(Untitled)

[princesspwrfl]

With a thump and an accompanying grunt-on-impact, Molly hit the ground. Invulnerability was a good thing as it allowed her to sit up almost immediately, a huge Chocolate-Frosted-Sugar-Bombs-eating grin on her face. She turned around, both to thank Cloak for the ride back to L.A. and to see how her friends were (and to see if Chase had wet his

Comments

[there_is_a_me]

Last night had been Spoon's first night on official sentry duty. He'd had his sleep in the morning. Now he had a few hours free, so he figured he'd take the bow and arrows and get in a bit of exploring. Who knew, there might be something of interest...

And there, as he was turning to head back to the apartments, was a human voice.

One hand selected an arrow, but didn't nock it just yet. "Who's there?" he called out, flattening his back against the nearest available structure.

[princesspwrfl]

"It's me, Molly!" came the reply. "Chase, is that you?"

[there_is_a_me]

"M'name's Spoon!" he called back. The arrow got nocked, just in case. The voice didn't sound dangerous, but you never knew. "There's no one here named Chase that I know of."

It was beginning to be a bit disappointing. For some reason everyone here- except the ninja- sounded American. Even that Hotaru girl had spoken English with a faintly American-trained accent. Angua was the only other person he'd heard so far who sounded the least bit British.

[princesspwrfl]

"Spoon?" She stepped into view, a brown-haired girl wearing jeans, sandals, a tee-shirt and a pink vest with a rainbow on it, and a hat. Not very dangerous-looking, unless you knew that she could probably bench press the state of Rhode Island.

"That's a funny name. Is it your real name, or your code name?"

[there_is_a_me]

Spoon, for his part, was dressed in dark greens and olives- regulation British Army fatigues, stained with quite a lot of muck that he hadn't been able to beat out. He had an olive-green hunter's camouflage vest on over the rest of it, and was carrying a compound bow and a quiver of arrows.

"'S short for me last name," he said, looking the girl over. "Private Ron Witherspoon. Good t'meet you, miss...?"

[princesspwrfl]

"Molly Hayes. But my friends sometimes call me 'Bruiser', though I really wanted to be called 'Princess Powerful'." She looked up at him. "You haven't seen them around, have you Mr. Spoon?"

[there_is_a_me]

He might have laughed. Lord, he knew he wanted to.

On the other hand, he'd seen a girl for whom water was her bitch, and spoken to people from the future, and there'd been the healer girl at the meeting. And if there was one thing his reading habits had taught him, it was that you did not make fun of an unassuming person's name. That would bite you in the end.

So he shook his head instead. "Sorry," he says. "Not unless they got in at the apartments when I wasn't lookin'. You, uh... you supposed to be in a post-apocalyptic wasteland along with our friends? 'Cos that's where we are."

[princesspwrfl]

"No," Molly answers matter-of-factly. "We're supposed to be in L.A."

Obviously the phrase "post-apocalyptic wasteland" hasn't sunk in just yet.

[there_is_a_me]

Spoon sucked a breath between his teeth. "You're a bit off course, then," he said. "I dunno where we are, exactly, but unless all the shops in Los Angeles have their names and signs in Chinese..."

Which was the case; the signs hereabouts were in Chinese, just like the ones in the mall. Oh, they might have hung over familiar store logos- Spoon was pretty sure he'd seen the Golden Arches a few blocks back- but there was more Chinese on the signs here than in Hong Kong.

[princesspwrfl]

"They don't." Okay; now Molly was starting to get scared. Cloak was supposed have taken them straight back to Los Angeles. How had she wound up here? And where had the others gone?

Without really realizing it, Molly's lower lip started to tremble.

[there_is_a_me]

"That's what I was afraid of," Spoon said with a sigh. "You've been pulled in same as the rest of us, I reckon. Sorry, miss."

He took the arrow off the string amd returned it to the quiver, then unzipped his vest and shrugged it off. Offering it to her, he said, "You're likely going to want this. It's pretty cold around here, and I've yet to find anyone here in the downtown, but I can show you where there's some other people if you like."

[princesspwrfl]

Molly swallowed the lump in her throat and rubbed furiously at her eyes; after Suzy had called her a "crybaby" she'd been trying to have more of a "grown-up" attitude.

"Thank you," she sniffled, taking the garment. It was cold here; about as cold as it had been in New York, and it had been snowing there. "That'd be nice."

[there_is_a_me]

"Not a problem, miss," Spoon said. "C'mon then. It's this way."

He was pretty decent at navigation, and he'd been looking for routes into and out of the shopping district, so he'd found the easiest way back to familiar territory pretty quickly. As he indicated the road to use, he slung his bow over one shoulder.

"There's about a dozen of us so far that I know of," Spoon says. "I dunno where this is- wish I did- but we're all stuck here as far as we can tell, so we're livin' together in an apartment building."

[princesspwrfl]

"Sounds nice," Molly commented, walking beside him. "My friends and I lived in the Hostel."

[there_is_a_me]

"I dunno that I'd call it nice, exactly, since there's no electric and the heat's all from fires, but yeah, it's not bad," said Spoon. "Had a sort of a town meeting last night to sort out who could do what. There's this one kid who can do just about anything with fire, and another one who's like that with water, and a bloke from a couple thousand years in the future- it's an interesting bunch." He smiled. "Me? I'm just a soldier."

[princesspwrfl]

"Are they mutants?" Molly asked, a glimmer of excitement back in her eyes. "'Cause I'm a mutant. But I make sure to use my powers just for good an' not bad. Although that Provost guy tried to make me rob banks for him a while back. But I showed him."