Unbalanced: Fleur's Oct 2010 Vignette

[Dr Archeville]

October 31st.

 

Going Solo

 

Stesha woke up that morning missing Derrick fiercely. That was odd in itself, not the missing Derrick part, but the waking up. Missing Derrick had become a near-constant ache inside her, with him so far away, saving people so strange that her skin would burn if she entered their corrosive atmosphere. He'd been able to come home for the occasional weekend, but even the last of those had been in September. She wasn't only lonely, she was worried sick. What could have happened to him to leave him incommunicado and so far beyond the range of help? She'd had to call off the wedding, of course, telling her parents the truth and letting them come up with excuses on her behalf. Now every time she did an altar blanket or handed a bride the bouquet she'd take down the aisle, some part of her just wanted to cry. It wasn't fair.

In any case, it was the waking up part that was weird, since it certainly wasn't her usual habit to sleep at night, especially not to fall asleep on the couch in the middle of her favorite TV show and stay there all night! The unusual rest had not done anything good for her back, or for her stomach which decided to throw last night's taco's back in her face (though only metaphorically, thank God.) This bachelorette lifestyle was not good for her! It didn't help that winter was coming, and the lack of sun from that plus all the work she was doing meant she wasn't getting all the solar energy she was used to. But she could at least change that, she decided. Tonight she would turn all her sunlamps on herself and bask in them till she felt totally recharged, not to mention nicely warmed.

She was preoccupied enough with that idea that it took her several minutes to register the fact that things were happening outside. The screaming was what she noticed first, and it had her racing to the window. People were running past, pursued by hordes of... were those zombies? Crap! Something had obviously gone very wrong with her tidy world. Fleur tossed on her costume and zipped out to the street, making her way through the crowds that surged and panicked. As she went, she moved people to safety, one at a time or in big groups, anything to get them out of the way of the undead teeth! Her sanctuary would hold them safe long enough for her to at least figure out exactly where the threat was coming from, and where a safe place on this world might be!

As she moved through the crowd, she inevitably came to the trailing edge, where most of the action was happening. Here things got trickier. She ran through the crowd as though she were playing a game of freeze tag where she was it. Tag a civilian, he was teleported off to Sanctuary. Tag a zombie, off to the dimensional pocket purgatory. Stesha rapidly lost count of how many of each she tagged, and she took a few tags herself, though nothing that would take her out of the fight. At least the sun was out, so the cuts and scrapes healed themselves quickly once she put down her hood and exposed her hair. If it had been nighttime, she'd have been in big trouble. When things got especially hairy, she whipped out the rest of her arsenal, wrapping and tripping zombies with long vines, throwing them into buildings, even animating the trees themselves to form a protective perimeter around her all-too-squishy human body.

It was a shock to suddenly turn around and find that there was no one left to save or fight. The downtown intersection she was in was empty in all directions, not a zombie nor a civilian to be found! She was sure it was pretty tight quarters in her sanctuary, to say nothing of the small dimensional pocket, but it would be okay for the moment. Exhausted and a little woozy, Stesha leaned against a lamppost and let the weak autumn sun beat down on her head. She'd done it by herself, she realized. The Freedom League hadn't been there, Derrick hadn't been there, Taylor or another hero far more powerful than herself hadn't been there. She'd come a long way since she'd first become a hero, and now she really could take on threats on her own. She really hadn't expected that achievement to make her feel so lonely.

No time to dwell on that now, though! With one last look around, Stesha teleported away, looking for another trouble spot that needed a hero of its own.