The Happiest Place on Earth

[Jane]

Jane's seemingly aimless wandering brought her to a Behind the Scenes door for Cast Members Only. It opened in front of her, a group of security guards jogging out. She punched the first one in the face before they even saw her standing there, and swept the leg of the second. Both mundanes spilled to the cobblestones as the speakers kept pumping out creepy music from It's A Small World.

"C'mon, boys," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Make me leave the park. I dare you."

The two she'd hit were getting to their feet as the other three rushed at her, no rhyme or reason to their attack. Jane ducked one wild fist, and then took a face full of pepper spray. It burned - and then her face only felt a little numb as her heart pounded from the thrill of the fight. She shouted as she slammed her palm into a solar plexus, sending the guard stumbling backwards and gasping for air with her surprising strength.

[Phedre Kallianos]

"But Momma, its a mermaid! I wanna stay see the mermaid!"

The mother tried to hush the little girl and pull her away from the railing of the steamboat as it was being evacuated. But the child hung on tight, green eyes wide with fascination.

The tiny voice cut right through the sweet sounds of mayhem, and brought a soft smile to Phedre's features. She winked in the general direction of one of the camera's and blew Tron a kiss for his compliment before she turned and 'walked' her way over to the steamboat.

She stopped a few feet away from the railing, floating up to eye level with the little girl. Phedre wrapped herself in the rippling water that held her up, giving the illusion of a shimmering, flicking mermaid tail. "How come you're so brave, sweetie? Everyone else is afraid of me."

"My daddy says mermaids are good. A mermaid saved him once when his boat sank! Mommy doesn't believe him." The little said with as much conviction as her little frame could muster, while wearing a smile almost as bright as the sun.

Phedre tossed her head back and laughed, spinning around on the crest of her wave much to the child's delight. At that moment, however, two security guards appeared behind the child and her mother, pulling roughly at them in an effort to get them to safety. The taller of the two, who had taken hold of the little girl, stumbled and ended up dropping her over the railing.

The mother barely had time to scream before Phe caught the little one with a swirl of water and gently deposited her back in her mother's arms. The woman looked grateful, the security guards terrified, and the little girl was clapping with absolute delight. She waved to the little one before bearing herself away on another wave.

She was growing bored of the game with the mundanes and the tentacles. Instead, she sent up tall walls of rushing water to keep them penned in a few key spots, while she amused herself by chasing the canoes around the lagoon with water-construct sharks that made Jaws look like a guppy.

[Flux]

Pieces of the railing tore away, sheared off the boat by magnetic force, wrapping themselves around the throats of the guards and battering the civilians with such force as to deposit them on land several meters from the shore. Flux looked down and to his left, studying the mundane family as they struggled to push the railing off themselves and escape.

"Hey, you two, pay attention," he demanded, snapping his fingers in front of their eyes like they were animals. "I'mma save the people in the boat."

Flux waited for the water to swell and repelled it from himself, using the wave and his own power to eject it from the pool. It spun through the air like a hurricane, threatening to crush one of his makeshift cages, when he repelled it from the lampposts, perching the boat neatly atop a building and out of Amnis's range.

"See? Thrilling heroics." They screamed hysterical pleas for mercy at him. He rolled his eyes. "There is just no pleasing you people."

[Stern]

Stern saw Flux "fly" the boat over the crowds of screaming people and set his jaw.

"Honey, I need you to figure out what makes these people tick. Knowledge is power, and I need as much as I can get."

Stern set his phone to handle bluetooth, and put the receiving device on his ear. "So glad for unlimited talk. Get set up, then dial me. Don't get into too much trouble. Do you think you can get a read on them indirectly?"

The LAPD captain looked around one more time, then back at her. "I love you, my beautiful wife. I promise you, we'll come away from this in one piece."

[Anita Stern]

Anita nodded, offering her husband a firm smile imbued with partial confidence and a half of worry that was lightly etched into her smooth, feminine features.

“I should be able to. Anything they’ve come into physical contact with should have an accessible imprint... but it would require me to go out into the fray again. But I’ll do what’s necessary.’”

She began fishing her own earpiece out of her purse and setting it into her ear and bringing up the already-present pairing profile of the Bluetooth earpiece on her phone.

“I love you too, and I believe we will.”

She grabbed him by the collar with both hands and pulled up on tippy-toes, pressing her lips to his briefly before lowering again.

“Let’s make this ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ again.”

[The Brotherhood]

"Someone bring me some popcorn. I'm lovin' this."

Tron was deep into the system now - every security camera in the park was an eye for him, every microphone an ear. What he didn't have was individual ride control, because, contrary to Hollywood's opinion, you didn't control everything in a complex system from a single friggin' computer, so he couldn't make the roller coaster trains crash, or make the Presidents swear at each other. Which was a shame, because he'd have loved to try making the Haunted House actually scary.

He dialed in closer for another look at Amnis's wet, clingy top, but then the camera fuzzed over with digital artifacts and then cut out completely. "Aww, come on, Flux, watch where you're throwing those magnetic fields! Woah, hey, wait."

Another camera winked out, and another. Tron tried to worm his way back in, but something was pushing back at him through the system, something cold and malevolent.

His ears filled with a squeal of unfamiliar data, and then he heard radio chatter, voices shouting over the howl of helicopter rotors.

"Hey guys, it's Tron. Looks like we go somebody's attention. Sounds military. Better get ready for some heavy resistance."

[Jane]

She'd made her way into the 'backstage' area, a pile of groaning security guards on the concrete behind her, and was running toward Tomorrowland with back-up chasing her.

"Cue up the fireworks, Tron," she barked, adding, "Amnis, clear out Pirates and the Jungle Cruise, take Geryon with you."

[Major Mackenzie Keller]

The Vanguard jetcopter shrieked through the idyllic blue sky, looking for all the world like a giant predatory insect as it soared low over the east side of the park - matte black skin set at harsh, radar-deflecting angles, wing-mounted rotors shimmering, every bit as alien to the Disneylandscape as the mutants wreaking havoc on the ground. In its belly, ten Vanguard troops in full combat armor shouldered their weapons and ran their final checks before the drop. To a man, they were heavily armed - M4X1 close-quarter rifles, stun batons, and suppression collars, all of it free of metal, and mutagen. A few even used some of the more exotic strains.

At the front of the cabin, clenching the safety strap above her head in a white-knuckle grip, Major Mackenzie Keller listened in to the feed from the Vanguard C&C dispatcher: "Security footage shows six mutant combatants in action. We've confirmed the involvement of Brotherhood agents Zombie, Boomer, Geryon, and Flux. Also a female hydrokinetic, Caucasian, and a male giant, between three and four meters, purple-skinned."

"Give us another bird in the air," Kenzie said. "We should have enough here to neutralize the threat, but let's not take chances."

She released her deathgrip on the safety strap long enough to pull down the cuffs of her leather gloves. The jetcopter banked just short of the Fantasyland castle and settled down toward the Central Plaza; she could see the colorful roofs of Main Street, USA, pinwheeling past the open sidewalls of the craft.

A hail of garish, glowing rockets went up over the lake, and she tensed, remembering anti-aircraft fire over Basra. But fireworks were harmless unless they flew through them with their loading doors open. All they would do now would be to add to the chaos, as if a military aircraft landing in the middle of the street wouldn't do that already.

The troops piled out the moment the jetcopter's landing gear touched the asphalt, and Kenzie jumped out with them. "Corporals Hawk and Jensen, you're with me. Sergeant Dugan, take the rest of your men and pacify Flux and the hydrokinetic, and any other Brotherhood agents you see on the way."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Eight of the troopers hurried west toward Phedre's and Flux's theatrics, while Kenzie and her two soldiers turned north to hunt down the leader of the Brotherhood attack. Behind them, the jetcopter lifted off and wheeled away through a sky filled with smoke and fireworks.

[Stern]

Stern grimaced. Whereas most people might look at him and think "Fuck the police!" Stern looked at the Vanguard and thought it about them.

"Sweetie, look out for the great big helicopter. Vanguard doesn't care about mutants that are good or evil. If you see them aiming at any of the mutants you're near, run like hell."

Stern light-jumped onto Flux's shoulders and tried to knock the zealot off his course. "I swear, Fletcher, if you do not get on the ground right now, I will make them stuff you in a Rubbermaid for the rest of your life!"

[Flux]

"After you!" Flux had staggered under the sudden weight of Stern, but managed to pitch him off by throwing his body backward. He stepped forward and turned, then backpedaled slowly as he took stock of his situation. Stern on the one hand, anti-mutant troops on the other. "Took some snark lessons! Well done there, Officer! But I'm still King of the Quip. All the Mundanes will now receive a Get Out of Jail Free Card!" He uprooted his lamp posts and sheared them into spears. "You'd think a magnetic man, deprived of metal, wouldn't get the chance to learn to make shivs in prison. You'd also be wrong." Four of the jagged lances fired to Stern; the remaining eight shrieked toward the troopers.

[Jane]

Amnis was moving into Pirates, Tron could see it on the CCTV, screams coming from within as the water level rose, drenching those waiting in line and haphazardly (but not dangerously) turning the 'boats' into bumper cars. Geryon rumbled through the fleeing crowds, joining her and bellowing for everyone to clear out. A boat went over the edge of the ride, floating into where people had been standing, and the huge mutant caught it before it could tip over, the family within terrified and grateful, and then terrified again as he simply pushed it toward dry ground.

Jane didn't see any of that, punching a security guard outside of Star Tours and ducking another, letting the over zealous man fall forward and over her back before surging upright and sending him to the pavement. Really, her job was simply to coordinate the ones with flashier powers, but if these guys wanted to fight, well, she was okay with that too.

[Phedre Kallianos]

It was a nearly idyllic afternoon so far, the woman mused, twirling fingers made of water in a circle and watching at the currents and the boats obeyed. One after the other, boats floated up and over the safeguards and railings in place to prevent such things from occurring on their own. But there was little concrete and metal constructs could do when pitted against water and the malevolent force controlling it.

A force, like so many of her brothers and sisters, that had had enough of the petty tyranny and small-mindedness of mundanes. Their fear was palpable even to Phedre, and their screams almost melodic, reminiscent of the first time she'd ever lost control of her powers as she was coming into them at a tender age. It had been a thing of beauty...fishing boats splintered, a dock destroyed, and a boat full of German tourists suddenly careening through the streets of her village as if it were a ride made for Disney in Paris.

Geryon's bellowing wrenched her back to the present and to the predicament at hand. Jane's order had been clear; though if anything had followed her missive to clear out the Pirates and the Jungle Cruise, she hadn't heard it. In what she considered her natural form, the earpiece was useless...she had her mind, but no body to speak of. An ever-shifting column of water, the pure blue-green of the Mediterranean slipped from wave to wave as Geryon shoved the last of the boats to safety on the broad paved 'street'. The Pirates ride was much easier to empty out...what foolish humans didn't run were whisked away in a series of little waves that deposited the drenched and terrified tourists near to Frontierland. The same direction everything from the ride and the cruise had gone.

For a brief moment, Phedre contemplated trying to bring down the Indiana Jones Adventure temple. A deliciously delightful visual danced across her mind's eye until she caught sight of the rapidly approaching troopers. Eight very well armed and prepared Vanguard troopers, the sort she'd been warned about. These...these were fair game.

Briefly, she poured herself back into her human form and brought herself down to Geryon's side on a crest of water that remained, bearing her there as if it were simply a step-stool. "Be careful, my brother...I would not see you harmed or captured. Remember the plan." She touched his shoulder at his nod and watched as Flux threw off the mutant that appeared on his shoulders. Phedre put herself between Geryon and the oncoming troopers, and rippled back into a vaguely human-shaped column of water that glittered with the bright colors of the fireworks above.

She would have to remember to compliment Flux on his creative use of the fencing...the sheared spears reminded her of swordfish slicing through the ocean as they hurtled through the air. So much so that she added to his attack by sending spheres of water hurtling after them to resolve into the body of the fish itself.