Battle lines drawn

[alt-minds2.livejournal.com]

She's spent all morning gathering her own kind of defense, scouting through woods and fields that she knows with her eyes shut, re-learning them with her new body. The creatures do not see her as human any longer, and she has been speaking to them. It would be a dangerous thing to fight, but an even more dangerous to do nothing.

The sun is sinking to the west by the time she gets home.

Damn it, it was never supposed to happen HERE. Not to a town and community based on peace. Not to the sanctuary those weary of war had created to make a last stand, which embraced pacifism as an act of open defiance, rejection of the mentality that it was inevitable or the way things always here and always had to be.

Every adult swore that they would die for that ideal when they saw…maybe too little of the world. If she hadn't been taken, she would be taking those oaths. She would be prepared to walk in front of McKay's gun and accept her own death rather than cave into the temptation to strike back, and start the dance of escalation, giving the pleasure to those who found pleasure in the fight, in squashing resistance. To make it not any fun for the bullies and zap their wills.

But, she had changed, irrecoverably.

And this militia was lusting for dominance and power, wanting to satiate their lust for pain on her home.

Sooner or later, they would use this place up, and their craving for violence and domination would find another target. Rapists didn't tend to stop with one rape, after all. One of the confirmed "takedowns" of her small time career was a rapist. She saw him leaving a classmate of hers broken and tied up with duct tape while he tried to skulk off into the night. As Fauna, she chased him down, causing enough of a ruckus to alert campus police and give him the scare of his life. Later she learned that he was convicted for three other attacks on campus, and possibly more that went unreported.

It would seem everyone's out today. Some carry shovels and rakes and implements of destruction, jaws set and walking into the square. Others she has seen anonymously leave tools and supplies for the traps that she's been helping her friends set up. As a native, she knew the lay of the land best and could scout them to some of the trails and landmarks. Others from the Commune helped. In ones and twos, they offered advise, supplies, or their hands. Most who aided directly had young children they were afraid for, and willing to take the rist to help them.

Arguments have broken out. She's seen people who grew up together come dangerously close to blows prevented only by vows that are starting to unravel like a sweater badly made.

It's too late to save the peace, but she can do her damndest to save her home.

Comments

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

"Are you insane?" Sarah Beckett, hands crossing her belly. She's pregnant, about five or six months.

"Blame the tourists for this - they escalated it." August, her husband, scowls towards where Donna is directing the volunteer.

"It would have been escalated anyway." Goodness, is that Red Morgan? He was shorter than she was when she left. "Dad's helping, and so am I!"

"Oh, so we're resorting to that reasoning now?"

"They burned the north barn. They'll burn the whole place down."

"There's still a chance. A chance to negotiate, a chance to defuse this -"

"No, there isn't."

“No, I don’t think you understand. We’ve been here going on three generations. The county cops up to the goddamn FBI’s tried to shut down the place. Developers tried to buy us out. Others lied through their teeth, and broke their vows, and we cast them out. This will destroy us and give them everytrhing they want."

"They want our land, and want to turn our children into their footsoldiers. God knows what they'll do to the rest of us."

"Oath or no oath. I'm not going to stand by and watch them murder my sons or brainwash them into that so-called army!"

[alt-minds2.livejournal.com]

Where there was work and cooperation, there is not dissent. No one's out in the fields, the crops left on the vine when they need to be harvested. Every conversation is about the "damn" outsiders, the "brave" outsiders, the odds that they will all die soon, the odds that the Commune will die if they survive.

And there are conversations about her. They lower their voice as she walks past, but they found out she was like Gar in that her hearing and smell are sharper, even in human form. They think she is corrupted. They wonder if she is one of them anymore. People she thought she could trust are saying things she never would have thought could come from them.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

"I have a child to protect."

"We can do this just once."

"Yeah, and a drunk can quit anytime."

"It's still breaking our vows."

"Those vows mean nothing if we can't survive."

"We only injure ourselves. They are more powerful, vicious. They can and will kill us all."

"Then we resist"

"Then we die as we lived."

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

At the bookstore Bart left minutes ago, the jackboots have already arrived. They're still armed, they're still angry, but one of the pacifists will not go quietly. She is Rainbow Collins. Her parents marched with Dr. King. They saw the militant movements and the Black Panthers sneer at them for being "Uncle Toms" and too chummy with the white people. So, they heard of a quiet little place that was being built, and decided that the Dream would go on, and that they would be living ambassadors of it.

They passed away in 1999. Cancer for Papa Collins and a broken heart for Mama. They'd been married for fifty years. Rainbow was their youngest, named because of their hope that "all colors of the rainbow" would live in peace one day. While her brother and sister left to settle in LA, Rainbow came back to take care of them and to run the bookstore and library they left behind.

The man sneering at her from across the rifle sports a swastika tattoo covering his shaved head and an Aryan Nations logo on a necklace.

"Beg, bitch. Beg for your life like a good little ni-"

"Not on your life." Rainbow Collins is icy. "I'm not begging, I'm not handing over the register. Not this time and not anymore. You all have done nothing but suck this place dry like the parasites you are."

The second and third are out of her sight, but she can hear the vague sound of splashing. Second comes around the corner, waving the Autobiography of Malcolm X. "Hey, thought you said you were peaceful. Then why you carrying stuff like this? X wanted the white man dead."

"You don't have a clue, do you?"

Third comes up from behind and grabs her.

And that's when two sharp cracks are heard. By the time anyone can get over there, the store's engulfed in flames.

[kidflash2.livejournal.com]

He spots the fire from the window, and he's in costume and zipping over in slightly under a second. Superspeed carries him through some of the building flames - not lingering long enough for the heat to transfer - carrying out the sole occupant towards the small reservation hospital they passed on the way in.

Kid Flash who bursts into the tiny hospital, mortally wounded woman in his arms. "Somebody help this woman. She's been shot by those militia creeps."

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

There's a doctor charging in. Nametag says "Dr. Lester Running Hawk."

Two medics and a gurney are on his heels. They transfer the woman onto it.

Dr. Running Hawk snaps his head up and shouts to the only nurse on duty. "Call Chief Boneshirt. Things got ugly. Gunshot."

"More people shot?" Dr. Running Hawk asks.

[kidflash2.livejournal.com]

"Not if I can help it."

There's a rush of air, and he's gone. His first stop is the bookstore - running in a tight circle around the building, he draws out the air, forming a partial vacuum and robbing the flames of the oxygen that feeds them.

A minute later, a very angry speedster is on the trail of the militia creeps.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

Three of the attackers have piled into a jeep. The driver is gunning the engine and bent on driving into the middle of the crowd to take out as many as he can. The two in the back take either side and try to shoot off anyone coming near.

[kidflash2.livejournal.com]

There's a rush of wind and their guns seem to vanish from their hands. Bart drops the weapons a few hundred yards away and by the time they fall to the ground, he's back at the jeep for another pass - all four tires blow. To most people it would seem simultaneous, but there's almost a full millisecond between the bursts.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

They're shocked. What happened? How did it happen?

They pile out of the wreck and start using their fists. One of them, the driver, finds himself surrpounded by the civilians.

No more nice hippies.

[gar-logan.livejournal.com]

A few meters away, two quite burly men have still got ahold of their rifle and shotgun, the long haired and bearded one just doing what he's ordered, but his partner, the tattooed, scarred and bald guy, is actually enjoying the chaos of lighting the fires and shooting at the commune's inhabitants.

Little suprise. The guy's been missing from Gotham Prison's Maximum Security Wing for two months now.

"Tellya Frank, I miss this. Use' to cleanse neighbourhoods of all their types. 'Ain't White, ain't Right'." He shares.
"Yeah, well, less talk, more action huh Phillips?" Is Frank's quick reply, distracted by the task at hand.

"Tell y'what?" Phillips begins. "Man that scores more Hippy-Guy kills, gets first dibs on th' women!"

Phillips is about to continue, when a massive...hand? Taps his shoulder, followed by a growl of anger which isn't quite human.

He turns around to see what it is, and ends up being launched across the grounds by a gigantic hairy green paw belting his torso, crashing into a tree and falling to the deck.

Frank hears the short and painful yell from Phillips, and spins around with his gun, only to lose it as it's belted from his arms with one swipe, by a seven foot bear...wearing torn jeans and what looks like a mountie's hat...?

The last thought as he's knocked out by a furious bear's paw, is:

"Smokey's a hippie-loving commie...?"

[alt-minds2.livejournal.com]

Daisy gets a good look, and her jaw scrapes ground. She almoswt faints, but she retains enough wits to get the blankets and supplies to the injured.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

The whole of the Militia is armed for bear and ready to deliver terms of surrender. Enough accomodating these surrender monkeys and leeches long enough.

All thirty-three of them are in on this, swooping in from the hills to quickly surround and subdue these wicked people. Time to put fear of the Judgment into them.

"All right, maggots. Listen up. We've tolerated you scumbags and heathens long enough. This is your last warning. You are either going to get down on your motherfucking knees right now, make your apologies to God for your behavior, and join us."

That's when the smoke starts billowing out of the library, the flames shooting out the window.

"Or we send you all to hell"

[-nightwing-.livejournal.com]

They'd better count on ending up with less than that for an assault, because the perimeter's primed with camouflaged, good-old-fashioned snare traps laced with knockout gas pellets and stun grenades, all courtesy of Arsenal, Troia and Nightwing. It's a non-lethal minefield.

Dick Grayson, rich city kid, is absent from the crowd; but they're too distracted to notice or care.

[starfire-kory.livejournal.com]

High above them flies a very angry Tamaranean. "Cowards!" she calls out above the din. "Cowards who plot and plan the abuse of children. You do not deserve the mercy of a clean death."

Her hands blaze, and she raises one arm and beckons them tauntingly.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

"We're saving these people, miss. Now get out of the way."

A couple of his men have raised their automatic rifles, and are shooting at the flying alien. The unarmed civillians scfream and scatter.

[starfire-kory.livejournal.com]

Starfire sneers, dodging the bullets with contemptuous ease. "You call yourselves warriors?" she demands. "On my world, you could not face our babies in battle."

One starbolt, fired towards the general's feet.

[-nightwing-.livejournal.com]

Let's see how well those kids can aim after an escrima stick to the back of the head.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

One goes down, the other is stunned, but not entirely down as he tries to shoot Nightwing.

[-nightwing-.livejournal.com]

Try shooting with a boot in your diaphragm.

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

Oh, shit. He now recalls where he's heard that voice. TV, in jail, doing an interview. The woman's one of the Titans. But why in hell would they take interest in a place like this?!

As the starbolt misses him and turns the jeep to shrapnel and scrap, he rolls and starts firing away at her while giving a handsign to another company to start retreating and take prisoners.

[kidflash2.livejournal.com]

Even the militia men whose shots are well-aimed find that they suddenly don't seem to be connecting.

Bart appears before the General, and drops a handful of bullets captured on the wing at the man's feet. "No. More. Shooting."

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

He's outclassed. He knows it.

That's why he leaps in his jeep to retreat, the damaged engine leaking oil behind him. He reaches out and nabs Heidi, one of the Commune women who greeted Kory on her way in.

Others are doing the same, but they've taken hotages, keeping the muzzles of the guns underneath the chin of their captive.

After all, these guys don't kill, at least that's what they've been told.

[alt-minds2.livejournal.com]

From the air, on a pair of eagle's wings, Aurora watches the devastation of her home.

She's too angry to cry, but she had to make sure McKay and his bullies have their surprise waiting.

She yanks open the pen containing the Jacksons' goats, calls out for the dogs that wish only to protect their pack, talks to the wolves and the birds and the raccons.

And the signal is NOW!

[jla-extras.livejournal.com]

In all the chaos, no one notices that the livestocks pens have been opened, that the dogs are nowhere to be seen. The birds are unnaturally quiet.