There’s no better way to see the best that Washington, D.C. has to offer than the Old Town Trolley. Stadium seating allowed unmatched panoramic views as friendly conductors narrated the tour with trivia and history. Visitors can hop off at any stop to explore at their leisure and hop back on for the rest of the tour. Capital City highlights seen along the way include: The White House, Union Station, Capitol Hill, Smithsonian Air and Space, International Spy Museum, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and more.
Letiche was excited to learn all and drank in every drop of knowledge; Lanying, on the other hand, fell asleep after the first stop. After leaving the National Portrait Gallery, Delsin and Philip took the girls to eat at Succotash. The aroma of bourbon bordelaise and cajun butter awoke Lanying from her slumber. Tyler Deimos had one last sight to see nearby: the J. Edgar Hoover building.
All day, there had been head-turners, double-takes, and second glances. When he walked through ripples in the air that crowned him in a green helmet with yellow lenses and draped a green jacket over him, there was no doubt left as to who came through the rotating door to see the receptionist.
“Excuse me, I don’t have an appointment, but I assure you it's urgent.”
He was escorted to his object of interest without resistance. She was immobilized in a hospital and kept alive by machinery that overlapped on each other over the years. Even with the apparatus, the body was practically braindead. She did not blink and her irises were unmoving. They had no need to care for her mind; after all, she was just a mutant.
The only use for her was her long-range, shapeshifting clone and she didn’t even have that anymore. She was just a husk waiting to die—an all too familiar image. Tejieue would be laying a corpse to rest for the second time so soon.
The bed was engulfed in emerald flames. This ethereal fire was not the kind that would alert the alarms and sprinklers. Instead, it calmly reduced the bed and the girl to embers that flickered out of existence. As she was burnt, she envisioned herself being welcomed home by a resemblance of her parents. This hallucination ensured a painless, peaceful death for her.
He passed through ripples that removed his accessories and returned him to Succotash. They had only ordered starters and drinks while they were waiting on him but the table was still full: crispy coconut prawns, shrimp‘n’grits, maryland crab cake, hot fried oysters, and tuna tartare were all scarfed down by Lanying and washed down with a jug of milk. Thankfully, Chen’s limitless credit card paid for dining expenses.
“Hey Unc,” started Delsin, “I heard the J. Edgar is supposed to be the ugliest building in the country.”
“It suits its purpose,” said Tejieue as he read over the menu with Letiche.
“Speaking of purpose, what do we do now?” asked Philip.
“We’re going to make the world a better place.”
“I mean, yeah, but what do we do?”
“Philip will be assisting with land management. The soil in hell is difficult at the best of times. You will remain Letiche’s bodyguard. Both of you will help establish the teaching of your schools of magic. But that all will come later. For now, enjoy your rest.”
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Hannah woke up like it was the first time she ever did. The bright light stung her eyes shut before she could see her surroundings. Sound was compressed like she was underwater. Her body was numb and unresponsive. Her mind was in a foggy turmoil where every thought and memory was jumbled fleeting, unable to concentrate on any one thing and even less able to tell what was real.
Her senses began to come back to her, and the first thing she felt was soft yet firm grips on her biceps. Aaliyah was with her, seated beside the hospital bed, that star cross around her neck, and she was pouring her celestial healing into Hannah.
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“Aaliyah…” Hannah realized how dry her throat was as she spoke, “your hair’s a mess…”
“Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to get dolled up. I had to be with you the whole time because they couldn’t even hook you up to an IV bag. What happened out there?!”
“He laid me out… you of all people should be used to that part,” said Hannah. Aaliyah’s grip only tightened.
“Never like what I saw. The last time, he drained your body of energy. This time, he broke you with sheer force. I- I never thought I’d see your bones fracture and puncture your organs; I didn’t know if I could heal you; I didn’t know if you’d ever wake up; I didn’t—” Hannah used all the strength she had to lift her hand to Aaliyah’s cheek and catch a tear that rolled down.
“Hey, I’m here now, you still got, you're still you, and I’m still me.”
Aaliyah leaned into the hand for support, closed her eyes, and steadied her breathing. That helped her calm down—until she felt a jolt on her cheek that made her wince away. Before they could react, Hannah surged with onyx aftershocks that convulsed through her body and reached her biceps to singe Aaliyah’s hands.
Now it came back to her. She had taken the total force of a lightning strike to her liver. Usually, electricity was her friend: it invigorated her and allowed her to flow freely. But this malignant energy coursed with venom. This frightful, terrible, painful feeling was just like it was when she was a child. Worse still, how it affected those she cared about was just like then too, as the smoky welts on Aaliyah’s hands were all too familiar.
“Aaliyah! I’m—I’m so sorry,” Hannah coughed.
“It’s okay it’s okay,” the hands glowed with light,” I’m okay I’m okay, I’m… okay. I know that wasn’t you. That’s what I needed to ask about.”
Hannah pulled her arms into her lap and sat up to hunch over.
“Whatever he did, he has mutati—magic. He has… all the magic now. And if I really have been out a while, then he has only grown since then.”
“Yes, that is what we feared. This confirmation makes it official then.”
“Makes what official?”
“That the war is over,” said Kenny from the door frame, “ and we lost.”
“Kenny! You're bruised! What happened?”
“My brother got a bit rough with me but was too much a softy to hurt me too much. I’m pretty sure you got the worse fight of us.”
“You saw your brother?”
“I kicked him in the face,” Kenny took a seat with Aaliyah, “at least that’s the same old same old. But it looks like he was right: we couldn’t stop them so everything is going to change.
“How? What’s going to change?”
“He mentioned his plan before,” said Aaliyah, “he wants to colonize hell and restore magic to humanity. With how brazen he’s gotten, that part of his plan is now in motion. How that future will turn out for us, I don’t know well enough to say.”
“That’s about it,” said Kenny, “if it was going to turn out this way, I wonder if there was any point in fighting at all.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hannah.
“I mean it was clear from the beginning that we were outmatched. If this ending was always going to happen, then it was stupid to try to stop it. All the soldiers that fought, that killed, that died. Max. UnderDog. The people that I… if there was no battle, they would still be alive. Now they’re gone, and we have nothing to show for it.”
Hannah’s hearing returned to her, but the room had gotten quiet. They could not look each other in the eyes, instead making contact with their laps or the floor.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a downer. I was just thinking out loud.”
“No, Kenny, I asked myself the same thing. I’ve asked myself the same question my whole life. No matter how much I heal people, I have never been able to stop or change anything. That’s true now more than ever.”
The onyx sparks still bit at her nervous system, but the misery in her friends pained Hannah far more. She crumpled the bed sheets in her hand.
Was there really nothing that they could do?