The Flying Deviants

F i
rst ly,
the Moth.
A collapsed star,
inhaling all the surrounding
light or a halogen explosion machine?
Both. The silver hair of The Moth whipcracks with
fizzings from stolen beams, panniered within a frame
- already slight as a shadow - that, at the bark of peril, can
wane, dissolving into walls, oozing up brickwork, unseen, a
slender corona the only give away. Not that you'd
want to find and corner this lunar
time bomb.
That is ,
un- less
you want
s your final o,
ight to be a hal

swooping to melt your eyes

II.

Next, the Human Shuriken,
a figure easily mistaken,
in shadow, for a bipedal model
of the common moloch, this girl
was born in New Orleans,
a softskin. A run-in
with the man-mist Feu-Fo-Lay
led to her current state.

That is, to say,
this combatant is sheathed
in sclerodermoid casing,
chitin-esque, yet light
for ease of flight. Controlled
by thought, grown in shoots
into a bio-armoury.

A snap and she is armed
with arrows, blades, all made
in her respiring factory.

Get close enough to touch
her shell and the reward
will be a practised jacknife
blushing cheeks
and releasing of
teeth like confetti.

More likely, a mid-range meeting.

When she cracks her back,
neither running nor shooting
in measures befitting
a crack platoon
will save her target.

White daggers, broken
shards of her exo-frame,
will pin them where they fall.

[no need for chalk outlines]

ready for the frisking of a lifetime.

III.

Thirdly, Gunfleet

Gunfleet is our walking battleship.
He's the single, sobre measure that'll tip
every conflict in our favour,
not that such behaviour
is our usual method, but should tattle, quip

and forward-planning fail us, this young Puck,
with his ten year old Toyota pick-up truck,
can quickly switch his body,
without ever getting bloody,
into cannons, rifles, pistols - try your luck.

With a snap, a bent-back forearm is a barrel.
Disregard its purpose to your peril!
He can break off some limb-end
and toss it to a friend.
Voila! A hand-gun. No more fighting feral.

And if you're thinking, 'What of ammunition?'
(I know mutant-brought-on deaths arouse suspicion,)
be assured that he could use live
rounds but as we can't I've
made certain that on any standard mission

his slugs are only pulses of hot air.
They can punch through balsa wood like it's not there,
but the blow is never lethal
to a human, though their teeth'll
be looser, I expect. Hope the've got spare.

IV.

Fourthly, Smuggler

It's not just her sword Smuggler can hide,
her chest quivers,
an interdimensional well inside,
that could swallow rivers.

Her chest quivers,
with the skill to vanish countries,
to swallow rivers
in her heart-moled valley.

With the skill to swallow countries,
she could skip across borders.
As, in her heart-moled valley
a secret shivers.

She could skip across borders,
attracting no more than a flirt.
A secret shiver
to herself. The pirate at work.

Attractive, a born flirt,
with an interdimensional well inside
herself. The pirate at work,
It's not just her sword Smuggler can hide.

V.

Lastly, Spitfire. The kinesthetic smithey.
He's the wild card (every team needs one.)
Lacks formal fighting skills. A little pithy

maybe, but his power is second-to-none.
In his hands, any object, any material -
wood, leather, brick, nylon, carbon -

becomes, if he wishes it, quite malleable.
He can reaarange it utterly, like origami,
into anything. The world is his Ariel,

if within reach, or perhaps his Swiss Army
Knife. Think javelins to just-cut keys.
A side effect of this 'Everything's Salami'

business is that dust kicks up. He's
re-shaping so quickly, particles billow
back in his face, causing him to sneeze.

His scarf combats this, keeps him mellow.
Also, when he uses his powers, blood
runs from his eyes like hot tallow.
We don't know why. It can't be good.

VI.

That's my team. Now, about me.
I am the tactition, rather than the 'leader' or 'matriarch'.
But it's as good as, when your team are in the dark
as to their longterm strategy.

I am a polypath. My brain
can perform various functions simultaneously.
I can hold three conversations at once, empty
ammo clips swiftly when we train

(only in approved training facilities, I should add,)
while number-crunching at the speed of an old Amstrad

and reciting the poems of Catullus.
In fact, while I have been writing these comments
I've also, without pause, been building an immense
match-stick scupture, shaped like a phallus.

I would rather have been cooking
but I didn't want to flour or sauce the form.
I'll conclude here. So, kindest regards and warm
wishes (I hear the clucking

of your tongues already!) Mary Read, expedient
tactician and matriarch of the Flying Deviants.