The Luckiest Girl In The World

Today's therapy appointment had spent awhile talking about Kathy's anxiety triggers (shocking no one, she had A Lot) and had left her wound up. So wound up, in fact, that rather than throwing herself into the first taxi she could find and riding white-knuckled to the guys' place, she'd actually braved both the cold and her fears of Limbo City to walk home. Not to explore or to try to get more comfortable, but just to try to work some of that extra jittering energy off.

Which of course meant that she was so far in her head that she didn't realize that she'd taken a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood until it was far too late. All the signs were there; she should have recognized them immediately from her time as Banzai - though with the addition of a lot more deep gouges in the buildings and concrete.

It was the sound of trash cans falling over as she passed an alleyway that got her head out of the clouds, and the almost-feline howl had her anxiety taking a backseat to the adrenaline getting dumped in her blood. She reached behind her to her backpack of weaponry she carried with her whenever she visited Limbo City, keeping her eyes locked dim confines of the alley. Maybe it was just a harmless old alleycat?

( Spoiler: not an alleycat )

That was good enough for Kathy. "C'mon, boy," she said, and scooped him up in her arms. He was heavy and almost as big as she was, and he stank, like trash and dirt and blood, but he'd come to her rescue. She wasn't going to leave him behind. "Let's get you home."

[Mostly establishy, but open for phone calls and/or the guys whose house is about to get a surprise guest!]

Los Angeles burned while The Mighty Dragon flew overhead. He could still see pockets of fighting, holdouts where armed civilians or members of the National Guard tried to fight off the exes with whatever came to hand. Some, he saw, had viable exit strategies and were making a fighting retreat to find somewhere safer to hole up. Most did not. Several times, he weighed the benefits of setting Banzai down and helping the civilians instead, but he always kept flying. He'd made a promise, after all, and the heartbroken look in Mystique's eyes at the end always convinced him to keep his promise.

At least he could contact Zzzap on his phone and have him relay information to Stealth. The overloaded phone lines weren't a problem for a man who could read the entire energy spectrum and through that, Stealth in a command center and doing a better job coordinating troops and movements than any general on the ground.

The Mighty Dragon continued to fly, carrying a dead girl in his arms and leaving the living behind, and tried to tell himself this was enough.

He arrived at Griffith Park. Ignoring the dark cloud of smoke above, the park remained beautiful. Spring had arrived in full-bloom, with flowers growing up out of the lush grass, trees putting forth buds and baby leaves, and even a pair of chipmunks running across his path, chittering as they climbed up a tree. For a moment, the Mighty Dragon let himself forget there was a war on, with the first casualty he personally cared about now gnawing on his bicep.

The illusion was broken several seconds later as the ex that had been pursuing the chipmunks lumbered into view. Dragon didn't even think, just slammed his fist into the side of the ex's head with the force of a truck. The ex dropped, Dragon wiped his hand on the leg of his costume, and kept going.

The Observatory wasn't far and he could see immediately why the girl Banzai had been--why Kathy--had loved it. It was a beautiful building, even with the signs of fighting and hasty abandonment. He let them in through the front doors no longer latched properly and made his way to the theater. The huge screen above them was dark, but with a bit of fiddling (and a hasty call to Zzzap for a bit of technical assistance), the Mighty Dragon soon had one of the movies running on loop. Banzai, who'd been like an annoying kitten all through the setup, constantly underfoot and trying to bite, got distracted by the sound and movement as soon as the screen lit up. Dragon gently pushed her into one of the seats and left her staring up at the screen in rapt attention.

In the dimness of the theater, he could almost pretend it was Kathy sitting there, absorbed by the stars and comets. He'd never been as close to her as Gorgon and Regenerator, but he'd liked what he'd gotten to know of the girl she'd been. And respected the hell out of the hero she was.

"Thanks for your service, Banzai," he said softly. "You'll always be remembered."

And then he turned and left the auditorium, leaving a dead girl behind to enjoy the wonder of the stars.

[Establishy, NFI and NFB, That's the last from me today, though tigerundercover has two more heartbreaking posts to finish up! Thank you to everyone for reading and pinging!]

Kathy was not having a great day. Someone had decided to spread ugly rumors about her. The first message had just confused her. The second had irked her. But then the third and fourth had come in and everything started to make a kind of sick and twisted sense. She'd seen it before; someone would decide that they hated someone else and then go around telling lies and insults to tear them down. The same kind of thing had happened all the time in her old school in LA.

She just hadn't thought that the same thing would happen in Fandom.

On the plus side, this was the first time since she'd gotten her mirror that Kathy was yanking on her rainbow-accented gi and planning to head out into Baltimore. She needed an outlet for all her aggravation, dammit.

[Establishy, just because all the messages so far fit perfectly together, but open if anyone wants to stop by before she leaves.]