Three civilians had donated three cars to the three groups. The white wedding drove to the limits of what had been a city an hour ago, fifty feet away from the edge of the perimeter. She took her phone out.
"I've arrived."
"How bad is it?" said Samuel on the other end, Marisa the driver.
"See for yourself." She took a picture and heard the other pair groan.
"This is gonna suck." sighed Serena's voice, relevantly.
"What is it?" said Mia's muffled voice - " - oh - god." - she groaned.
"I'm outside of its range." murmured Matoi, thousands of meteors blasting the city to chunks ahead, rain&fog thick, only hearing the dozens of earthquakes shaking the ground but stopping just ahead. "Setting out now."
She hung up, started her rush in to Meteorology's range, and as she passed the perimeter -
- a hundred meteors appeared above, falling with the speed of fire upon her -
" - Wedding!"
- an explosive volley erupted from Wedding's shoulders, hundreds and hundreds of missiles seeking their targets above -
- and blasting every last meteor in to hundreds of chunks, constant line of explosive projectiles erupting outward -
- and tearing every last shard of meteor to ash, Matoi keeping her rush going down the sidewalk, new earthquakes and fissures shooting towards her, and as the ground split open below -
- a swift shockwave blasted her to the side and away, keeping her safe as the street was swallowed beside. Wedding's lasers tearing the buildings in half, she kept her run going up the street, feeling the clouds gather overhead, and in the next instant -
- a bolt of lightning turned her to a woman of laughter, thousands of volts entering Wedding's insulation as she ran, sidewalk that looked like a curb thirty minutes ago up ahead. She stopped at the middle of the intersection, new meteors forming above and seeking her head -
- but a swift megamissile blast every last to chunks; metallic shards of its casing falling, Wedding's laser readied to refract -
- and the scorching beam ricocheted with the speed of literal light around, new missiles growing it with every hit -
- and the enormous beam disintegrated every building around the intersection, new missiles keeping it bouncing as it tore through the roads -
- and she sighed as no scream of pain came, readying to start her search again.
++++++
"Got it!" grunted Marisa, rushing up to one skyscraper, clouds forming above and lightning striking her -
- and she twitched, staggered, but still stood by the end, Boudoir's insulation protecting her as she rushed along the skyscraper's front doors, rope of Boudoir tethering the building as she ran around the corner, constant bolts striking her as she kept her run going. Boudoir's rope went taut once she got back to the front, tethered all around the skyscraper -
" - enjoy!" shouted Marisa, one yank back -
- and ripping the skyscraper off its hinges, fashionista turned concrete lumberjack as the skyscraper collapsed -
" - get behind me!" she shouted; Samuel huddled behind -
- and a single sweep of her new sword mowed down the entire avenue, two groaning as no scream came.
++++++
["Carry Me Home - The Living End". No extended version, sorry.]
" - Matoi says -"
- another gust of wind blasted her phone at two hundred miles down the street -
" - fuck!" groaned Mia, new tornados sprouting five hundred feet ahead, Serena with fog&tentacle readied beside - " - the other cities stopped! He's here!"
"How do we know he's male?!" shouted Serena, new tornado shooting with the speed of wind toward them; fog swarming her body, she rushed up ahead, and as the counter-clockwise winds caught her -
- streams of fog filled it with clockwise winds, dispersing and neutralizing in an instant, new meteor shower threatening to fall upon them -
" - SOLAR BEAM!"
- a white beam entered every last meteor, disintegrating it as Mia caught up to the punk, still starting their run down what had been a city an hour ago. All around them were buildings collapsing and winds screaming, meteors shattering on flaming rubble, downpour that was stained crimson.
Clouds blinded the sky above, and in the next instant -
- a dozen lightning bolts struck Mia, turning her in to a woman of laughter -
- and the punk laughed beside, shared elemental resistance in her as the two kept their rush going up the street; a nod from Mia, and the two split down opposite sidewalks, fog dissolving buildings left and blue flames buildings right.
The coast was on the horizon peeking between one intersection they ran in -
- and the two stopped as they heard distant rumbling, waves starting to shatter on the horizon -
" - shit." winced Serena, tsunami growing on the distance -
" - Serena - get behind me!" shouted Mia, wave growing & growing on the distance, smashing and crashing through every building in between; and as the thousand foot tsunami threatened to swallowed them alive, towering over with no sign of stopping -
- Serena huddled at Mia's back; and the next scene was instant -
" - SOLAR BEAM!"
- a white beam erupted from her palms and hit the wave, thousands & thousands of gallons of water vaporizing to steam, new wave coming from behind to replace it -
- but a swift sweep of her aim cut both waves in half, and as their water started to fall -
- a final sweep disintegrated the rest, keeping them safe as they stood again.
"H-Holy shit." panted Serena, relevantly.
"That's why I'm a national threat." grunted Mia.
"What's that?" said Serena, and Mia tried not to sigh as they ran up another street.
"It's how the government classifies heroes! Local - national - existential!"
Serena nodded as she split right again, dozens of tendrils of fog filling up the buildings beside, acid corroding every last wall away, supports crumbling and stores collapsing as she rushed. The intersection was ahead, and the two split separate ways again -
" - nice!" shouted Serena's voice behind - " - wait! Mia! Have an idea!
- the former mentor turned, sheets of ice forming as she skid&slid to Serena, catching up quick. Serena relayed it, and the two nodded as they rushed down the road, blue flame disintegrating a line in the road behind and fog refilling it, and as they came to one end of the avenue -
" - go ahead!" shouted Serena; a single scarab lit the fuse -
- and the entire city was claimed by an explosion as if a hydrogen bomb had struck it, destroying every last building, skyscraper, road, sidewalk, every last videogame again, icy prison keeping the two safe -
- to at last come out to the shattered city; and seeing Linvald still standing on the horizon, thousand feet ahead & right. They heard him shouting as they ran, but didn't hear why until they were five hundred in range of his mansion's rubble -
" - stop - stop this, please!" he shouted; their eyes pinched at his sobbing eyes -
" - we know you have Meteorology, retard!" shouted Serena -
" - I don't - I don't have a fucking Revenant!" he shouted, four hundred feet between the two and the shattered home - " - I-I fucking hate Urasaria students, why would I ever want a Revenant?!"
" - as fucking if." groaned Mia, tornado winds appearing ahead to slow their advance. Streams of fog kept their pace as they ran -
" - you - you fucking people think you - think you can just get away with f-fucking anything! That's why - that's why you've been fucking spying on me, and now, now that I'm getting close to getting better -"
" - this guy's fucking crazy." groaned Serena; Mia nodded, two hundred feet within -
- and the heavy weather stopped just as the two did, Revenants still readied as the clouds disappeared, Linvald still shouting ahead -
" - I'm not crazy - I'm not fucking crazy, you know! You know what real crazy is?! There's people who think the - who think the Earth is flat, or that - or that the government destroyed Los Angeles - those are crazy fucking people!"
" - Serena." winced Mia beside. "I -"
" - don't think he's controlling Meteorology?" winced Serena, and Mia nodded a hundred feet within range, man starting to step back as they ran closer.
"Or he's luring us." she muttered over new shouting -
" - called - called gangstalking, and - you have everyone ready to come for me when -"
- a bolt of Worldwide lightning knocked him unconscious, and the two sighed as they stepped up.
"Ugh." muttered Serena. "Are we gonna kill him?"
"No, we won't. I just don't think he's…"
Mia frowned, yet was nostalgic for her old neighborhood. Homeless men like this had approached her when she was younger, usually suffering from schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. Some were veterans, while others had been laid off from work and into their states of progressive mental deterioration. Most were not dangerous, merely insane. One had once faked robbing her and told her to call the police on him so he could have a bed in jail.
Serena nodded, and her tentacle scooped him up as the reunited duo went back.
"...we'll drop him off to have his Revenant removed. I need to tell them to use Xenocyclin on it." muttered Mia. "Can you call Matoi and tell her we got him?"
"U-Um, maybe you should do that."
Serena handed Mia her tablet, who laughed as they drove off. After they had dropped the man off to have his Revenant removed, Mia felt like a mother driving her punk daughter to school as she asked for other updates on Serena's life & her mentorship. Serena asked her if she would be alright driving Yuruko & Naomi & her back to Urasaria that night, as well, which intensified the analogy in Mia's mind.
And as you have seen, there is some truth to it.
So after they had packed, she put the children in the back and Naomi in the passenger seat, the latter of whom was not speaking much.
It was as if she were attempting to reach backwards in time to find when the cooled earth's mass of primordial ooze must have begun to outline her shape, and the crevices that would form her lips or her hand. Sooner yet still backwards from her respective time was her individuality: how she laughed or the intensity of her accent, whose origin she had never quite been able to discern. Yet it startled her, as if she might look forward and see the ooze from which she had been borrowed evolve into a creature unrecognizable by her fossilized eye.
"Mia, do you mind if we put a movie on?" said Serena.
Without waiting, Yuruko shoved a screen up to the frontseat, clipped it to the air vents, then put their anime on. It was another Evangelion movie, and Naomi thought of the film *Crimes and Misdemeanors* that Julia had shown to her last night. In it, an opthalmologist becomes a murderer who feels the eyes of God are upon him, yet the film argues that God is either impotent to stop evil or does not care. Julia had been reminded of the flawless film after Naomi's comment that religion was more sensical than an abstract nothingness with no consequences for the acts committed in this life.
She remembered the ending soliloquy:
"We are all faced, throughout our lives, with agonizing decisions. Moral choices. Some are on a grand scale. Most of these choices are on lesser points. But, we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love, that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying, and even to find joy from simple things like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more."
It was the posit Julia had made of humans as biological impulses that made Naomi think of such things. In our lives, we are confronted by experiences that through no choice of our own have weathered us into particular hues & textures, yet when we attempt to communicate them to another, we remain unable to properly relay it. By the age which these accreted existences have wrinkled our faces, we are so used to hiding these strange fossils within ourselves that we become selfish in thinking that we are the only creature who does so. We center our own perception and reality, which we think realer and fuller than that of others, yet in ignorance we swaddle ourselves with loneliness and agitation like a survivor loft upon a ghastly island.
For the past months this had been where Naomi Eskel was. Nothing would seem more unfathomable than this place, to any intruder. She had picked over its rooted creatures and primeval fauna, and though it would soon depart from her, in its leave there was a slice of memory by which she may continue to haul it forward through time.
So as her mental dimension was leveled, she felt embarrassed over this whole thing with Serena. Normally she felt it was stupid, immature, all that which has been recounted. This time, however, she did not. She resumed watching, laughing, her stone fingers crawling once or twice into existence. If she could cause such a creature to traverse over the gap between mental and physical, a gap which typically evinces so much misery in to our lives, it seemed simple to believe she was but a chemical impulse: a blink of biology that moves so it might eventually see itself reflected in the isle of another.