Devon Williams was taking his time for a much needed breather. The grocery shopping trip was taking longer than expected, but it wasn't every day he tried to shop for a mutant coming down from burn out. Sergei said the kid could snap out of it an time now, the fever was down and life
signs were stable. When he came out of it, he'd be very hungry though.

So even before he left, he had prepared enough food for any five normal people. Which of course meant that now his fridge was empty... which was the purpose of the shopping trip. While Sergei watched for signs of a return to the land of the living, Devon felt he had to try and guess
at what a young teen might like to eat. Potato chips? Nah, he'd never seen the kid eat those when given a choice. Apples instead. Fruit roll ups? Candy? Reese's' peanut butter cups found their way into the cart; peanut butter and chocolate were good energy food.

It was some time before he was done checking out, and he decided not to focus on just how much he was shelling out for junk. He had a suspicion worming it's way through his gut that all the food he'd cooked last night and this morning would be gone by tomorrow, and that this entire cart full would follow before the week was out. Which meant that he would have to play his favorite adult game; bill roulette. Maybe he could get away with no cable bill this month.

It wasn't like he could let the kid starve though. He was a hard kid to wash your hands of, for some reason. He met more than a few street kids; his neighborhood was full of them. Most of them had a tendency to give up, to take the easy way out and just focus on surviving. Something about the kid was different, and he wasn't fully sure what it was. But whatever it was made it impossible for him to just give up on the kid... or himself.

He didn't fear walking home, even with arms laden with bulging sacks. He and the local gang had an understanding, and he was well known in the neighborhood and areas beyond as someone who could still stomp a new mud-hole into pretty much anyone he wanted. The word had gotten around about him taking on that bruiser punk mutant as well, though that fight had been a loss, due to the arrogance of the whiny punk it had been closer than it should have been, and further enhanced his street cred. The bad news was he didn't dare brag or put the word out himself; the inevitable rematch from the pissed off and now much more experienced punk mutant would kill him.

No need to go looking for trouble, when it could easily find you anyway.

Trouble today found Devon on the street a mere three blocks from his home, in the form of an absolutely giant man slamming down from literally nowhere into the busy intersection between him and his home. The man was easily 20 feet if he was an inch, a mountain of muscle dressed in what appeared to be an absolutely huge pair of burlap shorts and nothing else. A face that might have been handsome on a man not so... large, coupled with a complexion befitting an albino vampire, gave the impression that this man had not been in the sun for some time.

That face was currently contorted into an expression of hideous rage, and his booming voice shattered windows as he cried out.

There was a car under one of his feet, flattened to nearly two dimensions. It was bleeding, and Devon did not want to think about what that meant. Then the shock wave hit, knocking him on his ass and shattering every window nearby. Though Devon couldn't hear anything past the ringing
in his ears, he saw the street emptying quickly, the cars and pedestrians either running or dragging themselves away.Rapid pops which could only be gunfire of a singularly high caliber snapped into the concrete or... bounced off the giant. A helicopter gunship of all things buzzed by, barely missing a street sign in an attempt to dodge a massive hand.

"Nooo, I want to go to mom's house! Go away!"

It wouldn't take long for the madness to escalate; the local capes were already no doubt on the way, and from the looks of it the army was already here, though with weaponry that seemed less than effective. Devon doubted they would use anything with more punch than the helicopter
machine guns, but he wouldn't completely discount it. Which meant he needed to get out of here, and fast... but his home was on the other side of ground zero, as was the kid. The unconscious kid.

He wasn't about to drop the groceries, even in a battlefield. Setting the bag straps around his shoulder he turned and sprinted back the way he'd come. With his ears recovering and his back turned, the anxiety was almost too much. But he resisted turning around, it would only slow him
down. There was nothing to be done about the wounded, at least not by him. He would find a phone and call the cops or medics, but chances were they already knew.

He just hoped the helicopters could outrun the expansion of the war zone.

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Major Mark Winchester was tired. He had been on and off planes, and hopping through american cities for 24 hours. First had been old historic Boston, with its crumbling facades and cheerful little war history. Though he wanted to, he could not take the time to sight-see, instead he and his teams scoured the city. When it was obvious a mere four hours later that the target had not landed here, he was immediately back on the chartered jet with all but one of his teams, and en route to New York.

New York took longer, but it also came up empty, the bright lights and cheapened dreams hollow and uninviting. They also did have any good food. So then it was on to Richmond Virginia while the teams split up; his decision, in order to cover more terrain. Currently they were in just now finished with Chicago, and on their way to a wild card, so to speak: Detroit, Michigan. And of course the tea on the flight was abysmal.

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The explosion had rattled the glass in the windows, but hadn't broken them. A mere street over that was not the case, as the glass coating the sidewalks attested. It did however wake me up a bit more, and clue'd me in to the fact that my body wasn't working quite right. My legs weren't
moving correctly, and my hips were forced to move more to compensate. My clothes were baggy in places, yet short. My shoes no longer came close to fitting, being too big. But I was used to too large shoes, so I paid that much no mind. My hair was long. Really long... and looked off somehow. I couldn't quite put it all together, but I knew it didn't matter.

There was a an impression that drove me on, a solid feeling that I could not deny: //Your friend is in danger, You're in danger; what will you do?//

I could not deny that feeling, that voice, any more than I could deny breath. If Mr. Williams was in danger, then I had to help. Any lingering concern over my own problems paled by comparison. Not even the revival of that vaguely unpleasant warm burning sensation I'd felt on waking up would sway me from my course. Though the dimming of my vision was alarming.

The closer I got to the mental image I'd had of Mr. Williams running away from something, the worse the damage became. From just shattered glass to overturned and smashed cars, cracked and sunken pavement... yells and incoherent screaming, and gunshots. There was a guy in the center of the chaos, even larger than the hulk but not green. He was yelling great bellows words I couldn't understand while throwing cars at helicopters and M.C.O. power suits while SWAT cops tried to evacuate the people caught in the crossfire. I flinched as one of the suits got too
close and the man caught it, slamming it down. It skidded to a halt at the corner of a battered auto shop, demolishing the front of it. The suit did not get back up.

Even my reduced vision could pick out the bloody rag dolls strewn all about, and leading back up the street. This man, whoever he was, was hurting people, and hurting people that couldn't possibly have done him any harm, people that he couldn't know. After all, I'd never seen him
around before. I went from seeing very little, to seeing red. The voice/images/sensations started again.

//Call upon me, and we can stop this. If you call, I will answer.//

I knew what that voice wanted, but I had to try it my way first.

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Chad Simmons was having a day that, if anything, was worse than yesterday. It had started out well enough, waking in the mud had been no problem, and none of those annoying people that were trying to get him to go back were anywhere around. He could run fast enough still when he
wanted, and was even faster when he jumped. Jumping was kind of like flying, except you had to come down eventually.

He had made it to the small town he remembered, and walked the streets of his youth. The pointing and screaming had annoyed him at first, but he supposed it was only his reputation as a football hero such reactions and relaxed. They didn't try to stop him anyway.

Then he'd found the cemetery. He knew that's where mom was, cause he'd been told by the judge that was where she was. But it confused him, all that was here were stones with peoples names on them. One of those names turned out to be his mother's. He wasn't sure what that meant, but it angered him. It was just a simple stone, with her name on it, and some numbers. What did it mean? Where was his mother? This whole place was stupid. He took much less care on the way out of the cemetery, kicking over the stupid stones without a care. There wasn't anyone here, so there was no reason to be so careful.

Then the annoying people showed up, and he hadn't had a moment's peace since. He ended up having to jump as far away as he could, ending up in a city he didn't know, with the annoying people dressed in blue, or sometimes green, after him the entire way. They had even started using
choppers! He knew all about those from the war movies he used to watch as a boy, but these were different. They shot something that tickled, though when other people got hit they laid down. He supposed it was a game after all, since they didn't seem too interested in hurting him.

But they just wouldn't go away, and he started to get mad; they followed him even after he jumped again, so he started doing what he knew how when confronted by annoying people; he threw things. The cars were so light he had no trouble; though he hadn't hit one of the choppers yet, they were keeping their distance. The people in bright shiny suits though... they wanted to play football!

There were five of them in all, all different. All were smaller, though two were taller than the rest, one thin, and one just bulky. There were two small ones, barely over people size, and one just a bit bigger than they. All of them had pods and other things on their shoulders, backs or heads that he didn't know the use for. But they were robots, and they wanted to play football!

He knew they wanted to play football as the biggest one tried to tackle him. He found out they knew different rules to the game when one of the smaller ones zipped up and started tickling him, the other on his other side trying to deploy some sort of net that wouldn't even cover his foot, but made it itch for some reason. The really small one just sort of stood off to the side, so he figured that one might be the referee. The large one was trying it's best to knock him down, so he just tackled it himself, then threw a car at the one trying to trip him. Such tactics were dirty in football, he didn't care what rule book these guys read!

He felt kind of bad about the little one; the bigger one got up easily, but the little one was spitting sparks and making a rather bad grinding sound. The medium sized one shot some sort of goo all over him, and then the large one slammed into him again, knocking him down. Angry, he decided to show him why he was the star rusher for his old team. Another car to the goo spitter, and then a good punch to the large one, and both were down, sporting large dents and spitting sparks like their friend.

He hadn't taken 3 steps before some guy in his pajamas flew down from the sky and hit him. The guy couldn't have come up to his knee, even the robots were larger. He never before met someone so willing to fight with someone bigger than him; everyone who tried that at school he made sure to put them down. Then this guy... even the football playing robots weren't as stupid. So he punched him, as hard as he could. The guy didn't get up. Satisfied, he walked some more, randomly. The robots did not seem to want to play again. But now the choppers were coming back in....

And he heard it clearly through the massive din of pinging things and explosions. A girl's voice, clear as a bell and almost like verbal candy, the bars from the other planet that his mother sometimes bought him when he was being good. He turned, because he hadn't clearly heard
another persons voice since he got really big, and beheld a girl in ragged clothes a size too big for her, with cruddy pink hair and a face like an angel... bearing an expression that reminded him of his mom, when he did bad things. She repeated herself, probably because he was staring.

"Excuse me, but could you please stop?"

She was really polite. If she wasn't so tiny, she'd make a great girlfriend! She was just THERE, easy to see. More there than anything else. But still, there was no way.

"They started it!"

"Excuse me?"

She could pull off that look really well, whatever it was.

"They started it, I was just walking along here like this."

He demonstrated, walking towards her, only kicking a few things that happened to be in the way. The stupid car he stubbed his toe on just barely missed her, and he was glad. He didn't want to hurt anyone. She wobbled a bit, and he was about to ask her if she felt OK, when she spoke again.

"I... see. Well then I'm sorry, but we must fight."

She held out her hand just as her words registered, and a piece of sun came flying down, tumbling, right into her hand. It was a sword, he saw. But it was tiny, as she was. He felt a pang of something, but squished it. He wanted to know where his mom was, to see her, and she turned out
to be just another person to get in the way. Well he wouldn't let her, and that tiny toothpick wouldn't stop him! He threw a car, hard as he could this time, to make her go to the hospital.

And watched, mouth open, as she split it in half with the sword, the twin pieces flying to either side. How could she do that? None of it touched her! She was stronger than she looked! He recovered as she nodded firmly once to nothing at all, then threw the sword, sunlight bouncing off
the blade in a pretty way as it arced....

He grinned, she had missed, it was going to go over his head! He gathered himself to charge... then she vanished in a flash, appearing over his head with her hand on the sword as it arced down, right toward him!

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The stroke split the giant (fomori, a voice whispered) in half, perfectly centered, as my stroke against the car was. The blade sang liquid caresses into my mind as both halves wobbled and fell with an earth shattering crash. To my left, Mr. Williams came rushing towards me; I had seen him as I made my plea to the giant, and known he was in the path of danger, as was his home, less than a block away from this rampage. I couldn't stop the bile that flowed from my abused stomach; I had just killed a man. I was a murderer. And I had killed him for being too stupid to understand he was doing wrong. I had seen in his eyes, in his responses, that he had no idea how many people he just killed. And who knew how many he killed before he met me.

But I had killed him, and done it because I was unsure I could subdue him, and unsure if he could be kept if captured. Just to my left, the lifeless form of Captain Killjoy, the buzz-kill of villains everywhere, seemed to attest to my action being the correct one. Anyone that could kill a tank of a hero like that (one of Detroit's better capes, or at least he was) was not someone I should be tangling with at all. And yet...

"You OK kid?"

What an inane thing to ask me; but I appreciated him for trying.

"I just killed a person, Mr. Williams."

My stomach knotted in on itself again, and my vision went gray.

"Come on, the cops aren't here yet, let's get you out of here."

"But, I should stay and tell them what happened!"

It was self defense, after all. Even if I had gone looking for the fight. There was no doubt the giant was using lethal force. All those people strewn about like so much refuse....

"Maybe, but the M.C.O. was here too, and I'd rather not test your luck, eh? We can tell the cops later if we need to.Now come on, you're going to have to grab on, I'm not leaving the groceries."

I nodded, or tried to; I wasn't sure I managed. Mr William was very strong, he dragged both me and the groceries very quickly through the alley to his back door. The same one I remember dragging myself to, it seemed to me, only hours ago. I vaguely wondered how long I had been out, then my mind sort of swam as I was pulled up the stairs. A gentle slap brought me back.

"You idiot! Eat, you haven't eaten for a week and you were very sick. No wonder you're out on your feet."

"But...."

"don't you but me, kid. You eat it; or I'll throw it out. Besides, you don't owe me a thing, that monster was headed right for the gym, and he would have done a lot of damage around here. You saved my life, and my business. So you earned it. And don't give me that look, I say you earned
it so you did."

I felt myself nodding; I wanted to argue that I would have done it anyway, food or not, because it was the right thing to do, but I was too tired and hungry to argue. So I started with the waffles. As soon as I swallowed the first one, some of that burn I had been feeling since I woke up eased. I slowed down, staring at the blade now sheathed in the scabbard at my hip, the same one I had woken up with. I vaguely remembered cleaning and sheathing it before I vomited that disgusting liquid in my stomach, but it was an unconscious act; it had just felt right to do. Even now, it
felt right having it by my side, as if it belonged there and had in fact always been there.

I wanted to believe that somehow Mr. Williams had found a magic sword somehow, and gave it to me, but that didn't sound right. I knew the images/thoughts I had been received had come from it, and it had come a long way to meet and help me. It had told me it's name was X, and that it
was powerful. I knew it was magical. I knew somehow, that it wasn't cursed, but would not let anyone else wield it.

"So, um... where did that come from?"

Mr. Williams had caught me looking.

"Not sure Mr. Williams, it's (his, the voice/images whispered) sheath was on me when I woke up, and he came when I needed him. I couldn't have won without him."

Ugh, my stomach was queasy again. More images/thoughts of comfort were sent. I should be alarmed that something magical seemed to have direct access to my brain, but I couldn't bring myself to be; I knew X meant me no harm.

"Weird, the sheath was on you since that first night, but there was no sword to be found."

"He sent it ahead."

I replied with conviction; I knew that the sheath had been sent ahead, and knew it had been sent ahead because X had feared for my life, and didn't want me to die before he met me.

"So it's magic then."

I paused, my 6th waffle finished off while I nodded. I started in on the apples, which for some reason sounded really good to me.

"It and the sheath? The sheath is supposed to protect you?"

I nodded again. That feeling was starting to retreat faster now, my mind clearing. With that withdrawal certain other sensations were letting themselves be known. Like how I was tromping through Mr. William's house, sitting at his table, and I was filthy. Literally covered in some sort
of crud, dirt, and most importantly... blood.

And how the body currently covered in filth did not feel right at all. That feeling was getting worse moment by moment. I drained a glass of juice, for I was very thirsty, and stood. Mr. Williams got angry immediately.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Williams, I've been messing up your house; with your permission I'd like to take a quick shower. I won't be too long, I swear."

He looked at me, and his face softened.

"It's Devon kid, and take all the time you need. The food will be waiting. For just this once, don't worry about the mess; you can clean it up later."

Snagging an apple on my way with an apologetic glance, I made my way to the bathroom. I had to drain the tub, and pull the ice bags out, so I did. There was a film on the bottom I didn't want to think about, but the tub itself wasn't too dirty. At least, not dirty enough for me to care. My clothes felt scratchy, seeming to get stiff and tighter suddenly. They were a complete loss, so I rolled them up and threw them in the small wastebasket near the sink.

Which revealed a slight problem.

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Devon had just sat back down, coffee and bagel in hand, to relax after the crazy day when the kid's new voice came from the bathroom. Even muffled as it was, it was clear and... pure? He idly hoped it wasn't some sort of crazy mind control mutation or something, that would ruin it.

"Mr. Williams?"

"It's Devon kid, what's the matter, need help?"

He hadn't heard the kid fall or anything, and the kid knew where the soap and shampoo were.

"It's um, well...."

The confusion and embarrassment were as clear as the voice; the door was no barrier.

"Spit it out, kid."

"Well, remember how I said I was a boy? I think I might have lied somehow, and I'm really sorry!"

....Wait, what? What?

(TBC)