shatterverse | (no subject)

"Hi!"

Stranger smiles, sits up, and waves.

"There used to be flowers," she says, a little regretfully. "But," and she brightens, "there's people instead!"

She digs into the back pocket of her jeans and produces a slightly battered but improbably whole chocolate bar, which she offers grandly.

Yeah, no way is Sparrow eating something offered to her by a strange person in a strange place. She read about Persephone!

Or 'Claw forced her to read it. Same diff, right?

"You know what's going on?"

Stranger wrinkles her nose and stuffs the chocolate back where it came. There's a muffled squeak.

"I met a man in the desert whose head was on fire," she announces grandly. "He was the best. I gave him chicken noodle soup because he said flowers were girly."

"Gee, thanks, that's helpful."

That is Sparrow's sarcastic but not that annoyed voice. Looking around them, she observes,

"Don't see anything that dangerous. Maybe Bi-Face just wanted me outa the battle."

"Everybody's gone," observes Stranger. "The Earth has been invaded by bugs from outer space."

She doesn't seem that displeased by the prospect.

"Or maybe it was things with tentacles crawling out of the ocean. Or demons. It could've been demons. Maybe all three!"

"Not my Earth, sista."

She'd've noticed!

Thinkyface firmly in place, Sparrow reaches into one of the pouches on her belt and pulls out a small handheld device.

"Com'oooon G.P.S..."

"I think," she says, uncharacteristically sensible, "this Earth is everybody's."

Beat.

"Even the tentacle bug demons."

Sparrow presses a few buttons on her GPS device.

Shakes the device.

Button mashes briefly.

"Stupid pieca junk. OK, great, I've been zapped outa my own reality in the middle of a fight, right into the middle of nowhere where none of the usual satellites are up. You got any more useful info?"

"Rarely if ever."

Thoughtful pause.

"If I had my seven-league boots I could take you to someone's living room. There's ninjas and pirates and cake! Especially cake."

Thinky frown, during which Sparrow weighs up randomly trusting herself to someone else's powers against actually getting somewhere useful.

Claw wouldn't go, but then Claw's a grumpy old man.

"Thanks for the offer," she says. "But I think I'm better off finding people the old fashioned way. You wanna point me in a direction?"

"That way."

The pointing of her arm is arrow-true and brimming with confidence. It's also chosen totally at random.

But Stranger believes she is helping, and smiles hugely.

Sparrow glances in that direction. Hey, it can't hurt.

"Hey, it can't hurt.

"You coming with?"

Stranger senses the imminent end of her levitation power and hops off of thin air to land with both feet on the ground.

"Sure!"

It's not like she has anything better to do.

"OK, but stay close," Sparrow warns. "I dunno what dangers there are out there."

She has Uncanny Hero ability to detect good guys when narrative imperative demands it, you see, and the blonde is now Someone To Protect.

"And I'm still not sure where we are... huh."

GPS system chooses this time to manage to hack into the satellites still functioning.

"...OK, Canada? An entire alternate world to send me to and I
got sent to Canada?"

Queen's Park, in Toronto, to be exact.

Stranger peers at the GPS, then at their surroundings.

As it happens, her randomly chosen direction was north.

"What's so bad about Canada?" she asks, beaming. "Don't they have snow?"

Not at the moment, it would appear.

Though they might get rain in a minute.

"Nothing but."

Sparrow shakes the GPS again, in case it gives a different answer.

"At least it's the right coast. I'd never hear the end of it from the old man if I got stuck in Alberta or somewhere."

Apparently 'stay close' means nothing in the face of lures like...

...

...what looks for all the world to be invisible butterflies.

Or at least Stranger's chasing something small, airborne, and not perceptible to sane people.

"Hey, kid!"

Yes, stranger may look to be older than Jubilee. it doesn't matter, because Sparrow's not a kid to anyone except Claw and stupid people who soon learn better.

She's chasing after Stranger.

"Wait up! You don't know what's out there."

"Huh?"

Stranger blinks.

"They were pretty," she says, gesturing vaguely at vanished apparitions.

Slight, self-conscious shrug.

"Great, Canada and the crazy chick," Sparrow mutters.

"Listen, it might be all calm and quiet out there, or there might be things with tentacles. If it's really the end of the world, you can bet your butt there'll be people out there lookin' for violence. I can't protect you if you keep running off."

She considers this, and nods.

"I'll stay with you so the tentacle bug demons don't get us."

...well, at least she's staying?

"Good," Sparrow says, relaxing a little as she starts heading north, out of the park.

"You gotta name?"

"Straaaaanger."

She draws the word out with a childlike flourish.

"Good name," Sparrow says.

She doesn't need the Claw GPS anymore, so stows it away, and head out of the park into the city, looking all around for danger.

Stranger, on the other hand, looks around for flowers.

There aren't any.