Re-Evolution: Episode 1: The Shadow Over New Salem

"Oh my gawd can you *believe* they let anyone play here these days?" Becky leaned her back on the bar, watching the band on stage with performative boredom and annoyance.

"Things have really gone downhill." The brunette in the short skirt crossed her legs as she sipped the 'virgin cocktail' she'd slipped a little vodka into when the security guard wasn't looking. She huffed "They're probably resorted to , like, *below* the bottom of the barrel, Becky"

"Yeah these guys suck," the blond, Brittany, snorted. "What a drag right?"

"At least it looks like they're going back to the DJ," Becky sniffed. "Good cause I was half tempted to get out of here."

The music ended, and the noise in the club lowered to a dull murmur. It was a monday afternoon, not their prime hour.

"Awww...you were, Becky?” Lindsey, the brunette, pouted, sipping her drink “I mean, I'm just starting to get a buzz and we haven't even met anyone *fun* yet! I'm sure it'll liven up....they can't suck *all* night."

"I guess," Becky pouted. "Ugh I need more to drink."

Somewhere in the small crowd, the trio heard a voice. 

"*Oh my god, is that Crush Caller's van in the alley? Are they gonna play a set?"*

Brittany perked up. "Did you hear that? Crush Caller is here? They're like, the hottest."

Lindsey was halfway through pouring more single shots of vodka into her drink when she perked up as well. 

"oh WOW!! We've gotta see if we can get an autograph! I've wanted one forever!"

Becky straightened up. 

"Girls we can *not* pass up this opportunity. Alright follow me." She took a last swallow of her drink, and headed toward the emergency exit that Calamity always kept propped open because they didn't technically allow smoking inside any more.

"Oh my gawd, I wanna be the first to see them!"

Lindsey eagerly followed her, bouncing unsteadily on her heels for a moment as she first stood, before she got her stride and hurried a little faster than Becky. 

"No way, Lindsey, do *not* ruin this for me."

Becky pushed her slightly to get back in front. She shoved the door open and the three of them piled into the alleyway. None of them noticed the door jam suddenly vanished, plucked out of view by something like a long rope or tendril.

The door clicked shut behind them, as the dark alleyway loomed.

"Like...Becky." Lindsey pouted "I don't see any van back here..."

"Ugh!!! What did I just step in? Like, my heel is stuck!" Brittany squeaked from behind them.. 

"What the hell?" Becky frowned as she noticed her shoes were stuck too. “Oh my god what is this gross shit? These heels are new.”

Lindsey went to turn around, only to stumble over into Becky with a yelp as her foot ALSO became stuck.

At the mouth of the alley a loud crunch sounded through the alley as two dumpsters blocked the alleyway off from the street, a single pale blue light gleaming from the darkness before vanishing in a blink.

"I...I dunno!" Lindsey squealed while hanging on Becky's arm.

A low pitched hum seemed to cut through the alley too, and bricks started exploding behind the three girls.

"Was that a gunshot?" Brittany shrieked as Becky looked around frantically.

There was a soft "hng" of a voice...before the ground began shaking under their feet...adding to the exploding bricks in terms of sheer chaos...and before the three girls...the shadows began to dance.

They twisted and rose into hellish, demonic shapes. Teeth and claws and reaching fingers that crawled through the alleyway towards them.

Up on the next door's fire escape, hidden in the shadows, a group of silhouettes were enjoying themselves immensely. One of the silhouettes, despite how hard she was concentrating, couldn't help but grin in wicked delight as the girls started to scream.

The three girls screamed as they were assaulted by strange and terrifying occurrences from all sides.

"The alley's haunted!!" Brittany shrieked.

Unfortunately, another, deeper voice joined them from the mouth of the alley, from just beyond the dumpsters.

"Hey, what's going on back there?"

The gangly shadow shaded his eyes and squinted past the blockage.

"Oh, oh shit yo. Its the *cops*."

"W-w-what??" The taller, broader shadow hissed. "Aw FUCK"

The tremors grew worse...and worse...bricks began caving down from Calamity's ancient architecture, cracking as a fissure crackled through the earth below.

Morgan, her eyes wide, stumbled back, only for her to lose control of the shadows and send several of the tendrils smacking into the girls like high-tension wires, knocking Lindsey over with a crack of her ankle and a sharp cry. Brittany and Becky were likewise knocked like a couple of dolls, hitting the wall and tumbling into a heap on the ground as bits of brick continued to rain down.

"AHHH! Oh...oh gawd I thought I was just drunk!.Is this...is this..."

The blue glow of an eye came from the alley again as a shape bathed in the dark shadow came running up the fire escape, scrambling towards the mischiefmakers. 

 "The cops are trying to bust through the barricade," Callisto said plainly "we don't have a lot of time."

The hum stopped, and dorian grimaced. "I'd recommend we make a *quick* exit."

"Yeah no shit!" Todd hissed.

"Oh my god, I think we killed them." Morgan whispered in horror.

"what was that?" Callisto asked, pulling a trio of throwing knives from under her coat. "Did you say kill them?"

"Killed them?" Todd yelped. "Shit, yo, I can't go away for murder!! Aw fuck this is a nightmare, yo we gotta get out of here."

Dorian looked over at the three girls, who were stirring, and he set his jaw. 

"No murder. They're fine. Come on, before the barricade breaks." He started hurrying down the fire escape, his boots rattling it as cops shouted, and the dumpsters shook,

Morgan hissed softly, as she grabbed the closest people to her--Todd and Callisto--and in a puff of swirling shadow, teleported them down to the furthest shadows of the alleyway, waiting for the others 

"Fuck. fuck...we may have to bust through that fence, it's a dead end..." She muttered, looking up at the only exit to the alley that wasn't swarming with cops...which was blocked by a 8 foot tall barbed wire fence.

Lance grit his teeth. “I'm not goin' away. We're getting out of here."

Callisto blinked, looking up at the fire escape and then at the fence with an impressed 'hmm.'. She pointed to the fence. "Dorian. Blast a hole in the fence for us."

"Cover your ears," he said, and gave them all an instant to comply before he *shrieked*. The sound pierced the air, but was surprisingly directed, despite its volume. Morgan could swear she could see the air vibrate for an instant as the redhead's voice punched a huge hole straight through the fence.

"Holy fuck". Morgan slapped her hands over her ears at the last instant.

Once the hole was punched, Lance sent one last *massive* tremor down the alleyway with a loud grunt and a stomp of his foot to slow the pursuing cops. "Remind me not to tease that voice of yours for like, another week or so, Dorian."

Callisto slipped out into the alley as the group of them booked it out into the street, Morgan cursing quietly under her breath as she ran from the scene of chaos behind her.

As they passed out into the sunny street , the red and blue lights of cop cars flashed to their left, reflecting off a single black limousine that was parked by the pawn shop nearby. Callisto, glancing at it for only a moment, turned and ran towards their parking space a little bit away.

Todd still had a hold of Morgan, and had grabbed Lace's wrist as well as soon as he was done with the makeshift earthquake, pulling both of them back toward the car.

"Are they following us?" Todd asked, not wanting to look back.

"Not yet," Dorian said breathlessly, peeking over his shoulder. "Thanks to dear Lance."

Lance went to jump across the hood and into the driver's seat, only for Callisto to leap over the door and land carefully behind the wheel first.

"God DAMN it, even in a *chase* she gets the drop on me!" Lance cursed as he once again got into the passenger seat.

Morgan opted not to leap into the seat, but instead grabbed Todd and Dorian, and teleported them into the pooled shadows on the floor of the truck, pushing them into the seats and slipping between them 

"*Gun it*," she said breathlessly "before they see us."

Callisto nodded, and turned the truck on, pulling away swiftly, but as unobtrusively as she could.

Todd jammed himself against Morgan, a panicked look on his face. 

"Oh man, oh man the pigs are gonna follow us, I *know* it, yo. "

"Calm down, Toad," Dorian hissed, "do *try* to keep a level head about you." Despite the bravado, he was a little pale himself.

However, it became increasingly obvious as Callisto pulled into traffic, that they were getting away scot free. There weren’t any cop cars anywhere near them, nor did they hear the sound of sirens.

Lance looked tense, glancing over his shoulder every now and again as Callisto calmly took a left turn to get further from the club.

 "Don't worry. Nobody saw our faces. And nobody's following the car," she whispered.

Morgan looked as pale as a ghost--even more pale than she did before, her eyes wide as she sunk into her seat, against both Dorian and Todd.

"For serious?" Todd asked, scooting up enough to look around, but not enough to disentangle himself from Morgan's side completely. "....Holy shit. We're good. We're actually fucking out."

Morgan, however, dropped her head into her hands as the adrenaline rush wore off, and she started to realize that she’d probably made a complete mess of the situation, and a fool of herself for creating it.

"...I've really done it now." she murmured softly "I make a few friends and then I almost get us all fucking arrested."

Lance barely heard her, taking a deep breath. “...we escaped.. we did it...that...that was..."

"That was fucking sicknasty yo!" Todd declared in delight; he put his feet up on the back of the front seat.

"Hilarious.” Dorian nodded. “An all time great."

Lance grinned, and punched the dashboard with a loud laugh as he recovered.  "MAN, that was great! did you see their faces?"

"I did." Callisto was smiling in the rearview. "...I also saw them crumple when those bricks hit them. They looked terrified."

Morgan was still a moment, before she looked up in surprise. 

"You guys aren't mad at me?"

"You have to be joking," Dorian snorted.

"Mad at ya? why would we be mad at ya?” Todd asked in astonishment. “That was fun as shit, yo! right guys? Aw man, I can't believe we got away with it, yo!"

Morgan's face slowly lit up into a full on smile, her eyes sparkling as she bared her fangs in a loud and excited laugh. 

"I thought you'd be FURIOUS for almost getting you caught!" she laughed, hugging herself with a grin. "But fuck, you’re right, we actually *DID IT*. They'll be having nightmares about us for years!!!"

Callisto nodded "it was exciting. I had fun."

Lance grinned, and kicked his own feet up on the dash, pushing Toad's out of the way with his hand as he leaned his head back. 

"Of course we got away with it." he said. "We weren't stupid. We held it together just fine. Nobody messes with us and gets away with it, right?"

Todd made a 'tch' noise as his feet were pushed away, and crossed them instead. "Hell yeah! yo you hear blondie? *alley's haunted, eeek!*"

"Perhaps the visit will make her rethink her choices-- if any of them have the brainpower for it," Dorian drawled with a smug look on his face.

"Alley's haunted." Morgan snickered. She brushed her hair out of her face with a broad smile before nodding. "I doubt they *do* but maybe the knocks on the head did them some good."

She kicked back, leaning with her arms spread out against the headrests of the back seat.

"If the knock on the head didn't do it, the broken ankle might.” Lance smirked “Did you hear it? Lindsey the Lush went *down*."

"Almost a shame the drunk are more likely to survive an injury," Dorian remarked cattily.

"Man their whole *crew* went down! Good luck with them crutches, bitches," Todd snickered.

"They sure as hell won't be making cheer team anymore." Morgan said with a wicked smirk "If I didn't already have the captain position in the bag I sure do now"

Callisto nodded in the mirror. "I liked the part where she thought there were gunshots."

"I'd wager she's never heard the real thing," Dorian mused, his arms crossed. "Oh no, a loud noise."

"Spooky." Callisto smirked "I don't think she'd like a real gunshot." 

Todd grinned, and looked at Morgan. 

"Hey, hey, so like, you're gonna be hangin with us from now on, right, Morg?"

Callisto glanced at Morgan in the mirror "I hope you do. You fit in just fine."

Morgan grinned wider, patting both Dorian and Todd on the shoulders. 

"You're *damn right* I am. You guys are *stuck with me*"

"Well shit, this calls for a damned celebration!" Todd grinned, *definitely* leaning a bit into Morgan's touch.

"I quite agree," Dorian nodded firmly. "Maybe a little late in the evening to start following Lindsey's example, but I wouldn't say no to a milkshake or something."

"The diner it is." Callisto said "I'm buying." She took a turn past an old drugstore, and towards the center of the city.

Morgan leaned back in the seat. "A celebration to new friends and one *hell* of a victory."