Muddling Along

Lucy and Aarti watched in faint disbelief as fireballs shot forth from in front of Kathryn. Weirdly spoken syllables sparked them, and she sent them forth with imperious gestures as suggested by Niles and Don. Dawnie stood, fuming to the side. It was understandable since she disapproved of the sudden interest in Kathryn's talent.

She was the one who understood brothers the best, after all. Sol was lingering next to Lucy, practically her shadow and Kuro was pretending to be hers as usual. Those two were so co-dependent it wasn't amusing, and now they'd once again latched onto Lucy who couldn't bring herself to order them away.

"I might have enough power to do something like that, too," Sol muttered, glancing away.

Lucy and Aarti exchanged amused looks.

"Of course, you can," Lucy soothed the younger girl. "It's just that now that you look so, um, mature, that we just need you to maintain that form for a bit longer."

"Until we get out of here," Aarti added, turning her attention back to the battle, eyes skimming until they located her mother.

"That's right," Lucy agreed. "We don't need to give them info. Let them work for it."

"We still need to go extract Kathryn from the Devilish Duo," Court said softly. "At least it made for a good diversion."

Lucy sighed as she nodded. The fireballs had helped break up the fight somewhat, easing the pressure on Aarti's mom and Batman. Now they just had to figure out how to leverage that into a way through the knot of struggling guards.

"Why don't we just barrel through?" Dawnie asked, unwrapping an IWA bar she'd pulled from her backpack. "Whatever we decide has to be fast because I only have two of these left, and Don hasn't eaten in ten, twenty minutes."

"When it rains, it pours?" Court offered up as Lucy and Aarti froze before staring at Dawnie who only shrugged as she polished off her bar.

*****

Cassidy could feel a headache fast approaching. She was totally not built for this. Around her, children milled. While admittedly better behaved than the ones she'd encountered since Liberation Day, they were still getting on her nerves.

Cassidy paused. Then she swept a sharp glance across the children present. She wasn't wrong. There were more children than she remembered and some of them were younger than the youngest they'd ferried out of the creche on Liberation Day.

"Leilani!" Cassidy called. A swarm of drones appeared around her, enough that she could hear a distinct buzz form.

"Yes, Cassidy?" Leilani asked, showing up next to her. A peppermint stick hung from her lips.

"Where did you get the candy?" Cassidy asked in spite of herself.

"Oh, Carol had this big bag of them for some sort of columns, but I figured we would need sustenance," Leilani said with a nod.

"Sustenance?" Cassidy suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy for Lucy. She'd dealt with both Leilani and Rena at the same time for weeks.

"I'm not that bad," Leilani protested. Then she froze. "So, what did you want?" Leilani asked after a long moment's pause.

"How many here are ours? And where did the rest come from?" Cassidy asked.

"Oh, that? Well, I'd say they'd nabbed most of us, and the rest are from another creche. Remember that new girl with Sol and Kuro?" Leilani asked. When Cassidy nodded, she continued, "she's from that same creche. Don't worry. They all want to escape. I mean, who'd want to stay locked up in a cylinder anyways?"

"Who, indeed?" Cassidy replied. She fought the urge to scream.

The area they were located in was outside of the battle. She wasn't even sure that the battling parties had even noticed their appearance. They were hidden from direct sight by a slight dip of the terrain. The gleaming bulk of the creche lay to one side of them and a sheer drop from a cliff was to the other. They could either go forward and try to skirt the chaos or hope that there was some way to circumvent the creche.

Cassidy held out a hand to Leilani. Leilani heaved a sigh and pulled out a fresh peppermint stick from the trendy little backpack slung over her shoulders. Through the brief gap, Cassidy could glimpse a veritable mountain of sugar. She winced a little, envisioning the fallout when Carol discovered her candy supplies missing. Cassidy glanced at the peppermint stick as she took it, noting the unusual blue and green color and resolving to go visit her grandpa as soon as this was over so she wasn't dragged into the ensuing mess.

"Thank you," Cassidy said as she unwrapped it. Peppermint wasn't her favorite, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

As the first pulse of sweetness hit her system, she sighed. Cassidy waved Leilani away as she concentrated on the small tablet in her hands. It showed her where her drones were, and she could even monitor their surroundings if she liked.

Unfavorably, the battle seemed to be drifting their way. Cassidy frowned down at her tablet. They were only hidden by a trick of the landscape. Her only joy was that Niles had ducked away at the last moment to stay behind with Lucy. Cassidy sincerely wished her joy in dealing with her brother; as far as she was concerned, the farther away from Niles she was, the happier she would be.

Her eyes caught a brief gleam in the far corner of the battle. She directed her drones to zoom into that area. Then Cassidy's eyes widened as she saw Rena arguing with some musclebound goon. Just behind them, one of those weird little tanks that Lucy had dismantled was taking aim. The whole scenario told her that Lucy was going to be in a whole lot of trouble if she didn't take care of certain issues, though perhaps the overdose of poison had given her a temporary power boost.

Cassidy shook those thoughts out of her head. She'd leave that to Lucy to worry about. She was sure that Niles would somehow catch wind of it, and Cassidy wasn't one to fight with crazy people, especially massively obsessed sis-cons like Niles. In his eyes, it was like Lucy was always going to be that cowering little girl trying to protect her friends from him.

She watched as the tank belched some weird concoction of gas trailing goo at the arguing couple. The musclebound man danced away, horror on his face. The goo hit Rena, causing her to stumble. Cassidy zoomed in on Rena's face, trying to stay expressionless. The kids were milling around, but some of them kept sneaking glances when they thought she wasn't looking.

"Is that Rena?" Leilani asked beside her, standing on tiptoe to peep at the tablet. She crunched on the peppermint stick in her mouth. "That's so not good," she then said solemnly, parroting Rena's current favorite phrase.

Cassidy could only nod in agreement.