End of Summer Festival (Pt. 3)

--- Maya ---

Once she got away from the other M.A.D.s -with an invitation from Kim to visit their club sometime- she started making her way to her original destination, the area where Tommy’s band should’ve set up for the wait before their competition.

While it took her a moment to find them amongst the various groups that had gathered together for the competition, she eventually found her brother sitting on an Amp and practicing on his guitar while one of his bandmates paced nervously nearby.

“Hey hermanita, wasn’t expecting to see you for another couple of hours.” Tommy greeted her as she walked up. “You need something?”

“I was just coming over to see if you needed any help with any of your equipment. I figured now is quite possibly the worst time for any of your gear to start breaking down.” She told him, letting her eyes run over the band’s equipment as she listened for anything the whispers might have to say.

“Can’t argue with that.” Tommy smiled, before shaking his head. “But no, we don’t really need any help over here. For the most part the equipment we use is going to be the same stuff everyone else is using on stage. What we’ve got here is mostly just stuff so we can try and warm up a bit.”

“Yeah, given what I’ve seen you’re probably going to need it.” She chuckled, thinking of Kim’s critters.

“Damn it even your sister thinks we’re going to lose out there.” Tommy’s bandmate Daryll -a large and emotional teen with dark skin- cried as he began to pace even more fretfully.

“Ignore him, he’s being a drama queen.” Tommy shook his head, before turning back to Maya with a hurt look. “But really hermana, you don’t think I can win? Your lack of faith hurts me right here.” Her brother whimpered patting his chest.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not so much a lack of faith as it is knowing how tough this one is going to be.”

“Huh, really?” Tommy’s joking tone shifted to something a touch more serious as she triggered his Williams brand competitive nature. “Anything you care to share, hermanita? Inside information is always appreciated.”

“Sure, it is.” She laughed wryly. “I was over by the M.A.D. section and I saw one of them… practicing for the competition. They did a whole swing song and number for the crowd, and it drew a fair number of people in.”

“Swing?” Tommy asked, with a bit of incredulity, before seriously considering it. “That’s a bit off the mainstream, but if it’s done right it can pull a decent amount of popularity. You said the band was part of the M.A.D section right?”

“Yeah, they even encouraged people to attend the music tournament later to see more.” She nodded.

“Drawing in a crowd from a separate location to up their numbers, decent strategy.” Tommy admitted with an appreciative look.

(Uh, I don’t think Kim had that in mind…) She thought to herself, just now realizing how seriously her brother was taking this in his own way.

“Never mind that.” Tommy told her shaking his head. “Since the person is an M.A.D. they’ve got to have a gimmick”

“Uh, I don’t think you’d believe me…” She admitted a little warily as she tried to take a step back from her brother.

Tommy’s hand shot across the space between them as he stood, locking her in place as he looked her in the eye and quite bluntly said, “Don’t care. Give me the details so I can crush this bitch, now.”

---

Having eventually managed to extract herself from Tommy’s impromptu interrogation, she decided to take a walk around the festival and try to find something to do. And as she cut through a series of stalls hosting a number of classic carnival games, she noticed a familiar figure trying and failing at one of said games.

“Gah, this game is rigged!” Izzy yelled, stamping her foot in front of a stall with a little ball launcher.

“Uh, I thought everyone already knew that.” She couldn’t help but comment, as she walked up behind her sister.

“I know they’re supposed to be harder than normal, but you’re supposed to still be able to beat them if you’re good enough.” Izzy growled out as she turned a glare on the unperturbed stand attendant, who merely laughed.

“Ever consider you’re just not good enough kid?”

(Asshole.) She glared at the attendant, who just rolled his eyes at her.

“You two going to play again, or no?”

She shook her head before looking over the stall’s sportier prizes. “What exactly are you trying to win here?”

Izzy looked away from her and mumbled something.

“What?”

“The teddy bear… the big one…” Izzy mumbled just barely loud enough to hear.

She blinked, her eyes moving to the bear about Seamus’s size before looking at the little sister whom refused to meet her eyes.

(Huh, sometimes I forget she’s still a middle schooler.)

(Well, unless she’s kicking our ass that is.)

Ignoring the voice in her head, she put a couple of ones on the table. “Alright I’ll give it a shot too I guess.”

“I just said it’s rigged.” Izzy scowled.

“I know.” She nodded as patronizingly as possible, before turning to the attendant. “Still, how’s this stupid thing work?”

“If you want the bear, you need to shoot down the target in the back.” The attendant recited the rules in a droning tone.

“And I did!” Izzy shouted.

“If you shot it down, it wouldn’t be standing up.” The attendant told her sister, in a patronizing tone.

(Hey, that’s only funny when we do it!)

“Alright, well your money ‘s on the counter.” She pointed out.

The attendant gave her an unimpressed look before hitting a button, loading three foam balls into the stall’s gun.

Her first shot missed by a wide margin, the second by even more, and -through luck more than any semblance of skill- the third managed to hit the target.

“Oh, so close.” The attendant told her in as sarcastic a tone as possible.

She felt her eye twitch as she stared at the (insolent) target that dared not to topple to her superior might and intellect.

“Izzy, why don’t you give it another shot. I think I loosened it up for you.” She (ordered) her little sister, as she began plotting the inevitable destruction of her newest enemy.

(Oh, dear…)

(Oh, yes!)

“We’ve both hit it, and it didn’t topple over.” Izzy reminded her, of why she needed to double down on her vengeance. “Me hitting it again isn’t going to do anything.”

“No, no, like you said we both hit it, so I think it’s about ready to topple.” She argued, pulling her backpack off as she put a few more bills on the counter. “I’ll even pay for this round.”

Izzy gave her a look, before shaking her head. “Your money I guess…”

The moment Izzy wasn’t looking she pulled out her COMP and quickly began screwing around with several bits of limiter code on one of her more used functions. “Remember to take your time and aim.” She told her little sister as her fingers flew far faster than normal as the whispers gave her exactly what she was looking for.

“I know.” Izzy groaned in annoyance.

While she wasn’t able to completely finish the quick bit of code she was working on right off the bat, she was able to finish what she needed by the time of her sister’s third and final shot.

(Alright, so Sonic is technically a form of kinetic so let’s tweak this, that, and apply from a specified point, then apply corrections for Izzy’s aim -which is significantly better than mine, -no wait, vengeance more important than sibling superiority-- and done.)

As Izzy lined up her final shot, she gained a look of concentration as she fired, an audible crack blasting through the air and forcing the target back with enough power to snap whatever hinge had been holding it in place.

“The fuck!” The attendant jumped.

“Hey, hey, hey! Language, my little sister is listening here.” She glared at the attendant. “Just because you lose doesn’t mean you should be cursing, that’s a bad example for all of the kids at this festival.”

“I know for a fact that wasn’t normal!” The attendant shouted drawing the attention of several of the nearby festival goers.

“And why wouldn’t it be normal for someone to win at your stall?” She asked, daring the attendant to admit that he’d been cheating in front of the crowd around them.

(This may be a bit hypocritical of us…)

(We’re cheating on behalf of someone else, making it morally okay.) Her inner madness argued.

The attendant matched her glare before grabbing the large teddy bear and practically throwing it at her as he spat. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, handing the prize to her excited little sister.

“It’s so fluffy!” Izzy cheered, hugging the bear close.

(Oversized teddy bear, five dollars… The game to win it, twenty dollars… Little sister’s happiness, up to a hundred dollars… Vengeance on someone who tried to cheat me, priceless.)

---

Deciding it was better to split off from her much happier little sister, before said sister could put her Williams family intelligence to work and start asking questions about the oddities of that last shot, Maya began wandering through the festival grounds in search of something else to do before Tommy’s competition.

And as luck would have it she found Vi looking around at the various festival signs, before making her way in a specific direction.

“Hey Vi.” She called once she’d burned through the distance between them.

“Oh, hey My.” Vi greeted back as Maya started walking next to her. “What’s up?”

“Not much, just got away from Izzy. She’s working herself into a fit trying to beat all of the carnival games.” She tried explaining.

“Uh, she does know those are all rigged, right?” Vi asked with a touch of incredulity.

“That’s what I told her, but nope.” She sighed with a shake of her head. “That chica is just too stubborn sometimes.”

Vi gave that comment a snort of amusement. “Aren’t we all?”

She waved that response away. “Not when we know we’re getting cheated. In that case we just cheat harder.”

“Yeah, that’s a healthy response.” Vi drawled with a fair bit of sarcasm.

“As if you have any room to talk.” She scoffed.

“True enough.” Vi admitted unrepentantly.

Shaking her head, Maya took a moment to look around, “Uh, so where are you heading? We’ve still got a like half an hour until Tommy’s show, so…”

“I heard some of the town’s Arcane got together to put on this whole magic show thing. Figured it could be interesting.” Vi explained. “If nothing else, they might have some of those summons from other worlds or something cool like that.”

“Right…” She’d seen said summons once or twice on the news when a heroic or villainous Arcane got into a big enough fight in public, though never in person. Which led her to a curious question, tangentially related to topic at hand. “Hey, just wondering, but have you ever seen a Traveler in person?”

Vi blinked. “Uh, I don’t think so. Our town doesn’t really have much in the way of rift activity, so there aren’t really any to see.” Her older sister gave her a curious look. “Why do you ask?”

“No, I was just thinking about how all of those Arcane Summons are technically travelers even if temporary.” She tried explaining, before something occurred to her. “At least if they really are dragging creatures from other dimensions into ours. If they’re just projections that kind of invalidates the question.”

(I wouldn’t put it past those wannabe wizard motherfuckers.)

“Huh, I guess that is one way to look at it.” Vi admitted, before shaking her head. “You know you really mess with the whole ‘wonder of magic’ thing, hermanita.”

“It’s an esoteric energy field that can be manipulated,” She scoffed with a roll of her eyes. “Just because we call it ‘magic’, doesn’t mean there’s a mysterious mystical garbage to it. Th-the differences in ‘magic’ are all about user perception not anything real. In fact, I’m sure M.A.D.s can do the same stuff with a bit of effort, and we know their stuff is all based in science, if advanced.” (Hell, my Reality Hacking is basically weak magic.)

(And that’s only because we’re still getting the hang of it.) Her inner passion agreed.

“Right,” Vi gave her little rant a snort of amusement. “almost forgot you were one of those.”

She felt her eyes narrow. “One of what?”

“Everything is science, there is no magic to the universe.” Vi told her in an awed tone of voice.

“Well, there isn’t.” She did not pout.

Vi gave her another snort as she shook her head. “Whatever you say herma-”

A scream through the air cut off Vi’s statement, drawing both sister’s attention to a woman staring at something in the sky.

“The hell?”

Following the woman’s gaze both of their eyes went wide as they caught sight of a large red tear in the sky.

“Oh, shit!” Vi cursed, grabbing her arm and dragging her away from the scene.

“What’s going on?” She couldn’t help but ask as she was forced to move to keep pace with her practically fleeing sister. “Isn’t that just a rift?”

They could be considered dangerous depending on what was on the other side, but as long as no one drew the attention whatever that maybe they were relatively harmless in the time it took sanctuary to seal them off. Something she actually wanted to see given the advanced science necessary to do so.

“If it was everyone wouldn’t be freaking out.” Vi told her motioning to the fact other people were fleeing as well. “No, that’s a bleed.”

“A what?” She asked,

“A-” Vi took a breath, massaging her temples. “A bleed is like a rift; except the world it’s connected to is usually a hell dimension that wants to murder everyone.”

“W-well, how do you know that’s a bleed?”

A wet tearing sound ripped through the air above them, giving her the opportunity to see claws sticking out of a tear that was seemingly dripping blood just few paces away. And while she wasn’t exactly sure why, she could feel the sheer amount of hate pouring out of this thing, as if whatever was trying to tear it’s way through reality wanted nothing more than to kill her where she stood.

“Oh.”

“Two? Why are there two?!” Vi panicked. “That only happens in hell holes like Baskerville!”

“Um, Vi?” She called, noting something very unpleasant.

“What?!” Her sister snapped, dragging her away from the new bleed.

“There’s more than two…” She whimpered, as her sister finally noticed the dozen or so bleeds opening in the space above the festival.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Vi cursed pulling out her phone and dialing a number.

As Vi tried to reach whoever she was, Maya took the time to observe the bleeds, listening to the whispers as they tried to tell her something about the phenomenon in front of her, only to lack a large amount of background knowledge tied to what they were saying.

Suddenly one of the bleeds nearby lurched as it began wriggle and thrash in the air, the blood pouring from it doubling in quantity as whatever creature was on the other side began to claw it’s way through sending a thin muscle covered arm through the bleed, as it forced its body through the tear in reality.

She reached out to shake her sister’s arm as she watched the monster be birthed into existence. “Uh, Vi?”

“Damn it, all of Sanctuary’s lines are busy. Hopefully that means someone is calling this mess in.” Vi told her glaring at her phone.

“That’s all well and good, but I really think we should get moving!” She yelled, shoving her sister away from the monster as it hit the pavement with a harsh thud.

“Oh, shit!” Vi cursed once more as she finally noticed the monster in front of them, as well as the fact the other bleeds were all starting to birth their own as well. “Run!”

“Don’t need to tell me twice!”