Annual 2002

CONTENTS

Wake Up
starring Siena Blaze
by Russ Anderson

Where No One Can See You
starring Feral
by Mike McGee

I'm In the Mood to Forget
starring Meltdown
by Alex Cook

Binding Force
starring Rictor
by Tom Lynch

The Last Gomi Story
starring Gomi
by Bill Kte'pi

I'm falling.

Reaper is screaming somewhere nearby--not like he's terrified, but like he's riding the biggest, wildest rollercoaster in the universe and it's turning him on to no end. The guy's crazy. Even after all the time we spent together in the Exiles, when I'm around him, I still get an idea of how people must feel when they're around me.

That Ultraforce guy, Black Knight, is probably around here somewhere too, but I can't see a damn thing in all this shifting color and light, and he's not making a sound. My body feels... liquid here, and my thoughts are hard to hold onto. Maybe we should have just stayed in that other universe. Told Maxis to stick it up his ass and just stayed where up is up and solid is solid. There sure ain't much back in my own world that's worth this much bullshit. Fitzroy, the Upstarts... like I give a damn about them. I'd wipe them off the face of the planet along with everybody else if they didn't provide some distraction every now and then.

Reaper sounds like he's about to blow a load in his pants, but I'm starting to get kinda bored. The ride isn't as wild as some I've been on, and I've never been the kind of girl to get all caught up in a bunch of pretty colors, you know. Hopefully this inter-dimensional transit thing doesn't take too long.

And then the colors rip open, and there's my world... only I'm hundreds of feet in the air and--fuck!--still falling, and Reaper and the Knight aren't anywhere to be seen.

I try to zap myself away, ride the Earth's electromagnetic lines to safety, but I need to concentrate to do that, and there's just no time.

I come down in a wooded area, and the last thing I see before a tree branch knocks me out cold are a pair of useless punks in black trenchcoats and sunglasses, looking up at me from the ground as I plummet toward them. One of them is smirking--I see this, even though you think I'd be preoccupied with falling to my death--and I understand that they could help me if they wanted to. They could keep me from falling.

Then awareness goes away for a while.

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is snow through a windowpane. The first thing I feel is excruciating pain. I moan something that tries to be "Ow," but ends up sounding more like "Ub".

A door opens, and I'd turn my head to look at it, except somebody's driving red-hot spikes into that spot where my neck and my skull meet.

"Hi," a man's voice says, and its owner walks into my sight. Dark hair, prominent nose, looks like he has a lean build underneath all that flannel and denim he's wearing. Cute. "Can you speak?"

"Water," I say, and he reaches beside my head to pour a glass from a pitcher that was sitting on the nightstand. Then he sits on the bed and holds it so I can lap some up.

"I found you out on the edge of my property," he says. "From the way the trees were smashed up, it looked like you'd fallen out of the sky."

I stare at him blankly.

"That was an interesting costume you were wearing too. What are you, part of an exhibition skydiving team or something?"

"Where am I?"

"About a hundred miles northeast of Fort Smith." The look I give him must be a blank one, because he clarifies. "Nova Scotia, near the Alberta border. Canada. Do you know who you are and how you got here?"

I start to tell him what a stupid fucking question I think that is... but then I close my mouth and let my eyes dart around the room, as if the sudden emptiness in my head can be filled with something in here.

"No," I say finally. "I have no idea."

The cute guy finally gets around to introducing himself as Martin Campo, a writer and bohemian who took advantage of a recent inheritance and moved from Ontario to Nova Scotia's frozen wastes. He was out checking on some traps when his dog--a mutt whose only recognizable lineage was from some sort of shepherd--sniffed me out. Martin hadn't wanted to move me, not knowing what my injuries were, but he'd chosen getting me out of the cold before an approaching blizzard hit as the lesser of two evils. I was unconscious more than a day, and in that time we'd become completely snowed in.

Martin's an okay guy, if a little too in love with talking about himself. I like the dog more, but the dog isn't nearly as good-looking.

And I honestly can't remember who I am. I remember light, and I remember a hooded reaper, sickle in hand, battling a medieval knight dressed all in black. And that's it. Sometimes there are other things--a lantern-jawed lunatic with green hair, and a huge brown-skinned hulk with his face hidden beneath a dome--but I can't tell if those are real memories or just phantoms.

We're cut off for at least a couple days while the blizzard blows itself out, and we spend that time getting to know each other. I tweaked something in my neck when I landed, but it doesn't seem to be anything serious. After a day, there's a little stiffness there, but otherwise I have full movement. Lucky.

Martin tries to be a gentleman--he's a helluva cook, I'll give him that, and he makes no complaints about doing it for two--but it quickly becomes clear he wants to fuck me. After dinner on the second night, I decide to go ahead and let him. Why not? It's not like I've got anything better to do until the storm blows over.

We're picking up after dinner, Martin going on about getting me down to Fort Smith day after tomorrow, when the snow's supposed to be gone, and getting me checked into a hospital, and I'm putting my plate in the sink and undoing the shirt he loaned me while he's not looking, and wondering if I want to play it coy or aggressive. And that's when I look up and see a teenage boy standing outside the window above the sink, looking in at me hungrily and completely unmindful of the snow roaring down on his head.

I scream and stumble backward, the shirt I'm wearing flopping open, and I hear Martin drop a plate onto the hardwood floor behind me. He asks me what the hell happened, but I'm already bolting for the kitchen door, ripping it open and stepping out into the snow before Martin can grab me.

The kid is gone, of course. Vanished in the snow, and here I am standing on the stoop in the middle of a blizzard in a thin button-up and a pair of baggy sweats. Gone... except there aren't any footprints in the snow underneath or around the sink window. And now that I actually look, that window is six-and-a-half feet above the ground. The peeping tom would have had to be well over seven feet to look in like he did.

When Martin grabs me and yanks me back into the cabin, I go limp and let him. It takes a few minutes to make him understand what I saw, but when I finally get it out, he looks from me to the window and back again. I see that he doesn't believe me, and why should he? I don't even remember my own name.

"Well," he says, "whoever he is, he's not getting far in this snow. Let me check the windows and doors, make sure they're all locked. Then I'm going to turn in for the night if it's all the same to you."

I've regained my balance a little bit, and as much as it grates on me, I do take some comfort from his offer to check the doors. My shirt is hanging open, and as I pull it closed, I make sure to flash a tit in his direction. It doesn't go unnoticed.

"I'll be waiting for you."

He nods. Then he moves off to batten the hatches.

The sex is good. Mm--god, whoever I was before I woke up in this cabin, it had been a long time since I'd gotten laid. Martin has to ease himself into me, and even then it hurts a little, but once it's in and once I'm into it, I roll him over.

I like being on top. I like the feeling of power, riding up and down on his cock and watching his face and knowing that he's completely my slave. He says something, something sensitive and loving, but I'm not listening. Instead I lean forward and slam myself down onto him as fast and as hard as I can. He cries out once, and I know I've hurt him, and somehow that makes it even better.

I'm going to come, going to reach that mythical moment where the woman actually beats the man to climax, and I bury my nails in his chest, feeling blood, and he cries out again, but he doesn't stop, just keeps giving as good as he's getting oh christ it feels so good better than anything and I'm--

The orgasm hits me, and I try to scream, but my scream is swallowed by an intense burst of light, brighter than the sun, a flash of heat and radiation that reduces Martin Campo--and his lovely penis and all his self-involvement--to ash.

The house is next, vaporized before it can explode. The surrounding forest and hillside, all consumed in a miles-wide flash of electromagnetic power. Nothing in that range has a chance to realize what's going on before its reduced to its component atoms.

And I'm still coming, writhing on the blackened glass that was the earth beneath Martin's cabin a few hearbeats ago.

I'm a mutant, I think dimly. Whoever I am, I'm a mutant.

"And one bad-ass bitch," I sigh, sagging finally, utterly naked as the snow begins to fall again. Lightning is breaking through the clouds even more freely than the snow, striking all over across the blasted landscape.

Martin Campo is gone, and I can't really say I miss him, good in the sack or not. All I can think at that moment is that I want to feel it again. I want to feel that explosion of power at the core of my being, so much deeper and more satisfying than any sex thing.

Impossibly, I can feel living eyes on me, and I know without looking that they belong to one of the kids, the ones I saw at the window, the ones I saw one other time that I just can't remember now. And I don't care. I just want the buzz.

So I reach deep, and I find the button, and both dreading and breathlessly anticipating the moment, I activate the power again.

Nova Scotia burns. But instead of just surviving the awesome outpouring of power, this time I'm whisked away, reduced to electromagnetic energy and sucked helplessly down one of the magnetic ley lines surrounding the planet. For one blinding moment, I understand exactly who I am and what has happened to me.

And then there's darkness again, tickled at the edges by a boy's prepubescent tittering.

<"It's a girl.">

<"It's a naked girl.">

<"Radiation has fallen to near-normal. Think it's safe to bring Senor Torres in here?">

A gloved hand falls on my bare arm. <"Yes, just tell him to keep his radiation suit on, for God's sake.">

Shuffling feet. I'm starting to come around, and there are men standing over me in clean white spacesuits. I don't understand a word they're saying... but at the same time I do. Almost like I'm watching a recording of my life, and somewhere between the event and the second viewing, I've learned their language. It's Spanish.

I'm still naked, but now the circle of charred earth I'm laying in the center of is only about ten feet across. Beyond the edge of the circle is grass and, beyond that, a cliff that dives down into the ocean. Horses move in nervous little bundles behind a fence.

<"Are you well?"> one of the spacemen asks, crouching down. His partner has gone to get somebody named Torres. <"Do you understand me?">

"Huh? Who are you? Where am I?"

<"Thank you Jorge, I'll handle it from here.">

The second spaceman has returned with a third, clothed in the same astronaut gear. This man is... gorgeous. Dark-skinned and mustachioed, young and clear-eyed. He crouches down next to me and smiles, and even through the suit that smile exudes sex.

<"Pretty,"> he decides. <"Quite stunning actually. Do you understand me?">

I look at him blankly. I really don't understand him, and yet I do. What the hell is going on here?

"How about now?" he says in perfect English. "Do you understand me now?"

"Yes."

"My name is Ricardo Torres," he says. "My family owns this land. My men reported an explosion on this spot several hours ago, and here you are. Who are you?"

"I--I don't know."

He looks at me like he doesn't believe me for a second, then nods and says, "Do you know how you came to be here?"

"No. I... please, can you give me some clothes?"

Torres gives me the elevator eyes one more time, then gestures to one of his men. The man--the same one who brought Torres here--turns and leaves.

"We'll find you something suitable," he assures me. "You are in Mar de Plata, not far from Buenos Aires. Are you aware at least that you are a mutant? My men believe this to be so."

"No." I look around, realizing that I must have caused this damage. "I couldn't have done this. I--"

"It is all right." He looked me over for a moment, not just scoping me this time, but thinking, calculating. "I believe we can be of help to one another, young lady. I am... something of a philanthropist, and yours seems like a sad story indeed. Tell me... you really have no idea what your name is?"

I start to shake my head, then something comes to me and I hesitantly say, "Campo. I remember the name Campo for some reason."

"A surname, probably. And no given name?"

"Mar..." I strain against my resistant memory, and finally I sag where I'm sitting. "Mar-something."

"Could it be Maria?"

I shrug. "Maybe."

"Then that's what we'll call you for the time being. Ah Luis, thank you." The second spaceman has returned with a white cotton robe, probably from the ranch house about a half-mile down the fenceline, and he hands it to Torres, who hands it to me. For a moment, my eyes are fixed on the house, and the pair of eyes, covered by sunglasses, that are staring at me through the place's side window.

"Come down to the house," he says, waving as I fasten the robe's belt around my waist. "I believe this may be the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship... Maria. The other members of my organization will certainly be glad to meet you."

"Organization?" I ask as he leads me out of the circle of scorched earth. "What organization is that?"

"The Hellfire Club," he replies, and his smile is like a wolf's. "Perhaps you've heard of them?"

A collage of images, a rapid-fire burst of events that mold into a seconds-long documentary of the weeks that followed. Working for (and sleeping with) Torres; meeting Roberto DaCosta at a Hellfire function while still in the grip of my amnesia; running off to Genosha with the Fallen Angels and Amelia Voght; allowing myself to be tricked into helping Magneto reclaim his powers. There's a long period of blackness after that, and then I wake from a coma in the middle of being raped, and I blast my rapist and the building I'm in to smithereens.

And now I'm here. In Magneto's Genosha, and I realize that I'm dreaming, and that somehow I've finally managed to break down the block on my memory. I finally know what happened between escaping that other universe, and waking up on that horse ranch in Argentina.

As the dream crumbles around me, and the light spilling in through my window pierces through and brings me to consciousness, I wonder... why now? Why did the memories come back now?

Elsewhere.

Chuck Garcia opened his eyes and sat up in the uncomfortable chair. On the bed next to him, his buddy Shane stirred and slowly rose back into consciousness.

Shane always had to come out of it after Chuck. The one time they'd tried waking simultaneously, Chuck had suffered a seizure. Made sense, since it was Shane's powers holding them in the dreamstate in the first place.

Still, it was a hard thing to explain to their parents. No mom, I wasn't taking drugs. I was surfing through celebrity dreamscapes with Shane. He's a mutant, y'see.

Yeah, that'd go over really good...

Chuck could hardly complain though. Ever since Shane had realized he had this mutant thing where he could will himself into people's dreams and to a small extent influence them, and after experimentation had shown that he could bring others with him, the two of them had been doing this almost nightly. Occasionally they had to resort to using sleeping pills Chuck had snagged from his mother's medicine cabinet--she never threw old prescriptions away, which as far as Chuck was concerned was just another example of what a possessive, controlling cunt she was--but once they were both knocked out, Shane had never failed to perform.

"That was fucking wild," Chuck said, as Shane sat up, massaging his forehead. "You see how much that bitch got naked?"

"Gave me a headache," Shane said.

Chuck snatched up a bottle of Tylenol they kept in Shane's room for just such moments and tossed it to him. "Man, I never even heard of Siena Blaze before tonight. That was a great idea, dude! Maybe we should try some more heroes and villains and shit."

"Like who?" Shane asked, dry-swallowing a couple of pills.

"None of those X-Men chicks, they're all psychic. Too much danger of getting caught. I don't know... somebody fine. Dude, I wonder what the Invisible Woman dreams about...?"

"From the Fantastic Four? Man, you have such a mommy complex."

"Tell me you wouldn't fuck Sue Storm, you lying bitch. Total MILF."

"Okay, we'll try her tomorrow." Shane laid back down and shut his eyes. "I think I'm gonna turn in for the night, dude. It's not as restful for me as it is for you..."

"Sure, bro." Chuck got up and grabbed his trench from the back of the chair, tucking his black shades into the breast pocket. "I want to hit the hay anyway. I'll see ya tomorrow."

Chuck went for the door, then paused and turned back. "You aren't gonna go after Storm without me, are you?"

His tone was only half-joking, but Shane chose only to pay attention to that half that was in jest. Without opening his eyes, he raised his middle finger in Chuck's direction.

That was good enough. "See you tomorrow, man."

And then he was gone, leaving Shane alone in his darkened room, alone with his own tormented thoughts. He and Chuck had been friends since before they could walk. Neither of them really had anyone else. Everybody at school hated them--hell, both of them were virgins. And when Shane's mutant abilities had kicked in, he knew the only person he could tell was Chuck. Not even his parents knew.

At first it had been fun, surfing through the most private thoughts of all the people they hated, finding out that the homecoming queen was strung out on diet pills, or that the school team's lead quarterback liked to sneak off to Dallas and hire prostitutes to fuck him up the ass with a strap-on. That the fat guidance counselor they were both saddled with dreamed of raping the girls under his charge. He sometimes thought that he and Chuck had been very, very close to pulling a Columbine on their school--they already wore the requisite black trenches and sunglasses, though even Shane suspected that was more a call for attention than anything else--but this power to invade their enemies' dreams had saved them from that fate.

But soon that hadn't been enough. They'd taken one bizarre spin through Chuck's mom's dreams at his request, and then they'd moved straight into celebrities. This superhero thing was new, and Shane idly wondered whom they'd move on to when they got bored of heroes.

Not that he intended to be here that long.

The Internet was abuzz with rumors about Genosha, the island Magneto had been given by the UN to make a mutant utopia. There were also rumors about a mutant powerhouse named Siena Blaze who many suspected was in Genosha--a single mutant that was at least as powerful as Magneto himself. Shane had chosen to go after her tonight to satisfy his curiosity on whether she was there... and also to get a look at Genosha. To see if maybe it was a place he might want to run to.

Because the more he and Chuck did this, the more certain he became that Chuck was becoming addicted to it. That, to Chuck, Shane was becoming a tool for getting his buzz on. In a way, that was worse than all the taunts and the backhanded snickers and everything else that occasionally made him want to go all double-barreled on his schoolmates.

He didn't know yet. He had to think about it. Running from San Angelo to some African island deep in the southern hemisphere would take some doing, even if he decided it was the way to go. But he thought in the meantime he might take a couple more trips into the dreams of some of its confirmed residents. Just to get some less garbled opinions.

As sleep--real sleep, not the artificial coma he dropped into when using his powers--crept up on him, his thoughts turned to Blaze again. He'd unlocked some door in her mind tonight, inserting himself and Chuck into her dreams like that, maybe released suppressed memories. And if what he'd heard about her powers was true, whether he lived in Genosha or not, if he'd accidentally given her some reason to use those devastating powers of hers...

Well, that made Shane very nervous indeed.

6/15

im really pretty fucking normal i think so anyway + fuck you if you don't think so because im A MUTANT + THAT MEANS THAT I AM DIFFERENT THAN YOU + YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME it feels so good + maybe you don't get it but thats why + they are cavemen they are fucking singlesell their blood their flesh is shit we are next level i am the new way to go i am the way of the future their blood is worthless but it tastes so fucking GOOD that

(page torn out)

6/17

I am terrified.

6/18

I dream about the pigeons a lot. I don't really see them ever, but you know the way that dreams are. I kind of hear this beating of wings and sort of see their eyes sometimes and I hear them screaming and then the whole world is just blood and feathers and then I'm choking to death on them and I'm trying to scream but I'm just strangling.

Then I'm dead.

(page torn out)

blood blood BLOOD its everywhere i cant stop coming!!!

6/20

When we lived in the Bronx, me and my sister and my mom lived with this guy who was a cokehead and a real creep besides. My dad was all into drugs, too; he was already dead of an overdose by then. Carolina, she was my other sister, she was dead also. She fell down some stairs. And my brother Matteo was also dead, he also fell. On top of our apartment building, I kept these pigeons. Matteo would always get after them, chase them around and stuff, even though I told him not to because it was dangerous and because I knew my pigeons didn't like it when he fucked with them. Matteo was a real fucking asshole. He was like 6 or something. Maybe he was older. I don't remember anymore. So anyway, he chased my pigeons, and eventually the stupid little fucker spilled over the ledge, just like I always told him he would. Stupid fucking Matteo.

So that left me and Lucia and mom and this other guy. He was a real fucking asshole. Maybe he was Matteo's dad.

I was 15 now + i looked like shit. i fucking hated myself + it was because that COCKSUCKER WOULD LOOK AT ME AND HE WOULD BE JUST LIKE HEY MARIA WHAT THE FUCK THAT HAIR IS SUPPOSED TO BE ON YOUR CUNT NOT ALL OVER YOUR FACE YOU UGLY FUCKING WHORE + THEN H

I was fifteen, and it was already starting to show that I was a mutant. Lucia was a mutant, too, but that wasn't as obvious yet, even though she was two years older than me. Lucia was maybe a little hairier than she really should have been, but she was still pretty. Her tits were huge.

So were mine. My ass was nice, too. Total J. Lo. But my tits and ass were covered in fur, so it was hard for other people to appreciate them as much as they maybe could have.

All mutant women have huge tits. I don't know what that means. Maybe we're supposed to have a lot of babies and take the fuck over. Probably.

6/21

One day I'm on the roof with my pigeons. I'm looking down over the edge, thinking about how this is where Matteo fell, like I sometimes do. I don't know if it makes me sad or what. There's a big busted in place in the sidewalk down below that got busted in when he hit. Sometimes I think it's kind of funny. Not like funny like Chris Rock funny, more like funny like, hee hee. You know, thinking about it. Splat.

Stupid little fucker. I told you.

I can just like totally lose track of time when I'm with my pigeons, and I guess this is what I do. The gentle beating of their wings. My pigeons, some of them, were pure white, like doves. You should have seen them. How beautiful they were. Most of them were gray, like any regular pigeon you ever see anywhere, and I loved them, too. Some of them were white.

I don't know why I'd gone up to see them. Though I loved them, I hardly ever went up on the roof to spend time with them unless something pissed me off downstairs, in the apartment. It could have been mom with her come to jesus bullshit. She got on that sometimes, Jesus up her ass, coke up her nose, 40s and some junkie asshole's dick down her throat. Fucking bitch. Fucking selfcentered bitch. FuckingFUCKING

joone

everthing is OK i didnt do it YES I DID little kids i wouldn't have im not that KIND OF

o god matteo i am so sorry

6/22

I hate the way he looks at me. He shouldn't have fucked me if he was going to look at me like that, after. I'm not a fucking monster. You should see some of the freaks on this island. How dare he look at me like that. Who the fuck is he. He better be careful. He better be very fucking careful because when you FUCK ME

(page torn out)

heard Lucia's scream from downstairs. When I got down there, the asshole cokehead motherfucker has her shirt torn open and he's slobbering on her boobs while she's crying and he's trying to stick his cock in but he's a fucking redwood and she's a virgin so there's blood but he's not getting in, her coochie is Fort Knox, and she's screaming and he's just getting more and more pissed off because he's coked out of his mind and wants to get in there so he can pork her but obviously it's not gonna happen without the jaws of life. And I say

Hey, shithead.

And he turns around with that curling lip sneer thing and I just bitchsmack that motherfucker straight across the room. Fucking faggot with his shirt unbuttoned to show his hairy faggoty chest with that crucifix up against his man boobs. He crashes into a mirror and is cut to shreds. His face is slashed all to shit. I start laughing. Lucia is crying. I say, Lucia, watch, this is gonna be so cool. I lick his blood off the back of my hand with my long long tongue. Why didn't I ever think of this before?

So dipshit Forrest Gump shitfucker decides he's actually gonna attempt to fight me or something. How he even gets up I don't know because his back should be broken, right? But I guess not, it's like I'm fighting Jason over here only it's not Jason it's a faggot cokehead child molester rapist and he doesn't even have a hockey mask on and, after he swings at me, now he doesn't have a right hand. He screams and I laugh some more and I'm like, oh, no, where did it go? Where'd your hand go? His blood's pumping out of the stump and I'm like Give the man a hand! I gotta hand it to this guy. Hey, you don't look so good, faggot raper crucifix coke man, could you use a hand?

So then I start eating the fingers off his hand + now he's REALLY starting to freak.

Lucia is screaming and crying and I just don't get it. I say Lucia, here have one of these fingers. But she is just not into my idea of a good time. Blood's burbling out of this guy's nose and if I licked it off I bet my lips would go numb. I say hey man you taste GOOOOOOOOD. He kind of does but I'm just saying it to play with his mind, like. He is super fucked NOW!! There's just no way he's gonna pull through. Like you know the odds of Tupac and Kurt Cobain one day co headlining a show its like those kinds of odds that this guy is not dead in like 15.5 seconds. Anyway he's crying + there is blood coming out of his nose+mouth+arm+I am just having a ball it can't be over yet no way. So I go

Hey man do you want to not die?

And he is kind of, gurgle, please yes. So I laugh at him. And I grab the big floppy and just start cutting it apart w/my thumbnail + make him eat it a little bit at a time. I don't think he really thinks I'm gonna not kill him he just doesn't have any choice but to eat his penis.

My psych out thing didn't really work see. I don't really bother anymore. You have to know your limitations and I am just not a subtle person.

Lucia says we have to get rid of the body and I say YEAH.

It's weird how she's so much more upset than I am. I guess I'm kind of let down because killing the dude started out as so awesome and then I don't know it just wasn't that great anymore. But that's all. I don't get feel weird, it's not like my brother, how he fell, I mean. Why should I feel bad? Lucia definitely shouldn't feel bad. Part of me feels like the whole thing with her feeling guilty or bummed or whatever probably makes her a better person than me but I wonder what Dr. Phil would say about that. Like she's a victim and she's blaming herself and of course that is total bullshit and the thought just makes me gladder that I killed him because he deserved to die. Not Dr. Phil, I mean. The junkie.

What we do is, we go to a place I know on the west side where there was a flood once. It was a big industrial building, which means that several stories of it were underground. When the main burst, all of those stories filled with water. Millions of dollars worth of shit were destroyed, and the company was out of business. They sealed off the main, but no one ever went back to work. So there are just levels and levels of this thing that are now underwater. And all the floors/ceilings have long since rotted away. It's like the Titanic. Only it's a building. And when we get there, I lash heavy stones to the various dismembered body parts, of which there are several. Separate from one another, I mean. And, one by one, I drop them into the drink. There's probably a fucking legion of the dead down there. I bet the mafia guys from the different families bump into each other here all the time.

Building shit underground is stupid. You aren't safe down there where no one can see you. Far from it.

6/24

I tell her it wasn't me with the kids. She doesn't even ask, but I know what people are saying about me. So I just come right out and say it. There are a lot of weird folks here in Genosha, okay? There isn't much of a screening process. I think I've proven myself quite the pillar of the community, thank you very fucking much.

She says, Maria, will you show me what you've been writing?

I say, I don't write nothing.

She says, I know it's been some time, so perhaps you've forgotten. After all, you and I have no regularly scheduled sessions...

And I say, no shit, because I don't wanna talk to your condescending ass. Magneto says I should, maybe, sometimes. Like maybe it would just be good for me because sometimes people who have been THROUGH A LOT OF SHIT, like me, need to talk to someone who isn't real judgmental (that's me being subtle with her, okay) about what makes them bummed. I don't think he thinks I'm fucked up or mental or anything. You know, because he clearly trusts me since I'm part of his activist force and shit, I don't think he would put me in that position if he thought I was someone who ate children.

She just goes, Okay. That's all very interesting, Maria. I think it's good that Magnus has shown that kind of faith in you; it must be highly beneficial to your self-esteem.

I'm trying to find the shitty hidden comment in there, but I guess I'm not sly enough. So I just shrug and I say back, Right on.

But (and I groan) I wonder what you feel about yourself. What do you think, Maria? What do you dream? What are your fears? Your loves? Do you know?

So I think about this for a minute, and I say, Huh?

Well, sez Princess Prozac, your work with the Fallen Angels is certainly in the service of a noble cause. No one could deny that.

I roll my eyes. Shit, a lot of people could deny that. That's why I'm constantly almost getting killed.

However, she goes. At the end of the day, it's still just a job. Real self-esteem doesn't come from an identification with one's occupation. Real love...love of yourself...

Look at my hairy ass, lady. Trust me, I know all about self-love.

I wanted you to write, Maria. Her eyes get all intense on me. I knew you wouldn't confide in a therapist. But I thought you might be truthful with yourself.

And then I can't look at her at all anymore.

I don't write nothing, I say.

6/25

Maybe I'm coming out of it. Whatever it was. I'm a little freaked, because there's a part of me that's dwelling on the notion that - if what's been happening with me is natural - then it's bound to recur. That, okay, just because it's never happened before, if it's happening now and it isn't because there's something wrong with me, then just because it seems to be going away doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot in the long run. It's cyclical. Am I gonna have to get spayed here or what?

The idea that I may periodically lose my shit until I hit menopause is not one I'm comfortable with. But...for reasons that go without saying...I can't exactly go to anyone for help. I mean, I will. I would. If it ever got that bad. I totally would.

I'm normal. You know, by mutant standards. Look, maybe it was just some quirk of the genes, some bizarre biological hiccup that just made me a little loopy for a minute. Shit, maybe I'm about to sprout a pair of wings or something. Maybe I never stopped mutating. Maybe this thing...this whole cat thing, the fur and all...maybe that was all just a phase. Maybe I'm growing out of it. Always darkest before the dawn.

Because I was never like this before. Never.

6/28

When Lucia and I came home, we found our mother covered in blood. Lucia screamed. God, she was always like that...like my little sister. I didn't scream, and I was the one who had reason to. My heart felt like it was going to explode in my chest. Because I knew.

I ran up the stairs, to the roof. But I knew. All the way to them, I knew.

I knew the smell of them. It was all over my mother.

She'd butchered them. All of them. It must have taken an hour.

In the background, far off in the distance, I could hear her shouting at me, like she always did. She'd followed me up to the roof. Lucia was behind her. Still crying. Pathetic fucking Lucia, so fucking weak. Like always.

I want you out of my home. You're an abomination, Maria. Both of you. I know what you did to Harry. You are not my daughters. Christ preserve poor Harry. God rest his soul. Etc.

I went so calm.

What about us? I asked her, stalking toward her. Me and Lucia. Do we come from God?

Then I tore my mother in half.

6/29

I love myself I love myself I love

(page torn out)

6/30

I see Siena coming out of the shrink's office. I don't know if I'm thinking of going in there or what, I'm just there. I've been there for a while. Siena does her kind of smile that isn't really a smile and says like, Hey, psycho bitch.

I say it back.

She says, I was talking out my shit when I just suddenly realized: Fuck everybody. You know?

I smile. For real. I say, Yeah. I think so, yeah.

She says, You're all right, Maria. I like you. Maybe fuck everybody except you and me.

I say, Sounds good. I'm not so sure about you, though.

She laughs. She goes, So, are you about to head in there and get fixed up like me?

I shrug. Nah, I say. I'm cured.

As I walk away, Siena goes, Hey, can I ask you a question?

I go, Is it Did you eat those kids?

She says, very casually, Actually, yeah.

I don't know, I say over my shoulder. What do you think?

I was cured, all right.

His eyes narrowed when she delivered her greeting. His brow furrowed, but nothing more was offered in way of reply to her comment.

"Keep the paw where it is and find out in an intimate way exactly what it would feel like," she finished, tired already of the conversation that had been only a one-way street thus far. Not many would even attempt to chat her up, much less openly fondle her glutes in public. Yet as the seconds tick by, this bag of useless meat kept his hand exactly where it was. A smirk blossomed on her face as she felt him tighten his grip on her.

"Boom," she whispered, glaring at him with a raised eyebrow. Not a way she normally used her powers, but Meltdown was feeling a bit creative.

With a howl of pain, the bars patrons were treated to a site many would remember for years to come. The man, a Hispanic gentlemen of the thirty variety, brown-hued skin beaded with alcohol induced sweat, leapt nearly four feet in the air. At the same moment, his arms, which until then had manhandled young Tabitha's flesh much longer then she desired, reached around to his back side. Anyone who had stood behind the Mexican native would have seen the miniscule conflagration that erupted from the area of the man's rectum. Now a bleeding orifice of immeasurable pain, he attempted to curse the blonde-haired woman where she stood in his native tongue, failing as the racking pain of his exposed nerve endings forced his attention elsewhere.

Tabby hadn't actually formed the bomb inside the man's intestines. She'd just sparked the thing in the fold of space between his fat ass and those rancid briefs, whose ashes were still floating to the ground. Moved his hand, didn't it?

"Another." She motioned, the dry shot glass without the whiskey it yearned to be filled with very much like her own gullet. She wished to drown herself and lose it for a bit, and this was turning out to be a very scenic route at that. The amber liquid sloshed the cup surface, much past the etched line the booze man had been filling it too earlier. If only she'd known earlier a little action would get her the better drinks.

All of it was a means to escape, something Tabitha knew very well. Fuck it, she surmised however. She deserved a little down time. Things had been of the extremely rough variety. A hand languidly ran itself through her short spiked hair, fingers nails clicking against her eyebrow ring as a means to ensure good luck. It wasn't the only piercing that adorned Tabby's body, some more visitable then others, and still some that were only shown in the privacy the acts of coitus brought about. Nonetheless, the eyebrow ring always seemed to be special to young miss Smith for some reason, the habit of rubbing it starting shortly after she received the impaling piece of metal. Tabitha explained it away as something simple. She, above all else, needed luck to survive the life she lead.

There were a million and one stories to be told in Genosha, the former New Mutants' new home. She wanted to hear, tell, or be part of none of them for a little while. Luck only carried someone so far, she had once heard.

It was luck that had kept her alive while others planned the services to bury Ariel's corpse.

The whole ordeal was a mess. Tabitha had gone searching out her old mates from the Beat Street days, but in the end had only lead one of them to their death. Bobby had lead the Fallen Angels on what was meant to be a clear cut act of arson and sabotage. On some levels it was a success. On many others, it was an utter failure.

Tabitha had never made apologies for the fact she was attracted to those with power. She would never admit to a living soul the turn on Professor X was originally, but still the fact remained. Her former pimp had power, power to beat her. Smith's attractions weren't always the best things for her physical well-being. Guthrie was more then sacking the leader, as much as Tabitha would rather not admit it. Such innocence was infecting, she guessed. The recent fling with Robert wasn't the same thing. There wasn't the connection Tabitha had with Sam.

The attack on the hospital had changed the way Tabitha saw Bobby however. He seemed so unfocused, pushing himself to react rather then control the situation. Yes, they had destroyed the bastard clinic and its mutant baby killing machines, but at what cost? The strain on the team that was still barely out of the egg Magneto had incubated for so long was almost more then its members could now bear. Wasn't it on the leader's shoulders to rally their troops and move them onward and upward, or some other patriotic dribble that Cyclops would have spouted? Meltdown knew that no matter what she had lost some of the respect she had for Bobby in the wake of the attack.

But she still wouldn't mind crawling back to his place tonight for a few hours of drunken fun.

Tabitha asked the nearly empty bottle of whiskey if that was because she wanted to sleep with him, or did she just want another notch in her belt for fucking the sense out of the team's focal point? The burning liquid held no answers for her.

Sleeping with Professor X would have never been this confusing.

Everything was so damn confusing now. Gathered together as they were by Erik Lehnsherr from the ashes of the former X-Force, the Fallen angels were Genosha's answer to their constant trials and tribulations. A direct approach was chosen over a more lax avenue of action, with Magneto spearheading a group of, well, terrorists, in the hopes that shocking the world will make them finally see the Truth.

When did that become killing civilian doctors? Tabitha thought she had understood and shared Magneto's vision. Might makes right, Tabitha always thought. Diminutive in stature, the female mutant more then made up for her lack of imposing frame with her icy
glare and megatons of explosive power at her fingertips. She was used to the forward method of human interaction. She relished in a frank conversation between two people.

This still seemed wrong, at its core. Something about it put a bad taste in her mouth. Every time she recalled the image of Robert enraged and fully powered up, she forced the bile back down. And now her little terrorist cell had cost a friend their life.

Her war torn, exhausted voice croaked one final time, lost of all the malice and control she had shown not half an hour previously. "Crack open another bottle, partner. I'm in the mood to forget."

He sat at the window of his room in Avalon Tower, staring out at the land of Genosha around him. Life could suck sometimes…

Like when your friends weren't what you thought they were - that one was Bobby's fault. Madre de dios, but what the hell was taking on their old buddies all about? Was Bobby going through some kind of…J.E. shrugged. He didn't know what. Had it been some kind of grudge match? Or - he grinned - some kind of penis size competition, like Tabby'd probably call it?

What the hell had gotten into Bobby? The only good thing he'd done recently was agree - finally - to go looking for 'Star. And that had taken him long enough to get around to…

J.E. shook his head. This wasn't a good time to be thinking about the present. He let his mind, accordingly, drift to the past…

"Fight back then, mutie!"

Julio rolled his eyes and tried to keep on walking, tried to ignore the - rather pathetic - punches of the Mexico City drunks. Some week off work this was…

"Come on, fight! What're you trying to hide?"

The real kicker, of course, was this; this motley crew of Neanderthals didn't even know he was a mutant. He'd just spoken up for a more egalitarian view of things, and that clearly meant he was a mutant. After all, who would be a sympathiser if they didn't have something to gain by it?

He should never have come home, come to visit his mom, on holiday. It reminded him how much damn prejudice there was where he'd grown up.

But then, what the hell could he do about that? You couldn't hit prejudice until it surrendered, only prejudiced people. And they'd then take that and twist it inside them, turn defeat into resentment into anger into more prejudice, which they'd pass onto their children - oh, yeah, you couldn't hope it died in the fight either, because there'd be another one along in a minute…

The Professor's dream, in all it's varied forms, had been going long enough that Rictor was beginning to wonder if he'd missed this flaw in it, or whether he knew something the rest of the X didn't that he wasn't planning on telling them, something that made it all make sense to him, made it possible…

Irritably, he reached out through the soles of his feet and shook his attackers off their feet, carefully, mildly, and kept walking. Behind him, chilled, no doubt, by the sight of a mutant with a backbone, they lay sprawled where he had sent them, and watched, none of them willing to be the first to resume the attack.

J.E. stopped his remembrances abruptly. There it was, he thought. Remembering the way he felt under the pathetic human assault, remembering the thoughts that had burned so brightly, so angrily, through his mind…

There, if he was only honest with himself, was the seed that had eventually brought him over to Magneto's side. Because he realised now that what the Professor had had that made it all seem possible was very simple. Just one word.

Faith.

And Rictor didn't have faith anymore. He thought of his father, atheist through much of his adult life until a sudden turnaround, a re-embracing of the Church into his life…

And he wondered if, one day, he would walk away from Magneto back to the X-Men, to Sam or whoever was leading them by then, and renounce all this the way he'd renounced the Professor for the Angels.

The answer left him cold. He didn't know, couldn't honestly say.

He stood abruptly, no longer in the mood for reminiscence, and made his way out of his room and along the corridors of the tower. His mind was reeling - he needed some way to shut it off for a while, to just submerge himself in enjoyment until it cleared itself of the problem subjects. Because, hell, he didn't want to be miserable all the time, no one did.

I'll tell you what'd be good for that, Ric, a treacherous voice in the back of his mind whispered. Sex. If you hadn't screwed it over for yourself, anyway…

Rictor shuddered to himself. He really, really, hadn't wanted to be reminded of Feral. Of course, being reminded had one major advantage… He could remember to try to stay out of her way, just in case she was looking for an action replay. That was one problem he really didn't want to have to deal with. The others… Hell.

He stopped abruptly. This sort of thing, when it came right down to it, was exactly why he hated introspection, hated opening himself up to be examined. When he saw himself for who he actually was, he had no excuse not to do something about it. He had no reason not to deal with whatever his current problems might be. But, of course, there was a reason those problems were still there, and it was a nice simple one: he didn't want to deal with them enough to actually deal with them, didn't want to think about them. Didn't want to accept that he was flawed on such a seemingly major level when, hey, he functioned fine even with all this crap, provided he didn't examine himself, didn't he?

If he accepted there was a problem with Feral, that meant he had to do something to try and fix it. And he really, really didn't want to figure out how the hell he was going to deal with…with that.

So he kept walking, instead, heading down for Chlorophyll's garden…no. Bad idea. OK, the mess hall then. More chance of running into one of the ex-Acolytes, so more chance of getting into a fight, but he wasn't going to immediately be reminded of…. Yeah. Anyway.

Don't think about Feral.

Don't think about Feral.

Don't. Think. About. Feral.

Goddammit, don't think about her!

Oh, nice going, Julio. That's working.

Into the cafeteria he goes, then. Don't think about Feral, don't wonder if 'Star's alive… Well, actually, yeah. Wonder if 'Star's alive, because that one's actually important, hell of a lot more than fucking an overgrown cat, and besides now Bobby's agreed to do something about it it's a problem you can think about, because you ain't powerless against it. You can do something. So…

Oh, crap.

No, he isn't going to think about 'Star. More immediate things on his mind, now… Unuscione.

Rictor's life these days seems to consist of asking himself questions that don't have answers. What's with Bobby? What the FUCK is the situation with Feral? And, even more unanswerable than that last one, what the hell was Magneto thinking when he decided the Acolytes needed a public spanking like that?

"Former most favoured children? Meet the prodigals. Oh, and by the by…you suck."

"Hey, Quaker," Carmella said, almost slinking toward him. "What're you doing today?"

Ric blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Still slinking. Was she trying to hit on him all of a sudden? If so, why? What'd he do so wrong that this was happening?

And then she got close enough he could properly read her facial expression. Nope, that wasn't a hope of seduction…she was just really, really looking forward to kicking the crap out of him.

So he quaked the floor. Nothing major, just enough to knock her off her feet, give him time to…well, leave, and get help. That done, he turned to go. But…

Half-turned now, something caught his eye. Unuscione not going down. How - His gaze travelled lower, caught her feet.

Well, that was a new one. There was that psionic armour of hers, and she'd formed it into crampons, holding fast on the floor.

"I learned a new trick or two," she said, grinning. "You're going to get it now, Shakes."

Oh, great. Think fast now, Ric…

The tables.

"Yeah, right," he said, letting his power out through his feet again, reaching out, this time with a directional quake, left to right. Unuscione shrugged, stepped forward, and Rictor actually grinned.

Because an action like that meant she hadn't seen what was coming. Which meant, hopefully, that she wouldn't get her armour up in time.

And, frankly, decking someone who called herself Untouchable had to be worth fairly major bragging rights, let alone meaning that he avoided a beating.

To his left, Aaron Sleddin looked down confusedly at his food. A mutant who saw in infra-red, he had come to Genosha purely because the only other alternative was Topeka. It could hardly be said that he was equipped for action, which was largely why he was trying to pretend that El Presidente's fighters weren't gearing up to go at it six feet away.

Which was the main reason he noticed it first.

Everyone else in the room heard it the same time he did, heard the low, juddering build-up that signified Rictor was using his powers - but Unuscione was still upright, still going, so they figured it was nothing.

But Aaron saw his plate bounce three inches to the right. And then again. He reached out and picked up his plate before it got any further, and watched the table continue it's migration.

Picking up speed now as Ric boosted the quake intensity, it skittered toward Unuscione, who continued forward, blissfully unaware. He was hardly watching her; most of him was concentrating on his peripheral vision, watching the tables' progress.

Waiting for the time to be right.

And then it was, and Ric gave the quake an even bigger jolt, flipping the table up and onto Carmella's head with a thud.

She stepped backward, a little dazed, a little shaken, but Ric had seen the flare of green. He knew it hadn't been quite the surprise he'd hoped for, knew she'd got her shield up just in time to take the worst of it.

So he turned and ran.

What to do, what to do…Rictor's mind tore through plans as he scrambled downstairs. He didn't, in truth, have that many options; he certainly couldn't unleash his full power in a building owned by the guy who currently housed, fed and employed him, even if that man couldn't turn off his bioelectric field by thinking about it. And, being honest, he couldn't really trigger a full-force quake anywhere on Genosha, which left him with his natural intelligence and fighting ability.

Against a mutant with a dangerous offensive capacity.

See, this was what normal human beings saw as a major problem with the whole mutant thing. Unfair advantages, basically.

On the other hand, normal humans had those compared to other normals, so maybe Rictor could pull this back by thinking along those lines. So. What did he have that was better than Unuscione's?

Worryingly, it seemed to be the Professor's voice that chuckled in his head: "Use your mind, Julio."

Gotcha…

Of course, his last plan to take her down had…kind of…not worked at all. But hopefully some analytical thinking would pinpoint the flaw in that one.

Which had been, simply, that she'd seen it coming. An attack that she couldn't see coming was in order, then.

What wouldn't she see coming? Well, again from that last plan, she was slow to spot anything that wasn't a direct attack on her.

So what about something that wasn't, strictly speaking, an attack?

The lightbulb popped on at roughly the same time he exited Avalon Tower.

"Quickly, Robin! To the beach!" he muttered under his breath.

Because, after all, there was somewhere on Genosha he could use his powers, wasn't there? Somewhere it shouldn't cause any property damage, and would only act to get a certain someone out of his way.

Ric couldn't help but grin. What were normals complaining for? All it took was a little thought, and you could get your ambush in right there…

The good thing about Hammer Bay, as was indicated by the way it had Bay in the name, was that it had a beach. A nice, sandy beach…

A nice, sandy beach which, with a little quake, could be persuaded to open under Unuscione and hold her down while he left.

Rictor's grin widened.

Back in his room now, Rictor grinned out of the window. Bobby had just been on the horn about the 'Star excursion, and that meant he could keep his thoughts from the other problematic issues…the ones he couldn't deal with.

It was that time of year again. With the changes to the weather, deprived of the usual sensory clues of climate and that certain angle of the light, he'd almost forgotten. Gomi's life had changed a lot in the decades since that day, and he'd left behind the teenager, grown up, and awoken one day to find himself an old man, but some things, you had to hold on to em. Some days, you had to set aside the now, set aside who you were at the moment, and fulfill promises you'd made when you were somebody else.

Bill clacked along beside him, a blue lobster impossibly old, unnaturally old, tall tale old: if he was swimming in the Atlantic, off the coast of Maine, instead of scurrying wearily along the Genoshan coast, he'd be "the one who got away," the one grizzled incoherent lobstermen mumbled about over creamy clam chowder and Narragansett, the one young men staked dreams on, the trickster. Gomi had never been to Maine, but Bill had told him about it, the tales he'd heard from other lobsters. More of them were intelligent now -- not as intelligent as Bill, but a lot smarter than any muck-crawling crustacean was supposed to be.

No offense, Bill.

The old man sat down on a salt-crusted rock, wobbly knees hunched together as he unfolded the book over them. He still used books. He wasn't one of those old-fashioned types who refused to embrace modern technology -- there would be too much irony in that, considering the devices swimming in his veins and drilled into his bones to keep him alive -- he just liked books. Simple packaging with boundless contents.

"Ready, Bill?"

The blue lobster clackclattered along the rocks and settled himself down at Gomi's feet, exoskeleton easing in something that passed for a lobster sigh. Gomi nodded, and began to read the first passage.

"Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare,
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound."

Gomi's voice faltered on the "tremulous sound," and he fell silent for stretching minutes marked by the tide breathing back and forth against the rocks, in and out, lapping gradually further away. A blur of green reflected off shimmer of the Indian Ocean, and Gomi sighed. They'd just have to wait. He wasn't done yet.

He flipped through the book, fingers remembering their destination out of years of habit, the pages yellowed from pollution and rippled from cumulative circumstance. "'Will you walk a little faster,'" Gomi began, and the howl burst up behind him.

He didn't need to turn around to know what he'd see: Hulklings, pleather-jacketed cannibals with sea-green skin, an adolescent legacy of a radiation-mad President Banner's attack on Genosha. Gamma babies. Barely intelligent, but who knew if that was genetic or environmental. They were shot on sight if they happened into a secure area, but most roamed free, around the fringes of civilization, feeding on what or who they could find.

"You're interrupting something important, children," Gomi said quietly. "I don't have time for you."

The howl rose up again, and sand scuffled as feet propelled from the ground. "Will you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly?" Gomi recited. He raised a hand, and a psychokinetic wind rose up, slamming into the Hulklings like an airborne wall, holding them in place, squirming like angry hornets with their wings pinned. "That's from a poem. 'The Spider and the Fly.' Mary Howitt. Lewis Carroll's 'Lobster Quadrille' is a parody of it." With a nod, he sent them sailing to the far end of the beach, sand billowing out in huge gusts and spinning into spouts which dance along the coast. "'Blow, winds! Crack y'r cheeks.' Shakespeare. King Lear." He waited until he heard their whimpers subside as they withdrew, and reached down to pat the lobster on the claw. "No one reads anymore, Bill. Now I've lost my place."

"'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail.
'There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle - will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?'"

Together they remembered Don, Bill's green-skinned brother, killed by a dinosaur in one of those things that seemed important at the time. They focused not on the moments of incompleteness they'd felt since, not of the things he'd missed out on, but of the time they had spent with him, swimming, telling jokes, playing backgammon.

"'You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!'
But the snail replied 'Too far, too far!' and gave a look askance -
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance."

Each thought to himself how old the other looked, how the erosion of age had worn him smooth, leaving no more edges, nothing but curve and polish. Each had lived longer than he should have, against the odds, and each had lived lives cycling through impulse, inaction, and regret. Each, at the end of the day, had had none but the other as constant companion.

"'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied.
'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France -
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?'"

Gomi closed the book, held it between his hands for a moment as he bowed his head, hair hanging in his eyes, and murmured, "We miss you, Don." He could feel their footsteps in the sand, approaching again. More of them now. They hadn't retreated, only sought their brothers' aid. "Bill? Do you want to say anything?"

The blue lobster didn't move. Didn't clack. Didn't clatter. His claws sat unseeking in the sand, his antennae limp. Without a word, Gomi lifted his friend with a psychokinetic blanket, placing him in the sea where the tide would bring him to the shore upon the other side. He left the book on the rocks, gathered his hands into fists, and turned towards the roaring pride of Hulklings who spilled on to the beach like sand crabs, blood frothing in their mouths, too many teeth too sharp flecked with red. Overlapping psychokinetic shields surrounded him like armor. "'Oh no, no,' said the little Fly," Gomi recited, deflecting the first of hundreds of blows. "'To ask me is in vain. For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again.' Poetry, children. Howitt again. Now will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

- Fin -