"Seventy-eight," Astrea Starr said with disgust.

She slumped in her chair and jabbed a straw into her glass of Cherry Coke.

"Hey, at least you passed," Corissa said happily, hoisting a fried chicken finger dripping with bleu cheese. "You get to keep your scholarship, right?"

Astrea looked at the oddly-orange edible in her friend's hand - how could she eat that stuff?

"For now. It's one test, Cori. I should have done better."

She stirred her drink violently. "If I don't keep a B average I'll lose the money. I can't afford to pay Howard prices."

"Heavens," she muttered quietly, "I can hardly afford the Coke."

Corissa King munched her chicken finger thoughtfully. Heck, she had always been perfectly happy to get that kind of grade, but Astrea - Astrea was another story. She had known her since sixth grade, and Astie had always been one of those who took schoolwork way too seriously.

"It is just one test, hon," Corissa said. "You'll pull it up. The Astrea Starr I know isn't no quitter. Always studying, not out goofin' off."

Maybe, Astrea thought. If you didn't call running around fighting psycho terrorists and pulling people out of burning buildings, goofing off.

Still, being Americana was beginning to take a toll. There was only so much time in a day - and between her job at the Smithsonian, choir practice and services, Toastmasters meetings, and night classes, there wasn't a lot left for Jason, let alone herself.

And the little things she really enjoyed - like photographing monuments for some spending money, or attending lectures and speeches after work, or just going out with the girls - she hadn't done in months.

Something had to give.

The lid was starting to give.

The thin-haired blonde strained at the screwdriver she had wedged under the lid of the small silver box. The sweat that ran down her rather plain features was more from nervousness and desire than effort.

The sweet song from inside caressed her soul.

She had to open this damn box!

She paused, and let the breath she was holding unawares leave her curvaceous frame.

Her client lay snoring under the same large painting of Dutch countryside that seemingly hung over every bed in the entire Ramada chain.

She'd have to be very careful - he was actually asleep, not drugged like her other marks. The way he carried himself, and the weapons he carried, warned her that this was a professional; too dangerous to risk his detecting a rufie in his drink.

She turned her attention back to the box.

It lay on the dresser, about the size of a thick paperback book. Though it gleamed like polished silver, it was much harder than any silver she had seen; she hadn't even scratched the finish.

"Open open!" she hissed, forcing the tool around the back of the box.

There was a sound of air rushing through a tiny opening, and then a low pop as the lid flew open.

The bottom half of the box was filled with a black velvet cushion, into which an irregular pattern of stitches had been laid in silver. On the cushion lay a single polished, rounded, blood-red jewel.

The jewel seemed to throb, its steady call beckoning her, filling her. Its song was in no language she had ever heard, but in a million voices, filled with power and ecstasy and horror, each addressing her soul by name.

"Beautiful, is it not?" a stentorian voice inquired.

The woman whirled - and gasped.

She had only a glimpse of a monstrous form before her final shriek was cut short.

The dark creature watched impassively, an identical red stone pulsing in its palm, as the blonde's life aura turned cold and black.

"Oh. My. God."

The creature turned, no faster than it felt like doing at the time, as a burly man with sunken eyes grabbed for his Magnum as he sprang from his bed.

The big man held the gun at arm's length, and shivered. He told himself it was only because he was naked - after all, he had been an assassin since the age of fifteen, and had long ago put his fears behind him.

There was little for him to fear; even without a weapon, he was among the most dangerous of men. It was his ferocity as well as his enormous arm span that had suggested he adopt the codename of the largest aerial predator on earth.

Slowly, he realized that despite his strength, despite his weapon, there was indeed something to fear.

"Condor," the dark form intoned.

"...Kestrel?" The assassin's eyes widened. "That is you?"

The room's dim light reflected off of glistening, deep red, skin as the other nodded slightly.

"I was."

Condor kept a firm grip on the gun.

"H-how is it... possible?"

The monster tilted its head toward the stone in the box.

"Remember, Condor, when the Jacquot presented one to each of us," the creature boomed. "He said that inside these boxes lay the power to destroy the American `superheroine'. He spoke the truth.

"I could no longer resist, and it transfigured me."

The monster paused and looked longingly at the box. "Have you not heard its call echoing inside you?"

Condor shook his head nervously. "No."

"Take it. Surrender to its call. Grasp it in your hand, and power beyond your imagining shall be yours.

"Become like me."

"Nunh-uh. That's okay. I don't want it. I -"

"Good."

An enormous, black-taloned hand swiped through Condor, instantly ensuring that what there was of his body would never be identified.

"An assassin should not allow himself to be distracted," it muttered to what little remained of his former partner. "By the flesh."

It turned, slowly, to the call of the stone in the box - the same siren song that had cajoled him into breaking the seal on his own, similar silver box.

Somewhere deep, deep inside the being that until this morning had been one of the Jacquot's most feared assassins, Kestrel screamed in impotent rage. His chosen profession demanded he be in complete control of his emotions and his actions, yet such was his lustful yearning that he would gladly surrender his soul for these damned Bloodstones!

The Jacquot had as always given him just enough information to facilitate his finding and dispatching the target, no more. But this time he had given Condor and himself something more - the small silver boxes that contained, he had said, something to give them power even greater than their target - the American "superheroine" who had demolished the Jacquot's drug network.

There had been no mention of the hellish devices' all-consuming song!

He could withstand it no longer!

As a starving man might grab a loaf of bread, the dark creature snatched up the stone and crushed the pulsing stone into his palm!

He groaned loudly as his monstrous soul was gorged with dark satisfaction, and every nerve of his body was consumed with fire.

The fire was everywhere.

Walls, curtains, furniture - no matter where Americana turned, yellow and orange tongues wagged in her face.

Coughing, the heroine pressed on. Terrifying as they were, the flames couldn't burn her.

They could, however, consume the oxygen she needed to breathe.

The air was already hot and thin, and she found herself gulping it in greedily - only to wheeze and cough violently on the lungfuls of noxious gasses and smoke.

She found herself wishing she had saved some of that Cherry Coke.

Americana crouched to look under a burning table.

Where are you?

She paused. The air - it felt...

Dumb, Astrea! she scolded herself as grade school memories of "stop, drop and roll" popped to mind. Smoke rises - the air is more breathable near the floor!

Well, not all that much more so, she thought as she scampered, hunched over, across the room. Still, that was something she would have to remember if she was going to keep running into burning buildings.

She turned. Was that - ?

Yes! Amid the roar of the flames, a whimper.

She knelt down by a bed and peered underneath.

Ohh, the poor dear was shaking.

"Come on. Commmmme on," she coaxed...

For crying out loud, she mentally smacked herself on the forehead. Just lift up the stupid bed!

"Here, there we are," she said soothingly as she scooped up her precious bundle.

The ceiling began to groan.

"Oboy."

Astrea bolted for the window as timber, steel and fire rained down into the room.

Without missing a step, she threw herself out the window as a cloud of black smoke and debris filled the room behind her.

Five stories below, a small crowd gasped as she arced headfirst toward the ground.

Their cries of dismay were followed by cheers as Americana smoothly rotated upright and gently descended to the ground.

The heroine handed the tiny cocker spaniel over to two smoke-smudged children.

"Fluffer!"

"You saved her!"

The youngest threw his arms around her neck.

"Ohh, you're welcome, hon," Astrea smiled.

"God bless you, lady," their father said, his voice and body shaking.

Now this - this is what made being Americana worthwhile.

Those kids could have died had she not come along - the bottom two floors were already sheets of flame when the fire trucks got here.

And, she thought, scratching the spaniel's head, the fire department couldn't be expected to go through that just to save a puppy.

Who on earth allowed them to put a paint store in a residential building?

"Is anyone else in there?" she asked between coughs.

"Nuh-uh," the battalion chief shook his head and tilted back his helmet. "Everyone's out, thanks to you, young lady. We'll - "

The dull whump of a paint drum exploding interrupted him.

"We'll knock it down from out here. I'm not sending my men inside with those chemicals going up in there.

"You, uh, don't have anything like super-icy breath or anything, do you? Blow out the flames?"

"'Super icy breath'?" Americana said, bemused.

He shrugged helplessly. "Why not? I just saw you fly."

"Good point."

The chief started back toward the fire, then stopped and turned.

"And you went into that inferno twice, with no gear. Not a mark on you.

"I saw it and I still can't believe it."

"I'm still not used to it myself, sir," she said.

You can say that again, Astrea thought with a shiver as she watched the flames consuming the four-story brownstone. Americana was fairly certain by now that she was immune to fire, but there was still a part of her that retained a healthy fear of it.

She slowly realized that photographers had been clicking away for a while now, and two television crews were pushing through the crowd, cameras rolling.

Something else she was still not used to, she sighed.

"Wait! Wait! Americana!"

" - Eyewitness News! How did you find the children?"

" - Riley with the Post; you aren't burned - "

"WJFK Radio - how do you fly?"

Well, her night was shot now anyway; she supposed it wouldn't do any harm to answer a few questions.

"Americana!"

"Please," she said wearily. "One at a time, okay?

"But you don't do it often."

"Why don't you fly around, like Windjammer does?"

"Well," Americana said, "For starters, I'm honoring the government's request that I observe the no-fly zone over the District."

"They won't let you fly?" someone in the crowd cried.

A few others chorused their indignation.

"No, no. It's not just me - they don't let anyone fly, really. It's a security issue - if air traffc steers clear of the Capitol, it's easier to track hostile planes or missiles or such.

"If I flew around town I'd probably give the radar boys conniptions."

Over the mild laughter someone called out "How come you didn't get burned in there?"

The heroine paused for a moment. "You mean, besides that I'm fireproof?

"...I don't really know how else to explain it. Sorry."

"Americana! I'm with General Mills..."

Oh, no, she thought. Don't these people ever sleep?

"Forget cereal boxes! With Winged Victory you can have your own shoe! We'll do all your costumes! You'll make millions!"

Then the reporters jumped into the fray.

She looked from one to the other as they shouted and waved microphones and cameras at her. It was as if bidding war had erupted, both for her attention and for her, period.

Walls of flames and crazed super-terrorists were suddenly not looking quite as frightening in comparison.

Finally she caught sight of a familiar face that wasn't shouting at her.

He was shouting at the rest of them.

"FBI. Move aside people, FBI!"

"Roswell?"

He was waving his Bureau credentials, but for Americana there was no need; there was no mistaking Norman Roswell.

The handsome young agent wore one of his usual wild neckties, all the more noticeable in an organization renowned for black suits, ties and sunglasses.

"Hate to break up your little fan club, Americana, but we have a situation."

"A `situation'?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

A half-dozen microphones thrust forward.

Roswell looked around at the news cameras, then shrugged. It wasn't as if the media wasn't going to find out about this one.

"It concerns an old friend of yours. She called herself the Monarch."

Americana resisted the impulse to dig her fingers into the dashboard as Norman Roswell swerved the sedan in and out of traffic.

"Monarch?" she said as casually as she could manage. "The last I saw her, she could barely flutter down the street!"

Literally, Americana thought - but that had been enough to keep her out of reach when she tried robbing that armored car a few months back.

"Well, she must have been taking her vitamins," Roswell said as he nudged the speedometer over ninety. "She busted right out of Donovan. Last word I had was she was standing in mid-air right over the prison - in the middle of some freakin' storm. Lightning, winds, hail, the whole nine yards."

Astrea's fingers tightened around the armrest.

Monarch broke out of prison?

When Americana had tracked her to her house, she had found a woman driven to do anything for her child; Astrea had convinced her that the best option was to surrender peacefully. Why would she waste the opportunity for a quick parole by breaking out? And why hang around once she did?

Unless... it was some kind of attempt at -

"... suicide. Can't even get an APC near there without it getting blown over.

"The science boys say she's generating microclimates - only instantly, on a larger scale than your average garden.

Storm zones next to desert areas next to ice - all within a few feet."

"Wow," Americana breathed. Quite a step up from the last time they had met - Monarch had only been able to generate a little wind.

"Any ideas what your pal's trying to do?"

"We're not exactly friends, Roswell."

"You sent her a Christmas card, for Pete's sake!"

"I felt sorry for her, okay? Her husband ran off with some floozy, and she freaked. No husband, no money, no home, no chance of a good job - no wonder she thought they'd take her boy away."

"People do get divorced, you know," Roswell said as they screeched around a corner.

Americana stiffened; her hand began to crush the armrest.

"Not everyone," Astrea answered quietly.

"You better watch out," the agent said, swerving. "I'll tell you right now - every crook's got a sob story, or some reason it wasn't their fault. Nobody's guilty anymore."

Americana gave silent thanks that they appeared to have reached their destination - the police were blocking the road on the ridge up ahead.

"A little compassion never hurts, Roswell."

He nodded slightly. "Just so long as it's tempered a bit... with experience."

Roswell pulled in, a bit faster than Astrea felt prudent, behind a line of patrol cars. Police officers and National Guard troops alike barely looked up as the agent alighted, but stopped and did double-takes as the tall, powerfully-built woman in shining red, white and blue stepped out of the car.

"FBI," he said, holding his ID aloft. "Who's in charge here?"

"Mike Holden, Maryland State Police."

"What's the situation here, Captain?"

Americana wasn't paying much attention to the two men's conversation.

The "situation" was obvious.

Floating some fifty feet in the air over what Astrea assumed to be Donovan State Prison, a female figure floated, as unseen winds whipped at her gray coveralls. Her arms were straight out from sides; even from here one could see them tremble. The woman's back was arched so that her face pointed toward the skies; she seemed to be screaming at the stars.

Concentric circles of white and dark clouds swirled around her, though not all on the same plane. In some, mere feet across, lightning crashed, while in others blizzards raged. Sheets of rain, violent hailstorms, gentle sprinkles and killer frosts - appeared in the ever changing circles of effect.

It was beautiful... and terrible.

"... two hundred yards and the eff'ect's still growing," the police captain said matter-of-factly. "Sniper's here but we can't get anything close to a clear shot. The Guard tried getting close but some kinda tornado tossed that armored car like it's a Matchbox."

He sighed and looked at Americana. "This is a little out of our league."

Astrea nodded, watching the woman in the middle of the tempest. "Are you sure that's Monarch out there?"

Roswell rolled his eyes. Who the hell else would it be?

"Yes, ma'am. She was in the infirmary when all this started. According to one of the doctors, she just went nuts and tore out of there."

Monarch had never displayed this kind of power, Astrea mused. But she had displayed a violent side -whipping up a cocoon of asphyxiating wind around Americana. True, Monarch had backed off of her own volition, but still...

"I'll see what I can do."

What it was she could do, she hadn't a clue, she thought as she made her way up the ridge toward the prison grounds.

Something had ticked Monarch off; maybe if she got close enough she could talk her into calming down.

Americana stepped into a sheet of driving rain, but three strides later the rain had vanished and the air was warmer - much warmer. It felt like May rather than February.

Weird, she thought as she stepped into a damp fog. It was like walking through curtains of weather.

While it might be bothersome and unnatural, the authorities may have overreacted a bit in calling in snipers and the National Guard.

This section seemed a bit thicker than the others... if she could only see where she was going. Her ability to see in the dark wasn't much help in this thick, heavy f -

"Aagh!"

Americana cried out as stepped into the path of a crackling sphere of electricity!

She propped herself up off the ground and shook her head. Whoo - she had heard of ball lightning, but had never seen it before. She could have done with a bit more distant view, she smiled ruefully.

She had been more surprised than hurt, but that definitely stung. And, she noted as she ducked another ball flying by, this place was full of those jagged balls!

Astrea rolled to one side as another ball crashed into the ground beside her - no use trying to time them, their frequency was apparently random.

Gritting her teeth, Americana sprang up and dashed forward. She could see clear skies ahead - until another blast exploded in her back!

Owww, the heroine thought as she lay on a patch of ice-encrusted ground. If she had been anyone else...

Astrea started as a small white cloud formed from her breath. Heavens, it was freezing here - she could feel the chill right through her insulated costume.

And not thirty yards back it was somewhere around seventy degrees?

She picked herself up and brushed the icy flakes from her suit.

Okay, she mused, this wasn't getting her anywhere fast. Time for a new tack.

Astrea steeled herself - then ran.

She ran straight ahead, through a curtain of rain, then a barrage of hail; through arid heat, and damp mists. The various forms of precipitation could not harm her invulnerable body, but the shock of constant, wild swings in temperature and pressure wore on her.

All at once found herself flung head over heels by a wall of wind!

Americana tumbled awkwardly to the ground, landing in a moist bed of tall grass.

She shook her head and began to stand - then a wave of weakness, of exhaustion, swept through her body. The feeling was gone in a moment, but she knew full well what it meant.

Astrea called them "twinges" - and they served as her body's early warning signs that she was nearing the limits of her power. Her superpowered body seemed to use a reserve of energy, for punching, leaping or just holding her Americana form. Precisely how much each action impacted her reserve she didn't know, but she had discovered that as her reserves dwindled the twinges would grow stronger and more frequent, until she lost her powers altogether, transforming back from Americana to the very mortal Astrea Starr.

That last one had been pretty strong, somewhere in the medium range, she would guess. She wasn't in imminent danger - but neither did she have a lot of time.

Americana stood looking at the wall, black with dirt and debris, howling before her. Cautiously she stuck her hand into the maelstrom - and found it took quite a bit of her strength just to hold it steady.

She took a deep breath, then plunged into the biting storm!

Step by tortuous step, Americana plodded forward, eyes shut and arm outstretched against the horrendous wind. She grit her teeth as her body was blasted with dirt, stones and debris.

Suddenly the wind stopped, and she opened her eyes. The air felt dry and crisp and cold, and what little grass there was snapped under her feet.

She walked slowly forward, wiping the grit from around her eyes. Monarch was less than fifty yards away, still raging at the skies.

Wait a minute.

Americana hesitated.

That screaming... wasn't rage.

It was pain.

The impact of this realization was just sinking in when Astrea noticed movement off to her right.

She whirled - and saw five women in prison grays climbing through a gap that had been smashed in the prison courtyard's outer wall.

The women froze.

"Outta the way, fancy pants," a large blonde growled. "We're blowin' this joint."

"What are you people, nuts? Can't you see what's going on here? The police and I have our hands full - we can't protect you!"

"The only one who needs protectin' around here is you, sweetie! Or aincha noticed you're kinda outnumbered?"

"Get back inside!" Americana barked.

The big woman sneered.

"Have it your way, girlie."

She leaned back and took a swing at Astrea's head; the heroine caught her fist in her hand.

"I don't have time for this," Americana said, annoyed. With an almost casual motion, she slammed her fist into the women's jaw and sent the convict flying over the heads of her cohorts.

The remaining women stared, mouths agape.

Just think, Americana said to herself, how impressed they'd be if I hadn't pulled my punch.

"Now," Americana said evenly, "Get. Back. Inside."

The women fell over each other as they scrambled for the hole in the wall.

Idiots, Astrea muttered as she turned her attention back to the woman in the sky.

As she ran toward the center of the storms, it became more and more apparent that her guess had been right. Monarch wasn't some maniac bent on destruction - she was lashing out in agony.

"Tamaraaaaa!" Americana yelled to be heard as the storm grew more ferocious the closer she got to Monarch. White tendrils of whirling winds whipped about, shattering walls and trees and battering the young heroine unmercifully.

"Ungh! T-Tamara! Listen!"

Above the din Monarch's cries took form: "Make it st-ah-ahhhhp!"

"Tamara! Listen to me - agh!" Americana cried as the remains of a Hummer slammed into the back of her head.

The heroine struggled to her feet, forcing her way forward against a stinging curtain of sleet.

"I am going to help you!" she shouted, rising into the air.

Flying always took a lot out of her, but it took all her will just to stay aloft in this madness - if anything it was even worse up here than on the ground!

Monarch shrieked so that Astrea's teeth hurt. If the heroine had harbored any doubts that Monarch was in agony this -

"Whuuoogh!"

A thrashing tendril of wind, turned black by the dirt and debris it had sucked up, struck Astrea squarely in the chest, knocking her in a long, high arc. Before she fully realized what had happened, a bolt of blazing white exploded into her!

Americana flew head over heels, smashing straight through an overturned armored personnel carrier. She bounced awkwardly three times and tumbled to a stop at the base of a low fieldstone wall.

"Oh. My. God.

"She's not moving," the police captain breathed as he looked through his binoculars.

His face turned ashen as his hope of containing the elemental escapee were dashed to earth. Thoughts of stopping a catastrophe now gave way to plans for massive evacuation - and a desperate race to avoid a massacre.

"Forget what I said about crazy ideas, Agent! If you got any, I want to hear them!"

The captain looked around. "Agent Roswell? Where -?"

His question was drowned out by a crash of lightning, but in the eerie blue light he found his answer nonetheless; the FBI man was on his belly, crawling double time toward the downed heroine.

With any luck, Roswell hoped, this way he'd avoid attracting the attention of that weather witch.

And here, he grunted, he had thought that the Army hadn't taught him any useful skills.

God, he was out of his league here. Nothing he was packing, nothing he had been taught, could deal with a walking weather front!

Where did he think he was going? She had just been hit at point blank range with a tornado and lightning! What was he gonna do, give her mouth to mouth?

Pleasant as that thought may be -

"Oooh."

Roswell froze.

Americana sat up, one hand on her temple.

"Omigod. You're alive!"

"Y-yeah," she nodded. "Oww, I really felt that one."

She blinked and looked around.

"You're okay?" he asked increduously.

Americana rose to one knee. "I... think so. Just... knocked the wind out of me for a bit.

"Um, no pun intended."

"What are you - you aren't gonna go back in there?"

She gestured toward the flying figure above the ridge. "She's not crazy, Roswell - she's in pain! She's lashing out in agony!"

She paused, then turned back toward the FBI agent.

"Waitaminute. The officer said something about her being in the infirmary! What, was she sick?"

Roswell pulled out a pocket-sized radio. "Holden, you there?"

"I'm here! Are you two all right?"

"Fine, dandy, listen. Americana says the power perp's in pain, lashing out. What was Monarch in the infirmary for?

"... Holden? You there?"

... yeah. Roger that, Agent Roswell. I've just received confirmation that the patient was prescribed sedatives in an effort to keep her powers under control -"

"Sedatives?" Americana whispered.

"- and, apparently since these were proving ineffective, the patient was prescribed... psychotropic?... drugs."

"Brilliant," Americana said icily as she rose to her feet.

"We don't know that's what - what are you doing?"

"I'm going to stop her," she said simply.

"And, I'm going to save her."

The young woman charged into the maelstrom, throwing caution to the wind. She knew, now, what the storm held, and until she got to the very center there was nothing that could seriously harm her.

Through arid desert air, sheets of rain, and swirls of snow, Americana ran straight through the concentric climates, arms pumping furiously. She would need all her speed if she was going to breech that wall of -

Wi-i-i-i-nd?!

Americana was tossed with a thump onto a strip of dry, shriveled grass and sand.

Well, that was graceful, she grumbled to herself as she rose to her feet. She had bounced off that the wall of wind like a skipping stone.

She sure didn't remember that wind-wall being this far out before. Either the pace at which each of those climate zones changed was accelerating, or the weird weather effects were starting to expand further out from Monarch - maybe both.

Terrific, she thought as she plodded step by step through the gale. She was no weather expert, but she seemed to recall that weather was the result of enormous systems hundreds of miles across - and that they all interacted with each other worldwide. What if... whatever Monarch was doing, tapped into all that?

And worse, was changing it?

She burst out of the cyclone directly into a hailstorm - chunks of ice the size of softballs shattered against her invulnerable form.

Black clouds roiled below Monarch's feet, streaming outward in loose fingers of electrically-charged fury. Ugly green-gray lumps hung from mother clouds like a massive quilt - the forerunners of tornadoes. And in between, the air shook violently.

Oh, heavens, Americana thought - she's losing it!

The heroine rose into the tempest - only to be swatted like a batted ball across the sky.

Astrea struggled to right herself. She slowed, flipped gracefully in midair, and flew back toward the center of the storm.

That hadn't hurt her, but she still got knocked for -

Of course! She just realized - when she got hit in the air she flew back a lot farther than when she was on the ground!

Something to file away for later, she decided. Right now she had enough to worry about.

Monarch was still arched backward, screaming at the skies, but she didn't seem to have noticed her yet. Astrea didn't want to hurt her, but if she didn't make up her mind fast those black tendrils would flatten the prison below - and everyone inside!

Americana clenched her fist -

Then let her hand relax.

She was not, she scolded herself as she flew up toward Monarch, going to use violence without even trying to talk her down. What good are principles if you toss them aside the minute things get tough?

"Monarch!" Americana shouted to be heard over the din. "Tamara! Let me help you!"

"Oh, God," Monarch sobbed, "Burning... inside! Make it stop!"

"Tell me - what can I do? How - "

Monarch shrieked, her body thrashing against unseen forces.

It was all Americana could do to stand against the blaze of lightning that erupted from the clouds.

That... does it, Americana grit her teeth. If she was going to do anything she had better hurry - because if she got flattened so would the prison and everything for ten miles around, probably.

Americana circled Monarch warily; it probably didn't matter from which side she rushed her, because the woman wasn't actually directing those attacks.

"Unh.." Astrea staggered in the skies as another, stronger "twinge" hit her.

Just flying against the storm was using up her powers, fast!

Come on, girl, get it together, she told herself. In that one moment of weakness she had been blown back over thirty yards.

Americana held herself steady, and took a deep breath.

Then, she shot forward like a rocket.

Her arms were stretched wide, as if she were trying to embrace a sequoia; Monarch was a much smaller target than an airliner, and Americana hadn't learned to fly with much precision.

She felt her hair tingle as she streaked through the volatile air so quickly that the potential at the top of her body differed from that at her feet; tiny streaks of lightning ran down her body, following the paths of rivulets of rain.

Americana slammed into Monarch, her arms wrapping around the woman's torso just above the waist. Monarch's screams faded almost instantly as the impact knocked her unconscious.

Astrea shot over the prison with Monarch in her arms, her momentum carrying them through three distinct microclimates.

Americana slowed to a stop, and then watched as the weather zones... simply dissipated, wafting apart like strands of cotton candy.

Americana looked at the woman in her arms - exhausted, spent, and finally at peace.

The heroine shook her head. And she thought she had it rough sometimes.

Astrea descended slowly and landed on the muddy ground; staying airborne drained her powers too quickly. Then she gently carried Monarch back to the ridge where the police and guard had gathered.

Americana lay the unconscious woman on a stretcher as the assembled authorities cheered. "Be careful with her - she's more victim than villain."

"Yes ma'am," a paramedic replied.

"Nice job," Roswell said from behind her.

"Thanks," she sighed. "She said she was burning up inside. You might want to tell them to ease up on the drug therapy."

"We don't know that's what caused it," Roswell said, eyeing a pair of nervous prison officials. "But I'll check into it."

"So will I."

Americana said a silent prayer as the ambulance pulled away, wailing mournfully.

Roswell straightened his tie.

"So. Care for a lift back to the city?"

Astrea tensed as she remembered the ride out.

"No thanks," she smiled, patting him on the shoulder.

She turned to go.

"It looks like a nice night for walk."