The Luckiest Girl In The World

Making their way through the city looked ridiculous, but still beat trying to fight their way past all the exes clamoring at the gate. St. George was flying, carrying Eliot in a makeshift sling. Max clung to his back, bitching about how stupid they probably looked and pointedly ignoring any and all questions about the possibility of levitation. Dante was using some complicated series of jumps and a grappling hook...chain...thing. Max had been fascinated by it from the moment Dante had pulled it out and St. George was doing his best not to wonder where it had been hiding and why it sometimes changed color.

And, a goodly distance behind then fluttered a small, unobtrusive bird that just happened to be flying in the same direction.

As stupid as they all looked - and, in fairness, it was a little stupid - they were making decent time through the city, searching for Josh to hopefully find him and convince him to return to the Mount before Cairax finished worming his way inside the former hero and the possession was complete.

Many of those exes from the gate staggered after them, like paupers to a banquet, their arms raised in a futile attempt to grab and snatch at the heroes passing overhead. They crowd only grew as they flew back and forth across the neighborhood. Some fell behind, but there were always more to join the chase. By the time true dawn broke, there were sixty or seventy exes trailing behind them in a loose fan. They shuffled between cars, dragging against the sides, and added that scraping noise to the sound of their clicking teeth.

They'd been out for well over an hour, but still no sign of Josh.

( This is it! )

The drumbeat of the dead echoed across the lot like a relentless overseer on an ancient slave ship. Gorgon's confident smirk faded and even Stealth seemed shaken.

Below them, the exes parted to let the trucks drive up. Over a dozen of them, all spray-painted with different shades of green. Seventeens rode on the roof and hung out the windows. At the head of the parade, Rodney Cesares rode in the back of a National Guard truck decorated with skulls and a large neon-green 17 on the hood. They whooped and hollered and fired their guns into the sky.

( And it continues... )

[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 Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines. Last of the posts for the day, though check out the comments for the last bit. Warning for NPC death]

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]

Josh Garcetti, known in certain circles as the superhero Regenerator, sat in his car and stared at his front door. Specifically, his open front door, the door he'd been assiduously avoiding ever since he'd smuggled his wife's dead body into the house. ( Welp! This can't be good. )

[Warning for mention of a pet and an elderly neighbor gotten by zombie-violence; nothing gratuitous but still wanted to give a head's up. Some small bits of text taken from Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines, specifically Chapter 24 "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?" NFI, NFB, OOC is always appreciated.]