Lash: Prom Dresses, Prom Messes

"POOOOOOOOP!"

The vocal on the word was loud, expressive and clearly from someone in pain.

Olevia had just been informed that she would be shopping for prom dresses alone via text... this was, to her at least, worse than a break up via text with a boyfriend. The nature of her primal scream wouldn't have been so bad except that she was already in the store waiting for her friend and it was full of now startled shoppers. Several were looking for possible explosives, a fire, SOMETHING to acknowledge the level of intensity exiting from this young lady's mouth.

"She bailed!" Olevia Alvarez, sometimes known to people around Millennium City as the teen powerhouse LASH, stated to a woman shopping beside her who was trying to recover from a near heart attack the shout produced. "She was SUPPOSED to be here SHOPPING with me and she bailed! Do you KNOW what's more important than prom? I'll tell you: NOTHING. NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROM. WHY IS ERIN TOTALLY FAILING TO GET THIS???"

"Uhhh, who is Erin? Your girlfriend?" the woman, a late thirties mother whose daughter had been trying on dresses for prom herself, offered in response to this stranger.

"NO! Like... my best friend, ERIN. She's totally busy and was supposed to come here and shop for awesome prom dresses so Ollie and Sid would be WAY impressed and totally want us even more than they do now. And how can I do that if SHE CAN'T EVEN BE HERE TO SHOP WITH ME?" Olevia stammered, her eyes affixed to the text message.

Olevia looked up after her outburst, and by that time the mother had escaped to the other side of the store and the relative safety of not being close to this (currently) red hot Latina teen. The young woman shrugged it off and looked down at her phone again, scrolling through her list of friends.

Jill? No, they didn't have anything in black here that looked good and besides Jill's mood was like the weather at times... unpredictable. Teresa? No, she couldn't even ENVISION her in a dress... far too tomboyish and studious. She wasn't even sure if Liza HAD a phone number... did iphones work underwater? She briefly considered calling Deevs but quickly pushed the thought out of her mind as she recalled he had a date with Cait currently... and the image of them together playing with yarn and various cat related toys gave her a slight smile.

"I'm sorry, Miss... did I hear you say that you were wanting to buy a prom dress?" a man called out. He was slender, with hands behind his back and quite rather creepy in a way but heck... Erin wasn't here so she was willing to talk to anyone who would hear her out at the moment.

"Uh, YES!" Olevia said, exasperated from the hard work of tackling a shopping spree solo for all of fifteen seconds now. "My friend Erin was SUPPOSED to be here but she HAD to cancel because something was WAY important and I'm NEVER going to find a dress now. NEVER!"

"Well, what about... this?" the man replied in a calm, monotone voice as he pulled his hands from behind his back to in front of him. In one of his hands he had an exquisite red prom dress with a bejeweled bustier top. It was GORGEOUS.

"SOLD!" Olevia exclaimed, snatching the dress out of the man's hand. "How much is it?"

"For you, free," he offered, clasping his hands together to watch the joy upon her face. "I was going to tell you earlier that you were our thousandth customer today... congratulations. But before you leave, would you like to try it on?"

Free was a price that Olevia was not going to argue with. How great was the worst day in her life suddenly became the best. What were the chances? She nodded mutely, her face bright and lively as she scampered to the dressing rooms in a hurry. Completely unaware of anything in her oncoming personal space, she pushed through a gaggle of mothers and their daughters searching racks upon racks of gaudy dresses. Several commented about Olevia's rudeness, but she clearly was on a different plane of existence, at least mentally, for it to register.

Going into the changing room she tossed off her clothes and put the long red dress on. She worked the zipper in the back, her fingers trembling in excitement to see how much more beautiful this would make her look (as she was already drop dead gorgeous). Ollie was going to fall FLAT when he saw her in this dress, she reassured herself. Looking in the mirror, her thoughts were easily confirmed. She looked HOT. She was wondering that afterwards she might just even take HER money and use it to buy ERIN a dress as well since she wasn't here. She saw Erin's apartment (way small) and where she worked (soup kitchen) and knew that she didn't have the funds probably to afford something nice. Besides, Olevia's taste in clothing was better and Erin couldn't say no to a dress with a possible plunging neckline if she wasn't around.

Olevia took one hand to swirl her hair up off her neck as her other hand rested on her stomach to pose. As she turned to the side, she took in a normal breath.. and it felt rather difficult. The dress surely SEEMED her size when she first put it on just a minute ago, but now felt tighter. Was water retention going on? Did her morning breakfast of one egg and a piece of celery make her suddenly gain weight? Another breath, and it felt even more labored.

It was the dress! It seemed to be squeezing upon her, and Olevia felt like she was stuck in a vise. She practically fell over as the dress pulled tighter, both hands going to the small room's wall to keep her upright. She was being squeezed to death. A scream for help was attempted but it just pulled even more air from her lungs and sounded like a gurgling sound. Her hands tried to go under the dress to pry it off but it was hopeless. A thud, the sound of her finally connecting to the floor, was overshadowed by the army of shoppers outside the fitting room.

Olevia's eyes went blurry. She thought of Erin and Sid on the Boomcycle, laughing... Ollie overcome with grief at Olevia's funeral as he would have to remain single forever... Cait and Deevs sharing a bowl of Meow Mix in the park in Spring... Miss Pussycakes...

In her most heroic moment, Olevia summoned the last of her reserves as she felt consciousness leaving her.

"Luuuh-- Luuuhnwuuu-- Longwang..."

A flash of jade filled the fitting room. and in the place of Olevia on the floor was Lash. However, that damn dress was still on her! She took her gloved hands and pulled at the fabric, and as she did so it seemed more like webbing that actual clothing. As she struggled, it seemed to attempt to tether to her body as strands would shoot back onto her frame and reconnect. Lash burst out of the dressing room, the door collapsing and causing a scene to everyone in the store. Awaiting her was the creepy man.

"Guh-- GET THIS OFF ME!" Lash exclaimed, pulling at the dress still.

"Consider this payback for that little scene at the fashion show a few months back," the man said, cords of fabric bolts shooting off from several areas of the store and collecting upon his figure. They began to cover his body entirely as swaths of women were being struck by random other bolts, each one striking like a whip upon flesh. Lash, still breathing heavily, paused to see the man change into his costumed form.

"Fuh--- FASHION MAVEN!" Lash stated out loud, realizing that this was an enemy the team dispatched at a Millennium City fashion show some time back. She had THOUGHT the Progeny had dealt with him... clearly she was wrong. Fashion Maven simply laughed as bolts of cloth nailed Lash, each one possessing a strength that seemed to even test her own super powered limits. Four bolts, each one grabbing an arm and leg, sent her careening into a wall and holding her still, the dress still on and still crushing her, albeit more slowly in her powered up form.

The tensile strength was unbearable. And here Lash thought SHE was strong! "Guhh-- GET OUT, everyone! I, uhh--" Lash began as the vise grip of the dress was again testing her ability to breathe, "I guhh--- GOT this!"

The doors of the shop were now covered in the magical bolts of fabric under the Fashion Maven's command. No one was coming in and no one was leaving. All she wanted was ONE PRETTY DRESS and her day was being RUINED. Fashion Maven surveyed the chaos with a look of satisfaction as he walked to her, the masses of the public hurriedly getting out of his way.

"I'm starting with you," Fashion Maven began, drawing a long piece of fabric from his now entirely covered body and whipping it like one might with a belt as he walked up to Lash's face. "I OWE you this. And after you... all your friends. Anything you want to say about THAT, Miss Smartypants?"

"Juh--- Just one," Lash said, somewhat weakly. "BLAAAAARRRGGGH!"

It wasn't a word that she used to express herself. It was a green hot, expanse of flame that was expelled like projectile vomit from Lash's mouth in a blast that covered Fashion Maven's entire upper body given his close proximity. The bolts of fabric adorning his body immediately went up in flames as they erupted. Lash quickly fell to the ground, the tethers that held her suddenly not working as the villain's thoughts were clearly upon his own self preservation. The dress seemed to give as well, and Lash made no time to wait it ripping it off of her body. As Fashion Maven danced around, still shrieking from the fire, Lash pressed the attack, connecting right into him, though the roof of the store and outside the building. And she continued even then, Maven's body flailing.

"Things you don't hurt: ME. MY FRIENDS. DEEVS AND CAIT SHARING MEOW MIX IN THE PARK ON A SPRING DAY!" Olevia said angrily, though the speed at which they were travelling made it so that her words were incomprehensible to the villain, who was clearly getting the picture he was outmatched... though at least the high speed blew out the flames on his body.

Fashion Maven ALSO didn't realize where he was: way, way above Earth. In fact, it was a scary height, somewhere that Lash didn't even realize SHE had attained until they were both there. "Now, stay here and THINK about what you've done!" Lash said, flinging the hapless villain into orbit. She wasn't quite sure WHERE he went... she just knew that it was a good toss as his body turned from human sized, to a tiny speck, to nothing at all. One of her better throws, for sure.

Lash flew down to Earth, her stomach feeling a tad nauseous from accelerating so fast and achieving the height she did. She actually HATED heights so this was new territory for her. Thankfully, she kept it together as she descended, hoping that she could relocate Millennium City just by looking at the general geography below. If not, well, at least she'd have an exciting day trip...?

And hey, a pretty interesting story for Erin, to boot.