It was calm. Way too calm.
For all the five seconds after they left the office.
“Incoming!” someone shouted nearby. Mary couldn't even tell where exactly from. The sirens started blaring all over the place, and people started running around back and forth. Some were trying to find cover. Others were running for their hot-dog stands. Most were just trying to get a decent view.
Both Mary and Stephen froze in place as a ray of golden light lit the ground ten feet from them. Mossie whizzed around nervously, too - the robot didn't seem to know what to do with the thing.
A terrible rumble thundered around as the Academy walls turned themselves inside-out, revealing various gun emplacements and launchers. The trophies hanging on the many spikes tilted in the golden anomaly's direction.
Mary's head snapped up as an explosion rang out almost directly above her. A winged creature was descending from the sky - it was shining the same golden light, but... something seemed wrong with it. It didn't wholly shine, actually - there were large spots of darkness on the light, and even from a distance, Mary felt the sickness they radiated.
The heroine shook her hands, preparing her fingers to snap into a fireball starting position. Whatever the thing was, it wouldn't get her without a fight. Stephen... hm. He was doing something with his fingers, but it didn't look like anything Mary had ever learned to cast.
The creature was below a thousand feet above the ground when the first projectiles hit it. The explosion was so strong that Mary was thrown away even from that distance. Lying down, she had a good view of the falling thing - it was still mostly intact, yet it seemed even darker than before. She barely managed to cover her eyes as the next series of projectiles detonated, and the shockwave pushed her a few more feet over the sand-ish thing. Great, her jeans were probably ruined.
When the dust settled, there was no trace left of the enemy.
“Mary...,” Stephen said so quietly that the girl barely registered him talking over the ringing. The funny thing was that he somehow looked like he was shouting, and... oh. Yeah, her ears were ruined too, probably... “What's that over your head?”
Mary looked up and managed to see some golden light quickly dimming over her head. It was just the shade of that pillar, which started to dim in just the same way. Hm.
“I have no idea.”
The party leader and her newest recruit gathered themselves up. Party leader. Mary. It still felt so weird.
“I guess you don't have any ideas either?” Mary asked.
“Well, to be honest, it looked a bit like a glitch. They happen from time to time - they usually come with a bit of golden light, something flashes here or there... But... I've never seen one like that. And that falling thingy - yeah, no, that just doesn't happen here.”
Others were already walking away, munching on their overpriced hot dogs and commenting on the irregularity. Apparently attacks were really, really rarely directed at the Academy itself, and the defences were almost never activated. Supposedly, it was the heroes' job to protect the grounds, they were responsible for any damages incurred on the property by their adversaries, and electricity wasn't exactly cheap. Well, ok, it was, but it was cheaper to just use the free labour.
Mary and Stephen managed to take only a couple of steps before a familiar voice screamed at them from above.
“Mary, Stephen, run!” Mortimer was running above the buildings, using his eyes as platforms just like on the Mixered Martial Arts arena. Paolo was close behind him, pushing himself away from buildings with streams of blood. “Something is wrong! I can't see what-”
A series of bangs rang out, and a dozen tiny portals opened in the air above them. Each of them released a cluster of small missiles - and they shot straight for the party at zig-zagging trajectories. Mortimer's eyes intercepted most of them, but a few went right through the gaps and detonated.
Mary felt the blast throwing her off her feet way more violently than the previous shockwaves. The sand and pebbles on the ground expressed their discontent with such a recent reunion rather roughly, scratching her back and limbs. Why hadn't she worn the armour again? Oh, right, it was uncomfortable. Yeah... she had only managed to rise to her knees.
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Paolo lay in a quickly shrinking pool of blood, as his powers fought to keep his body going and regrowing. Stephen was gasping, thrown further away. And Mortimer... her former party leader was gasping short breaths, holding his leg, which was bent at an unnatural angle.
He looked her straight in the eyes - with his actual, unenchanted eyes. They weren't shining white, nor even pitch black like that one time during the selection ceremony. He looked so... human, with two dark, brown irises almost matching his hair. Time seemed to freeze, as he tried to speak...
“I'm... sorry...”
Behind the boy, Mary saw another portal opening. And another swarm of rockets. She tried to feel the darkness within her, slow down her heart, will the projectiles to go away... but the only thing she felt was the pain from the fall. As the missiles exploded, the world around her went white with a terrible racket.
Mary tried to move, but the whiteness resisted. She was way too sore for this to be heaven, so what...
The whiteness disappeared, and the broken landscape revealed itself to Mary. The street was covered in craters filled with metal scraps and other garbage. As if in a trance, Mary crawled towards the closest bombshell and found bits of coins and dice, half-melted into the sand.
Mary should have raised her head and looked up. There could have been more of them up there, waiting to send other missiles at her sorry rear. But to look up, she'd need to see other things. Things she didn't want to see. She knew that she had to. But... but...
Her trusty Mossie buzzed around her ear. What did he want this time?
“Beep.” The sound was muffled, despite coming off right next to her ear.
“Beeeeeeeeep.” Couldn't that darned thing see that she couldn't do it? She-
“Beeeeeeeeeeeep!” he repeated. But if he made it...
Mary's hearing was slowly going back to the usual. Stephen was moaning somewhere way behind her - so he did make it. That gave Mary enough hope to look up to the rest of the battlefield, where she saw two pools of dried blood and broken body parts lying around.
One of them was flowing and trying to reassemble itself into its usual state.
The other was not.
“No,” Mary said. “No...”
She knew what she had to do, she'd done it once, and-
A boot flipped her face up with a kick, halting the journey. Her teeth flared with pain, and she spat blood on the hot ground.
“Alive and stable!” a policeman attached to said boot announced. Mary tried to ignore the special forces materialising in the area. She tried to pull herself towards the still pool of blood. She could still have time-
The boot pinned her down.
“Mary Susan Oceanrunner,” the officer said, “you are hereby detained for repeatedly violating Academy's bullying policy. You have the right to either remain silent, or scream and thrash around, whichever you prefer.”
That sobered her.
“But, I didn't bully anyone! And Mortimer needs my help-”
“What? Of course not, that wouldn't violate anything. You interfered in it.”
“Sir! This one is still alive!” A shout came from Paolo's bloodstain direction.
“Mix him with some venom and stuff him into a jar. We'll deal with him later,” Mary's detainer ordered.
“But-”
The boot moved so quickly it blurred, and Mary felt a new pain in the back of her head. Before everything went dark, the last thing she heard, was a whispered: “Renate sends her regards.”
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Mary sat on the bunk in a single cell in the Academy's detention facility. It had grey walls, a hole in the ground that served as a toilet judging by the smell, and bars in the tiny window.
They stripped her off all weapons and forced her into a violently-pink, baggy prison uniform.
They didn't take her necklace, ring, or useless metal mosquito, as those seemed to be within allowed essentials according to some obscure regulations.
Mortimer was dead.
Paolo was indisposed.
She was detained in a cell and awaiting a process.
Alone.
She looked at the necklace, the single piece of magic she ever got from her mentor. Her only way of pretending that she was still ok. And her escape from her Villain's grasp every night.
Mary took one last look at the coils of twisting wire, which silently invited her to get lost in its dark maze of daze. Then, she tore it off her neck and smashed it against the wall. Laying down, she silently cried herself to sleep, ignoring the black veins she could see again through her translucent skin.
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Mary was walking a twisted, white path stretching over the endless sea of familiar stars. They surrounded her, each resembling a tiny eye, looking at her from a time long past.
The music was different from the last time - gentle tones of the distant piano were consoling, yet solemn at the same time. Their strange embrace gave Mary the strength to continue the journey.
She walked the narrow path to the pool of light. The piano was playing by itself, the keys jumping up and down, guided by the will of a boy. The boy clad in black and white without a trace of grey, sitting at a small table with a teapot and two glasses. There was another chair waiting for her - cushioned and ornamented. It slid back at Veritas's inviting gesture. The teapot rose and poured amber liquid down her glass the moment Mary rested on the cushions.
“Hello, Mary,” Veritas said, raising his own glass in a toast.