Destiny City was burning.
Sailor Europa staggered through haze and smoke, breathing in ragged, scalding gasps. She had her neckerchief pulled up over her mouth in an attempt to filter some of it, but it wasn’t doing any good. Her tongue was dry, her mouth tasted like ash. The world was a cacophony of sounds and smells
- Sirens, screams, fire hoses, hair, petroleum, flesh –
She staggered down a street that she knew well, made strange and surreal by the nightmarish glow of a world set ablaze. Firelight and moonlight mixed mockingly, lighting her way as she worked past fallen parking meters and over broken glass. The city was crumbling, crunching beneath her feet.
To her right, a parked car exploded into flames. Europa forced herself another few steps forward. To her left, the window of the electronics shop was still intact, the televisions still marvelously powered “on.”
They displayed a uniform wall of white noise. And then they exploded. Europa took a hasty step backwards, tumbled off a curb, somersaulted backwards into the street. She held up a hasty arm to protect her face from any falling glass, than scrambled to her feet. She needed to get moving, needed to find the Basterds, needed to find out where this had started-
The fire had spread so quickly, gobbling up metal and brick like it was matchwood. There was no doubt in her mind that there were supernatural forces at play, but she didn’t know what yet – that was why she needed to find her team. They had eyes all over the city, surely someone would have seen something!
Europa was walking in the center of the street now, to avoid the blowout from exploding shop windows, but even the street was burning in places. Downed power lines sparked and danced along the pavement, and she did her best to step gingerly by these before giving it up in favor of running. If she could just get to the pedestrian mall downtown, she could seek out the others – maybe everyone would have the same sense as she did in where to go for safety. She’d drilled them in this, after all. They would know-
The telephone poles came crashing down now, one after the other, cutting the block into segments. Europa broke into a series of long leaps she would find thrilling if not for her sheer terror. She was the pretty-shorted warrior – she could handle this!
What she could not handle was fire shooting from the manholes. Were the sewers alight now? The smell of burning waste confirmed this.
Every breath she took was like soup, even through the filtering fabric of her neckerchief – thick with ash and dust and heat. Her throat was burning, her lungs were burning – she couldn’t go on like this much longer, she needed to find someone, anyone! It didn’t even have to be a Basterd at this point. She would settle for an unallied scout, a civilian, even a negaverser. Anyone who knew what had happened here to set the whole world on fire.
Fire trucks surrounded the central square, lights flashing. Ladder and hose companies in fire retardant uniforms fought to hold a line and keep back the flames. Europa leapt them, proceeding towards the center of the plaza. There was a mound here, people were tossing things onto a mound. Sandbags? No—
Bile built up at the back of Europa’s throat, sick revulsion churning in her stomach, as she realized that the limp shapes forming the pile were corpses, some of them charred, all of them looking like they had died in agony. The sour taste at the back of her mouth grew as she circled the edge of it, looking frantically to assure there were no familiar faces in the stack, and then she saw them.
The twisted torsos of Angus and Nellie Cowden, their arms around each other, protruded from the base of the pile. Europa bit back a muffled sob and clamped her hands over her mouth, then forced herself to keep walking. Who else? What was the death toll?
Another six paces found her face to face with Pomona and Maia’s blank eyes. Eight more revealed Parker and Dani wrapped in an embrace, their faces contorted in fear. Five from there to uncover Pyxis, Abel in his arms. Castor, Polaris, Bellatrix, Eos – one by one, each Basterd turned up dead.
Except for Jaimie. Jaimie was still out there somewhere. Europa staggered away from the pile, hopeful that she wasn’t, at least, the only remaining member of her team. She struggled to ask the firefighters questions but couldn’t find the words. English had abandoned her in her most desperate hour. She struggled back to the perimeter, to face the burning city.
A figure engulfed in flame was staggering down the road. Water could not extinguish it, and so the firefighters parted to let it pass. As it moved past Tallulah, it locked eyes with her, and she felt her heart stop. Jaimie. Jaimie was burning.
The blazing figure fell, finally, seeming exhausted, onto the pile of bodies. It lit up like a funeral pyre, flames and smoke curling towards the sky. Tallulah looked up and up and up, her gaze following the flames higher and higher, and gasped as the stars raced across the sky, flashing on the horizon and then going dark.
The moon stood alone in an inky black sky. Oblivion stared back at the assembled survivors. A flame licked at the toe of her boot.
A shadow crossed over the moon.
The flames traveled up her legs, burning, burning, burning. She didn’t even try to fight them – what was the point? There wasn’t a point. You couldn’t fight it—
-Tallulah awoke to morning sunlight, WDCE’s morning show, and a ringing cell phone. Her clock radio said she’d slept a full seven hours, but she didn’t feel rested at all.
This wasn’t surprising. It was rare that she ever felt rested these days.
