Nov 5, 2025
Ok this was in my inbox on mobile, but not desktop.
So a belated thank youbfor the Halloween boop.
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Morocco
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from Tunisia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Russia
seen from Russia
seen from Canada
seen from Netherlands
seen from China
seen from China
seen from China
seen from Kazakhstan
seen from Malaysia
seen from Poland
Ok this was in my inbox on mobile, but not desktop.
So a belated thank youbfor the Halloween boop.
You should have an example on your notes now; super boop, evil boop, and boooooooo
There's a reason I never look at my notes, even just a few moments later I can's see unless I open up the actual page
There was about a 3 week period after I had to pull this blog out of storage where I could keep up with them, lol.
https://people.com/director-david-lynch-dead-78-8683692
David Lynch has died at the age of 78, his family announced on Jan. 16. The visionary director was best known for creating 'Twin Peaks'.
Oh no, this one hurts.
Not unexpected but damn, this one hurts
GDI
F
This is one of the few uses of AI art that I approve of, nobody is trying to fool anyone, we just have a giant fluffy pacca bringing the happy.
That would be the worlds most wonderful pillow right there
My buddy's family just adopted this Great Pyrenoodle. His name is Biscuit.
what a extraordinarily precious little bean, I think it would be incredibly difficult to not just cuddle the daylights out of Biscuit if I were within cuddling distance.
Chapter 2
Oh Look! More People!
All right. Let’s start over.
The streets of Dun Hal were grey and somber that morning, as the early fog of the day hung in the air like a shroud. Felicia rested her elbows on the sill of one of the wall’s hatches, staring out onto the dusty road that she had grown up on. The mist hid her view of much beyond a few houses over, obstructing her view of the town’s great (and only) tree. All in all, it was a miserable morning for what was going to be, in Felicia’s opinion, a miserable day.
“Close the hatch and get your bags, it’s almost time to leave,” a lilting voice called from somewhere behind her.
Felicia sighed and obeyed her mother. The wooden shutters closed with a ratchety clatter, which reminded her yet again that her mother had promised a full five moons ago to fix, and had still not gotten around to it.
“Actually, Ma, I think the window hatch needs fixing,” She called as she slid off the bench in front of the hatch and ducked under one the constellation charts hanging from the ceiling, “But don’t worry. I can take care of it, no problem—”
“And miss the Waypoint?” Her mother asked a bit wryly, coming out of the depths of her workshop with a few last odds and ends to add to the pile of bags by the door. “Nice try, kid. Vantos isn’t getting rid of you so easily.” She bent over to shove her armload into a bag, knocking over a pile of books in the process.
“I don’t see why I have to go in the first place, Ma,” Felicia complained, attempting logic where misdirection had failed. “It’s not like I can’t study here or anything.”
Felicia’s mother knelt down to restack the precarious pile of books. “True,” She nodded amiably as if considering the point. “But getting to go to Vantos is an incredibly rare and valuable opportunity. Not to mention that you’ll learn much more from there than from anywhere I could send you here.”
“But it’s a school for the important kids! The ones who are going to become the Wanderers of the future or whatever. I’m about the farthest there is in Illun from that—I don’t belong there.”
“You passed the Libre’s tests, Flower. That’s all you need.” Her mother gave up on stacking the books and stood up, accidentally hitting her head on some of the strings of spare pegs that hung from the ceiling. “Who knows—maybe all the little pieces of my dimensional charts you ate as a toddler—“
“Mom!”
“—actually gave you latent wanderer abilities or whatnot. Dur knows your father didn’t,” Her mother muttered.
Felicia elected to pretend she hadn’t heard that last bit.
“Here,” Her mother said, tossing her a small circular disk. “I made a couple modifications to this. All the math I’ve done in the last few days points to the existence of a massive dimension right under…”
By this point, Felicia’s hearing started to fade out as she stared at her mother’s moving lips absentmindedly, zoned out to whatever new calculation had been discovered this time. It wasn’t that Felicia thought her mother’s work wasn’t interesting or important, it was just that, well, she talked about her new discoveries nonstop. Felicia had already heard all the details about the new theoretical massive dimension that was calculated to exist on an opposite rotational axis of theirs no less than six times, three of them during breakfast that morning. It was getting boring.
Felicia realized that her mother had stopped talking and was now staring at her with an odd expression on her face. This might not have been the best time to zone out.
“Uh. What is it, mom?” She asked, hoping that her mother hadn’t just asked her a question.
Her mother swooped in for an abrupt hug. “My baby’s going off to school in another dimension!” She said in that tone all mothers use when their child goes off to preschool or whatever the equivalent in this dimension is.
“Mooooom,” Felicia complained, worried that if she had already gotten this emotional in the house, it would be far worse at the Waypoint. “It’s not like I’m leaving on an interdimensional expedition. I’ll be back in less than a Span.”
“No, but one day you will be on that expedition, mark my words. Or doing something no doubt just as important and exciting.”
Felicia opted not to bring up at this time that her plans for the future involved operating a prank letter business.
“I’m sure I will, mom,” She replied instead. “It’ll seem like no time—time. Shoot.”
She rushed to pull on her bags. “The Waypoint is opening in a few clazons, Ma!” She exclaimed.
“Shoot!” Her mother exclaimed, having forgotten as well. They both tore out the door and down the street, towards the great tree that also happened to be the town square.
Waypoints were not usually located in plains towns, or any town in general, but there were enough now that any town who qualified to send more than 4 students to Vantos could temporarily host one just for the day the students left. Felicia, as it happened, was the lucky fifth from Dur Hal.
As they scrambled into the town square, the families of the other four students , as well as those of students from surrounding, less qualified towns, looked at them irritably for disturbing the sluggish calm of the mist that morning. Fortunately, the other students were still with their families, so the Waypoint had not opened yet.
“You know,” Felicia’s mother whispered to her, “I’ve always theorized that there are some Wanderers strong enough to travel between dimensions without needing Waypoints to guide them. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Yeah,” Felicia agreed automatically. “Not that it does much for people like us.”
Her mother nodded somberly. “True. We can at least be glad that Waypoints allow us to travel from here to Vantos without needing to be Wanderers.” She sighed. “You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back. The first one of our family to travel between worlds!”
Felicia sighed.
There was a murmuring in the other families, and then a gap opened in the crowd. A tired-looking official in traditional Libre robes came through the impromptu path made by the crowd’s seperation, carrying in her hands an odd lump wrapped in fabric.
Felicia’s mother gripped her hand so tightly she thought her knuckles might touch together.
“The Waypoint!” Her mother whispered excitedly, as if she didn’t see one any time she went to one of the major cities. “Hold up, I have to get some notes on this.”
She dug through her own satchel and pulled out one of her many notebooks and a small opaque stone, scratching down some readings or whatever it was she was using the stone for. Felicia never had been sure of it’s purpose.
The official sighed and set down the parcel on the short column in the center of the square, unwrapping it without much ceremony.
Her mother leaned forward in anticipation as the layer of fabric came off, revealing—
A small, dusky crystal the size of Felicia’s fist.
“Oh…” her mother said. “Well, they’ve certainly…” She seemed to be trying to think of something positive to say. “It’s a Waypoint, that’s for sure.”
Felicia had only seen one or two Waypoints in her own life, unlike her mother, but both of them were much bigger than the sad excuse for a paperweight that was set before them now. Those actually looked like they could somehow be gateways to other worlds—they were huge, and flashy! They were so multifaceted that despite being, well, crystal clear, you couldn’t see more than a hair’s breadth inside before it was too distorted to see. Most importantly, Waypoints always seemed to shine like they had a light stuck in them, no matter how dark it was.
This pathetic thing was not any of that. It was a rock.
“My goodness,” her mother mused. “I had heard that the Libre had recently made some budget cuts for smaller towns, but I didn’t know they had gone this far.”
“I’ll bet you two muffins that one of the Walker family makes a huge fuss about it,” Felicia muttered so only her mother could hear. Her mother didn’t even have time to comment before Felicia was proved right.
“What is the meaning of this, Official?” Magister Fengari blustered as he shoved his way to the front of the small crowd from the back, where he had been talking with some tall guy.
The Official put on a monocle and looked at him, a bland expression on her face.
“Budget cuts, Magister,” she said in a nasal drawl. “Until further notice towns under six thousand get old models.”
“Towns besides Dun Hal, you mean,” The Magister corrected her. “After all, we can hardly trust the safety of Eluia’s two next bright stars to…” he looked down his nose at the sorry excuse for a Waypoint—“that, now can we?”
The Official blinked very slowly.
“Yes.” She finally said.
The Magister inhaled sharply, pushing the toes of his shoes together and lifting his heels off the ground in the process. Felicia sighed and quietly rolled her eyes. Here came the long rant.
“I’ll have you know, Official, my children are on track to become the next greatest leaders since the time of the Great War! My son Samuel—” The son in question, a lanky twit with shocking blond hair and a smug expression permanently plastered to his face stepped up next to him—“has already received multiple personal recommendations by your superiors, and even the Queen herself once! He’s scheduled to be a full diplomat in two Span’s time and is far too important to have such an unnecessary risk taken with his person!”
The Official shrugged, completely unaffected. The Magister did not notice this and continued on his pointless lecture. “And my daughter—!” The daughter in question, Gabriel, did not step forward out of the crowd like he had expected. “My daughter, Gabriel, has trained her entire life with the bow and will soon surpass even the great Eruthier Blakstone in her skills!” He continued onward, unaffected. “In fact, with such a strong hereditary connection to the Wanderforce, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had actually inherited the same abilities that—”
“Are you done?” The Official interrupted, whipping the cloth out from under the tiny Waypoint and shaking it out in a cloud of dust. “Because the people at Vantos have a tight schedule, and they ain’t waiting for us to finish listening to your little family history lesson.”
The Magister made to answer, but was unable to as a great sneezing fit came upon him.
“We’re done,” His daughter said, finally pushing out of the crowd and walking to stand in the open area in front of the Waypoint. “Come on, Samuel.”
The Official rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion and pulled out a handscroll, the first emotion she had shown that day. “May the Waypoint ceremony now commence!” She intoned in an exaggerated monotone. “As I call your name, please step up and into the space. Palin, Alfie!”
“Oop, you’re up soon, Flower,” Felicia’s mom said, snapping her out of her reverie. “Here, I packed you a lunch,” she said, handing Felicia a bag. “Oh, and here’s your satchel, I packed you some things—and your school bag, of course—and here! I thought you’d need some extra blankets so I packed you those too!” Felicia’s mother piled on four or five additional bags to the three she was already carrying.
“Thanks, mom, but…do I really need all this stuff?” Felicia said, trying to shift the weight on her shoulders enough so her knees wouldn’t buckle.
“Of course you do!” Her mother replied cheerfully. “You never know what will happen, after all. Oh, you have some dirt on your face!”
Encumbered by the heavy load of bags, Felicia was unable to squirm away as her mother licked her finger and then smudged it all over her face.
“Aw, I think I made it worse,” she said, looking disappointedly at Felicia’s forehead. “Ah, well. No time now to fix it. Hugs and kisses!” Somehow, she managed to maneuver around all the bags and give Felicia a hug. Felicia’s stomach settled uneasily as she realized this would be their last hug in an entire Span.
“I love you, Flower,” Her mother said.
“Mom, I—”
“Lightstep, Felicia!” The Official had reached her name on the list.
“What was that?” Her mother asked.
I don’t want to go, she had been about to say. But…seeing her mother’s excited face, how could she let her down like that?
“I love you too,” she said with a dry swallow as she trudged off to stand with the other students.”
“Oh, did you decide to pack your family sheep in there, scruffhead?” Samuel Walker sneered under his breath as she passed him with her load of bags.
“Shut it, Sammy,” She muttered back, concealing a smile as his ears flushed red. She had learned loooong ago that he hated that nickname. Hated.
The Official read a few more names off her handscroll, then unceremoniously shoved it in her bag as the last few students came to stand in the open space.
“Here are the new candidates for the Span, as well as those deemed decent enough to continue their education,” She drawled out. “If any chose to withdraw now and bring the dishonor of failure upon themselves, well—scram. Once you go through there ain’t going to be more opportunities.”
Felicia looked back at her mother, sorely tempted.
“I bet that the scruffhead will do just that,” Sammy said just loud enough for the other students to hear. Most of them laughed nervously, unsure if he was as important as his father had suggested and unwilling to get on his bad side until they knew.
Felicia set her jaw. Well, that cinched it.
The Official waited a few moments, then hmphed. “No takers? That’s surprising.” She gave a few knocks on the clouded rock and it began to glow with a blue light.
Felicia closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
Nothing happened.
“Huh,” the Official said. “This thing must be older than I thought.” She pulled the handscroll and smacked the rock.
Felicia barely had time to flinch before a blue wave erupted out of the rock and she was gone.
Previous Chapter:
https://www.tumblr.com/eluiasbeacon/784006086218874880/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-busses?source=share
Incorrect Wanderer Chronicles Quote
Sam, 2 minutes after meeting Kayla: I have only known this small, chaotic ball of literal energy for 2 minutes but if something happens to her I will kill everyone in this room and then myself
Cloudy With A Chance of Busses
The bus pulled into the station with a definitive hiss, the type you always hear in the movies when the hero is sent back from their dream school towards the end. It was not the type of bus hiss you’d hear at the beginning of any book besides this one.
It was a sunny day in that it was bright despite the sky being overcast, setting the entire world in a light shade of grey. The bus itself was white and black, and very empty as no one had gotten on yet. The few passengers waiting for the bus began to climb on, saying their goodbyes and good riddances while simultaneously attempting to cart heavy suitcases up the stairs of the bus. Given that there were only 6 passengers on this Kansas-bound bus, the platform emptied quickly, leaving a somewhat nettled student framed by her luggage alone on the depot. After another moment’s hesitation, she sighed resignedly and picked up her bags, climbing the stairs and picking a seat as far away as possible from the cranky old lady who was currently terrorizing the bus driver. Stowing her bags, this student settled in for a long, long drive to her least favorite place in the world—Kansas.
As you, the Reader, may have already guessed, this unenthusiastic young person happens to be the Main Character we’re all stuck with for this book and has to be properly introduced before we can join her on the adventure of a lifetime or whatever else the publishers promised you on the back cover. She isn’t going to willingly do so herself, so we decided to supply you with some convenient dialogue that all these books seem to use to force their Main Characters into the light of day.
The bus started up, a catchy pop song came on the radio, and the sun came out from behind the clouds, leaving Emma Lorena Caroline Blackgem in an oddly good mood considering she had just been grumbling internally about Kansas mere moments before. She shook out her long blonde hair, blinked her vibrant blue eyes, and looked distinctively inquisitive, carelessly betraying the fact that she was an intelligent 12-year-old with a laser sharp wit.
Some random stranger came and sat down in the seat next to hers, leaving Emma completely unbothered by the fact that he had chosen a seat by her out of a nearly entirely unoccupied bus. Emma fidgeted with a letter she had received from her aunt, catching the stranger’s attention just enough for him to strike up a conversation.
“Coming home for the school holidays?” He asked.
“How’d you guess?” Emma Lorena Caroline Blackgem asked wittily, intelligently motioning to the large amounts of luggage she had piled up over her seat. They both laughed at her quite funny joke.
“I’m returning home to my aunt, who is my legal guardian and always has me switch boarding schools each year,” Emma said in a very convenient way to the plot, completely unconcerned about spilling her life story to a random dude she just met. “I would normally be very, very bothered by never getting to stay in one place, but I’m quite certain it’s all for some crazy reason that I’ll learn when I’m old enough.”
“Ah. Yes, yes,” the stranger nodded wisely, spinning the bowler cap he just happened to have in a thoughtful manner, “it is always best to trust that these things are always because of some important reason. That’s how things work in our world.”
“That’s what I always say!” Emma beamed.
All right. Hopefully, you got all that, Reader, because none of that ever happened besides the bus starting up. The clouds stayed grey, no random stranger sat down next to her, and just for the record Emma Lorena Caroline Blackgem actually was bothered by having to move schools each year. She also did not like talking to random strangers, no matter how plot-convenient it might have been. No, that entire conversation was but a figment of your imagination and will never be referred back to again.
Emma had pulled out her laptop and was running a handy bit of software simulation while she waited for the bus to reach its inevitable destination, messing with the occasional number or value here and there as if she knew what she was doing. She did, by the way. Emma was very good at that sort of thing and tended to get in trouble for tinkering with things she probably should not have. That being said, from her point of view she was just helping people along by fixing things, so we’ll leave it up to you whether she was a horrible human being or not.
Six long, boring hours later, the bus had just crossed the border of Kansas and Emma was staring over her shoulder at the emergency exit latch, wondering if throwing something at it would trip it. She wasn’t actually planning on throwing anything, as she would probably hit the old lady sitting right underneath it in the head instead of causing anything interesting to happen, but she was bored enough that it was diverting to consider. Kansas was probably her least favorite state she had been to so far, with its endless rows of corn, corn, and more corn, only broken up by irrigation rigs. Living here for the summer was going to be worse than when her aunt had lived in Louisiana. At least there the heat was around to complain about. In Kansas, nothing happened. Ever.
Just to prove her point, a purple energy bolt erupted from the sky, blasting a crater in the road ahead twice as wide as the bus was. Emma was thrown against the window as the driver slammed on the brakes to avoid driving in, and half of the other passengers (that is, three of them) exclaimed in surprise.
As soon as the bus stopped moving almost everyone rushed to the front to get a better view of what was happening, craning their necks to see if something was in the sky. Emma just sighed and settled back into her seat. The only interesting thing they were going to see was the extra-long bus route they would have to take now that the road was wrecked.
“I wonder if we’ll get to see Jensen Jones?” A small child in an A.O.M.A. jacket asked his mother excitedly as they both stared at the sky. “Or maybe Omni?”
“I doubt it,” a well-dressed businessman replied from where he was standing next to the pair. “This hardly looks like anything big enough for any heroes over the C list to show up. But who knows, maybe an invasion is about to happen and you’ll get to see the Omegas themselves in action!”
“Sure,” Emma muttered to herself. That was about as likely as the moon changing orbits. One lone energy bolt in Nowhere, Kansas was at the very most a stray from some D-list superteam handling a bank robbery in Michigan. Or, if she was particularly unlucky, the Deltas. She could deal with random metahuman skirmishes, but a team that made their entire existence a chemistry pun was just too much.
Emma hadn’t been the only one to not immediately jump up in excitement, which she found a little odd. The old lady under the emergency exit had slept through the entire thing, and some kid wearing a purple sweatshirt in the row across from Emma had stayed put as well. Emma found that a bit odd, as kids were usually the ones excited by the Metas. Emma definitely had been when she was that age.
She shrugged. It didn’t really matter. If the kid didn’t find the Metas interesting, more power to her. It wasn’t like anything else was going to happen anyway—
There was a huge jolt, and everything started spinning. From what little Emma could make out of the ground from every time it came around, it was getting further and further away.
“Oh, come on!” She complained. All she had wanted was an uneventful, short bus ride to her aunt’s. The bus getting thrown into the air was not helping either of those goals.
The spinning slowed and everything started feeling weightless, meaning they must have hit free fall. Emma sighed and unbuckled to snag the A.O.M.A. jacket kid as he flew past, pushing him into a seat and fastening the seat belt around him.
“You’ll want to cover your head, kiddo,” She said as she craned her neck to see if the other two standing passengers had managed to grab onto something at the very least.
“We’re going to get rescued by the Omegas!” The kid exclaimed, nearly vibrating with excitement.
“Sure,” Emma agreed absently. They had been in free fall long enough that they had probably hit terminal velocity by now.
The bus shook again and gravity seemed to snap back into existence, as the windows all glowed with a bright purple light.
“Zeta-man!” The boy screamed with glee as the purple glow intensified. “He must be catching us! This is the greatest day ev—”
The ear-rending crash barely had time to register in Emma’s ears before everything went black. Delete
The first thing that Emma started to notice when she woke up was the ringing in her ears. The second was the wrenching pain in her elbow.
Groggily, Emma opened her eyes and tried to figure out what had happened. The purple light had been replaced by a hazy brown one, and dust was floating everywhere. The window she had ended up leaning up against was oddly cold.
She tried sitting back up in her seat but ended up jarring her hurt arm again as she fell back against the window.
“What?” She said to herself before her perspective righted herself and things made sense. “Oh…that’s…not good.”
The bus must have landed on its side, because the window Emma was leaning up against was now serving as the floor. Roughly. Emma pulled a bit of loose change out of her pocket and dropped it on the window, watching as it rolled down towards the front of the bus. They must have either done an ungraceful nose dive, or else they had landed on a hill.
“Wonderful,” Emma grumbled under her breath as she slowly stood up on the window, holding on to her former seat so as not to slide down after her pocket change.
“Hey, you!” Someone called. It took a moment for Emma to realize that someone was actually saying something due to the unfortunate ringing in her ears, but after a moment the frantic waving of the mother of the hero-crazy kid attracted her attention.
“Uh….hi,” Emma said, awkwardly climbing up (or possibly through?) her seat to look down the aisle to the front of the bus where the mother was huddled.
“Do you have my Jeremy?” The woman asked.
Emma glanced up to where Jeremy, as she assumed the kid was named, was dangling just above her from his seat belt, oblivious to the world. She did a quick check to make sure the kid was just in La-La-Land before calling back down.
“Yeah, he’s here!” She said. “He’s all right, just knocked out from the impact.”
The mother visibly relaxed. “Thank heavens,” she exhaled. “I guess you’ll just have to keep an eye on him until we get rescued, as I have no clue how else I can get to you.”
Emma thought for a moment.
“You know, you could probably climb up the bus seats like a ladder,” She called down. “The windows should be made of tempered glass, so they would be able to hold your weight.”
The mother seemed to mentally consider if the word of a kid was worth taking on this, then seemed to shrug it off. “Jeff, stay with the driver,” She said to the businessman, who was sitting on the front window of the bus. Jeff shrugged, and the woman started climbing up towards Emma.
“What happened to the driver?” Emma asked the woman as she climbed up within comfortable conversation distance.
“Oh, not much, he just sprained his ankle in the crash,” The woman said. “And you know how older people are with injuries,” She added in a lower voice.
“I heard that, Shelaine!” The driver called up from where he was sitting, out of Emma’s range of view at the moment.
The woman, presumably named Shelaine, shrugged as she climbed up onto the row of seats Emma was perched on. “Oh, thank goodness, Jeremy,” she said, accidentally stepping on Emma’s foot in her haste to unbuckle her son.
“Ow,” Emma muttered. “Speaking of old people…”
She climbed out on her seat to hang over the aisle to try and see up into the back of the bus.
“Wake up, Jeremy,” Shelaine said as she unbuckled the kid. “The Omegas are going to be here any second now, you don’t want to miss it!”
“That, I doubt,” Emma replied absently. She couldn’t see past the row of opposite seats well enough to make out what she was looking for.
“Hey, Jeff!” She called down to the businessman. “Can you climb up here and give me a hand?”
“Absolutely not,” Jeff the Businessman snapped. “There is no way I’m risking my neck in that jungle gym. And it’s Mr. Krumknuckle to you, miss!”
Helpful, Emma thought irritably.
“What are you looking for?” Shelaine said as she was slowly waking her kid up.
“There was an older lady sitting by the emergency exit back there,” Emma said. “And also some kid in a sweatshirt that I can’t see right now. Someone is going to have to climb up there to check for them.”
“I guess that I could…” Shelaine said, although her face conveyed pretty clearly to Emma that she didn’t want to leave her kid.
“Nah,” Emma said, acting more nonchalant than she felt. “I’ve got it.”
She swung back out into the aisle, mentally running through how on earth she could climb up the aisle of the bus with it being mostly vertical.
“It’s just like any engineering problem,” she told herself quietly. “Just figure out the problem, and solve it.”
Carefully, she crawled on to the next row of chairs, nearly losing her balance as her foot sunk into the side of the cushion.
It took another 10 rows of chairs to get back to the row where Emma remembered the older woman sitting. Thankfully, with the aisle being so narrow, it would not be too difficult to cross to the other row.
Carefully maneuvering herself to stand up on the edge of the seats under her, Emma reached up to try and shake the old lady awake from where she was currently seat belted to to the now-ceiling. The old lady snored a little, but otherwise didn’t wake up.
“She slept through the whole thing? Unbelievable,” Emma said. She sighed and flipped down the armrest on the seat above her so she could wedge herself into the seat next to the old lady.
“Ma’am, wake up,” she said, shaking the woman more forcefully this time. She was rewarded with a smack to the face as the old woman sleepily tried to wave her off.
“Ow,” Emma said. This was turning out to be more of a fiasco than she had bargained for.
“Everything all right?” Shelaine called from below in Emma’s original seat.
Emma huffed slightly before answering. “Fine, she just doesn’t seem inclined to wake up at the moment. We might just have to let her be until someone shows up to dig us out.”
“I heard that!” A shrill voice said right next to Emma’s ear, startling her so badly she nearly fell back down to the other row of seats. “I’m old, not deaf!”
“Nevermind,” Emma called ruefully back down to Shelaine. “See if you can find the girl in the hoodie. She’s not up here.”
“Child, pay attention to your elders while they’re speaking to you!” The old woman said, shaking the cane she had somehow managed to retain hold of for the entirety of both her nap and the crash. “Why has gravity quit working correctly?”
“We crashed,” Emma explained as paitently as she could muster. “Gravity’s working fine, but the bus is on it’s side.”
“I knew it was a mistake to give teenagers driver’s licenses!” The old woman exclaimed, yet again punctuating her declaration with a wave from her cane. “Kids these days simply don’t know how to drive busses correctly!”
“I’ll have you know I’m sixty-three!” The driver called from down at the bottom of the bus.
“Well, you certainly don’t drive like it!” The old woman shouted back. This was getting out of hand.
“Are you hurt, ma’am?” Emma asked before she could blame anything else on the youth of society or the bus driver.
She scoffed. “My knees ache, my vision’s out, my back’s crooked, my hands shake and I have kidney stones! I would say I hurt plenty!”
“…hurt related to the crash, ma’am,”
The old lady waved her cane absently. “Well then no, I’m just peachy. Now get me out of here!”
Emma sighed. “Hold still,” she said.
It was much lighter towards the back of the bus than the front, which should mean that it was closer to the surface. Unfortunately, the old woman was sitting right under the emergency exit window, so Emma would have to climb over her to reach it. As carefully as she could manage, she scooted up the seat as far as she could before running into the woman, wedging herself in with her feet so as to have her left hand free to fumble with the latch.
“God gave you two hands, dearie. You should use them,” The woman chided her.
Emma gritted her teeth in irritation. “My right arm’s pretty useless right now, I hurt my elbow in the crash. If you wanted to help there’s nothing stopping you, though.”
“That’s quite all right, dear. I outgrew playing with windows quite some time ago.”
Emma quietly reminded herself that it was impolite to duct tape the mouths of the elderly.
The window came open reluctantly, and didn’t budge much when Emma pushed against it. Coughing because of the rain of dirt the motion caused, Emma readjusted her feet and shoved against the window unsuccessfully again.
“Come on,” she said under her breath. “It’s light up here. We can’t be that deep.”
Through the window the dirt started shifting, and the faint glow of light suddenly intensified into a dusty beam. Taken by surprise, Emma rapidly shook her head to try and get the spots out of her eyes. For the briefest of moments Emma could see a pair of boots, and then it occurred to her that now would be the ideal time to attempt shoving the window open.
The window finally came open with a jolt, far easier than it should have. A man in a helmet stuck his head in and gave them a tired smile.
“Hey, folks,” he said. “Do you all need a hand?”
“Oh, for the love of Pete. Not him,” The old lady complained.
“Wow…” Emma said, her eyes going wide despite her best efforts. “You’re Commander Cosmi.”
As excited as her inner nine-year-old was by this, Emma’s more logical side of her brain was less than thrilled by the appearance of the world’s first meta. If he was here, then this wasn’t your typical run-of-the-mill stray tachyon converter or whatnot. This was an Omega affair. And it wasn’t the greatest plan for the average civilian to get tangled up in those.
The noise from the outside world had been completely muffled by the layer of dirt enveloping the bus, but now Emma could hear the noise of explosions and the like. Commander Cosmi glanced distractedly over his shoulder at something, then turned his attention back on Emma and the old lady.
“I’m here to get you out. How many of you are there?” He asked.
“Seven, including the driver,” Emma replied. “We’ve got a couple injuries, though. I’m not sure everyone can climb up to this window.”
“If that’s a Meta, tell them I want out of this dirt cage!” Jeff the Businessman called up distantly. “And I’m not climbing to do it!”
“Or…won’t climb up to the window,” Emma winced. “I don’t think he’s hurt.”
“And I’m old, not patient!” The old lady cut back in. “Get me out of this harness!”
Commander Cosmi sighed almost imperceptively. “I can pull her up if you unbuckle her. Think you can manage that?”
“Sure thing,” Emma said, ignoring the fact that she had just been asked if unbuckling a seatbelt would be too difficult for her.
“And hurry it up!” The old lady exclaimed. Whether by malicious intent or freak accident, she clipped Emma right on her injured elbow. A spike of pain travelled up her arm and Emma lost her grip on the seats, falling onto the row below.
“Ow…that was the broken elbow,” she muttered, somewhat dazed.
“Are you all right?” Commander Cosmi called down.
“Just…peachy.” Emma gritted her teeth, trying to block out the sharp pain that was generally known as her arm. She was not going to wimp out in front of someone like Commander Cosmi. No way.
Deliberately, Emma climbed back up into the seat, wedging herself in with as little movement in her arm as possible. On an impulse, she snagged the lady’s cane and passed it up to Commander Cosmi before she could lash out again. “All right, ready.”
Commander Cosmi was a lot stronger than he looked, because he hoisted the old lady out the window like a very cranky sack of potatoes, if a sack of potatoes could wear heels and kick. Emma had to dodge a couple of ill-aimed ones.
After a few moments, Commander Cosmi’s head reappeared in the window.
“Your turn,” he said, reaching out a hand to her.
It took a moment for Emma’s eyes to adjust to the bright daylight, and even longer for her brain to adjust to what her eyes were telling her.
“Woah…” Emma said quietly, craning her neck to see as much as she could. This wasn’t a freak accent. It wasn’t even a one-off meta clash.
Above the sky in the cornfield they were standing in were more Metas than Emma had ever seen in her life.
This was a battle.
“Copy that,” The Commander said into his earpiece, and Emma snapped back into reality. Civilians left the Super stuff to the Metas. Emma, on the other hand, had a bus to worry about.
“What about the others?” She asked Commander Cosmi, who was checking to make sure the old lady was okay from a safe distance.
“I’ve got a guy on it. Let me see that,” he said, walking over to Emma and motioning to her broken elbow. He concentrated for a moment and a glowing blue cast formed around her arm.
“Cool. I didn’t know you could do that,” she said.
Commander Cosmi shrugged. “Most don’t.”
There was an orange blur, and the other passengers from the bus appeared around them.
“Four nervous Americans, as requested,” The Omega’s speedster, Road Runner, said in a French Accent that in no way matched his blinding white hair with orange accents.
Emma blinked, mentally readjusting. “There should be five others. You’re missing one.”
“I can search the entire bus twice in the time it takes you to flinch,” Road Runner said flatly. “I didn’t miss one.”
Emma looked around at the passengers. There was Jeff the Businessman, the Driver, Shelaine, Jeremy the kid who was looking like he was about to pass out again from excitement, the somewhat lethal old lady—“No, there was a girl in a purple sweatshirt,” she said. “She sat three rows back and got on right before me.”
“A mirage.” The Speedster replied, looking irritated. “If Road Runner didn’t see her, then your eyes must have made her up, child.”
“You—”
“All right, I’m sure neither of you is making anything up,” Commander Cosmi cut in without taking his eyes off the sky. “Road Runner, do a quick area search just in case the girl slipped our notice.”
Road Runner stuck his tongue out at Emma in a very un-frenchlike gesture, then sped off.
“I promise, I didn’t make her up,” Emma told Commander Cosmi earnestly.
“I believe you,” Commander Cosmi said, still looking at the sky.
Sure you do, Emma thought despondently.
A few minutes passed, and whatever event Commander Cosmi seemed to be watching ended.
“All right, people, as I’m sure you all have noticed, this is an active Omega event zone,” he said, turning to address the passengers. “As soon as Road Runner gets back, you’ll be transported to a safe zone. Until then, I need everyone to stay in place unless under an immediate threat. Everyone clear?” He said the last statement in particular to the old lady.
“Crystal clear,” Emma said resignedly. There went any chance to actually figure out what was going on. If Commander Cosmi wanted them to stay in one space, it meant that he was headed out.
“That cast I gave you should stay solid for a couple hours,” The Commander continued, now turning to Emma. “In the meantime, you—” he froze abruptly, staring at her. “Carol?” He asked.
Emma glanced behind her just in case he was talking to someone else. “No?” She asked back.
The Commander squinted at her like he did not believe this. “That’s odd. I could have sworn…” He trailed off, then shook his head. “Never mind. It’s hardly important right now.
“What’s not important?” Emma asked suspiciously.
The Commander sighed. “You’re right, maybe it is worth investigating later.”
“What’s worth investigating later? Who’s Carol?”
“Here,” Commander Cosmi said, apparently not hearing her question and pulling something out of one of his belt pouches. “take this. I want to ask you a few questions after this is all over.”
Emma shoved the mystery rectangle into her jacket pocket and tried asking some questions herself. “Ask me what? When what is all over? Who are you even fighting?”
“Aliens!” Commander Cosmi called over his shoulder as he began jogging away towards a particularly large cluster of metas in the distance. “Don’t lose that!”
“What even is it?” Emma called back, to no avail. “You know that it’s not really helpful to stay vague stuff and then run away, right?”
No dice. The Commander was now focused on something else.
“Great,” Emma muttered, turning back to the bus. “That’s not going to keep me up wondering at night at all.”
Something hurtled to the ground right in front of Emma, showering dirt everywhere. Upon closer inspection, Emma found it to be Road Runner.
“Road Runner?” She asked hesitantly.
“I seem to have found your missing friend,” The Speedster mumbled in a daze. “She’s quite the angry one, too.”
“What?”
“Oh, look,” he pointed waveringly to the sky. “Here she comes now.”
All Emma had time to make out was a dark figure in a purple glow hurtling down from the sky towards them before everything went black.
Next Chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/eluiasbeacon/784353580597510144/chapter-2?source=share