When Kendra dreamed, she felt at peace.  Not so much in the feeling rested and quiet tranquility sense.  More like her mind could focus.  Her senses seemed a little sharper in the dream world.  She didn't have the constant prodding stimuli of all of her waking senses pulling her sleep deprived mind in a million different directions.  Which was ironic because in her dreams her senses were dulled.  She could feel pain, but not as intense.  Kendra stood over her sleeping body.  She looked thoughtfully down at it.  Her slender form slumped on a park bench.  Her hair blew around in the wind, blowing around her face.  This happened in her astral form and her physical one.  She was asleep, but she wouldn't feel rested when she woke.  She hadn't figured that part out yet.  

There were bags under her eyes.  Her posture was poor.  With a heavy sigh she looked around the park.  It was mid afternoon.  The warmth of the sun warmed her physical body.  She could feel only a faint radiant heat on her astral skin.  It kissed her skin and made tiny tingles across her freckled nose.  Kendra crinkled her nose the way a rabbit would.  She stuck out her lower lip and blew the bangs out of her face in an exaggerated huff.  It was a little thing she did when she was thinking really hard about something.  She had no real sense of what her plans were.  She only knew that her body conked out right here and she was stuck for awhile.  

Kendra began to BLINK around.  Disappearing in a cloud of red and cream colored smoke.  Her astral teleport let her get around easily and quickly.  BLINK She was across the park.  BLINK. She was acros the street.  BLINK BLINK BLINK She was three blocks away.  Kendra was testing the limits of her astral teleport.  Something she hadn't really done much of in the past.  Kendra was nervous about leaving her body unprotected.  And she was terrible about paying her rent on time.  It left her without a consistant roof over her head.  She hadn't felt save to really dream travel since way back when she lived in the mansion.  She had felt safe there.  She had felt secure.  Now her mind was racing.  Her pulse was beating frantic and with every pulse the light pink aura that enveloped her astral form brightened and dimmed.  

BLINK.  Kendra  was on the fourth floor of an office building.  She was looking over shoulders, examining expense reports with fading interest.  BLINK again, and a flutter of paperwork seesawed through the air as the air around her shifted dramatically from her teleport.  The office worker in the cubicle looked around confused as to why his memos were suddenly doing gymnastics.  BLINK again and she was on street level.  She found herself sitting in the backseat of a taxi with a middle eastern stranger.  "The airport please."  Kendra blinked her actual eyes a few times.  Hm... Okay, I'm totally an asshole.  She thought to herself.  The middle eastern man going to the airport was totally the most interesting thing she had seen, but her assumptions made her ashamed and she felt a hot blush of red rush to her cheeks.  Kendra BLINKED out of the cab and back across the street.  There was nothing to get into really.  She watched the cab drive away and wondered where that thread would have went if she pulled on it to watch it unravel but alas, she was here.  

Back in front of her body.  Still sleeping where she had left it.  Kendra resigned herself to boredom and sat on the bench next to herself.  She picked up a book that someone had left on the bench.  "Mutants in our time."  Was the title.  She turned it over and saw a stuffy looking woman in a turtle neck with her arms crossed.   Samantha Sinclaire?  She even had a pretensions name.    Kendra began to read.  

"Mutatns are an evolutionary necessity.  They are the constructs of a life of sin and remorseless selfishness.  They are a punishment from our holy god for the wrongs that we enacted...."    Kendra closed the book.  Yep.  That's about enough of that.  Astral Kendra folded her arms across her modest chest and decided to just watch other people live their lives.  People watching was the great American past time.  She figured it was about the only thing she  could do.  That's when she saw the man with the cowboy hat and the big shiny belt buckle.  "Hello Walker Texas Ranger.  What are you up too?"  Kendra watched as Ranger entered the park.  He looked so out of place in the middle of New York.  She would definitely pull on this thread and watch it unravel.  He had peaked her curiosity.

The parks in New York City had become a place almost like a second office to Ranger. Somewhere he enjoyed, but also somewhere that he was compelled to visit. Like his actual job he didn’t begrudge this, he even enjoyed it. Having a pair of Caucasian shepherd dogs and a toddler meant you made plenty of trips. Especially when you were Mr. Mom. A more modern, working Mr. Mom. One who owned a business and was able to have the flexibility to leave and take care of the kiddo when there wasn’t a job calling from SUPER.

While Ranger always stuck out like a sore thumb, Emma had insisted he wear a belt buckle because “shiny!”. It was the only one Ranger had, a large buckle that said “Task Force Green”. He had never competed in something to earn a buckle so he never wore one. The TF Green buckle was made and given to him as more of joke than anything else. A wall hanger.

Nothing is a wall hanger when your daughter has you wrapped around her finger.

So Ranger went to the park with Emma and one of their two dogs, Reveille. The one who actually minded. Dammit was left at home to probably eat something she shouldn’t—like a chair. Reveille behaved well enough she didn’t need a leash, but people tend to freak when 180 pounds of dog cosplaying as a bear goes to the park. So Ranger gave the leash to Emma who thought it was the best thing ever. She would shout, “Mush!” and Reveille would dutifully walk at a slow pace so Emma could keep up.

They arrived at the park and Ranger told Emma to, ”Have fun.” as he pointed to a nice toddler playground. She started running on her toes, Reveille right beside her. Ranger watched her as she ran off while he followed at a walk.

It was as Ranger was entering the park that he heard a voice. It greeted him as ‘Walker Texas Ranger’ and asked what he was up to. Ranger’s eyes scanned the park but nothing was suspicious. ”Enjoyin’ a little sunshine.” Ranger said. His eyes snapping to Emma and Reveille for a moment before continuing to scan. His hand drifted closer to his waistband.

Disembodied voices so rarely meant good things.

Kendra immediately regretted opening her mouth.  The Walker Texas Ranger remark was meant for her ears only.  This guy hears like a freaking bat.  She squinted her eyes.  As they narrowed she watched Ranger closely.  She was invisible.  Raising her hand in front of her face she saw the translucence of her skin and the pink glow that confirmed it.  Yep.  Definitely asleep.  She thought to herself.  She was careful not to step in front of any reflections because those would cause her to be partially visible.  The guy looked somehow mean.  I mean he had a little kid with him he couldn't be that mean but he also had a pretense about him.  A no nonsense air of a man with responsibilities.  Kendra didn't like responsibility.  She avoided it most of her adult life. 

She was reckless and careless, clumsy and unattentive.  She forgot about paying her rent until she came home and found the locks changed.  New York was a tough place to look for sympathy.  Though Kendra was not a bad person.  She got up to the occasional mischief and she could absolutely be a bad influence.  She did not however, consider herself a bad person.  Kendra BLINKED a few yards back as one of the dogs came into view.  Now she was standing behind a tree.  She was peaking out around the side of it cautiously.  Dogs couldn't really see her either, but they sensed her.  And for whatever reason that seemed to usually piss them off.  Kendra had developed a slight fear of dogs because of it.  She couldn't help that she was a dream traveling klutz who bumped into everything not nailed down.  That meant a lot of things falling off of desks with no apparent explaination.

Kendra, was an agent of S.U.P.E.R.  She had become that purely on accident.  An agent on a train had mistaken her from some AV version of herself named Nightmare.  Nightmare wasn't really her style.  She was nobody's nightmare unless you owned an antique shop and your worst nightmare was a clumsy patron and property damage.  She still liked the name Daydream better.  It suited her more.  It was given to her by a very old friend.  The first person she had ever shown her abilities too in fact.  Daydream slowly peaked out from behind the tree as she didn't see a dog around the cowoby anymore.

BLINKING over to him she was close enough to smell the cologne he wore.  She breathed in and closed her eyes.  He smelled good.  Did that mean he was a good person?  Not really.  Bad guys could smell good she supposed, but it was a tick in the right direction.  She also didn't make it a habit to go around smelling people.  That was just weird.  Kendra looked back over her shoulder.  Her body on the bench turned and rested at a more comfortable position.  Her head lulled to the side and kind of hung there.  Not supported by the back of the bench anymore.  It put a strain on her neck in her physical body.  She felt a slight tingling in her astral form around her neck.  Ugh.  She thought.  Sometimes her ability was quite literally.  A pain in the neck.  

Shrugging it off she turned back to the mysterious cowboy.  He had spoken back to her and even looked around but he didn't seem very unnerved by her.  She found that more interesting than anything else in the park.  "Aren't you worried, bout'a voice with no body?" She asked.  She had a heavy Georgia twang to her voice.  She honestly sounded more 'yee-haw' than him.  Maybe that is why he caught her eye.  She was from the south and he had an unmistakable familiarity to him.  Something about him just felt safe.  So she let her gaurd down just a little.

Nothing happened. No one attacked, nothing blew up, and Ranger’s perceptions of reality stayed sane. That was a positive. There was just a moment and the voice spoke again. This time it asked about him being worried about a disembodied voice.

While hearing a disembodied voice wasn’t common, this certainly wasn’t the first time he’d heard one. Hell, it wasn’t even the second time. Might be the third though. He couldn’t be certain, he’d intentionally had Noel wipe some memories and during his stint in her body he’d accidentally wiped some from himself as well.

This would be the first time the voice was Southern.

”Ain’t my first rodeo.” Ranger said, letting his arm that had moved toward his waist relax. There wasn’t an immediate threat. It didn’t sound like the voice of a woman about to attack him or his daughter… Or the other people in that particular park. The ones running around, playing on playgrounds, or sleeping on the bench. ”I’m Michael. Y’ got a name? ‘R should I just call y’ Oz, the great an’ powerful?” Not the best comparison, he was a floating head at first.

Kendra listened to him talk about it not being his first rodeo.  This actually made a smile spread across her face.  Wow,  she was really homesick.  The slightest southern drawl and she felt a strong urge to call her folks.  Her folks were back home in Georgia of course.  She hadn't spoken to them since she was a teenager.  Too many emotions,  to many words cast in anger to ever open that door again.  But, it was cracked open now.  She felt her pulse racing in her throat.  Her mouth felt dry and her palms were surprisingly clamy.  She considered his question.  "Kendra.  Though I suppose you can call me Daydream.  Or NIghtmare, depending on your perspective i reckon."  Her tone was passive.  Curious. But definitely not threatening.  There was almost a giggle in her voice as she spoke.   As she spoke she BLINKED around him. One minute she was three feet to his left.  The next she was standing in front of him.  Kendra had learned to make herself a moving target.  Her voice was the only thing that ever really got her in trouble.  

Kendra, or Daydream; or Nightmare for that matter was standing still now.  Her hair flowed over her shoulders and waterfalled down her back.  A brilliant explosion of red curls.  Cream colored skin and a soft, sad, loneliness slow dancing in her eyes. If she were a photograph, she would be the snapshot you keep hidden between the pages of a well worn book.  Something you pulled out to look at when you too felt lonely and homesick.  She stood in the grassy clearing.  Roses bloomed behind her, and leaves fell from the trees.  The wind seemed to blow around her ankles causing the leaves themselves to give away her position.  As they flew, a great many of them seemed to connect with something not there and flutter around an unseen obsticle.  Kendra didn't notice or care.  She was standing in front  of him.

Daydream did not speak.  She studied the man who's cool, calmness almost radiated off him like a wave.  She quietly appreciated things about him.  The stiff creases in his jeans.  The muscles of his hands that indicated he was a hard worker.  Daydream was a professional people watcher.  Eventually you got tired of imagining people's stories and started to pay attention to the little details.  It was hard for her to concentrate on anything really.  Though when she tried, when she really tried she could do it.  Sleep deprivation and sporadic fits of insomnia had caused all kinds of problems.  In her waking life, in her 'travels'  Daydream was a traveler.  In the worst ways.  She had walked miles and miles within her own lonliness.  Seeing other people live and be happy.  Seeing other people foster relationships and emotionally invest in what it was to be alive.  

Disembodied voice or not, she was a ghost.  She didn't really exist in the real world or when she traveled in her dreams.  She was just functioning on autopilot.  She never really allowed herself connections.  She never really went beyond the superficial in her interactions because for more than half of her life she would be invisible to everyone.  When she slept.  Normal people got to sleep and wake up refreshed.  Kendra had spent her nights snooping on people who she cared about, walking around invisible and hearing the things meant for behind closed doors.  When you really saw what people thought about you; when the cameras were off, well.... It was ugly.  It was the reason those doors back home remained shut for so long.  She hadn't thought about home, or her parents in years.  This man had brought all those feelings crashing back with a simple accent.  It was more than enough to give her pause.  It was enough to rock her into silence as she stood among the flowers.  It was a touch of home when companionship was what she longed for.  

She hadn't gotten close to anyone since she had gotten close to Emily at the mansion.  She thought about it for a moment.  Not being able to help the fact that her mind was an entity in itself.  She thought about the mansion and her time there.  Slipping off into a daydream right there.  The span of only a few seconds but what she saw was real and vivid and painful and raw.  Daydream's namesake was more than a cute moniker.  She had the tendency to daydream and zone out, but her mind snapped back to attention seconds later.  Like a never ending in flight movie that plays on loop every thirty minutes.  Only the scenes always changed and sometimes the emotions of them rocked you on your ass.  

"This might sound funny Mr.  But I feel like I've known you a long time."  There was a small smile kissing Daydream's lips.  A cautious happiness for a moment.  She didn't feel lonely right now.  She was grateful to the stranger When you are awake 24/7 and the days blur together sometimes you feel like you loose your sanity.  It's hard to hang onto what's real.  What is a dream, what is waking hours.  Coffee helped.  Coffee was better than prozac when it came to sanity.  But moments helped more.  Moments when she felt something.  Moments when she was grounded into a moment.  Moments she could focus on.  Her smile disappeared.  "I aint no great and powerful Oz.  I'm just Daydream.  Keeping the park safe, taking a nap.  Living life." It sounded like gibberish.  It probably was, but she felt warm and trusting.  She didn't know that he too worked for S.U.P.E.R.  They had more in common than she realized. 

The voice continued to be non threatening. It even identified itself. Kendra… or Daydream, or Nightmare. The last name was a surprise. A little worrying but it wasn’t given as a threat. Again Ranger looked to Emma who was trying to climb onto the back of a seated Reveille.

Ranger stood for a moment and could have sworn he saw leaves hitting an invisible shape. Could be related but could also just be him wanting to see something.

Kendra stated that she felt like she had known Ranger for a long time.

”It does sound a little funny. Am I just a splash of back home f’r y’?” Ranger asked, taking a guess based on her accent and how the only person Kendra was talking to was wearing a cowboy hat.

The mention of Kendra taking a nap had Ranger wondering if the sleeping woman on the bench of Kendra. There was likely equal odds it wasn’t.

”Thank y’ f’r keeping the park safe. My kiddo likes t’ come here.” Ranger said, latching onto Kendra’s comment about keeping the park safe. ”Is it y’r job ‘r d’ y’ just like it here an’ want to protect it?”

Kendra's eyes flicked to meet his.  She held him with a chilly gaze for a moment.  Her gaze narrowing, her eyes becoming slits as her pouty lip crinkled, as did her nose.  She considered him.  A tension broke over her face and she smiled.  A lop sided sort of thing that made half of her face look heavy.  A begruding smile.  Against all of her better instincts she was letting her gaurd down.  Reaching into her back pocket Kendra produced a pocket hand mirror.  She held it up in front of her face.  She angled it so he could see the reflection.  There she was.  A floating head.  Tilting the mirror downward towards the ground would reveal her lower body.  Like some sort of weird pocket dimension that trapped her.  But now you were just seeing her astral form in the reflection.  She could show herself to him now.  

Her eyes regaurded him brightly.  Purposefully.  She looked at him with great interest.  Though she didn't speak.  In that moment, turning the mirror so she could meet him face to face so to speak.  "Hello.  I'm Kendra.  I am an agent'a  S.U.P.E.R. Keeping the park safe IS my job.  At least it's one I assigned myself."  Kendra was keeping the park safe because she was currently sleeping in it.  She had no official orders.  

Kendra BLINKED.  Using her astral teleport she moved to his right shoulder.  To see a floating head teleport from one shoulder to  the other could not have been something you see every day.  She leaned an arm on his shoulder.  Her other arm held the mirror out straight in front of her.  Her reflection floated in front of his face at head level.  "You haven't seen anything one suspicious have you Michael?"  Kendra was smiling that easy going smile she faked her way through life with.  It was a really great smile.  

When one encounters a disembodied voice, even one that doesn’t appear to be hostile, you have expectations. That you’re going crazy, someone is invisible, someone is projecting words into your mind, or that the city has a gas leak. A mirror showing up and reflecting the face of a redhead with brown eyes was not one of them.

Ranger’s eyebrows went up at the development. It wasn’t just a voice, but a woman who was there and seen in a mirror. That happened to be there.Perhaps she had it and producing it made it appear? It was a surprise, but not as much a surprise as when Kendra stated she was SUPER. Which meant she legitimately was keeping the park safe.

Ranger nodded, ”:Well y’r doin’ a good job.” he said, then stopped himself from jumping as the face in a mirror teleported to his right shoulder. He then felt a weight on his shoulder. Ranger thought that maybe she was just invisible, or altering reality in some way.

Kendra asked if Ranger had seen anything suspicious.

”If I had I wouldn’ have brought my kid here.” Ranger indicated where his kid had managed to climb on top of Reveille and gotten the massive canine to start walking while Emma rode her.

Ranger looked back to Kendra, ”Had I seen somethin’ suspicious I would’ve handled it myself.” Ranger produced his SUPER badge and ID. ”I’m also with SUPER. I’m one of their… Troubleshooters.”

Daydream smiled.  If she were visible right now she might have thrown her hands up in the air and joked about it.  "Easy Killer.  Don't go shootin no trouble now, cuz trouble's my middle name."  Still she couldn't' help but relax a little more.  Amelia had shown her the ropes in S.U.P.E.R.  She had gotten her set up, Daydream had done a few jobs already.  Light work, mostly tailing detail to keep an eye on someone considered to be dangerous.  She hadn't really gotten her hands dirty yet.  There was that one guy she helped Amelia the clothes manipulator capture on the subway.  Though she found the experience exhilarating.  "Yeah.  I figure you can handle yourself pretty well I'd imagine.  Let'chu in on a little secret.  I was waiting for trouble to show up here.  Got a tip that a powerful mutant planned on stirring thangs up around the park today.  Today might not be the best day for your daughter to be in the park."  Daydream didn't like the idea of a child getting caught in the crossfire.  She bit her lip.  While she could teleport she couldn't teleport other people.  It just wasn't how her powers worked.  Objects sure, they moved around with her; but if she put her hands on a person and teleported she would just teleport away from them.

Daydream sighed.  "Tell you what cowboy.  I'll let you do the heavy lifting if things go sideways.  I can jump in if need be."  Daydream reached in her pocket with her free hand and pulled out a red cell phone.  It was just a cheap little cell phone.  She had two of them.  Daydream may not pay her rent, but she always paid her phone bill.  It was quite literally her lifeline sometimes.  She dialed a number.  The concentration on her face as she she looked down at the phone was evident.  The phone could be seen in the reflection as well.  She dialed a number.  "I'm going to wake up now.  I'll see you on the other side." She said.  Pressing the call button the phone began to call.  

Across the park an obnoxiously loud customized ringtone blasted in a woman's pocket.  Daydream put the mirror back in her back pocket.  "WAKE ME UP! WAKE ME UP INSIDE! I CANT WAKE UP! WAKE ME UP INSIDE! SAVE ME! CALL MY NAME AND SAVE ME FROM THE DARK!"  The woman on the bench opened her eyes and Daydream's astral form disappeared.  She was no longer by Michael but across the park.  Daydream was holding a red phone in her hand.  She reached into her other pocket and produced a blue flip phone.  She opened it and ended the call.  It was a pretty sophisticated solution to needing to wake up in a hurry.  She yawned and stretched.  Having only slept for 20 minutes but somehow finding a way to manage bed head on a park bench Daydream stood up and walked over to where Ranger stood.  She was wearing the same leather jacket.  The same grungy t-shirt that read 'don't talk to me until i've had my coffee.'  And the same ripped jeans Ranger saw in the astral mirror.  She held out her hand.  "Well, nice to meet'cha officially I reckon."  

Ranger cocked a small smile when Kendra said her middle name was trouble. It was an old joke, but a classic. Then Kendra dropped the bomb. A mutant was stirring up trouble at the park. That one. The park Ranger had brought Emma to.

”Well… Sounds like it.” Ranger said as he rubbed his chin. He had to decide if he needed to take Emma or have some pick her up. Noel was out of pocket—her power being so critical to the intel side of SUPER kept her much busier than Ranger.

Kendra said would let Ranger handle the heavy lifting if things went sideways but she could jump in. Well, Emma being there was a really good motivation to make sure everything didn’t go pear shaped. She then said she was going to wake up. Which was a n odd statement. Made more odd by the fact she had been working with a phone before she said it.

”Wake… up?” Ranger asked, realizing—right before a phone started blaring nu metal—that the woman asleep on the bench must have been Kendra. Then the face in the mirror disappeared and the woman woke up.

Ranger scanned the park a moment, eyeing for any threat that could be in the area. If he needed to, he could reach Emma in about a second. She was only about 100 feet away. He still felt comfortable with her blissfully playing for a few more moments while he tried to get as much information on the situation as possible.

It was then that the woman who was on the bench walked up to him. While she appeared to match what Ranger had seen in the reflection, she confirmed it by extending her hand and saying it was nice to meet.

”Yeah, howdy. Nice t’ meet y’ in the flesh.” Ranger said, taking Kendra’s hand in a firm shake. ”So y’ can travel in y’r sleep? Pretty useful power there.” Then changing to more pressing concerns, ”How big of a threat are we talkin’ with this mutant. On a scale of gettin’ her out of here on the first train outta Dodge t’ just have someone pick her up when they can, how quickly d’ I need t’ get Emma t’ safety?”

Kendra thought about his question for a moment.  She blinked her eyes a few times.  She had remembered something specific but it wouldn't come to her mind.  She had been told what to expect in regards to just how dangerous this guy was, but it all seemed like a dream now.  Some far off forgotten thing at the edges of her mind.  She offered him an apologetic smile.  Her eyes were undisguised orbs of anxiety.  "Honey, I wish i knew more to tell ya.  It's kinda my first week on the job."    She admitted this freely.  There was no shame in her voice.  She tilted her head and her long red curls flowed over her shoulder.  She revealed the elegant, gentle sloping curve of her neck.

There was a bruise there.  Fading, but visible.  Her cream colored skin bruised easily.  Kendra was a very clumsy girl.  She was always falling down. At any given moment she had burises, cuts, scrapes, broken bones weren't even unheard up, though she usually healed up pretty quickly.  The stiffness never went away.  Kendra always felt like she had a bad night's sleep and slept wrong on all her limbs.  It was a numbing sort of annoyance she had kinda grown to live with.

With only a week of training under her belt Kendra only felt somewhat confident.  She had started working more on being more efficient when she was awake in combat scenarios.  Dream walking was one thing.  Fighting while you were visible and could not teleport was another thing entirely.  Kendra was about to open her mouth and speak again when the ground began to shake.  It slit open at the point right between Kendra and Michael.  The rumble threw them both to the ground.  Was this it?   Was this the attack?  Out from the crack appeared obsidian spikes.  This definitely looked like a mutant thing.  Kendra looked around, but at first she could not tell who was causing it.  Until she saw a man in a baseball cap and sunglasses standing still among the chaos of screaming running people.  

"There!"  Kendra pointed.  As people ran this way and that they became skewered.  Impaled on the spikes shooting out of the grass.  They were popping up all over.  People were crying, screaming, panicking.  Kendra scrambled too her feet.  She recognized a pattern.  Every five feet a new spike emerged.  They were shooting off into different angles but they were following a path.  A path headed straight for Ranger's little girl.  Kendra dove and tackled the girl out of the way just as a spike shot up where she was just standing.  The little girl was obviously upset.  "It's okay sugar you're safe."  Kendra tried to reassure her.  Kendra pulled out her tranquilizer gun and aimed at the man.  She was going to put his ass into sleepytown but a spike shot out of the tree beside her.  Huh?  She only had enough time to think that idiotic expression before it drove through her shoulder and pinned her to the ground.  Spiking her there.  Kendra let out a scream.  

The spikes didn't just manifest from the ground he could make them appear out of any surface as long as it held a surface area big enough to contain the spike.  

Ranger, ever used to high speed, low drag operation had to bite back on his initial feeling of annoyance. Kendra was new and as of yet there was no threat. ”That’s alright… We’ll have t’ play it by ear.” Ranger pulled out his phone and fired off a text message. Get someone started on the way to pick up Emma in case something developed. Redundancy is underrated.

Not that it would have mattered. Before any other arrangements could be made—or Ranger could have gone over to collect Emma and take her elsewhere—there was the beginnings of a panic. The ground shook, sending everyone to the ground. Then people moved, loudly. Feet pounding and shrieking.

Kendra pointed and Ranger looked. Spikes were erupting from the ground and skewering people.

Immediately Ranger placed his arms behind his head, pulled his legs up and over his body then threw himself to his feet with a kip-up. Everything was happening fast. Spikes were rising, people were moving. Kendra was on her feet and moving toward Emma. Good. Ranger put his finger in his mouth and whistled, then shouted, ”Rev!” and pointed at Kendra.

Reveille looked from Ranger to Kendra and let her approach.

Ranger, trusting Kendra, turned to the man in the baseball cap and sunglasses. The only person not panicked.

The only reason the man wasn’t about to lose his life in a horrifically violent was… was that Emma was right there. She didn’t need to see the horrors of war. The horrors those whose life’s work was war were capable of. Especially when it was your father who would bring it about.

Ranger moved. Fast. His heart pounding and adrenaline flowing like never before as his rage boiled over, Ranger ran. In the distance he had to travel he accelerated to over 100 miles per hour to bowl into the man with a tackle that would rival slow speed car crashes in sheer energy.

Holy mother that hurt.  Kendra was pinned to the ground like a camping stake.  Her feet kicked as she grasped at the spike through her shoulder.  She had to remind herself to breathe.  Looking up she could see the little girl safely standing there under the park's slide.  She looked scared but generally okay.  Kendra took solice in the fact that she had at least saved the kid.  She pulled at the spike that was pinning her from above.  It had pierced right through her left shoulder.  It was as thick as a coffee thermos at the widest point.  As slender as an ice pick where it pierced her.

Kendra pulled, screamed, pulled again.  Each pull felt like hot fire running across her collarbone.  She pulled inch by inch out of her hsoulder until the thing was out.  She collapsed back down to her back breathing hard and rolled over to her side.  Red tangles of hair fell in her face.  Obstructing her view.  She did happen to look up in time to see Ranger charge the man going very fast.  How was he so fast?  Kendra wondered if he was a speedster.  Was that his power running really really fast?  Kendra assumed he was a mutant like her.  He hadn't out right said so but he worked for S.U.P.E.R.  as far as she knew mutants made the best agents because they could fight back.

The man went flying through the air at the point of impact.  A spike rose up in the air from the ground.  It rose about ten feet in the air and caught him.  His jacket snagging on the tip of the spike, stopping his impromptu flight.  He was seemingly plucked out of the air by the tip of the spike, which then sunk back into the ground lowering him to his feet.  The name Kendra remembered now, went by the name of DeathSpike.  She kinda put two and two together and realized why in that moment.  

Kendra winced in pain.  Her shoulder was bleeding down her shirt.  It felt hot and warm and sticky and awful.  She clutched her shoulder as she stumbled to her feet.  She reached in her jacket with her free hand and grabbed a collapsible police baton.  She flicked it out to it's full length with a flick of her wrist.  Flicking a switch on the handle it electrified.  She was going for the full pain option for this asshole.  An electric stun baton.  She just had to get close enough too..... A spike rose out of the ground right behind .  It went up the back of her shirt and rose her off of her feet.  She went 12 feet in the air and just hung there.  Oh this is bullshit.  She thought.  

Across the park the man was settling back on his feet now.  Raising his hands he brought several spikes up in front of him creating a protective cage.  The spikes were nearly indestructable.  From behind them he was waving his arms, flailing them this way in that.  Everywhere his hands went new spikes caused chaos.  He was favoring his right side though.  The side that ranger hit.  The man himself was not indestructable.  "Who the hell are you?!?"  He demanded "I don't like being interfeared with."  Tough cookies Kendra thought.  She reached in her holster and pulled her tranq gun back out.  She shot herself in the leg with it as she dangled from her precarious position.  She put the gun away and almost immediately started getting drowsy.  A few moments later...  Daydream was BLINKING across the park.  She still had her stun baton in her hand.  She blinked behind the man and zapped him.  Or at least she tried too but spikes rose up behind him too completely walling him off.  Kendra narrowed her gaze.  There wasn't much room inside the cage.  She could BLINk into it but if she miscalculated she could seriously hurt herself.  Impale herself on a rising spike.  And her astral teleport wasn't super accurate when she had to dart herself.  Even in her astral state she could feel the effects of the dart coursing through her system.  She felt sluggish and slow.  "I hear you girly.  That's a neat trick.  Let me show you a neat trick."  Somewhere overhead was an airplane.  The bottom of the plane was enough surface to produce spikes.  It didn't matter where or what it was.  If he could see it he could generate spikes out of it as long as it was a solid surface.  Spikes came raining down from the low flying plane.  They came in a volley of hundreds, raining down right where Daydream was standing.  Daydream BLINKED AWAY

Just in time to land on her face on the concrete.  She scraped the ground and got a nasty bloody cut on her cheek.  She screamed out in pain giving away her positon.  Spikes erupted from the ground beneath her she had to roll out of the way before she became a Kendra-kabob.  "Michael! I NEED'CHUR HELP!"  Kendra looked up at her body.  She saw a spike hovering in front of it.  Her body dangled limply from the spike.  "My body!"  Kendra cried.  She BLINKED up to it and wrapped her arms around it.  She BLINKED away.  Crashing hard, having no time to worry about her landing.  Her body went sprawling.  Rolling across the ground but not waking up.  It took heavy damage.  Broken finger, Her arm dislocated on the otherside.  

Her physical body was bleeding.  And her astral form hand the breaks and dislocations.  What happened to one body happened to the other.  Kendra was lying on the ground crying.  A string of spit connected her lower lip to the dirt beneath her.  Every sobbing breath sent dirt skittering away from her.  Daydream was out of this fight.  She was going to die here.  She was sure of that.  Kendra's body breathed in a calm even way.  A steady rise and fall of her chest.  Her astral form tried to push up to her hands and knees but collapsed.  She was shaking all over.  She crawled slowly to her body.  Throwing her astral form over it just to shield her phsycial body from harm.  But that  was the last of her strength.  Kendra's astral form slipped into unconsciousness.  She went to a dream layer she had never been to before.  She had never slipped into unconsciousness while she was astral projecting.  

The result.  Simple.  A restful sleep.  The way a normal person would sleep and wake up feeling invigorated.  Kendra had never tried it.  By going to sleep as an astral projection she was able to shut her mind down completely and rest.  It was a hell of a time to discover it, but she had literally no strength left.  This maniac was going to kill everyone here if Ranger didn't put a stop to it and soon. With one last glance at Deathspike she noticed that he was barely on his feet.  His body was shaking with pain and possible broken bones.  "Hope it hurts asshole."  Daydream muttered dimmly and the darkness took her.