Gaseous Girl and the Winds of Time 15: Stormy Weather
She's a flying brick with the power to control one of the fundamental states of matter, but no one takes her seriously. That's about to change.
Previously, Gaseous Girl had retrieved her evil self from the River Styx and pressed on and out into the fourth circle of hell, only to learn that her ex-boyfriend, Ben Wizowsky, was trapped up ahead in Circle Three. What will the two Gaseous Girls do now? Read on to find out…
Madeleine Prime had been through a lot of foul climates during her trek through hell. She'd been through a frozen lake and scorching desert heat, not to mention the foul-smelling rivers and ditches she'd sailed across or flown over. Now, however, as she trudged on through sheets of icy rain, her boots splashing through endless torrents of slush, Madeleine thought, once again, how much hell truly sucked.
She and her evil twin were several hours into Circle Three by now, and they were well and truly soaked. If it had been cool, clear shower water, or even an average summer rainstorm, Madeleine wouldn't have minded so much. But this grey water pouring down all around and over her tasted horrible and felt worse, a sort of concentrated essence of ickiness. Madeleine would need to bathe for weeks to get rid of it, if she ever could. Her evil twin, meanwhile, splashed gaily through the slush like a kid in puddles. Madeleine didn’t understand her evil counterpart, she really didn’t.
No one challenged them as they plodded through. Madeleine heard a distant howling, and vaguely remembered her Dante. She hoped the Cerberus part wasn't accurate. Madeleine was a cat person and not keen on dogs, especially giant three-headed ones that rent evil spirits with their mighty jaws. Happily Cerberus appeared to have other engagements just then. “Thank heaven for that,” she muttered, aware of the irony.
Just when she was beginning to think they'd gotten lost in the endless rain, she saw light. The two emerged from the endless rainstorm at last, their boots squelching as they pulled free of the mud. "When this is over," Madeleine said, "I'm moving to someplace dry. Arizona, maybe. New Mexico. They've got supervillains in New Mexico, right?"
"Wouldn't know," Evil Madeleine said. "Last time I was in New Mexico, I broke it."
"How do you.... oh, never mind." Madeleine wanted to take a breather, partly because it had been exhausting work going through Circle Three, and partly because she was afraid of Circle Two. She remembered Rain’s warning all too well. She knew people there.
She remembered the first time they'd met. It was a high school get-together, some sports party thing. She was bored (this was before her powers). Ben Wizowsky had found the karaoke machine, and did something in the way of 90s pop. He didn't kill her softly or anything, but he might have slightly injured her. Then he did Timon and Pumbaa's part of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?", and Madeleine laughed aloud. He heard her, and the rest was history. History, of course, often becomes tragic.
Madeleine wondered how he’d had ended up in hell. Car wreck? Supervillain? Plague? Her eyes, curiously, went misty. Maybe it was lingering rain from Circle Three. It was the rain, of course. Ben had cheated on her, dumped her for Lizzie Dern at the winter formal. Anyway, it had all been a long time ago. She was Gaseous Girl now. She was a flying brick. She could manipulate the gaseous state of matter. She Who Dealt It, they called her. She didn't need Ben or even miss him. Right?
"You okay?" Evil Madeleine said, more from idle curiosity than anything else.
"Yeah," Madeleine replied, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Peachy." Then, slowly, she turned away from the rain and started towards the howling winds of Circle Two.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Evil Madeleine yelled. “You sure we've got to go into that?"
Madeleine Prime shrugged. "Yep. Only way out."
"Oy," said Evil Madeleine as they drew closer.
The closer they drew to Circle Two, the more they realized the immensity of what they faced. Both Madeleines had seen tornadoes before, of course, but this tornado was way beyond anything they'd ever seen. It wasn't on the Fujita scale; it broke the Fujita scale.
A wall of banshee-howling wind stretched from horizon to horizon, black with dirt and blinding rain, shaking the ground beneath their feet. As she looked into the maelstrom, Madeleine Prime could see shadowed forms tossed about like leaves. They weren't leaves, not really; they were people, flailing, screaming, and generally waving about in eternal terror. Madeleine wondered which one was her ex-boyfriend. Given how hell worked, she was probably going to find out.
"So..." Evil Madeleine said, "how do we get through, genius?"
Madeleine Prime sighed. "You know our powers still work down here, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"The name's Gaseous Girl. I picked it because it fits what I can do. It's not just flame-blasts and flying brick stuff. I can control the gaseous state of matter."
Evil Madeleine hadn't quite caught it yet. "Yeah, yeah, I went to science class, okay?"
"You should've paid more attention," Madeleine said as she faced the unending windstorm. "Wind is moving air. And air is gas."
Then she got it. Evil Madeleine's eyes went wide as dinner plates. "You mean.... "
"Yep."
Madeleine Prime set herself, scrunched up her face, and concentrated hard on the tornado. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the wall of wind opened up. A corridor lanced down the middle of the storm, calm as the eye in a hurricane. The two Madeleines advanced cautiously into it. The wind promptly closed up behind them, so that they stood in a quiet bubble surrounded by howling chaos.
They kept moving forward. It was hard work. Madeleine's head pounded unmercifully with the mental strain of holding the tornado back. Sweat beaded across her forehead. She pushed on, driving herself forward. She only hoped she was headed in the right direction. Madeleine had done well so far, but still, it wasn't like there was a signpost informing her that they were 216 kilometers to the Exit from Hell. The Infernal Regions, alas, had a deplorable lack of signposts. No phone service down there, either, so her GPS app was right out.
At first they met no one. Then, suddenly, Evil Madeleine yelped in alarm. A tall figure, blond and athletic, had quite suddenly tumbled in their path. Madeleine gave him a dour look. "Stand aside, buddy."
He drew himself up in offended wrath. "Buddy? I am not to be addressed with such mere informality! I am the great Achilles, swift-footed, Zeus-sprung son of Peleus!"
"Yeah?" Madeleine said.
"Yeah," Achilles said sulkily. "Now, you appear to have found a way to flee this dread storm. I command you to open the way for me as well, that I might escape and rejoin the living world!"
"Sure thing," Madeleine said. Achilles heard the cheerful note in her voice and assumed she meant it.
He spun around, facing away from her, and stood ready. "Let us move forward!" he declaimed.
"Oh, Achilles?" Madeleine said.
"What?" he snapped, irritated at the delay.
"Heel."
"What?"
She shot a flame blast at a certain spot. The Greek hero yipped in pain. Then, Madeleine let up her concentration just a bit and Achilles was smacked away into the storm. Evil Madeleine collapsed in laughter.
Madeleine Prime rolled her eyes and took a step forward. To her annoyance, someone else had just landed in the calm bubble around them. "Right, who are you then, Cleopatra?"
Then she saw him. Ben. Madeleine froze. In that instant she forgot everything else. The storm closed around them.