5.8 Seconds to live

Meredith was sitting on a park bench enjoying the calm early morning in the capitol. A rare chance seeing as this was a death-trap for the A-list, and top ten most wanted person in the world. She didn't do anything bad but the government wanted to find her badly. She rested her tired eyes only for a moment when she felt the ground start to quiver and shake. She thought nothing of it, and went to sleep. She was raised on a fault-line, so any sort of movement was natural to her, and almost always went unnoticed.

Khronos wasn't that far away from Meredith, getting the young woman some food from a nearby concession stand while hiding out in her holoform, and soon walked back to Meredith with the ice-cream and water.

"Enjoying the weather?" Khronos asked, just as the rumbling started. She didn't think anything of it; it could have just been Shockwave's creation, the Driller, passing by. He usually did around the summer, she'd noticed, and he didn't make much damage.

Meredith was fast asleep. She suddenly jumped awake and screamed, "EARTHQUAKE!" as the ground began to shake and rumble below her. She bolted when she saw some people in danger and shoved them out of the way, getting her ankle stuck in a crack as the ground started to shake, crumble and spike up randomly like the world was crashing in on itself in a violent fit.

Buildings tumbled over, roads split and the Earth shook more than Shockwaves Driller ever could make it. Something was wrong and the locals knew it right away.

One of the jagged rock lines shooting up was going right for the crack Meredith had her foot stuck in. She panicked and tugged hard to get away. "KHRONOS!!"

As soon as Khronos heard Meredith's scream, she knew how grave of a mistake the femme had made in ignoring the early tremors. The things in her hands fell and sloshed to the ground as she made a mad-dash to Meredith, not caring who saw her at the moment, the Archaic only know that she wanted was to get Meredith out of here. And, to do that, Khronos transformed her arm into a cannon and blasted at the asphalt, making it explode and turn to gravel.

The Archaic grabbed Meredith and held her close as she warped back to where her body was, just a few miles from DC, somewhere in the woods. "Hold on!" Khronos said as the holoform disappeared, leaving Meredith to climb into the cockpit herself.

Meredith stumbled from the quick movements. Being raised on a fault she calmly walked over to the femme and climbed up the ladder, even if the ground threatened her very life currently. True, she was scared, she always had a level of fear now, but flipping out would make her guardian even more tensed up and that was not the best option. She sat down in the seat and slowly buckled herself in.

Once Meredith was in, Khronos took off and became much calmer. She liked being on the ground, but there was too much that could happen. The air was much safer; even with tornadoes and whatnot, she could easily maneuver herself away...on the ground she was useless and could do nothing but run.

It was very quiet for a while before Khronos spoke up, her voice soft. "I'm sorry for freaking out," she said, flying over what remained of the DC-Metropolitan area. "I just...hate disasters..." And that was something big for her to admit, being the stoic femme she usually was.

Meredith softly pat the control panel as if calm, but the tremor in her hands told a different story. She was scared and rattled. She looked down only once but not again at the painful destruction the Earthquake caused in only seconds of tremors. "It's alright," she finally said after a while, "I was scared to...but that lady was in danger so I jumped to help," she smiled softly and hugged herself again, tugging the seat belt on a bit tighter.