Apocalypse Ave, Friday Afternoon

The door to 33 Apocalypse was almost in sight when Kathy realized that she'd forgotten her phone back at The Perk. She must have left it on the counter while grabbing a bunch of 'thank you for coming to help me move' strawberry creams to bring back for everyone. And then she'd been having so much fun chatting with Ezra and Dante that she'd never thought to bring it back.

She blamed the patriarchy for her lack of phone-sized pockets, dammit.

"Hey guys," she said, drawing to a halt a few yards from the door. "I left my phone back at The Perk like an idiot. I'm just gonna run and grab it, okay?"

( Nothing bad ever hides under a cut. )

[Preplayed with the amazing rebelseekspizza and dashing smilestopscars. For once, open for interaction, but NFB! And so plot kicks off, which many apologies for the amount of spam incoming.]

The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles, Friday Afternoon

The body of Hiram Jarvis stretched out on the hospital bed, handcuffed to the railings. Restraints ran across its chest and legs. A bright red foam brace, the kind used for neck injuries, held its head down. The corpse had started moving three hours after Jarvis died. It had been moving a lot more in the five or six hours since then.

( This is all very normal )

***
On the bed, the corpse pale skin was taking on the soft colors of life. The veins faded behind the flesh tones. The ex - the man - let out a slow sigh, waking up from his faint. Sweat glistened across his forehead. "Jesus, that hurt," he said. "I had no idea it was going to hurt so much." He opened his eyes and Color leaked back into the irises, like an old Polaroid photo where an image formed out of a haze. Max looked at all of them, pride written all over his features. "Now who wants to talk about whether or not I'm a real sorcerer," he announced, only to realize that nobody was looking back at him. "Hey," he said, rattling the handcuffs on the bed. "Did y'all just miss my amazing impression of Jesus? Because I'm pretty sure that was impressive. You should all be very impressed right now."

*Uhhh, Max?* Zzzap said, his buzzing static voice managing to sounding uneasy. *Was your resurrection meant to come with any unintended side effects?*

"Well, I mean, we talked about--" He tried to shift in the bed to get a better look at what everyone was staring at. "You did the symbols all done, right? I mean, I'm assuming yes, or we wouldn't all be here."

"That's the problem," Danielle said and shifted so Max could see past her. "We're not all supposed to be here."

In the center of the cluster of superheroes, Kathy Li - known to most of them as Banzai - was sprawled on the floor. She stared back at them in horror for a long moment, making eye contact with each one as if verifying that, yes, they were who she thought. And then she scrambled to her feet and bolted out the hospital room door.

[And now starting the ACTUAL canon catchup! Taken (and adapted, and twisted to all to hell) from Chapter Thirteen Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFI, NFB, OOC is love]

The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles, Friday Afternoon

Catching Banzai hadn't been as easy as one would like. In the two years since she'd died, they'd forgotten just how fast she was. And she was panic-running, flat out, not bothering to converse energy or breath. If she'd known the layout of the Rodenberry Building, they might not have caught her until she'd made it outside, halfway through the Mount.

But St. George had caught her up against a pair of locked doors and his impervious skin held up against her kicks and blows and scratches as well as it did bites from exes. He was glad he was the one who caught her, though; some of her attacks would have incapacitated anyone else if they'd landed. He just held her in the loose circle of his arms and let her wear herself out trying to get away.

He didn't take the heel to the groin or the gouge towards the eyes or the elbow to the throat personally. He wasn't even entirely sure that she could see him. Her eyes were wide and blank, constantly darting around, refusing to focus on his face. St. George didn't know how much Banzai remembered, but from the intensity of her reaction, he was betting it was a lot more than anyone had hoped.

When she finally sagged in his arms, exhausted and whimpering, he scooped her up and carried her back towards Max's room, shooing away volunteers and nosy patients. Max Hale's return to the living had brought up a lot of goddamn questions and ( it was time to get some answers. )

The North Gate was a few blocks from the hospital. Like all the entrances through the Big Wall, there were a few hundred exes and the air crackled with the sound of chattering teeth. Half of them pressed against the gate. The rest staggered through the street. Kathy made a small sound in the back of her throat, clutching St. George's hand in a white-knuckled grip, but her steps didn't falter.

"Baby, you don't have to see this," Nick said, his wheelchair rolling along beside them. "You could wait in the hospital with Danielle--"

"No," Kathy interrupted sharply. "I need to see. I need to know."

In the middle of Bronson was a smoking set of lines, a scar in the pavement stretching from one side of the road to the other. The superheated material had turned a fresh, deep black that stood out from the faded charcoal of the street. Three exes had been slashed in half bu Zzzap's burning touch, too slow to get out of the way and too mindless to realize their danger. Steam still trailed from their severed bodies. A spray of gore marked where one had boiled and exploded.

To parallel lines marked out a ring fifteen feet across. Inside the double circle was what looked like two triangles--or maybe an hourglass--surrounded by squiggles.

( So, about those symbols... )

[Text taken and adapted from Chapter 13 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB, NFI, OOC is made of sparkles.]