From her perch in the trees above the town, Mockingbird pondered the scene unfolding before her. The tiny village housed the few remaining survivors left in this world and, from the way things were going, they wouldn’t be survivors for much longer. Hordes of walking cadavers pushed and shoved forward, knocking against the already weakened chicken-wire fence. Within the enclosure, exhausted townspeople scrambled to reinforce the inadequate barrier with whatever large objects they could manage to drag over to it. Rusted out cars, barbeque grills, crates of ammunition – anything with enough weight to withstand the pressure exerted by the mass of zombies. But it wouldn’t be enough. Soon the fence would give way and the town would be invaded by the undead. And Mockingbird was powerless to save them.
A bright light in the distant sky offered the first sign of hope - her partner had finally arrived. She waited for him to fire the first shot. Not because she was patient or humble, but because she had no choice. The power of Mimicry was great when she was surrounded by other superheroes, but it left her with no weapons in her magical arsenal on solo missions.
“Late, as usual,” she called out to him.
“What do you mean?” Helios asked. “The party doesn’t start until I get here. Time to fire up the grill!”
Helios put his hands close together and a bright orange ball grew between them. When it reached approximately the size of a bowling ball, he released it on the zombies near the end of the pack. They caught fire immediately and began knocking into the others, igniting them as well. The acrid smell of blazing zombies was decidedly more noxious than the previous aroma of unburnt rotten flesh, but fire was the most effective strategy in this situation. It was great for taking out a large group of zombies because all you had to do was light up a few dozen of them and the walking infernos would usually finish off the rest of the pack for you. The downside, of course, was that humans were also vulnerable to fire, so using it this close to a village of innocents was a bit of a gamble. Fortunately, Mockingbird now had a way to mitigate the risk. She put her hands together just as Helios had done and began creating a ball of her own using her recently learned attribute to create the fire element’s opposite - ice. Landing a few feet from the herd, she began to create a perimeter of ice around the pack, containing the fiery corpses. Obviously, this was only a temporary solution as fire melts ice and her walls would soon become puddles, but it should at least give them time to eradicate the pack.
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She completed the icy circles, trapping herself inside, and turned around to help Helios finish lighting up the zombies. But he wasn’t there. Smoke from the burning bodies stung her eyes as she looked around frantically to see if he’d been taken down. But if he had been, the zombies would be all over him. Instead, they were heading towards her. She put her hands together and tried to form a fireball, hoping that Helios was just beyond her wall of ice, possibly obscured by the smoke. But nothing happened. Helios was either off-world or out of range. Too far away for her to mimic his power. He had left her here, defenseless. As the zombies closed in around her, she lifted off the ground, trying to fly out the ice prison, but she was too late. A rotting hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her back down into the mass of decaying bodies.
GAME OVER