The Meta Corps: Dream of the Youth (Part 15)

  Chapter 22

             Sarra fell into the rubble again and immediately jumped back into the air. She was dizzy and she had trouble staying aloft; she figured that it was a psychological effect of being in toy land. Her only current comfort was that the bizarre vertigo was fading to manageable levels. She splashed into a puddle and her swearing was cut short by a voice. She took on her human shape and kept herself low.

 “Clive, we had a deal. Get up.”

Sarra’s head floated up to look over a former wall and she saw Clive half reform. His lower body was a puddle. A woman stood over him. Sarra had some lewd thoughts because of the tight catsuit and dark bobbed hair; although being sexy did not seem to be the woman’s intention.

 “Morgan.” Clive said. “I experienced my transformation again in that eye; my one stupid, stupid mistake in life.” His anger grew.

 Morgan lorded over Clive with crossed arms and a scowl. Morgan’s frustration gained an edge of vague interest.

 “Up there, in that vortex?”

 “We were in play land first, and then the four of us reopened my wound.”

 “How could that be?”

 Clive formed a leg from his globular mass and ‘stepped up’ from the vanishing puddle to a normal height. Morgan bit her fingernail and Clive stood there, looking slightly dizzy. His face elongated downward slightly with one eye falling faster than the other one.

 “Clive is the dragon, then…” Sarra said.

 Morgan took a minute to think and then looked at Clive.

 “Never us mind that now, I shall repair the damage and make you normal when we are through, Clive. We shall focus on Anne now. Ascend, Clive, and bring her to me.”

 Clive straightened up and sighed. He looked up at Anne and Levan and flew off.

 “Fly my gooey, fly.” Sarra said. She stood up to shorten her neck and then flew after Clive.

Morgan sighted Sarra and pulled out her wand.

 “Even the noblest of heroes meet their end at the hands of someone in love and out for revenge… in damnatio memoraie, EnWol.”

 Morgan spread her feet, grateful that she had decided to leave the high heels at home, and took aim. Two swaths of blue flames twirled around Morgan and picked up speed as they neared the wand. They blurred at the tip, paused, and then exploded into the air, straight for Sarra.

                               Chapter 23

             With as much precision as he could muster, Garner heaved himself upward against his globular protection from the pit of the shallow valley of concrete and steel. He had found that Morgan’s meta shield was like no other in the sense that nothing could get in or out, with the exception of air. He was, in a sense, numb to the world as a scientist preserved in another’s experiment. Like a rat.

 Garner put all of his weight on the side of the shield. He was so frustrated that he did not pay attention to what was on the other side of the gentle incline propped up by fallen structure on a fence.

 Florence, Tench, and Lora’s attention jerked to Morgan’s fiery attack and they took action. The trio flew off, Florence telling Tench to go after Anne, and Lora to find out where those shots were coming from. Clark took notice of a green bubble coming up over a wall. He wished his partners luck and stepped up to the bubble. He cocked his eyebrow when he noticed who was inside the green light.

 “Dr. Garner, I presume?”

 Their eyes met and Garner yelped. He fell backward and rolled all the way down to the small valley where he had gotten himself stuck in the first place. Clark flew up and stretched out to grab the bubble. He wrapped his fingers around it, noting its odd solidity, and picked it up to meet Garner at eye level. He was quivering, like a rat.

 “Bill Garner, what’s someone like you doing here with a force-field when Anne Redford, your responsibility I might add, is up there terrorizing the city with amplified power? Looks mighty suspicious to me.”

 Garner‘s stomach dropped and he nearly threw up. He figured that if he looked like a rat, felt like a rat and acted like a rat, he might as well be one. Garner pointed at where the shots were coming from and started to hyperventilate.

 “M-Morgan! Morgan le Fay talked me into this! I wanted her opinion on Anne, but she went crazy and she took the Psychic Anne’s powers and… and…” Garner’s eyes rolled up in his head again and he passed out. The shield popped and Garner fell into the original Crimson Cherries fingers.

 Clark racked his brain to find out whether he had ever met a villain named Morgan le Fay. He looked toward the oblique flashes and rubbed his chin.

                               Chapter 24

             Sarra charged her ice, leaving a vacuum of low humidity behind her. She was gaining headway on Clive. She ignored the bursts of blue that shot both past and through her, and focused only on Clive and his death wish. His knuckle cracking, face smashing death wish.

 Tench darted up to Anne from another angle, stopped for a moment and flew off with her in tow. No matter. Sarra drew in any available moisture, stretched her arms to her ankles, and listened to the ice crystals form with a smile. She got within a few feet of Clive, pulled her arms taut, and then she was tackled by another EnWol. Sarra released her icy build up in a random direction and howled with rage as the other EnWol, Florence, worked to separate herself from the single, newly fused mass.

 “Are you out of your liquid mind?” Sarra yelled. She didn’t pay attention to Florence drawing her own body from Sarra’s and instead watched Clive chase after Tench.

 Sarra pointed at Clive and looked at Florence; the fused mass separated.

 “I almost had the jerk, why in Gaia’s name did you intercept my—”

“What in the world were you planning on doing by chasing after Clive when there were fireballs hurtling not just at the two of you, but at two more innocent people? Saving the day does not mean hurting oncoming innocents.” Florence said. Her gaze pierced Sarra.

 Sarra slapped her chest.

 “Anne was out of the way, and I could have stopped Clive!”

 “And we protect the people before everything. Winning the war sometimes means losing small victories. Administer common sense next time instead of listening to your own pride.”

 Sarra glared at Florence.

 “You don’t know what he did to me.”

 Florence jabbed at her own chest.

 “I have a body count of over five hundred because of my own mistakes, and only an eighth of that was a part of the Third Riche. I’m still paying off the insurance for those deaths and I don’t want to see a reckless EnWol, Crimzon with a Z, have a track record that’s as bad as mine, or worse.”

 Sarra curled her lip and crossed her arms.

 “Isn’t this conversation pointless when there are villains flying around with us in the middle?”

 Florence jabbed Sarra’s chest; she didn’t respond beyond letting her body jiggle.

 “Don’t be cocky. Remember that a small battle has to be lost to win the war. We have back up to help. Now come on, you go after Clive and use some good old-fashioned common sense. I’ll try and calm Levan down.”

 Florence flew upward and left Sarra feeling like she should be pleased that she was able to keep pursuing Clive, but she instead felt bitter about being ordered around. She saw Clive come up behind Tench.

 Sarra sighed.

 “Okay…” She flew off to do what she was told.

                               Chapter 25

             “Okay, Anne, how’s that for an idea?” Tench shouted. Anne giggled.

 “That’s cool! I wish I had thought of that! Here!”

 Anne projected a cupcake for Tench, which he knew that he could not interact with, and playfully bit at it. He saw the imagined treat vanish and heard Anne gasp. Tench turned around to see Clive smack him upside the head. Tench lulled for a moment, trying to clear the stars from his eyes, the sick from his stomach and the pain from his head as Clive made off with Anne.

 Down below, Lora hovered over the ruined buildings at the water’s edge. Her bloodied and crusted shoulder was starting to come out of shock and realize that it had a wound. It felt less like a blackened welt and more like uncooked filet mignon. A dagger of pain struck her arm, and she almost buckled over. Lora looked up with a pained gasp and saw Clive disappear behind a tanker ship with Sarra closing in from behind. Lora held her arm and sniffed hard. She figured that she was alone, and bobbed over to meet with Sarra. She landed in the debris, rubbing her arm and hissing. The area was disserted; the only sounds that she could hear were coming from the sea, and the cloud that Levan had overtaken.

 “I hope this isn’t infected… or broken, eww…” She looked at her pink hand darkened by the blood. Lora figured that it was better to swallow the pain and try to win rather than waste time by wishing for the second time that Bronson had applied the coding properly. She wasn’t sure how well she would be able to fight with an arm that she couldn’t raise higher than her belly button.

Lora hovered across the plot, checking behind pieces of wall, chunks of rubble, and other assorted mismatches that had fallen from the vortex. As she started to call for Sarra, she heard a scream. She flew over to peek behind a mound of rubble and saw Clive carrying Anne into a cave. Lora studied the cave. She was puzzled by its building materials; bits of rubble, rebar, cars, oil drums, and the like were held together by what looked like spider webs of melted solder. Lora didn’t worry about the construction and headed for the aperture, her mind focused on the little girl.

 Lora flew in and yellow, blue, and red sprites materialized and danced before her. They made her instantly lightheaded.

“Oh…”

Lora fell to the ground.

If you would like the whole book, a souvenir of the experience, check it out at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87111 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

The Meta Corps: Dream of the Youth (Part 14)

  Chapter 19

             Juno Osbourne watched the levels on her controls tick beyond their limit as Anne’s power levels escalated. Florence and Clark looked up at the eye, the three of them and the equipment sitting in the middle of the street by a condemned red masonry building. The area of activity crept toward the rest of the city, taking up any debris that wasn’t laid in foundation on its outer perimeter. Water, cars, twirling power lines dependent on their connections and large chunks of building in the epicenter were gobbled up. The vortex was getting stronger.

 “Florence, I have no idea how to handle this. I have no idea how she can for that matter. Anne’s’ power is miles off the charts.” Juno said, her nasal voice whining.

 Florence nodded.

 “Is it possible that her vortex can grow large enough to eat the planet?”

 Juno flipped her lengthy braid across her shoulder.

 “No, Anne would die in the process. Even then, the power would need to go somewhere, and the inhabitants of the earth would feel the psychic effect of a dead little girl for years to come, provided that we survive, that is.”

 Florence nodded.

 “Can we get anyone near her and subdue her?” Clark asked.

 Juno shook her head.

 “We already lost our current EnWol, and any further hope of more EnWol with it. I’ve kept any ancillary metas from approaching the vortex so that we don’t lose more lives. As of now, Dogpatch is quarantined.”

 Florence wrinkled her nose.

 “This game is all about risk; that’s how it goes. We just need to find the right way to take advantage of the situation and act on it.”

 Levan came up from behind them.

 “I’m risky, I’m heroic and expendable. I could go up and save the little girl from the dastardly vortex.”

 “She’s causing the vortex.” Juno said without looking up at him.

 Levan’s brow furrowed.

 “Excuse me? That can’t be right.”

 Juno nodded.

 “I know. It violates the laws of conservation and mass. She shouldn’t be able to do this.”

 Levan held his hands up and chortled.

 “Okay, look, I know that, Juno, you are the smartest person in the land…”

 “Who other?”

 “…but that can’t be right. I don’t know anything about physics, but if Hollywood has taught me anything, it’s that that vortex should be bigger.” He pointed at the swirling mass above him. In the context of a Hollywood movie, it was very small.

 Clark shook his head and Florence hid her face to moan.

 Levan pulled on his spandex as if he were wearing suspenders.

 “In any case, I can still rescue that girl up there. Perhaps that’s just what she needs to end this storm; a hero with good PR.” He rocked on the balls of his feet.

 Clark walked up.

 “Levan, don’t. Lora and Sarra are gone. We don’t want you to go either.”

 “No please. Levan don’t. Listen to the veteran.” Juno said. There was no emotion in her voice.

 Levan ignored Clark.

 “It is too late my lady, Osbourne, for my decision is made. I shall, nay; I might rescue the little girl from her own peril.”

 Juno rolled her eyes and mouthed the word ‘might.’

 “No, don’t. The world needs you and your special sarcasm detecting abilities.”

 “What?” Levan asked and then flew away without regards for an answer.

 Florence shot off and left as quickly as Levan did. Juno quietly got back to her readings, adjusting them to compensate for hitting the maximum levels. Clark crossed his arms and glared at Juno. She shot a glance at him.

 “I’m not sure if his use of the word expendable back there was deliberate or not.” Juno muttered.

 “Why did you have to feed him?” Clark asked.

 Juno held her thumb and index finger close together.

 “He gets his egging on from a pea. He hardly needed my help, Clark. Without me, it would have just delayed the inevitable.”

 Clark pursed his lips, defeated.

 “That may be so…”

 Florence readied her arm to catch Levan. The gap closed in between them and she threw. Her arm sailed past Levan, and then it was violently pulled on by the vortex. She gasped and pulled it back, thankful that she did not lose it. She wiggled her fingers and watched Levan approach Anne. He seemed unaffected by the vortex. Watched as parts of her body bubbled in and out like a lava lamp; the vortex was teasing a craving for EnWol silver.

 Florence curled her lip and looked up at Levan. His hair remained motionless as he hovered in front of Anne. Levan was being his ‘heroic’ self, apparently unaffected by the vortexes pull. Florence decided to leave him be. She flew back to her husband and Juno.

 “Young Anne, I have arrived to rescue you and relieve you of your misery.”

 Anne’s face was ablaze in distress. Her eyes were shut and she was trying to regulate her breathing. She shuddered out every breath. She opened her eyes a crack and stared at him.

 Levan grimaced behind his smile. He cleared his throat, unsure of what to do beyond what he was taught about dealing with meta children. Usually they had some degree of control over their powers.

 “Well, young Anne, we should get going.” He reached for her hand. Anne held her breath and mewled, trying to talk. She found that her intangibility was failing her. Levan grabbed her hand with a smile on his face, and then his expression went slack.

 “Oh cheese…”

 Levan felt Anne’s powers loop up his arm like a flash of numbness and into his head. He saw flashes of Anne’s pain, her fire, Morgan and Garner, Clive, and reserves of hope and trust buried away so that she could recover from her torture. Levan’s head felt like it would split open. He grabbed it and shouted.

 Anne gasped, her headache gone in an instant. She looked up at Levan and covered her mouth.

 “Great Apple Trees, Mister, I’m sorry!”

 Anne looked up at the eye of the vortex, its power being shifted from her to Levan. The eye shrunk and inside, she saw the unconscious forms of Pink Lemon, Crimson Cherry, The Electric Beaulieu, and cousin Tench very slowly falling out of it.

                               Chapter 20

             “What is this?”

 “What’s going on?”

 “Sarra? Is that you?”

 “What?”

 “Which one of you is Sarra?”

 The four people saw only a dark void. They touched the void, heard the void, and knew only both the void and their own thoughts.

 Clive spoke up.

 “Well, whatever happened, it’s a stark, and bloody better change from the babes in toy land.”

 “Well, I would rather be in toy land as a person instead of fuckin’ …nothing!” Sarra yelled.

Color faded in, a view from someone’s eyes. Yellow-gloved hands held onto a jar of sand. Its contents moved like water.

 “Oh no…” Clive said.

 “Who’s this?” Tench asked.

 “Me, who else, you tart? This is 1970…”

 The younger Clive walked briskly through the cave with Maximilian Doom by his side. He was swearing.

 “How could the heroes have found Bronson? We’re a mile underground!”

 “I don’t know! He must have a beacon of some kind.” Clive said.

 Doom looked shocked.

 “A beacon that can reveal our precise location in the middle of England?”

 They saw the younger Clive throw his arms up in the air; Doom watched them, slightly panic-stricken.

 “I don’t know; he’s a silly alien! Who knows what sort of tricks the gob has. ”

 Max snatched the jar of oddly fluid sand from him.

 “You be careful with this stuff! Bronson got this stuff for us, and it’s going to be used properly.”

 The younger Clive scoffed.

 “Yeah, we tortured the bloke to death; why not have him give us the stuff?”

 Doom gave him the jar and looked back in the opposite direction. The hallway beyond had the sounds of crackling electricity and cries of pain. Young Clive looked back and saw flashing lights around the corner.

 “That’s EnWol silver!” Tench blurted.

 “What?” Lora and Sarra asked in unison.

 “Look Clive,” Doom said. “You get that stuff to Slade. I’ll go back and handle the situation with that Pink Lemon and Crimson Cherry.” Young Clive watched Doom run off for a moment before hovering down the corridor.

 “Clive, what is this?” Tench asked with a tone that suggested that he was disciplining a child. “You ingested the silver, didn’t you?”

 The current Clive did not answer.

 “What will that do, Tench?” Lora asked.

 “The mirror with the perfect shine reflects the dim glare back tenfold,” the current Clive said.

 The metaphor immediately clicked with Tench.

“…you took too much.”

After several minutes, the younger Clive slowed; the distant sounds of a fight were only a vague suggestion. Young Clive checked to see if he was alone, and then bent down to the ground with the sand.

 “Oh Gaia, why did this have to come up?” The current Clive bemoaned. “Of all the dinky memories in this plot, why this?”

 Young Clive undid the cap and took out a handful of sand. He let it go through his fingers back into its jar and grabbed another handful.

 “It’s so strange…” Young Clive said.

 “Don’t do it…” Current Clive moaned.

Young Clive looked up after hearing a distant click. He shrugged and looked back at the gleaming sand.

 “Couldn’t hurt.”

 “Yes it could! Don’t!”

The younger cupped his hands, and poured the sand into his mouth.

 “What was I thinking? Stop! Stop! Stop!” The current Clive pleaded.

 “That was fifty times over the normal dosage, Clive. That’s way, way too much.” Tench said.

“You shut your gob!”

 The younger smacked his lips.

 “Oh bollocks, it’s like sugar, but worse!” He wiped his mouth on the spandex sleeve.

 “Hence, Pink Lemon.” Sarra said.

 Young Clive caught sight of his hand, and stopped cold when he saw his reflection in it. He looked at the back of his hand and it started to melt. The younger Clive bolted to his feet and looked at his body. His reflective hands dribbled from the sleeves and squeezed out from the fabric. He melted to a heap on the floor before he could let out a panicked scream. His vision spread to a one hundred and eighty degree dome. He tried to move, but he simply jerked left to right, burying his yellow costume in himself.

 “I stayed like that for four days… I wasn’t sure whether I was dead or not…” Current Clive said. “Serves me right for doing something stupid…”

 “So why are you still evil? You could have come to Florence for help afterward.” Tench asked.

 There was no reply. The younger Clive quivered, unsure of how to deal with the change.

 “Normally, the gauntlets would take a snapshot of the person beforehand to help them keep their shape, but the sand itself just seems to make a straight conversion to silver. That explains your dynamic looks, Clive.” Tench said.

 “You’re dead, ice man.” The current Clive did not sound sure of himself.

 From the other end of the hall, a figure approached. He slowed at the puddle that was Clive and saw the jar of sand.

 “Sergei Slade…” Tench said.

 “Scary…” Sarra retorted.

 He had a dark mane of hair and wore a silver jacket.

 “Dammit, he was probably killed. How did this get unscrewed?”

 “An idiot ruined her life with it, that’s what,” the current Clive croaked.

 Slade screwed the jar back on and left, the younger Clive screaming for help without a sound to make.

 “Clive, does Slade still have the EnWol sand?” Tench asked.

 “Max Doom died at the hands of the Steel Atom here… his neck snapped when he was punched in the head…” Clive said. A great remorse filled his voice.

 “Does Slade still have the EnWol sand?” Tench asked again.

 There was no reply.

 The full view of the corridor faded to black; and the four were immediately spit out from the eye and back to San Francisco.

                               Chapter 21

             Anne held her hair back in the wind, scared for herself and the suffering Levan. If she was unable to subdue the extra power when she had it, than what could she do with someone that had literally absorbed it? Even worse, Anne felt obligated to do something since her main caretaker had betrayed her, and she was the only one of her kind. Levan was the “second.”

 She looked down at the small camp in the middle of the road on 20^th Street. She could recognize Florence, Clark, and Juno, a trio of her most intimidating authority figures. Anne was reluctant to ask for help with her obligation because she was terrified that she had done something unfathomably wrong.

 Levan wailed again, bringing Anne out of her train of thought. She looked around.

 “Mister, I’m sorry!”

 Levan jerked his head left to right, his face flushed. Anne held her hand out, her mind reeling for an answer to this problem.

Nothing was coming up…

…nothing was coming up!

Anne had no idea what to do. She knew that she would probably get in very deep trouble for doing that to Levan, even if he had started it. With her fear focused more toward the topical events instead of Morgan, Anne felt the hollow pain of both terror and frustration ring through her tummy. It resonated up through her chest and out the top. She started to cry.

 Tench fell from the vortex. Neither Levan nor Anne noticed him, but they were the first thing that he saw on exiting.

 Is that Anne? Anne! Toyland! That makes a bit more sense.

Anne felt something large and wet brush her shoulder. She looked down to see Clive falling to the earth. Anne looked up and gasped. Lora and Sarra trailed after them, along with a surprise.

Anne took Levan’s hand and pulled him away.

“Come on, come on, please. This things gonna barf!”  Anne said. Levan didn’t register as Anne led him away.

 “Flo, the gale force has slowed tenfold since Levan took over and that gave us our missing heroes; all are alive and whole.” Juno yelled.

 Florence straightened her posture and grew another two feet in the process.

 A light blinked on the console.

 “We also have rubble and all kinds of crap being ejected along with them. I just hope that you got everyone out of there unharmed.”

 Florence and Clark exchanged glances.

 Tench and Lora were disoriented to the point where they were convinced that the cloud was the ground and the ocean was the sky. They were unable to figure out why the world was spinning as they tumbled.

Florence and Clark exchanged glances. Florence nodded.

“I’ll grab Tench, you worry about Lora.” She said. Clark nodded and the two shot off like lightning.

 Lora was starting to realize that the ocean was not, in fact the sky. She saw Clark fly up alongside her. He looked up to see the rubble pour from the vortex. Clark swore. He matched Lora’s velocity to prevent her neck from being broken by the whiplash. Lora felt herself being grabbed before she could conjure up a greeting. Clark arced above the remains and Lora’s stomach dropped along with the rest of the junk that the vortex had sucked up.

 Lora didn’t feel saved. She felt sicker than she did coming out of the eye. The two heroes were brought back to Juno.

 Clive had relived the moment where he became far, far more EnWol than EnWol. He barely cared about where he was. He lost his shape and fell to Dogpatch, splashing to the ground not a few feet from Morgan where the old, decrepit test building had once been. He was rained upon by the former structures turned to sand.

 Sarra did not recover until she landed. She could not make out anything coherent as she fell, swearing along the way. She hit with a wet splat and went everywhere, her body spreading out and then retracting back to a familiar shape, upside down and in the middle of a rogue I-beam. She saw her predicament, and then the rain of rubble that landed nearby her. She started to run, but she was pummeled before she had a chance to escape. Sarra felt dust cover her and shrapnel pierce her as a deafening roar from the impact filled her ears.

 As the dust settled, Sarra was thankful that she was only coated in small flecks and that she was still out in the open as opposed to being buried under the fallen debris; smaller rocks had just bounced right off of her. She looked up and saw how her body had been split by the piece of steel. She removed herself from it, creating a hole similar to bubblegum being stretched three ways too far. She stood up to dust herself off and reform.

 Clark put Lora down, to which she leaned on him for support.

 “Oh, cheese and macaroni, but do I feel hurfy…” Lora said. She hiccupped.

 “Three G’s will do that, you’ll be fine.” Clark said.

 Florence landed, depositing Tench. He broke off and pretended that his own g-forces had not affected him.

 “Okay, what’s going on?” He stumbled across to lean on Juno’s console.

“Hey, that’s sensitive stuff.” Juno said brushed him away. Tench almost fell back when Lora rushed up to him.

 “Oh Andy!” Lora latched herself onto him, and Tench dropped his formal attitude. His face flushed.

 “I’m worried about Anne up there.” Florence said. “She hasn’t come down.”

 “A… Anne? My little cousin?” Tench sputtered. He couldn’t think straight. Lora broke her hug. Florence glanced at Tench and nodded, a curt smile gracing her lips from his handling of received affection. Tench cleared his throat.

 “I… I knew that, I saw her as I fell. What happened?”

 “We’re not sure in the slightest.” Juno said.

 Tench nodded.

 “I can tell you that Clive Ogden is involved. He was sucked up with us.”

 Everyone looked at Tench, suddenly very interested.

 “What would Clive Ogden want with Anne Redford? How could he even over saturate Anne’s powers anyway?” Clark asked.

 No one had a good answer.

 Lora stepped up.

 “Where is Clive then? Gee, and Sarra too?”

If you would like the whole book, a souvenir of the experience, check it out at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87111 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

The Meta Corps: Dream of the Youth (Part 13)

  Chapter 17

             Sarra’s spasms ended and she regained control of herself, not counting some smaller jitters here and there.

 “Sarra!”

 Sarra turned to see her sisters approach and sneered. She predicted that Lora would ask if she was all right, forgoing duty. Sarra looked past her sister and saw Tench fall to the earth, clearly injured and unable to fly properly. She saw that Clive was above him with a rocking arm.

 Sarra answered before Lora could ask.

 “I’m always going to be alright, you putz! Why worry about me when Tench is falling? Gaia’s Rose, Lora!”

 Sarra shot past her sister. Lora watched her leave and was surprised to see that Clive’s icy appendage was being sucked up into the eye with its owner not far behind. Below, she saw Tench plummet to the earth. Lora gasped and followed Sarra.

Clive had dislodged Tench with his swing, but he found that the eye had caught his appendage in the process. Displeased at the thought of losing his arm to another dimension, Clive wrapped his free arm around the ice and flew in the other direction. The pillar of ice turned ninety degrees, and the eye got a better grip. Clive forced his panic away; he was losing. A chunk of concrete half the size of his body rushed at him.

 “Oh shit, no you don’t!” Clive looked around, afraid to move in any other direction. He was smacked before he could attempt anything, and was sucked up within moments.

 Sarra caught up with Tench, grabbed him, and held him in a fireman’s carry as she flew back to Lora. She saw Clive get sucked up and felt a pang of elation.

 “Serves you right, blow hole!”

 Sarra flew back to Lora, who inspected Tench without a word. Tench was immobile but conscious, and looking up at the eye.

 “Clive is gone.” Lora called. She held onto her arm.

 Sarra scoffed.

 “Good riddance. Make him suffer his own cosmic void.”

 Lora looked up at the eye.

 “Now what, Sarra? How do we stop it?”

 Sarra looked away; she didn’t have an answer.

 The wind suddenly picked up, and the three were caught. Lora shrieked and grabbed for her sister. Sarra was caught by surprise, both by the sudden gale and Lora’s lunge. She backed away from Lora and hit a current where the gust was stronger. Sarra’s liquid body enfolded Tench in awkward swirls as they tumbled out of control toward the eye.

Lora watched them disappear into the vortex.

 “Sarra!” She held her bloodied arm up as if she herself could stretch. She saw red and yellow spots accompanying lightheadedness and gasped. She shook her head, grimaced, and wondered what to do. Save the city, or her sister. Lora bit her lip and decided to defy fate by choosing both. She mustered all her courage and dove upward, straight into the eye of the storm.

On the ground, Morgan cowered behind a stationary piece of rubble, watching as Anne’s power grew. She had never witnessed psychic power of that magnitude, and both the scientific doctor, and former practitioner in her was deeply curious. She sat quietly and watched.

Anne rose up to the eye and stopped at the event horizon. She tried to look around, but swirling flakes of dust got in her eyes. She cried and wished for nothing more but for her pain to go away.

                               Chapter 18

             Lora awoke, too groggy to open her eyes. She sat up and felt like she was in a tank of syrup. She made a moan and it echoed for several seconds. Lora opened her eyes, furrowed her brow and stood up.

“Well this is funny…” She said to herself. Her words echoed away and came back.

 Lora was in a playroom filled with toys that seemed one and a half times larger as they should be. Lora walked up to a nearby teddy bear, it having the proportions of a carnival prize.

 “Hello.” She felt a little foolish. “You wouldn’t know what happened, would you?”

Her query echoed against the absolute quiet. The bear was not responsive.

She still felt like she was lying down. Lora turned and caught sight of a pink and yellow blur. She stumbled back in the thick as molasses air, and slowly fell to the ground. She noticed that her hands were creating trails. Lora made a soft landing on her butt.

 “Scared of my own shadow… What is going on?”

 She stood up and flew into the air to get a better look around.

 The florescent lit ceiling resembled a sky, but without a logical light source. She could see the ceiling tiles represented as an impressive moiré pattern. The rest of the expansive room was even more of an enigma.

 The playroom stretched to infinity in all directions; the horizon being a thin black line with dots of multi colored toys as it stretched. Toys of all kinds dotted the floor below in a terrible clutter, all bigger than they would be normally but each proportionate with each other.

 “Dang, I must have shrunk. Hello?” Lora called. Her voice carried far across the emptiness. She tilted her head, her call taking on a life much, much longer than it should with the empty acoustics.

 “Yeah.” A croaky voice rang out from all directions.

Sarra.

Lora turned around, searching for evidence of her sister. Her own odd trail got in her way and she ended up seeing into her own eyes. Lora gasped, waved her hand to clear the illusion, and then moved out of the way. She noticed that her trail from when she was in front of the bear was fading.

 “Oh, Sarra, I’m glad you’re alright. Where are you?”

 Lora saw her sister rise up from a mound of blocks. A trail followed her with such precision that it might as well have been her elastic body. They spotted each other.

 “That’s what I want to know.” Sarra said.

 “Where’s Tench? What is this place?”

 Sarra looked around. She held her hands out.

 “My sarcasm fails me…”

 Lora covered her mouth and chuckled.

 “Oh wow.”

 Sarra stared into her. Lora grimaced, apologized, and looked around.

 “Tench can’t be far, can he?”

 Sarra snorted.

 “I don’t know, I think he was hurt. It might be a little hard to find him.”

 Lora gasped.

 “He’s hurt? Oh no. Tench!”

Lora sped off, calling for him. Sarra threw her arm out to stop her sister.

“Whoa, whoa!” Sarra called.

The speed at which Lora flew off, and Sarra’s stretching her arm was fair, but painfully slow. Sarra imagined that it was something like having the mindset for super speed but not the power.

 Several seconds later, Sarra wrapped her arm around Lora’s, she experienced a slow motion whiplash, which would not have hurt had both her arms not been injured, one far more than the other. Lora howled and her stars returned as Sarra retrieved her. Lora blinked and fought back tears.

“Hey, that… thing came in here first, and I’ll be lost in the Void before I see it again, although given this place, that might not be far from the truth. I want to make sure that you don’t get eaten too.” Sarra said.

 Lora nodded and bit her lip, tears streaming down her face.. She caught sight of Tench hovering up from behind Sarra. He looked as if he would fall from the air from sheer exhaustion. Lora smiled and hovered up to give him a one armed hug.

“You’re okay.”

Tench nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll live, I’m fine. Hey, I need to tell you that that thing’s Clive Ogden.” His voice was small.

 “I’ve heard of him.” Lora said. “I knew that he could attack with electricity, and that he’s British, but I didn’t know he could stretch.”

 “That’s Clive?” Sarra asked with an outward show of disbelief.

 Tench nodded.

 “Yeah, he caused Bronson some trouble in 1970. We think that he may have caused those gauntlets to lose their elasticity, but it’s just a guess.”

 “How would he do that?” Lora asked, twisting a gauntlet on her arm.

 Tench shrugged.

 “I don’t know; let’s find out where we are before worrying about a villain’s origin story. How’s your arm? Is it as bad as it looks?”

 Lora’s entire left shoulder was caked with blood. Her EnWol silver suit was not hurt. She resisted rubbing the wound.

 “It’s hurting, but I can make it… I don’t think that there are any broken bones, thank goodness. Are you sure you’re okay, Tench?”

 “I’m shaken up, but fine. I’m more concerned about where we are.”

 Sarra crossed her arms.

 “Well, I was turned to goo, and I’m psychologically traumatized. Otherwise, I’m hunky-dory too.” She said with a curled lip.

 Tench rolled his eyes.

 “Come on; let’s find something that will help.”

Sarra scoffed.

 “Like what? An Ozmone Board?”

Tench and Lora chose to ignore her.

 Down below, Clive watched them. He had not moved from where he started; a cage made of blocks. The ice around his arm was gone and he was whole. He watched the trio fly away. Their odd shadows and overgenerous echoes made it easy to keep tabs on them. Clive left his cage and followed them, keeping low to the ground.

 “Are we dead?” Sarra asked. She heard her quip about the Ozmone Board come shooting back to her and wished that she could swat it away like a fly.

 “I don’t think so.” Tench said. “The Tree wouldn’t have toys as far as the eye could see. As for what caused this, and how Clive is involved, I’m pretty clueless.” His words slurred and he had little jitters here and there.

 Sarra moved her arm up and down. The trails went through her, and impressions of her side continued behind her. She closed her fist a finger at a time and reopened it.

 “This place is weird. I don’t feel tired, but… I haven’t felt this tired since the night before I put the gauntlets on the very first time. On the other hand, how could we be in such a thick atmosphere without being able to see it? I don’t even see any haze in the distance.”

 “Yeah, it’s crazy.” Tench said.

 “I almost feel… like I’m swimming?” Lora said with her southern California accent peeking out.

 Tench nodded and agreed.

 “Foolish mortals, I am the water…” Sarra muttered to herself.

 The trio flew off with Clive following not far behind, unsure of where to go since the world was the same as far as the eye could see.

Tench laughed after a minute.

 “You know, it may be a wild guess, but I have a five year old cousin that—”

 Tench never finished. A yellow tendril with a looped eye grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him to the ground. He disappeared behind some toys; his trail looking like a blue and black smoke signal. Lora chased after him with Sarra not far behind.

 “Tench!” Lora yelled.

 Tench clawed at whatever he could find. He was turned around to see Clive smiling at him. Tench started to fight back, but he felt a twitchy pain again. Clive also felt a tingle; something was wrong.

 Clive exploded.

 Lora and Sarra were just above. Clive’s molten sediment flew out in all directions with Tench flowing along aimlessly. Lora tried to protect herself from Clive’s onslaught, but she could not raise her arm to her face. Sarra swooped in and covered her sister. The bright bits of Clive looked to have landed after a moment, and Tench’s trail was lost in it. The expansive room seemed to prefer the quiet because the explosion did not echo.

The sisters scanned the area; Lora’s hard breathing being the only noises. Sarra no longer had to breathe.

 Lora stuttered.

 “Wow Sarra, I want to get out of here.” Lora was on the verge of tears.

 “You think I don’t?” Sarra snapped. “Something blew up and killed Tench—”

 “Killed?”

 “—and I don’t want to be here when it gets one of us!”

 “You—” Lora sniffed hard. “You think he’s dead, Sarra?”

 Sarra searched for any sort of indication that suggested the contrary, but found nothing. She growled and crossed her arms.

 “Anything’s possible in the land where very bad toys go to die...”

 Lora sniffed again.

 Clive’s body regrouped on its own, one of the things about his change for which he was grateful. He finished reforming while lying down. He looked up at the ceiling that may have been light years away, feeling his meta born electricity flow through him.

 Clive paid attention to his body and how it felt, and wondered why he exploded. From what he could tell, he still looked like a normal human. His defining powers were functioning, and the intense whole-body wobble from being a sentient puddle of goo was, sadly, doing its job.

 “What in a vacant void was that?” Clive wondered.

 He saw Lora and Sarra out of the corner of his eye.

 “So, where do we find Tench? What’s your bright idea, leader?” Sarra spat.

 Lora grimaced. Her shoulder was pulsing and burning. She bit her lip, trying to ignore the pain of her bloodied appendage, and pointed with her good arm.

 “This way?” She wiped her eyes.

 Sarra’s head on a long neck appeared in Lora’s field of vision.

 “Why?”

 Lora felt the pit of her stomach burn white hot and the heat needed a release.

 “I don’t know, Sarra! Gaia, I’m not as analytical as you are when it comes to this kind of thing. Why don’t you lead then, please. Which way?” Lora cried again.

 Sarra bit her lip, wondering if she should do the sisterly thing and console her. She figured that she would do it later; being stuck in the strangest wasteland beyond what they could imagine was not the right place to show sisterly love. Sarra shrugged.

 “Fine, this way. These trails do fade though, so we could get stuck somewhere.”

 Lora searched for any signs of life that wasn’t their own trails. The explosion was fading away; the ends of it spreading out like the incident inverted.

 From the ground, Clive saw Lora point with her chin and they flew off. Clive slunk up like a snake. He was still confused about the blast, but he was also still willing to keep stalking the heroes. Clive pondered which of the two sisters to grab, waiting for them to stop.

 “I love the hunt, even with the unpredictable nuances. Which one though, the sweet one or the spicy one? They’re both so different.”

 Neither of the sisters had said much on the journey. They flew to the horizon to seek a comfort that would not be found from behind.

 Clive became impatient and quickened his pace. He took the strategy a little differently than with Tench. Since Sarra was EnWol, grabbing her by the ankle and pulling would separate her foot from her leg and alert them of his presence. Clive took the direct approach. He charged his electricity and flew through the thick atmosphere without a sound. He captured Sarra in a sort of pocket and dove into the ground in an arc. Lora could only process that Sarra was eaten by a yellow ribbon. The end of the arc exploded much in the same way that Tench’s encounter had. Hot mantle and bits of silver Sarra traveled in all directions. It was over in less than three seconds.

Lora hovered, stunned at the action and unsure of how to react. The sound dissipated into the quiet and only the trails remained. There was no trace of Sarra to be found.

 “My…”

 Lora could hear herself breathing. She looked around.

 “Okay…” she chuckled nervously. She searched for a deity to appease; she thought it would be Clive.

 “I’m sorry? I guess?” She yelled. Her voice cracked. She immediately cleared her throat and tried again. There was no reply except for her echo. The trails from Sarra and the second explosion had faded away after several moments.

 Lora gulped and found that she was unable to get her bearings. She pointed ahead and flew.

 “I think it was this way?” No reply. Lora gulped. “Okay… Here I go…”

Lora began to fly, unsure of where she was going or where she was headed. There was nothing to be found. The oversized toys repeated in a random pattern the further Lora flew. Pastel pink, blue and green teddy bears, blocks, yo-yos, and dolls sat motionless on top of a dark blue carpet. Lora shivered; outside of her own noises echoing back, the eerie quiet proved that there was nothing fun in the jubilant void.

A thought tingled in the back of her mind. If she were trapped, alone, than how would she cope? There was no one to be seen or heard from. Lora could be all alone for eternity, locked at age eighteen and her mind still processing a normal flow of time. She would surely go mad, alone in toy land.

Alone.

What was the opposite of love but being alone?

 Lora’s breath caught and her heart pounded. She turned around and flew under her own trail, inches from the toys.

 “Sarra? Tench? Oh please someone! Please answer!”

There was a crash behind her, an odd sound in this environment. Lora gasped, swooped upward, and scanned the area behind her.

 There was only her honey blonde trail.

 “Sarra? Tench?”

 Nothing.

 She bit her lip.

 “Clive?” She said in a small voice.

 Nothing.

 Lora sighed, wondering if she had made the crash by flying too low. She turned around and found Clive Ogden, hovering before her.

 Lora gasped; her heart pounded. Clive smiled. Lora raised her hand to try to freeze him, and nearly collapsed under the pain. Clive wrapped Lora’s arm up in a cocoon and they met, nose to nose. He let off an electrical charge.

 “Yes, love. I’m here. What do you want?” His voice was smooth and hushed.

 Lora’s shoulder was in agony. Her vision blurred with tears and she sniffed. She clenched her fist on her bloodied arm. Clive intensified his charge and he was pleased to see Lora squeak.

 “Aww, Pink Lemon can’t handle the tartness? Why not just get used to it?” Clive upped the amperage and Lora screamed.

Clive laughed.

 “Look at you, a pathetic excuse for an EnWol; it doesn’t even seem like you can stretch.”

 Lora clenched and released her fist. Bits of snow formed between her fingers and solidified. She tried to speak but her words were cut off by her own short breaths.

 Clive frowned with mock intent.

 “Aw, can’t talk? Mighty EnWol? Or should I say… human?”

Lora’s breathing deepened and tears streamed down her face.

 “What is it? Before I kill you.” Clive asked. His low voice became gravely.

 Lora looked up at him and smiled.

 “Have… have an ice day.”

 She screamed with numbing pain as she blasted a stream of cold air in Clive’s face.

 Clive screeched and let go. Lora smiled, despite being reminded of her wounded arm. She wished that removing the gauntlets would heal her.

Clive tried to wipe the ice from his face. His head was numb, and he lost his sight. He moved his vocal and optic relays to his hand, holding it out to find Lora.

 “Oh, you’ll, pay for that you fool!”

 Clive charged, and Lora got ready for another round to toss. Clive’s body radiated with electricity. Lora gulped and drew as much moisture from the air as she was able to.

 As Clive came less than three feet from Lora, the toy room faded to black. As did Lora, as did her physical self. Neither Clive nor Lora got the chance to exchange blows. The two fighters felt nothing, saw nothing, experienced nothing but their own thoughts …and Tench’s, and Sarra’s. 

If you would like the whole book, a souvenir of the experience, check it out at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87111 

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