“Canyon?” Allison climbed the last few shelves so her arms could rest on the top one and turned, looking around. “Ohhh, there are lots of canyons! We have a maze of canyons.” She thought, anyway. She was pretty sure canyons weren’t supposed to be in stores... or metallic... or above ground. Still, though, Maxine said they were canyons, so they’re canyons. It’s like evil, add more stuff to the word and just change the definition.

Allison frowned, surveying the newly-discovered paper whirls. “But they look pretty. Why kill them? The amoeba is the evil one. It allied with the kraken but the kraken isn't evil so far.” She pulled herself up to sit on the top shelf, still holding onto it with both hands in order to keep from falling off, but relatively comfortable.

The amoeba? The kraken? Maxine wrinkled that area between her eyebrows that she tried not to wrinkle because it was like ironing lines into your forehead. And you couldn’t just smooth those away, no matter what her facial treatments said.

“No no no, those—“ Maxine pointed down at the little swirls. “Those are trying to kill us. So we kill them first. Survival of the fittest. That’s… evolution, right?” Right. “I’m a mutant. I should know.”

She began a thorough investigation of their area and armaments. Stock boxes on the shelf below—check. Dust—check. Octoclip progressively and systematically snarling Allison’s hair, check. Sprinkler system directly overhead—

Oooo. Ooooo. Check.

“I don’t think we need a lighter, or head fire,” the red head said, her eyes locked on target. “Just an extra foot or two of height. Do you have something for smashing?”

Sprinklers got set off by having that little red thingie in their center break. It didn’t really take a fire. Just a little outside help.

“I don’t think so.” Allison pulled herself up so she could stand up on the top shelf, stretch up toward the ceiling, fail to reach it, and crouch back down. Maxine looked snuggly again, so Allison edged over, curling around the other woman’s shoulders as well as she could while still crouching on her toes. It made her taller than the other woman, definitely an unusual experience, and she smiled. “I’m above you, I'm smaller so I'm not normally above anyone. Climbing's fun.”

>> “I don’t think so.”

Allison said, and Maxine deflated a little. So close, yet so far. If only she’d brought her purse up… she could at least have tried whapping at the thing. But no, it was down there on the floor, getting swirl-peded upon by her own power. Maxine was reminded of middle school. She’d gone to a charter school for special children, quote-unquote. Today, as back then… everyone’s power was cooler than hers.

Lame.

At least the cuddly redhead still liked her. The silly. With her standing, and her hugging, and her talking of climbing.

Climbing.

Maxine did not shoot to her feet. That would have been very unwise. Instead, she hugged her fellow redhead back.

“You’re a genius! Here, I’m going to stand. Then you can climb up me to smack at it!” Smacking: it worked on all levels of technology, whether you wanted to fix something or break it.

Slowly and carefully, Maxine found her feet. That floor far, far below: she really wished it would stop swaying. When she was ready, she stopped a little to offer Allison a piggy-back. Hopefully that would be enough height… if not, they’d have to go for shoulder-climbing.

Allison was so smart. If this was how she was with a concussion, Maxine could only admire the mind that must normally live in that head.

Maxine, despite her appearance, was proving to be very unsnuggly, always abandoning Allison as soon as she got suitably arranged for snuggling, and then making her stand up. Allison would have to teach her how to snuggle properly at some point.

In the meantime, however, she carefully followed her soon-to-be student to her feet, and attempted to climb onto her unsnuggly anti-paper ally. It took a bit of awkward fumble-climbing, but eventually she managed to settle onto her ally’s back.

Which left her still just about an inch and a half below the sprinkler-thing that needed to be smacked. Allison had wondered what it had done to deserve being smacked, but after a moment of trying to reach it, she understood quite well. Evil, frustrating, evasive thing... it must be allied with the paper. Allison frowned, and then before she’d quite decided to do it, a few lines of ink were pulling out of her skin from beneath her clothes, gathering into an orb in front of her hand until it was slightly wider than a quarter, and then being shot up, through the sprinkler thing and the ceiling behind it until she lost control of it.

Slightly before that point, the lights flickered, and collectively died.

And on the first day, the red heads said:

Let there be darkness. And screw waiting for tomorrow: let there be rain, too.

“Whoot!” Maxine whooped, because it was good. And drenching. And awfully dim. She helped Allison down, before happily rewarding her fellow shelf-climber with all the snuggles she’d heretofore mostly ignored. “You did it!”

Below them, a flurry of papers fled with a rustle not unlike a howl. They didn’t get far: she felt in her extra special sense, that extra special glee as the sogged-down sheaves ceased to move.

There seemed to be sirens in the background. Silly police: they’d already saved—well, mostly themselves, but the rest of the store too. There could have been some nasty paper cuts for anyone on the fringe of the attack, believe-you-her.

The rather confused employee who’d helped Allison find water had also taken the liberty of calling 911. Because… who else do you call? The mutant—mutants?—weren’t attacking the store. They were… attacking themselves?

The dispatcher sent a squad car, a fire truck, and an ambulance. Just to be safe.

“Hello!” A victorious Maxine hailed them from atop the shelf. “My friend here needs to go to the hospital. She has a concussion!”

That she did.

Allison hummed happily as she finally got to snuggle. Apparently, killing lights and creating indoor storms was a good thing; she’d have to remember that next time she was around Maxine.

Allison peered down at the uniform people from where she was still determinedly snuggling Maxine. No potential snuggles would be abandoned if she could help it. She pouted at Maxine’s assessment, but didn’t give up snuggling. “I don’t. Maybe. I have a headache but I don’t think so.” She peered at the uniformed people again. “Look out for the paper. And everything else. The paper already recruited the paperclips and water, it might recruit something else.”

“See?” Maxine confided in the people far, far below. “Concussion. You might have to help us down.” She thought a moment, and added: “But make the floor stop moving, first.”

The fire department turned out to be handy after all, with those ladders of theirs. And Maxine got to cuddle up to an honest-to-goodness fireman as he carried her down. She put all those snuggling lessons Allison had given her to good use. And since the man was under the impression that she was the one who had the concussion, she didn’t even hear a peep about sexual harassment. Mmm.

The hospital was less snuggly, and distinctly lacking in all those cute male interns television had lead her to expect. Basically: it was about what she remembered, from her last trip here. A concussion a year keeps the co-pays paid?

On the bright side: after getting admitted, the two red heads got to share a room. And apparently, they weren’t allowed to sleep for awhile, so they had to keep talking.

Oddly, she didn’t remember much from that sleep over. Except something about… kraken brain control?

Rex spent the night wrapped around the little metal railing at the head of Allison’s bed, tentacles writhing in the moonlight.