Bird Girl

1

CRACK!

Hmm. Just past second base.

Toss up… wind back… CRACK!

Bounced on the short-stop position.

Toss up… wind back… CRACK!

Past second again. Much farther this time. Still too low.

Toss up… wind back… CRACK!

What the…? Where did it… THUNK!

“Ow!” I said, more startled than hurt as the baseball whacked me squarely on top of my helmet, knocking it a bit askew. How had I even managed that hit? Must have bounced off the very top of the bat, with the right amount of spin to make it arc back.

I adjusted my helmet and sighed a bit, watching the ball roll off. I reached for another from the wire frame basket, only to realize that was my last one anyway. I sighed again and picked up the basket, walking first to the ball that had just beaned me on the head, then doing a zig-zagging loop across the field to fetch the twenty-nine other balls I’d been hitting back and forth for the past hour. I was really off my game today.

Blue Thoughts

The whole bird theme had been a joke, really. Cardinal’s joke, specifically. None of us found it funny, but it’s not like the rest of us had any better ideas. He’d said if we were going to be superheroes, we should stick to a theme, some sort of iconography people could instantly recognize. He settled on the bird idea when he was trying to think of how to fit us into primary colors.

I thought that was really weird, honestly. I vaguely remember from my old comics that hero teams tended to consist of more specialized characters; you’d have your strong guy, your energy guy, your space alien tech guy, your one animal themed character, a wizard, and a mad scientist. Or something like that. And their colors were usually not coordinated, since most teams consisted of people who already had their own solo comics, and thus had their own style independent of the others.

I later found out Cardinal was a huge fan of those goofy Japanese hero-team shows. Still was, even though he was in his mid-thirties. The kind of show where a handful of teenagers all got their powers from sci-fi wristwatches or magic amulets or something. Say a phrase, hit a button, and poof, they’re covered in fabulous spandex and bike helmets, each one a specific color. They’d all have the identical powers of knowing martial artists and shooting laser guns. Also, they had giant robots.

Mystic Missouri

Note: A work in progress, this may be subject to change.

A near-copy of the state of Missouri, which for unknown reasons, got bounced off into its own pocket dimension. In actuality, the state was copied over on a conceptual level, but the original is still back on Earth. Everyone inside the state was likewise copied, as was all flora and fauna. No one on Earth is aware that anything happened at all, while those within the pocket dimension know only that three years ago, the state of Missouri was suddenly sealed off by a mysterious and deadly mist.

The land is accosted by mutants and monsters created by the Mist Wall. However, the rise of superhumans has been a boon to keeping civilization going, both to defend against supernatural threats, as well as provide ways to compensate for the lack of resources and failing technologies.

After the first chaotic year of this event, civilization has stabilized for the most part. The country holds a total population of about 4 million. Unfortunately, the only resources available to the survivors are those that were within the state when the Mist Wall appeared, meaning that resources are now incredibly scarce.

Toyah

A Mystic Missouri story.

1.1

In the midst of a smashed-flat neighborhood, surrounded the splintered and shattered homes, Toyah hunted for treasure. The little blonde-haired girl in a dirt-brown tunic slowly picked her way down the street. As she shuffled, slid, and skipped around the twisted wrecks of cars and trucks, climbed and jumped over fallen trees, she would occasionally pause and peer at her surroundings. On her shoulder, a small plastic and tin owl likewise swiveled its head, the tiny red beads set in its wide eyes sparking. Despite several stops, neither seemed to find anything interesting. Not until they were three blocks deep into the street did the owl make a fluttering of its plastic wings. The limited movement allowed by the simple hinge was useless for any sort of flight, even if it had been made from the right materials, but its rapid clicking alerted the girl that it had seen something. When she looked at it, the owl turned its tin head so that it’s beak pointed directly at a house three more plots down. The girl hurried over, scrambling over a crumbled brick half-wall, its metal grating lying in a tangled mess among the debris of the neighboring home.

Toyah appraised the building as she approached. Stopping a few feet from where several jagged spears of snapped frame stuck out from a heavy slab of concrete, it was clear there would be no climbing inside herself. She crouched down, noting that the slab and wooden frame slats hung over the ground by about half a foot, cloaking in shadow a broken, ground-level window that no doubt led into the basement. Toyah stood back up and opened the leather satchel she’d been lugging with her. Her fingers touched an object of polished wood, and she pulled out a wooden doll painted like a nutcracker soldier.

Toyah set the little wooden soldier down upon the grass. The red and blue and tan facsimile of a man wobbled for a moment, then righted itself. Its tiny, simple hinges squeaked a bit from long disuse. The young girl pointed forward, towards the massive pile of destroyed wood, brick, and metal. Taking a moment to make sure it had oriented itself, the little toy soldier waddled forward. Its legs were jointed only at the hips, forcing it to walk in a stilted shuffle, especially over the grass. Toyah frowned. This wouldn’t do at all. She picked it back up and inspected the legs. The whole toy was about eight inches tall, as long as her forearm, and the legs were wooden posts twice as thick as her finger. She concentrated for a moment, and the toy vibrated for a few seconds. Then, it went “limp.” The stiff material couldn’t sag, as such, but it’s limbs, which had been resolutely held forward, now dangled towards the ground, as the head turned slightly to the side as if at rest.