Sequel: Earth to Me

Generation Why Bother

It's Electric!/What's Gonna Work?! Teamwork!

Anthony kept on flinging fire at the underbelly to get all the legs and render it as immobile as possible. We had no idea how it was flying in the first place, but since the legs were moving as it pulled into the atmosphere, getting rid of them couldn’t have hurt us.

I looked over at the shore. Mick had put up even more trees around the stage to block the stray legs from falling anywhere the audience could have gotten hurt, and Riley had pulled up more walls from the ground to block the incoming debris.

When I glanced back at the underbelly with the help of Chuck’s light, I saw that Anthony had almost gotten rid of all of the legs – only a few remained, squirming in such a gross fashion I could’ve thrown up right then and there.

Snapping me out of my disgusted trance, Anthony yelled at me to get my attention. “Don’t just stand there, try something! Be that stupid fucking mouse anime thing and zap it, I think it’s on its last leg!”

Such an eloquent way to tell me to use my power.

Well, whatever. He was right – I couldn’t just stand there when there was a big reason why they brought me along. Following his suggestion/order, I held out my hands, concentrating and keeping my eyes focused on the mass of organs clustered underneath the shell, trying to aim the best I could in the damp sea air.

The sparks were gathering and I stepped up next to Anthony, taking a power stance to keep myself grounded.

This was my shot to let out all the static that had built inside of me for months at that point, even since before I was given my power. For that, I couldn’t help but stumble back a little bit when all of the electricity flung out from my hands and rattled my arms, flailing into the sky and paralyzing the monster in its immobile tracks. I couldn’t hold back; there was no place for that at the moment. I didn’t feel any sparks stray from the path I had focused so hard to keep; I powered through the bolts and sent them directly at the beast while Andy was busy blowing away the parts that fell from it.

When the breath of energy in me had slowly trickled out and my electricity was dwindling from the power surge, I had to pause and retract my hands, doubling over to catch my breath.

Meanwhile, Chance was gasping, “Holy hell, it’s naked now…”

Sure enough, when I could bring my eyes to see the area I’d just fried, it was almost completely gone. No legs were attached anymore, and what had been there before was just now smoked and charred remnants of organs. Flakes were falling, and Andy was busy whipping them away far into the ocean without batting an eyelash to the environmental issues that were bound to come up later on. It even looked like there were egg pods falling from the shell, potential offspring that would’ve made our job a whole hell of a lot harder.

Andy was on self-proclaimed cleanup duty, getting rid of all organic matter that had been destroyed with the help of Chuck in aiming. He took care in making sure that everything was flung way too far for anybody to ever find; as he whipped everything away, there was another problem going on.

The bug was tilting on its side, falling just ever so slowly.

It was going to end up in the water one way or another, but at its dead rate with dead weight, the splash it would make would be far too disastrous to compare to the killer job we did with destroying it.

This prompted Chance to create the biggest and probably thickest bubble I’d ever seen in my entire life. It rose from the ocean and had a skin that froze once it had enveloped the dead bug’s shell, and Chance’s face had wrenched up in concentration as if he were the one lifting it into the air all by himself with his own bare hands.

Everybody saw him struggle to keep the alien from making a tsunami that would probably wipe out a good chunk of Miami, and Andy, Anthony, Chuck and I just stood there for a second trying to think of something to do or something to say.

Chance was doing fine for the moment, but that moment wouldn’t last forever.

Improvisation was key. The problem was, the people we needed that would get this under control were all the way back at the shore…

Andy was staring towards the shoreline past the barrier of trees that Mick had grown with the intent of slowing down the bug. He stood there with his mouth slightly agape, lost in thought –then, all of a sudden, he told us to, “Hold on,” and he’d jumped off the ice platform, wind sailing him through the skies back to the stage.

Neither me, Chuck, nor Anthony could help Chance in his conquest to keep the beast from crashing into the water and causing physical damage to the city. That’s why we just stood there stunned and waiting for whatever Andy had up his sleeve, whatever drove him away from the action.

When he came back, he had Tegan and Riley hooked on both of his arms, and both of them looked terrified like they didn’t trust him to keep them in the air. (Seeing how recent his power was, he wasn’t that bad, I didn’t think.) He skidded to a stop on the ice platform Chance had created, and almost immediately he gave the new additions something to do. I didn’t even have time to say hi to Tegan.

“Riley, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna try to make the biggest crater you can in order to trap the bug as it comes down,” Andy commanded, taking control so easily. “Tegan, you need to try and lift that thing – team up with Chance if you have to – and you’re gonna just hold it in place while he makes the crater.”

The three of them locked arms again, and Andy had them airborne as they whooshed over to the scene where Chance was struggling to control the iced bubble and keep himself from falling into the water he had been so kind to.

That left Anthony, Chuck and I – and Mick way back at the shoreline – to watch as they handled it all too well.

It was almost movielike to watch it happen. How smooth it was, how rehearsed it had seemed –then again, that was for the better. These were people who may not have had everything in their lives under control, but they sure as hell had one thing in the bag – their own elements, even if they were out of their own, if you will.

Tegan alleviated some of the pressure off of Chance; still holding on to Andy, she raised one arm and I could see a little bit of unclenching on Chance’s part. They held it in the air, Tegan holding the bug itself and Chance giving a layer of extra ice support, and that’s when Riley got down to business to create even more walls.

He struggled with one hand, pulling earth out from under the ocean floor, and as he tried, slick rock and silt had towered through the waves and had created new ones that would fizzle out as it reached the shore. Making sure to gather a space that would fit the whole thing, save for its tail which could get easily fried by Anthony or me if need be, Riley circled around with Andy carrying him through the air after Tegan stepped next to Chance on his own makeshift ice surfboard.

The crater was huge; however, the water inside of it just wouldn’t do.

Chance was multitasking again at that point. With one hand keeping Tegan steady and keeping the ice bubble midair, his other hand was hard at work gathering most if not all of the water that was hiding in that cradle. It rose underneath the bug, the gigantic pill of seawater, and Chance gently edged it outward and over the beast. He said something to Tegan, but God knows they were too far away for anybody to hear it.

Tegan lowered her hands and then we all watched in awe as she moved the crab further down into the pit made by Riley. The shell, overturned from its tilting episode after we killed the beast, sounded an ear-splitting crack as it hit the walls of the pit, the rocky material from the ocean’s bottom scraping against the not-as-hard protective layer. The beast’s shell split in half widthwise as it crumbled into itself in defeat, laying in the crater with sprinkles of ice hitting it as the bubble collapsed.

Andy sailed over to pick up Tegan again and hold her in his mini-tornado that kept he and Riley in the air while Chance had other plans with the nebulous water pocket he’d been keeping.

As he sailed on his ice plate further into the ocean, keeping a tight rein on his power, he became a speck in the distance. We all watched him sink the water into its own environment, back to where it came, while he kept an eye out for disruptions in the salty liquid. He stood there for a good few minutes trying to keep things under control, and then he surfed back with such ease that it was unreal. What a way to shine.

Somehow, it seemed like everything was too far away to affect Miami ever again, or even the world for that matter. And still, even though in just a matter of minutes, our intergalactic worries were over…it made waves throughout my mind.

Anthony had a smirk on his face as the others (minus Mick, who was busy shrinking the trees near the coast) made their way back to us.

“Now…how the heck are we gonna pass this off as simple theatrics?” I had to ask, my voice strong again.

“You know, I’ve been thinking the exact same thing,” Anthony laughed out loud.
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Couldn't decide on a chapter title, so I combined two. xD There are sixty-three chapters in this story overall, just as a fair warning. :)

There's a new doodle on the Tumblr thingy!

I'm not a big fan of bugs, and horseshoe crabs freak me out. o_O