She emerged
From her pearled shell
Gossamer-winged
With luminous scales.

She soared into the sky,
Shedding the white ash
That extinguished her
The first time.

She stopped mid-flight,
Hovered by a cloud
Eyesight restored
Razor-sharp focused

On four figures
On the ground,
On her murderers
Walking hand-in-hand

With her children
Outside a mall
She once brought them
Twice weekly

Until they took her and
Buried her alive, lying
To her devastated children
That she died.

She woke up
Breathing in soil.
Thinking fast, she pulled
Her shirt over her face

In that shallow grave
Where I found her,
Almost asphyxiating,
Hands torn and bloody

From clawing at
The hardened soil,
Thinking only
Of her babies.

I placed her in a shell
To heal and to transform.
She emerged powerful,
Unbreakable.

The fury was all hers.
She would join us but first,
She had to save her children.
I expected nothing less.

I nodded and told her
It would be her first mission.
We flanked her in the sky
As she hovered

Then dove down
Bullet-fast
Swooping her children
Safely into her arms

Before she turned back
To the ground and
Incinerated her murderers
With fire from her eyes.

They collapsed
In blackened ash
Before the wind picked up
And dissipated them.

There was justice
In this world, she thought
As she revealed her face
To her weeping children.

They made their home with us
In the chamber of shells where
We transformed battered women
And helped them save their children.

I smiled
As our numbers grew,
Wishing we’d been there
To rescue mine.