As Mari and her parents were flung into the air she clung to them and hope. She tried to think of everything she had seen that day and how it could help her save her family. She thought of what Eric told her in Viridi Park.
"Think of something that makes you feel alone but not lonely.
Something that makes you feel small yet important.
And if that doesn't work, think of something that hurts."
There was plenty of pain spinning around in her ringing ears. She had plenty of pain to spare. She tried thinking of something that made her feel alone but not lonely, yet could not. When she and her parents started to finally come down, Mari started feeling very small. She thought of how when she first arrived at the train station how small and old her parents looked. She still felt smaller than them as their child but with both of them holding her hand, how they looked at her when she returned, it made her feel important.
Mari focused her energy on her feet once again, and the closer they came to the electric the more her legs started to shake. When she hit the tracks, she screamed, her parents, screamed, and they clung to her. It would be comical if not for the falling bodies and dangerous sparks. She slid down them until she started coming to a crawl, and her arms were getting tired, unable to carry the weight of her family.
"The train is coming," her mother shouted.
Mari looked upwards and saw the hanging ropes of the emergency vehicles. Her eyes widened as she slowly stuck her left foot up, and the bounced up a few feet. Then the left. Mari was using the air, as an invisible staircase, focusing still on her feet. People started shouting and cheering in amazement as Mari looked to the setting sun. She finally let go when the emergency responders grabbed her parents.
She clung to the edge of the frame of the Emergi-Vac and pulled herself into it, then shut the door. Her father was passed out and her mother's grey-streaked hair was all over the place. The EMTs put an oxygen tank onto her father while her mother took Mari in her arms, and for the first time that day, her mother was not crying, but smiling.
"He'll be jealous when I tell him we rode the stairway to the heavens and was asleep for it the entire time," she told Mari.
"Don't tell him that! It sounds like I was taking us higher to die!"
Just as the words flew out of her mouth, the hyper-train came, right on time.
The sun had set, and now screams were echoing in the night as the hyper-train was slowing turning inwards to the leaning platform and it was about to flip over.
"I have to go," Mari said.
"You can't! We just go here," her mother pleaded.
Her mother gripped her right arm and didn't want to let go.
"Mommy let go. Please. I have to help them. You see these men inside here," Mari said.
She gestured to the EMTs running around the Emergi-Vac, applying first aid, cauterizing and stitching wounds, and doing everything they could to save the few that made it inside.
"I have a job to do just like them. Let go."
Reluctantly, she let go. Mari hugged her goodbye, opened the doors of the Emergi-Vac, and flung herself outside. The Three Sisters smiled down upon her as she flew headfirst into danger, and something about the moonlight made her feel stronger. She had more confidence in herself after saving those she loved, and something in the center of her body told her she could do this.
The hyper-train made its final destination as it flipped over and crashed into the platform, destroying all magnetic fields left that it gave off. Several train cars and red hot metal went flying into the air. Mari swerved through the air, dodging the flying pieces, and landed on the east side of the platform, the highest part. She attempted to run perpendicular to the ground, but the loss of a magnetic field made her start to slip.
She hung onto a pole, used it to flip herself right side up, and flew to the top of the platform lobby building looking for survivors. The hyper-train was jutting out of the western side of the platform, and the remaining cars dangled in the air, with people opening the windows and pleading for help.
Mari saw the people on the top of the building, and those in the train, and she had to make a decision.
"I'm sorry," she cried. "I am so sorry!"
She took the youngest people first on the roof to safety.
A three-year-old. Then his six-year-old sister. One after one, all the people on the roof passed the children to the front and Mari tirelessly made multiple trips back and forth. She tried to go faster with each trip because the platform was going down faster and faster from the weight of the train. By the time she started taking the adults, the police, military, and construction-bots had arrived.
"I'm sorry," Mari told the crowd on the roof.
They were confused as to why she kept apologizing and crying. She was their hero, but a confusing one indeed. To speed up the evacuation, Mari continued to pass more people on, but she paused when another large explosion occurred.
The platform was sinking.
With one last explosion of the hyper-train, the last remaining passengers inside the carriages fell into the dark. The entire platform was now on fire, and with five people left, Mari, went even faster. When she came to the last person on the roof it was someone familiar.
The janitor.
The same janitor who stopped her parents from getting inside to safety.
"Don't touch me," the janitor said.
"I don't want to but I have to-"
"Don't speak to me! Stop looking me in the eyes. I know what you are. I saw you with the other trash!"
Mari looked to the ground, as she always knew she should when around her betters. She cried but no tears came out, and she was ashamed because there were no more bangs to hide behind.
"Why won't you let me help you," Mari shouted.
"I don't need your help. I'm right WwwwWheereee I wwaanattt to beeeeeeeee."
Mari looked up at the janitor and saw him shifting. His skin rippled in the moonlight, changing tone. Bright yellow hair grew out of his bald scalp and went down to his shoulders. His hunchback straightened and his jaw realigned. A pink aura swirled around the janitor's body as it no longer was he, but she.
image [https://previews.dropbox.com/p/thumb/ACUU7Qi1fzwTTb8mAnkO_ZlR4icZ96MJjnEtONJmefH3RWgnxAvzLFKtR69AWHUhOmvJB_Tb5mf8m715-MEEqzRJOpwZ66xlwEiYC1ExleqvhiGTd0ckszcvPRp9Ggl7Reojuc-qb2YSSQFYr3mSJnwybEpnihATyFqaO0gjeLfgC4yombQYwrAHls6OgQLcGT_9ay1mFaiop5qgk-Apu7E8fTjkG2lfOvTXBF0zPY6Evp5dTDPFpzWuXUL7w8omLL8Y5T06QQ33rsikqpY56lt_Cok_Ar4dBFrmGJ5Z1cQpptRc4WXA3LV7q4tBuysVpqDLfUk9L6KaIH9iMU32T5iB2tUEcsU6v7LunPGiYNXI1nWASOWCzKsezoCcxmj3No4/p.jpeg]
"This is possibly the lowest point in my life," the woman said. "Thwarted by an Undesirable. Well, not for long."
"Who are you," Mari asked incredulously.
"Does it matter? You'll be dead soon anyway."
Pink flames encircled her body as she ran towards Mari, causing her to shriek. Mari looked behind and saw flames making their way up the building and fire running right towards her. She froze in place out of fear but was saved at the last moment.
A plasma bullet went through the blonde woman's left shoulder, out her right, and she spun, then fell to the ground. Instead of blood pouring out of her body was a thick, pink liquid. Sparks exuded from her body as she struggled to stand, but it became harder as the platform was now almost at a full 90 degrees. A bright light shone down on the both of them, and Mari put her hands up in the air.
"I'm not doing anything," Mari screamed.
"I am."
The tanned blonde Weaver rolled her body off the roof, and right into the dark abyss below. Mari panicked from the self-exit of a terrorist and the fear she would be shot next. A rope was dangled down to the flaming building and a man in tactical gear slid down and ran towards Mari.
She braced herself for death, hoping it was quick, but instead was hugged.
"You can come home now. It's okay."
The man pressed a button on the side of his helmet and his face was now clear.
"Mr. Sato!?! What are you doing here?!"
"What are you doing here? Get off this roof!"
Impulsively she yelled back something ridiculous.
"This isn't your roof! This is no one's roof!"
"....The fumes from the smoke and chemicals are making you delirious, huh?"
"Maybeee. Aaaandd??"
Mr. Sato shook his head, sighed, and slung Mari over his shoulder, hung onto the rope with his free hand.
Mari wondered if she should start avoiding roofs from now on.