(Caped) Friend Like Me

Being a flying brick isn’t the same as being invulnerable. Madeleine knew this. A flying brick meant you could take a swat to the head with a car and walk away. It had been a green smartcar in her case, but still. Invulnerable meant you could take anything up to a thermonuclear explosion. Natalie was invulnerable, or pretty near it. Word was she actually had survived a small nuke. Madeleine didn’t know whether this was true, and Natalie never said.

Her life was flashing before her eyes again, as she tumbled through the unceasing windstorms of the second circle of hell. She had lost her concentration when she had seen her ex-boyfriend, and she hadn’t got it back yet. It is very hard to take a moment to think when you’re tumbling about end over cape, like socks in the dryer. She still managed to have a flashback, though. Madeleine was getting used to these. Apparently hell had a lot of flashbacks. Opportunities for remorse, she imagined.

She’d never joined a superhero league. Madeleine had received invitations. The Caped Coasties, for instance, also the League of Metro Defenders, both of who, had taken her “no” politely and gone away Then there was the government, with the perennial attempt to kickstart a special sort of organization with an overly long and very patriotic acronym. Unfortunately, it had never gotten out of committee, and the budget wasn’t there for it anyway. Gaseous Girl had soldiered on alone.

Not completely alone, exactly. She had made a friend, here and there. Audrey the telepath, brilliant mind, who loved words of more than one syllable, and who occasionally failed to grasp the concept of privacy. Trina, who could turn invisible, or purple, or, whatever other color she liked, who had once asked Madeleine to look after her little Rosalie during an unexpectedly lengthy patrol, and who had neglected to tell Madeleine that the kid could also turn invisible. Natalie, the invulnerable, whom she had met in Toronto while pursuing the Maple Leaf Mayhem Maiden. Sam, the reporter who gave her insight into the twisty mazes of local politics. She’d almost had a relationship with Sam. That wouldn’t be happening now.

The flashback wrapped up, and she tumbled away into the storm again. Then she saw a flash of green. Madeleine kicked towards it. That might be Circle One of Hell, and the way out. Madeleine hoped so, because she was sure as hell getting sick of this place. She was also getting tired of ironic statements like that.