Lather-Up

Stepping in to the hall that led to their hotel's breakfast buffet, Serena noticed a police officer waving to her & Mia and frowned.

"Ignore him, Serena." muttered Mia.

Serena nodded, though they had to walk past him anyway.

She despised the police almost as much as Mia did. Her one interaction with them had been around her sixteenth birthday, when she decided to try some goth clothes & makeup. Feeling pleased on her way back, a police car had pulled up to the sidewalk, and a voice out of it shouted to get on the ground.

Assuming it was for somebody else, she kept walking, and the next thing she remembered was her face being slammed in to the wet asphalt, and her being shoved in to the back of a squad car. They said nothing as they drove her back to the station, and she hated that they forced her in to a holding cell with a few men. It was only after a few hours (and a phone call where her mother had chewed the sergeant down to the blood) that she was released, and told that they had suspected her to be a prostitute, due to her outfit. Later, her & her mother were told that they were conducting an internal misconduct investigation: the results of which were predictable.

Though she usually tried to deal calmly with the rotten hand life dealt her, part of her hoped that some Urasaria contract would bring her back to North Carolina. She had begun to like making Blackburn transhistorical in her life, implanting it back to certain memories. She thought about how his knee on her back would've earned him an legful of knives, and smiled at how Blackburn could fog the separation between her ideation & reality.

During their drives on this contract, she remembered a game she played when she was younger, looking from the car window and pretending some creature (usually Sonic the Hedgehog) was running alongside it, avoiding obstacles and jumping over passing vehicles. In an impulse akin to winning past arguments, these creations of her mind made these memories more palatable even when nothing changed but her perception. Maybe that was one of life's main compensations.

She still liked how Mia hadn't returned his smile either.

They separated once they came in to the hotel's dining room, and Mia found a table near the corner for them. Watching Serena approach with her plate, she gave her protege a look that would have shamed her if she had noticed it. "Are you sure you have enough sugar?"

Serena shrugged as she sat down across. "I mean, I can't get diabetes anymore, so."

Mia watched as Blackburn's fog filled Serena's cup with chocolate syrup, pouring it over her waffles & setting aside her packs of kids' cereals. Serena was correct that most host were immune to most diseases, but as a student & now a mentor, Mia felt a need to set *some* standard of maturity. One of the reasons she despised Kirihara was that she reminded there was no innate merit to being a student, in the way a blackhead's reality was still preferred hidden.

Her breakfast submerged, Serena grabbed her fork, and in the next instant -

- the double doors burst open, and out from the hallway flooded a titanic wave of water, starting to swallow the room instantly -

" - Worldwide!"

- the two shot to their feet as the water filled the room, and before the liquid could reach them -

- a cloud of fire scarabs vaporized a steaming circle around, Blackburn's fog filling the steam and waving it aside. The water disappeared as if by magic, leaving only dehydrated corpses of civilians in its wake. The women's eyes shot around, the liquid mysteriously gone, their meals ruined and waterlogged.

"Not again." sighed Serena, starting to step over to one of the corpses. "I want to test something."

"What do you need?" said Mia, stepping over as well, and in the next instant -

- the corpse below turned to dust, and all around them, the civilians' bodies disappeared. Serena gave a vague wave, her test subjects gone; the two rushed across the room to the hallway beyond, and as they veered right -

- a drop of water dripped from the ceiling above, and as their eyes went up -

- fissures and cracks formed in the ceiling, drying a section above to powder, and as the room above threatened to collapse in on them -

" - Black -"

" - Worldwide!"

- the hole filled with ice, and Mia glanced back as she spoke. "I can fill these, Serena -"

" - Mia, that's not -"

- but the ice filling dissolved to steam, suddenly disappeared, cracks and fissures forming again; and a stream of Blackburn filled it with steel.

"I think it's -"

- the right wall ahead began to rumble, and in the next instant -

- a titanic jet of water burst out from the wall and pierced the opposite wall; and out of the hole shot a woman with a blue dress, her hands flashing back as she flew through the stream and disappeared, droplets of water landing on the two women - and the true assault began then.

Their skin began to crack, features drying and sagging skin, moisture sucked dry; Mia stumbled back, dousing Serena with Worldwide's scarabs -

- and Blackburn's fog filled Mia's pores with new water, returning the two normal as they staggered away from each other, the wall catching them as they gasped.

"Moisture suction, then." said Mia, and Serena nodded.

"Y-Yeah, just need to -"

- a geyser of water burst up from the floor between the two women, and as it pierced through the ceiling, the water sprinkled around -

" - Worldwide!"

- but a cloud of scarabs formed and vaporized it -

- to steam, and Mia gasped as she felt the steam seeking to dry her face and eyes -

" - Blackburn!"

- and black fog filled the steam with cotton, absorbing the drying vapors in an instant.

A second geyser burst from the floor, curved in mid-air, and as it shot to Serena's chest -

- it blew her back with the strength of a thousand down the hall, wind catching her hair as she flew, floor catching her as she landed and skid, a hundred feet separating her and Mia now.

As she stood, Blackburn's fog filled her moisture anew, her supply nearly gone. Their foe leaped out from another geyser ahead, the speed of water in her step as she rushed after Serena -

- but the next scene was instant.

Serena ripped her jacket off, tanktop on underneath; fog filled her jacket's sleeves, and she turned them inside out as she rushed ahead, holding it high like a shield.

Mia rushed behind their foe, their foe rushed to Serena, Serena rushed to their foe, and as a spray of water from the woman's palm caught her jacket's sleeves -

- it ricocheted off as if reflected, and as a second geyser burst out from the wall, seeking Serena's throat -

- her sleeves blocked it, and as the two drew within range -

- streams of fog filled her foe's nostrils and ears with razorblades - but she was fired to unholy durability. Water sprayed from her eyes as she stumbled back, but was again blocked by Serena's jacket; a second stream of fog filled her throat with scissors, and Serena cursed as she still stood -

" - even if you survive, I'm going to make sure you never have children, you waterlogged fuck!"

Mia winced as she saw black fog hike up the woman's dress -

- and dissolve her body from the inside-out, only a drop of corrosive acid left.

And Serena smiled as Mia ran up, fog filling her jacket's sleeves as she turned it outside-outside. "Man. I never thought I'd actually remember something from biology."

"Are you alright?" said Mia worriedly, checking her for wounds. Serena tightened a little.

"Um, I'm fine, I didn't…" She frowned as Mia didn't stop. "I covered my jacket in -- our cells have this weird coating that repels water, but can absorb it, too, so I just… did that. Um, I'm fine."

Mia pulled away from her, distracted enough that she didn't stifle her expression. While she was proud Serena had managed well, she still felt hesitant: had she gotten lucky, or did it indicate her own failure as a mentor that they had been separated? Faced with this, she chose caution. "I'm sorry we were separated, Serena. You did well, but…"

"Um, yeah." nodded Serena. "I can handle myself, right?"

Mia nodded, though she didn't seem to believe it.

+++

Over the next two days, Aimee called every town ahead in their route, asking if their mayors if they could spare an evacuation before they arrived. As expected, most declined, but what stuck with Aimee was how some cited their re-election campaigns as reason for *not* evacuating: if a Revenant weren't to come, then there would be no provable benefit to the economic damage, whereas if one killed a hundred or so people, it was simply a random tragedy.

It struck her funny how people would constantly vote for those who actively despised their own constituents. This reminded her of her Christian parents, who despite Jesus's teachings on wealth, had accumulated an avarice through their law firm that, if there were an afterlife, Aimee hoped would have had God smack them down in to the fourth circle of hell.

Still, one town had acquiesced, and after a sleep on Mia's lap, Aimee & the others arrived in an evacuated Riverside.

By the time the moon peaked, Serena was still on her phone. She looked over at Mia in their hotel room, thinking of how she hadn't asked Serena before springing Blackburn's swap on her, Yuruko's cup, or shouting orders at her.

It made her think of how her relationship with her ex-boyfriend had ended. He seemed to see it as more of an experiment than an actual relationship, and would constantly diminish her; for the most part, she took it, out of a need for validity as a woman. What agitated him so much about her, she had a few theories, but it had eventually culminated in him holding a knife near her genitals.

After she returned home, she mentioned it to her mother, who made it clear under no circumstances was she *not* going to call the police on him. As with Mia, it had been a good decision: one she hated being made by someone else.

She lifted up her head slightly.

(Serena) "I can't fall asleep."

(Yuruko) "in a town like this?"

(Yuruko) "Samuel sleeps like he's in the military"

(Serena) "lol"

(Serena) "I know this is kinda risky, but do you wanna meet up somewhere? I'm bored"

(Serena) "plus I mean, it's a whole town to ourselves"

(Yuruko) "risky business MonkaS"

(Yuruko) "I'll call you when I get up, so we'll know if something happens? we'll keep a call going"

(Serena) "sounds good!"

She swept out of bed, Mia asleep in the other. She wrote a note and placed it on Mia's nightstand.

(Yuruko) "ready?"

Serena smiled.

(Serena) "Yep."