Androgyne/April Fool

For the second consecutive year, the Perspectives writing series presented a "Marathon" challenge in May. Instead of the usual single writing prompt for the month, Yuki Frost's player put up a new topic every 5 days, along with a bonus topic for a grand total of seven. I missed out on all of the previous year's, but this time managed to bang out a story for each before the following topic went up. After realizing I'd done it unconsciously for the first two, I tacked on a personal challenge that surprisingly made it easier to get the ball rolling when I sat down to write: starting each story with the same sentence.

This was the first thing that came to mind when the "Hero, Interrupted" topic was posted, inviting stories about our characters' hero responsibilities interfering in normal life. At the time it was played out, a Vanguard alert provided the perfect clean exit from an emotional scene, so I figured this would make for an interesting twist on the topic: an interruption the character was grateful for.

Brickstown. April 1st, 2010.

Ready or not, here I come... Ani looked down at eir suit and realized how inappropriate it was to what lay ahead as the door behind em drifted closed, just in time to cut short a choked sob from inside the apartment.  Definitely not ready, but eir Vanguard medallion hadn't been reactivated yet, so there wouldn't be any summoning of eir armor, and e didn't have time to return to the Citadel and suit up if e was going to help.  Despite eir well-known flamboyance, the delight e took in the lack of wardrobe restrictions eir androgyny lent em, Ani didn't tend towards formal wear.  Still, of the few suits e owned, this was one of the nicest, surpassed only by the Italian number Beth had given em for eir birthday last year.  Coal black with a dark lavender silk shirt, it was loose-fitting but well-tailored to deaccentuate the hardest edges and softest curves of Ani's physique without committing eir silhouette too far in either direction.

The last time e'd worn the black and lavender suit had been 15 months and a week ago, the day e first set foot in the Citadel of Defiance, invited by Static Bolter when e was accepted for review with the Reciprocators.  E'd wanted to put eir best foot forward, so put on eir finest and had eir hair cut short and neatly styled, thinking it made for more of a "good-guy" look.  That night turned out to be the first time e met Margaret Lee Jesska, Cyberette.  Today e'd donned it again in a fit of sentiment, a symbolic gesture of eir return to legality, the Sword, and the Reciprocators as of a few days prior.  Instead, e found emself wearing the suit as a bookend, wearing it again as e closed the same chapter of eir life e'd never expected to have opened in the first place.

Eir legs begged to run but Ani denied the urge as e stalked stiffly down the maroon-carpeted hallway, more focused on bringing eir quickened breathing back under control.  E felt more tears beginning to escape and rather than raise a sleeve to wipe them away, e let eir eyes ignite with the sickly green shine of eir radiation, the heat it emanated causing the tears to evaporate before they spilled.  The sight of eir powers elicited a gasp from a curious neighbor who must have been watching the hallway through their peephole, and Ani heard them stumble back behind their door.  Had eir mind not been a swirling cyclone of regret and uncomforting relief, perhaps e would have noticed that despite the sounds of activity, no thread of fate twisted through the door to whoever was on the other side.  Ani picked up speed as e neared the elevator, breaking into a jog as eir legs steadied, and snapped a hand forward to delve eir fingers into the mass of unknown threads in front of em and throw emself along them out into the night.

Hand over hand the Androgyne flung emself due north along a mass of threads that invited em skyward.  E guessed the newly manifested rope of intertwined threads represented eir connection to the Rikti in one of the dropships now piercing the barriers over Galaxy City.  Glimpses of the city flashed around the edges of eir perception as e drew emself in instantaneous slides ever closer to them, that oppressive awareness of the Zig that always stayed with em in Brickstown giving way in a flash to the industrial sights and smells of the lower Row, the comforting familiar brick and iron of eir home, High Park, the warehouses and clean streets of Galaxy, now littered with the debris of the Rikti's bombing run.  Here, the sky churned a hideous green, poisoned by the exhaust of the Rikti's invasion fleet.

E drew emself into the heart of Galaxy without even thinking about it, and was only brought back to conscious awareness of eir surroundings when the threads in eir hand abruptly fanned apart into a broad cone pointing down towards Freedom Corps headquarters.  The Rikti had launched their ground assault against the heroes beginning to gather to meet the invasion, and Ani realized e had threaded to within only a hundred feet of the dropship that had been carrying this squadron.  The dropship noticed em as well, and their gunner was quick enough on the trigger to launch a plasma burst from their cannons into Ani with such force that e felt half the skin on eir body seared away and lost nearly all sensation in eir left side. E plummeted, too dumbstruck by the pain to scream, and slammed into the ground in the middle of the battle beginning below with a wet crunch e heard from within over the screams of blaster fire.

Lying in a broken heap on the ground as battle raged around em, the glow in eir eyes extinguished, Ani stared at the flickering of the threads of fate binding em to the Rikti troops all around em.  Though eir right arm could barely move, eir fingers curled, and by eir will more than the physical effort several of the threads drifted into eir grasping fist.  Eir arm spasmed as e drew on the threads to haul emself upright, moving the state of eir body an instant backwards in time in relation to those e would face this night, and surged up from the ground whole and unhurt as the effort tore to tatters the threads of the Rikti surrounding em, freeing interdimensional detritus that wreaked havoc on their senses and left them staggering in a daze.  The heroes into whose midst Ani had fallen took advantage of the resurrection's after-effects to down several of he Rikti, but already the whine of teleporters indicated more reinforcements were coming.  Ani's eyes reignited, and e took a look down at emself.  E was nearly literally half-naked, the left side of eir suit reduced to charred ribbons.

A searing wave of radiation burst from Ani's skin and the drones providing suppressive fire scattered, some exploding in place while others careened away from the fight due to the scrambling of their targeting sensors.  A conscript charged em and e simply stared at it as it raised its sword, intending to cleave em in two where e stood.  Snapping eir wrist, e made a quick jump along its thread to behind it, and as it swung through suddenly empty space e wrapped eir hands around its head and released eir corruption into its face, through its skull and brain at full strength.  It let out a high-pitched gurgling scream, then crumpled to the ground, wearing a crude incomplete mimicry of Ani's face where eir hands had pressed over its own face, distorted even further by the elongation of its skull.  E didn't stop to admire eir handiwork as e often did, eir eyes fixed instead on the threads lashing around em and e turned away to seek the next invader e would ruin this night before that one had finished collapsing.

The skies cleared over Galaxy, the soft omnipresent hum of the War Wall forcefields returned as they were brought back online, the Rikti fled, teleporting away their dead and wounded.  Ani and several less experienced heroes who had been swept up in the invasion response stood victorious.  Though e had fought alongside them, most of them kept their distance, eyeing em warily after the radioactive hell e'd unleashed on the invaders.  Ani turned eir face up to the once again black and starlit night above, ignoring the cold night air against eir skin where little remained of eir suit, chest heaving as e panted for breath.  Staring at the quickly fading silhouettes of the fleeing dropships, Ani nodded to emself and for the first time silently thanked the Rikti.  E'd never been more grateful for an interruption in eir life.