Barren white fields stretched endlessly into the horizon, curving gently beneath the inky blackness of space. She walked forward, or assumed she did, feeling the motion of her legs and the weight of steps against the ground, yet looking back she left no footsteps in the pale, still dust. She turned her eyes toward the dark sky instead, tilting her head in curiosity at the odd shape of the stars which seemed to shift and change shape as her eyes slid back and forth between them. 

Ah, not stars, of course, but a thousand thousand curved mirrors shining their myriad warped reflections of her moon back down upon it. How silly to think they were ever stars. She stretched one furry white arm up to them, small black claws reaching out to scratch their flawless silver faces, melting and flowing like water across the sky. 

Her hand faltered at a sound in the distance, turning to see what it could be. Far across the greyscale wastes sat the great rotting carcass of a giant horned beast, staring with empty eye sockets just as it had done for as long as she had memory. It had never moved, never made a sound, never raised its giant skeletal head. Yet she had heard something from within it, like some small creature hiding within the hollowed corpse. Long ears twitched, blank eyes blinking in curiosity. 

Nothing now. Strange. Perhaps she had imagined it?

[hr]

Everything hurt. Bouncer’s eyes fluttered open as consciousness enforced itself unpleasantly in her mind. She pushed herself off the asphalt, one hand grabbing her head as a migraine throbbed against the sides of her skull. Bits of charred black skin flaked off her arm, and she rubbed at it idly with her opposite hand as she found her feet. The skin underneath was fresh and pink, gently steaming in the morning air.

A few of the cops had gathered around the ant woman, but seemed hesitant to actually approach her for fear she might free herself from the brickwork. Bouncer clicked her tongue at the scene, leaving the blues to their uselessness and casting her glance around for her hockey mask. She could feel the chill morning air against her face, and did not care for the sensation in the slightest. 

She found it - or rather, part of it - laying a ways away, laying face down in the street. She lifted it gingerly off the ground, cringing as several small shards tumbled away from it, leaving it in even worse state than when Bouncer had found it. The entire bottom half seemed to have blinked out of existence - or may as well have, for all she found of it - and one of the eye holes was now easily close to twice the size of the other. That’s what she got for buying cheap crap from a convenience store, she supposed. 

Bouncer lifted it back up to her face, securing it in place as she cast another sidelong glance at the ant woman and her gaggle of badges. She seemed to be waking from her nap, and the slow stirring of her head sent several of the cops diving for cover. Chicago’s finest. “Still alive, ant girl?” Bouncer called over, lowering her face mask just enough to snort a wad of blood out of her nose. 

“Rabbit bitch,” the ant woman cursed, barely audible. She groaned, trying and failing to free her arm from the wall - or even move it in the slightest. Evidently her immense strength and bulletproof exoskeleton had done nothing to stop the impact from shattering her people skeleton. Bouncer couldn’t remember the exact word. Enderman or whatever. “What a joke… some kind of unbeatable I am…” the ant woman wallowed, letting her head hang. 

Bouncer ignored the self-pitying super, stretching her arms over her head and letting out a pleased little sigh at the symphony of cracks down her spine. She could hear shouts and explosions just a few blocks over. Maybe she could find more people to beat up. She hadn’t even jumped yet and she could already hear the energy singing through her muscles. It was nice to be the strongest.

“Out of all four of those supers I could’ve run into, I got beat by the [i]weakest…”[/i]

“...”

There was a brief rush of air filling empty space and Bouncer popped into existence in front of the ant woman, standing mere inches from her chest. There were a few yelps of surprise from the cops around them, and one ran forward to grab Bouncer’s arm, warning that it wasn’t safe. Bouncer shoved him away, grabbing his gun from its holster in the same motion.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?” she asked, the friendly politeness in her voice not reaching her eyes. “It’s a little hard to understand you when you mumble, you know? People might think you said something you didn’t.”

The ant woman’s eyes rolled slowly in their sockets, dragging their way over to Bouncer’s broken mask. “Touch a nerve?” Her head jerked back as a deafening [i]CRACK[/i] echoed across the street. The barrel of the handgun chased the ant woman’s head toward the wall, pressing against her temple. 

[i]”Try again.”[/i] Bouncer ignored the cops shouting at her to put the gun down. If they wanted it back, they could try and take it. She had more important things to concern herself with.

The ant woman’s chest shook with a weak, hoarse chuckle. “Temper, temper. Aren’t you a hero?” she taunted, somewhat undermined by the absence of any strength in her voice. Her head jerked back again as another slug flattened itself against her exoskeleton. She groaned and took a deep breath before spitting in Bouncer’s face. The gun froze in midair, Bouncer’s eyes wide and wild.

“What the hell’s wrong with the heroes in this city? I’d make a better hero than any one of you,” the ant woman lamented. Then she sighed. “Or I could’ve, if-”

Her sentence was cut off by another gunshot. Then another, then another, then another, as Bouncer emptied the whole clip onto the ant woman’s face. The explosive cracks were replaced with soft clicks as Bouncer continued to pull the trigger of the empty Glock 22, blind to the guns that had been drawn and leveled at her back. 

The ant woman’s shoulders shook with silent laughter before devolving into a coughing fit. “Excellent demonstration,” she taunted, once she recovered enough to speak again.