Ending to the Beginning

She was flying! She. Was. Fly— No wait. She was falling again. Unlike the last few times though, she didn’t feel (as) paralyzed with fear. This time, she knew what to do. Alice could feel her element all around her. How had she missed it before? She was sure that she used to know the answer… not anymore though. Laughing, she closed her eyes, simply enjoying the sensation of this new freedom, when suddenly; she realized two very important things. A. Where the hell was the roof. B… Why was the ground so close? These two things all added up to one very unfortunate reality. She had miscalculated her trajectory, didn’t notice she had miscalculated her trajectory, so now, she was hurtling towards the ground and what appeared to be a wall. Every bit of knowledge she had acquired over this long summer of nearly nonstop practice of controlling her power suddenly vanished as the everlasting fear of death overwhelmed her. So, she did something along the lines of what anyone else would have done in this same situation… she protected herself.

A few moments later, Alice, now wrapped in a shadowy cocoon crashed through the window of a rather large jewelry store. Not that she knew that of course. All Alice knew was that she heard glass and now alarms. Both were not good. She quickly dissolved the protective cover, staggering to a standing position, her head swimming ever so slightly from the impact and general vertigo. She looked around, hoping to get out quick. That hope was quickly dashed though, as she noticed a woman standing there. Looking at her.

“Hello.”

“Um… Hi.” Alice said, shifting nervously, glad for the mask and goggles covering her face. Something was off about this woman, though she looked normal enough, if perhaps a bit bohemian. Actually, she looked incredibly bohemian. As Alice watched, the woman giggled slightly, though Alice wasn’t too sure what was funny. Not until she realized that there was now someone next to her. She jumped away, breathing heavy as she looked up at the brawny man, then back at the woman, then back to the man. A look of horror appeared on her face, apparent despite all the covering on her face. The woman giggled again, coming closer. She stopped a few feet away and then… silence.

“Can we keep her darling?” The woman finally said, breaking the tense quiet. Alice startled slightly as the man laughed. It wasn’t pleasant, lending to the feeling that it wasn’t a good thing that the woman had taken a liking to her. But then, Alice already knew that. After all, who hadn’t heard of the villainous duo Rock and Flower (stupid names, deadly people)? Not many. She backed away slightly, fear growing even more.

“L-look. I’m sorry for… interrupting your… work.” She said, stammering as she attempted to slip past the two, only to be grabbed by an invisible force. Alice slowly turned around to see them both smiling, no doubt laughing at her attempt to “leave”.


“Not so fast… so tell me… why are you here little hero.” Alice flinched. The man’s smile widened as he continued. “Glory? A Dare?” As he spoke, the woman giggled. Alice could swear that it was getting more unnerving with each go around. She quickly shook her head, once again, trying to move away. This time, not only was she stopped, she was completely immobilized. Now she was really starting to panic. The shadow’s responded, as they slowly started to shift, reaching towards the two villains, who simply exchanged looks.

The man shook his head. The woman looked sad. Then they both turned to her, intent obvious as their smiles both returned with an air of… slaughter. Alice gulped. ”You can do this!” With that. She pushed out, directing her power straight at them. With the advantage of surprise, the wall of shadow connected, sending the duo flying back. The telepathic hold was broken, and Alice was off running as fast as she could go. She would just go home… but she knew she could be tracked. She couldn’t just put her dad or innocents in danger…

”Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” She needed to come up with a plan. Fast.

"I'm telling you..." Inebriation hung on the words of a young man in a shirt that stank of more than just poor decision making and a slight drool. "I've never met a girl wearing a shirt from The Fall that wasn't a total bitch."

"That's a glaring overstatement Ty." From over his shoulder came a voice of dissent from a man with more control over his stature and voice.

After a night of losing the interest of potential hookups one man within the trio looked to his two counterparts for guidance on this new girl. Drunken advice from his friend about judging girls based on their shirts showed the young blonde man in between the discourse needed to learn how to filter some advice out. He normally drowned Ty out after Ty drowned his own logic out, but he really wanted to look into the logic of this theory. "Well is it true?"

"Yeah..." The voice of reason admitted. "It's true, Rob."

"I can make it work." The blonde man left his team to nurse the impending downfall that would overtake their senses. Rob departed from his friends behind to make his move across the room. The crowd of the bar simmered down to a dull roar over the past hour, the magic twilight hour an hour before bars let their patrons all get behind wheels and drive at once. It wasn't a good hour, but this guy would learn that as his arm positioned itself over the left shoulder of the smaller Asian girl with a shirt from The Fall on. "So, The Fall." Drunken cells in his arm could barely hold their own with the incompetence of the motor cortex so abundantly flaunting itself.

"Yep." Bliss took a sip of her beer while she tried her hardest to look through the man pressed uncomfortably in front of her.

"They say girls who wear shirts from The Fall are all bitches..." Alcohol coursed off of his breath and into the senses of Bliss. "How about we get you out of that and change your..."

"I'm sorry..." Bliss interjected through the narrow control she kept over her less than sober state. "Did you just call me a bitch, and hope that would make me take my clothes off? You're not fucking Don Draper."

Unappeased by her dismissal of his advance, he smiled drunkenly. "Yeah pickup lines are lame."

"And never work." In all the time he gazed at her, Bliss never once looked the man in his eyes. The glass touched her lips and the world turned brown through the rim of her bottle. Slowly her knees began to feel somewhat less stable, but after another day of failed endeavors for new recruits, drinking seemed like the way to go. Unfortunately, when you live with the system of organs Bliss does you rack up an impressive bar tab that chain wearing rappers would take notice of.

"I know. I was just thinking." His words and his brain crossed signals and stuttered against one another. "You want to go get breakfast or something?"

"No." Bliss lowered the bottle to her waist. Twitching under the lack of muscle control her face could muster up Bliss felt she could accept her level of inebriation. "You need to go." Of course she didn't plan on staying much longer either. "Or something bad will happen to you."

"Is that a threat?" He laughed a nervous chuckle. As he ran his hand down his face his stare turned from energetic to annoyed almost as if removing a mask. "I don't take threats likely."

"You need to walk away." While the tension rose between the townie and the superhero Bliss already began taking action below the floor boards. Showing how little he respected her wishes his hand took hold of her shoulder and pushed her against the wall.

"You're going to look me in the eye, and..." Cutting his threat off early, a pillar of ice shot forward from the ground and encapsulated the man around his waist, lending him a well needed dose of ice to what he was thinking with. "God. You..."

"You know what they say about girls who wear The Fall shirts."

Drunk and annoyed, Bliss stepped out of the bar and into the streets of Dallas. Even when you cause a disturbance in a bar as long as you can control your powers most people won't make too big of a fuss. Wanting to measure the level of intoxication she placed herself into Bliss stretched out her left hand. The sudden change of weight caused her to shift slightly in her already exaggerated walking pattern. Smashing into a light pole, Bliss found the center she needed to try and place her index finger to her nose. "Come er' you." Her finger moved along her cheek and settled on her eye. Finally she rested her finger to her nose, letting her know she could operate anything right now like a boss.

Out of her perfect vision Bliss spotted a big blur running away from two smaller looking blurs. "Hey, I'm a superhero." Bliss stepped away from the light pole and began to see what exactly the differences these blurs needed sorted out. "Aw come on blurs. You guys shouldn't be fighting." The exact make out of the situation still fell outside of Bliss's less than pristine optics, but the ruckus kept her informed she needed to help someone.