The sun had already set. It got dark early this far north, and Jenny coasted across the frozen lake she'd already scanned countless times. She didn't want to rest until she found Circus. Her search was getting tiring, though, even for her. She stopped her flight, touched down on the ice and continued walking across it aimlessly.
She walked on, away from the city, until she stumbled on some old blood stains and a piece of a broken plank. Jenny grabbed the plank and wondered what its story was.
The world was dark out here, with no manmade light sources. She turned around to look at the city and sat down on the ice. The city was bright in comparison, but Jenny figured it would probably be much brighter if it had power. She wondered if the people were suffering. And what her friends were doing right now.
It was lonely out here. Maybe the farewell hug she gave her friends was a bad omen. She'd been avoiding people ever since. The one interaction she had was with a local superhero who was on a crusade to kill her. It made her feel like the world was against her… In fact, it was definitely against her, ever since she broke out of jail and Dark Jenny appeared on the news for crimes against mankind. She didn't blame the black cape for her efforts.
Jenny threw the plank away and grabbed her phone. She opened the group chat to read the messages for comfort, but there weren't that many additional messages after Circus joined the group. Everything happened so quickly afterwards, and they've been together or talking via radio ever since.
"[Circus]Hi everyone!"
"[Circus]@You 🤖"
"[Saturn]Racist…"
"[Circus]@You ❤️"
"[Saturn]Regrettable…"
"[Plural]Regrettable"
"[You] Be nice!"
"[You] @Circus❤️"
"[Circus]@You ❤️"
Some time passed after this latest message. Jenny remembered that at the time, she felt a little left out.
"[Plural]It ok we said sorry"
"[Circus]@Plural You did not…"
"[Plural]You know ily"
Jenny had a hard time figuring Plural out from her text messages.
"[Saturn]I said sorry"
"[Saturn]You should know @You"
"[Saturn]@Circus Tell her"
"[Circus]Yess"
"[You]Good! 🥰"
"[Plural]Yes but I will make her pasta so…"
"[Plural]Shallow @Saturn"
"[Plural]Be better"
It was only now that Jenny realized this was a hint that Circus joined Plural at her place. Stupid…
She smiled as she re-read the messages, then closed her phone and lay down on the ice. Jenny looked at the stars in the sky. There was hardly any light pollution here, so she could see the center of the galaxy she lived in. The sky still colored blue a bit from her flight. She'd noticed that before and wondered if Dark Jenny left a red glow instead. She kept an eye out for it but never saw anything. Maybe it was holed up somewhere.
Jenny sat upright again and looked down at the ice. She wiped it clean and looked at her own reflection, seeing the stars behind her. Jenny activated her blue hair again to look at herself that way. She changed its color, like she was spinning a color wheel in her head, until she hit red, then stared at herself some more. The visual gave her a nasty feeling, and she rotated the wheel further until she ended up on her favorite color blue again.
When she did, she could see something huge moving underneath the ice. It looked like some sort of underwater creature, but it was so big she couldn't really tell. Was it reacting to her hair?
Jenny levitated into the air to get a better look, and to her surprise, she could see an enormous eye, staring at her. Was she sitting on top of that the whole time? Jenny came back down on the ice and got on her hands and knees. She moved her hand in the center of its pupil and gave it a friendly smile, wondering what kind of nickname Saturn would give this thing if he was here.
"Hello, Mr. Fishy…"
She knew that wasn't it, but whatever. Like with the bear in the woods, she made that clicking sound again, like to lure a cat over. She definitely didn't have any suitable treats for this thing, though. The eye took a moment longer to look at her, and then disappeared, sinking into the depths until Jenny could no longer see it. She sat down again and looked disappointed, taking her eyes back up to the stars.
She didn't have long, because the ice around her cracked with a kind of loudness Jenny had never heard before. Her ears had no problem with it, but a normal person might've gone deaf. The ice she was sitting on moved like it'd come loose from the rest of the frozen lake and floated on the water. When she looked, there was a beast that looked a bit like a whale, beached on her piece of ice, tilting it upwards.
Jenny studied the creature and tried to make sense of what she was seeing as she slowly slid towards it. It might've resembled a whale, but she knew it wasn't a whale. It didn't look like a normal animal, but she knew for sure it was friendly. It had no visible eyes besides that big eye from before, which was gone now. Jenny sat completely unworried as her butt slid across the ice towards the creature, until she held out her hand and stopped when she touched what might've been the creature's snout.
She stood up, felt the snout with both of her hands and smiled. She got the sense that the creature was both friendly and intelligent, and that it wanted to make contact with her.
"What are you doing out here?" she tried to ask it.
The creature didn't respond in any observable way. It hadn't even made any sound at all and continued not to make any when it slipped back into the water. Jenny could now see the large eye from before on its back. It tilted its body backwards, so the snout was facing the sky, and spat out water like a fountain. The amount of water was staggering and went up far enough it could probably be spotted from the city.
Jenny looked up, then back at the creature to see it sink back into the water. She had no idea what was going on. The creature was now deep enough into the water so that she couldn't see it anymore. She stood there to stare at it, until the shower of the creature's water came back down to hit her. It hit with enough force and volume that she had to activate her flight mode again to stay above water, as her piece of ice was hit hard enough to topple over.
Jenny was getting soaked, but she didn't mind. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the waterfall while it lasted.
♦
Circus woke up to an awful headache. The last thing she remembered was passing out when Dark Jenny flew away from the museum. This place was similarly dark, only slightly lit up by moonlight coming in through the damaged walls. It looked like an old bunker, and it was unbelievably cold here. Nothing like the museum from before, where the climate was surprisingly warm. Circus looked around as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she noticed other people were with her, unconscious. No sign of Dark Jenny.
She shook one of the other unconscious people, trying to wake them, but she got no response. Circus decided to check on the others. She had a hunch Dark Jenny wasn't going to kill her, based on everything that happened until now. She walked on the freezing floor in the same clothing she wore when she was taken at Plural's house, meaning no shoes.
None of the other victims woke up either, but they all had a pulse, and they all had the same wound on their stomach. Circus examined the wound on the person in front of her, realizing she probably had the same one. She pulled up her shirt, and there it was: a deep cut surrounded by pale skin. She traced it with her finger and noticed she couldn't feel the spot anymore. It must've been frozen on purpose. The rest of her body wasn't even close to freezing.
Circus remembered the events at the museum. She was Dark Jenny's only luggage when it flew away, so these people must be locals. She wondered how much time had passed since then as she examined her wound. Circus put her shirt back down and decided to leave the others the way she found them for now.
Upon getting to the next room and inspecting it, she was sure this was some old bunker when she spotted a fortified door at the end of it. This room was larger than the last one but contained nothing noteworthy aside from some old furniture and a creepy looking mirror in a dark corner of the room. A piece of the wall was damaged enough to show her the outside world, and she swallowed as she realized this wasn't anywhere close to home.
Circus approached the gap in the wall to get a better look and saw dark buildings. In the sky was the clearest view of the galaxy she'd ever seen in her life. Wherever this was, there wasn't a lot of light pollution. She also noticed some smoke in the distance, like a giant campfire.
She saw something move in the corner of her eye and jerked her head in the direction of the mirror in the dark corner of the room from before. She stared at the dark spot until her eyes adjusted enough to reveal a silhouette of a figure standing in front of it, it had its head turned to look at her. It was a terrifying image to look at, but Circus knew it had to be Dark Jenny. Nothing she didn't expect. She wondered if it was still keen on sparing her life.
The figure approached her from the shadows to reveal itself, confirming her suspicions. It gave Circus another friendly wave. Circus stared back and gave a shallow wave back. Dark Jenny didn't do anything else. It held a pistol in one of its hands but did nothing with it.
"So… do you talk?" Circus hesitantly asked.
Dark Jenny didn't respond in any way. It tilted its head slightly, still smiling.
"Did you… do this?" she lifted her shirt up to show the wound.
Dark Jenny nodded.
Circus' heart raced. She just communicated with this thing. It understands her…
"Why? What did you do to me?"
Dark Jenny didn't react and looked at Circus like it didn't even hear the question. She was probably limited to just yes-no kinds of questions.
"Are you gonna kill me??"
Dark Jenny shook its head.
Circus felt her wound again and wondered what she could ask to find out what the purpose of the wounds were using just yes-no questions. Then she wondered if it would even want to tell her. She didn't want to lose this opportunity and started asking her most burning questions.
"Do you wanna kill Jenny?"
No.
"Do you hate us? Me and Jenny, and our friends?"
No.
Circus was flabbergasted. This thing really is just treating this whole matter like some game to cure its boredom.
"Aren't you scared Jenny's gonna kill you?"
Another no.
"You're not afraid of death?"
Dark Jenny didn't answer literally this time. It handed Circus the pistol. When she gave it a closer look, she realized it was a flare pistol.
"You want me to fire this?"
Yes.
Circus looked at the sky again. She could fire the flare from here. Was Jenny close? She remembered holding the tracker button for five seconds like Saturn said, but she didn't know if it really worked. Why would Dark Jenny allow her to call for help anyway? Was this a trap?
She gave Dark Jenny one last look. It was no use trying to guess what it was thinking. This thing was some sort of eldritch horror that just wanted to be entertained. It admitted to having no feelings towards Jenny and the group and seemingly wasn't even afraid of death. Maybe that, too, would be a cure for boredom.
Circus pointed the pistol as straight up at the sky as she could and fired it. As expected, a flare signal just like the ones she'd seen in the movies shot up into the sky. Dark Jenny looked pleased and returned to the mirror. Hopefully, Jenny was here to see it, and hopefully this wasn't a trap.
♦
Tatters' body was illuminated by flames. She stood in front of a burning building, which was the only light source in the immediate area. Her house. She held a blue cape that had a yellow "T" logo on the back, it was the first cape she used when she tried to be a local superhero. Even this one was tattered. She cringed as she examined it, remembering all the awful things that happened when she wore it, back when she was naïve and optimistic.
She believed becoming a hero would save her, but it didn't take her long to fall into a depression and turn into a villain instead. Or at least, she wasn't sure what she was anymore. Everybody feared her, even if they approved of what she did. Every morning, she came home, and there was nobody there to tell her she did a good job. And every afternoon, she got out of bed to do it all over again.
She remembered the day she stopped using the old cape. It was when she killed a man and broke her golden rule for the first time. After that, she couldn't bear wearing that embarrassing "T" on her back anymore, and she grew to find the color combination ridiculous. Her current black cape took its place. It was less offensive because it had nothing on it. Even still, she couldn't bring herself to get rid of this one up until now. She always had it on display at home like some reminder of her past mistakes. She folded the cape into a ball and tossed it into the fire, so it could burn with the rest of her belongings.
All the things she needed for her final mission were loaded onto her trike. She turned her back to the fire and walked to her vehicle. It was a sleek design, with two wheels at the front and one at the back. Compact enough to be usable anywhere in and around the city, but long enough to be able to carry cargo or passengers. It looked like it had been to hell and back, with its paint job almost completely missing. Some parts of it were reinforced to allow it to ram things, or block gunfire.
She grabbed a weapon from the trike's seat and mounted it to the vehicle's side carrier. It was a heavy-duty crossbow, a weapon she didn't normally use. It fired bolts that stayed connected to it though a wire, allowing her to infuse them with the piercing effects of her power, all the way until impact. Earlier today, during her bout with the robot that could bring an end to mankind, she cursed herself for only being equipped to fight people. This time, she'd bring a harpoon to her white whale.
The next moment, almost like a sign from the universe itself, in the distance, the moonlight illuminated an enormous spray of water. It reached a height comparable to that of a skyscraper, before plateauing and coming back down. That was the direction of the frozen lake, where she was almost killed last night. It matched the location where the blue object in the sky was last spotted.
At the same time, not that far away, a flare went up into the sky. On any other day, she wouldn't hesitate to go to the flare and answer the call for help. She felt a surge of anger go through her whole body, exhaled, then got on her vehicle.
♦
Plural walked though the dark city center alone. She and Saturn split up. They'd gone all day without resting or eating. Plural was trying to find a place for them to sleep, while Saturn looked for a way to get food for the two. The streets were relatively empty for being early evening, but people were probably holed up inside trying to keep warm.
She was ecstatic back when she first saw the city from that rooftop Jenny landed on. Now, she realized how hostile this place really was to herself and Saturn in this crisis. Restaurants didn't look like they were operating, and that made total sense too. How were they going to find food? Were there even any hotels that'd still rent out rooms? Then there was the issue of power for Jenny. Would anybody let her plug into their precious generator?
She felt her stomach growl as she walked across a bridge in the direction of Saturn, when she saw a flare go up into the sky.
"You seeing this, guys?" radio-Saturn said.
"Yeah…" Plural replied.
Plural looked at the flare and had a strange gut feeling.
Circus…
"Jenny?" she called out again.
Jenny didn't respond.
Plural saw the flare slow its ascent until it didn't go up anymore. She was scared it would disappear soon, and they'd have no idea where it came from. Plural didn't want to wait for Jenny to respond to her radio and pressed her panic button. Almost immediately after she did, she could hear what sounded like fireworks in the distance, going off three times a second and approaching rapidly until Jenny appeared by her side just seconds after she pressed the button, soaking wet.
"What's wrong?" Jenny asked worriedly.
Plural pointed at the flare. Jenny looked in the direction like she was seeing it for the first time right here. Her eyes looked like she was racing the options through her head.
"I think it's her," Plural said.
"Okay…" Jenny replied. She didn't seem as convinced, but she trusted her friend.
"Was that you, Jen?" radio-Saturn asked.
Jenny embraced Plural and lifted them both up into the air, flying towards the flare at a fast but manageable pace. Plural could see Jenny's eyes had a slightly green glow to them now, as she looked at the building below the flare.
"You get Circus to safety," Jenny said as she slowed down to drop Plural outside what looked like an old bunker.
♦
Circus waited anxiously as she watched her flare go up into the sky. She looked back at Dark Jenny, who was standing in front of the mirror again. Too dark to see clearly. What she could see, was its head turning her way again as she heard loud bangs outside. When she looked, she could see blue sparkles going across her field of view, not exactly going towards her flare.
"Jenny…"
It dawned on her that her friend really did respond to her distress signal. She looked up into the sky again to see the signal still perfectly bright in the sky, perfectly above her. She'd fired a good shot. Jenny's sparkles disappeared behind some buildings that blocked her view to the left, so she had no idea if she was coming or not.
She looked back at Dark Jenny, whose eyes were now visible in the darkness. They had a faint green glow to them. It was looking at the bunker wall in the direction Jenny had disappeared.
A few seconds later, it took half a step back before being swept away by a blue flash that crashed straight through the bunker and exited out the other end, leaving Circus behind.