Seraphim Earth Bet Sidestory #3

Earth Bet Sidestory #3

Marissa and Mouse Meet Monsters

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Marissa, if she hadn’t already known, would now be quite convinced that this version of Earth was totally insane. The feathered angel-monster that had brought them all here had been bad enough, but finding out she was one of three city-destroying entities had made her badly wish she hadn’t ever heard of video games. No video games, no staying late for club, no ending up in this hellhole. Even her friendships with the other club members weren’t worth being here.

Of course, now the best hope for Noelle to stay alive, and their group to stay safe, had just turned a four-story tall dragon monster into a four-story tall glass statue of a dragon monster. It was horrifying on multiple levels, as was the fact that the battle had also done…somethingwhich broke the…something that Seraphim’s mother(?) had done to make everyone forget her own existence. Oddly enough, the majority of the country (hell, the planet) wasn’t reacting to that particular fact very well, and more than a few people were saying very unpleasant things about Seraphim and her group. Not that Marissa cared, because curing Noelle and going home were far more important to her than anything to do with the local’s comfort levels.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true, she did care. Hell, it worried her too, but Seraphim had been nothing but good, and all the stories she had seen and heard of Seraphim’s mom (whose name she wasn’t even going to tryand pronounce, even in the privacy of her own head) said that she was a vigilante that did what she thought was right, no matter who might be unhappy about it. Besides, again, Noelle was basically coming apart at the seams, and it was becoming harder and harder to prevent her from creating evil clones of people she touched. And the clones were getting stronger, too, strong enough to actually put up something of a fight when they were…born.

They were out of time, and there was no one else on this Earth that had the power to save her friend.

The bus to Chicago would be arriving about an hour, fortunately. The PRT would help them get to Brockton Bay after that, especially if they bargained with joining the heroes until they were able to go home. That would probably be a last resort, of course, but it was still an option that would help secure assistance.

So, Marissa was gathering vital supplies (junk food) from the small corner-store a few buildings down from the bus stop itself. Noelle and Francis were having a romantic walk along on of the lakes, Oliver was doing some clothes shopping for the group (basic necessities and little more. While the locals had been generous, they didn’t want to impose more than they had), and Cody was lazing around at the bus stop waiting for something to happen instead of enjoying the beautiful environment they had found themselves in.

Putting a few more things in her basket, she reflected happily on the fact that this would at least be a fairly short bus ride. Certainly shorter than their over-land trek from Madison to here, as the busline would get them to the capital in just over four hours. A couple of days dealing with the local PRT, and they would be in Brockton Bay. Then things would turn around, she was sure. Things were finally looking up, and she couldn’t be more pleased given the circumstances.

Paying for her purchases, thanking the kindly old woman running the counter as she wished Marissa and her friend’s good luck in the next leg of their trip, the dancer made her way outside and started towards the bus stop, mentally lamenting the fact that she would be stuck waiting with Cody given that time was too short for her to do anything particularly fun at this point.

Whump!

Marissa grunted in surprise, barely keeping from losing everything she was carrying as a small, rapidly moving object smacked into her stomach. There was a soft squeal from said object, which quickly moved back and resolved itself from a blur to a tween with long dirty blond hair. She was a cute kid, Marissa mused, and certainly young enough that running into someone else was still tolerable, if not ‘okay’. Especially since she looked embarrassed and remorseful, gazing up through her eye-lashes with her hands laced behind her back as she twisted slightly in nervousness.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Marissa asked, shifting her bags back into their more natural positions in her arms as she examined the kid from head to toe. The girl didn’t seem to be injured or in any particular distress, so she probably wasn’t in any real trouble. Just running around like kids do when they’re old enough to know better, but not really be able to follow through.

“Yeah, sorry I bumped into you, miss. My family and I just got here a couple days ago, but we’ve been getting ready for a big party so I haven’t been able to explore until now!” the girl chirped, immediately brightening to an adorable beaming look that was almost unnatural with its joyfulness. That was probably me just being a cynical bitch, though. She scratched her head bashfully, looking around. “I wasn’t supposed to go too far, though, and now I don’t see Uncle Jack anywhere!”

“Well, did you have a place you were supposed to meet him if you got separated, like where ever you’re staying in town?” Marissa asked, back to being concerned, and the girl frowned in thought for a moment before snapping her fingers as she obviously recalled the details.

“Yeah! The Driftwood Motel! We’re helping a lady meet up with someone there, so if I go there I’ll be sure to meet up with Uncle Jack and Big Sister Sibby!” she nodded rapidly, looking around and pointing in a seemingly random direction. “It’s over that way for a while. Thanks for being so nice, lady!”

She started to walk away, and Marissa darted forward and held out an arm in front of her. Like hell she was about to let some kid walk half way across town all by herself, and she had more than enough time to get there and back before the bus came. Especially if…

“Listen, let me drop these bags off with my friends at the bus stop and I’ll walk with you, okay?” she proposed/instructed, and the girl bobbed her head in cheerful agreement. It didn’t take more than a handful of minutes to drop the bags of with Cody, who had elected to simply lounge on the bus stop bench, and ignore his complaints and mutterings about being forced to babysit the food. As if sitting on his ass with a bunch of food he hadn’t even had to pay for, but was going to get to eat anyway, was some sort of grave imposition.

Prick.

“So, what’s your name, kiddo?” Marissa asked as they weaved their way through the cityscape.

“Riley! Riley Davis!” came the answer, and Marissa resisted the urge to wince at how unfalteringly chirpy this girl was. There was a line where being cheerful went past heart-warming to disturbing, and Riley was flirting with it. Stopping and spinning to face her, Riley stuck a hand out. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Marissa Newland.” The taller responded, accepting the hand and shaking it firmly. At least Riley was polite when she was using the brains her mother had given her, that was a good sign. “It’s nice to meet you, Riley.”

The majority of the walk after that was uneventful, of course, with little conversation beyond the basic, polite nothings that two strangers in unexpected, close, and moderate-length proximity so often found themselves exchanging. Of course, in her case, all Marissa could really say were that she and her friends had evacuated Madison and were heading to Chicago to try and put their lives back together. All quite true, if lacking in detail and rather significant context. Riley, likewise, just repeated what she had said earlier: she was helping her family reconnect two people that had been at odds for ‘dumb adult stuff’ for a while, since they belonged together. That was kinda romantic, actually, even if she kind of got a weird vibe from Riley while the girl was talking. In fact, Marissa kind of got the idea that this was some sort of weird blind date, but it wasn’t her problem to solve if this blew up in the kid’s face.

Ten minutes after she had dropped their food off with Cody, Marissa found herself giving a less-than-impressed look to her new surroundings. The Driftwood Motel wasn’t the worst motel she had ever seen, but it certainly wasn’t the best. A bit overgrown, with little in the way of beautification, it looked like the sort of place they would use to shoot scenes for something like The Walking Dead. All pavement parking lots, squat brick buildings, concrete stoops and aluminum doors. She was quite glad that this isn’t where she and her friends had been staying. Riley, a bounce in her step, went to the nearest room and rapped on it sharply with her knuckles.

“There you are, poppet! I was wondering where you had run off to. You know its dangerous to run around an unfamiliar city alone!” a non-descript man with brown hair and eyes chastised the moment he opened door. Glancing past her to spot Marissa, he smiled a smile that was almost disturbingly welcoming. “Ah, you made a friend, I see! That’s why you’ve been running late, is it?”

“Your niece bumped into me downtown, so I thought I’d bring her here. Like you said, this city is unfamiliar to her, and I couldn’t let her wander around. Or make her way back here alone, for that matter.” Marissa corrected politely with a nod of farewell. Taking a step back, she continued. “Now that she is safely with you again, I need to be getting back to my friends. We have a bus to catch, so free time isn’t something I’ve got a lot of.”

“Aww, but I wanted to play!” Riley protested, but her uncle rapped her head gently with his knuckles. When she looked up at him with a pout, he gave her an amused look and shook his head while tsking.

“Now sweetling, you’ll have all the playmates you can handle soon enough. The young lady obviously has someplace she needs to go, so there’s hardly any need to impede her departure. Especially if she’s trying to catch that bus to Chicago, they’ll hardly wait for one passenger you know!” he told her firmly, and as she grumbled and scuffed the ground with a foot Marissa nodded again and departed.

Later, when certain truths had been revealed, she would give thanks to God that Riley’s ‘Uncle’ had been more amused by chastising his ‘niece’ than he had been in letting the little blond ‘play’ with her.

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Miria

“Its good to see you again, Laura.” Miria greeted her frenemy warmly, smiling at the young woman who had been her on-again, off-again rival ever since she had begun operating in Chicago. Much like herself, the woman who the world knew as Ravager was a young woman, with short-cropped blonde hair and hazel eyes.

“Yeah…” Laura mumbled, eyes on the ground, and Miria frowned in concern at the {Discomfort} and {Fear} and {Regret} that were radiating off of her. Usually Laura was more prone to exasperation, irritated amusement, and traces of bitterness when they were together. “So, that feathered bitch had a kid, huh? Pretty weird for a Lustrumette.”

“Hey, none of that! This is the first time we’ve chatted like this in almost a year, and I’m not interested in starting it with you insulting the memory of my dead friend. Who, might I remind you, saved your life a few times as well.” Miria responded sharply, though she kept her voice low. Quite why Laura had insisted they meet in one of South Beloit’s myriad restaurants was beyond her, but she supposed it might make the other woman feel somewhat more comfortable to be around other people. Her companion grimaced unhappily but nodded in acknowledgement regardless, which was gratifying. Today was supposed to be a goodday. “How’ve you been, Laura? I haven’t seen you for our regular meet-ups in a while.”

Laura’s mouth quirked slightly in amusement at the reference to their cape fights, which happened often enough that quite a few people were convinced the two of them were madly in love with one another and were failing to express it properly, like real life was some sort of anime. Of course, there was the Kill/Kiss principle, but their relationship fell rather closer to the first than the second. Which reminded her of why she had called Miria here, and she grimaced again at the rush of guilt and self-loathing that flooded through her. She wasn’t sure that she could do this, now. Hand over her rival to the Slaughterhouse Nine. She had regretted it in the days since she had made that fateful phone call, put out a hit on the woman sitting across from her, but she had always solidified her resolve by remembering the abuses that had been heaped upon her for years, the mockery and humiliations she had suffered.

But is that really what they had been?

She wondered, sometimes, and always had. Was Mouse Protector really the cruel bitch that loved humiliating her, or was she a ‘joke hero’ that was too good-natured to really hurt her or try and have her put away for good. The world at large certainly seemed to think it was the second, and she knew that her own view of such things was a little…skewed.

She was skewed, damnit, and she knew it. She made a decision.

“We need to leave, now.” She said sharply, getting to her feet rapidly, eyes hard as she looked around the room for any sign of her now-former ‘employees’. She may have set this into motion in a fit of irrational anger and pain, but she was going to put a stop to it and beg Miria to get her some real help. She might be a villain, but she didn’t want to be…this.

“Laura? What’s wrong?” Miria asked immediately, hand slipping inside her jacket as she rose and started looking around herself. It was actually gratifying that her rival had such faith in her, to react not as if she was the threat, but that there was one which the two of them had to face together.

“You have to go. Can you teleport back to Chicago, or to the kid?” Laura continued, not answering the question as she led the way towards the door. She would go out the back, if it wasn’t for the fact that it would draw a lot of attention, and she wasn’t even sure what the Nine looked like this time around. Thanks to Bonesaw, they could change their appearances pretty easily, enough to blend in for the most part.

“I’m not teleporting anywhere until I find out what’s going on. Are you in trouble, do you need help?” Miria shot back immediately, grabbing her arm and yanking her to a halt. Indignant, Laura opened her mouth to rebuke the other woman for slowing them down, for not just listening for once in her goddamn life, but she paused as an odd vibration seemed to thrum through the air. The glasses on the table they were standing next too resonated, a low and clear tone, and her eyes widened.

“Look out!” she cried out, tackling Miria to the ground and curling around her defensively, a heartbeat before the world exploded. Everything glass, or more accurately silicon, shattered with incredible force, sending shards of varying sizes scything into and even through everyone and everything.

Through the ringing in her ears, Miria struggled to comprehend what had just happened. That was Shatterbird’s song, but how had Laura known? Even she hadn’t noticed the signs, despite her advantages and experience, but somehow Laura had known that the Slaughterhouse Nine were in town.

Laura!

She sat up quickly, cradling Laura in her arms, hoping against hope that blonde was okay, but the warm, sticky, sodden state of Laura’s back told her what she needed to know: Laura was fatally injured, able to give nothing more than a bloody, tearful smile and mouth an apology before the light in her eyes dimmed.

“Hmm, now that was a surprise. I didn’t expect dear Ravager to back out like that, for the sake of the very person she hired us to kill. Then again, perhaps she realized that without you she didn’t have much meaning to her life. Terribly sad, you know, that low self-esteem that plagued her.” a smooth voice mused from outside, and Miria looked up to see Jack Slash (and it had to be him, given the circumstances) leaning on one obliterated window frame, seemingly unaffected by the glass that should by all rights be digging into his skin. He regarded the interior of the building apathetically, unaffected by the bloody carnage of innocent men, women, and children. Well, perhaps not so apathetically, she could see a small smirk on his lips…and she could see the hovering form of Shatterbird behind him, looking terribly pleased with herself.

Something deep within her broke open, a dam holding back a mighty river.

Samira Khadem, the psychotic villainous known as Shatterbird, was riding high on the feeling of using her power. There was nothing she loved more than playing god, flaying entire cities alive with a single song. A level of widespread chaos and destruction that no one else in the Nine could match, and every single time she did it she hoped it would catch Jack’s attention. She bit her lower lip, looking down at him as he observed her handiwork. She didn’t have the courage to offer herself to him, but one of these days he would be so impressed with her that she wouldn’t have to.

She blinked at the shattering sound from the restaurant below, a sound similar yet different from the sound of her art. Like breaking stone, but what could have…?

“Ah?” she gasped, feeling a pressure below her left breast, and she looked down to see an arm buried up to its elbow. Mind blank from shock and astonishment, she had enough life left in her to see the cold hate on the face of Mouse Protector, a fitting final vision to take with her to damnation.

The rest of the Nine, save Jack himself, stared in shock and no small amount of fear at the vision before them: Mouse Protector, long dismissed as a fairly run-of-the-mill hero more interested in pandering to her fanbase, holding the bloody mass of Shatterbird’s heart in the palm of her hand, even as the woman’s corpse fell to splatter across the street. Tossing it aside, she voiced a howl of rage and pain that drove spikes into their minds and drove ice through their spines, as six black bat-like wings bursting from her back. Pupil-less eyes the same shade of black as pitch tar locked onto the form of Jack Slash.

“Jeqon!”she shrieked, the word a promise of damnation and suffering.

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Jesus Christ, this chapter took forever. I’m sorry, guys, I just have a lot going on. I’m not going to give you a sob story, that’s not how I do things, but suffice to say that the pandemic ‘ending’ has actually made life a lot harder both at work and in the rest of my life.