Prompt: Continuing the non-canon where Cassidy and San were kidnapped by the Trendscendants and Cassidy had to reveal her (it takes place prior to Cassidy coming out as nonbinary) powers in front of him and her family.

The tension should have been over. The threat should have been done with, the sense of impending danger eased. Cassidy Evans had been kidnapped, had been forced to reveal her powers to what turned out to be not only the new Fell gang who had abducted both her and her classmate, San Francisco, but ultimately to her parents and their entire organization. The sense of uncertainty, of emotional precariousness, had just risen to what should have been its greatest point just as Cassidy was embraced by both of her parents. That should have defused it, should have been the point when apologies and promises were exchanged, when Cassidy finally had a chance to tell her side to her family and vice versa. It should have been the moment they came together and found the best way to move forward, a way all of them could accept, as a family.

But one thing changed that, one single statement completely altered the entire situation and made certain that Cassidy could not-- would not stand there and simply talk to her family like that. San Francisco made a simple comment, obviously completely unaware of the unfortunate implication behind his words. It was a joke, a strained one thanks to the situation he was in, but still just a joke. The boy, realizing some level of the extent of the secrets he had become privy to in that moment, remarked that he thought the Evans were probably going to erase his memory.

It was a very understandable half-joke to make, under the circumstances. With all the powers and Touched-Tech out there, the idea that they might have access to something like that was not only plausible, but almost certain. The only real question was whether they would actually use it.

And that question, or rather what Cassidy believed the answer to it would have been, was why she reacted the way she did. No sooner had San's uncertain, weak 'joke' landed, than she was already pulling back from her parents. Both of them had enough time to barely start to ask what she was doing, before the girl's entire body from head to toe was suddenly covered in a mix of green and white paint. That paint was instantly triggered, filling the whole warehouse room with a bright flash of light, enough to make everyone there, particularly both of Cassidy's parents, being right in front of her, recoil with an assortment of surprised cries as their vision was blinded.

She knew she didn't have much time, hardly any really. Before her parents or any of their people could collect themselves, Cassidy pivoted and grabbed hold of San. He was just as blinded and surprised as the rest of the group, if not even more so. His yelp echoed through the warehouse, even as Cassidy used a shot of red paint to yank herself and the boy (she kept a tight grip on him with a bit of purple strength) out of the building through a broken skylight and onto the roof.

But she didn't stop there. While her mom and dad both shouted Cassidy's name in disbelief and fear, starting to come out of the blindness, she used a puddle of green-blue to launch herself and San off the warehouse, another one on the next building, then a shot of red to pull them to a third one down the street. Once there, she stopped only long enough to hurl her phone as far as she could, sending it flying off into the distance. Then she did the same to San's phone as well, after yanking it out of his pocket before the boy could so much as ask her what she was doing.

Several more jumps followed, before Cassidy brought them down right on the edge of a twenty-foot wide, six foot deep artificial stream that ran most of the way through the city on a winding path. People, usually tourists, could take tubes or gondolas down the stream and get a rather unique tour of Detroit. Or just relax. Either way, there were tubes stored at regular intervals along the waterway, all locked up in large, chain link cages with a spot to pay for rental.

Cassidy fed a twenty dollar bill into the machine, quickly dragging a tube out as the gate dinged cheerfully and opened. She had already shoved the thing into the water at the nearby entry point while San was still catching his breath and staring at her in confusion. The boy was completely lost, to say the least. One second he had been in that warehouse, having been rescued by… by Cassidy herself, who was Paintball, but also by her parents, and some other people. Including what he was pretty sure was a TONI bear. And the next second, he was being launched from rooftop to rooftop, dragged through the city without even the slightest explanation. Now they were standing here by the water and Cassidy wanted to take a tube ride? What was the-- what?

Cassidy had been saying something to him, but the boy was tuned out, just staring off into the distance as he tried to come to terms with what was happening. Now, she grabbed his shoulder, making him look at her. "San, I'll explain, I'll tell you what-- I'll tell you all of it, everything I can, but we need to go now, right now. Get in the tube, please. They can smell, bears and raccoons, they have a really good sense of smell. I bought us time, but we need more, we need to throw them off. Get in, right now, please!" She gave him a little push to the tube, urging him that way.

What else could San do at that moment? He had no real idea what was going on, especially why Cassidy would not only run away from the parents who had helped save her but also drag him with her. He had so many questions, so much he wanted to say. But in the end, he trusted the girl. Even if he was utterly lost about the specifics, Cassidy clearly knew what she was doing.

So, San took a breath and followed her instructions. He stepped carefully down into the tube. It was one of those that were meant for up to four people to use, with detachable rubber paddles if the people didn't want to rely on the constant slow current running through the artificial stream.

Clearly, Cassidy was one of those people, because she took both paddles off and handed one to him before using hers to push away from the concrete landing before starting to row. A look toward San made him follow suit. Soon, their tube was making its way down the stream. But it wasn't fast enough for her, apparently, because she put one hand against the tube, and San watched in fascination as the thing turned green under her touch. Then she looked at him before saying flatly, "Keep paddling as hard as you can." With that, she put purple paint on both him and herself. San felt… stronger, a burst of strength that allowed him to really put his back into it.

Between multiple subsequent strength and speed boosts, the tube all but flew down that stream. Still, Cassidy hadn't said much other than to again promise she would explain as soon as it was safe enough to do so. She did, however, take a phone from her pocket, different than the one she had already thrown off the roof of that building back there. She called someone, telling them to get out of the shop and go to some secondary location, because the Ministry would know where they were. In no uncertain terms, the girl told them to leave now, take what they could and run.

Barely a minute after sending that warning and hanging up, she got a new text. San had no idea what it said, but the girl dug around in her pockets, coming out with some sort of small cloth bag. She reached in, taking out what looked like a small bottle of perfume. Soon, she was spraying the stuff on both herself and her companion. San had reflexively recoiled, only to realize that the spray, whatever it might have been, didn't stink. In fact, it didn't actually smell like anything at all.

"It's removing our scent," she informed him, after giving another squirt of the stuff just to be sure. "They'll know we made it to the water, but they won't be able to follow us off it. Wr-- Trevithick made it. I didn't even know she was-- never mind. We need to hurry, they'll be right behind us."

The urge to start blurting out every question in his head was hard to resist, but San felt like it probably wouldn't help right then, so he held his tongue. Eventually, Cassidy stopped the tube at another landing point miles away from where they had started. She muttered something about her family probably finding the spot they'd entered from by then, while grabbing San's hand to pull him up. Once they were on solid ground, she gave the tube a push to send it on its way. Then Cassidy looked at him, hesitating before speaking carefully. "I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry you got dragged into this, San. I'll explain everything I can as soon as we're far enough away and hidden so we don't get interrupted. I know it's a lot, just… just please hold on a bit longer, okay?" Her voice cracked through part of that, her expression making it clear that she herself was barely holding on right then. Whatever all this was about, she was close to breaking.

He wanted answers. He wanted an explanation, but what San didn't want was to make things even worse, even harder, for his friend. Whatever was actually going on, he would find out the details eventually. It was obviously bad enough that Cassidy had literally run away from her own parents right after they showed up to help save her from a Fell-Touched kidnapping. Hell, not even just her parents. Silversmith. Her dad was Silversmith, and she had still run away from him. She was acting like they were more of a threat than the people who took her to begin with.

So, San decided he could wait a bit longer for answers. He let Cassidy lead him back up to the street. On the way, she reached into that bag again and took out--wait, was the bag bigger now? Somehow, she tugged two light windbreakers and a couple hats out of what had been a much smaller bag before. Urging him to put on his own while she did the same, the girl led him across the street, through a maze of several alleys and parking lots, then up a fire escape. From there, they used more paint to get across half a dozen rooftops, used some more of that scent eraser stuff just to be on the safe side, then cut through both a park and a big outdoor shopping mall.

After taking back the hat and jacket from San and giving him a completely different set from the same bag just to mix things up even more, Cassidy led him through another alley and finally, finally stopped underneath an old self-service car wash. She looked both ways, then took out her phone and sent a quick text to check up on the people she had urged to leave that shop, making sure they actually made it out.

With that done, she took a long, deep breath and slowly slumped down to sit right there, staring at the nearby wall across from her. San did the same nearby, and she glanced at him. A moment of silence passed as she clearly tried to think of how she could even start to explain all of this.

San gave her a little help, or tried to. He offered the girl a hesitant smile before offering a weak, "So, you're Paintball. And your dad is Silversmith. I uh, guess your family didn't know about your identity or anything before?"

Cassidy snorted, eyes a bit hollow. "Yeah, you could say that. But they do now. They know, and they know you know. You saw them like that, I couldn't let them-- I wouldn't…" She trailed off, shifting a bit to focus on him. "San, I won't let them hurt you. I won't let them erase your memory, I promise. Whatever happens, I won't let my family do anything to you." "I… uh, thanks," San managed. Now it was his turn to take a deep breath, the thought of why exactly Cassidy would be so worried about that not exactly doing much to calm him down. "But what's going on? Who--- why would-- Cassidy, what is going on with your family? Why are you so afraid of them?"

She was silent for a moment, biting her lip as a rush of complicated emotions seemed to play out across her face. Finally, she looked back to him. "It's kind of a long story, to be honest.

"But it starts this one night when I was goofing around in one of my dad's cars…"

*******

Prompt: Continuing the non-canon where the two teams of Magical Girls met one another while saving a hovertrain, only for a Collision Point to start just as they thought the situation was handled.

It had begun as a fairly simple task for a single team of Magical Girls, let alone two. Dealing with a gang of pirates (the term for Fell gangs who preyed upon people moving between cities, out on the freeways and highways) known as the Slammers, who had taken over the Skyrail, an experimental hovertrain, was something either of their teams could handle. Especially with the pirate gang spread out along the train as much as they were, in order to keep the train's actual security and passengers under control. One of their teams could have handled that alone, but as it turned out, there had been two very distinct groups of Star-Touched Magical Girls on that train.

Together, the group consisting of Wren, or Guardian Swiftkick; Izzy, or Patroller Cloudburst; and Lucient, or Ace Birdbrain, had teamed up with the young girls Kelsey and Landry (they hadn't chosen real Magical Girl names yet), the Samoan woman Heilani, and their own mentor, the TONI axolotl known as Oodles. With all of them, it had been a simple matter to stop the pirates.

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And that should have been the end of it. The two teams had left the landed train, its prisoners, and its passengers in the hands of the authorities and rescue workers and regrouped back at the Touched-Tech upgraded bus that served as the mobile headquarters for Wren, Izzy, and Lucent. They had been celebrating the victory, sharing stories, just getting to know each other.

Unfortunately, just as they thought they were done, as things should have been wrapped up and calm, the scene had changed dramatically. And now everything was so much more complicated.

"Get down!" The shouted warning echoed across the field, as what had once been a train car before it was flattened down into something barely a foot or so tall, went flying through the air in the direction of a terrified crowd of about twenty civilians. They had already been trying to retreat, to flee the area, but they'd been cut off when another train car landed directly in their path and sent up a cloud of dirt right in their faces. Before the group could retreat the other way, that second, flattened car had been sent at them. They were caught, trapped with no way to go.

But just before it would have slammed into the group, a dozen enormous tree trunks erupted out of the ground right in front of them. The trunks were bare at first, but within a second of emerging, branches extended into place and the newly-grown trees were immediately covered in thick foliage. One second the civilians had been cowering in terror and disbelief from the sight of the flat train car flying right toward them, and in the next they were shielded by a small forest.

The force of the thing colliding with them still made the trees crack and bend, their thick, heavy branches making loud groaning noises while the people they were protecting dropped reflexively and cried out. The wood began to make sharp snapping and creaking sounds as it steadily failed, the trees leaning under the heavy weight that had slammed into them. They would fall soon.

Fortunately, before that could happen, a small figure in silver armor along with a dark blue cloak, boots, and skirt appeared at one end of the line of trees. "Slip 'n slide!" She called out, hands extended that way. Instantly, a powerful wave of water went rushing that way. It slammed into the group of terror-frozen civilians, carrying them out from under the trees. Even then they might not have been moved quickly enough, but the civilians were made weightless the moment the water touched them, making the group literally fly out of the way. That rescue came just in time, as the wave had barely managed to push all the people out of there before the trees failed completely and collapsed under the weight of the train car with a series of thunder-like cracks. The people who had been right in the path were soaked and cold, but alive at least.

From where she had been standing, Kelsey slumped. She wore her own (wildly stylish, in her opinion) Magical Girl outfit, a set of purple boots, jacket, mask, and skirt against a gleaming silver chainmail-like shirt and belt. With black leggings and shorts at the base to finish it off. She was breathing heavily, but managed a weak thumbs up in the direction of the figure in silver and blue. "Hey thanks, Cloudburst! I don't think I could've kept those trees upright for much longer!"

Before Izzy could respond to that, both of them were interrupted by what sounded an awful lot like an entire pack of wolves howling. It wasn't that. They would have given almost anything for it to be that, just a group of wild canines coming right for them. But no, this was so much worse.

They both knew it was worse, but still looked that way with the faintest hope that a miracle had happened and all they had to deal with were real wolves. Instead, they saw a cluster of ten enormous tentacles. Each was long enough to stretch completely out of sight, having wrapped their way around most of the field. The tentacles could reach hundreds of feet, each about six feet wide and covered in thick black fur. And the ends? Well, the ends of those tentacles were mouths. Large mouths full of at least ten separate rows of teeth that could all spin like a series of jagged circular saws to thoroughly puree any person that the tentacle mouth could grab onto. Or any thing, really. The tentacles were always ravenous, chewing through absolutely any object or creature they could reach. They were the source of the wolf howling, the sound coming from those tentacle mouths as they seemed to communicate with one another about where prey was.

These tentacles belonged to the Stalker Abyssal known as Nidhogg. Or, in his human form as they realized now, as Malignut, leader of the Slammers pirate gang. The main body of Nidhogg looked like a giant, sixty foot long and thirty foot tall panther, but with a head that was more like that of a gorilla. Its tail extended out and split into what became twenty of those giant tentacles, each capable of extending itself out to several times the length of Nidhogg's actual main body.

Finally, four separate bladed arms, similar in appearance to that of a praying mantis, rose from the big monster's back. They were angled sideways, two at the front near the shoulders and two at the back near the tail. Anything that tried to come toward the creature from either side would simply be cut to ribbons and torn apart by those massive bladed and segmented mantis arms.

It took a lot of energy to keep something like that running, especially when Nidhogg's other powers were taken into account. The monster had already killed and absorbed four of its rival Abyssals, and held versions of their powers within itself. All of which meant that it needed a lot of energy to keep itself going. Energy it gained by having its tentacles feed on anything it could, any prey they could find. And right now, the prey these ones had noticed were Izzy and Kelsey.

But the two of them weren't alone. Before either could do more than realize just what they were facing, as the tentacles came straight at them, another figure dove out of the air to come down right between the pair. It was Wren, or Swiftkick. She wore a costume similar to Izzy's, though with green armor instead of silver, and white boots and skirt in place of Izzy's blue. Instead of a cloak, she had dragonfly wings. Which, at that moment, were holding her just a foot or so off the ground as she hurled two small metal orbs to either side with a quickly snapped, "Let's split!"

The metal orbs seemed to explode, popping apart to send the energy within washing over the other two girls. Instantly, all three vanished from that spot, just as the tentacles slammed down.

Meanwhile, on the far opposite side of the field, another group of innocents, this one a mix of civilians and several police and medical personnel, were running as fast as they could toward a slight incline that led toward the very distant road. An assortment of terrified sobs, curses, and cries escaped the panicking group as they all tried desperately to escape being at ground zero of a Collision Point. Two Abyssals were fighting, and these people had been caught in the middle. Six of their initial group had already been killed before they had even made it this far. Four of them had been caught and viciously eaten by a couple of those tentacles from Nidhogg.

Meanwhile, the other two had… well, they'd become victims of the other Abyssal. While Nidhogg was a Stalker, intentionally seeking out and hunting down others like him to cause a Collision Point, this one was a Wanderer. They traveled a lot, never settling in one place, but not necessarily in an intentional attempt to cause something like this. They simply never felt comfortable being where they were. They moved constantly, always homeless. This one, in his human form, had been a train attendant, though he'd also worked as a steward, a long haul truck driver, and more. Any job he could do that would fulfill his urge to keep traveling and be in a new place every day. At one time, he'd been close friends with Kelsey and Landry's criminal uncle, doing jobs for him to earn money to keep on traveling. Most of which had involved running drugs or guns to other places.

Now he had been confronted by Malignut/Nidhogg, creating a Collision Point that changed the Wanderer into his Abyssal form. This was a creature very different from his tentacle panther opponent. Instead of a long, cat-like main body, the Wanderer Abyssal technically known as Youalteputzli (though most people simply called him Headless) was a forty foot tall bipedal humanoid, his skin was dark blue and completely hairless. Those unlucky enough to actually touch the creature yet lucky enough to survive the experience described his body as feeling like that of a whale, very smooth and soft, like that of a hard-boiled egg after being peeled. The blue figure stood completely naked, though with no visible genitalia. It was smooth, like a doll. And, as the nickname implied, he had no head. Or rather, there was no head on his shoulders. No, that was in a very different spot. His torso had a visible vertical line straight down from the middle of the throat to the waist. That spot was able to open, each side of the torso parting like a fleshy curtain to reveal the creature's human-like (but still blue) head, hidden behind its ribcage with an open spot in the protective bones for its slimy tongue to slip through. The tongue was dark green, and covered in what looked like warts. It could shoot out almost a hundred feet in an instant, wrap around its prey, and yank them back to be eaten. Often the creature would open his chest to reveal his hidden head just long enough to snap his tongue out, grab a person, then yank them into the chest cavity before closing it again. Then all those left behind would hear were steady crunching sounds and the horrible screams of the victim coming through a closed chest that didn't muffle them nearly enough.

It was, in a word, horrific. And those sounds were what kept playing through the minds of those people who were running in terror to reach the incline, trying to scramble up it to escape these monsters. The slowest of the group, a heavyset man in his fifties, had just barely started to reach up toward the hands of several others who were trying to pull him up, when that slimy tongue wrapped around him. He was instantly yanked away from the others with a terrified scream, kicking and flailing uselessly as the tongue pulled him back to the waiting open torso.

Just as the tongue had managed to pull the man about halfway back toward its gaping mouth, half-hidden as it was behind the temporarily exposed ribcage, a bolt of red lightning shot into view to collide with the fleshy organ. If it had been true lightning, the man himself would have been quite thoroughly fried as well. But its wielder, Landry, very carefully forced the electricity to only affect the tongue itself. It was just barely enough pain to make the thing reflexively release its prey, letting the poor, flailing man drop down to the already bloodsoaked grass and weeds.

That was the good news. The bad news was that now Landry had Headless's attention. Well, as much of it as she could have when the creature was mostly focused on his actual opponent. The two giant monsters were barely paying attention to the much smaller, much more fragile people around them. For the most part, anyone other than another Abyssal was simply something to either be stepped on like an ant, or a walking, talking snack to grab for a boost that might help them overwhelm their enemy.

In gaming terms, as Landry saw it, she and all the other humans here were just mobile first aid packs for the Abyssals to use throughout their fight. Actually, the monsters probably held even less regard for them than an average person playing a game held for the pixels on the screen.

Whenever Headless opened his chest cavity far enough when revealing his head, it also uncovered what would have been his stomach. But rather than an ordinary collection of organs there, the creature had sharp spear-like bone spikes, arranged in three rows of four. Each was about six feet long and two feet wide, capable of being launched at high enough speeds to punch through a foot of solid steel. Worse, whenever two of the spikes embedded themselves somewhere, they were capable of projecting a line of superheated energy between them that could melt or even disintegrate anything it touched. And when there were dozens of the spikes in play, that energy could be produced through any number of them at any point, in any combination. The longer a fight with Headless went on, the more dangerous the battlefield became.

Ten of those spikes were already shooting toward Nidhogg, though most were swatted away or snatched and eaten by the tentacles. But two more were sent, almost dismissively, toward Landry even as the just-electrocuted tongue was withdrawn. Even with her Magical Girl-enhanced speed and reflexes, she barely managed to hurl herself away from the spot where one of those spikes firmly embedded itself, sending a shower of dirt over her. The other spike slammed into the ground about ten feet away, and both immediately hummed with power. Power that was about to erupt into--

Abruptly, the ground shook around Landry. But that time it wasn't because of anything either of the Abyssals did. It was Heilani, the large woman leaping almost fifty feet to land next to the nearest spike. Her hands grabbed the thing, ripping it out of the ground even as it was starting to heat up. Her skin was already sizzling, while she pivoted and hurled it off into the distance. In the next instant, the superheated energy wave between the two spikes came to life. But now there was no one between them to get caught by it.

Even as Heilani reached down to help Landry back to her feet, one of Nidhogg's tentacles was sweeping toward them. Not because he was actually targeting the pair, they just happened to be in the way. Fortunately, a much smaller form came flying down out of the sky. Lucent--or Birdbrain when he was with this group, shifted from his normal physical form to become light instead. He was fast enough like that to get ahead of the swinging tentacle, doing so by passing right through it in that intangible form. By that point, there was roughly twelve feet between the thing itself and the spot where Heilani and Landry were, and Lucent crossed that distance almost instantly. Every two feet, he left a statue of himself perched on the ground, each with its wings spread while staring up toward the incoming threat.

The last statue landed right between the two humans, and all six simultaneously shot beams of concussive force from one eye. Together, it was just barely enough of an impact to drive the tentacle upward and out of the way so it missed slamming into the pair.

A moment later, as Lucent landed on the edge of an overturned ambulance, the others arrived thanks to Swiftkick's teleportation. All of them were there, standing together as they stared up at the towering monsters who were hardly paying any attention to anyone besides one another, yet were still so capable of easily killing everyone here without even trying.

"Wh-what do we do? There's still people trapped all over the place," Wren pointed out, voice catching.

"Aid is on its way," Lucent assured her.

"It sure is," Heilani confirmed. "Oodles is almost back." The tiny axolotl had disappeared when the combined group made the choice to stay and try to help as many people as they could. The others thought he had been sent to safety.

"Wait, the little guy?" Cloudburst asked hesitantly. "Shouldn't he be hiding?" It was a sentiment that was echoed by the rest of the group, even Landry and Kelsey.

Heilani, however, simply offered a faint smile. "Now why would we hide our big gun in a situation like this?" She let that question stand briefly, before giving a sharp whistle. It was a sound that was quickly replaced by a much louder one, as something came screaming down out of the sky. Something large and metal.

The thing slammed into the ground between the two Abyssals, giving the group, and all the cowering civilians, a good look. It was a mech, twenty-five feet tall at the shoulders and shaped like a giant pink and white metal axolotl, complete with the creature's distinctive external 'gills.' Though these were apparently for much more than breathing, given the rows of cannons visible within each. Cannons which were immediately turned in either direction, as a series of energy blasts were sent into either Abyssal, making both stagger slightly.

"Okay, he's got their attention," Heilani announced.

"Now we can save the rest of the civilians!"

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