by I'm Not Mister Mxypltk, Danny and The Eurostar
Inside the Stormloader, Chance watched through the windows as the others used their powers to fight the hurricane and save people. He almost felt useless standing inside. He looked at his right and saw M'xy floating with his legs folded, whistling some Bob Dylan tune.
"Why don't you do something instead of just sitting there, M'xy?" Chance asked, with some hostility in his voice.
"I'm doing something!" M'xy answered, pointing at the window. Chance looked outside and noticed people were being rescued by flying cows dressed like metaheroes.
"Oh," Chance replied. "But that's not all you could do, is it? With those powers of yours, why don't you just stop the hurricane?"
"I can't just do that! That would take too much energy!"
"How much energy?"
"Well, I could stop the Hurricane, but Mick's body would be destroyed..." M'xy explained.
"So it's one life against a thousand," Chance commented. He laid back on his seat and waited for M'xy to give some excuse like, "I can help more people if I'm alive," or, "I can't make that choice for Mick." But M'xy said nothing.
Chance looked at M'xy and noticed he wasn't floating anymore. He had a serious expression on his face for a change.
"M'xy?" Chance asked.
M'xy didn't reply. He seemed to be thinking about something else.
"Oh, come on. You're not thinking about doing it, are you?" Chance asked. "Think about the people you could help if you remain alive! Y-you can't make that decision for Mick!"
M'xy looked at Chance and said, "I have to think." He then disappeared.
Chance, with his jaw wide open, remained staring for a moment at the place where M'xy had been.
Suddenly, the door opened, and Dirk Bell, with a rope tied to him, walked inside carrying two young kids.
"You know those safe nearby places we were taking the people to? They don't exist anymore, so we are taking the people inside the hovercraft," Dirk said. "Hey, what happened to M'xy's cow guys? And where's M'xy?"
"Err..." Chance began.
"Could M'xy stop the hurricane? If we wanted to?" Phil Smith asked Danny as Chance took the hovercraft and the first load of rescuees to the makeshift shelter at their headquarters.
"I think he could. If he really wanted to," Danny replied, thoughtful.
The boat that the team had just rescued lay on the shore, half in the water and half out. It was sideways, and badly damaged, and smelled funny. But it was stable, and the passengers were safe. Danny felt like this was the first success on a day that would likely contain many failures.
"Why doesn't he?" asked Phil.
"You can't just go around... changing the weather like that. Stopping a hurricane... making such a drastic change to the atmosphere... there are going to be consequences," Danny theorized.
"Right..."
"Plus, it'd kill Mick," Dirk said, approaching them.
The three were currently huddled inside one of the buildings on shore. Grimm was outside doing a last-minute search for people before they could move their efforts inland. Chance was taking the survivors back to the shelter. M'xy was currently missing.
"It would... what?" Danny said, sounding a little stunned.
"Chance filled me in before he left. If M'xy uses up that much energy... Mick dies," Dirk explained.
"Damn. Where's M'xy now?"
"Gone."
"Shit."
A tree branch suddenly crashed through a window above them, throwing glass everywhere. The three dived out of the way as it landed where they were standing a second ago.
"The hell?!" Danny yelled.
"It's getting serious out there. Dangerous," Dirk said.
"Yeah..."
"Great," Dirk finished, and marched outside.
Edulcore Cicciotto:
The wind is incredibly strong, now, and there's no way I can sustain it. The hovercraft is passing below me right now, and I fly in to get some shelter.
"Chance, another second and I would have been thrown on the continent, I think. Right now, I am pretty useless, here..." I whisper.
There are many people on the craft, recovered from various boats. Chance turns to me. "Tell me about it! I'm going to bring these people to the complex; they've readied a shelter there. I don't know how much longer I can keep this thing flying. What about your UFO?"
"Oh, I can bring it in, but there is room for only four more person. I don't think it would be very useful. Ehy, wasn't M'xy here? His flying cows have disappeared. They were the best help we had out there!"
Chance looks at me. "He's gone. We were talking about the possibility of stopping the hurricane, and he said he had to think."
"Stopping the hurricane? Can he do that?"
"He said so. But that would cost him too much energy. And thinking about it a moment, it's obvious, because stopping the hurricane here could cause perturbations that reverberate through all of the earth's atmosphere, potentially causing catastrophes in other parts of the world. You know, chaos theory. The beating wings of a butterfly in Malaysia can produce a tornado in the Caribbean."
"You mean he should take total control of the atmosphere to stop this?"
"Well, maybe more. He should take control of the oceans, and maybe of Earth's rotation, and why not the sun's magnetic wind, and..."
"Fuck!" I jump outside the hovercraft, and manage to resist among the brute power of the wind, shouting with all my breath: "M'XY, M'XY, come back! WE need YOU now!"
Inside my brain, the tempest is as furious as it is around me. There is a part of me, my eagle mind, I believe, that is telling me to just go away. To fly away from the stream, toward the blue skies and the hot sun, to soar above the still waters and the open deserts.
But I just can't. I have to fight both my mind and the wind, but I keep flying toward the heart of the hurricane.
"M'XY, M'XY, we need the cows. THE COWS!" I furiously beat my wings, but it's like I am standing still.
"M'xy, remember what we said in the cabin on Lake Michigan? Remember what we promised each other, then? Me, you, Tobias, Danny, and Nae?" I have lost control. My feathers are all ruffled up, they are not able anymore to push on the air.
"M'XY, we said that we would have been TOGETHER through all what we would have endured! TOGETHER! You can't save this situation ALONE! That's not what we do! PLEASE, PLEASE come back!"
The wind has got me. I am thrown away; the push of the air is stronger than the ones I have experienced on dives from great altitudes. My feathers have been stripped away, and around me all is dark, black, and violet.
It's all so cold. Oh, God, why is it so cold?