Atrophy

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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Penny’s eyes narrowed as Emily insulted her, the vaguest hint of a smile curling on the corner of her lips as the Coven’s resident asshole insinuated that Penny would be stupid enough to smart a fight. She was cocky, not suicidal. But, if there was a fight, Penny knew for certain that while she might lose, it would be a pyrrhic victory for the Coven. Her attention turned to Helena. She shook her head as the DENS agent refused to play ball. Penny was tempted to send a warning text to Kimberly, but with Emily watching her she doubted she’d be able to pull out her phone without it being considered an open act of hostility.

"ENOUGH!"

Madison yelled at the group, unleashing the trio of dinosaur skulls around herself as she stepped in to defend Kimberly. Penny was mildly surprised until she remembered that Madison had been the one to contact their mutual friend in the first place. She smiled wryly and folded her arms as Madison called them all, Penny included, dumb. She wasn’t wrong. Of course Penny had thought there was something strange about the way Kimberly had acted, but she had been too pissed off to take a moment and piece together the evidence. It didn’t help that her head was still throbbing with a mild migraine.

Still, she felt like an idiot for not considering that it hadn’t even been Kimberly in the first place. Penny had been too focused on trying to come up with a justification for why Kimberly would do something like that when she should’ve just realized that there was no way Kimberly would’ve done something like that. Kimberly was too obsessed with Annabelle to ruin a chance to get a method of dealing with her. Even if she wanted the Dollhouse dead, she would’ve gone after them after they had taken care of Annabelle. Likewise, she would probably know that the Dollhouse was chock-full of apparitions. She didn’t even try to seal a single one of them. She didn’t even stand and fight with them. None of it made sense if it was actually Kimberly; a kind of doppelganger, as outlandish as it was, seemed less farfetched.

“You’re, like, totally right. Thank you, Madison,” said Penny. “Look, Kimberly gains nothing from pitting the Dollhouse against the Coven except for a shitload of enemies and loses her best chance at finding a cure for Annabelle. Unless she’s completely batshit insane, which she isn’t, then it had to be someone else trying to fuck us all over. Someone who either wants Annabelle to keep raging, or wants you girls to get screwed over”

“Now, I’d find it hard to imagine with the oh-so-cordial treatment I’ve been given,” said Penny with a roll of her eyes, casting a look of scorn towards Emily and Maya. “But has your little Coven made any enemies that’d benefit from this? That one gold bitch who joined late seemed to have a bone to pick with the lot of you.”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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“Oh, bullshit,” said Penny with a shake of her head as Emily dared to fabricate some story about Kimberly holding Maya up. She continued to refuse to believe it even as Maya corroborated it, although Penny was struggling to come up with a reason as to why they’d lie. At the same time, she was beginning to see plenty of reasons as to why Kimberly would want to turn a gun on them. But to actually fire it? Utter horseshit. None of this felt right, but there wasn’t time to parse through it all because the look in Maya’s eyes had turned hostile. Bring it on, then.

However, before it could be brought a wall of squawking birds emerged between the girls, their caws echoing through the parking lot and drowning out the sound of their screaming match. Penny’s eyes turned to Helena as she tried to gain some control of the situation, her lips drawing thin as the woman claimed that they would handle Kimberly. No, they would not. It didn’t matter if they were, apparently, government agents. The absurdity that a group like the Coven were even aligned with an agency was utterly baffling. Penny was about to voice her objection to this clown when Maya continued her barking.

“I don’t even know who the fuck you people are,” said Penny. Even if she were in a calmer mindset, she wouldn’t have pieced together that the Liao she knew was related to the Liao mentioned by Helena. She was going to reiterate her stance on nobody going after Kimberly, but she was too beat to take on the entire garage. Plus, the agents Helena had mentioned likely were already on the case, but did they know that they were going up against a teleporter? Kimberly probably wasn’t even in Miami anymore.

“I’d have less objections if I knew what your entire deal is,” said Penny, gesturing towards Helena as she pressed her for information. “Are Agent Liao and Keagan here or could I speak with them? Also, what will they do to Kimberly if they catch her?”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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Penny smirked as Johnny doubled over and disappeared. She spun back towards Luis and stepped forward, intending to get herself within a close enough range to have full control over her coins, plunge them into his body, and whip them around to start shredding his insides like an industrial blender. She made it only one step closer before a wave of black energy blew past her and slammed Luis and the golden girl up against the wall. Penny let out an excited whoop and glanced over her shoulder to see Lyss, the source of the spell, getting lifted onto the lion and...retreating?

“What are you doing?” hollered Penny, unintentionally smearing the blood streaming from her nose across her cheek as she wiped it with the back of her hand. “We have this!”

They didn’t, but it didn’t matter. A blue mist descended upon the room and by the time it was gone the remaining members of the Dollhouse had vanished. Penny swore, poked her head out of the door, and caught herself against the frame as she started to feel faint. Her head was racked by the most audacious of migraines, a full on orchestral symphony of pangs like the cannon blasts at the end of the 1812 Overture striking right behind her eyes. The coins that were trailing behind her clattered to the ground as she groaned. With the Dollhouse gone she’d intended to go after Kimberly, but the presence of the police forced her to stick with the Coven.

Penny had no clue who the fuck they were, but one of the DENS helped patch up her scratches. The dress would be beyond saving. She had saved the tags too, just in case. When they got back to the hotel the first thing she attempted to do was call Kimberly. The phone rang, and rang, and rang until it hit an automated message informing her that the owner of this number had not set up their voicemail. A loud “FUCK!” could be heard echoing around the corner of where the witches were meeting with the feds. Penny slammed out an angry text that ran the whole rainbow of colorful language, erased most of it, and sent Kimberly this:

FUCK YOU
call me

She took another minute to finish her cigarette, catch her breath, and cool her head. Then, with a flip of her hair, she walked around the corner looking calm and collected, as if she wasn’t fazed at all by her friend using her and the others as bait. The few eyes that met hers didn’t seem friendly. Could she blame them? Penny was totally in the dark on what Kimberly had been planning, but why would anyone in the Coven believe anything but the opposite? She knew if she was in their spot she wouldn’t be giving herself the benefit of the doubt. She also knew that if she left it’d all but seal the idea in their head that Penny had been a part of the whole grand fuckup, even though she’d been there to prevent a fuckup in the first place. Good job on that, by the way. Penny sighed and lit another cigarette as Emily opened up on her.

"You need to get out of here, we don't want you."

“Noted,” said Penny cooly as her blue eyes stared down Emily. Her tongue wanted nothing more than to unleash a beatdown on who she was beginning to see as the Coven’s resident asshole. She wanted to call her out for not being there in the room to fight the Dollhouse, to point out that without Penny it’d be very likely that this parking lot meeting would be a lot less crowded. Don’t want her? Those fucking idiots needed her. Her teeth smartly held her tongue down.

“For all we know she was feeding that bitch information the whole time!” yelled Maya, pointing an accusatory finger at Penny. Penny scoffed but didn’t get a chance to reply.

“Hey, Penny wouldn’t do that,” said Isla.

Penny smiled at her friend with a hint of sadness. Isla was wrong: Penny had totally been doing just that, although she never thought this would’ve been the outcome of keeping Kimberly in the loop. It just didn’t make sense. She knitted her brow. Kimberly said she wanted a cure for Annabelle. If she wanted to hunt down the Dollhouse, she would’ve just told Penny. Right? Kimberly probably could’ve convinced her it was the right thing to do, and maybe Penny would have convinced Kimberly to not act so rashly. Penny scoffed. It still weirded her out when she was the one being the voice of reason.

A pained look crossed Penny’s face when the feds showed up and told them that Claudette had died. Son of a bitch, if she’d only reacted quicker she could’ve repulsed the fatal bullet away from the woman. She hardly knew their leader at all, but knowing that she could’ve prevented it hit hard. She hung her head and bit her lip, tightening her hand into a fist as she replayed the moment of Claudette getting hit over and over in her head. Penny noted every single moment where she’d failed to stop it, each one feeling like a knife to the gut. Acting like she was fucking Supergirl was goddamn childish and stupid when people still got killed. An unstoppable force wasn’t so damn impressive when it couldn’t stop the worst from happening. Her shoulders shook.

“We can’t just let them get away with this. We’re not going to get any fucking cures from them, so we might as well just destroy them,” said Maya. She was right. She was so fucking right. Even though Penny knew getting payback always felt so hollow, they could just call it justice to make themselves sleep better. Penny wiped her face, lifted her hand, and was about to throw in her support.

Then Maya said, “Kimberly too.”

“Fuck you,” said Penny, her voice as a jagged and cold as shattered ice. “Seriously, go fuck yourself. I am angrier at Kimberly than you can ever be, but none of you are touching her, get me?” She rolled a quarter between her knuckles, her narrowed eyes scanning the Coven and the DENS for challenges. “Things don’t add up. I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking, but she had to have a good reason. And if she doesn’t...”

Penny shot Maya a withering look full of hate and disgust. “Then I’ll fucking take care of it. But you? You’re going to do nothing.” A wicked smile curved on to Penny’s lips. “Nothing seems to be about what you’re good for, anyway, so I don't doubt you'd nail it.”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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Penny cursed as the girl she had targeted with her coins shifted into a mass of insects. It wasn’t the first time Penny had dealt with a massive swarm like that, but still caught her off guard. Even though she splattered a few bugs of the swarm, it was obvious that wasn't enough to do any major harm as the swarm buzzed out of the room. Her other attack proved equally ineffective as the woman’s skin turned to gold, the bones slamming against her before dropping to the ground. Reflexively, Penny attracted the coins and the bones back within her range to restock her supplies, but the bones faded away with the disappearance of Molly.

"Burn in hellfire!"

“Seriously?” scoffed Penny, twisting away as Babylon fired a sigil off at the ground. The explosion of flames and plume of smoke was accompanied by twisting, horrified faces. Penny was honestly surprised that the woman hadn’t just blasted her directly, but then she noticed the faint black prism being cast around her foe by Lyss. Did Lyss’s ability create a one-way defense against abstractions? No, if that was the case Penny wouldn’t have been able to pull her coins back. It was something else. Something powerful. And, clearly, something that the Dollhouse was aware about, because they were all going after Lyss.

Penny shouted as Luis hit Lyss with a throwing knife, her words muffled by another blast of hellfire that hit nowhere near close. The sprinkler system opened up and immediately doused the flames as Penny turned towards Luis. She unleashed the coins swirling around her towards the leader of the Dollhouse. She doubted it’d do much with his rapid healing, but she had a plan to keep him out of the fight. The moment the coins hit, she’d attract them back to her and then repulse them into him again.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught a man appearing behind Lyss before the girl was whisked away by a goddamn lion. Disappointment set in as the lion didn’t turn and immediately maul the attacker. Most of the Dollhouse had fled, but it seemed like the Coven were the ones taking the beating. Penny twisted and sent a few of the coins meant for Luis towards Johnny, potentially creating an opening for the leader to act against her. Her head was pounding like a motherfucker. The sooner they ended this fight the better.

R E D U X .// 2047 //.

Maysah was more distant than usual as they rode to the complex, a merry little band of washed-up heroes now turned criminal. She was trying to determine when it happened exactly, it of course in reference to completely fucking her life up to the point where taking part in a barely planned heist against a major corporation seemed like an acceptable course of action.

The answer didn’t come to her in the form of some grand revelation, but rather a mild acceptance of something she’d realized awhile ago. The mistake hadn’t been calling herself Stardust, dressing up like a nitwit, and challenging the most powerful and dangerous people in the world—it had been stopping. She’d stopped because the corps had falsely named her a criminal, outted her secret identity, and directly caused the murder of her husband. But why? They had used all of their ammunition against Maysah, and she had lived through it. They had practically made her indestructible, and she had waved off the gift so she could be depressed and hideaway as a sad, aging widow.

Imagine the things she could’ve accomplished in twelve years without having to worry about the repercussions of her actions. The corruptions she could have exposed, the corporations she could have collapsed, the systems she could have destroyed, all allowed to fester and spread like cancer while she stocked books for a sum barely above minimum wage. Stopping wasn’t just a mistake; it was malicious. A petty act of revenge against the world whose only crime was indifference.

Was it too late to set things right?

Maysah swallowed hard and balled her hands. She looked up, caught her glamour staring back at her, and grimaced. The effect had a few more minutes before it would fade, and the pill felt heavy in her pocket. She put her hand over the lump in the gray jumpsuit that they’d been given to better blend in but didn’t pull it out. Arbiter, for the trillionth time, said he thought the plan was stupid but offered no alternatives.

“And?” asked Void, obviously annoyed with the complaining.

“And that means we must be the biggest fucking idiots in the world since we agreed to it,” rasped Maysah, her throat strangely dry.

She moved her hand from her pocket and watched Arbiter, who didn’t seem to hear her. Seconds later, she heard his voice over her headset telling them that, predictably, things had already gone to shit and they had a railgun humming to life against them. Maysah cursed and began to move, slipping out of the door that was somehow already open. Had the Tower hit some button to automatically slide it open or something? Maysah shook her head. This wasn’t a concern. Her eyes fell on the railgun platform: that was a concern.

It took a matter of seconds. It might’ve just been enough time for the railgun to get off its first shot, but it wouldn’t fire another. The plasma crackled to life around her in a radiant purple glow as Maysah shielded herself and bolted towards the platform. If Arbiter tried to reach her, it would be impossible for the second she activated her powers his handy dandy headset was instantly fried. In a similar fashion, Maysah fried the railgun as she touched it. Simultaneously, her body harvested the plasma generated by the railgun powering up its shot. The purple light around her danced violently as she sent a twisting blast of plasma slicing through the barrel, rendering it impossible to fire even if they managed to get the railgun back online.

Maysah rolled her shoulder as she felt her glamour fade away. As if she needed it, there wouldn’t be a doubt in any corporate goon’s mind that the woman who’d just blown up their railgun was anyone other than Stardust. She chuckled. The subtle approach had lasted a grand total of ten seconds. She supposed that meant she was the distraction then. She could handle that. Maysah fired off blasts throughout the platform, melting through support beams to prepare it for a collapse while holding back just enough to let any operators flee in time. She dropped from the platform and began spraying plasma blasts skyward, a signal to the others that they should go on. Let Carolex think that Stardust was working alone. Let them think that Stardust had finally come back to right all of theirs and the rest of the Big Six’s wrongs. They wouldn’t be far from the truth.

And even if they did fuck this heist up, at the very least she could hurt their profit margins by causing a few hundred million dollars worth of property damage in the mean time.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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"... Everyone in this room is unnatural."

Penny rolled her eyes. Sure, she’d once held hands with a bunch of college kids turned demigods in a giant church camp prayer circle singing kumbaya to eradicate the most dangerous entity in all of the universes, inadvertently creating an alternate timeline, but she still considered herself fairly normal. Penny managed to keep the curt comments that came to mind to herself as the Coven took hold of the conversation. Kimberly would be proud. Penny had managed to speak with someone without starting a fight or getting a gun pulled on her. She rolled the cigarette between her thumb and her forefinger as she tried to not look phased by the staggering price for a Dollhouse potion, feeling satisfied for once that things seemed to be going off without much complication.

And then, "Ooooooh, Luis!"

Penny didn’t know any of the three girls that entered the room, even the one that stuttered her name in surprise, but she could feel the tension in the room hit a new high. She cocked an eyebrow as she studied the girl attempting dreads and, through the cloud of cigarette smoke, imagined she smelled patchouli. Penny definitely didn’t know her, because there was no way she’d forget someone looking like that. If she hadn’t been on edge before, Penny was now. She sat upright to further study the girl, but then everything began to unravel.

"Okay, okay! Simmer down!"

Penny’s eyes shifted over to Natalie and locked on her. So much for no guns. It was almost becoming a mundane inconvenience at this point now, more on par with not being able to find her lighter than feeling like her life was on the line. Penny activated her abstraction in case the bullets did start flying, muttering under her breath about the woman with the gun being a fucking idiot for trying to make people remain calm by threatening them with an assault rifle. She tried to listen as Lyss attempted to keep the meeting from veering off the cliff, her eyes never moving from Natalie. As the negotiations continued, Penny found it more difficult to hear anything but the blood pumping in her ear drums, which then began to turn into a more constant ring as her abstraction continued to overload her vision. Even then, Penny still heard the gunshots from below. Her head whipped in the direction they came from as Kimberly emerged from the doorway with her gun in hand.

“Kimberly, what are—” Penny’s words were cut short as she watched the bullets emerge from Kimberly’s glock and punch holes in the cowgirl’s body. Penny jumped to her feet, adrenaline hitting the ceiling, as she looked back at her friend. This had not been the plan at all, because if it wasn’t Penny wouldn’t have agreed to it. Maybe that was why Kimberly hadn’t given her any sort of hint that she intended to come down to Miami and start a goddamn shootout. “DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK!?”

No time to listen for a response because Luis was already opening fire on their couch instead of the stupidass, dumbass, bitchass excuse for a friend that Penny had made the mistake of helping out. With hardly an ounce of effort, the bullets that came for Penny instead blasted back towards Luis’s couch. Penny growled. Once they were through here, she was going to make Kimberly wish that she’d gotten dematerialized by a tentacle or devoured by a wendigo. Claudette screamed as she was hit. Fuck! No time to worry about her dickhead friend, Penny was now on damage control. She did not need both a coven on witches and a black market potion shop gunning for her.

Penny began to dart side to side like a goalie. While she could see each one, she wasn’t fast enough to intercept every shot. Still, she managed to repulse a decent amount of the barrage away from the Coven before Madison began going to town on Luis and ended the shooting. It didn’t excuse Penny from playing defense, however, as one of the new girls readied herself to spray an assault of bones at Lyss after the other one pointed her out. With Claudette writhing on the ground between them, Penny wouldn’t make it to her on time—by foot. A second sigil, that of a bird on the back of her left shoulder, glowed as she used an air blast to propel herself over Claudette and between Lyss and the bones. She buckled as she landed and reactivated her primary abstraction, which had been forced off.

As her abstraction clicked on, a surge of pain shot through her skull and it clicked off. Fuck. She knew that this would happen, but in the moment she’d forgotten her own limitations. Penny grimaced and went to repulse the bones unassisted, knowing that the momentary drop of her abstraction had completely fucked up her timing. Still, being aware that it was coming didn’t change her reaction. She screamed in pain as a dozen or so bones pierced her skin.

However, instead of shooting straight through or embedding themselves deeply, they stopped the second they pricked her. As the bones pulled away from her body small little streaks of blood began to seep from what were mostly fleshwounds. They floated in front of her outstretched right hand in a spiral as her telekinesis took complete control over the bones. At the same time, she lifted her left hand as the fanny pack unzipped itself and a parade of coins floated out of it. Like the bones, the coins spiraled in front of her left hand. Penny shot an angry look towards Molly, but the girl was already being dragged into hell by the chain gang. That left the other two girls that had interrupted their meeting.

Perfect.

Penny was done playing defense (not to mention, no longer capable of doing so), so she pressed the attack. She repulsed the bones at Babylon, while the coins rocketed towards the dreadhead. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kimberly take off, but she didn’t move to follow. Penny would see to it that the Coven didn’t get massacred thanks to Kimberly’s idiotic ploy, and then she’d get some fucking answers. Already, more coins were pull themselves out of Penny’s pouch and floating around her, ready to get repulsed at the next Dollhouse asshole who tried to make a move on them.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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A disgusted, droning sigh streamed out from Penny’s frowning lips as they turned the corner and were assaulted by the neon lights of the Dollhouse. Between the knock off Miami Vice suits, eight-inch suicide heels, and the cover charge, Penny knew this wasn’t the place for her. Nightlife for her, when she participated, had involved starry Montana skies, giant bonfires that the occasional asshole would chuck an aerosol can at, and whatever beer someone could rescue from their parent’s garage or that their older brother bought them. What it didn’t involve was standing in line for the bathroom while thumping, bass heavy music bled eardrums and drinks had to be constantly monitored with a watchful eye or covered with a steady hand. Penny grumbled as she forked over the money to the doorlady. Why anybody would pay to enter a place that was so aggressively trying to make people want to leave she would never understand.

“Oh goddamnit.”

As they entered, Penny realized she had made a mistake: the Dollhouse wasn’t a nightclub, but a stripclub. The look on her face did nothing to mask the massive amount of discomfort she quickly felt as she saw the women dancing on stage and the men hooting and hollering. She tried to look away, but there was nowhere safe for her eyes to wander. Penny shielded her brow with her hand to hide her embarrassment and looked down past her discount black dress, which would have doubled as a funeral outfit, to her sneakers. She followed the heels of the girl in front of her until they were in the VIP area. Penny glanced up and heaved a sigh of relief. It was decidedly less nude in here. Almost classy, even, but in that sort of unfortunate way where it just falls short of the goal, trips over the edge, and plummets directly into “seedy” territory.

Immediately, the girl in the cowboy hat jumped out to her. First Mariah (whose confidence in this weird place was almost as inspiring as her outfit), then the wannabe robber with his broken wrist, and now a member of the Dollhouse—the rule of threes had been fulfilled. Florida couldn’t possibly have anymore people brave/stupid enough to try to pull the look off. Penny double checked the room just in case another cowboy was hiding behind the curtain, but otherwise it appeared to be nothing but a handful of wannabe witches, definitely devious black market dealers, and herself.

The apparent spokesman of the Dollhouse, Luis, offered them drinks. Penny wrestled with the idea of perhaps getting her twenty-five bucks worth when Madison shut it down. Fine, then, no free booze for them, but if the dude was smoking inside then that meant it was an open invitation. Despite “dressing up” for the night, Penny was still rocking the oh-so-stylish fanny pack, which she fished out a cigarette from and lit it as the head honcho continued the meeting. Penny kept herself to the side, as if her body had subconsciously separated herself from the Coven. It was their meeting, after all, she was only here to make sure they got what Kimberly had asked for them to get.

"What services do you seek from us?" Penny’s eyes narrowed as the man kicked his feet up on the table, early judgments beginning to form in growing degrees of harshness. “Because here at the Dollhouse...we have it all. "

The Coven didn’t speak for what felt like an eternity. In reality, it might’ve only been a handful of seconds. Either way, it was long enough time for Penny to go from letting the Coven have the floor to taking charge of the show.

“Honestly, Tampa’s pretty terrible even without all of the murders. I’d hear an argument for the current situation even being an improvement,” said Penny, stepping over to the couch that Claudette was sitting on and plopping down beside her. She took a drag of the cigarette, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and leaned back while crossing her legs to basically mirror Luis. “I wouldn’t agree with it, but I’d hear it out.

“Let's get down to it. We’re interested in putting a stop to that little killing spree ruining our already shit town, and we’re especially interested, as are you, of us doing it before the culprit tires of Tampa and moves on to somewhere nicer like Miami. Normally, it’s something we”—Penny was referring to herself and Kimberly, but played it like she meant the girls in the room—“would be able to handle ourselves. However, the killer is a bit unconventional, and to stop them we need some unconventional means.”

“However, I am getting ahead of it all,” said Penny. She leaned forward to ash her cigarette. “Before we get distracted by the main course, there are a few other, er, unnatural things we’re looking to get help with. Claudette, why don’t you tell the gentleman?” Penny suggested, passing her the reins of the conversation over to Claudette. It was partially because she had a horrible track record when it came to talking with shady men, and partially because she really had no idea what else the Coven wanted out of the Dollhouse.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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How long had Penny been standing in the line to get a smoothie? Had the line even moved? Did anything exist anymore beside the line? Perhaps she had been trapped once again in another dimension, cursed to forever wait in the line for the promises of a smoothie that’d never come. Around her the mall stopped, as if frozen in time, as the lights began to click off one by one until even the back of the person in front of her was lost to the darkness. Penny felt a chill run down her spine as she stared forward into the dark void, feeling something stare back at her. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and she could start to make out shapes. She realized then that her eyes weren’t adjusting. Instead, on the horizon, a light was beginning to glow.

“Penny, Penny!”

Penny snapped out of her daydream with a start as the mall reappeared around her. In her stupor, she had moved forward a few more spots in line. What a relief. She looked over at the source of her name and saw the yellow bundle of energy that was Isla. Penny returned the wave as the girl rushed over.

“Are you getting a smoothie too? This line is crazy! I’m getting Mariah to show me around because I have no clue where anything is and might as well experience America while I’m here!”

“Well, there’s nothing more American than the vast capitalistic wasteland of the shopping mall, except for shooting guns into the side of a hill or going tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree you won’t ever use,” said Penny, flashing a smile.

She was about to suggest other American things that Isla could experience while visiting, like eating a warm slice of apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, not caring about soccer and refusing to call it football, or getting addicted to prescription drugs. However, before she could teach Isla how to bleed Red, White, and Blue, Emily joined them with a smile that looked alarmingly unnatural. Still, Penny was about to pretend that she was excited to see the girl she’d been forced to share an awkward car ride with. However, her smile faltered as Emily suggested she had saved Penny’s life—as if she had been in any real danger. Hah!

"And after you nearly fuckin' ended mine with that stunt you pulled," said Emily. Penny’s eyes went cold as she looked down at the accusatory finger poking her in the chest. "So you owe me a thank you. And an apology. You can repay your debt with smoothies. I want the Passion fruit."

“Oh, you’re absolutely right,” snickered Penny as she brushed Emily’s hand away, not bothering at all to hide her insincerity as she rolled her eyes. “I am so dreadfully sorry that something almost happened to you on accident, and am truly grateful that you think you somehow saved my life. I believe a smoothie is not enough to repay what I owe you. I will think of something...”

However, as she spoke Penny could feel the eyes of the other people waiting in line focus in on them. Their looks were angry and judgmental, the faces of people that could quickly be whipped up into an angry mob with a single call for action. If she didn’t get the girls to go away, a riot would surely breakout in response to their line cutting—intentional or otherwise.

“You know what? Fine, ” said Penny, dropping the fake apologetic tone. “All of you go hangout over by the bench and I’ll grab us some smoothies. Tell me whatcha want and go, before these people behind you start grabbing pitchforks.”

After hearing what the other two wanted, Penny waved the girls off and continued standing in line. After a few minutes that felt like a couple of lifetimes, she made it to the front. She ordered the girls their smoothies, although she accidentally on purpose ordered the wrong flavor for Emily. Penny walked over to the group holding the paper drink carrier with a triumphant smile on her face. She handed Isla and Mariah their drinks, took her own, and then turned to Emily with a smirk as she offered her the wrong smoothie.

“They were out of passion fruit, but said this one was pretty good,” said Penny, smirking, as she handed Emily the cayenne pepper kale smoothie.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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Between getting held up, getting stuck in Maya’s car yet again, and having to sleep on the rollaway bed because Isla jacked the good bed and immediately passed out, Penny felt as if she had earned a break. She couldn’t recall the last time she did something relaxing. She couldn’t really recall if she ever knew how to relax in the first place. There was something nerve wracking about taking time to do absolutely nothing, especially when there was a somewhat decent chance that Armageddon wasn’t just an awful movie with a killer song. Perhaps she could scope out the meeting place with the Dollhouse, or make sure that the cops weren’t looking for them after the whole gas station fiasco, or check in with Kimberly, or—no. Today was a day off, and she deserved it.

Plus, what kind of idiot could possibly pass up a two for one sale, like, are you kidding?

Penny soon learned that the answer to that question was “not any”, as all of the idiots had seemed to show up to raid that particular mall boutique that day. Not a rack was spared as the frugal vultures picked the hangers bare, raiding the store like a pack of vikings if vikings were mostly middle-aged women desiring to appear as if they were and would always be twenty-one. The actual twenty-one year old slipped through the crowd. Even with all of the fucked up things she had seen, the mutilation of a gas station attendant’s fingers being one of the tamer things on that list, she was still horrified by the massacre of the store. Penny barely escaped with her life and the four cute little dresses she probably couldn’t really afford but she’d worry about having a good credit score if they all got through the next year.

Shopping trip successfully completed, Penny began the trek through the mall towards the food court in search of an iced latte. She dodged around the preteens in their miniskirts and the mall goths in their Tripp pants, sped past the booths hocking phone cases and airbrushed t-shirts, and avoided every perfume lady like they had the goddamn plague. Penny had almost made it to the food court when the sight of a tiki hut lumped with fake, oversized fruits stopped her dead in her tracks as the whirl of a high-speed blender pierced through the air. An iced latte lost to a fruit smoothie every day of the week, for drinking one allowed her to pretend to be healthy.

The line to the smoothie shack was long, twisted, and full of the same kind of monsters that had ransacked the boutique. Penny wanted to skip it but the inotixicating draw of a green smoothie full of whatever the fuck antioxidants were was too strong to resist. Penny found herself standing in the line before realizing that she had even made the decision to do so. The line inched forward, the stressed out teen and only employee of the drink stand frantically darting back and forth between blender, fridge, and register, as a hundred angry eyes stared at her and waited. Penny found herself staring too, just another lost soul stuck in line for an overpriced smoothie.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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“Howdy pardner,” said Penny, finger guns drawn, phony accent dialed to Southern Fried, as Isla blinked the two of them into the store. Isla must’ve taken Penny literally when she said right in front, because she was now closer than she had ever wanted to in regards to someone wearing assless chaps. She couldn’t blame the Coven’s cowgirl from running. “Now how ‘bout you let these fine ladi—”

One thing happened just as planned: the outlaw fired his revolver at her, her eyes were able to see it, and her abstraction reacted fast enough to repulse the bullet out of harm’s way. Perfect fucking execution. She blew air over the top of her finger gun as if there was a puff of smoke and dropped the whole gimmick. Everything else? Well, that was a complete surprise, and not entirely unpleasant. Penny didn’t even have to bother with the blast of wind as the Florida Man silently cried out in pain and dropped his revolvers. She carefully shifted the guns out of his reach while the cowboy cradled his wrist and slowly transformed more and more into a Saturday morning cartoon. She threw a victorious wink and a smile over her shoulder at Isla.

The smile soon shifted into a look of horror as she turned forward again, finally noticing how close the bullet had been to absolutely demolishing Emily. Penny felt her stomach drop and her skin turn to ice. Holy shit. She hadn’t seen her at all. Holy shit. Had the girl been hiding during the hold up? Holy shit! Penny had been so certain in her own ability to be bulletproof that she had hardly considered the possibility of collateral damage. She was such an idiot. She owed Emily a massive apology, one that she instantly forgot about as Emily opened her mouth, screamed, and dropped a massive amount of candy on the ground.

Was that bitch looting?

Penny frowned as Emily’s scream got louder and louder. It wasn’t because the girl was increasing in hysteria, but rather Penny’s ears were no longer ringing from the deafening gunshot. The cowboy’s cry wasn’t silent, either, as he tossed out tarnations, conflabbits, and dagummits like he wasn’t in the presence of good company. Penny rolled her eyes in annoyance and turned to check on the other girls to make sure they were okay. They were.

And then they weren’t, as Claudette was (accidentally?) shocked by Grace like a fly buzzing a little too close to a bug zapper. Penny’s face fell flat, synchronizing perfectly with Claudette falling flat on her back as she was knocked out by the jolt. She made a mental note to never touch any of the girls in the Coven as she closed her eyes and released a heavy sigh. Penny was starting to feel like there would’ve been less damage done if she’d just smoked by the pumps and let a rogue ash spark a gas fire. Still, at least nobody was getting shot.

“I don’t know what y’all did, but hands up, lady,” she heard the attendant say in a shaky voice. It was coupled with the shit-inducing sound of a shotgun being racked.

It sucked how reality took all the fun out of playing the hero. The attendant had just witnessed two girls pop in out of nowhere, cause a gun to fire off backwards, snap the wrist of some dumbass, electrocute another, all while an accomplice was starting to loot the place. Penny slowly raised her hands as she caught the reflection off the mirrored dome of the shotgun-wielding attendant aiming at her and Isla. One bullet wasn’t a problem. A dozen or so bits of shot? Also probably not a problem, if she wasn’t worried about hitting anybody else. But that wasn’t even the biggest issue. Being caught on camera, at the scene of a crime, after paying with a card that had her name on it, while surrounded by a ridiculous amount of Extra-Normal activity? That shit could ripple out into some massive tidal waves.

She lowered her head to hide her face, positive that it was already too late, and used her peripheries to glare at the attendant. One hand was holding the shotgun, while the other was fumbling for a phone. Hopefully Isla or one of the other girls had an idea, because the one Penny had fucking sucked. She bared her teeth. She had to buy some time. At the very least, she had to distract the attendant from calling the cops while the Coven was still hanging around. Her sigil glew as the zipper on her fanny pack opened itself ever so slightly. There was no telling what the wounded cowboy would do during all of this, either. Best be prepared for the worst.

“Now hold up. Surely we can come to some kind of understanding, after all, I did just save your ass from getting robbed. So why don’t you just put that gun down and we can have a little chat or—”

"That was some weird shit, lady. That was some weird shit!" The attendant racked the shotgun again, wasting a perfectly good shell that pinged off of the counter, hit the floor, and rolled towards the door. Penny cursed under her breath. "I don't like weird shit. Never did, and don't you let nobody tell you otherwise. I'm calling the cops. Don't you move."