The Luckiest Girl In The World

Due to owning a business, Kathy sometimes got very weird, not-at-all-related-to-her-business offers from vendors trying to establish a working relationship. Most she tossed, but occasionally something really cool would end up in her inbox. Like a pair of tickets for a Murder Mystery Dinner, taking place on a newly-renovated luxury train from the 1930s. People would sign up, choose a character from the list of possible dinner attendees, and then show up and ride the train around Limbo City for a few hours, having dinner and trying to solve the whodunnit.

Kathy had been charmed from the start and had pretty much decided to go immediately. The question of who to take was answered when she spotted that one of the characters listed was a "rich rock star."

That made it easy.

One conversation of 'You don't have to dress up and you can bring your guitar!' and 'pleeeeease, it sounds like a ton of fun!' later, and Kathy and Dante had their tickets and were waiting to board the extravagant train cars of The Flying Pussyfoot for four hours of delicious, murdery fun!

[For the poor sap who agreed to this]

False dawn stained the sky as the Fandom contingent woke up and started getting ready. Today was the day of reckoning; the final battle against Cairax and then home, leaving this place behind them for good. Everyone was quiet as they readied themselves, tired, perhaps, or deep in thought. It was going to be a long, grueling day and a general feeling of unease hung over the entire Mount, like a dark fog had settled over the whole area.

The only person who hadn't gotten up with the rest was Kathy; her closet door had remained firmly shut as everyone else got dressed and ate a little if they could. She'd been quiet the night before, still angry over the decision to stay and fight maybe, or unsettled by the run-in with Christian's people. Either way, she'd retreated to her closet as soon as they'd returned, closing the doors firmly behind her in an unspoken command to leave her alone.

Which was all well and good then, but today they needed to get ready and no amount of brooding or hurt feelings would stand in the way of that. So when everyone was just about to leave, it was Eliot who went and tapped on the closet door to have her come out. And it was Eliot, a few minutes of silence later, who opened the door and discovered that Kathy was gone.

Again.

[And so begins the last day! Everyone modded with gracious permission from my team of rockstars. Previous post]

Kathy was starting to really like Captain Freedom. He was a lot less smothering than the other heroes were, most of whom saw her as something like 'our former comrade we let die.' Even Stealth, who admitted to being terrible with people, made it a habit to check in on Kathy several times a day for various 'reasons.' But Captain Freedom didn't hover, didn't accidentally call her Banzai, didn't seem like he was always about one pep talk away from asking her to team up.

On that of that, he was just...calm. He was thoughtful and patient and disciplined. By her second week in the Mount, Kathy had realized that she'd rather spend time talking to him than pretty much anybody else behind the Big Wall.

Today, they'd met up by accident heading over to lunch. Walking with the captain, Kathy had noticed, helped keep the whispers down and the randos away. More and more people were taking guesses at who she was--had been?--and the excuses to come up and talk to her were getting pretty thin. She could imagine why people would be so excited to talk to an ex-hero come back to life, but some people were getting pretty creepy about it.

( This place just kept getting better and better. )

[Text taken and adapted from Chapter 15 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB, NFI, OOC is made of sparkles. Previous post Next Post]

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]

Dante's phone laid on the kitchen counter, haphazardly discarded. Its warning light flashed a flickering red, advertising its dying battery.

Dante himself was nowhere to be found.

( This bodes well. )

[NFI, but OOC & broadcast okay! Preplayed with the wonderful not_every_mage and follows this.]

Josh Garcetti checked on his latest patient, an appendicitis case. She'd come in on her own, he'd pulled out the offending organ, and now she was asleep. Her stitches were clean and tight, no seepage at all. He tried not to dwell on the fact that at one time, he could have repaired her without a single incision. Of course, lots of things had been different back then. The world had been alive, for one. So had Midknight and Cairax and Blockbuster and Banzai.

So had Meredith.

He made a few quick marks on her chart, then stepped out into the nurses' station and made another set of notes on the night log. Then he turned to the cabinets and found himself inches from Stealth. He stumbled back and the move yanked his withered hand out of its pocket. "Jesus," he snapped. "Do you have to pop out of nowhere like that?"

The cloaked woman said nothing.

Footsteps made him turn and St. George stepped in from the hallway. He was bare-chested and covered in bruises. "George," Josh said with a nod. "What happened to you? What the hell's going on?"

But George wasn't alone. Zzzap was with him, and Cerberus, and Gorgon, too, which was weird because Gorgon never came to see him. He suffered Josh's company only on Stealth's most stringent orders. And there were others as well, strangers. Or so he thought at first glance. But the two younger guys seemed familiar in a way that nagged at his memory and in the center of the group-- "Mystique?" he asked. "I thought you'd left to go find help after Banzai died."

"After you let her die," Gorgon spat. "While you were napping because you put her at the end of the fucking line and made her wait for hours."

Now he recognized the young men. They'd come to fetch Banzai home, back in the early days. She had refused and they'd fought and he'd left early, unable to take Nick's blatant jealousy and Max's smug amusement and his own guilt. "What are you all--" but Stealth interrupted him.

"When we were discussing the progression of the disease," she said, "you said you have had the virus hanging over you for almost a year. You were bitten eight months and six days ago."

He blinked twice, then a third time. "That all? Feels a hell of a lot longer. Sorry I don't have a computer-like mind like you." He shrugged and re-pocketed his dead hand. "Is that everything? Mr. Willis would love to get a few Vicodin so he can sleep."

Her feet shifted and she was between Josh and the cabinet. He sighed and pointed at a row of bottles. "Do you mind?"

"The first definite sighting of an ex-human," she continued, "was ten months ago. On March 9th, an unidentified woman assaulted a group of Seventeens in a parking lot. The attack which infected Rodney Cesares."

Josh shrugged again, but his eyes flitted between the two heroes and then back towards the tiny group of strangers. St. George realized his hands rolled themselves into fists.

Stealth still hadn't moved. She was tense but fluid. She was confident. "Your wife died almost a year ago, didn't she, Regenerator? Eleven months ago yesterday."

The doctor's glare shot past her, past Gorgon's stricken face and Zzzap's staticky buzz of shock. It landed on the three familiar faces in the crowd and he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

( A little late for apologies )

[Content warning for mentions of previous, off-camera suicide attempts and attempted execution of an NPC. NFI, NFB, OOC welcome. Preplayed by the masterful crew represented here, whoisalicewhite, tigerundercover/vdistinctive, rebelseekspizza, not_every_mage, and soniaroadsqueen. Bits of text adapted from Chapter Twenty-Four of Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines]

Before coming to Fandom, Kathy had lived her entire life surrounded by rules: who she could interact with, how she could spend her free time, what she could wear, how she should speak to her parents. It wouldn't be kind to say that what little living Kathy had done in LA had been in the few brief moments when she could forget the rules and be herself, but it wouldn't be inaccurate either. Coming to Fandom had changed that, albeit slowly. It had taken months (and friends) to help her let go of most of the rules she had internalized, picking and choosing for herself the ones that she wanted to guide her life and ignoring those she didn't. Becoming Banzai had helped let her go of more and she learned to live as the fastest, bounciest, most colorful superhero on not one but two coasts. But no matter how many rules she left by the wayside or adjusted for her new life or just plain broke, there was one that she never, ever wavered on.

Kathy Li did not kill. Not sapient beings. She could fight them, she could hurt them, she could incapacitate them, she could ruin their whole day, but she could not, would not kill.

( But Kathy was dead )

[NFB, NFI, OOC is biter-hungry love. Some minor descriptions taken from Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines. Zombie-typical violence and death under the cut.]