How To Be A Villain Madame Mouse's Mission Chapter 5

It was an eternity in the bubble. The explosion tore through the air with what seemed like the intent of ripping the universe apart atom by atom. The thunderous boom roared through the air momentarily deafening Corey. He just wished it would stop, he wanted to be free. Deep oranges and reds illuminated by blinding white, were all he could see. Even though it’s destruction was horrible, he almost thought it was beautiful like a burst of citrine engulfing him.

He cradled Mikey’s head in his arms. He wasn’t quite conscious yet but he trembled every few minutes, as if he were trapped in a nightmare. Mary was breathing soft and shaky. The drug seemed to be releasing some of its hold on them now. The bomb was fading away too, revealing the destruction it had rained down.

“Oh my God, It’s-it’s all gone” Corey whispered to himself. He was suspended in air by the bubble, floating about 130 feet heigh. Corey felt a trickle of panic run through his system. He didn’t know if the bubble would pop when Mary woke up. If it did he’d fall to his death. There was nothing beneath him for a good while. About six floors of the building had been obliterated and the rest were severely damaged.

That’s when he noticed Claire sitting smugly in her bubble. He could have sworn she was laughing at him but no sound was released from the bubbles. He wanted her to explode like a water balloon. He hated himself for thinking such a violent thought but at the same time he believed his anger to be justified. She had destroyed so much, or maybe it was his fault. He let it go off. The ashes of his mistakes or Claires violence, were swirling about in the air, some settling down to coat the nearby streets.

In the streets multiple cars were crushed, the mangled metal twisting out in ways that resembled something of a monster. Debri littered the streets. That’s when he saw it, Annie’s awful blood-curdling monster truck… Smashed.

In an instant all he wanted was for the bubble to pop. He needed to get down there. He had to wake Mikey and Mary up. Corey had to make sure his crew was safe. He tried to use his powers but it quickly overwhelmed him. He couldn’t take it, seeing his friends brutally mutilated, hurt, killed in so many ways. He closed his eyes and rocked back and forth, willing himself to forget the imagery. He hummed a quiet melody, one he remembered his Mom singing to him.

“Ooh,ooh,ooh,ooh

Do not think bout’ tomorrow

Let tomorrow come and go

Tonight you're in a nice warm boxcar

Safe from all that wind and snow”

He took comfort in the words. They reminded him of cozy nights at home, feeling warm and safe. His mom ruffling his hair before tucking him in.

He had to focus though-escape from the bubble. He wondered if maybe Claire would use her power to get out. If so Corey doubted she would help him though. He started to scan the ground for anything that could help him, but his eyes kept being drawn to Annie’s truck; he hoped they were okay.

Suddenly Corey heard a series of dull thuds.

Corey turned sharply. It was Caldwell, he was banging his fist on the bubble. It was unclear if he was trying to break it or just get Corey’s attention. Corey scrambled over to the edge where Caldwell was. His right wing was burnt; badly. His perfectly white wings had been crisped down to the bone in some spots. His feathers were charred black and the breeze caused bit’s and ashes of what used to be his primary and secondary coverts to come off. It made sense now that Caldwell was flying lopsidedly. Corey couldn’t help but think that even damaged Caldy’s wings were beautiful.

“Corey, are you okay?” He asked.

“Yeah I’m alright, bruised my rib but it ain’t the worst I’ve seen.” Corey said, but Caldy just cupped his hand to his ear, making it evident that he didn’t know what Corey said.

“YEAH I’M ALRIGHT, BRUISED MY RIB, BUT IT AIN’T THE WORST I’VE SEEN!” Corey shouted, but it was futile the bubble stopped any sound from coming out.

“Bleep,” Corey muttered to himself. Corey decided he would try something new. He pointed to the bubble, then his mouth, thumbs down.

“The air isn’t breathable!” Caldwell immediately looked panicked, he flapped his wings faster. Then immediately recoiled from the pain of increasing speed on his damaged wing.

“How?! you’ve been in there for awhile!?” Caldwell was absolutely freaking out; he banged on the bubble repeatedly before Corey shook his head-no. He took a few exaggerated breaths to prove his point.

“Oh, I’m an idiot-no sound” Caldwell hit his palm into his forehead. Corey overdramatically rolled his eyes and giggled. He pointed at Caldwell, thumbs down, pointed at his head.

“Hey! You're not any smarter than me! I remember when you sent me that photo of how you lit your toaster on fire.” Caldwell teased. Corey laughed even though it hurt. Caldy smiled at him fondly.

Corey had tried to put buttercream frosting on a bagel and then put it in the toaster because he forgot you couldn't do that. Steve still checked anything he tried to put in the new one. Suddenly Mike twitched again. Corey looked down at him, Caldwell followed his gaze.

“What happened? Corey?” Caldwell looked frightened, he knew not much could subdue Mike. Corey looked over at where Claire was supposed to be but it was as if she had never been there at all. She must have already escaped, Corey reasoned. He didn’t bother trying to explain by pointing and hand signals so he just shook his head.

“What do you mean no?”

Corey pointed at Mike and Mary, pretended to faint putting his hand up to his head like a flabbergasted victorian noble for effect, pointed at Caldwell, and made a heart then put it on both Mike and Mary.

“You love us? Um… I don’t think that’s the biggest thing right now” Caldwell was blushing. Corey realized his mistake then blushed intensely, covering his mouth with his hand.

“You haven’t been talking this whole time, silly” Caldy stuck his tongue out at him. Corey crossed his arms and feigned annoyance. His face still felt warm and tingly. Corey pointed at Caldwell, rolled his eyes into the back of his head turning them almost completely white, then pointed at the two unconscious older teens.

“I don’t know if this is what you meant but I think I can heal them. I’ve healed people through Mary’s bubbles before” Corey nodded emphatically at this. Caldwell took the hint and wrapped his arms around the bubble and pressed his body into it. His irises vanished and his body glowed with ivory light.

Corey felt cold and clean. He could feel the bruise from Claire’s kick start to fade. He watched as feathers on Caldy started to burst back into place where the smoldering ones had fallen off and his burnt flesh began to return back to normal from its shriveled state. Mary and Mikey began to gain consciousness more rapidly. Caldwell pushed his abilities to the limit and the last of the drug haze was removed from their systems. Corey had guessed that his ribs and Caldy’s wings healing were just a side effect from being so close to Caldwell while he used so much of his strength.

“What the hell happened?”Mary blinked a few times as she sat up, then she saw Corey. “What did you do to us!?” She jumped back and pushed as far away from him as possible.

Corey explained, “You just got healed, you got knocked out earlier, it wasn’t me. I swear.”

“How? My head hurts like someone used it as a ping pong ball.” Mikey took a deep breath. His voice was wary, but at the same time he doubted Corey could’ve done this.

“It was Claire, she shot something into your arms”

“No way!” Mikey almost laughed at the notion that Claire would do such a thing “I love you Corey, but she wouldn’t ever do that”

“She did, I have no reason to lie to you about this”

“Corey, I know you don’t know her like I do, but she’s a great person. Who cares about me and Mary a lot. I’m not accusing you of lying. I don't know what you saw, but I can’t believe she would hurt me.” Corey wondered how many times she’d drugged him or what she’d done to his brother to get his undying loyalty like this. He wanted to wish unspeakable crimes on General Claire.

“Yeah, she wouldn’t hurt her own team” Mary chimed in.

“Mikey please listen” Corey had a feeling it’d be futile. Claire had clearly won him over.

“I’ll keep it in mind, but until I get a chance to chit chat with her I’m not gonna pull a full on Darth Vader.” Mikey put his hand on Corey’s shoulder. He accepted that this was the best he was going to get. Corey understood that if Mike had told him that Good Game was drugging him he wouldn’t have believed it either. Then again Good Game would never drug him though, but he guessed that the same thought was being applied to Claire in Mikey’s head.

“Guys! Can you get out of there now?” Caldwell was visibly tired, he was flapping with slow deliberate strokes. Healing them had drained him greatly. Even though he was tired, mild annoyance was still visible in his tone and posture, since he had no idea what they were saying and he clearly needed to rest.

“Can we?” Corey asked the rest of the people in his bubble.

“Yeah, I’ll disengage the bubble” Mary stood as large as she could, which in the confines of the bubble was really just slightly elevated crouching. She put her hands on each edge of the bubble as Corey nodded at Caldy.

“I’ll zip Mary down, and you’ll take Corey okay?”Mike made a few hand gestures at Caldwell, making it clear as day that they’ve communicated like this before. Corey smiled faintly to himself, but then he remembered how tired Caldy was. He wasn’t certain Caldwell could make the trip down and carry him. Caldwell looked mildly concerned, but positioned himself under the bubble to catch Corey anyways.

In an instant, he was falling. Just two feet, but it was enough force to make Caldwell’s fatigued arms slip. Corey shrieked. Caldwell came that close to dropping him but he managed to grab his forearm. Corey’s eyes dilated with terror. The ground was far away, really far away.Caldwell felt bad, he knew this was gonna be a hard trip down for him. Mikey and Mary were already on the ground since Mike had used blasts of kinetic energy to zig zag down to the street below. They were already helping the survivors.

Caldwell immediately concerned himself with not dropping Corey. It was an awkward way to hold someone; both arms gripping Corey’s wrist to keep him up. Caldwell quickly adjusted, pulling Corey up. Caldwell held him like he was carrying Corey over the threshold in olden times.

Corey let himself breath again, everything was fine, he wasn’t dangling by a hand over a scarily tall drop anymore. Breathing didn’t feel amazing between his ribs and how thick the smoke hung in the air, but he took a couple deep breaths. Before he had been worried that he would hyperventilate, but the opposite had happened. He didn’t breathe, not once, until Caldy had pulled him up.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I hadn’t meant to drop you, normally that much impact would've been fine. I’m a little out of it obviously a-and I saw how scared you were and I wasn’t thinki-”

“It’s fine, really” Corey gave him a gentle smile. Caldwell looked down at him and returned the expression. Corey felt all happy, but kinda nauseous too. He figured it was the heights. He was so high up that he was resisting the urge to freak out. Corey knew flailing around would just make it harder for Caldwell and he’d be more likely to drop him. Corey hated that thought-getting dropped. He imagined the crunch of his bones on the concrete and held on tighter to Caldy as they made their descent.

They were about 30 feet from the ground, Caldwell was heaving for air, he was out of energy. Caldy was probably in the worst condition for flying, considering his wing and how much power he had to use to get through Mary’s bubble. He kept going though they were almost to the ground now.

Corey was horrified. He wretched, acidic bile climbing up his throat. Not too many were dead, but still a single person was one to many. Corey wanted to cry but he couldn’t, he couldn’t even breathe. The air smelled like gasoline and it choked him. Corey counted absent mindedly, there was about five dead, four adults and one little girl. Corey needed to find Annie and make sure she was okay. He felt empathy for the child but he needed to know if his one was safe. Corey was praying she was. The debris and chaos down below had caused so many to perish. The streets were coated in dust and jagged angles. Obliterated cars were lining the edges.

The moment Caldwell’s foot touched the ground Corey released his firm grip and ran to find Annie. He sprinted and sprinted, he had a rough idea from before where her car was. It was easy to find from above with its size and neon colors, on the ground though he had only the faintest clue. Corey kept running past everything and ignoring the smell of burning flesh, he kept looking for Annie. Caldwell was trying his best to keep up, but he was too tired to fly and limped across the ground.

That’s when Corey heard it, a young girl’s scream. Not just any young girl though, it was Annie. He recognised it in an instant, he’d heard it once and had never wanted to hear it again. He ran towards the sound and she wasn’t far away. Within a minute Corey had found her.

Her leg was stuck in her pancaked car. The front half was flattened, but there was a small bump where the car had clearly made its best effort to protect her. It managed to spare most of her leg, but it was still pinned. Mikey, Steve and Sandra were already here.

“Oh my god! Corey you're okay!” Steve stretched to him since one of his arms was around Annie. He pulled Corey into a tight hug.

“Dude we thought you were dead until Mikey showed up! If you ever do anything like that again I will-I will I don’t even know, but it’ll be unpleasant” Sandra was kneeling beside Annie, dressing a wound on the little girl’s head. Corey didn’t even know what to say, he was so overjoyed his friends were alive. He embraced Steve and then ran over to Annie. Her dark skin was flecked with blood. He was pretty sure her leg was broken and based on the airbags, he assumed one hit her in the head.

“Hey Coo-o-orey” Annie said feebly. Corey wanted to hug her, but he figured it would hurt them both so instead he just put his hand on hers.

“Hello Ann” Corey tried his best to smile for her and be reassuring. He knew she had to be in a lot of pain, but he was so happy she was still breathing. His friends were all here, battered? Yes, but here. In that instant though Corey realized he had no clue where Nellie was. He could deal with that later though. Now he had more pressing concerns; getting Annie’s leg out of the car before she bled out.

Corey got trapped in the bubble, but with his friends' help he escaped. When he got down though he discovered Annie’s leg was trapped and broken. Can they get it out or will Annie lose too much blood? To find out pick up volume #5 of HOW TO BE A VILLAIN!