Episode: 6.8

--- Prosperity ---

The next few minutes were a blur of running, butterflies, and fire (so much fire) as she tried to escape the angry dragon lady trying to gut, maim, incinerate, kill, and or eat her.

For the umpteenth time in the last however long she’d been running she threw a small swarm of butterflies behind her, fully willing to take another metaphorical knife to her brain if it bought her even a momentary opening.

One she used to cut around a nearby building and hide behind an alley dumpster all while hoping the homicidal mask had lost sight of her with that last batch of butterflies.

(What was I thinking?!) She berated herself. (I make butterflies that explode into glitter and dust, how the fuck did I think that was good enough to fight a mask?!)

The truth was, she hadn’t been thinking, she’d seen people in trouble, people about to be hurt, and knew she could do something to stop it, beyond that the rest had been instinct.

(Instincts that are going to get me killed!)

“Damn it…” She cried, palming her face in her hands as she tried to figure out a way out of this situation.

She’d already tried ducking through the nearby back alleys to try and run, but that had just led her to more Sanctuary barricades and she was at least half convinced that Sanctuary would shoot her if she tried to get passed, especially with a fire breathing dragon trying to kill her.

“Okay, so, I’m going to be honest. Given the look on your face right now, you don’t really look like you belong here.”

She jumped at the new voice before turning to her left to see a boy about her age in a black jacket with the hood up, and a white half mask that reminded her of some cross between a wolf and a cat. The detail that made her stall however was the fact that the boy had solid black eyes, save two glowing star-like white pupils.

“Hello, anybody home?” The boy asked waving a hand in front of her face.

Shaking her head out of her thoughts, she moved as far as she could from the boy without leaving cover. “Wh-who’re you?!”

“Mm,” The boy tilted his head from one side and then to the other. “You know what? I’ll tell you once we’re out of here, because at the moment you’ve got bigger issues than introductions.”

The boy gestured to the other side of the car, and she couldn’t help but wince at the sound of an explosion as the Mask she’d been fighting began to get impatient with her hiding.

Swallowing down her apprehension she turned back to the boy, who seemed to be trying his hand at being a Mask, even if he was a little blasé about it. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas on how to deal with this Deviant?”

The boy once more tilted his head side to side. “Depends, on what your Deviation is? I mean that explosion was cool, but since you only used it once, I’m guessing it was more an attack of opportunity than an actual ability.”

“Um,” She blinked before concentrating as she made a few butterflies. “I make… butterflies, I guess… I um, I got them to carry gasoline, and with her fire it just sort of went… boom.” She explained, miming an explosion with her hands.

The boy just stared at her, causing her to wince.

(Yeah, I already know it’s not the most impressive power… but I’ve made it work so far!)

“Oh, that’ll work pur-r-fectly…” The boy grinned with a few too many teeth, his eyes still staring, not at her she realized, but rather her butterflies, though that was only second on her mind.

(Did, did he just purr?! People can actually do that?!)

“Tell me, how many of those beautiful little butterflies can you make?” The boy asked his pupils like pinpricks as they watched her butterflies flutter around.

“Um,” She tried to think of a number and found herself drawing a blank, even those bursts she’d unleashed to try and distract the mask didn’t put a real dent in her reserves, at least not until that explosion killed them all. “I’m not actually sure…” She finally settled on answering.

The boy tilted his head from side to side, before nodding to her. “Well… no better time to find out, now is there?”

She felt the boy was being a little to blasé about their situation, though she couldn’t really argue his point either.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with them then?” She asked as she began flexing her powers. “Swarming her is just pissing her off more.”

“Have you tried, outright blasting her in the face? Like a butterfly shotgun,” The boy punctuated this statement by making a, “chika-pew!” sound.

“That’s…” She pinched the bridge of her nose, the (stupid) boy’s idiocy, not helping her headache at all, but given she was too polite to say that she instead told him, “I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Have you tried it that way?” The boy asked with a tilt of his head.

She opened her mouth, only to close it and frown before reluctantly answering with a slow, “No…”

“Then how do you know it doesn’t work that way?”

She tried very, very hard to refute that point, at least until a car flew over head and crashed into a nearby building.

“Wow,” The boy blinked. “She really is pissed.”

“Okay, so,” She swallowed as the car slowly slid out of the building dragging half a ton of bricks down with it. “So, let’s say I can make a butterfly shot gun, how exactly am I supposed to get close enough to use it?”

“Leave that to me.” The boy assured her in a way that did nothing to reassure her.

(Oh, this is a bad idea…)

Despite that it was the only idea she had.

“Fine.” She eventually agreed, already twisting her energy this way and that to try and do what the boy had suggested. “Just, try not to get us killed.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” The boy promised her, something in his tone making her feel like she could trust him to keep it.

“Alright then…” She swallowed down her apprehension as the energy in her began to shift and flutter inside her forearm, almost feeling like dozens of butterflies were landing inside her arm. “Let’s do this.”

“Your wish is my command.” The boy, half-bowed from his crouched position.

Without another word, the boy shot forward his arm wrapping around her waist before they were suddenly moving through the air, speeding towards the half-collapsed building wall.

She shut her eyes, immediately regretting her decision to listen to the boy as she waited for impact.

Only instead of feeling herself crash into a brick wall she instead felt the boy shift her into a bridal carry, before the air moving around her stopped for a brief moment as her body was held in place.

“Come on, I told you I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.” The boy pouted in a tone that told her he was fighting a smile.

Deciding to risk it, she opened her eyes and caught sight of the boy’s black shirt and jacket, before shifting her gaze to where the boy’s hands and feet met the wall, a black mist pouring from each.

“Now if you’d keep your eyes open for your opening…” The boy commented, drawing her attention to his face. “We can really have some fun.”

The boy gave her a flirtatious wink, before pushing off the wall and generating a small cloud of black mist as they were both launched into the air.

As they shot through the air, she was briefly reminded of a roller coaster, even more so as the boy began to kick off other buildings and streetlights to keep them moving, never letting their actual height fall below two stories in the air.

There was an ear-splitting roar as the dragon-esque mask caught sight of them, before a heat filled the air as a number of fireballs were thrown at them.

“Oh, shit!” she cursed, instinctively wanting to get away from the attacks, but physically incapable of it as the boy was carrying her through the air.

The boy shifted his grip on her so that her body was more parallel with his, rather then the bridal carry he’d had her in, she had just a moment to realize that his hands had a dark almost black glow to them, before he lashed out sending a wave of black something out to destroy one of the fireballs and propel them away from another.

“Don’t worry,” The boy tried to calm her, feeling the way she’d tensed as the fireball passed. “I’ll can handle the-” the boy paused as he spun them past another ball of fiery death. “-dodging. Just let me know when…” The boy kicked off a building, just barely dodging the fireball that exploded there shortly after. “… you see an opening.”

She nodded, forcing her eyes away from the various hazards to her health, forcing herself to believe that (the boy will keep us safe) as she kept her eyes locked on the fire deviant currently trying to kill them.

After a moment of the boy taking larger and faster leaps to keep the dragon lady from targeting them, she called out, “There!” while pointing, as they flew through the air, having noticed how the homicidal mask was turning back and forth in paranoia and rage, leaving her back open.

“Right.” The boy nodded, drawing his arm back, before shooting it forward. Suddenly a large black claw like appendage wrapped around his hand and forearm before shooting out and digging into the pavement behind the dragon-esque Deviant.

The boy pulled his arm back, sending them hurtling to the pavement, and while the boy controlled most of the impact, she still felt it was closer to crashing than landing, given how shaky her legs were as she stood up.

(Focus!)

She shook her head, before turning to face the dragon lady who had just realized where they’d landed, and shot her hand out, unleashing as many butterflies as she could, as rapidly as she could, forming less of a butterfly shotgun so much as a firehose.

The dragon lady covered her face and took a step back, and for a moment Prosperity felt a bubble of hope in her chest, that the boy’s idea might’ve held some merit, at least until the mask reminded everyone she was a fire Deviant by once more incinerating all of Prosperity’s butterflies, something that once more drove a metaphysical knife through her skull.

(Oh… I knew this… was a bad idea…)

“WhEn aRe yoU gOInG tO lEaRn?!” The mask asked, flames dancing across her skin. “ThAt WoN’T sToP mE!” With that said the fire Deviant began reaching towards her with a clawed hand, coated in flames.

The boy lunged from behind her, drop-kicking the dragon lady and sending the mask flying back before the flames could hurt her.

“Not going to lie, was kind of hoping that would do a little more…” He commented landing next to her with a curious glance.

She couldn’t help but glare at him. “They’re butterflies, I don’t know what you were expecting!”

The boy watched her for a moment before tilting his head and murmuring an odd, “Interesting…” that just left her more frustrated.

Another ear-splitting roar tore through the air, drawing their attention back to the thoroughly pissed off fire-breathing dragon lady glaring at them.

“No need to be so loud, we’re right here.” The boy commented, his unique eyes making his eye roll all the more prominent as he pat his ear.

“Don’t make it worse!” She hissed at him.

The mask growled at the boy’s comment, the fire deviant’s flames growing all the more erratic before gathering above her in a fireball the size of a car. One the homicidal Mask had little issue with throwing at them.

“Oh, shit!” She cursed, trying to leap out of the way, only to stumble as the ringing in her ears continued.

“Uh oh.” The boy threw his arm around her waist and kicked off the ground launching both away from the blast.

Sadly, when this fireball hit the pavement it exploded with far more heat and force than any of the previous ones they’d managed to avoid.

“Shit.” She just barely heard the boy curse, before feeling him wrap around her blocking her vision as a wave of heat rolled over them. She felt a rough impact, and several smaller ones as they rolled across the pavement, before the boy finally released her as they came to a stop.

“Ugh, my head…” she groaned, as she pushed herself up.

She took a moment to reorient herself, only to freeze as she caught sight of the burning crater of where they’d just been, one even bigger than her gasoline fueled butterflies made.

Swallowing down whatever revelations about her mortality that gave her, she turned back to the boy to make sure he was okay

There were several holes, gashes, and burns that she could see on his jacket, some of the nastier ones being over the arms he’d wrapped around her, as well as the nastiest being a bleeding wound on the side of his forehead where his mask had been cracked.

For a moment she was worried she’d have to check his pulse, at least until she heard a low growl coming from his chest.

As if he wasn’t even injured the boy sat up with a frown as he dusted off his jacket.

“A-are y-you o-okay?” She stuttered out, extremely shaken by both their near cremation, and the fact that the boy had taken the brunt of the damage.

“Not important.” The boy told her with a rough tone as he stood, his eyes never leaving the dragon-esque mask who nearly incinerated them, his white pupils like pinpricks. “Think you can summon another one of those swarms?”

Thankful to have something other than their mortality to focus on, she closed her eyes and put her hands together as she started pulling at the power that slept inside of her, before opening her eyes and nodding. “Y-yeah, but I’m going to need a moment to make it.”

“Alright,” The boy nodded back. “I can buy you that moment but, try to make it count, because I don’t have much time left before I have to call this.”

She turned to the boy with an incredulous look. “We just tried that! I can distract her, but I don’t have anything to actually put her down!”

The boy gave her a derisive snort, as if she’d said something funny, and was about to say something, only to cut himself off as the dragon lady threw another massive fire ball at them.

“Fricking hate these mad Corrupted…” the boy grumbled before clasping his hands, causing a swirl of black mist to congeal into a shield in front of them.

Completely unbothered by the assault he was stopping the boy turned back to her with his pinprick like pupils. “Look princess, you’ve got a veritable army at your beck and call. All you’ve got to do is figure out how to put a bit of… force into ‘em.”

“How am I supposed to do that?!”

The boy rolled his eyes before something swat against her legs, forcing her to fall on her ass as the boy stepped out of cover. “Like I said, I’ll buy you that moment, you figure out how to use your power.”

“But how-”

“Hey now,” The boy called to the dragon lady, completely ignoring her. “What’s with this heated response? I mean I thought you were trying to give me the cold shoulder here.”

She could actually hear the fire Deviant growl this time before throwing a fireball that the boy dodged just as easily as the others, leaving it to speed down an alley she knew for a fact led to a Sanctuary barricade, but she couldn’t bring herself to care at the moment.

Deciding that she’d seen enough, (and that the (odd) boy hadn’t really left her with much choice) she clapped her hands together and began moving her fingers in a way that seemed to help her powers as she began to shift and weave the energy inside of her, crafting a swarm even larger than the ones she’d sent after the mask earlier

(Is this really going to be enough?) She shook her head, remembering the boy’s words, (Of course it will, just… just got to put a bit more force into it.)

Closing her eyes, she pushed all the energy she had left into her swarm, making as many butterflies as she could, all while focusing on giving them enough power to actually put the dragon lady down.

(“If a single butterfly pushes the winds to stay afloat, maybe a few thousand can push the world to change.”)

Once more something inside of her shifted, before spreading out to all of her swarm, and this time she could feel the change, the way each and every butterfly in her swarm changed in some small way as they became a little more durable, a little stronger, a little more… forceful.

Her eyes slid open, a mad grin on her lips as she gazed upon the swarming and fluttering mass of butterflies (and dreams) fluttering all around her

She raised her hands, some twisted euphoria dancing at the edge of her mind as her swarm rose, hundreds, (no), thousands of butterflies taking high into the sky, high enough to cast the entire street in shadows.

The dragon-esque Deviant stopped her pursuit of the boy and looked up towards the massive swarm above them, the rampaging Deviant’s expression drawing a mad giggle bubbling up her throat, as she couldn’t help but murmur a nursery rhyme, she couldn’t remember ever hearing before.

“~Run and hide, but don’t stand tall, for the sky shall fall upon one and all.~”

She dropped her arms, and for one moment her entire world seemed to still, and then…

ThE SKY Fell.