Noelle - Day 167 (Marathon 6)

So yesterday
I started out my RMS Marathon post by asking if somebody could name their band Marathon 5, because reasons.  Today: thoughts on life.

Is it possible to eat popcorn more than one kernel at a time without feeling like a greedy American stereotype?  Seriously, am I alone in this feeling?

The Survivors (Parts 17, 18, and 19)

"Alright everybody, stay calm, proceed to the exits in an orderly fashion," Coulson called, but it was no use. The panicked students of Midtown High were on a rampage.  The living sand was everywhere, snaring around ankles, flipping tables over, and increasing the mass hysteria that ruled the cafeteria.

"It's Sandman, from that island that Nova accidentally took us to two winters ago.  Sam, you're going to have to fry him," Peter said as the team waded through the crowd.  "Urg, I've got sand up my shoes."

"Why do we have to fry him?"  Jess asked calmly as a teenage girl screamed past.

"Sand + heat = immobile glass.  Nova = heat.  Do the math, Jess," Peter said as he finally managed to slip out of the doors.  They started sprinting to their lockers, which Coulson had arranged neatly in the same corridor.

"Won't that kill him?"

Luke frowned at her.  "Well, yeah," he said, as if it was the obvious solution.

"Isn't S.H.I.E.L.D. always looking for the humane route?"

"Humane, Jess?"  Ava yelled, slowing her pace to get up in the other girl's personal space.  "There has to be 150 students in there and it's up to us to contain the threat in an orderly, speedy fashion!  One for the many!!"

"That's not how I do things," Jess snapped, pulling her red sweatshirt off and replacing it with a dull purple one.  She added her mask to the getup, hoping that nobody would recognize her.  She wasn’t in much of a mood for her suit..

Peter rolled his eyes and pulled his mask on at well.  "Jess, you're on a team, which works together, as a unit.   If you can't do that, maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't the right place for you."

"Like you have the power to fire me."

An angry, sandy road echoed through the hallways, quickly followed by the panic screams of dozens of people.  "That's our cue - let's circle around the outside so it looks like we didn't come from here.  C'mon, Jess.  Jess?"

But the black-haired girl was already running down the hall, tying her hair up in a ponytail as she went.  "Hurry up!"

*******

Jess let the adrenaline rush fuel her muscles as she ran up the corridor.  Try to save your core energy.  It was a rule.  Rules aren’t broken...right?

She rubbed at her forehead, frustrated and confused.  How deep had this S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff really gone?  It was all through her mind, directing her thoughts, forcing her actions, and compartmentalizing her thoughts.  I need to shake this, Jess thought, but even that only led to more confusion.

Focus.  Work with the task at hand.

Right.  It’s not worth the energy right now.  Sandman is the focus right now.

Live in the present.

That’s what I just said!

Jess shook her head dazedly and nearly missed her turn.  She crashed into the brick wall, but she didn’t gasp from the pain.  Her connections with the material world were fading, sending scatterings of rock-ripples down the wall.  C’mon.  Her face contorted and she sank to her knees, trying to tug her mind back to real world and out of the rock one.  Just a little longer.

With a final mental heave, Jess pulled herself out and up to her feet, and the pressure stopped.  “Um...who are you?”  Somebody said...was that Harry?

Jess rolled her neck like she did this everyday.  “Just here to help,” she said, trying to sound confident.  When Harry still looked doubtful, she added, “This is normal.”  The boy still looked confused.  Ugh, whatever.  Jess flashed her friend a bright, positive smile from behind her mask.

“Aerug!  It has fangs!!”  Harry scampered away and dashed down the hall.  His head was quickly lost in the fleeing crowd.

You can’t make this stuff up, Jess mused, digging her fingers against her gums to find, yes, she did have stone fangs growing where her two missing teeth had once been.  Those had been gone for a year though, and the fangs were a month-old sort of thing...I have got to figure out how to control this.

Wait a minute...control....

Did you finally get it through your thick skull?  That’s the solution!

Jess sprung to her feet and was skidding into the cafeteria in seconds.

*******

The regular students were gone.  Having bypassed the crowded hallways, the Web Warriors were already battling the sand monster, but he was only growing and roaring louder as they attacked.  Coulson hadn’t fled with his lunch staff but had dashed to his office to retrieve his emergency weapons system.  Pew!  Pew pew pew!  Said the guns, and Sandman howled.  Jess sighed.

“Spider...man...you’re....mine!”  He said in a thundering voice and knocked Coulson’s energy cannon away.

Jess rolled her eyes and rose into the air, forcing the stone below her to compensate.  Spider-man himself called from the roof, “What da heck are you thinking!?  Jess, no!”

“Sand = particles of rock!  You said we need to contain it,” She shouted over the whipping wind.  Her face settled into a determined, strong expression.

“No!”

Sandman was fed up with Spider-man’s noise apparently, because a minute later a red-n-blue suited blur flew past, sprinkling the air with sand.

“Agent Willow, what the hell-”  Coulson’s voice echoed across her ears, but Jess shut down all of her senses and plunged into the connection.

§§§

Management: we would like to note that on a normal occasion Noelle does not curse in her writing, but she commented that that's just what he would say and you'll just have to deal with it. Or something like that.