I hear you.” Then she was gone, replaced by a streak of pure white light that flashed upwards, arcing gracefully over the rooftops towards the smog-laden night sky.

Origin Story: The Wish I Make (Part One) One of the wheels on the cart was broken. It wobbled, stuck, rattled, swayed, did everything but spin. When Sam pushed the cart, the wheel made it veer to the left, forcing her to constantly tug it right to keep straight. When she wanted to turn right, she had to use all of her strength to lift the cart slightly up so that the wheel no longer touched the floor, else the rubber made a squealing sound that attracted darting, irritated glances from all those around. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed on the very edge of hearing as they shed down their sickly artificial glow. They were dim, and some were dark, but to her they seemed blindingly bright and she kept her gaze down, squinting with pain whenever they stabbed at her eyes. She stopped in front of a shelf displaying rows of canned pasta, wrestling the cart to the side of the aisle, out of the way of passersby. Three cans of spaghetti with sauce. That would be enough for two days. She tried to do the math in her head. An ache pounded in her temples, and the numbers kept slipping away. There would still be enough. She was sure there would still be enough. She had the spaghetti. She had already gotten the grape juice and the toilet paper and the toothbrush. That was everything, wasn’t it? “Mommy?” Yes, that was everything. She didn’t have the frozen waffles, but she didn’t have enough for them and she didn’t need them anyway. Not really. “Mommy, are we going home now?” “Not yet, baby.” The headache was getting worse, a cold spike of pain deep inside her skull, like hooks were being twisted into her brain. “Mommy needs to stop and get her medicine first.” As she pushed the cart along in the direction of the checkout lanes, Arthur in tow, her hands began to shake again. She fought to keep still, but it continued, until soon her arms were trembling uncontrollably all the way to her shoulders. She was freezing cold, but her body was slick with sweat. Her vision wouldn’t focus. Her cart struck something. A man’s voice cursed. Her eyes snapped open. She hadn’t realized they were closed. It took her a moment to realize she had accidentally rammed her cart straight into someone’s back. It wasn’t until he turned around that she realized he was a cop. Her apology died in her throat, stifled by a sudden, inexplicable panic. All she could think of were the dark circles under her eyes, her hollow cheeks, her trembling hands. Cops could see the signs, she was sure of it. It was part of their training. She became aware that she was standing there like an idiot, and forced a word past the lump in her throat. “Sorry.” He was a big man, big and beefy, wearing a black short-sleeved uniform that read FCPD. “That’s okay,” he said. There was a pause, then he added, “You all right?” “Mommy gets clumsy when she hasn’t had her medicine,” Arthur informed him before she could open her mouth. She could have screamed. Something shifted behind the cop’s eyes. His face became calm and carefully neutral, the face cops wore when they were on the job. “That so,” he said. She could feel him sizing her up, assessing her. He was probably already writing the report in his head. “Flu medicine,” she lied, knowing immediately that she had said it too quickly. “I - I have the flu. I just needed to come and get some groceries. Then I’m going to get some flu medicine.” “Sure,” he said, regarding her coolly. “Hope you feel better.” He glanced down at Arthur and cracked a smile. “Take care of her, okay little man?” “’Kay.” Sam was sure she could feel his eyes boring holes into the back of her head all the way to the checkout lanes, though she didn’t dare turn to look. The checkout was geologically slow. The worn-looking grey-haired woman at the register seemed to be constantly entering the wrong codes for everything and getting increasingly flustered with every error, to the growing annoyance of everyone in line, Sam included. She was starting to feel it strongly now; the raw, desperate hunger that permeated every fiber of her being. The minutes drained away with the speed of molasses, every moment making her want to cry with frustration. “Mommy, can I have candy?” The high-pitched voice was like an screwdriver in her ear. “No.” At last it was her turn. Sam laid her scant few items out on the counter with shaking hands, thankful at least that there was no way her simple purchases could drag on in the same way. “Mommy, I want M&Ms.” “You can’t have M&Ms.” Beep went the spaghetti. Beep. The grape juice. Beep. The toilet paper. Beep. She had the cash ready, handing it over without even waiting for the cashier to tell her the total. There was another long pause as the grey-haired woman ponderously counted the money, then looked up at Sam. “You don’t have enough here.” “What?” “You’re three-twenty-three short.” I am? She must have added up wrong. She had always hated math. She just wanted to get out of there. Why couldn’t she just get out of there? She dug into her purse for the rest of the money when a realization struck her like a stone. Dammit. That was too much. If she paid that, she wouldn’t have enough to score later. Dammit. Dammit. “Okay. Uh.” She just needed to get rid of a few things. “Uh, I don’t need this.” She pushed aside one of the cans of spaghetti. “Or, uh, this.” The toothbrush. The cashier checked the total, then shook her head gravely. Still short. “I want M&Ms, Mommy.” “What did I just say?” Okay. Maybe if she got rid of the juice too. The water was out in their apartment, but a few days without drinking something wouldn’t kill them. But the thought of going through another week without using was almost more than she could bear. “Okay. I’ll-” Arthur snatched a packet of M&Ms from the stand and tried to put it on the counter. She grabbed it from his hands. “Goddamnit, Arthur!” He tried to grab it back. For a moment they both pulled on it, then the back split, sending candy spilling to the floor in a multicolored cascade. “Christ!” she screamed. People were staring. Disapproving eyes watched her from all directions. Look at her. Look at the bad mother. For a moment, Arthur was silent and still. Then his face crumpled like a napkin. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth wide in preparation for an earsplitting wail. She slapped him. There were sharp intakes of breath all around, followed by a shocked, pregnant silence. Arthur stared up at her, not crying now, as though she had struck the tears from his face. She stood there, feeling strangely numb, until she remembered. The cop. Sam seized Arthur by the wrist and half-ran from the store. The automatic doors rattled slowly apart before her; she forced her way between them before they were even fully open. Then they were in the parking lot, cold air biting through their clothing. The same panic she had felt before had returned tenfold, squeezing her lungs and filling her eyes with stinging tears. She couldn’t go to jail. She had to get away. She heard a whimper from Arthur, and realized she was crushing his hand in hers. She tried to loosen her grip, but her fingers were locked by fear and would not obey her. Every moment she seemed to feel the ice-cold handcuffs closing around her wrists, hear the bars of a cell door crashing shut. It’s okay. She just needed to get home. Maybe nobody in the store had thought to tell the cop. It’s okay. A voice sounded from behind her. A man’s voice, in an authoritative tone that brooked no argument. “Ma’am, stop right there.” She stopped dead in her tracks, Arthur staggering to a halt beside her. She felt her muscles wilt under the weight of a fear made manifest. Her resolve was gone, replaced by a hopeless dread. She turned around.

Sam walked a slow circuit of the room, inspecting the new - and far more casual - furnishings. Now this is more my speed. A faded sofa, a card table, and leather jackets made for a far more familiar environment for her. She let out a laugh. "Gretch, Lynn, I think you two are in the wrong line of work. Screw books, you'd make a killing one on of those interior-decorating reality shows. If nothing else, I don't think anybody else would be able to pull it off quite so fast." She finished her circuit, bringing her back to Asli. "Uh, anyway...sorry about that, Asli. I probably shoulda warned you that they have a lot magic stuff around here." She shook her head. "It never even occurred to me that it might be a problem for you."

Sam sighed. Dark occult things. Nothing was ever simple, was it? She supposed she should have seen this coming. There was something about this city - once you put on the mask for the first time, suddenly all the weirdness in the world seemed to get drawn to you like moths to a flame. And now that she actually had a mage for a roommate, she officially no longer had any right to act surprised when weirdness emerged. "Okay. So he's not crazy. Well," she looked at the hippie. "Not just crazy, at least. There must be something going on with this book and Carcosa that made him do that to himself, right?" She just hoped that reading the damn thing wasn't enough to make people start cutting on themselves, or they might be in trouble. She turned her attention to Ray, apparently unperturbed by his shirtlessness. "Is he still awake? Whatever you did there seems to have calmed him down some - maybe we can get some answers out of him now. I wouldn't mind knowing who he is, and where the hell he got this book."

Sam stared openly at Ray's display of hitherto-unknown power, then laughed under her breath and shook her head, chewing her toothpick. This frickin' city...can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cape. "Well, huh," she said, trying to think of how a perfectly ordinary civilian would sound upon seeing someone use powers. "Didn't know you could do that." The way his tattoos had moved had not gone unnoticed by her, and she now saw the artwork all over the store in a new light. So he had tattoo powers? And judging by the way he had healed the man's wounds, pretty useful ones. What had he said about a divided house? Was that a quote from Abe Lincoln? He seemed to have the injured man under control for the moment, at least. She moved up to stand beside Asli, speaking quietly into her ear. "Asli, the tattoo guy has powers and the hippie guy is obviously completely section eight. Did he really carve up his back just to get a part in some play?" She looked down at the book curiously. "I've never even heard of that one. Carcosa? Is that in Puerto Rico?"

Reflexively, Sam thrust out a hand towards the falling food. The shadows under the table lashed out in snakelike ribbons, catching the dishes and placing them neatly back on the tabletop before dissipating. She didn't have time to congratulate herself, though, upon seeing her roommate's distress. "Asli?" She stepped towards her, one hand upraised in concern. "What's up? You okay?" A thought struck her. "Oh s---, is this that magic thing again?" The thought that entering Lynn's home might have an adverse effect on her friend had never occurred to her.

Sam sucked in her breath through her teeth as she looked over the man's mutilated back, her skin crawling with sympathetic pain. "Jesus Christ." He wasn't stoned. Well, not just stoned, anyway. He was crazy. If he had actually done that to himself, then he needed some serious mental help in the worst way. Why would somebody even do that? Asli seemed to have pulled herself together, at least, though Sam got the feeling there was more to it than she had told her. She made a mental note to ask her about it later, but right now they needed to deal with the problem immediately at hand - namely, the crazy guy with the shredded back. She moved up to stand beside Ray, one hand raised towards the hippie in a calming manner. "Okay, you want it like in the book. Got it. You mind if we take a look at the book?" Any insight it could give into his situation would probably be helpful.

Sam took a startled step back when the man started having his fit. Was he having a seizure or something? He only started when that guy touched him - does he really, really not like men, maybe? If he kept up like this he was liable to hurt himself, but she doubted that she would be strong enough to restrain him. The tall, heavily inked man who owned the place seemed like he was willing to help, but she wasn't sure how much he could do. She was just trying to figure out a way to suit up and whisk him over to the nearest hospital before he swallowed his tongue or decked somebody, while at the same time not exposing her identity to the owner of the parlor, when Asli staggered as though she'd been struck. Sam was at her friend's side in an instant, grabbing her arm, Asli's sudden illness taking priority over the hippie's. Asli was on the phone now, speaking incoherently into the receiver, looking as though she might pass out at any given moment. "Asli! What the f---, are you okay? Do you know that guy?"

Sam had ignored the hippie guy when he first came in, only glancing at him with mild annoyance at being called a "lady thing." Is he stoned or something? He certainly looked it. It was only when he wandered over and interrupted Asli's conversation with his laughing fit that she broke off her inspection of the tattoo designs and spoke up. "Hey, mind giving us a minute here? We were here first." She stepped up behind him, observing the way he was doubled over with mirth. Yeah, he's definitely on something. It wasn't on the evening's agenda, but she realized she couldn't let this guy be walking around the city like that. He could get hit by a bus, or worse. "Listen man, is there someone we can call for you? Because..." she stopped. What she had initially taken for a design of some sort on his jacket was actually a slowly spreading bloodstain. Red was leaking from between his fingers, and already tiny ruby droplets could be seen on the floor at his feet. "Oh, s--t! Asli, this guy's bleeding pretty bad!" Even as she spoke, her hand was diving into her pocket for her phone.

Echo whipped her head around, heart pounding wildly in her chest, trying to take in all of her surroundings at once. "What in the hell just happened?" Let's see, there was the dinobot charge, the exploding mountain, the time vortex...Time vortex? But that was what it had been, she realized. Her timey senses were still tingling. Which must mean...she forced herself to calm down and take in her new environment. Even then it took her a moment to recognize where she was - the Freedom City she knew had far less rubble and wanton destruction. On its good days, at least. "We're...back home?" In a movement that was slightly clumsier than was typical for her, she dropped down from the dinobot's back, landing on her hands and knees on the battle-blasted city street. She got to her feet and looked around at the scene of carnage, the smoldering plantlife, the restaurant that she was pretty sure used to be over there, the white-haired woman - hey, she stole my look - frantically digging through the rubble. "Uh, yay?" Normally she would have made a joke. Or tried to see what she could do to help. Or at the very least, being suddenly surrounded by so many A-list heroes would have made her start fangirling out and trying to collect as many autographs as she could at super-speed. But seeing the devastated battlefield had drained her of her usual exuberant energy, and the recent fight combined with the unexpected time travel had left her feeling worn-out and disoriented. Unsteadily, she sat down on what was left of the curb, drawing her knees up to her chin. "I'm fine," she mumbled to no one in particular, her expression hidden by her blue-and-silver mask. "Just gimme a second..."

Starlight's notice check: 1d20+12 27

"I think we got it, thanks," called up Sam. Now that they were safely inside and away from any prying eyes, she was able to use her shadows to carry her burden, leaving her hands free. Ever since discovering this new side to her ordinarily light-based powers, she had found they made her everyday life far easier. A few extra hands were always helpful, especially when they also happened to be made of solid darkness and strong enough to carry an eighteen-wheeler. She turned at the sound of the door and nodded to the newcomer. "Hey there," she said, the toothpick bobbing in her mouth. "Looks like we're all here. And between the three of us, we've got enough food to choke a blue whale." She gave a rare half-grin. "And we haven't even seen what Lynn has up there. I think we're going to be taking some leftovers home tonight."

Thursday November 26, 2015 (Thanksgiving) Silberman's Books Sam cursed fluently under her breath as she tried to shuffle the Tupperware container full of stuffing from one arm to the other in order to free up a hand, without losing her grip on the bakery-bought pumpkin pie. After a moment of precarious positioning she gave up, and with a surreptitious glance around her, summoned a small tendril of shadow which obligingly held the pie for her, allowing her to unlock the door and enter the store. For the first time in her life, she had found herself in surprisingly high demand as a dinner guest. Both her employer Lynn and her roommate Asli had made plans involving her and Thanksgiving dinner, and since this didn't exactly happen to her too often, she hadn't wanted to disappoint either party, resulting in the plans being merged. Asli's apartment was far too small to host several people plus a large dinner, so they were congregating at Lynn's place instead. Asli was with her, of course, and had mentioned inviting someone else that Sam hadn't herself met. The whole thing was creating a decidedly surreal atmosphere for Sam, who had spent all of her previous thanksgivings either nibbling halfheartedly on a turkey dog or high as a kite. Celebrating the occasion by sitting down to an actual feast with her peers was a new experience for her, but she was determined not to show it. She pushed through the door, transferring the pie from the tendril of darkness - which vanished instantly - to her hand. "Hello? We're here!"

Echo looked at Bench with disgust. "Thought an alien invasion would be a good way to line your pockets, huh? You know, I was mad at you when I thought you were just stuffing the ballot box. As it stands, I kinda want to mess you up so bad you walk funny for a month." She shook a fist in his face. "You're lucky I'm so noble. And heroic. And ravishingly beautiful." Turning her back on him very deliberately, she instead looked at...she supposed it wasn't right to call him Grack anymore. "I guess so. From a certain point of view. You are a Grue. And you weren't..." she tried to find the right words. "...you weren't the original Jack of all Blades. But hey, I know I just met you, but from what I could see, you were a pretty good one." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Bench. "We might not have been able to take down Stewie here without your help, you know." She stood silent a moment, then sighed. Look at me, acting like I know how he feels. "Look...I'm not going to pretend I know how you feel right now. But do know this - you helped us do something pretty good here. And even if you're not who you thought you were, there's always room for another cape in the sky."

Buffy tensed as she heard the faint sounds of a baby crying from upstairs. Crap, that's right, his kids are here right now. By now she had effectively discounted the possibility that they were telling the truth. Her veiled threat hadn't had the effect she had hoped for - the two men didn't seem the least bit discouraged by the idea of her contacting Erik. If they weren't scared of Erik, they definitely weren't going to be scared of her, whether they knew who she was or not. And she was hoping she didn't, because if it came down it it, the element of surprise might be her only advantage. Refusing to be intimidated by the man's superior size (she had gotten used to living in a world of tall people many years ago), she held her ground, staring up at him. "No, that's not going to happen," she said, showing him her teeth. "I can't just let you in. I'm sure you understand. Why don't you wait outside while I give him a call?" Then he can show up with the rest of the gang, and we'll all take turns tap-dancing on your face. She dropped the smile in an instant. "Now take your foot out of the door." Or I'll break it off, and you won't like what I'll do with it.

Echo cocked a fist back. "Swing and..." She let loose with a hyperaccelerated flurry of hammering blows into his torso, trying not to let her increasingly-bruised knuckles discourage her. Geezus, this shield-wielding yutz is tough. She finished by bringing her knee up and slamming it into his groin. "Two strikes, two balls! The crowd goes wild!" Launching herself back in a graceful flip, she vanished with a whumph and reappeared standing upside-down on the ceiling. "Hey! You people!" she shouted at the hostages lined up against the walls. "Get out here, run! There's about to be a lot of asses getting kicked in here, and it's probably best if they aren't yours!"

Buffy felt her smile grow slightly stiff as her instincts prodded warningly at the back of her mind. They were smiling too much. There was no good reason for somebody to be smiling that much. Well, unless they were really nice, but nice people didn't stick their boots in the door when young women answered it. Semi-consciously she shifted into a stance that subtly lowered her center of gravity, despite the fact that she usually considered gravity to be highly overrated. "Ricky? You mean Erik?" She looked from one to the other. "Yeah, this is his place, but he's not here right now. Gym's closed. You'll have to come back some other time, or," she watched their reactions closely, "if you want, I can give him a call right this very second. Tell him you're here, give him your descriptions. What were your names again?"

Standard Action: Superfast Fists vs. Shield Gladiator, with 2 points of Power Attack and +5 aid bonus: 1d20+15 29 Damage is +10 (+2 from Power Attack) plus Autofire. Move Action: Teleport up to the ceiling and stay there, by way of switching her Reality Warping array to Super-Movement.

"Yeah, maybe." A woman of few words, Sam wandered over to one of the walls to inspect the artwork displayed there, which was no less impressive than that displayed in the window. Half the tattoo parlors these days didn't seem to do anything more complicated than an anchor, or maybe a little heart that said "Mother" on it. But these...art appreciation was never exactly her strong suit, but even she could tell these were the real deal. The shop seemed far more sanitary than the others of its ilk, as well. She sniffed the air experimentally. And it doesn't even smell like urine. Five stars. She turned her head to look sideways at the man, noticing the vibrancy of the ink that covered his arms. How does he do that? He must have to reapply them every damn morning to keep them looking so bright. "These are really something else," she said, indicating the displays. "You do them all yourself?"

Sam peered at the elaborate designs on display, impressed despite herself. "Looks like they know what they're doing, that's for sure. And it's actually clean. Some of those other places made me feel like even I would catch something off the needles." She leaned down to point out a photo of a particularly intricate tattoo. "Will you look at the kind of detail on some of these? Who the hell can do that with a needle and ink?" She found herself wishing she had come here when she got her other tattoo. Of course, she had just woken up with it one morning after getting s--tfaced drunk, so for all she knew she actually had. Straightening up, she thrust her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. "They look good, all right. A hell of a lot better than any of the other dumps we've checked out today. Whoever's in there must be the f---ing Michelangelo of inkers." She put a hand on the door. "Let's take a look, just to see what the catch is. Who knows, maybe it's like the last place and the owner's a jerk."

Buffy paused in mid-lift, irritated at the interruption to her workout. If I'm going to suffer, I'd like to do it in peace, dammit. She was tempted to simply continue with her weight training and ignore whoever that was trying to knock the door off its hinges, but relented after a moment's hesitation. Besides, she wouldn't be able to concentrate if the knocking persisted. With no small amount of relief, she reminded herself that the barbell didn't really weigh very much at all, relatively speaking. One moment it was crushing down at her chest like an elephant, the next it felt nearly weightless as the laws of physics bent to her will. Holding it casually in one hand, she got to her feet and placed it back in the rack like a toy, then headed for the entrance area. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she yelled as she approached the door. Did somebody order a pizza, maybe? If that was the case, she wondered if she would be able to bum a slice. Pressing iron was hungry work, as it turned out. She took this opportunity to towel the sweat from her eyes with one hand, groping blindly for the door handle with the other. "Gym's closed. But if you have pizza, we might be able to make an exception," she said, pulling the door open and taking the towel away from her face to look at the visitor.

Whap. Whap. Whap. Each impact stung at Buffy's fists as the punching bag shuddered and jerked, the chain rattling noisily in time with the blows. She kept her breathing to steady, controlled inhales and exhales, resisting the urge to gasp for air. Her fists were wrapped in padding, but despite that she could already tell that her knuckles were going to be sore as hell later. As well as her arms, her shoulders, her legs, her abs, and probably her ears. It would all doubtlessly be worth it in the long run, but she was starting to miss the days of fighting by pure instinct. All this "actual training" and these "proper exercise regimens" so that she didn't "lose a fight" and "get killed" was really starting to cramp her style. Her watch beeped, and with one last swift jab that sent the bag swinging back like a pendulum, she stopped and tried to shake the feeling back into her arms, still breathing hard. She walked over to where she had left her gym bag and patted down her face with a towel before taking a long drink of water from her bottle. Okay, so the punching bag is good and punched. She had made sure not to use her full measure of strength on it, because if she accidentally punched a hole in it or ripped it off the chain, she had a feeling they would make her pay for it. Next up...ugh, weight lifting. One by one, she collected each of the heaviest weight plates available and slotted them onto a barbell, until it resembled the kind of thing professional body builders had nightmares about. Then, with a resigned sigh, she lay down on the bench, gripped the barbell, and lifted it off its stand with a grunt. Her muscles burning, she lowered it unsteadily to her chest, then pushed up. One. "I..." she gasped in between lifts, sweat stinging at her eyes, "...hate...this...place..."

"Whoah, whoah, whoah!" Echo raised her hands placatingly. "What's with all the hostility, guys? All we wanted was to do was ask which one of you was Spartacus. But now," she sighed heavily, "you've gone and threatened the hostages. You do know how we have to respond to that, don't you?" She was moving before she had even finished her sentence, launching herself into the air and swinging her feet around to land a spinning kick right in the face of the man with the shield. "With all the force and feet at our disposal." She landed neatly in a gymnast's pose, and looked up to see what effect her attack had had. The man stared down at her, apparently thoroughly unimpressed. She had been hoping to see him go flying through the nearest wall. "Uh..." she chuckled weakly. "Heh heh." She looked back at Foreshadow. "Little help?"