Captain Britannia walked foward aimlessly; unable to see anything more than a few steps ahead of herself. A thick fog lay all around her, and looking down, she wasn't entirely sure that the ground was even there. The light seemed blindingly bright, and at the same time, an overwhelmingly dull gray. Just moments ago, the costumed hero had been giving a speech in front of a huge crowd.
She wondered where the hell she was, trying to remember what happened last. She was making a speech, then... gunshots. She remembered, the crowd started to panic, rushing left and right at the disturbance. How had she reacted?
She saw the vague form of a person in front of her. Figuring it was as good as anything else, she kept in that direction, walking towards the sillhouette. Eventually she was standing right in front of the person; a woman, as tall as she was, and probably not much older.
She tried to think of how to greet the woman, but was still distracted. She tried to replay the events of the last minutes she could remember. She was making a speech... yes, she knew that much. Then gunshots. And it slowly came back to her; she had looked around, looking for the source, realizing that it wasn't in the audience. And then she remembered, she had looked down, and realized that it was her that had been shot. And she'd instantly known why.
She looked down now, at her blue, red and white costume; it wasn't damaged at all, not a bit of blood on it. And then only one thought came to her mind.
"Am... I dead?" she asked; she already know what the answer was.
The woman in front of her nodded.
"Oh...," she said.
She thought that she would be shocked, but she couldn't bring herself to be. Instead, she just looked around, at her inexplicable surroundings; unable to make sense out of anything that she saw. But she knew that she was dead.
"Is... this heaven?" she asked. She wasn't sure why she was asking that. It seemed as good a question as any.
"Who knows," the woman in front of her answered with a shrug, finally speaking.
"Oh...," she said, again. "I see."
The woman reached out, putting her hand on Britannia's shoulder. She stared with mild surprise; for some reason, it reminded her of her mother.
"It's okay," the woman said with a smile.
All around her, the scenery started to change, the dim, bright fog forming different images; of places she'd been, places that she'd seen pictures of, all sorts of landscapes appearing and disappearing, blending and refracting into eachother. She gave up trying to make sense of any of it, and instead stared at the woman. She seemed familiar... why? She didn't recognize the face... so how did she know her?
Then for the first time, she noticed what the woman was wearing; under any other circumstances, it'd be the first thing she noticed, but she was distracted. She stared, realizing that the woman in front of her was wearing the same Roman helmet, the same blue, red and white officer's jacket in the pattern of the Union Jack.
"You're Captain Britannia," she said. She thought that she'd be more excited to say that, but her current situation had overwhelmed any of her enthusiasm. "The first one..."
"And so are you, apparently," the woman said, still smiling.
The girl, wearing the same costume as the woman, said nothing; not sure of what to the legendary hero.
"It's... an honour to meet you," she said at last.
"Darling... the honour's mine," the woman responded. "Come with me."
The woman started to walk away, and the girl followed after her, suddenly becoming aware that there were other people surrounding them, from all directions. Had they always been there? The two women both named Captain Britannia walked for a while, moving through sillouettes of people who didn't seem to notice them. They came to a table, with several people sitting at it; now that she noticed it, the girl realized that she had passed by other tables.
She took another look at her surroundings; the scenery still kept changing, but one image that stuck out more to her was that of a bar. She wondered what that meant, confusedly. Heaven's a bar? She sighed a bit, and decided not to think about it.
One of the people sitting at the table looked up at her, and greeted her.
"You must be the fifth Captain Britannia," a woman with an Irish accent said. "Welcome to... well. Welcome to the afterlife, I guess." She laughed a bit.
"Yes...," she said, suddenly unsure of herself. "I guess I am."
"Have a seat," the first woman said to her. The girl listened, sitting down at the table, and the woman followed. "I'm sure there are others... friends, or family, that you should find, in due time. But please... stay, humour us for a while."
That seemed like an acceptable idea to the girl... she hadn't a chance to think about that before, she was still too confused with trying to wrap her mind around over what had happened. She had been making a speech, then gunshots. And then she had died, and had found herself here. Where was here? She still didn't know. And then she was sitting at a table with strangers. She had been a war hero, going by the name Captain Britannia... is that why they wanted to talk to her?
"Nobody knows how to react at first," the woman with the Irish accent said. "It's alright."
The girl stared at the four others, slowly realizing who they all were. Each one of them wore a blue, red and white costume, except for the first woman's, each very different from her own; yet each still proudly portraying the same image, the flag. She realized that she recognized each of them. And it occured to her why she was there with them now; these were all the heroes who had adopted the name Captain Britannia before her.
"Oh...," she found herself saying again. She didn't know what to say, humbled by the presence of legends, even in death. "You're all..."
"These aren't the best circumstances, but I'm happy to meet you," the first woman said to her. "Happy to see the newest brave woman who continued the tradition."
The girl stared. She had no second thoughts about it when she first took up the name of Britannia, but now she was self-concious; realizing that in death, she was in the presence of great heroes, ones more important than she ever was.
"So how did you die? In the line of duty... or did you get to retire, live happily ever?" the sole man sitting there asked.
"Oh... err...," she thought hard, remembering her last moments, trying not to think about where she was now. "I was... uh... making a speech..."
"It's alright," the first woman said. "There's no rush; it all takes some time to adjust to. You don't need to remember everything right now."
"Okay," she said quietly.
"Take all the time that you need," the woman told her. "I'd love to hear your story eventually, but... for now, take your time. It's a lot to get used to."
The girl started to think... thinking about what? She didn't know what, but she was sure that she was supposed to think about something. Is that what heaven was, thinking to yourself? It didn't seem like much of a paradise to her; she could barely understand anything that was going on. What had happened to her? She was making a speech, then gunshots, and now she was dead... and talking to the heroes who'd taken up the name Captain Britannia before her.
"I'd...," she said to the first woman, not entirely certain of her words. "I'd... like to hear your story."