Claremont Academy Session 8 – All the Fun of the Fair

Winter had finally arrived at the Claremont campus. Thick frost decorated the grass and the cold, dark mornings had made the students begin to hibernate under their quilts, forcing the staff to start banging on doors every morning to awaken the slumbering ‘beasts’ within.

Gustav was still undergoing his extra training, which now included testing out various scenarios in one of the VR simulators and facing ‘Also’ Rhan’s alien wrath and twitching head spines as he tried to develop a viable mental shield under her tutorage.

Of course, everyone also had to undergo a series of mock exams in class. Colin Duncan and Judith Taylor (Outrage to everyone who knew her) were facing numerous A Level test papers in preparation for their finals the following year and Chris and Gustav had to take GCSE mocks with the rest of their year, even though they had elected to deter the proper exams.

Between that and training Down Below, it felt as though winter was sucking all the pleasure out of their lives.

The only moment of ‘joy’ for Chris and Gus was when they learnt that, despite not being eligible for the HCP payment for capturing two of the Power Corps, Inspector Tolliver had negotiated on their behalf with Crime-Stoppers for the reward and arranged for their efforts to be recognised financially. In total £5,000 was awarded – to the school.

Half of that money went to the school’s bursary programme that paid for boarders who could not afford the fees, but the other half was split between them. On hearing this, Gus muttered, “We really should get into trouble more often.”

The money was immediately paid into their school bank accounts to be released in suitable amounts as agreed with the school or, in Chris’s case, his parents – no splurging at the casino for them, they were jokingly informed by Mr Andrews. Chris’ parents were informed that he’d been awarded an additional payment as a result of his extracurricular activities, only for his ‘blessed’ parents to withdraw it immediately, as they said that the pocket money they allocated to ‘her’ each term should be more than adequate for ‘her’ immediate needs. Pocket money that Chris had tried so hard not to access because he didn’t want to be indebted to them…

It was fast approaching Winter Break and during the holidays, Gustav confirmed that he would be staying on at the school with several of the other overseas students. Of their newly found friends, Duncan’s family lived in London and he would be going home over the holidays. Judith mentioned in passing, at the end of term, that she and the other Amazons would be heading to the Ardennes to spend a couple of weeks at Donna’s house.

Then the news came in that Chris’ parents were suddenly planning to visit Germany over the Christmas period with friends and as a result, Chris would have to stay on at school as well. Seemed his ‘reward’ was being put to good use after all, even if it wasn’t going to be by him.

He needed something to take his mind off his ‘blessed’ parents and it seemed that Port Meadow Park in Wessex was playing host to a large, traditional, Romany-run, travelling fair over the Christmas period. It also helped that Gustav pulled out enough money for both of them to have a good time that night. As Gus joked on leaving the grounds, “It’s only fair, after all, you did half the work. Okay, maybe a third..?” Chris responded, “Well, I did a little… I do appreciate you helping, though. Really.”

They weren’t alone on the trip to the fair. Seemed as though half of the school had decided to go as well, and they quickly found themselves joining up on the bus with Colin and Judith. Apparently the rest of the Amazons had other plans that night – one’s that didn’t suit Outrage’s mercurial mood, though to their surprise she had elected to use makeup to cover her red skin so she appeared to have a more normal skin tone and hopefully blend in better. She couldn’t disguise her height at over two metres tall though, and he couldn’t help noticing she was still wearing her costume’s choker with its massive red crystal.

Others they knew from Claremont were young Chris Templar, Tara, Bubbles (Alaina Waraich), the apparently un-enhanced but very obvious meta, Smiler (Rachel Izaaksi) with her grey skin, pointy ears and ever-ready smile, as well as  Lillie Ramsay, Patricia Sutcliffe and  Sham (Shamus O’Reilly) From their class.

At the back of the bus (and sat thankfully in a separate compartment when they took the monorail) were Angel Summerville, Nathaniel Emmitt, Ces’ Morgan, Dimitri Ronin (Kilowatt), Nathan Owens, Zoe Daren, and several of their hanger-on’s including Lawrence Smalls.

Gus and Chris were happy for them to keep their distance – possibly sitting next to Outrage and Colin helped in that regard.

Arriving at the fairground, they passed through the large coach and car park already nearly filled and entered the fairground itself.

The whole area was packed with families and young people enjoying themselves. Large video screens have been set up all over the fairground, above many of the stalls and on the rides to advertise the various activities available and telling people what the queue times were like for the most popular rides. It was a big fair covering a large section of the park.

There appeared to be hundreds of sideshows on offer, advertising target games such as popping balloons with darts, air rifle shooting as well as test your strength or dexterity stalls, roulette wheels and ring toss games offering the opportunity to win watches and teddy bears as well as the traditional goldfish, to name just a few. Scattered around were also a number of food stalls selling expensive burgers, hot dogs, ice cream and popcorn.

Located between them were the various major attractions themselves, with a large Roller Coaster set against the city skyline. In addition, there was a large dance off game/competition set next to a Haunted House (that Gustav was sure would not be as scary as some of the places they’d been to since joining Claremont), a Mirror Maze and dodgems. Scattered around were a number of larger activities such as a Pendulum ride, Drop Tower, Ferris Wheel as well as a big, 1850s Carousel that appeared to have come straight out of the Mary Poppins film set, located in the centre of the fair.

The rides were thankfully not that expensive; after paying the initial entry fee, it cost just £2 for the primary rides and many of the sideshows were a £1 a go.

Chris immediately decided he had to have a go at “toss the goldfish” and see if he could perfect the vertical ring drop over the prize pillars, while Gus discovered that the haunted house really wasn’t scary at all. The others with them began to separate off to try out the various activities or stand in queues whose screens boasted of a wait time of five minutes or less.

As they walked around the ground, they realised that they were not the only Meta’s present, as they noticed a group who were not from Claremont. The most obvious was a young girl with cat-like eyes and pink hair. On her shoulder sat a short haired cat with almond eyes that seemed oblivious to everything going on around her very excited owner. The cat jumped to the ground and sat, its tail twitching. The young meta suddenly waved at them and smiled, displaying very prominent canines.

A tall, older teen, extremely well-muscled and easily the size and build of two adults, his hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing a sleeveless shirt to show off his ‘physical prowess’, was obviously keeping an eye on her while winning big at a number of test your strength and dexterity games. Gus immediately realised that he had to be a Meta too and wondered whether they could possibly be from that ‘other school’. There were a couple other teens hanging around with him and the cat-like girl as though they were part of a group. It was interesting that Ces’ and Angel in particular were giving them all a wide berth.

The ponytailed male approached another test your strength stall and, having handed over his money, raised the mallet and brought it down hard. The clanger shot up the runner at some speed and a concealed bracket flew off it as the clanger flew up and rang the bell at the top with such force that they thought the bell would fly off as well. Apparently not all the sideshows were being run fairly, though the strength required to sever the restraining bracket confirmed that he was a Meta too. The teen smiled, flexed his muscles and reached over and grabbed the largest teddy bear from the shelf and handed it over to the delighted pink-haired cat girl with a “Ms Kitty, this is for you.” She fair glowed with pleasure as she hugged the large, stuffed toy. Then he tried to get a kiss from a tall red-headed female that was accompanying them only to be brushed away, as she immediately walked over to chat with a shy, blonde-haired girl who also seemed to be part of their group.

As the Claremont students wandered around they saw another teen, this time about the same age as themselves with short unruly dark hair and wearing an expensive black leather jacket who seemed to have phenomenal skills with darts, successfully popping all the balloons – including three at the same time with a single dart! He was awarded the top prize, then immediately asked to move on by the stallholder. The teenager smiled, added his latest reward to what appeared to be a sizeable collection of prizes, and walked away.

However, as soon as he moved some distance away, all but one of the balloons miraculously reappeared on the board unpopped and the darts all appeared to be stuck in a random pattern into the display, having apparently missed most of their targets. Seems they’d just identified another Meta, Colin thought eating his candyfloss as he wandered by the now screaming and extremely upset stallholder.

While Colin and Judith wandered around the various stalls, Chris decided to follow the two females to see if they too had powers and immediately roped Gus into his stalking. This meant joining the queue for the Ferris wheel just behind them in the hope that as the seats sat four they might end up in the same carriage as the girls, especially if Chris could persuade Gus to use his ‘irresistible charm’ on them. Unfortunately for Chris, this was something his friend was reluctant to do. Chris smiled, “If you’d prefer to hang about with the strong guy that’s fine. I’m sure he will be better company than two very pretty girls.” That was when Ces and a couple of others elected to barge in to the queue in front of them with a “Get out of the way”.

Angel who was apparently still suffering from a serious case of ‘meta-phobia’ said loudly, “Oh it’s the two muties… They shouldn’t be allowed here, among proper people.”

Ignoring her, Chris said, “We were in the queue first and we’ve a goldfish to get yet.” pushing back. Gus asked, “What’s the rush guys, it’s a short queue, no need to push in, after all what have we done to annoy you lot recently?”

Ces sneered and pushed his face so close to Gus that he could smell his foul, cigarette-tainted breath, “You’re still living. Isn’t that enough?” he snarled back. “Keep hoping you bloody lot will just die off.”  Chris smiled, “We’re not fairground goldfish, who always seem to die off the day after. Sorry.”

Suddenly, the guy with the ponytail joined the two girls, pushing in front of all of them and aggressively elbowing Ces’ and his gang of crony’s back. That settled it; Chris and Gus decided to leave it. God forbid they ended up in the same carriage as Ces or one of his ‘friends’.

That was when Gus’ saw that Zoe was standing nearby with her camera out taking photos of him and some other Claremont Students at the fair, obviously for another article in the school newspaper. Damn!

Later, as they walked by the dance-off challenge platform, they saw the cat-like girl standing on one of the dance mats asking her other ‘friends’ if someone, anyone would take the other mat as she really wanted to have a go at this game. They were all refusing, Gus considered participating as he really liked the kid but he wasn’t exactly sure he actually knew how to dance, never mind doing so in public.

Again, the cat-like pleaded with her friends to join her for a dance-off. The guy with the ponytail turned to Colin, Chris and Gus and asked if any of them fancied taking her on, she was really keen to have a go at this and this just wasn’t his thing.

They were all very much surprised when a second later Outrage came over, vaulted the handrail to take the second platform, though she stumbled and almost tripped as she stepped onto the starting position, which didn’t bode well for the competition between the two they thought.

The cat-like girl reached out to shake Outrage’s hand and introduce herself, “Hi, I’m Kitty. Thank you. I really, really, really want to try this game. You okay if I select top challenge?”

“Judith and yeah, go for it.” As she spoke, Kitty gave out a cry of excitement, hit expert mode and keyed in three songs, all by Sakura Wind, one of Japan’s rising hero-pop bands.

The music was intense and it took Judith a few seconds to memorise the key pattern at her feet. Meanwhile, the pre-teen’s feet slid naturally across the platform, following the pattern on the screen. However, despite Kitty’s natural ability and exuberance, it soon became clear that Judith was more accurate and had scored top marks during the first song, but the pace did leave her a little tired. The Beats per minute in that song had to have been about 180 to 200 and the next tune was even faster. Kitty’s feet (and swaying hair Judith noticed) fair flew across the pads, though Judith was more accurate. At the end of the second record, Kitty was the top scorer due to maintaining the pace better.

Then the third song started. Again, it was fast and furious as Judith and Kitty maintained their pace. As the match ended, they both were equally good in the last dance-off, though overall Judith had the highest score over all three rounds. That was tiring, she thought as she raised her head to see an extremely exuberant Kitty vault over the handrails to land gently on her feet and give Judith a handshake (followed a second later by a quite unexpected hug) and whisper, “thank you, I really enjoyed that!” then she jumped off the platform and grabbed her cat.

Given that Outrage had achieved a new high score on the board, Chris suggested to Judith that she should let Zoe know so she could include that in her school article. Just in case, Chris’ took a quick photo of the scores on his mobile to pass on if they didn’t see her.

For the next fifteen minutes, the four of them wandered together round the shows, occasionally taking part in sideshows and introducing Gus to the joys of hot dogs, (once they convinced him that no part of a dog’s anatomy was actually included in the sausage meat).

Then, suddenly they saw that all the display screens located above the sideshows and on the rides began to change, morphing into a flashing, evolving pattern that was duplicated across all of them.

Colin and Judith immediately looked away – something wasn’t right about this, and they’d spent enough time in the training chamber to ensure they weren’t caught out by a possible distraction. As they looked away, though, they realised that the changing screens were holding everyone else’s attention. They crouched down, staring at their feet, as the entire population of the fairground stood gawking at one or other screen. Gus and Chris weren’t so lucky, they too were caught ogling and now found themselves compelled to continue watching. Parents turned, ignoring their babies and toddlers to stare at the mesmerising display which continued to try and sap everyone’s will and conscious thought, caught like moths around a flame.

As apparently everyone else in the fairground began to push forward in order to gather round their nearest screen, Colin and Outrage continued to avoid looking up. Outrage immediately reached out intending to grab someone and ended up clutching Gustav by his belt, pulling him with some force to the ground. He collapsed backwards, hitting the ground with a heavy bump. His last mesmerised thought was that the pattern on the screen was very beautiful, and he had never really understood true beauty until now. He wanted to submerge himself in the evolving pattern.

Sudden withdrawal and a feeling of being extremely upset overflowed his mind as his head hit the ground. He suddenly found his conscious mind again coming to the fore as he realised what had just happened.

Meanwhile, Colin used the distraction to change quickly into costume, completely unnoticed by those around him. Activating his anonymity collar, he pulled his cloak out of his belt and allowed it to expand to its proper size. This was then thrown over Chris’s head as Cadet pulled him down to the ground and spun him round and away from the screens. This sudden change awoke him out of his stupor. He elected to stumble out from under Cadet’s cloak (was that a sign he/she wondered or some sort of metaphor for his life?) as all four of them stayed kneeling down and staring at the ground, trying to figure out what to do next.

Then they heard a voice, mechanical and cold, being projected over all the screens creating an echo from those displays further away.  The repeating message said, “All Meta’s and Powereds must head towards the Carousel. Everyone else must immediately participate in the games and attractions for the next hour and completely ignore anything else going on around them.”

All the carnies still appeared dazed, but immediately returned to hawking their games and shows, ignoring everything else. Parents continued to ignore their abandoned babies in their prams and rushed over to start playing in a compulsive manner. Zoe dropped her camera into the mud at her feet as she rushed over to begin throwing Ping-Pong balls into empty fishbowls in the hope of winning a fish while others clamoured passed heading for the rides again, compelled to spend, spend and spend.

Gustav crawled over, trying to avoid being stood on or tripping someone up, and retrieved the camera before hiding it somewhere safe for collection later. He could see Angel run into the Mirror Maze, dragging Ces’ with her, leaving Nathan to head to the rollercoaster alone.

The four of them forced themselves to continue to stare downwards and away from the screens as the gathered hypnotised audience began to disperse.

That’s when they saw that several of their friends and schoolmates were walking slowly towards the empty carousel. The ‘walking dead’ consisted of young Chris’, Tara, Dimitri, Smiler, Bubbles, Lillie and Patricia all walking in a sort of daze. There were also several other people looking on or accompanying them, including the teen with a ponytail, all of whom appeared to have been completely unaffected by the screens.

As the screens cleared, they saw a well-built man in a purple suit and an excessive amount of rings and jewellery walk over and started to direct the others to guide the “new students to the Carousel for assessment.” He was bald, of Afro-Caribbean descent with a small soul beard and no moustache and looked ‘sleazy’. With him was an older teen with white hair, dressed in a black and white bodysuit, hovering about a foot above the ground.

‘Sleazy’ told the person with the ponytail, Apex he called him, to stay beside Ms Kitty while Scythe, Scorpion and Winter guided and protected the ‘shamblers’. The others they’d identified, such as the one who’d ‘won’ at darts, were conspicuous by their absence.

With the screens no longer influencing anyone, the four of them elected to join the Meta-Zombies in their march to the carousel and see if they could find out what was happening. They all made sure their HCP earpieces were activated and on the same encrypted team channel just in case, as they had been taught.

Gus wondered if this gathering of Meta’s was connected in some way with the Walford Defence Sixth Form College or that other school (what was it called?), that were known for teaching Meta-humans, but there was no way to be sure.

As they joined the others, they could see in the distance that the Carousel was deserted; no one was running it and there were no one on or gathered around it, waiting for a ride. The whole section of the park immediately around it was empty, with even the carnies that ran the ride conspicuous by their absence.

That was when Cadet realised that Kitty was wearing some sort of metallic collar, one that now flashed with intense amber lights. He’d heard about control or punishment collars before when he’d been looking over dead files with London Watch and knew that it was capable of dishing out intense pain to the wearer if activated. They were a way of controlling Meta-humans, though not one used officially in the UK. As far as he could tell, she was also the only person wearing one. He was not sure what that meant, he just knew, no matter what, that he had to destroy it if he could.

Meanwhile, he quietly informed Outrage, Chris and Gus regarding his observation.

They walked in amongst the others and disappeared into the tail end of the crowd; only Cadet stood out as he was now in costume, unlike everyone else.

They knew it was risky. After all, the hypnotic effect could be reactivated at any time. Gus tried to work out where the displays were normally controlled from, but there was no obvious control room anywhere that they’d seen. He assumed it had to be located inside of one of the rides or sideshows.

When none of their ‘guards’ were watching, Chris dived behind the nearest display screen. There he found the screen’s coaxial connection and zapped himself down the cable towards the control room, wherever it might be.

He emerged in some sort of circular room or tower; the cables had displayed extra resistance, so he assumed they had to be off the ground, high up somewhere. Two people were staring at him as he momentarily emerged from the cable socket – in front of him stood an older woman in a masculine business suit and leather gloves and a shocked teen who he initially thought was the same person as the boy he’d seen ‘win’ at darts. It was only later he realised this person was slightly older, with shorter, cropped hair – a brother perhaps of the illusionist?

Chris tried to mentally interface with the control system as soon as he zapped in, only to find it fighting his presence – almost as though some sort of A.I. or human like himself was controlling it’s every aspect and were blocking his attempts to access the systems including the electrical supply, at every attempt.

He got a physical glimpse of where they were and given the room’s circular design he was sure he’d exited in some sort of tower but wasn’t able to work out exactly where before he was forced out by some sort of sentient and painful ‘denial of service’ attack.

He emerged back in the grounds and radioed the others to tell them that the control room was high up in a tower somewhere. Gus managed to look around and confirmed it had to either be in either the Vertical Drop or possibly the helter-skelter, though of course it could be hidden within the framework of the Rollercoaster or even at the centre of the Big wheel?

The others felt it unlikely it was the Vertical Drop, due to the central column being so slim, but Outrage immediately decided to set off flying up to check it out, but this obviously alerted their captors that she at least hadn’t been hypnotised.

The pretty, blonde haired girl suddenly stopped in her tracks as her body shuddered. To their horror, she increased in size and mass and began to morph into a horror straight out of someone’s nightmare. Her clothes shredded under the transformation as she increased in size, her hands and feet altered, her fingers merging into long, sharp-clawed fingers and a curved bladed thumb. Her head and body became demonic in shape and black and red in colour, her eyes disappeared behind dark patterns on the head and her mouth split open to reveal a maw filled full of long, sharp teeth. The man in the purple suit shouted out, “Scythe, get!” as it bounded into the air towards a startled Outlook just as all the display screens again reactivated with their mesmerising pattern.

The others immediately averted their eyes towards the ground, which singled them out from everyone else in the convoy. Gus’ shivered. Of all the people they’d fought so far, this ‘Scythe’ terrified him the most.

Down on the ground a couple of their escorts began to try to hustle  the rest of their convoy towards the carousel as fast as they could while the rest prepared for an attack on the remaining three ‘intruders’.

Scythe bounded up towards Outrage, her blade-like claws outstretched as she tried to grab and shred her opponent. Outrage tried to dodge but couldn’t get far enough away from her reach, so elected to spiral off to the side instead. It worked. Scythe’s claws missed raking her by inches. Outrage straightened her flight out as Scythe began her downwards descent, Outrage stuck her tongue out and immediately dived towards one of the nearby food stalls, grabbed a can of soda off the counter, u-turned in the air inches from the ground and headed back towards the creature.

She carried out a running landing as close to the creature as she dared and immediately unleashed the can like a rounder’s ball, straight at the creatures’ domed head.

It moved its head out of the flight path as though it were not actually attached to its spine, and the can narrowly missed its intended target but continued on in its trajectory. “Look out” Outrage screamed, but those in the can’s flight plan were hypnotised and couldn’t respond or react. It skimmed the side of Bubbles’ head, knocking her to the ground. As she fell, she let out a high-pitched scream as the shock of the blow broke her out of her hypnotic state. She glanced up and took in what was happening around her; the attacks, her hypnotised fellow students, and did what she did best. In response to the thrown can of ‘pop’ she created bubbles, thousands and thousands of toughened bubbles that carpeted and obscured the area around all the students and hindered everyone near her.  No one inside the aerated area could see anything around them, where they were going or where anybody else was, so they stopped. Bubbles continued filling the space with her bubbles, obstructing and creating a multi-layered effervescent ‘shield’ over and around her fellow students. Their escorts were similarly encumbered, but not the Claremont crew.

In the confusion caused by the sudden and unexpected outpouring of bubbles, Gus dived in and under the bubbles and quickly took off his street clothes, bundling them into a concealed pouch on his back and activating his anonymity collar, suddenly his eyes blazed as though the irises was on fire.  It was time to face his fear of the big, red and angry. Seconds later, Ashen popped up out of the bubbles as he ran and smashed into Scythe in an attempt to grab and punch it, trying ever so hard to forget that in her other persona she was just a girl. He reached out to try to grab her in a hammerlock, only to find his grip being pulled apart with ease. It bared its teeth at him in satisfaction and tried to bite him.

“That charcoal toothpaste is really working out well for you,” he muttered as he lashed out with a punch to her chin, even as he found himself being thrown towards the ground. The punch connected and for a moment, the creature howled in pain and it seemed dazed. Ashen scrambled to his feet and dashed back into the mass of bubbles. He had to admit this was the second time that Alaina had proved to be a real unsung hero.  For someone with such a ‘useless’ power, Bubbles managed to be a real benefit, as she stayed concealed while pouring out more and more of her toughened bubbles in all directions.

Elsewhere, the redhead was also using the cover of the bubbles to change; and seconds later emerged dressed in a green and black outfit that screamed dominatrix as she lashed out with a bladed whip that unfurled through the air in a way that no natural object that obeyed the laws of physics could or should. Chris immediately assumed it had to be telekinetically controlled as it sliced through the air above her.

He momentarily ignored her and took the opportunity in the bubble-fest confusion to unleash multiple laser attacks at the man in the purple suit and ponytail boy, Apex? Both blasts hit but while the shot at Apex only left him with a bruised solar plexus, the older man with the soul patch beard collapsed, apparently injured, into the sea of bubbles that surrounded him.

Cadet had one goal. He hated punishment collars, especially punishment collars fitted to young girls. Seeing that Ms Kitty seemed to trying to avoid getting to the fight encouraged him to try and free her, especially as the occasional red glow on the collar indicated that someone was obviously trying to compel her to do something other than herd the still hypnotised Meta’s ever closer to the carousel.

He dived into the mass of bubbles and, from within the concealment of the cascade, Cadet skipped through the confused horde of hypnotised zombie students in a manner that would have done justice to a ballet dancer until he reached Kitty. She went to strike him in self-defence but he shushed her with his finger, “Don’t worry I know you’re a champion dancer, so is my friend. I’m here to help, honest” and slowly, gently reached over and examined her collar as her cat patted at his hands. In particular, he looked at the locking mechanism. Hah, if he bent the pin from the third and seventh unit of the locking band and applied his strength to the fifth. “Sorry, this will hurt but I don’t see any other way to break the circuitry” he whispered as he applied all of his strength in a counter-directional twist. The collar had been intended for a normal adult, not a child, and was already over-extended and loose. It took several seconds and bruised his palms, but he managed to get enough slack in the collar to twist and snap the locking mechanism before anyone other than the two of them could realise what had happened. The collar slipped off and hit the ground just as the collar reported the breach and activated again. Kitty looked at him in surprise and shock, kicked the collar away while smiling despite her obvious fear, again bearing those ominous canines of hers.

“Look, they plan to kidnap and weaponise these kids; you need to get them way from here as fast as possible before they get them to the Headmistress.” she whispered as she grabbed her cat in her arms and bounded into the obscurity of the bubbles and away from Apex and the others.

Seconds later Cadet saw her again but without her cat this time as she grabbed one of the students, Tara he thought, and bodily carried her (despite Tara being almost half again as tall as the youngster) away. Once she was away from the others, she unceremoniously knocked her unconscious. That would certainly cause a bruise in the morning. Laying her safe behind one of the stalls guarded by her cat, she immediately bounded back into the bubbles without a moment’s hesitation.

The now grounded Outrage found herself in hand-to-hand combat with an enraged Scythe. Her claws raked her stomach as Outrage rolled with and twisted out of the way.

Outrage punched out, but the blow missed the creature as it sort of warped its fluid body round the blow and responded with a swipe of its scythe-like claws and tried to take a bite out of Outrage’s shoulder. Outrage danced back at the last second and its bite missed but caused her to partially collapse to the ground by the edge of one of the tents. She stretched out her hand to balance herself and found it resting on the tip of one of the large metal tent pegs… She smiled as her anger took over. There was a reason the others had nicknamed her Outrage as this creature was about to find out. She pulled the peg free as she lunged with it, tip forward at the creature’s stomach. It hit with all the force of a power punch, focused down into the tip of the peg. To her surprise, it didn’t pierce (a thought went through her mind that her HCP tutors would not be happy that she had resorted to potentially lethal force so soon but damn them they weren’t fighting this creature, she was) but going by its howl of pain and the creatures’ sudden loss of concentration it had to have hurt. It had failed to pierce, but it had dented her chitin armour and had left it seriously dazed.

Ms Kitty used the confusion to risk diving back into the sea of bubbles again and seconds later reappeared with another rescuee, this one was already knocked unconscious (admittedly by Kitty). Dropping her off with the first rescue, she dived in and this time pulled out Lillie. She seemed set in her task, despite the risk of being recaptured herself.

Then everything nearby turned frosty. The older teen with the white hair and wearing a one-piece bodysuit – Winter, the others called him – unleashed a cold, icy blast of elemental fury at Cadet. The blast emanating from his hands froze the grass, encased and solidified the bubbles, freezing them solid and almost hit Cadet who just managed to somersault out of the way at the very last second. The blast intended for him froze the tent he’d been standing in front of a second before, which collapsed under the weight of the ice.

Ashen couldn’t help wonder how many more Metas they had waiting in the wings? They needed to end this and do so in a way that would make the risk of staying too high, and he knew just how to do that, he just hoped he might survive the experience of unleashing the gorgon. He headed high into the sky in the hope of spotting his secret weapon below. He flew as fast as he could straight towards the front of the kidnapped group until he saw a smaller than usual male figure trying to shamble through the bubbles.  Recognising his target and realising he might be creating more problems than he solved, he flew down and slapped the young boy sharply across the face. A look of shock was immediately followed by anger then young Chris began to alter, he grew sideways and outwards as a costumed turtle-like Smash, alien hero without a shell, suddenly changed interdimensional places with the angry young boy. “Ah Ashen, I fear you have created a lot of irrational anger in my co-pilot, however I understand your actions as I was monitoring the situation whilst the co-pilot was being compelled against his, and my, will.”

“Smash, we need to stop our friends – and Dimitri – from being kidnapped, we need your help.”

Hearing what Ashen was doing over the comms, the older Chris muttered, “Ah Smash, our very own E.T. on steroids… Let’s hope he doesn’t get out of control.” He immediately ran into the epicentre of the stationary carousel and unleashed an EMP burst. The blast killed all the nearby screens, mobiles, the ride, its lights and music, but thankfully their own earpieces were shielded. Those screens further afield were still functional, so he obviously hadn’t been close enough to the control centre to take it out.

Cadet realised they needed to urgently identify where the control room for all the active screens were operated from if they were to succeed, and he had an idea where to look. Trusting the others to keep the bad guys off his back, he immediately headed to the helter-skelter and ran straight up the spiral stairs, two steps at a time. At the top of the ride, the platform where the mats were stored and the top of the slide as well as the steps curved round the outside of the tower, leaving the centre at the top of the tower apparently unutilised. A quick search of the wall found a concealed door. He located the hidden lock and pushed inside.

He found himself facing a 30-year-old woman in a business suit and a young man standing over some sort of large, interfaced tablet. Cadet stepped forward, extended out his quarterstaff and braced himself for an attack, then…

Outside, suddenly all of the still functioning screens across the park stopped functioning and showed a ‘signal not found’ interference pattern.

Soon after, Cadet found himself zooming down the outside slide of the helter-skelter on a mat. He came to a stop at the bottom of the tower with absolutely no memory of anything since he had stepped inside the chamber at the top. Whatever had happened, he or they had successfully killed all of the screens. He had the impression that were he to go back up that he would find the two people inside gone, but he didn’t know why.

Meanwhile, Smash suddenly unleashed a hammer strike with his fist into the ground that levelled all the controlled Claremont students to the ground with the shockwave and knocked down and staggered both Apex and Scorpion. Outrage was prepared for just such an eventuality and had remained hovering above the ground just in case. Cadet remained sitting on the mat waiting until Smash’s seismic tremor had settled but Chris was knocked to the ground as a hovering Ashen asked what Smash was doing and he calmly explained, “I believe the idea is to stop the others from going somewhere that would be unsafe. The quickest way to achieve that objective was by knocking everyone to the ground, my co-pilot approved of the strategy.” Ashen smiled, the issue with Smash was always about training him to rein in his god-like strength and reducing the impact of his attacks to acceptable levels.

The female with the whip, Scorpion, was back up on her feet quickly and ran straight at Chris in an excessively aggressive manner and with an almost sexual gleam in her eyes. Her whip lashed out several times and he noticed that wherever the bladed tip hit the ground, it burnt the grass. Some sort of acid or poison gleamed on the edge of the blade. Again, the whip rose and swirled round her like it was possessed.

Then it changed direction in midair and lashed out like a serpent striking at his head, he ducked and it passed above him by inches. Apex also used the opportunity to rush straight at Outrage and tackle her to the ground. Outrage was bruised by the attack and had to roll out of the way.

Scythe ganged up with an assault from the side and raked at Outrage, who rolled with the blow as its claws skimmed her stomach. She reached behind her, picked up the semi-conscious man in the purple suit, and threw him straight at Scythe. The bulky adult slammed into the ground a couple of feet in front of her, completely comatose – damn, his lack of aerodynamics!

She glanced behind her and saw Kitty again rush in through the bubbles, grab Patsy and drag her back over towards the nearest stall. Bubbles resumed her bubble-making, again filling the area with hundreds of frothy air-blisters of various sizes and varying opaqueness.

Winter stepped once more into view and unleashed a freezing cryoblast at a hovering Ashen. The man-made ‘Beast from the East’ was unleashed from his palms and almost succeeded in freezing him to death.

He was saved only by stopping flying and tumbling to the ground as gravity reasserted its hold.  Where he had been floating a second before a giant ice sculpture appeared in the air then fell, missing him by a couple of feet and shattered on the ground peppering him with hundreds of small icy shards.

Ashen tried to use his Voice of Allure on Smash, to tell him to rescue as many people as he could find “I need you to stop this exodus, so use your strength against the strongest opponents you can find.” With that, Smash jumped into the bubble zone and vanished under the oversized froth, apparently compelled by him, but with someone so alien who could be sure?

Chris used the distraction of the shattering ice and ran over to Cadet and up the stairs of the helter-skelter, following Cadet’s previous trip up the stairs. At the top, he found the previously concealed door open; the room empty and cables everywhere, as though someone (Cadet?) had obviously ripped out some sort of control panel and smashed all the existing equipment. Whoever had been there before was now gone leaving the room deserted and whatever had interfaced with the screens was gone leaving just trailing coaxial cables, which someone had pulled out of the original display equipment so they now terminated in nothing.

Chris grabbed several of the cables and tried to figure out what they had been connected to. Some sort of interface obviously, but whether it had been a console, machine, A.I. or Meta he couldn’t know for sure. All that remained was the original distribution method used by the fair. Gathering the terminated cables, he wondered if he might be able to project himself onto all the screens across the fair even if the interface, whatever it had been, was missing.

Chris tried to send himself down the multiple cables but only succeeded in creating a distorted picture on the working screens though he did manage to make his voice travel down that many cables at once. “The park is now closed, please make your way to the exits and head home.” He shouted.  Hearing Firewall’s voice projecting out of the interference on the remaining working screens located at the other end of the fair made Ashen smile and joke, “time to leave in an orderly fashion please and keep your hands and feet inside the safety rails at all times… I wish!”

Within the remaining bubbles, Smash’s bounded out, grabbed the staggered Apex and before the older teen could do anything, threw him as hard and as fast as he could, in the direction of the car park. Apex was caught off-guard and found himself flying out of the park completely at great speed. He landed over a mile away, his impact left a crater in the road and an injured and now unconscious Meta lying in the road. Had it been anyone else, the impact would have killed them outright or at best left them paralysed for life. Thankfully for Smash’s conscience, Apex was made of sterner stuff though only just. He literally had hit the highway.

Unfortunately, back in the fair Firewall’s broadcast request was being completely ignored by the carnies and visitors as the hypnotic suggestion still made everyone play, play, play as instructed.  Babies in their prams were now screaming in frustration at being completely ignored still by their hypnotised and compelled parents.

Cadet stood up and ran forward unleashing his bolos at ‘Ms Whippy’s’ legs, he whirled them round his head to build up momentum and released them as they spun and slammed into Scorpion’s legs causing her to stumble and almost fall. Ripping the bolos away, she unleashed her whip at Cadet’s eyes. He somersaulted backwards and onto the counter of a nearby stall. Outrage ran forward, leapt into the air, grabbing the cord of the whip just behind the dripping blade and yanked.

She flew straight up about 20 metres, holding the whip near the tip. Caught off-guard, Scorpion held on and was dragged up high in the air with it. She hung in the air a few metres below Outrage, clinging on for dear life at the other end of her whip.

Outrage smiled and with a gleam in her eyes shouted down to her captive audience of one, “I think it’s time for you and your friends to go home before you get hurt. Don’t you agree?”

The redhead looked scared, hanging on one-handed to the handle fifteen metres up in the air. Not sure how convinced she was that the message had sunk in; Outlook dragged her through the sky as she flew straight towards the car park. Down on the ground there were a number of coaches parked but one in particular stood out – it was lit inside, though the windows were all opaque, its engine running and was black with white lettering on the side of the vehicle that read ‘Pryde Institute’.

Bingo! That had to be her ground zero. She had heard of the school – a charity-run school apparently that specialised in dealing with troubled teens who were meta’s. This was confirmed by some of the teens they had seen before, who could be seen milling around the coach, apparently waiting for something (or someone’s?). A woman in a business suit stood on the bus steps, staring up at her.

Outrage decided to not get too close just in case, so flew back a bit then lowered herself down until she was hovering about five metres off the ground and dropped her ‘passenger’ unceremoniously by the car park entrance. The unexpected move meant Scorpion fell about ten feet onto her bum on the cold and icy tarmac. She grabbed up her whip, what remained of her dignity and ran as fast as she could for the coach.

‘Result!’ thought Outrage as she headed back into the Fairground and the fray.

Only Winter and Scythe remained. Scythe gave the impression that in this form she was not in full control of her actions as she roared at the Claremont Crew that had frustrated her and bounded into the bubbles trying to grab the remaining compelled. Now only Bubbles, Dimitri and Smiler remained. The creature bounded through the mass of bubbles, grabbing as many of them as she could find, as Winter laid down a barricade of ice to stop anyone following them.

She succeeded in grabbing both Smiler and Dimitri as she dived past the carousel towards the car park. Outrage dived after her and intercepted her escape with a full-on punch to its head. Being in flight, she was unable to switch her power to her increased strength, but there was no way she was going to let this creature kidnap her schoolmates. The punch connected and even without her meta-strength behind it, the shock of the unexpected attack caused her to drop her victims as she elected to run empty-handed for the coach.

Winter was still laying down his icy barricade and trying to encase his attackers. Cadet was caught in the blast and felt the cold, leaving him fatigued and trapped in the ice. That was enough.  Winter elected to ignore any remaining prisoners and run.

Chris rushed after him, scrambling over the ice barrier just as his target jumped on-board an unmarked black coach, which had begun to manoeuvre itself out at speed from the park. As he watched, the colour of the vehicle changed from black to white, the result of some form of illusion, obviously. He had seconds at best to decide what to do. He rushed over and concealed his activated earpiece behind the rear bumper, which they could with any luck track, and was rewarded for his efforts with a lungful of fumes. Hopefully this would confirm the final destination of the coach if they could just manage to triangulate its signal.

That had to be enough, coughing and spluttering Chris headed back towards the others as the coach drove away towards the motorway.

Back at the fair, the remaining hypnotised students began to come out of their compulsion. Chris vanished back into the crowd, leaving the others in their costumes to deal with the bewildered. Ashen also realised that they still had Ms Kitty with them, who immediately collected and cuddled her cat.

Outrage flew up into the air and headed to the motorway after the coach, following its progress. However, after about half a mile she found herself lying on the ground below one of the motorway message signs in a heap, in the middle lane as cars whished past her on both sides and a HGV heading straight at her. She immediately flew up. From above, there was no sign of the coach, though the shallow impact crater she’d found herself in and the pain in her limbs seemed to indicate that she had impacted with the ground suddenly and unexpectedly. Unfortunately there was no sign of a coach so she elected to head back towards the fairground.

Chris checked with Ashen that the tracker was still functioning and was heading in the general direction of London. He’d wanted to tell Outrage that the bus was capable of changing its appearance so it would be hard to follow it visually, but she’d left so quickly and without discussing what she intended to do, he never had a chance.

Without the constant reminder on the screens, the hypnotic effect on the audience was beginning to wear off. Mothers were starting to realise that their babies were crying and heading away from the attractions to recover them. Others were running out of money, and the inability to continue playing compulsively seemed to be negating the hypnotic effect they’d been exposed to. Ashen changed his earpiece’s channel and called the Police to report that they needed them and ambulances at the fairground, explaining that there had been some sort of compulsion cast on the people.

Alaina smiled at them all and began to reabsorb her bubbles back into herself before collapsing to the ground, leaving the area looking empty. Looking over, she smiled at the shy and partially concealed Ms Kitty, who was trying to revive the students she’d knocked unconscious. Bubbles waved at her and said, “After all that, I think need a huge ice cream. So which one of you lot is going to pay?” She looked over at the shivering young meta and asked, “Do you want one too, sweetie? Or would you prefer something else? I’m Bubbles, by the way, don’t worry, we’ll look after you.”

Kitty stepped over and smiled as Smash walked behind a stall and was replaced by young Chris. Pity, they’d quite fancied seeing Smash in a dance-off against Ms Kitty!

When the Police arrived, they discovered that no one other than themselves remembered what had happened, though most were complaining that they’d spent a lot more than they had expected to and there were a lot of crying and apologetic mothers and fathers hugging their babies and infants. Thankfully, no child had been hurt during the madness.

They elected to not say anything about the connection to Pryde Institute until they’d spoken to their teachers back at the school and had decided what to do with their new friend, Ms Kitty, though they were sure that no matter what they weren’t going to let her go back to that place. They just needed to figure out how to get Claremont to take her on and hope they could sort out any legal difficulties. That was a matter for the adults, they knew though that someone like her deserved better.

While they walked away from the Police, popcorn, candyfloss and ice creams in hand they asked Kitty where she’d come from and she admitted that when she’d ‘changed’ her parents had been persuaded to enrol her at the Pryde Institute but that she really hated it at the PITT. She didn’t think she had any choice but to stay at Pryde but they had been very cruel to her and if there was another school that could take her in, possibly her parents could be convinced to let her stay?

She suddenly rushed over and climbed on top of a nearby stall, to reappear a second later clutching the big teddy that Apex had won for her. Gus now safely back in his normal clothes as were all the others, explained that she was welcome to accompany them back to the school and talk with the staff and they’d all put a good word in for her.

Colin was aware that there would be all sorts of legal issues to resolve but had faith that ‘Old Man’ Summers and the other staff members would find some way to resolve them, meanwhile they’d all had the rest of the fair to explore and enjoy before they headed back to the monorail station and the school.