StarDestroyer.Net BBS

These original stories takes place in a world created joint by me and Setzer. So he takes partial credit even the times I stand entirely for storyline and characters.

They'll take the form of mostly independent small short stories with the occasional longer one split up into multiple parts focusing on a few of my characters (For now at least). Styles will vary greatly from story to story.

First up is a two for one as in my opinion the first one is a bit too weak to throw up on it's own. Both are darker than my usual fare.


EDIT: Also Stafett is the name of the verse, not the name of the character. Somebody pointed out that I wasn't very clear on that. Sorry about that.





The punch came in fast, but he grabbed his partner’s arm and pushed him off balance.

Self defense training. It was some easy sparring.

The others in the class had said he had made incredible leaps.

He was cheating, sort of, but training that cheating skill was the main reason to be here.

“How the hell are you doing that?!”

“You are telegraphing your moves.” That was the truth, his sparring partner just wasn’t telegraphing it with his body, but with his mind.

*********************************************************************

A flash of fear, but eased off. Whatever it was couldn’t be serious, no reason to put the suit on.

The suit was laid out on his bed. He had spent months making it.

He probably could have gotten by on being less thorough, it’d have been easier to just take a standard Kevlar vest than the armor he’d put in, but it’d let him put off putting it on and carrying through what he had decided earlier.

He didn’t want to. He realized the risks.

It laid there as if taunting him. He put it away.

He told himself he wasn’t ready.

*************************************************

BANG

The 9mm round hit close to dead center. A range wasn’t the real deal, but it helped, he knew how to handle a firearm if necessary now.

**************************************************

One of his classmates had been raped. It took him a few minutes to figure it out, given that it was so unacceptable to speak of. But he felt the shame, the fear. And how it spiked if it anything remotely sexual came up.

Limited telepathy was a bitch at times like this.

Maybe it was something in an alley. Something he could have stopped if he had gone through with putting his suit on and going into action. At least if he had been lucky enough to be there.

Maybe it was somebody she thought she could trust, but had been violated where she thought she was safe.

He couldn’t know, he just knew that something bad had happened. One of those things he’d sworn what felt so long ago that he’d fight to prevent.

Another coin in the pile that said he had to act.

*****************************************************

Flash! A fist high! He blocked it.

Flash of a foot trying to hit low and get him off balance. He sidestepped it.

The brief instant as they decided what to do and what sort of attack they threw was clear to him. One of the things he could read. The action they were going to commit right now.

He felt his sparring partner’s frustration as he kept being untouchable.

He hoped he’d never have to face robots.

*******************************************************

Somebody tried to mug him today. If he had a pistol instead of a knife he’d probably have cooperated. But as it was just a knife… He’d fought back.

He’d noticed the knife as the mugger approached, that’s why he had let him attempt it.

He’d broken the muggers arm. He didn’t mean to. It had been an accident.

It reminded him that no matter how clean he tried to fight people would get hurt. And not all of them could be called evil; a lot of them were just desperate.

And no matter how he did it, some of them would probably end up crippled or dead. Bad falls, accidents, and some cases he would probably cause it deliberately if other people were in danger.

It wasn’t enough to be willing to risk your own skin, you had to be willing to kill. He had felt death. He hated it.

But it would almost certainly be the lesser evil at times.

***************************************************************

A murder case had been quietly forgotten. The victim had been nobody important, and the suspected perp had connections.

An apartment building burned down. It wasn’t up to code. They had arrested the superintendant, but the problems were in the way it was built, not how it was ran.

There had been a step up for the hunt for imported pornography

Apparently that was a bigger threat than a rich kid murdering somebody for kicks.

Only bits of this had made it to the media. It had taken listening in with his ears and his unique ability to be sure they were telling the truth.

The front page story had been about the decay of values in society. Apparently people didn’t go to church enough. He hadn’t bothered to read that in full.

**************************************************************

He affixed a silencer to the pistol. It was a modified M9 berretta now firing tranqs instead of bullets. It had been hard to come by, but he wanted less lethal options. This was going to be his main weapon.

He holstered it.

He didn’t feel ready, but in truth if he wanted to improve his skills by any real degree any further it’d take years.

He took out the mask, the final step. Hiding who he was seemed a bit cowardly, but he was going to rip into things it wasn’t popular to rip into. Superheroes had been ostracized for that in the past.
He wondered if he’d stop feeling like Frank Baker when he put on the mask. Like it’d make him forget to be a decent person when he was hiding, or if he’d feel stronger when he got distance from himself.

He took a deep breath and put it on.

It didn’t feel as momentous as it ought to. In fact he didn’t feel any different.

Time to see if he had what it took to be a superhero of the kind he felt he could respect.






And story number 2:




”This is boring.”

”Just keep focused, it won’t be long.” Jack tried to keep a bright outlook as they stood watch.

“Unless they find something more wrong with that damned truck.” Tony was more of a pessimist.

It should have been an in and out, just take some drugs out of the cargo and leave.

And then the damn forklift truck had broken down, so they couldn’t get to the right containers in a hurry, and the keys to the rest were missing, probably shift personnel who hadn’t put the keys back but in their pockets, bad habits flourish whenever they aren’t regulated.

They walked past the dark corner not looking very deeply. Nothing had been there the first few passes.

Nothing should have been here now.

As it stood Tony hadn’t been pessimistic enough.

Something came up behind them. They barely noticed it before it hit.

Then Tony fell to the floor with a grunt as he was pistol-whipped from behind, while Jack convulsed under the ministrations of a tazer.

There were two pops in rapid succession. Tony felt a sting, then it got harder to think. Was he dead? Why didn’t this stranger shoot them immediately? Then he blacked out.

Frank Baker now in full costume started hauling them into the corner, it wouldn’t stand up to a close look, but it’d make them a bit harder to see.

The downside of the tranquilizer pistol was that contrary to what you’d think it wasn’t a very good sneaking weapon, it took a good 10-20 seconds before they lost conscience entirely, and it was highly random. For sneaking he had to ensure they were in no shape to call for help before he could put them out for the night.

He hoped neither of them would have an adverse reaction. As far as people go they hadn’t felt that bad, just working people who happened to have an unethical profession without thinking too hard on it.

It was depressing how few people in organized crime were really maliciously evil.

This was going to be fairly tight, he had to figure right now that he may not get all the drugs as planned.

Okay so he might have screwed up. He had sabotaged the forklift trucks so he’d have more time to take out the guards farther away from the main operation here. What he hadn’t expected was them to not have fixed it yet. The people he had taken down could only be out of action for so long before they were missed.

Murphy was a son of a bitch.

Ideally they’d fix it so he’d have enough time to take out the guards farther out, but they would have the drugs gathered ready to leave before they’d suspect.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Change of plans. He hated relying on a corrupt police force, and he certainly couldn’t leave all the drugs to them if he wanted to keep it off the streets, but it was the best out of many bad options.

Okay. He certainly didn’t want to take on nine people in a fair fight, but he had planned for that. He crept up towards what seemed a good spot to start his attack from. Then he pulled out a remote.

At this range he could sense distance and direction to a nearby mind. He didn’t need light to see them.

The tiny charge he’d put in the fuse box plunged the place into darkness. However it might have started an electric fire. He’d have to drop by with a fire extinguisher before leaving just in case. He didn’t really understand electronics well enough to say for sure, but better safe than sorry.

There were shouts, and he felt fear, anger and apathy. The Apathy really shouldn’t have surprised him, but a lot of people just went “what now”.

He worked the slide. Damn tranq pistol couldn’t handle semi automatic.

Start picking them off, keep moving.

Three darts fired, two people hit. Damn he had practiced this, but while he knew where they were, he couldn’t see the gun. That was making it harder to aim.

Even silenced it wasn’t completely silent. They immediately realized they were under attack and opened up.

He knew they couldn’t see him.

Damnit. It wasn’t as effective as he’d thought. He had hit three people now, but only two had fallen. It wasn’t a very reliable weapon.

Okay think. He ducked down when he felt certain one of them was going to fire at where he was.

What could help even the odds? It was now seven against one and one of those were wobbly.

While firing like that they were effectively deaf. He didn’t know exactly where they were firing unless they had a clue where he was, it’d be dangerous to rush them, but it’d be safer than an extended gunfight even with his edge.

He went out of cover sideways, he knew at least one had spotted something in the dark so he’d known where Frank was a few seconds ago, but he’d lost sight of him now.

The idea of pitch black was a good one, but the problem was that it hadn’t been pitch black. He’d only taken out lights at the docks here, there were still enough ambient light from lights outside the premises to give some visibility, thankfully the muzzle flashes had helped scramble their vision and the gunshots had deafened them momentarily.

They had stopped shooting looking for a target, but for the moment their senses were too overwhelmed to be useful. His weren’t. Not to that point.

He still almost tripped over something metal when trying to get close.

“What was that?!”

Too little, too late! The taser found flesh.

“He’s over there! Shoot!”

HOLY SHIT! They just fired with abandon. He had picked it up just in time and threw himself flat. The guy he had tasered wasn’t so lucky.

He felt the criminal die, in pain, in fear, shot half a dozen times and fading fast. He’d felt it before, even walking down the streets, but he still hated it.

“Stop shooting damnit! You’ll hit Mitchell!”

He forced himself up. He forced himself to move. He attacked the rest. Taser, tranq and feet at point blank. One noticed him and tried to strike him, but he sidestepped and put the taser into his arm while simultaneously firing a tranq. Working the slide despite the difficulty of having an object in each hand he got a new one loaded.

He was out of tranqs now, couldn’t load a spare magazine. He should have reloaded before going in close, too late now. Discard and use a fist instead. 4 goons left.

One of them spotted him, started shooting, he dodged aside warned that split second he needed to do so ahead of time. However as he was in among them it struck another one. A scream of pain and fear rang out from the stricken criminal.

The one that had shot got a taser and pistolwhip twofer knocking down for a few seconds at least, enough time to take on the last two. One got tasered, the last guy lashed out as he attacked and knocked it out of his hand.

It’d been a blind attack, that’s why he hadn’t realized it would hit him. But there was no choice. He threw himself at his enemy, relying on his skill to stay ahead. He knocked an arm upwards just as the hand pulled the trigger. It was painfully loud even through the hearing protection in the helmet he wore as part of his mask.

A hard kick to a shin forced the gangster to double over, a hard knee to his nose broke it. A quick pull now that his target was off balance. A knee to his back and grabbing his arms he affixed the zip cuffs.

A lot of the rest were conscious and recovering. He quickly in turn restrained them and pulled out his flashlight to recover his gear.

About two thirds of the drugs had been loaded into the car. The rest were still in the containers they weren’t able to reach. He took a small sample just in case the cops were too stupid to find the rest.

Then he tried to find the keys.

It took him a good two minutes to realize the keys were in the ignition.

He called the cops shortly after leaving the premises. They’d be there well after he got away. He felt nauseous. He pulled over.

He could sense there wasn’t anybody around, but right now it wouldn’t have mattered. He pulled his mask off and threw up.

It had been terrifying. He’d taken on random crime, but he knew that’d make no difference. This was the first time he’d taken on a serious operation.

He really didn’t want to do that again. And yet he felt certain he had to.

He sat down for a bit hugging himself. He heard the sound of bullets impacting around him still echoing in his mind. The gunshots that had gutted the gangster in front of him repeating before his eyes again and again.

He pulled himself together after several minutes, the packets with drugs were too many to carry. He’d drive it somewhere safe and torch the car and it’s cargo. Get rid of it.

Hopefully this would have a positive effect, but he honestly wasn’t certain, probably they’d be back on the street shortly, and there’d be more drugs.

He forced himself to focus on what had happened, be analytical, consider carefully. What could he have done to avoided the mistakes he had made tonight.

He would not get any sleep tonight.






Disclaimer:
The world we made was made with the premise that it worked a specific way and trying to find out how to make it work that way. That led to some major changes in attitude and politics. It was not meant as a reflection of our world, or a criticism of some ideal. Frankly we didn't care and just took what we felt would fit the storylines we wanted.

Also: My most sincere apologies for not having the inspiration to continue my other stuff right now.

What separates a hero from a violent vigilante?

That question echoed through his mind as he closed the top hatch of the elevator. Now he just had to wait for it to stop on the right floor. That could take some time.

This time he carried a heavier load than he used to, Smoke and flash grenades hung from webbing on his torso, a real gun on his hip as well as the tranq gun on a front holster.

He wasn’t going to prevent a crime this time, not an immediate one anyway.

He was here to perpetrate one.

It had been dumb luck overhearing a conversation while scouting out a potential target. It was a conversation regarding trust, respect, and incompetence.

It turns out that getting an operation fucked over by a single person who wasn’t Captain Gallant or some other obvious superhuman reflected badly on the person in charge.

It wouldn’t last if he had a too high success rate, but faking a failure was easy enough.

They’d figure out that the mere fact that he’d been able to show up at so many of their sites and operations meant he was more than just a random busybody fairly soon.

But in a brief window of opportunity in a group that values meritocracy there was no clear successor, several of the obvious candidates were weaker, and a couple of the less desirable were stronger.

Now this wasn’t some fairy tale where causing a minor succession conflict would solve all problems., but if one arose there were a lot of people counting on favor from the head of this family to stay safe.

Corrupt individuals with a specific patron were suddenly exposed. Some evidence of indiscretions with wider reaching implications and they’d leap at the chance to get rid of rivals.

The sort of implications that got innocent people killed, so if dealt with could save potentially hundreds of lives.

But it all relied on there being a succession crisis for a major gang. And that meant the current head had to be gone. In a way he wasn’t coming back from.

He couldn’t even be sure it was going to work like that, there were so many things that could go wrong, but he couldn’t pass up a score like that.

Even if the price was becoming an assassin.

He shied away from the word murder even mentally.

Frank Baker, university student, slightly telepathic superhero wannabe, was going to kill a man on the hope that it’d allow him to save more, killing for hope.

It sounded a lot less reasonable when he put it that way.

Another group entered, three minds. Two were worried, both for themselves and for somebody else.

Oddly enough those two variances of that emotion did feel different. The third mind was drugged. It was probably an opiate, heroin unless he missed his guess. It wasn’t exactly easy to tell the exact drug based on how the mind felt. Thankfully he could feel what went on in the elevator.

“We can’t let the boss know about this.”

“He’s going to mighty angry if he finds out we hid this from him.”

“There’s a lot going on. I don’t think he can take it right now.”

Somebody important to the boss had drugged up on their own drugs. Well the last was an assumption, but a reasonable one given that their main drug they worked with was heroin.

There was a grim irony in that, one that he felt guilty over taking some pleasure in. Especially as the overall impression from the person was one who was deeply ashamed.

They had however stopped at the right floor. He would wait a few minutes, then drop down.

The old man didn’t believe too much in modern security, relying on more guards instead of gizmos. This was fine with Frank. He couldn’t sense a motion detector, but he could sense a guard. He could sense when there wasn’t anyone near enough to see the elevator door for a few moment and could open and leave it then.

And once outside the elevator he always knew how near and how alert a guard was. That meant that getting caught except by extremely bad luck wasn’t really on the agenda tonight.

Another patrol passed by missing him as he hid inside an empty room. A guard could only take so much before they started slacking off, not looking that closely, not checking every side room.

There was only one major problem with his plan he realized just now.

There was nothing obvious distinguishing the mind of his target from everybody else not a guard on this floor.

So he would have to check them individually before making his attack.

That was going to take time, slightly peeking into doorways and trying to identify. An middle aged woman, a younger woman, the drug user from earlier with another man watching him apparently making sure he was okay from the impressions he got. Neither of which was his target.

This was too easy. It nagged at him. He had been making enough of a nuisance that they should at least have stepped up security by now.

He stopped looking and started listening, feeling the general atmosphere of this building, it was one of worry, not fear but worry.

He’d expected something similar so he hadn’t really considered it, but it was subtly wrong, given how he had operated they should have been more scared, not the sort of worrying you do when grandma is sick, the sort of worry you get when somebody is out to get you and you aren’t quite sure what you are dealing with. Yet this definitely was the grandma is sick variant.

Why?

The next door only had a single individual behind it, intensely worried, and from the general impression he got he’d call him shady but not as bad as you’d expect from somebody senior in this sort of organization.

The person was behind a large desk, but was turned away from the door, totally preoccupied.

The worry here was more “My favorite Grandma is probably dead by morning” type.

He really had to write a proper spectrum of emotions some day. He forced that down. Head in the game, no distractions.

The plan was simple. Find the target, empty a full clip of tranqs into him. It’d be quick, it’d be painless, it’d be the least unpleasant to sense of the options he had available. It was a bit shameful that he’d take his own comfort into consideration when picking method of execution, but the other reasons stood.

And yet...

No, keep the eyes on the objective. Confirm whether or not this was the target, then handle it.

He approached from an angle. It certainly looked like the guy, but he was staring at a picture.

He had some assist from his ability to use scattered impressions to fill in what he could barely see.

It was a picture of a young boy. In a sudden insight he realized it was the same person that was drugged in another part of the house, and most likely it was his son.

Frank had known his target had a family, but so did most of the people whose lives had been ruined by this man.

He called him a target, the boss, some faceless man, anything to dehumanize him. For some people that was easy, but when you could do what Frank could. It was never easy.

Still. He knew he could do it. He’d probably have nightmares a few nights, but it didn’t seem that hard.

STOP!

Why had he stopped? He had resolved to go through with it. It would give a chance to go a long way to achieving what he set out to do.

Because it was stupid!

All the pieces were there. He knew this guy’s resolve was shaken.

The guard was light because the status of this crime empire was irrelevant. Not when his family was on the scales.

Obviously some trouble with the son, and from all appearances it had gotten pretty bad, it was probably tearing his family apart.

More importantly at least part of it came from his own criminal activity.

Finally the guy wasn’t a sociopath. He convinced himself what he did wasn’t so bad, but that was very, very common, and it could be attacked, defeated.

He shouldn’t de-humanize him. He should use his powers to humanize him! Take him on in the one field where if there was any hope of victory his powers made him near unbeatable.

He holstered the gun he hadn’t even realized he had drawn. Situation had changed, it was no longer necessary.

“Michael Lombardi.”

The head of the Lombardi family almost jumped out of the chair. “Who are you!? How did you get in here!?” His hand darted towards a desk drawer.

“If I was here to harm you I’d have already done so.”

Michael Lombardi was nothing if not cool under pressure. It came with the job. He forced himself to look relaxed, but Frank knew that his head wasn’t really in the game.

“I presume you are the mystery figure my lieutenants complain about that seems to know every transfer point and hideout we have in this city? Then why are you here? A message? A demand?”

”A suggestion, one I know you are thinking of, a cursory look around proves that.”

“And that would be?” He was angry, worried, a little bit scared, and distracted. He was probably just moments away from calling for guards.

“Get out of the game before it tears your family apart.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The fact that your son is using the drugs you shipped in.”

“How do you know that?!” Rage, but coated in shame. This was the make or break.

“I scout my mission sites extensively beforehand. I saw him get taken up here by your men obviously drugged, it was easy enough after that he was abusing them extensively and is almost certainly heavily addicted. That he’s the drugs you’d sell is just a guess, but that would be the easiest for him to get. Your more loyal men try to hide it from you because they knew it would hurt you, but you kept too close an eye on your organization to miss it.” Every time Frank said something his listener knew to be correct it was obvious in his mind. And that told him he had hit bullseye this time.

“You come in here to show off how much you know for what?”

“For you to dismantle the criminal side of your business, focus on your legal business and respect safety regulations.”

“And I would do this why?”

“Because you want to.” This was strictly speaking only partially true. There was a slight wish that he could get away from the shit that was hurting his son, but it was an idle wish, the sort you almost never act on without some form of outer stimuli.

But with a little verbal prodding it could be nurtured, made stronger, it could become true. He couldn’t convince somebody to do something they were totally against, but here there was a spark to work with.

Micheal laughed, but to anyone with Frank’s abilities it was clear that it had gone to the front of his mind.

“Give up my life’s work on the say-so of some sort of masked crusader?”

“You know it has caused what is currently happening to your son over and over again. And it will continue in the future. Do you really wish to make that happen.”

Michael stared at him, but Frank knew that this time, this one time by being direct at JUST the right time for it this mafia boss was well and truly aware of the effects of his trade. He always knew, but he always distanced himself enough emotionally that it didn’t really affect him. It was something humans were very, very good at. At any other time Frank wouldn’t have stood a chance. This time however, this one unique time, he had a chance.

“If I were to do that it wouldn’t solve anything. There’d be a hole in the market other gangs would leap to fill.”

“But they wouldn’t be fully entrenched. I’d be able to significantly slow them down, it would make it better for a time, and it would help a lot of people. It wouldn’t be permanent, but there is no such thing as a permanent solution.”

“And if I refuse to do that? What will you do?”

“Same as I would if you accepted. I leave, and I exploit the opening that’ll appear anyway to try to improve the world for a few people. It wouldn’t be as big, it wouldn’t be as many, and your family would be among those I couldn’t help.” Because he did want to help as they were people too. And most of them didn’t really seem the sort who deserved to have something like that happen to them. Oh they weren’t pure as snow, but most weren’t directly involved in the business here.

“What opening?”

“Your son is self destructing, you honestly think you’ll be able to lead effectively once it fully hits? I’ll go after some of the corrupt people out there with you as a patron, do some legwork to force a few places to follow safety procedures, building codes and that sort of thing properly by encouraging other people to clear out some rivals.” He almost had him.

“And if I do. Just like that you would forget my past transgressions. You’d consider me redeemed or something and everything would be fine with you.” There was something sneaky here, fishing for something. It wasn’t a genuine question.

“I try to help people. In the end this would do more than the other options. And while I can’t guarantee it would help the underlying problems for your son it’d make it harder for him to continue. And I got my suspicions that it is at least connected. Your family happens to be people too.”

“Sanctimonious bastard.” There wasn’t any real heat. It was annoyance, perhaps a bit of shame, a little bit of anger, a general dislike, but unable to disagree, none of that mattered.

“If you would be as kind as to call up one of your guards to escort me out, I won’t take up any more of your time.”

What mattered was that Michael Lombardi had made up his mind. It hadn’t taken much prodding at all. It had been ridiculously easy in the end.

He’d gotten an extension on his first deliberate kill. He was certain he couldn’t avoid it forever, but the moments mattered. What was life but an extension before death after all?

He whistled on the way home. It had been a good day.

The bullets should have hurt.

They didn’t.

Last time she could remember being in any real physical pain was when she was sixteen.

She was not in a good mood though as the automatic fire washed over her with less effect than a light drizzle.

That could at least have made her feel uncomfortably damp.

There were five hostiles in the room, and she didn’t give a damn about four of them. They were just hired goons firing like mad at her, she was soft enough that they didn’t bounce, instead getting flattened against her inhumanly tough body.

The fifth hostile, calling himself Invictus would normally start boasting about his superiority, but one thing he excelled at was self preservation. And his self preservation instinct told him that right now the LAST thing he wanted to do was provoke her further.

“Stop shooting! You’ll hit the boss!” These goons were better than average if they could consider that.

“No! Stay back!” He shouted fearing for his life.

She grabbed him.

“Why should I? You never do when your victims beg you to. You do just what you can get away with and no more, and I’ve had it with that.”

“P..please… don’t hurt me.”

“They say that too. What did you tell that bank teller in Seattle? ‘You are nobody. I can kill a dozen like you and nobody will care because of how famous I am. I’d be back on the street in less than a month.’ I’m paraphrasing of course. Well… I’m fairly sure I could get away with making you suffer.”

“You… You are a superhero!”

“No. I’m a sidekick.” She made a high pitched voice. “I’m just young and inexperienced. I misjudged my own strength and paralyzed him from the neck down your honor. I’m so sorry.” She sniffled theatrically.

“I surrender! I SURRENDER!” Invictus yelled out, terrified as loud as he could, praying that it’d attract somebody who could stop this crazy chick.

“Gallant girl!”

She dropped him. He started crawling as fast as his limbs would carry him towards the caped figure of Captain Gallant.

“Get her away from me! Get her away.”

Captain Gallant looked at Gallant Girl.

“We need to talk.”

“Yes, yes we do.” She replied.

***************************************************

“We can’t keep letting him get away with his crimes.” She was livid.

“What were you going to do with him?” Captain Gallant asked.

“Give him the fright of his life. Tell him I wasn’t going to stand for his shit anymore.”

“We can’t act as judge and jury.”

“I sure as hell wish the judge and jury would act like one. You know he’ll be back on the streets in a couple of weeks.”

Captain Gallant was quiet.

“That is not our job.”

“So we just limit the damage as he kills one person here, cripples another for life there, and keeps getting off because he gains celebrity status by clashing with people with us. They all do. Some of them aren’t as bad, but most of the time people are at least endangered, and occasionally the worst happens, somebody dies, or gets crippled for life, or injured and bankrupted by medical costs. Occasionally we help with a natural disaster, or stop some more mundane crime, or the villain is so bad that just celebrity status isn’t enough to protect them.” She drew her breath getting her temper to just below detonation point.

“But most of the time we achieve nothing! What the hell is the point?!”

“We are symbols. We represent something more.”

She snorted.

“Have you looked online recently? We’re a show, entertainment, celebrities! Hell it’s a very popular conspiracy theory that most of the fights are as scripted as wrestling.”

“Well… I was wondering about Commander Resolute and King Gator.” Captain Gallant smiled briefly.

“Not the point.” Gallant Girl had no interest at all in joking at this point.

“You are right. You need to reign yourself in, if you keep this up it’s only a matter of time before you do something you’ll regret.”

She took a deep breath. She wasn’t getting through.

“Too late for that. I regret I’ve been part of this sham for so long. I quit.”

*********************************************************

“… And in stunning news on the superhero front Miranda Bosworth also known as Gallant Girl announced today that she will be taking an extended hiatus from her career as partner to the illustrious Captain Gallant to focus on her education. Rumors that she left over attitude problems have been denied by Captain Gallant….” She turned the TV off with a click.

Miranda Bosworth, formerly girl gallant was almost done packing. She was just unsure about one final article. The Gallant Girl suit tacky as it was.

To be entirely honest she didn’t really like the Gallant identity anymore. She’d been just a kid when given it, had never had any choice there once asked to be a sidekick, but it had been her life for almost a decade. And she’d thrown it away. She reminded herself it was the right thing to do, but even so.

There was something wondrous about being out there, allowed to use your power for good. If only it hadn’t been so ineffectual.

Despite all her misgivings and regrets, it hurt to leave it behind

She’d not felt physical pain in almost four years, but not all pain is physical.

And against this sort her powers were useless.

Even so she left the suit behind.

Apparently not the most interesting stories, but they are fun to write and I still got a week's worth of material without adding more.
Part 1


He was trying to concentrate on his studies. It wasn’t going well. The problem on the pages was ignored in favor of doodling in the margins.

The doodles could if you had a very active and innovative imagination plausibly be called floor plans.

It was going to be the most difficult job to date, and honestly he wasn’t sure he could get a satisfactory solution to the problem it posed, but he couldn’t in good conscience pass up trying.

Human smuggling wasn’t the biggest game in town, but it happened, and he had gotten date and location for a large number of people being shipped in. He didn’t know for sure their origins, but he knew where they were headed and unless some other country sold their axe crazy murderers to criminals they didn’t deserve what was coming. And you could argue that they even then wouldn’t deserve it.

The biggest problem was that he was fairly certain this went on unmolested because of key authorities being corrupt, but he didn’t know which ones. That meant he had to handle it himself if at all possible, calling in the authorities would be a last resort.

He banished that from his mind and scribbled out the doodled floor plan (Or at least an attempt). It wouldn’t do to start leaving clues in public, especially after the recent screw up on homefront intelligence on par with the CIA.

Miranda Bosworth, formerly Gallant Girl, or as he considered her: “The woman who can probably twist my head off with less effort than I take the cap of a toothpaste tube.” And she had been here since just before he started his little hero gig. He’d freely admit he’d become a lot less social after starting out, but he hadn’t thought it was that bad. She’d been here for about three months. He had found out last week!

Given how big a factor somebody who reputedly could shrug off tank shells could become that was inexcusable.

And yes he had considered trying to recruit her, barely. First there was the sheer level of force she had. That was intimidating to say the least. Secondly there was her emotional state.
She smiled, she was polite and friendly on the outside, but she was not happy. He focused, listening in, trying to pick out a single mind in the ocean of them that was a university. She had a distinctive mental signature, not unusual for somebody who had led a significantly different life than the people around them. So she was easy enough to pick out.

One of the melancholy days it seemed. Sometimes she was seething with anger, if she tried to socialize with a group for too long she tended to get irritated.

Today she was just somewhat sad and lonely. She did of course hide it well. His guess was that she and Captain Gallant hadn’t parted on as cordial terms as the official story claimed.

He felt a bit like a coward for it, but frankly he wasn’t very keen on trying to cheer up (And thus taking front row seats) somebody with hidden issues and for whom walls were there more for psychological effect than any real stopping value.

He endangered his life often enough thank you very much.

There was also the fact that he didn’t exactly operate in the generally approved way for superheroes. That could piss her off.

In general it’s not a good idea to get the attention of a (admittedly smoking hot) living weapon of mass destruction.

She worried him immensely. It kept nagging him that with her background she might be better at spotting any signs he showed without realizing it. And even with his telepathy he had no way to predict what her reaction might be.

He really wasn’t getting any studying done. He got up to get something to eat.

What was that? Somebody was focusing on him! It was a long distance, a few hundred meters at least, that meant it had to be a pretty tight focus. A finger about to tighten on a… TRIGGER!

Half a year ago he’d have looked around in panic to find the shooter. Now he knew that’d cost him priceless moments and likely his life. He dropped to the floor; the shot rang out as the bullet passed where he’d been an instant before. The room exploded into panicked activity.

****************************************************************

Miranda turned around just to see another student drop flat on the floor. She barely had time to half formulate a thought to ask herself why when a window was shattered by a bullet impacting on the far wall apparently just passing over the student.

Her reaction was automatic, ingrained by hundreds of incidents with firearms. She leapt to her feet and started running towards the broken window. She therefore knew where the shot had to have come from.

Questions like how the hell that guy had known to dodge before the shot was fired and why was he shot at could wait. First priority is always to protect the bystanders either by stopping the bullets or the shooter. And there were too many potential targets to do the former.

The broken window didn’t bother her. Neither did the landing, she stumbled a little but recovered to be at dead run. Less than ten seconds had passed. She was faster than any normal human, even an Olympic runner, at dead sprint. She leapt up in a high arc landing on the roof the shot HAD to have come from.

It was empty.

It didn’t seem possible, but it was. She checked an access ladder, no signs of anyone on it.

She looked on the ground. No sign of any casing either.

Had the guy had time to pick up the casing and get away without her seeing that despite heading in at dead run? It didn’t seem possible.

That ruled out a normal person then. It had to be a super, but what kind? It couldn’t be flight as she’d have seen that. It could be speed or durability. That’d let him ditch another way. Or some fancy way to redirect a bullet perhaps. So he really fired from somewhere else. He could also be invisible which meant he was still here.

These ideas weren’t any crazier than her bones having strength to weight ratio that had brought at least two scientists to nervous breakdowns. But how the hell could she figure out which?

She walked around in a circle slowly and listening. For a moment she thought she heard breathing, but it seemed to be just the wind.

Without knowing why he wasn’t in sight here trying to track him down was going to be a futile exercise. He could be here, or he could have run away, or he could be setting up to try another attack from a different angle and range. With a last glance backwards onto the roof she leapt away.

Protecting the civilian took precedence over actually catching the guy. And she had a few pertinent questions to ask anyway.

Since nobody had died she didn’t feel any shame or guilt over feeling more alive than she had in three months.

Part 2

“I’m telling you. I heard the shot, and then threw myself flat.”

“Are you sure?” The policeman asked.

“Positive. I can’t duck when I don’t know there’s something to duck from.”

“But I saw you go flat before the shot.” Miranda interjected.

“How would that be possible?” Frank asked back.

I don’t know she wanted to say, but you did it somehow. Frank Baker apparently had something to hide. He had used the confusion just after the shot to repeat his version several times to as many as would listen.

Memories are not reliable, and a few well placed words playing on the confusion they all repeated his story. It held up too. He kept claiming he stood a little to the left of where he really stood, so the bullet would have missed.

The cops were willing to take her input. Her past career counted for something, but when all the other witnesses said mostly the same and she was the lone dissenting voice they’d assume she was the one who mixed up the events.

“Can you think of any reason for anyone to want to kill you?” The policeman asked. He WOULD have asked the former sidekick to leave, but he didn’t feel it was worth the effort given what she could do.

He appeared to be considering for a couple of seconds.

“Can you?” Frank asked the cops.

“Not really.”

“Are you even sure I was the target? There were a lot of people in this room.”

“No. We are not sure, you were the nearest the missed shot though.”

“Maybe.” Frank sounded unconvinced. It was a good act, but Miranda was convinced it was an act.

Another cop interjected. “Well there’s the Shadow Executor fellow.”

“That’s not something the public needs to know about.”

Who?

“Who?” Frank asked quite reasonably.

“Look...If you have any mail when you come home today, and some of it seems clearly hostile and is signed by that name. Call the cops, immediately. If not, then you don’t need to know.”

“You should notify the rest of the people here too.” Miranda didn’t believe anyone else was the target, but it didn’t hurt to be sure.
“If they find it they’ll call us anyway.” The cop stated.

“Thank you for your time. You sure you can’t help us any further?”

“If I find anything I’ll get back to you.”

Miranda pulled one of the cops aside.

“Who is this Shadow Executor fellow.”

The cop hesitated.

“I really shouldn’t tell you, but I guess given your background we can make an exception, just don’t tell anyone.”

She waited, patiently.

“He’s taken out two victims. In both cases there were letters timed to arrive the same day as the hit. And in both cases they took out their victim when they had every reason to feel safe.”

“What was in the letters.”

“A list of well, charges, at least for a lack of better word.”

Now that was interesting, there were rumors of a shadowy superhero or perhaps vigilante, the same guy perhaps? Striking at people who evaded the law?

“What sort of charges.”

“It was things like complacency, consumerism, being irrelevant little drones in society. Having it good and wasting it. In short it came down to being nobody special and that somehow made them worth killing to this guy”

Ah. Another perfectly interesting theory of why this Baker fellow was targeted shot down in flames.
Then again maybe it wasn’t that guy at all.

“Of course if it was that guy we don’t know how he’ll react if his first attack failed. Maybe he’ll try again.”

“Maybe, we’ll see if that letter is there. I really got to go now miss.”

Letter or not, she was curious. Frank Baker was a mystery, she had been really bored recently. She knew she shouldn’t really get involved.

And honestly she couldn’t care less.

***********************************************************

Frank was glad his hands didn’t shake anymore after the shooting stopped. It would have given away the act.

Yeah it helped to discourage the cops, but that wasn’t the main reason he needed to appear calm.

Nor was the fact that the former Gallant Girl now held a deep level of suspicion against him. It was impossible to tell what she suspected him of, but it was something.

He knew it had been him specifically. He KNEW the other guy would try again.

The sniper hated him, intensely. He could tell the sniper was male, probably younger than Frank, and he hated a lot of people.

The strong focus and the hate had given him a better read than he had thought was even possible at that sort of range. It was a reminder how little he really understood his own powers.

More importantly he had picked up a key fact. The killer would only strike when he appeared to feel safe!

That level of detail was rare to pick up from any mind, and this particular mind was likely to give him nightmares for nights to come. He had almost certainly killed before. And he felt no guilt at all over it. In the killer’s mind it was his right, possibly even his duty to kill those people.

It was then not really a surprise to find a nondescript envelope with no return address.

He took it inside. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous to read.

And when he read it fear turned to anger.

“A parasite on the human race!” He tried to save lives damnit!

“A complacent sheeple blindly accepting the broken status quo” He put his life on the line repeatedly trying to try to improve things!

“Squandering wealth earned by his elders.” That inheritance from his uncle had financed his custom armor and equipment. His uncle had written in the will that he hoped that his inheritors would do something with the money that made themselves proud. He had spent it on something he believed in.

He crumpled the letter in his hand crushing it. Then he walked calmly over to the kitchen and found the lighter in one of the drawers. Holding it over a metal sink he set fire to the letter and envelope both.

It was irrational to get so angry over this coming from what could best be termed a psycho. In his defense though: How dare he!

He felt certain the anger wouldn’t make him lose control. Just give him that little extra edge in keeping his fear in check, but it came down to a single fact.

Now it was personal.


To be continued.






Author's note: I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this, but I can ask anyway.

I could use some help for minor characters, specifically old style superheroes and villains. Kind of silver agey, but try to avoid too crazy stuff like aliens.

Anyone want to help out please follow these guidelines:

No heroes should be grimdark. Or even overly dark at all in style.

All villains should have at least minor theatrical tendencies.

I'm cautious about using the following powers: Flight (It's the cheap hooker of superpowers. Never getting treated with the expect it deserves given how big a game changer it is. Please don't stack with many other powers), Teleportation (No explanation needed), and Mind Control (Same). If you want to use any of these please limit them.

PM or post in thread. These characters will not be slated for major slots, but it's good to have them as background for the world. Villains have a higher chance of actually getting used than heroes, albeit not as big bads.

I won't give you any warning which names are already taken as that might be too much of a spoiler.

Part 3


It had been two days. Frank knew it had been overly optimistic to hope for a second attack that close to the first, but time was counting down.

Sure he could do the rescue with the Damocles sword hanging over his head in the form of the killer, but there were other considerations that made it harder.

He turned the corner in the corridor walked just enough to be out of sight, and then stopped, sure enough, as punctual as Disney lobbying for intellectual copyright extension Miranda Bosworth rounded the corner, then froze as she saw him waiting.

“You know. I’m pretty sure stalking is illegal.” He pointed out.

“I’m not stalking you. I’m just going in the same direction.” You didn’t have to be Frank to see through that lie.

“You are a tall, attractive redhead. It’s VERY hard not to notice you, and you’ve been everywhere I go in public the last two days.” Miranda was not very subtle.

“No I haven’t.”

“Really? So when I stepped into a men’s underwear store to try to shake you, you were just very interested in men’s underwear?” As subtle as a pit-bull with its teeth sunk deep into your leg.

She did have the grace to look (And feel) embarrassed for a moment, but she recovered and shifted tactics. She moved in front of him and stepped forward into his personal space, he tried to step backwards, and then realized he had his back to the wall.

“Then you can just tell me what you are so keen on hiding.” She smiled, the smile could in this context be called either mischievous or threatening.

For a moment panic overrode his intellect and his life flashed before his eyes, then his other senses caught up, including his special one.

She didn’t intend that level of threat. It was meant to unsettle him, but not in the brutal “I can rip out your spine and play it like a xylophone before you succumb to your wounds” fashion. He had however fucked up. You don’t confront Miranda Bosworth, she was aggressive and confronted right back.

She wanted to give an “I’m onto you” impression. She didn’t consider either the “OH FUCK SHE CAN KILL ME WITH NO EFFORT” or “beautiful girl in my face” effects. It did have an undertone of “don’t fuck with me” but it wasn’t very serious.

She truly didn’t think him able to fuck with her.

She was entirely correct.

He really wished he had done this in a public place instead of a deserted corridor. He was glad he’d learned to not shit himself when getting shot at. He knew she wouldn’t kill or hurt him in any way, but it was still only marginally less terrifying than when one of the goons had an Uzi and started shooting at him full auto.

It took some serious effort of will not to break down sobbing from fear.

“You were way too worried about being followed. And I know you lied to the cops. So why don’t you tell me?”

“I was worried about you following me because you could rip me limb from limb with less effort than I tear up a paper sheet. I’ve seen footage of you ripping an armored car open with your bare hands. Of course I’m worried when you start following me! You are absurdly dangerous!”

She actually took a step back and looked shocked, then realization, then another realization.

Suddenly her expression had just a tad more menace.

“You are a very good liar. Probably the best I’ve seen. That was meant to give me the shock that the reason you were skittish was because I’d terrify you more than the killer…”

Yes she did in fact. His telepathy was useless against somebody he couldn’t hurt and could just throw something too big to dodge even with warning at him. The killer was somebody who felt he needed a gun to be a threat. He could handle that.

“… Something that’d make almost all the irregularities except one fall into place. And that one is why I know you are lying.”

He wasn’t lying, he was leaving something out, but he hadn’t said a single lie.

Fine, she wanted to be a bitch he’d have no choice but to tough up right back. Well if he could fight the urge to run away and curl up in a corner. He tried to imagine her as a bunch of gangsters wielding guns, it was less terrifying. He gave up that after a second when he realized how retarded that was.

“What the hell gives you the right?!”

“What?”

“You are stalking me! Calling me a liar to my face! What the HELL did I ever do to you?!”

“But... I’m a...”

“Superhero? No you aren’t! You gave that up remember?! Even if...” He trailed off. Her face had gone expressionless, it might as well have been made out of stone. However her emotions played as if he’d just shot her dog, raised it as a zombie, and then shot it again.

“…Even if it meant everything to you.” He didn’t finish. She had given it up though, and he couldn’t fathom why she would do that.

Silence stretched out. Then she turned and started walking away without a word.

He was halfway tempted to call her back, explain everything. Give her a colleague (For lack of better word) to talk to about it.

He didn’t because in the end he was still too scared of her.

Unfortunately she was still going to stalk him. She hadn’t given up. She’d just backed away to take a few minutes to compose herself.

The metaphorical pit-bull still had its jaws locked on his leg.

*************************************************************

Some people think Miranda isn’t the brightest around. These people could be accused of getting all their impressions from the Captain Gallant comic book which used her likeness , that variant of her wasn’t all that bright.

Some people call Captain Gallant a glory hound. Miranda can tell them that they are absolutely right.

She also could tell them that he is proud of being an effective glory hound. That he actually does a good job and tried to teach her the same.

She was taught to observe people and circumstances at all times. Figure out what is going on as fast as possible. And she’s noticed that Frank Baker is either absurdly good at picking up body language or he has some sort of extra sense.

Perhaps he’s unaware of it, or perhaps he is scared people will find out, but she didn’t think so. It wasn’t anything more than a gut feeling, but she had the feeling he didn’t want her digging too deeply into his life. She honestly didn’t think she really scared him. He seemed way too composed for that, which meant that either he’d learned to keep his fears in check, which was difficult, or was one of the few naturally brave people who fear didn’t impede, or he wasn’t telling the truth. She knew which she suspected.

There were many perfectly mundane reasons why he didn’t want her digging in his life, and perhaps she was crossing a line.

Scratch out perhaps. She didn’t have any real reason to stalk him, except that she was convinced the killer was gunning for Frank and would try again. She had no proof, nothing but a gut feeling she felt was shaped over years as a sidekick.

She trusted her gut. She kept it nice and slim and thus she expected it to treat her well in return.

She was feeling more whimsical. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop tended to do that to her.

She messed up a landing and skid along on the roof ruining the knee of a perfectly good set of pants and probably seriously wearing down the shoe on her other foot, that didn’t bother her.

She’d been holding back when tracking Frank earlier. Staying at ground level, and not doing anything obvious. She had tried to be subtle.

No more. If speed and altitude was good enough for fighter pilots, then it was good enough for her.

She resisted the urge to laugh out loud. Her hair was flowing behind her, wind washing over her during the free flight before she took another landing. The twilight threw long shadows over the rooftops as she dashed over them. One more building to go and she was at her destination. She grinned. She’d make this one special.

Taking another running she jumped at the very last second before she ran off the building, did a double summersault then landed in a crouch.

She couldn’t help herself. She giggled, and then laughed out loud totally breaking the image she’d been trying to achieve with that jump.

It felt very good to cut loose for a bit.

It only now occurred to her that bringing binoculars might have been a good idea.

Still. She thought she spotted him. She half expected him to look up at her. Confirm that he knew she was there, but he didn’t.

Of course he wouldn’t. It’d be an immediate tip-off. Why couldn’t people be nice and cooperative and tell her what was going on. It was frustrating when it went all shady and secrets.

But that was beside the point. She knew what she was doing now was legally speaking wrong, but honestly it felt so good to do something at least partially like her old profession that she didn’t think she could stop.

She could angst about a potential addiction later. No point in ruining a perfectly good rooftop buzz.

*************************************************************

Frank was in a bad spot.

He’d sensed the killer just briefly a minute ago, but he’d forced himself to stay calm. He couldn’t betray any sign that he knew his watchers were there. Either of them right now.

He’d have to give Miranda props for taking a different approach. If it hadn’t been for the sheer joy she had been radiating for him to pick up on he might not have known she was there before she spotted him.

Well he’d at least not have spotted her that early. He was still learning how far out he could spot somebody with a distinctive mind actively thinking about him or focusing on him.

Just this once he wished he had a legion of fans that’d sit down and quantify his powers for him.

Right now he had bigger things to worry about.

He picked out the duffel bag.

With Miranda watching he couldn’t change at home and he needed the edge his equipment would give to minimize the risk to himself.

He hesitated over whether or not to bring the proper gun, but decided against it. Against a single opponent the Tranq gun would do fine, and if he ended up facing off against Miranda neither would help.

A flashbang might. Full load of four grenades, two smoke, two flash.

These were his anti-Gallant Girl insurance. He really hoped he wouldn’t need them, and it wasn’t just because it’d mean Gallant Girl was out to take him down, but she wasn’t the type of person he set out to stop. She was at heart one of the good guys on a fundamental level. That’s how she thought of herself and that was how she strove to be.

It’d feel wrong to fight her. Of course he had done quite a few things that were legally wrong, but he had so far managed to avoid compromising his own morals. He was well aware that this blissful state probably wouldn’t last forever, but he’d take what extensions he’d get.

This Shadow Executor fellow was free game however. And while he’d try to take him alive, he wouldn’t shed a tear if he happened to be killed by accident.

Okay. First he had to shake Miranda long enough to change without her drawing the connection, without losing track of the murderer’s mind. Then he had to take down the murderer.

Then he somehow had to hand him over to the cops without exposing himself and giving them enough evidence for the cops to have reasonable suspicion to hold him and charge him.

Well he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

He waited near the door for several minutes before Miranda got distracted, she was there to try to protect him as well after all and thus felt the need to look closer at potential threats. She therefore took the attention off his location to check another street.

She couldn’t know that Frank would know when she did it and thus tell him that now he could sneak out.

Night had fallen now. He liked the night, his talent gave him a decisive edge in the dark.

The killer was going upwards. To try another shot perhaps? As he approached and got a better bearing he realized the killer was climbing up the same building Miranda was on. Was that a coincidence? Was the Shadow Executor about to get a nasty surprise?

Surely he couldn’t sneak up on a veteran superhero?

The sudden startled scream as Miranda dropped face first into the pavement next to him with a loud meaty thud answered that.

He could.


To be Continued...

Whoops. Almost forgot. You guys aren't that lucky to avoid your daily dose though


Part 4


At times you just have to stop to take stock. Miranda with her face firmly planted into the pavement needed a moment to figure out what the hell had happened.

One minute she’d been on the roof, wondering if her quarry had snuck out, the next she’d been free falling.

No, that wasn’t quite true. She had heard something, turned around and there was nothing there. She’d shrugged it off, turned back, and suddenly somebody or something had shoved her while she was leaning forward to get a better lock taking her advantage of her relatively poor balance that instant.

“Guess he really was invisible.” She muttered. Feeling kind of stupid for ending up like this, but otherwise nothing hurt but her pride.

“Are you injured?”

Oh yeah she DID think she had seen a person on her way down, but she’d been a bit too startled to make sure.

“No not really.” She started getting up, and noticed a gloved hand reaching down to help her up. She was about to push it away when she got sight of the person behind the hand. She took it just to get an excuse to take a better look and figure out who the hell she was dealing with.

Because that sure as hell wasn’t a random civilian who happened to be there.

The outfit was dark grey and dark blue, with occasional black here and there. The colors were interesting, they implied somebody who wanted to stay hidden, and the armor over it implied somebody willing to fight. The torso and upper shoulders were covered in armor that looked vaguely scale-like. She seemed to remember that this particular layout was called lamellar armor, somewhat similar to what the old samurai had used, but this clearly was heavily modernized, smaller plates that appeared to fit better together and be more flexible ending up giving it a more scale-like look without being scale armor, and it was probably reasonably easy to move in. She was not qualified to say whether or not it was effective.

Forearms had some sort of hard plate covering them, similar plate covered the tights, and of course he had elbow and kneepads. The calves were unarmored apparently. The fact that he wore sneakers of some sort in dark colors broke the image for a moment, but she realized that the fact that they were easier to run in probably made it worth it. She realized that the gloves were reinforced around the knuckles, presumably to give him an effect similar to brass knuckles.

On top of the armor was the webbing and belt, equipment strapped onto them. Some of the objects she recognized, like the silenced gun on his hip and the grenades on his chest.

The head was the weirdest part. The mask looked too big for his head, and then she realized it was part mask, part helmet. It took her a moment to realize that she couldn’t find his eyes because they were behind a tinted visor of some sort. Helmet itself was covered under cloth which went down further than the helmet obscuring the sides of his neck and any protection there might be there. The cloth had the effect of making it a bit harder to see that he had a helmet until you realized his head was too big . The suit itself was high collared, obscuring the neck, and possibly offering some protection. She could see the lower parts of his face, the mouth and nose, but that was about it.

The overall impression was that whatever he did, he took it seriously.

“You must be that mystery person who is giving the local gangs such a hard time.” She smiled as she stood up and let go of his hand. Sure he could be associated with the mystery pusher on the rooftop, but she didn’t see anything that could hurt her, so she could afford to treat him friendly.

“You have a name I should know about?”

He ignored her question.

“The killer is still up there, but there are too many possible escapes for one person. Can you secure the fire escape?”

“I could, but isn’t it better if I take him on? There’s not much he can possibly do to hurt me.”

“You have the strength, but I’m a better tracker.” He replied.

So this was where she had to choose whether to trust this fellow or not.

“I don’t know if I can trust you. Tell me who you are at least.” She was never one for subterfuge when a direct question might do.

“I’m somebody who tries very hard to make this city a better place. Anything else isn’t important.” He turned away from her and started jogging towards the front door.

It was as if he knew that she was about to agree to it.

Of course she wasn’t going to just sit and wait. She started working her way up the fire escape. Going slow so she could listen to any sort of noise

She should probably have told him that she was almost certain the killer was invisible now.

********************************************************

Frank entered the building. It was a residential block. Theoretically the front door was supposed to be locked at this hour, but in reality it wasn’t.

He started running up the stairs. He knew the killer was coming down the same set of stairs.

He was getting closer, so he drew his gun and chambered a tranquilizer dart.

He slowed down and held his weapon at the ready.

He rounded the corner ready to shoot, and he felt the target being startled and stopping. However his eyes claimed the stairwell was completely empty. He felt his target reaching for a knife.

Either his telepathy was being fooled or his eyes were being fooled. He raised the gun at where he knew the target was.

“Hands where I can see them.”

This guy thought Frank was bluffing. He fired just as the so-called Shadow Executor started moving.

It was sheer dumb luck that it hit something else than flesh, he had no clue what, but it hit something else and didn’t deliver its tranquilizer load, and the invisible man was on him before he could chamber another round.

The knife scraped across the armor which easily handled it. Frank got a knee in somewhere in the target’s torso region, but at the same time his gun was knocked out of his hand.

The target backed off, then started running up the stairs. Frank took a split second to recover his gun and set off after him.

The guy was genuinely scared now, up until this moment he’d felt his invisibility was unbreakable. Now that he realized he wasn’t invincible he started panicking.

For himself Frank felt kind of stupid that he’d let himself get rushed like that, but he’d lived and hadn’t been injured, so he could live with it.

The murderer headed straight for the roof, probably hoping to escape down the fire escape.

He felt Miranda being startled when the door kicked open and there was nobody there, but she wasn’t really surprised. He just reached the door to see her move.

She dashed forward holding her arms out to the sides. This time it wasn’t the superhuman run she’d done back at the university, but rather reasonably high human speed.

Still fast enough to catch the Shadow Executor by surprise and knock him back on his ass. He had to be impressed by her quick thinking.

She turned around trying to find him, but had totally lost him.

He wanted to scream at her to get back and cover the fire escape as the killer crawled towards it, but he didn’t waste the breath.

After all while her move left the escape route uncovered it had also given him more than enough time to catch up.

The guy noticed and thus didn’t run but pulled his knife again. Frank decided that charging in wasn’t worth the risk and stopped the run instants away.

Miranda stood and watched radiating curiosity. She wouldn’t interfere unless Frank looked to be losing. She wanted to see what he could do.

Without the chance to use high ground to add power to a rush Frank totally outclassed him this time around.

He stabbed at Frank, but he grabbed the arm and twisted! The knife clattered as it landed on the roof fading into view.

He followed up with a straight punch from his left arm, and while the opponent was staggered he introduced his knee to his stomach.

A quick push landed the serial killer belly down on the roof and in too much pain to act.

He pulled out some restraints and set about securing the prisoner.

“Nice moves.” Something was off, she wasn’t suspicious about him anymore.

That was downright weird. A mysterious masked figure should make you intensely suspicious. Either she had some innate trust of superheroes or she had figured him out. But he would have expected her to be more aggressive about it. At least the way she’d treated him unmasked. Instead it was more watchful. She was waiting for something from him

“He wasn’t a very dangerous opponent once I figured him out.”

“I guess you got some sort of additional sense or something that let you see through his invisibility.”

“Something like that.” He admitted. He didn’t have any good believable lies ready on short notice. He could feel her hiding a grin, but if it somehow clued her in she wasn’t telling. That didn’t fit with what he knew about her.

He pulled out some string he tied to the zipcuffs. As he suspected as long as it was kept a certain distance from the guy it stayed visible.

“You can take this guy to the cops. They should have enough technical evidence to prosecute him, especially since you can testify.”

“For me? You really know how to make a girl feel special.” She smiled. “But why wouldn’t you want to take credit yourself?”

“That’s not how I work. I try to keep a low profile.”
“Why?”

He figured after some pondering that he may as well answer.

“Because I want to avoid getting dragged into the usual media circus. It just seems to turn everything into a game. This is too serious to risk that.” What that triggered was surprising; elation.

“And if they can’t prosecute him?”

“Depends why not, if he’s not mentally competent to stand trial he’s still being handled, or if not guilty by reason of insanity, but if they just plain let him off then we’ve fucked up somewhere in handling him. So I’ll have to clean it up. I catch even a hint that Shadow Executor is back in action and I have to take him down.” That didn’t trigger as positive a response; it was more neutral than negative or positive.

“Could you use a partner?” The question was in fact genuine. She really wanted to join him.

He could answer yes. She could be useful, she was very powerful.

On the other hand she still scared the crap out of him.

“Not really. I work solo.”

“Aw...” Why wasn’t she feeling as disappointed as she should given how much she wanted to get back to her old tricks? She was up to something, but what?

He had the feeling he wouldn’t like the answer to that when he eventually found out.


To be continued.

I'm surprised that no one else has replied yet, this is a very good story IMO. Some of the best original fiction I've read, better than most novels to be frank. I'd love to read more.

I've not had the time to sit down and read it, that's why I've not replied.

Very well-done. Not a lot on details, so my imagination gets to play, which I like. The dependence on internal and external conversation works extremely well for the Superhero genre, and you have a great lock on the character's psyche. That makes it flow perfectly.

But now, Dear Readers -- What has Gallant Girl discovered about Our Hero? Tune in Next time to find out!

Er whoops. I completely forgot about this thread in exam stress. I guess to make up for it I'll throw in the rest of this storyline in one go. I was intending to stretch it out a bit longer update wise. (The next few stories after that are seriously messed up chronologically and would take some time to work out. Yeah I got quite a lot written up ahead for once albeit quite a bit aren't ready to go as I'm jumping back and forth in the timeline I have).

And yeah I'm deliberatly keeping the updates shorter than I need to on the basis that it feels more suitable for this story type.


Intelligence Failure Part 5 and 6

“In other news the police report that they have caught the suspect for the university shooting earlier this week. The suspect is also being accused of two murders. We do not know his identity at this time."

He turned the TV off and got his prepaid cellphone out.

“It’s me. Have you done as we agreed? Good. You will have the rest of the money tomorrow.” Never give out more information than you had to over the phone.

A day had passed, technically speaking he was out of time, but he had initiated a contingency plan to gain just a bit more.

Legally speaking stealing money from the mob was still stealing. And bribing somebody to deny the people smugglers the transport they needed to move them was absolutely illegal.

But it meant that he had some additional time to make his move. The shipment would stay here for a bit longer.

The fact that there was at least two container loads full of people that’d be cooped up a bit longer bothered him, but a rushed job was going to be a whole lot worse than another day of waiting.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going out tonight, but it did mean that he’d scout it out unless he saw a clear opportunity to act.

The delay did after all come with a pretty steep price. Given the conditions they were transported in it was almost certain that even one day’s delay would lead to additional deaths. Only reason it was worth it was because if he went off half cooked a lot more would die. Of two bad choices this looked like the least bad.

He took out the suit from its safe place. After using it so much now the act of putting it on had gone down from dreadful to barely tolerable. He told himself he did achieve things, but the part of him that always played devil’s advocate pointed out that murders were a dime a dozen, and whenever he made a dent into the bigger problems it seemed that unless he worked constantly to slow it down it immediately backslid to where it was before if he stopped for a second.

Was it really worth it? That was a question for another day, when he didn’t have a clear and present situation to take care of. Perhaps the lone crusader path hadn’t been the best idea. For now he consoled himself that he had saved lives.

He had taken the day off from the uni. He felt he’d earned it. Miranda had apparently given up pursuit.

As he headed towards the docks he got a surprise. He’d apparently fucked up somewhere.

He moved to somewhere more secluded. There was no point in running this time.

“You can come out. I know you are there.”

Miranda dropped to the ground, grinning like the cat that stole the canary.

“Hi!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Well you aren’t that hard to track down Frank.”

He’d been afraid of that. And he could feel her certainty. She was totally convinced. No way to dissuade her.

“When did you figure it out?”

“About the time you showed up on the roof. I realized that going after a single killer like that didn’t really fit how you operated according to what I heard?”

Wait what?

“Sure you had shown signs that you had some sort of extra sense in both versions, and it helped firm it up for sure.”

That made a bit of sense.

“Then after that it’s easy to realize that from what I heard you went mostly for smuggling operations, so it was easy to figure out that you’d head to the harbor and I just placed myself at the optimum path from your apartment to here. You’d show up sooner or later on patrol.”

Well she pointed out a weakness at least.

“How the hell do you manage to make all the wrong conclusions but get the correct result anyway?”

“Eh?”

“For one, I’ve dealt with regular street crime before, but I try to keep a low profile so there aren’t a lot of witnesses. If I had reason to believe I knew where the Shadow Executor would show up I’d have gone after him anyway regardless of who he was targeting.”

“Oh.”

“Secondly I don’t patrol. I pick specific goals and go for them. I interrupt other crime on the way if I stumble over it, but mostly I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the next big operation I can foil is. You could have been sitting here for days before I showed up.”

“Ah.”

“Finally... I’ve done a few intercepts by the docks, but in the end I do it where it’s easiest. I’d say that less of a fourth of it actually happens on these docks as they usually have the highest security here. So I might not have come down here in full getup for weeks. Hell there’s more than one set of docks in this city. This is just the biggest.”

It took the wind out of her sails for a moment.

“I still managed to track you down and get a confession from you. That counts for something.”

He’d argue with that logic as soon as he found the logic.

“Counts for what?”

“Proving that I’m more than just hot and strong.” She gave another wide smile.

“... Forget I asked.” Minor miffed impression from her, but she shrugged it off.

“So you are after something special out here. Care to tell you what?”

“Human smugglers. They arrived earlier this afternoon.”

She stopped smiling, and he realized just how little she hid her emotions. She was suddenly all business.

“Well that explains your attitude.”

“I’m just scouting. I’d appreciate it if you could stay away as hiding isn’t your strong suit...”

He stopped as he was lifted by his collar by a single slim hand. He was too unprepared and even with the usual split second warning he couldn’t react before he had him. The anger was just too sudden and explosive

“Just scouting!?! There are people locked up like animals awaiting a horrible fate and you are just going to watch?!” She wasn’t going to hurt him. In fact if he’d read her right she was going to realize what she was doing any second now and start apologizing profusely. She just felt very strongly that the sort of suffering she envisioned couldn’t be tolerated.

That did not mean he didn’t have to fight down the urges to shriek like a little girl, to faint or to soil his pants.

He wanted to reply, but he was frankly too scared to say anything.

As he predicted he was dropped, he did however not quite managing to keep his balance as his feet hit the pavement and collapsed into a sort of sitting position.

Miranda stared at her hand for a moment, looking horrified. Then she opened her mouth, closed it. And then moved over and sat down next to him.

“I’m so sorry. It’s a hostage situation. Of course you won’t move until you are sure you can do it safely for them. I know shouldn’t have exploded like that and it’s totally unfair to you. It’s just... I hate feeling so powerless. I can probably destroy a skyscraper with my bare hands in an afternoon, but despite power that is by human standards simply enormous it all feels so useless.”

A confession like that is powerful. It’s more so when you are able to know for sure that she meant every word there.

“I quit being Gallant Girl because as her I was just part of a big pointless game. I fought villains, beat them, and then they end up back on the streets within weeks. I occasionally got to do some real good in natural disasters and such, but we were kept away from dealing with shit like this that the public doesn’t want to admit happens. But even when we catch the villains at least a few people are hurt or occasionally even killed. And we can’t really stop it. We just play along. Gallant Girl was useless, so I gave her up.”

She took a deep breath. Frank kept quiet. She needed to say this to somebody.

“But as Miranda... I can’t even do that. And I can’t find anybody I can really talk to about it. So I end up feeling isolated and alone. And I feel even more useless. I know I’m asking a lot, you seem to have a handle on the situation, but I have to ask. I need to ask. Can I please help you?”

How do you say no to that? Frank knew he couldn’t. So he didn’t spend time musing over that. He spent time wondering how to work an invulnerable inhumanly strong asset into one of his plans.

He got to his feet. She was looking at him with pleading blue eyes.

“Have you got a cellphone?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ll need your number. In either 15 minutes or when I call I want you to bust in through the east side of the warehouse. Don’t worry about collateral damage. I have it on good authority the owner of this particular one is in on the smuggling. Make as much noise as possible.”

“Why the east side?”

“Because the people being smuggled are in the west. I want most of the shooting to happen away from them.”

“Weren’t you going to wait before you moved in?”

“That was before I had somebody who could shrug off anything they could conceivably be armed with to help out. That removes a lot of the complications I was worried about.”

“So in 15 minutes I’ll do my best impression of the cool-aid man to get their attention and make a real mess.” She repeated, just to be sure there was no misunderstandings

“As soon as you give me your phone number.”

“Sure this isn’t just a ploy to get my number?” Her smile was back.

“I’m sure that I could handle that on my natural charms.”

“What natural charms?”

“Always keep something in reserve.”

“By the way. You might want to wear this.”

He pulled out his backup mask; a thin balaklava.

“That’s going to play havoc on my hair.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think you want to be identified.”

“Good point, but how many people can shrug off gunfire in this city anyway?”

“I didn’t exactly come prepared for this. Best I can do on short notice.”

“Well okay.”

*************************************************************

Miranda checked her watch again. It was five minutes left until cool-aid time.

This wasn’t going to be her usual fare, no showing off. Get in, draw heat, and neutralize their ability to fight as fast as possible.

As far as she understood the criminals behind this suspected Frank was going to get involved and had extra guards on site. Frank on his side couldn’t let this one pass up and pretty much had to make a move to stop it.

She wondered what Frank was doing inside the warehouse now. He was obviously fairly good at the sneaking game. If they had found him she’d no doubt have heard by now.

Suddenly her cell-phone vibrated. It was a number she didn’t recognize, but had her suspicions about.

“Yes?”

“Some of the guards are considering taking liberties with their cargo. Please make your entrance.”

“Understood!” She hung up and started running.

She had put herself out of sight, and that meant she had to jump one fence.

She wasn’t holding back. She ran as hard as she could. Just as hit the wall she punched it with every bit of force she could muster. She hit it with more force than an interest committee hits a sensible piece of legislation. The poor wall never stood a chance. Concrete pieces, metal reinforcements and dust flew everywhere.

A handful of guards stared at her as she stood there right through the wall. Her clothes covered in concrete dust.

“Hi!” She yelled at them.

They blinked, and then pulled guns on her.

“Don’t move.”

She struck a pose, and then sauntered forward.

“I said don’t move!”

“Make me.”

They proved to not be very great intellectual giants when they started shooting at the woman who just blew through a wall without a scratch when they opened fire on her.

They were in their defense fairly good shots against a slow moving woman who made no effort to take cover.

She decided to give them some exercise when she started running towards the nearest thug, ripped the gun out of his hands and crushed it. The chambered round went off, but couldn’t escape the crushed barrel and it exploded in her hand. She barely noticed. She gave the thug a good shove with her free hand and sent him flying into another thug knocking them both over. While this was going on more thugs came running drawn by the sound of gunfire.

Right now the best way to neutralize them was to disarm them and tie them up. She looked around for something to achieve that with while they fired at her with no more effect than further ruining her clothes and slightly reducing her modesty.

Maybe one of those shipping containers was empty? She leapt over to them and got to work. She gave three of them a push, the first two didn’t budge and were thus obviously loaded, the third skidded half a meter. So she reached down for the nooks for forklift forks and lifted.

A cargo container is made to be lifted from a relatively small surface area as well as take quite a bit of punishment and thus unlike a car she had no problems lifting it up without tearing it apart and thus she easily got it onto her shoulder and carried into the middle of the room putting it down and opening the doors.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Now get into this container or I’m coming over and throwing you in!”

She grabbed the two thugs she had put down earlier and threw them in for emphasis.

The thugs weren’t the smartest, but they weren’t totally retarded. Most threw down their guns and headed towards the container. A few kept shooting. She dashed over, grabbed their guns and threw them in. They probably took some injury from the landing, but they’d live. The rest who resisted gave up.

She closed the door behind them. This type of container couldn’t be opened from the inside.

“That was easy enough.”

She headed between the maze of shipping containers to find either any remaining criminals or Frank.

“Stay back or the girl gets it!”

She broke into a run. Stopping just before she ran into Frank as she stood behind cover. He was on top of an unconscious thug holding his silenced pistol up.

Guessing from the dart sticking out of the thug it wasn’t a normal pistol, so why was he holstering it and picking up the thug’s gun?

“Come out where I can see you.”

“Follow me and don’t do anything until I do.” Frank told her.

Frank held his gun up in a two handed grip pointed at the unknown speaker.

As she rounded the container Frank used for cover she saw the situation. There were two of them; one held a gun pointed towards Frank, and the other held the gun to the head of a young woman who looked utterly terrified.

“Drop your weapons.”

“I can’t do that.”

“If you can’t then she dies.”

“She dies we have no reason not to attack. I got body armor and can probably take a few shots, my friend here is bulletproof”

“You’d just let her die? Some hero you are.” The thug without a hostage said with a sneer.

“You don’t want to do this.” Frank said to the thug holding the woman.

“Hey I’m talking to you here.”

“Shut up for a second. I’m talking to your friend here. And you were never comfortable with this in the first place. You told yourself it was just a job, that you weren’t actually responsible for anything that happened here, but if you do this you are a murderer. You were going to try to convince them not to force themselves on her when we arrived. Can you live with being her murderer?”

There was a long pause questions and the changes over his face told the story of a man struggling with himself. Then the hostage holder’s gun dropped to his side.

“No. I refuse to become a murderer. I surrender.”

“Damn you Martin.”

The other thug’s gun swung sideways towards the other two. She didn’t know if he was trying for angry revenge, or to just get the hostage back under his gun to have some sort of bargaining position. Her instincts screamed at her to start running and try to stop him, but Frank acted before she could.

He started shooting, firing several shots into the thug, blowing equally many bloody holes into the man and he fell to the ground as the center of a growing red pool.

Martin as he was apparently named surrendered without incident. It was easy enough to put him with the rest. Frank even managed to convince him to confess and testify when the cops showed up.

That left the problem what to do with the people they had saved.

“You are planning to just let them go?”

“They gave up everything to come here. If they go back home they are worse off than they were, which is what happens if the cops find them. Out of many bad options this is the least bad one I’ve found. You wouldn’t happen to have a better idea?”

“No. It just feels like there’s a better solution, but I can’t find it.”

“Until either of us finds it this solution gives them the best chance. And right now that’s all we can give them.”

“Yeah. I guess it’ll have to do. We’re done here then?”

“Yes. Thank you for your help. I think that without you a lot more would have been seriously injured or killed.”

“Thank you too.” Miranda said as she left. She had a lot to think about. This had not been as she had expected

*************************************************************

Frank was enjoying some quiet in the library. Despite everything this week had worked out mostly okay.

However as he felt Miranda enter range he got the (not so) sneaky suspicion that he couldn’t quite call this week over yet.

“Is this seat taken?” She didn’t wait for an answer before sitting down.

He took a quick look around that nobody was within hearing distance then hissed out. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think? If I’m going to muscle in on your territory we should get to know each other. You know. Socialize.”

“It’d be a better idea to keep a low profile. And me suddenly hanging out with a known high end super isn’t exactly subtle.”

“It’s not a better idea. You are living proof of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t be entirely certain, but I think you are some form of low powered telepath.”

Wait what!?! He kept his face neutral.

“I’ll admit I cheated a little. Ever heard of Whisper?”

He just nodded, but the pieces fell into place then. How had he never realized that before?

“Me and the Captain faced him a few times, I don’t know why, but authorities insisted on keeping his power confidential. I can tell you that they were read only telepathy. I couldn’t understand the scientific language so I don’t know his exact limits, but what I do know fits you. Not read full thoughts, but enough to guess a lot, know if somebody is focusing on you and where and who people around you are.”

What he had seen himself said the same. The pattern fit perfectly.

“I’ll admit that in many ways you seem more competent with yours, at least in a running fight. He was always more a talker than a fighter, and you clearly can use it well enough to do some talking but have a lot better reflexes in a fight. That sniper attack would have killed Whisper, but you were more on the ball. And you are both very good at being sneaky. Natural applications of the power I think.”
He nodded. No point in denying it then. He was going to have to shape up in the future to avoid anyone associating how he operated with Whisper. It was a bigger edge if nobody knew.

“And yet despite that, despite the fact that Whisper is fantastic at convincing people to come along with whatever stuff he does, he was once lovers with Lady Victory, I mean she was the granddaughter of the first Lady Victory who debuted during World War two and he convinced her to throw all that away to shack up with him. I saw you pick out a weak thug in a key position and convince him to surrender. There are stories that you talked a mafia boss down. You got the same talent.”

“And despite that you sit here alone, you work alone, and you eat alone. You don’t socialize, and you could easily choose to. My guess is that it’s because you’ve chosen to do this hero thing all alone. And I can tell you right now that it’s not good for you. You need friends or family to fall back on. Especially given the shit you probably see daily.” She stopped and looked at him expectantly.

“You wanted to make up for screwing up your deductions so badly yesterday didn’t you?” She flushed with what to his sense could best be called happy embarrassment.

“Well yeah. But my point is. I think you need me. I think you need somebody to talk to it about. And I’m the only one who you can be sure you can talk freely to.”

She was lying. She didn’t do it because she felt he needed her. She did it because he was the only one she felt she could relate to. She felt ashamed over the fact that she wanted to be his friend on the basis that to be extremely crude he was the only one interesting to talk to for her. But that felt wrong to say. So she suppressed it. Tried to tell both him and her it was because he needed somebody to vent to.

That didn’t make it false, but it didn’t make it true either. He couldn’t be sure as it was something difficult to assess on his own. There was one certainty in this situation though.

“More importantly regardless of what I say or do you won’t back off.”

“Well no, but that sounds so rude.” She said as she rested her head in her hands and smiled at him, her blue eyes meeting his brown.

“It’s true though. You’re not getting rid of me so you might as well get used to me.”

He honestly couldn’t say whether this was a good or a bad thing.


End Intelligence Failure.



Some thoughts I feel like sharing just because. Feel free to skip.

Well that was the first multiparter in the series of short stories so far. Overall I'm reasonably happy with it. As a rule my characters are first made as a draft in my head then seriously altered when they hit the story and I see how they flow. I honestly wasn't expecting Frank and Miranda to hit it off as well as they did in story. It seems like every scene I have where both show up ends up a lot longer than intended. So far I don't think that's a bad thing. Though I might have to watch out so it doesn't take too much of the screentime. Storywise it did feel as if it moved awfully fast, but it got everything I felt it needed covered so why use extra padding beyond that?

Main thing for me is that when I finally hit my stride with this stuff (I'd say I did around "Exit Gallant Girl") it feels like it's quite a bit beyond my older stuff quality wise. Hopefully I'll keep improving.

The title is for overall universe. It sounded more clever to use "Stafett" than "Relay Race" which is what that particular Norwegian word means.

Now if I could just get a handle on that big damn fight scene that's been kicking my ass in the next multiparter. As a minor spoiler it's called "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Just a short scene that wouldn't let to and fits roughly here in the timeline I have.


Power of a name

If he hadn’t been able to sense her mind he wouldn’t know she was there behind the pile of books.

“What are you doing Miranda?” He picked up one of the books. It was about roman mythology.

“Oh hey Frank. How does Spes sound to you?”

“Spas?”
“No Spes, but that answered my question anyway. I’ll have to find something better. So when are we going out next.”

“It’s mostly going to be scouting. The situation is fluid and I can do that better on my own.”

“Fair enough. I’m sure I can find some way to keep busy.” Why did that give him the chills? Oh yeah because she was doing the mental equivalent of cackling madly in her head.

“And I ask again. What are you doing? I’m fairly sure you aren’t studying mythology.”

“I’m trying to find a name for myself.”

“Does that really matter?”

“Oh you poor ignorant fool.” She said with a tongue in cheek tone, but her mind claimed she wasn’t entirely joking.

“A well picked name is more than just another tag to identify you with. It says what you stand for, who you try to be. Not just to the world, but more importantly to yourself.”

“Says the woman who used to call herself Gallant Girl. Isn’t it more that names sound better for PR purposes?”

“I didn’t pick that name. And I sure as hell won’t use it again. This time I get to pick my own name, and I need to make sure I pick the right one. And to answer your question, that may be why it started, but it certainly isn’t the only reason. You really should consider picking a name now rather than later.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t choose, then somebody else will choose for you. And you already pointed out that what they come up with isn’t always the most dignified.”

“I’ll think about it.” He still thought that sounded like bullshit.

“Your costume helps. It already sends the message that you take this very seriously. It’s a good message to send albeit it’s not my style.” She pushed a notebook over to him. It showed doodles of potential costumes.

First was a modified gallant girl. The same armless and legless leotard, short skirt, short cape and boots as that outfit, only real modification was adding a mask. Underneath she’d written “Hell no.”

The next was some form of pants, jogging shoes, a different hairdo where she’d written “Blond” next to it as well as a tight shirt and finally sunglasses. Underneath she had written “Nah.”

The third one was... “Isn’t that last one against a couple of modesty laws.” It was best described as an armored bikini. He envisioned her in that costume and had to struggle to let go of the mental image. The amusement from the other side of the table told him this was her intention from the start.

“Best way to get them not to look at my face is to give them something other to look at. And I certainly got what it takes to do that.”

“But what if you are up against women?”

“They’ll probably be too outraged to really notice me.”

“I guess it’s a good thing the media never caught on how shameless you are.”

“Why? Because there are too many prudes around?” Even with his telepathy he wasn’t sure if she was flirting or not. She was certainly having fun. And she probably wasn’t sure herself.

“No. Because you have enough creepy fanboys as is. That would attract a lot more.”

She blanched and started crossing out the third drawing without a word. He could tell it wouldn’t discourage her for long though. That wasn’t in her nature.

“Are you making any progress on name then?” He asked after a while to break the silence.

“To be honest I’ve pretty much decided. I’m now just looking too see if there are any really good ones I’ve missed.”

“So what will you call yourself?”

“I was thinking Elpis. She was the Greek goddess of hope. And also the last thing left in Pandora’s Box after all the words ills had been let out.”

“You really aren’t being subtle with the symbolism.”

“I’m not subtle. My name and symbolism behind it shouldn’t be either. What do you think?”

He considered for a moment.

“I’ve rarely heard a name fit somebody better.”

Her smile was brilliant, as were the emotions behind it.

“Now we just have to find a name for you.”

Uh oh.

Uhoh is right.

I'd have to get out my book of Greco-roman Mythos to get a good name for him. His actions so far have placed him as a social conscious of sorts, one who judges actions and metes out appropriate punishment. The problem is most Greco-Roman myths of 'just punishment' involve very nasty goddesses like the Furies. (Rather says something about Greeks and Romans, that the worst punishments are meted out by women.)

Now, if you head over to the Egyptians mythos, Anubis would be a good example. A deity of night, one who looked into the souls of men and judged them impartially.

LadyTevar wrote:Now, if you head over to the Egyptians mythos, Anubis would be a good example. A deity of night, one who looked into the souls of men and judged them impartially.

Damn. That's better than the ideas I had (I really, REALLY suck with naming. Tend to lean heavilly on friends and pre-readers for suggestions).

Mind if I borrow your idea instead? It'll slow progress on writing a bit as I rework some story concepts I had, but nothing too major.

Rogue 11 wrote:

LadyTevar wrote:Now, if you head over to the Egyptians mythos, Anubis would be a good example. A deity of night, one who looked into the souls of men and judged them impartially.

Damn. That's better than the ideas I had (I really, REALLY suck with naming. Tend to lean heavilly on friends and pre-readers for suggestions).

Mind if I borrow your idea instead? It'll slow progress on writing a bit as I rework some story concepts I had, but nothing too major.

Borrow as you like, just promise you'll continue the story

Good thing that I have some material that doesn't get affected by such a change then.

Disclaimer: The characters Reaper and the Captain as well as the organization they happen to be part of belongs to Setzer. I am using them with his permission and encouragment. Every other character and most of the world belongs to me (Yay!)


Don't Fear the Reaper Part 1

His name was Maxwell Forbes. His identity was Grim Reaper, up until a month ago there had been around half a dozen people calling themselves the Grim Reaper or Death or variations on that theme.

Maxwell was running in blind panic. His blood pounding in his hears and his breath coming in desperate gasps. The heavy rain hammered him and the cobblestones around him relentlessly on the almost empty streets. This late at night there was almost no activity in the streets, those few that were on them knew better than to get involved.

He had discarded his cloak to run faster, disregarding how silly the skull mask looked without the cloak. All that mattered was getting away. All that mattered was to escape death.

Sparks shot across thin air in front of him as his assailant decided to show himself and faded into view.

How the hell had he gotten in front of him?! He had to find another way.

He did a sharp turn right, into a side alley.

It was tight and it was cluttered, he tripped over something, he didn’t dare look behind him to find out, but got up again and kept running. If he stopped he was dead.

He took another turn, then stopped as he found himself in front of a brick wall too large to scale. And he didn’t have any of the equipment he’d usually use to do it.

He turned around, but even as he turned he heard the steady thudding of heavy footsteps

The black cloak was mandatory, no claimant of the name Reaper went without it, and under the hood there was a black skull mask with opaque lenses, no reflections that he could see. He only knew about the mask because he’d seen it under better lighting, right now it looked like a black void. He held a big scythe in one hand, or at least it was shaped as a scythe. The handle was shorter than it should be and the scythe was double edged. Whether this was a good choice or not Maxwell was in no state of mind to consider, but it certainly made it look more intimidating.

The tall figure strode forward with heavy deliberate steps. Maxwell fell backwards and tried to crawl away.

“Please… Please don’t kill me.” He wet his pants, but he felt certain he wasn’t going to live long enough to feel ashamed over it.

“There can be only one Grim Reaper.” The figure said before raising his scythe and slashing downwards.

Max had been absolutely right.

***************************************************************

“You are drawing an awful lot of heat with your little escapades.” The formerly African man was in his late thirties, wearing what was best described as non-descript clothing. He hadn’t used his own name in years. Currently he preferred to be called the captain, no other name, just the captain. Not the most original of names, but naming wasn’t one of the skills he was recruited for.

“Your superior has given me free reign to achieve my own goals.” Reaper was almost as attention grabbing outside of the mask as inside it. His face was a ghostly pale, a natural result of spending most of his life either indoors or behind a mask. And it stood in direct contrast to the Captain’s own African complexion. If you looked closely at the pale face you could see numerous small white lines, almost entirely faded scars. They were oddly symmetrical as if they had been done deliberately. The captain suspected that they were surgical incisions. It fit with the back stories of a lot of their other associates.

“Yes, you have, albeit we’d appreciate it if you could achieve them a bit more low-key until our position is stronger.”

Reaper gave him the stare that said “You are nothing to me.”

The man sighed internally. The only one who could command any respect from Reaper was their boss, but as he was busy elsewhere right now that left it to him to try to bargain with this particular psycho.

“Anyway, the main reason I contacted you was because we have a new mission for you.”

“Oh?” That got his curiosity.

“It’s a hit mission. One of our associate groups are having troubles with an individual who may or may not have superpowers, but he’s certainly being a pain in the ass for them. We’ve struck a deal to see what we can do.”

“How concerned are we about this associate?”

“Not very, we could use access to some of their resources, and their goodwill would help, but in the end they are expendable to our goals. This is a low priority mission. We can’t justify allocating any additional resources than you, and if you find it dragging out we may be forced to abort it.”

“Understood, I will strive to have the mission accomplished as soon as possible.”

“Good.” He took out an envelope and handed it to the larger man.

“This has all the information we have on your target. Destroy this material the moment you feel you can get by without it.” Reaper took out a picture and looked at it.

“Understood. Was there anything else your superior wanted?”

“No. That’s it.”

The nameless figure in lamellar armor would probably be dead by the end of the week.


To be continued

Er.... Whooops. I completely forgot about this and the finished part of that last story has been sitting on my hard drive for over three months. Well I guess I'll put it up here.


Don't fear the reaper part: The rest.


It had taken them some time to find a building that fit their purposes. They had found a shut down factory some distance out of town, it was a day trip to get there.

Miranda leapt down from her perch. Her prey was around here somewhere. She was faster, she was stronger, and she could clear low buildings in single leaps.

“Tag!” A hand touched her between the shoulder blades

Then why was she getting her ass kicked?

This superhero training session had been her idea. The tag had been one of the exercises Captain Gallant had put her through. For her it had been training for mobility, to evade or get in position to engage an opponent with similar levels of mobility.

She turned around to face a smirking Frank. He wasn’t in his suit. While it was unexpectedly lightweight for the protection it gave it was heavy enough that not wearing it let him keep going for longer.

She fought back frustration. She had expected to safely kick his ass in any sort of exercise they did and hopefully teach him a few things in the process. Instead she found that while she did that in some of them, in others Frank was ahead of anybody she had dealt with in the past despite being self trained.

“How the hell did you get over here?” She had been almost certain he was over at the west end somewhere and had been attempting to sweep it without getting too close to any potential hiding spots.

“That half collapsed wall there has a small hole that isn’t immediately obvious. So I let myself be seen, then used it to get clear. After that I just knew when to sprint without being seen or heard by you.”

She consoled herself that if it had been a real fight and not one where she deliberately didn’t use most of her power while he used his abilities freely she’d have won several times over. Then she smirked, and immediately caught how Frank’s smirk melted away to a deer in headlights look as he had an inkling of what was coming.

“Since you are obviously proficient in this field I guess we’ll move onto the hand to hand combat portion.”

The expression on his face was worth the humiliation she’d suffered so far.

“Oh relax I CAN control my strength. I probably have more control than you do.”

The fact that she was doing the equivalent of cackling manically internally probably didn’t reassure Frank at all.

**********************************************************************

“The good news is that you are ahead of where I thought you’d be.” Miranda told him with a straight face. She seemed to be on a lot surer ground now that she’d reasserted her dominance over the situation.

He was proud of having at least scored the occasional hits. He hadn’t realized how much faster than him she was able to move. That meant that his warning was significantly shorter than what he was used to.

Add to the fact that he tired significantly faster than she did. Right now he was still too winded to talk and sweating like a pig, but her breathing hadn’t changed at all in the last hour. He put down the water bottle.

“And the bad news?”

“That if you want to stand a chance against a heavy hitter you have a long way to go.”

“As if I can ever engage a heavy hitter in straight up hand to hand. If I’m ever have to actually fight one I will have to resort to some form of trick or tactic to win.”

“Yeah, but knowing how to dodge, or if the disparity in strength isn’t too big deflect or block can save your life.”

“True.” For him the biggest benefit out of this Saturday was that she didn’t scare him anymore. He was starting to get comfortable with the idea of being around somebody who he’d once seen footage of hurling a metal park bench a couple of hundred meters one-handed.

“All right I’m ready for more.”

“Are you sure? You look awfully tired.”

“I won’t always have the luxury of being rested when fighting. We might as well roll with it for training.”

“Yeah okay.”

They took a stance. There were no mats, they were fighting on grass instead. She made the first move striking in high, with intention to follow up low if he blocked. He sidestepped her attack, She didn’t over-extend.

Then she dropped finesse and went for a flurry of attacks. He literally couldn’t move physically fast enough to stop all of them.

She managed to have them come in at lightning speed and yet pull them so well that it was just light taps when they hit him. She could probably hit even faster.

He took half a dozen hits, before he managed to back out of range. And then he only managed that because she let him.

“C’mon. Try to get serious already.” She grinned.

Okay he could take getting his ass kicked, he knew was physically outmatched, but no way in hell was he going to let her get away with playing with him!

He took stock of the situation. She thought that because he was already tired, and hadn’t held his own earlier apart from a few lucky hits he was not an issue anymore.

He gave ground under her attacks, didn’t face much success in avoiding her barrage of attacks, but he wasn’t really caring anymore. He needed her to forget herself for just a moment.

After a couple of attacks she backed away. As if to not force him entirely off the field. She was a touch too alert on the first and second.

He thought he might have had an opening on the third, but checked himself, and had to endure a fourth as well.

But on the fifth time she was just a touch too smug, a touch too self satisfied, a touch too off guard, so he jumped at her.

If she stood steady she was remarkably hard to shift despite her relatively low mass (Compared to her other capabilities), but as she backed away she was off balance. He knocked her down landing on top of her.

“Don’t take an opponent for granted even when you got a decisive advantage.” He said as he got up. He knew full well what sort of signal not getting up immediately could send and he didn’t really feel quite that safe around her yet.

She pushed herself up on her elbow.

“So you want me to stop holding back then.” He’d be worried if he couldn’t tell she was joking.

“You’d risk sending the car keys into orbit and then you’d have to walk home.”

“Who said I meant in fighting?” She was still joking. At least he thought she was.

“My life insurance doesn’t cover that.”

She was very hard to read even for his telepathy because she was so impulsive. She acted on what whims she got, and for the most part she was very, very honest. She wore her emotions on her sleeve when she felt remotely comfortable with the company. She nullified his edge by ensuring there was nothing for him to see he couldn’t spot with his eyes. She decided in an instant whether or not her whims were acceptable, and if they were then she acted on them faster than he could really figure them out given that he had to piece together words with feelings and overall personality.

How was he supposed to deal with somebody who wasn’t hiding anything? Only his closest family wasn’t trying to hide things, and that was more because they had given up trying around him.

Among potentially weird situations he had considered possible when he decided to go superhero this was not one of them.

******************************************************

“Why can’t you go out and find this guy and kill him?”

Reaper hated his temporary allies. Either they were idiots, or they were idiots in a different way.

“If you can locate him, why haven’t you done so already?”

“I was hoping you knew how to find him.” It took a serious effort of will to resist the urge to draw his scythe and decapitate everybody in this room, but given that they were some of the most important in the organization.

“This is not a comic book. I cannot just at a whim find somebody who puts a great deal of effort into stealth. I have read the reports on previous attacks. He’s good at detecting traps, and prefers to strike at high value targets. He either has extraordinary senses or he has inside information.”

“And your solution is?”

“You have distributed your high value operations to make it harder for him to do that much damage, that was a good idea, but you need to go back to larger shipments for at least some of it.”

“So we fake a larger shipment and lure him in? Why would it work this time?”

“No. It needs to be genuine, everybody involved on the ground level need to think it is. There will be no hidden thugs to attempt to take him down or ready reinforcements, nothing besides me. And that means real drugs, real personnel that you would mind losing. Don’t go too heavy on the bait, if we do that we that might scare him off.”

“And if he figures out it’s a trap?”

“Then we know that there’s a traitor in this room.”

“You dare accuse us of betrayal?!”

He turned his masked gaze on the idiot who spoke up.

“Only if he shows access to information he couldn’t possibly have without any of your help. He almost certainly has contacts that give him information what is going on, but we have no way of knowing how far up they go. The only reason he is a problem at all is because you have gotten too used to the good times and got lax.”

Humanity was complacent, weak. They could not handle the unexpected, the dangerous. It was almost depressing to see that this carried over to the ones preying on others complacency as well.
He had to respect his prey for that, even when he missed the wider picture. A single person cannot make that much difference alone. He simply didn’t have the capability. Only reason he had achieved as much as he did was total surprise. That surprise was fading. He was either going to have to escalate or give up any form of relevance if he wanted to continue.

“We don’t pay you to insult us.”

“No. You pay me to clean up your mess. I fully intend to do that.” It would be interesting to pit himself against this fellow. Reports of what he could do were contradictory, which meant he was going in blind. It was more dangerous for Reaper, but also more interesting.

“And you should show some respect.”

“That will cost extra.” Their lives, but he didn’t say that.

****************************************************************

“It seems a bit too convenient.” Miranda’s opinion echoed his first response.

“That’s what bothers me. Everybody I either listened in on or asked believed it was genuine, sure it’s cheaper to move it in with larger shipments and less complex delivery if you can get away with it, but I thought I had been too effective against them.”

“So you think it’s a trap?”

“They’ve tried that before, this doesn’t have any of the signs.”

“Meaning that this is a better trap, they are morons, or they got some sort of extra security they feel will make it too hard to deal with. Like if they found a super powered thug.”

“I hadn’t even considered that possibility.”

“See. I told you that I was useful for more than eye candy.” She gave another one of her wide smiles. Of course she’d think of that. Most of Frank’s encounters with supers had been at promotional appearances and such. Outside of that he’d only encountered Miranda and Shadow Executor as far as he knew. Miranda had until coming here dealt with supers on a daily basis.

He was kicking himself for not realizing that possibility. Given how expensive a super thug would be they’d be eager to start earning it back as soon as possible, then going to more cost efficient shipments made perfect sense.

“I don’t know a lot about those. Could you handle one of those?”

“Well given that on average they are on the lower end capabilities, and tend to be lacking in training, and the fact that I’ve taken on a couple before and they didn’t even manage to ruin my hair I’ll have to answer hell yes to that one.” She smiled, and then suddenly he caught a pang of worry from her as something occurred to her.

“I’m not sure you could though. You rely an awful lot on commercial equipment which quite a few of them could shrug off.”

“Why do you think I’m asking you for help?”

“Maybe the fact that you probably like eyecandy as much as the next guy?” There was a general undertone of her intending to surprise him, but thankfully he was fairly sure that whatever it was wouldn’t end up with him maimed.

“Getting back on topic a variation on what we did last time would seem worthwhile. Something is up and I’m not interested in getting into a fight with no purpose. So I scout it out, either pull out or call you in. If I get into trouble you should be able to hear it and can come and help me out.”

“Clean, simple and to the point. I like it.”

“By the way have you gotten a prepaid phone yet?”

“Um… Oops?”

He sighed.

“I told you it was a vital tool. I’ll buy you one before tonight.”

************************************************************************

Frank had gotten to the rendezvous point second. Miranda was there, but was waiting for him to climb up the stairwell. Whose idea had it been to put the meeting point at a high ground?

He thought it was, his, but he couldn’t see any reason to be so mind numbingly stupid. He reached the top of the ladder and looked around, realizing that Miranda was behind an obstruction, and groaned.

She wanted a dramatic reveal. Obviously she had a new costume to show off. She obliged by coming around the corner walking forward as if she was on a catwalk.

“I don’t think I’ll keep it, but it’s okay for a single outing.”

Hubba hubba?

It was best described as a white, grey and silver strapless bathing suit and small flat shoes, very low cut bathing suit at that. It actually took him several moments to notice that she’d apparently put on a curly black wig as well.

“How do you keep it up?” He couldn’t help himself, staring at that outfit that stayed on Miranda apparently in defiance of gravity.

“Double sided heavy duty duct tape. It keeps the wig in place as well.” She definitely enjoyed his appreciation of the outfit.

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“I think my outfit’s shutting down your brain cells. I can take 20mm cannon fire. Of course it doesn’t hurt.”

“I don’t really like it. I couldn’t find any shoes that fit with it. This outfit really deserves high heels to give that little extra lift, and I’ve never managed to make that work out okay while leaping from rooftop to rooftop. I could show you how that looks some time.”

In retrospect he should perhaps have been looking if she had been genuinely flirting or not, but in his defense he thought he could justify a temporary mental shutdown. She really filled that suit out well.

“Look. Let’s stop joking around. I got your new cell phone, but where are you supposed to put it?”

“Damn I knew there was something I was forgetting when I made it. Another reason to find something better”

He face palmed, then handed her the phone and the note with her new number and found himself unable to look away when she jammed it down her cleavage. It was probably the only place she could put it.

The logical part of his mind really hoped her next outfit wasn’t quite so eye-catching.

The unapologetically male part of his mind hoped she kept the trend. He had to resist the urge to take out his digital compact camera to take pictures.

He managed to turn away from her and head for the ladder.

“I can give you a lift down if you want.”

“I’ll climb thank you very much. Remember the plan. Stay here until I call for you or it sounds like I’m in trouble.”

“Roger.” He tried not to stare at the cell phone. Despite his lenses she either noticed or guessed and giggled at him.

“I think I need to dial it back a bit or I’ll give you permanent brain damage.”

He had no way to answer that while retaining a shred of dignity.

***************************************************

He stayed high as he moved through the building cautiously. The drugs were as usual split between two or three containers.

The atmosphere was one of worry. They kept looking into the shadows, but not because they felt they could handle what was there.

He stopped and just listened both verbally and telepathically. He got the distinct impression when he put all the mental information he got together that they felt they were left out to hang. And it was probably for somebody else’s greed.

This situation felt wrong, shortly after entering he thought he felt somebody seeing him, but it went away so fast that he thought he had imagined it. After all if he had been spotted the observer wouldn’t just forget he was there would he?

Why did he get a general feeling of pain he couldn’t pin down though? He felt as if there was a very vague impression that somebody was feeling pain, but he wasn’t getting any direction or distance. It was as if it was all around him.

He had accounted for every mind he could decisively feel within the warehouse, but he couldn’t find any explanation for the pain from any of them.

He moved out of sight and started working his way to a better spot to snipe from. He planned to call in Elpis and let her take care of the brunt of the fighting while he just fired from a safe distance and position.

Then the pain impression got stronger, a lot stronger. He looked around trying to pin down where it could be coming from, but there wasn’t any potential source he could see.

But the way it was strengthening it was as if it was getting closer. Oh shit!

He threw himself out of the way, and an unseen force ripped a jagged gash in the metal wall behind where he’d stood instants before. He hit the ground rolling and got back on his feet reaching for his taser and trying to figure out where the hell that attack had come from.

Then suddenly sparks shot across the air and a large human shape stood there. It was covered in a long flowing black cloak, where the face would have been it was black. The gibbering animal part of his mind screamed monster.

The rational part he was going to rely on to come out of this alive however realized that he had to be wearing a black mask that in this poor light blended in with the cloak too well.

The same rational part realized that he could now sense the mind that he couldn’t a few seconds ago.

Some of the thugs he’d taken on before had been killers and murders, shadow executor had been a murderer.

This was the mind of somebody who killed as casually as they breathed. For whom other human life had no value unless proven otherwise on an individual basis. And right now he wanted Frank dead.

The scythe that had cut up the wall did absolutely nothing to reassure Frank.

“Impressive. Your awareness is every bit as good as the file said.” In a way the fact that the attacker now had a modicum of respect for Frank didn’t help either. From what he gathered this just meant he’d enjoy killing Frank.

“Who are you?!” Play for time. Figure something out.

“I’m the Grim Reaper?”

“Which one? There’s quite a few.” That wasn’t a smart thing to say, he knew that even before the words reached the mouth, but he was still thinking of options. That scythe had way more reach than either fists or taser, and the clothing looked too thick for his Tranq pistol.

“Those unworthy of the name are being purged.” The brief associated flash told him everything he needed to know.

Then without warning the Reaper moved. Frank was ready for it, but even then it was close given how fast Reaper was moving.

The scythe backed by what had to be superhuman strength shot sparks as it scraped across a metal surface. It was like taking on Miranda again and this time there was no option to just weather the hits.

He got his tranq pistol up and fired, but as he expected when he sensed that the Reaper wasn’t even worried the hit didn’t even register.

In fact if the self assurance he felt from Reaper was accurate he’d bet money that the guy was bulletproof.

“Tranquilizer pistol, it is an inferior weapon for combat. Should you by some miracle survive you would do well by discarding that toy.”

That meant he had no way to win right now. Not with the assets on hand.

He ducked below a scythe slash, and despite helmet and mask he could swear felt the wind from the close miss.

He fought down the rising panic. He needed help, and he did bring help this time, but he needed to contact her and he couldn’t exactly phone her midfight. Wasn’t there any other way?

There was one, but it was one he absolutely hated the thought of doing.

He tried to deflect a slash with his taser. The components that remained of it hit the wall with a loud clang.

On the other hand it was a high risk of death or maiming compared to a near certainty of death or maiming. Not much of a choice. He turned and ran.

He knew from what he felt from the Reaper that he’d be on him in seconds, but it was all he needed.

The people in the warehouse below had stopped working, they were unsure what was going on and none of them much wanted to go investigating.

They did however have their weapons out, and when he came into view visible enough to be recognized it was no surprise they opened fire. Their accuracy wasn’t the best, but with that many shooters and him with no cover at all it didn’t need to be.

He felt the pain as the rounds impacted. The armor stopped the hits from more than bruising him, but it would leave him very sore in the morning. He staggered under the hits, and that slowed him enough that he didn’t quite dodge the unseen scythe.

It ripped apart the armor on his upper arm like it wasn’t there throwing small shredded lamellar plates everywhere, but thankfully didn’t cut very deep into his arm.

It did prove that against this guy’s strength his armor was useless. The gunfire that was hitting Reaper apparently stung a bit, but didn’t do any appreciable damage. And he wasn’t apparently wearing armor.

That was when Frank stumbled over something in the darkness. At full on run he fell flat on the ground. He rolled aside from a downwards scythe slash that hit the metal catwalk with a loud “clang”.

He tried to position his hands to get up fast. He tried to predict where the next slash would go. The scythe was raised.

And then a big skylight was smashed in as Miranda landed not too far away.

“Hi!” She was exited, but alert. She knew something had gone wrong.

She caught sight of Frank and Reaper almost immediately and leapt over.

The people on the ground noticed that gunfire wasn’t having any appreciable effect on any target had enough and started fleeing.

Miranda was better at jumping than Frank had thought, because she managed to land between him and Reaper in such a way that it forced Reaper to take a step back as to not be given the Mario treatment.

“Stop trying to kill my friend please.” She said. She was itching to beat the shit out of somebody

Reaper gave no indication of emotion, but to Frank he was best summed up as thinking “What the hell”. That was perfectly understandable given the situation.

He rallied fast and slashed at Miranda, no Elpis he corrected himself.

She blocked the blade with her forearm. She was apparently more focused on protecting what modesty her clothing left her than anything else. Even so she looked like she was pushed backwards despite standing braced.

He swung at her with the hilt to no effect. She raised a foot and gave him a straight forward kick that sent him flying.

In accordance with Newton’s second law her low mass compared to her strength meant she took significant recoil. She used the momentum to back flip and did a clean landing behind Frank while Reaper smashed into a wall.

Miranda walked in front of Frank again. She prioritized protecting a downed ally over pressing the attack.

Probably because she had no idea that the target could fade out like it did with the lightening effects. And the pain aura rapidly faded as apparently the Reaper fled.

“Crap. We’re going to be known as those who always hunt invisible people.”

Frank didn’t respond.

“Frank? Are you okay Frank?”

He was not okay. He was sitting there hugging himself shaking uncontrollably and fighting back hyperventilation (And losing ground). This was the closest he’d ever come to dying.

Her hand touched him.

“You are shaking like a leaf. C’mon Frank. Get up.” She helped him to his feet.

“I’ll help you home.”

*********************************************************************

“There has been a complication.” The captain immediately pulled out the current Reaper mission file.

“Go ahead Reaper.” Online phones with scrambling and encryption made life a bit safer, but the Captain was never one for computer security when he could do it on paper instead. He never quite got along that well with Computers. The group’s tech specialist had set up the phone system.

“The target had assistance. A high end brute, young woman. She was impervious to my scythe.”

Brute was code for the power set durable and strong. It was probably the most common set of superpowers. For one to shrug off attacks from Reaper with his scythe was impressive. And it was also worrisome.

“Can you take her?”

“Not with the resources at hand.”

The captain swore under his breath. That meant that their associates were hoping to achieve was out of the question. It also meant serious complications down the line.

He considered his assets. He had two operatives who might be able to handle it. One wasn’t suited for the other aspects of this mission and the second plain wasn’t an option out of a real GOTH situation.

“All right; we’ll have to stick to the letter of the deal and not the spirit. You’ll ignore the second interloper and focus on the primary. We’ll take what we can get out of this deal afterwards.”

“Understood. It will however significantly slow down my operations.” And that was pretty bad as they were already working on limited time.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Reaper, signing off.” The connection broke from Reaper’s end. The Captain rubbed his temples then left the desk.

******************************************************

“Look. You don’t have to follow me home. I’m doing fine.” Frank had never been all that bothered by the breakdowns he had sometimes had post action, but that was before he met Miranda. Somehow it felt very bad to have her fuss over him all worried.

“I’m sure you are. I’m just making sure.”

“You are aware I can sense lies right?” She had a flash of shame.

“Okay so I don’t think you are okay. You were almost killed and then you did that little freeze up thing.”

“I froze up a bit after the fighting was over, emphasis on after.”

“Has this happened before then?” Sometimes she was oblivious, other times she fixated on the wrong things, but occasionally she was very perspective.

“A few times, I always keep it together when it matters so it’s really nothing to worry about.” Had he been talking to any normal human they probably would have understood or accepted it. Unfortunately Miranda was far from a normal human.

She didn’t understand that type of fear. It wasn’t bravado, but she simply hadn’t had any reason to feel that she was in danger for so long that to her fear of your own life was alien.

“You probably shouldn’t keep doing this then.”

She’d seen him at his best before. It had been in situations where he held the initiative and was in total control. And now after one incident where it had been a bit too much she thought he was made out of frail crystal glass or something. He reigned in his anger for now.

“Look. Just because I’m not immune to fear doesn’t mean I can’t handle it.”

“But you almost died.”

“And that’s far from the first time. I get back up and learn from it. And if I hadn’t taken the time to learn, if I hadn’t made the effort, then Shadow Executor would have blown my brains out while I stood there wondering what the hell was going on.” He felt more than heard the sharp intake of breath from her.

“I think it’s too dangerous for you.” He was surprised at how much she cared.

“And how are you going to stop me? You can’t watch me effectively unless I let you. The only way you could stop me would be to injure me badly enough that I can’t.” He managed to keep from jumping when for a very brief moment she actually considered whether or not it’d be the lesser evil.

It was only for a brief moment then she turned away from him ashamed to even consider it.

He fought himself to not hold it against her. Miranda had spent a lot of her life on the move. She didn’t have a lot of close people. Somehow Frank had gotten onto that list and she really didn’t want to lose any if she could help it.

Miranda couldn’t see his perspective, but by his nature he was unable to not see hers.

“Look. I’m not made out of glass. I know full well how dangerous this is, but I am unable and unwilling to turn away. You’ve lost so much respect for my capabilities that you are unable to effectively work with me fine. It’ll weaken me to go back to working entirely alone, but I’ll make do.”

“I respect you.” She tried to convince herself as much as him there. It was still a lie. She still saw him as a friend, but that breakdown had vaporized her faith in him.

“Then why are you so adamant I can’t take it?” He turned and walked away, leaving her behind before he could say something he’d regret.

Miranda stood there, indecisive over what was the best way to handle this. He knew this wasn’t over.

He honestly wasn’t sure what mattered more to him. Removing Reaper as a threat so he could operate freely again, or to regain Miranda’s respect. It did worry him a bit how fast she’d gotten under his skin.

He knew both goals could be achieved by the same measure though. Provided he could pull it off.

****************************************************************

There was knocking on the door.

Frank looked up from the repair work on his armor. This was hardly unexpected. Miranda was still in overprotective mode. When he didn’t show up to class today, he was expecting her to take the day off to come find him as well.

“The door’s open.”

It creaked open. Miranda peeked into the room, and he could sense she was worried of what she’d find.

She was both relieved and worried to see him sitting by a table working on his suit.

“You didn’t show up today.”

“Yeah, I ran into a time crunch and had to make a decision.”

“And you decided what exactly?” She was angry at him. It was a low burning simmering anger. He’d expected disapproval, but not that. Then he realized he’d discounted the effect of his injuries.

He’d been bruised by the gunfire, several of which were visible, and there was the white gauze on his arm covering the slight cut he’d gotten from the scythe.

“Just to make it clear, these injuries are considered very minor by those of us who can be injured.”

“What did you decide?” She repeated. A bit more harshly than she intended based on what he read from her.

“That I need to go out again tonight.” Right, cue shitstorm.

“No.”

“Last I checked you didn’t have any legal authority over me.”

“And last I checked you tend to play fast and loose with legal. I’m easily capable of stopping you one night.” She was, he’d have to talk her down. And she was in a mood where it was marginal at best. He put down the lame he had been working on removing.

“What can I say that can make you understand that I’m able to consider for myself as an adult?”

“Now you are being unfair. This is a situation where I’m uniquely better suited than a normal person to handle.”

“And I’m far from a normal person. I have an edge of my own.”

“It didn’t help you yesterday.”

“It kept me alive long enough for help to arrive. Reaper read as different. That’s how he got as close as he did. That element of surprise is gone. He had his one shot and he failed. I don’t intend to give him a second shot like that.”

“And what are you going to do? Bleed on him?”

“Up-arm, and pick the future battlefield carefully.”

“It’s not that simple!”

“It’s simple, what it’s not is easy. But I never expected it to be.”

“And it’ll get you killed.”

“Maybe it will, maybe I’ll make it out, but I won’t sit on the sideline. You and every other human in this city can choose to look away when something bad happens. You choose not to and it is why I respect you so much. I can’t choose to look away. I always pick it up whether I want to or not. I’m terrified every time I go out, but I won’t stop. Not for the guns of the mob, not for you, and not for a hired killer. If I have to fight you I will, even when I know I got no chance to win. “

“You are a complete idiot.”” Her emotions were warring within her. What he paid a lot more attention to than he’d liked to admit was that a spark of the respect she’d had for him until yesterday was back.

“I am aware yeah, but this is something I have to do. I could really use your help though.”

“Tell me what you need. I’ll make no promises before I know exactly what you are doing.”

“I got to re-equip before going back out. I got a stockpile a few hours’ drive out of town, after that. We’re making a statement.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are a lot of targets I usually wouldn’t hit. Too much effort for too little achieved. I want to hit as many of those as possible in one night. I want to make a statement that this new guy can’t protect them.”

“And if he does try to prove you wrong?”

“That’s where I hope you come in. He can choose whether or not to engage. I expect that if we’re both together he won’t attack. And if I’m wrong you are way out of his league aren’t you?”

“In every meaning of the word, but apart from grandstanding what do you really hope to achieve?”

This is where he’d leave out a few key details.

“Either disgrace or to draw him out. This guy can’t be allowed to keep operating against us. So we need to force a decisive engagement where we take him out of action and hopefully hand him over to the cops, or failing that do enough damage that he can’t keep doing his job.”

He said we, but he meant I. He didn’t suspect, he knew Reaper wouldn’t attack while Miranda was around. Any such engagement he’d have to do solo, but she didn’t need to know that right now.

He’d also put off telling her what he’d discovered researching it online. That several people who had claimed the name Grim Reaper had turned up dead. And all of them apparently murdered by being stabbed by an unusual sharp weapon.

She was overly protective about the people she cared about. And apparently he was currently the frailest of the lot, or at least the one most in danger.

It was flattering and intimidating in equal measures. Right now it was unfortunately it just made more trouble for him. And that was pretty sad all things considered.

************************************************************

When it came to evaluating good vacation property Miranda wasn’t on the forefront. She wasn’t really able to evaluate whether or not the cabin was worth shit. It was a cabin, end of story.

The inside was Spartan, there wasn’t a whole lot of signs showing that people had lived there.

“I was expecting more from a secret equipment stockpile.” She commented to Frank who was apparently struggling with something on the floor and muttering darkly under his breath.

“What are you doing anyway?”

“Telling myself that there’s such a thing as too good camoflague.” It took her a second to catch on.

“You can’t find your own concealed gear?!” She giggled.

“I can find it, it’s just taking longer than I expected. Ah finally. I knew I put it around here.”

He opened a small hatch and a safe door stared up at them.

“Now...” He pulled out a small notebook, compared what was in it with a single digit number on the safe and entered the code on the wheel and put in a specific key from a keyring she hadn’t seen him use before.”

He opened the safe and pulled up a few boxes. He put them on a table and opened them. Inside were two weapons put in place for long term storage.

“I recognize the MP5, but not the other one.”

“It’s something I acquired from the mob. They had a weapons shipment coming through, advanced expensive stuff. I destroyed most of it, but saved a few choice pieces for myself. This here is the Magpul PDR.” He started removing the plastic coverings he’d put on it. Looking at how it had been stored Frank had apparently not intended to need it anytime soon.

“A what?”

“It’s a personal Defense Weapon. You know, very compact very high power weapons specifically designed to beat armor and low end super toughness. The PDR is the most powerful firing full on assault rifle cartridges. Loaded with high quality armor piercing it can make quite a lot of supers know they’ve been hit.”

“And you are counting on this being able to hurt Reaper?”

“It’s the best I got. I should at least try it.” He started disassembling it and checking each component.

“And if that fails?” Miranda didn’t have a whole lot of faith in the effectiveness of firearms against real threats. Okay admittedly she was biased, but she was also living proof that sometimes small arms just weren’t going to be worth the effort.

“That’s what the equipment in the other safes I haven’t gotten around to getting out yet is for.”

“You put a lot of effort into this.”

“I already agreed with you how dangerous this is. When I started out I decided I needed every edge I could get. That meant special equipment.”

Frank spent about half an hour opening hidden safes and taking out equipment. He brought out flashbangs, some form of remote detonated explosives Miranda didn’t recognize, smoke grenades and a couple of tasers as well as a large box of what appeared to be plates for his armor.

Miranda started to suspect that one of the reasons he was so adamantly against quitting was because after having spent this much on gear he wanted to at least make use of it. Still. She had to admit that he wasn’t coming at it half assed.

“Your armor isn’t going to be worth a whole lot against his scythe though.” She still wanted him off the field. She didn’t have enough friends that she could afford to let one just walk out and get cut up by a walking cliché. She dreaded having to look up the various reapers to figure out which one this might be. They tended to be supremely annoying.

“I don’t intend to let him get close. And I can tell how far away he is even when he’s cloaked.” Miranda started to wonder if perhaps she was overreacting. Maybe the fact that it scared him so much just made him take extra effort to do a good job. Then she kept flashing back to the warehouse, how Frank had been shaking after it. And now he was calmly working on preparing for another encounter. It was like she was dealing with two different people.

She admitted she hadn’t dealt with a whole lot of deathly scared people in cases when they weren’t scared. She also admitted she had been told repeatedly that in extreme situations people could act very differently. But she had rarely seen it, and never experienced it.

But okay, fine if he wanted to be an idiot she would do what she could to avoid it being fatal.

“And how much training do you have hitting an evading target with superhuman mobility?”

His silence was answer enough.

“Get some bullets for that gun of yours. We’re going to have some target practice outside.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You have a fancy gun, bullets have a lethal allergy to me. It’s a good combination.”

“I don’t want to shoot you!” He actually sounded concerned. She wasn’t sure to sigh or be happy that he wasn’t willing to shoot at his friends even when they asked him to.

“Do you honestly think that thing can hurt me?”

“Well, no. But I really don’t like the idea of shooting at one of my friends. Besides it may be difficult to explain bullet holes in your clothes later.” He was grasping at straws here. Her current landlord had believed last time when she said she’d seen a few thugs holding up a woman and decided to help. It had even been true. Albeit she’d left out exact circumstances and how many had been shooting at her.

“I have the current Elpis suit among my stuff. Give me a few minutes to get changed. I’m NOT going to let you go out if you haven’t at least shown a proficiency to hit a superhuman target.” She wouldn’t pass up a chance to tease Frank though.

“Okay, okay fine. You go change and I’ll ensure the weapon is zeroed outside.”

She changed in the small bedroom. She admitted that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. Frank didn’t seem to be the type who’d find it easy to attack somebody he cared about regardless of circumstances.

He was finishing off the zeroing when she got out. When he saw her he made a serious attempt to focus on her face. She found it interesting to watch how people reacted to her when she dialed up her appeal. Frank’s was interesting. There were many people who tried to not appear to stare, but Frank had the edge that should tell him that she didn’t mind as long as he didn’t overdo it. So, was he just doing what he thought was polite regardless of what his senses told him? Or did he try to refuse finding her attractive and failing.

She guessed the second, and she could see his rationale in that case. Try to avoid making a complex situation any more complex than they had to be.

After all besides being superheroes it wasn’t as if they had a lot of common anyway. Apart from the fact that they shared very similar ethics and worldview of how things should be, and that they both had unusual capabilities that set them apart from other people and made it harder to relate, and if his reactions to her jokes was anything to go by if not the same sense of humor at least compatible ones.

Okay so they had a lot in common that she’d noticed in just a few weeks. That could merit further thinking.

“Ready to try to tap me a few times?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I find it hard enough to shoot at people I don’t like without trying to shoot at the ones I like. Can’t you dress up like the Reaper or something?”

“Hell no! I got some self respect.”

“Okay. Let’s test that weapon out. Shoot me.”

She took a strongman pose and waited. And waited.

“Well?”

“I’m trying.”

Okay that was kind of cute but pathetic. At least he treated a lethal weapon seriously.

“Okay look. Maybe...” She never finished that sentence as Frank closed his eyes and fired.

It came so suddenly she actually had to fight back a jump. A three round burst lashed out. Because Frank fired with closed eyes two shots missed, but the third nailed her shoulder. It was pushed backwards a little. The bullet packed a surprising amount of momentum for something coming from a weapon that small. Still she didn’t really feel it.

“You might want to shoot with your eyes open.”

Second burst caught her dead center. Her suit was designed to be bulletproof against small arms. This was entirely to save on repair work. It was not designed to stand up to heavier fire and now she had a bit deeper cleavage. She probably couldn’t put a cell phone down it anymore.

“Great... Obligatory costume damage.” She muttered. Still she had to admire his marksmanship. Perfect center of mass shot.

“Right. I’m ready.” He slammed in a fresh magazine and raised the weapon.

“Let’s get this show on the road.” Maybe she shouldn’t have been so pushy. Now that he’d confirmed decisively he wasn’t actually hurting her he sounded a touch too eager to shoot at her.

She barely managed to jump letting a couple of shots passing underneath her. He had retargeted and fired again while she was in mid-air, but underestimated her velocity and missed again. However when she landed and started running he landed a glancing hit on her.

She jumped again, but this time he hit her. He learned fast. Probably from feedback from her telling him how much he missed.

She would have to start using some fancier moves and cover if she wanted to start avoiding hits, And also to avoid the slowly mounting costume damage.

After the first few exchanges in the open it turned into a game of cat and mouse, with her as the mouse. It was a role that grated at her, but apart from braving gunfire she had no way to close. Frank just plain wasn’t going to be lured into an ambush when he could sense her at all times and he had the range this time.

She’d also been hit way more times than she intended. Frank was a very fast learner in compensating for her movements and he clearly didn’t need to see her to shoot her. The tree splints stuck in her hair after a headshot through the tree her head was physically in contact with was proof of that.

“Okay fine. I admit it. IF that weapon works on him, and IF you can get a shot off you might be able to handle the situation.” She admitted. A bit miffed that she hadn’t been able to take this as solid proof he shouldn’t do this.

“Thank you. Any more objections or are we good for giving quite a few bad people some very nasty surprises tonight?”

“I guess we are.” She admitted against her wishes.

************************************************************

A minor drug lab, specializing in lab synthesized party drugs.

“You are cute, but if you keep fighting back I may be forced to hurt you.” Miranda stated casually as an unarmed chemist was throwing everything he could find at her to keep her back while she advanced menacingly.

“Charges set. Get the last guy out and get moving. Some of this shit is very volatile.”

“Now be a good boy and come with me or you’ll be blown to Smithereens.

*************************************************************

An illegal gambling operation, apparently Frank had ignored it for a different reason than norm.

“Are you sure this is ethical?”

“Nope.”

“Then why are you stealing all their cash?”

“Because it makes life a lot easier when I don’t have to choose between either replacing lost equipment or eating.”

“Fair enough.”

************************************************************

A small hangout for a drug dealer and his thugs.

“I know I really shouldn’t complain in this getup, but my eyes are up here.”

The guy had been trying to crawl towards a shotgun after Frank had kicked their asses with his fists, and now stared up at Miranda blocking his path. The suit now had extensive duct tape quick fixes covering the bullet holes Frank had inflicted with high powered armor piercing bullets. Thankfully it didn’t break her color choice too badly.

“Less smart ass comments, more restraining please.” Frank shot over at her.

”Okay okay.” She removed the ammo from the shotgun and tore it apart to carefully bend the metal pieces into an improvised set of restraints.

It’d probably take authorities some time to get it off later.

“Show-off”

**********************************************

A small brothel near the docks.

“Do you have to steal every bit of cash you come over?” This had been quick. Beat up the bouncer, scare the administrator, and let the girls leave when they tried to run away scared. Now Frank was looting the spoils.

“Given the power of money I either have to destroy or steal it all. And stealing gives some benefits at least. Now take this bag. It’s getting rather heavy.”

“This doesn’t feel very hero-like.”

“Says the woman who wears less than most the professionals in this place.”

“Touche.”

“Besides given the haul so far tonight I figure I’ll donate most of it to charity. Any preferred ones?”

********************************************************

A black market dealer on the docks.

“Isn’t this a little small time even for this operation?” The dealer sat scared in a corner and watched as faked Rolexes and cheap handguns got put into a neat pile.”

“It was on the way, he gives a good part of his profits to our target group for being allowed to work unmolested. I figured why not. Would you mind stomping this as hard as you can a few times?”

“Not at all.”

*******************************************************

On a bridge.

“You want me to do what?!” That was unusual.

“Drop down on that boat on the move from here. If that doesn’t sink it proceed to sink it then swim ashore. Feel free to haul them with you so they don’t drown.”

“Why?”

“There’s a small drug shipment on the boat.”

“It’s tricky. I’m not entirely sure I can hit it from here.”

“Not a problem. I can.”

“How?”

He pushed her off the bridge.

“SON OF A……” He couldn’t hear the rest as she dropped out of hearing. He then proceeded to try to think up a good apology to keep her from maiming him when she reached shore. He figured he’d have to use some of the loot to buy some high grade chocolate. There were a few stores on the way open at this hour, but he’d have to run.

Dawn, at a convenient rooftop.

“I’m so glad there aren’t any lectures today.” Frank stated as he watched the sun just starting to cross the horizon.

Miranda still dripping water was munching chocolate next to him as the red morning light played across the roof and made her red hair look even brighter than normal. “Next time give me some warning before you use me as a bomb.”

“I would have, but we were out of time. It was farther along than I expected.”

“The water was freezing. I’m not immune to cold you know.” She was annoyed, but not genuinely angry.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Now admittedly it has to be colder than that to be any danger, but it’s still not very fun.”

“I’d take your outrage worse if I wasn’t acutely aware part of you is still laughing gleefully over how cool that was.”

“You really should have seen it. They had NO idea what hit them. One minute they sit around bored but happy they are almost home free. And the next BAM! Yours truly made them all wet their pants.”

“I can imagine.”

“Think this got the message across?”

“I’m fairly sure they know.” Of course Miranda would probably be angry if she knew that the message he intended to send was slightly different than the one she thought he was sending.

It was a damned if he did, damned if he didn’t situation.

**************************************************************

The mood was somber.

“It would appear you have been more thoroughly compromised than I was informed.” Reaper stated. Reaper didn’t particularly care for the plight of the mobsters, but it was interesting to see how his prey was dealing with a setback.

“How bad is it?” An older man asked one of the younger people at the table. Reaper thought he was one of the up and comers in the organization, but he didn’t know for sure and he didn’t care.

“The damage on its own isn’t too bad anywhere. It’ll take a few weeks to restore most of it, a few outlying cases a few months. The real damage is to morale. Our people are starting to feel we can’t protect them. That these interlopers are operating freely and we are unable or unwilling to confront them.” That fit Reaper’s idea of what his prey was intending to achieve. Switch to harassments and hit and run.

He was impressed with how fast his prey had recovered and started striking back.

“That begs the question. Where were you?” The old man asked Reaper.

“I am under no obligation to protect you. My mission is purely search and terminate, but in the future we should give your field operations the means to contact me so I can respond to it instead of only getting informed hours afterwards.”

“We can’t just sit here and take it. The other families will be smelling blood in the water. We need to hurt these people back.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Excuse me, but I have a message I think you’ll want to see. It got passed to us last night and it’s written to “The Latest Grim Reaper.””

Now things were getting interesting.

******************************************************************

Miranda knew she should get some sleep. Sure sleeping during the day wasn’t the best idea, but it was better than tiring herself out completely.

But something was nagging her. It wasn’t anything tangible, something she could put her finger on, but it was the general feeling that something didn’t add up.

So she was instead looking up Grim Reapers.

Anthony Drew, calling himself the fourth horseman was dead. Miranda had never faced him, but she’d talked to people who had. He made grand statements a lot, and was unduly fond of Johnny Cash music even going so far as to play it during a fight with High Flight (And wasn’t THAT a lame name). He had washed up on shore near San Francisco. Severe stab wounds and deep cuts apparently applied with superhuman strength was the presumed cause of death. He’d caused a few deaths, and Miranda wasn’t exactly going to mourn his passing.

Maxwell Forbes, The Grim Reaper, was also dead. Miranda had faced him and found him an annoying man trying to cover an inferiority complex in grand standing and threats. He had a few murders on his conscience. Overall under different circumstances she’d be tempted to try to track down his grave to dance on it. Maybe convince one of her former colleagues who’d also faced him to join her in a Tango.

However she began to suspect a pattern and looked up the whereabouts of somebody completely different.

He’d called himself Discworld Death. D-Death for short, from what Captain Gallant had told her he had only added that when people got confused of whom he was mimicking. Unlike the other two he had been a hero. Miranda had met him, repeatedly. He’d been the entertainment at her Ninth birthday party. She’d been in Captain’s Gallant care then albeit not as an active sidekick yet. Despite the suit he made surprisingly good entertainment. She wouldn’t call him close, but she’d known him and looked up to him when she was in the business.

And unlike the other two he had died in public. There were pictures though not very good ones of his murderer.

It was always hard to tell who somebody was in a cloak and mask even if the picture had been good, but there was something about his stance and posture that was unmistakable. It was the same Reaper who had tried to kill Frank.

She reached for her phone. It rang a few times before anyone answered. A groan was audible on the other end.

“Hi!”

“Who the hell calls at this hour?” Came from the other end.

“It’s nine in the morning Charger. You might want to get out of bed.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Miranda?”

“Which Miranda?” His brain obviously hadn’t woken up yet.

“I believe you once called me the only Miranda who ever mattered.” That got his attention.

“Gallant Girl!” Charger had a not very well hidden crush on her.

“Not anymore, just Miranda, I’ve gotten out of the game remember.”

“Still I haven’t heard from you in forever. How are you holding up?”

“About as well as any indestructible hot redheaded bombshell with nice legs holds up.”

“Do you need me to come defend your honor?”

“You might want to see about getting some honor of your own before you start worrying about anyone else’s. Anyway, I was calling about D-Death.”

“So finally heard about that?”

“Yeah, and when I looked a bit more deeply I found a pattern that seems to imply somebody is murdering anyone with a Grim Reaper style theme. You tend to be on top of the rumor mill.”

“There’s not a whole lot known. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s got invisibility we think is technology based, and he has no problems with killing and doesn’t really care where you stand ethically. We’re pretty much running out of potential targets for him.”

“Nothing more than that?” Either Reaper was a total enigma, or Charger was holding back and she might have to try to be charming.

“Nothing concrete no.”

“You mean to tell me that the supposedly brilliant Charger can’t figure anything else out a poor little girl might want to know? Pleeeease?” Okay with the tone of voice and that last please she may be putting it on a bit thickly, but Charger was probably not really going to notice.

“Well. This is unconfirmed, but there’s a name associated with him, one we’ve seen a few times, but nothing concrete. An employer he works for the few times we’ve seen him outside of killing other reapers. We know that he was referred to as the Doctor.”

“From the british TV show?”

“No. He’s got a full name, but we don’t have it. He’s apparently very cautious about letting even his cover name out.”

“Nobody I know about, but I was under the impression Reaper worked for hire for the mob.”

“Never heard of him doing that, our information does come from him doing a favor for a mobster, and informers within telling us that little tidbit for information. He was apparently on loan from the doctor in return for specific materials.”

“What sort of materials?”

“Expensive lab equipment or something, nothing I was familiar with.”

“This Doctor worries the old boys for some reason, probably because he has somebody like the Reaper to be an enforcer for him. I doubt you can use anything of this anyway, but please don’t tell anyone I told you this.”

“I won’t. It’s not like Miranda Bosworth can use this. Bye!”

“Hey wait...” She hung up.

“But Elpis sure as hell can use this.”

She pulled open a notebook and started brainstorming. She’d make this add up even if her brain crawled out of her ears and into the corner in protest.

Unfortunately her will outpaced her body and she fell asleep at the desk within an hour. This would leave her with precious little time to act once she finally (mostly) figured it out.

***************************************************************

Frank checked his getup again. He’d done some major edits this time around. No tranquilizer pistol and no taser. He had the PDR on a sling on the front and carried as many Flashbang and Smoke grenades as he thought he could get away with while avoiding any grenade related mishaps.

He debated whether or not to bring the cellphone, but decided in the end to do so, but drop it somewhere before he got to the target.

He checked the ammo. He had as many clips as he could carry. They were loaded with specialized armor piercing ammunition trading overall damage for even more penetration. He wondered if that was overkill, that perhaps something less powerful might let him take Reaper alive.

Worry about alive when you were sure you could win. It seemed to be a better policy.

He stopped at the threshold. Convincing himself yet again that this was a good idea.

The thing is. He wasn’t sure that it was. He forced himself to move anyway and closed the door behind him.

He sensed her partway down the street, but kept walking. He had several minutes before she could realize he wasn’t there. He turned and got a look at her. She was in her street clothes so wasn’t here as Elpis.

He hadn’t expected her to jump up and knock on his window. He should keep moving while he could, evade her, though he kept watching, curious what she’d do next.

Unfortunately what she did next capitalized on one of his mistakes. As he rested for the day he’d switched his pre-paid phone to having sound, and in the quiet street it carried, not that far, but far enough that she glanced down and spotted him.

She jumped down landing a bit away from him and walking towards him. Part of him screamed to run, but he held his ground. Maybe he could talk his way out of it, but just in case he pulled something from his harness.

Then he sensed her mood, and realized he should have run.

“And what are you doing out here at this hour.” She radiated worry, suspicion, anger, disappointment and hurt.

He opened his mouth.

“And don’t claim scouting. You are loaded for war.”

“Maybe I was just prepared for the possibility that Reaper showed up?”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“You try to confuse issues so it’s more easily diverted. You did it with the sniper, and you’ve been doing it here. You’ve been omitting some key pieces of information.”

“Just what are you leading up to?” She probably had him, but after the last debacle with her assumptions he wasn’t going to give it up while there was a chance to defend.

“I finally found out just who were up against today. And you had to know before me given who you are. You HAD to know he was a dedicated supers killer. And you didn’t tell me.”

“I honestly didn’t want to keep fighting you over it.” That was the truth, but to be honest he didn’t expect it to hold as she was clearly aware he wasn’t telling the truth.

“And you intend to take him on again alone.” Accusing tone.

“He needs to be stopped. And he’s too cautious and too sneaky to move in if you are around.”

“And you’ll be able to avoid being noticed?”

“I don’t need to. He treats it like a game, so I passed him a challenge through the black market seller at the docks yesterday.”

“You WHAT?!”

“He won’t turn it into a trap and I’ll be able to figure it out in advance if he does. I was tempted to just mine the site ahead of time and blow it up, but there’ll be too much collateral.”

“You challenged him to some macho one on one showdown?! Are you INSANE?!”

“He can choose when and where to engage with almost impunity. I had to draw him out somehow.”

“So you’ll instead offer yourself up to get gutted like a fish.”

“I’m not as helpless as you think I am.”

“I’m not saying that! I’m saying that there are normal scale threats and there are super scale threats. And you can handle normal scale, but super threats are out of your league!”

“I’m at a disadvantage, that’s all. And a disadvantage can be neutralized, or worked around, or offset by other advantages.”

“Except if an advantage is too great. Then it overwhelms you. And I think it does.”

“And I think it doesn’t.”

“I got a better idea at what I can do and what he can do.”

“And I have a lot more experience with supers facing off. You are frail. He’s not. I’m guessing that you shoot him, and he keeps going at least long enough to disembowel you.”

“You’ve never heard of the concept “suppressive fire” have you?”

“I’ve heard of it, and I’ve noticed how ineffective it tends to be in superhero combat.”

“Most of those times they didn’t have this sort of firepower.” He held up the PDR

“And you are sure it will be enough? Are you even sure it’ll hurt him?”

And there came the one argument he feared. He’d screwed up. He should have tried harder to take control of the conversation. He wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t sure he could bluff her either. She knew the answer to that question. It was now impossible to change her mind in the time he had available.

“I’m sorry about this.” He said as he threw the flashbang he’d readied when he saw her coming towards him.

***********************************************************

Miranda blinked a few times. Pain is just stimuli in amounts the body deems dangerous. Her body had a pain level set to match her durability.

That was why the flashbang didn’t actually hurt. Sure she couldn’t hear quite right for an instant. And it took a few seconds for her eyesight to adapt, but it wasn’t painful.

Still “He just flashbanged me!” was a shock in itself.

Her eyesight mostly returned and she spun around wildly, unable to see him, but guessing he’d continue in the direction he was already heading and dashed down the streets. She spotted him as he turned into an alley, apparently not anticipating her recovering quite that fast.

He had a headstart and was already exiting the valley when she entered it, but she was gaining fast.

She couldn’t see him coming out of the alley so she leapt upwards and got some altitude grabbing onto a ledge and holding on with ease.

There! He’d regained some lead while she scouted so she kicked off from the building getting some extra distance.

She couldn’t go full force without damaging the building, but it gave her a nice extra boost. She landed at a run as he dived into another alley.

She had him now! She rounded the corner just to run into a wall of smoke.

She kept running, got through it, and couldn’t see him even when she reached the street. That wasn’t possible! Unless he had turned around inside the smoke and run past her again!

She swore under her breath as she set off backwards after him again.

She couldn’t see him, but there were several potential escape routes and she had no way of knowing which he’d take. She picked one at random and ran down, but as expected chance worked against her and she saw no sign of him.

By now he’d be too far away for her to have any reasonable chance of finding him.

Shoulders sagging she started walking back to his apartment. She should have rushed because she knew that her only chance was that he had left a clue where he’d go. But she also knew he was almost certain not to do that. In the end she’d wait a few hours, but if he hadn’t shown up back by midnight then he probably wasn’t coming home at all ever.

She was angry with him, but not angry enough not to care what happened to him. She really hoped she was wrong, but on a fundamental level she was certain she wasn’t.

In her heart she knew Frank Baker had just effectively committed suicide.

***********************************************************

Frank knew she wasn’t following anymore so he set course for the rendezvous point. It was seriously annoying to have to waste a couple of his precious grenades on the escape. That’d hurt him in the fight, but turning back wasn’t an option. Not at this time.

If he failed to show up he’d not get a second chance. Reaper had a certain measure of respect for him right now, but if that was lost then any chance of starting a fight on Frank’s terms evaporated with it.

But it all depended on the assumption that Reaper wasn’t an extreme end durable type super. With the ammo and weapon combination he was using was supposed to be able to put down close to eighty percent of all bullet resistant supers out there at short range.

A warehouse was so cliché, but it was the best environment for him to fight in. He needed to fight in cramped space where he could limit angles of approach, where he could break line of sight himself and make his sense count for more. Of course that meant less distance for the scythe wielder to cross to slice him open.

There it was. He felt Reaper’s presence. He wasn’t cloaked yet, and given that how painful it was he probably wouldn’t until he spotted Frank.

Reaper was also the only presence he felt. At this hour with so little background “noise” for his sense he could sense farther and with greater detail.

He wouldn’t mind sneaking up on him and taking him out. He entered the building. Unfortunately Reaper had apparently predicted it. Something crunched under his shoes. He couldn’t see what in the dark, but it sounded like glass.

That sneaky bastard! Immediately the read on Reaper disappeared replaced by the ambience of pain.

Frank dashed away from his position. The crunching disappeared after a few steps. Reaper had covered entrance points only, probably because it required a lot of material to cover all of the building. Or perhaps it was because he wanted a hunt. That fit his personality as well.

With no other minds in proximity he found that he was getting a vague sense of direction. Not as good as he’d usually get, not good enough to aim by.

Then he’d have to make it good enough. Reaper was tracking him. He moved between two rows of containers, limiting the potential approach to a single plane, then he hit the metal with the butt of his rifle.

The clang reverberated through the empty silence. Reaper moved towards him, cautiously. He probably wasn’t sure if Frank had made the noise deliberately or not.

Good. If he had been coming in full force at altitude Frank probably couldn’t have gotten a bead in time

As it was cautious movement along the ground to get a better view in the shadows between the containers Frank just had to aim at the opening.

He held his fire forcing himself to breathe calmly as he tried to guess and speculate on how far out Reaper was exactly. Had he passed the point where he had to be in a single spot? If he fired too early the gambit was blown. If he was lucky he could end this in a single stroke.

There, now he was certain Reaper couldn’t be outside the metal crevice.

His helmet had hearing protection built in, but even so under these cramped conditions the noise was deafening as he fired a five round burst into the spot that HAD to contain Reaper.

Suddenly he had Reaper’s exact location straight through the cloak as intense pain and shock lanced out to the point it apparently overcame what scrambling Reaper had. He couldn’t tell any detail, but Reaper was still standing.

He aimed at center of mass and kept firing in short controlled bursts. He kept firing, emptying the entire magazine into the invisible mass.

The weapon clicked empty, Reaper collapsed to his knees.

Frank pointed the smoking barrel down, not quite believing his senses that told him that Reaper wasn’t just a corpse, albeit he was in immense pain.

The sparks of the cloak falling made him gasp as he got a sense for the full situation.

Reaper was wounded, but nowhere near as bad as he’d expected. The bullets hadn’t even penetrated fully! Reaper was bleeding, but actual organ damage was minimal. Albeit he could feel that the chest in general and the lungs in specific must hurt like hell given that every single bit of kinetic energy had been pumped into his mass like terrific hammerblows.

The pain was immense, enough to stagger anyone. And yet reaper didn’t fall farther than his knee.

“I am...” Reaper started, but had to take a break due to the pain of breathing.

“...Impressed.” He finished as he forced himself to his feet and charged.

No time to reload! Frank on reflex threw a flashbang.

Under these circumstances Frank was caught in the effects as well, but retained enough control of his senses and body to get away while Reaper was staggered by the detonation right in front of his face.

Outside of line of sight he ejected the spent magazine catching it before it hit the ground, and replaced it with one of his spares.

The good news was that he could hurt reaper.

The bad news was that he couldn’t hurt him anywhere near what he wanted.

Right he’d have to work around that. He’d just have to stay alive long enough to do so.

Frank moved cautiously, trying to avoid giving his position away. Reaper was prowling from up on high. Leaping from container to container and trying to reacquire Frank. However he made the mistake of not cloaking. That meant that Frank could effectively move with no chance of detection for now as long as he didn’t make too much noise.

“You upgraded your weaponry, and you managed to work around my cloak somehow. You clearly are a head above the average “Hero”” You didn’t have to be Frank to sense the sarcasm on that last word.

Frank sat very still. Reaper was moving about. Sooner or later he’d enter Frank’s field of fire.

There! He fired and Reaper dropped from the top of the container out of sight.

It took Frank an instant to realize the drop was deliberate and that Reaper was now coming in low and fast. Frank re-aimed and hit Reaper when he came around the corner.

This was just like a game of whack-a-mole. Reaper had bleeding wounds, but he wasn’t losing blood fast enough for it to be a serious factor. Not in the time Frank could see this fight lasting.

Then Reaper cloaked and tried again. Frank fired, but missed, then realizing he was screwed unless he thought fast threw down a smoke grenade and shifted position as fast as he could.

“Very interesting. You definitely have some sort of extra or improved sense. But while you can see me through my cloak you can’t see me very well.” Reaper was staying cloaked now, and the way the words echoed meant that it was impossible to narrow down more where he was.

Frank could speak back, but he wasn’t going to banter unless it gave an edge. Smart assed banter was for comic books.

Now Reaper was cloaked and roaming. Frank needed to get a better attack position. That was when something exploded.

On instinct he threw himself down, and then realized it was in another part of the building. That fucker was packing grenades!

There were two more explosions in two different parts of the building. Reaper was trying to flush him out.

Frank moved. He needed to find a good position. The grenades gave him a better idea where out of possible spots Reaper could be.

No clear shot, he thought Reaper was up on a walkway, but he wasn’t certain. He took aim and fired. It had been a miss, which meant he had to skedaddle out of there pronto.

Something impacted a couple of meters in front of him. He put his arms up to cover his face as the grenade exploded.

He was still alive, the shock from the grenade knocked him on his ass and he was bruised a bit as fragments bounced off his armor. But it wasn’t that high power. He had a few cuts on spots the armor didn’t cover, but nothing seriously impeding him. He scrambled back to his feet and got out of there.

He ran a gloved hand over the armor. It felt like it was cracked in places. He couldn’t take a lot of those, he was extremely lucky he’d gotten off as easy as he did. It was some sort of custom extra small grenade. Let Reaper carry a lot of them without them impeding him, but it thankfully reduced fragment payload.

He checked his wounds, some blood, but nothing serious. He had been absurdly lucky. He couldn’t count on that happening again.

Frank found a barely fitting crevice between containers he used to get out of this area of the warehouse and work his way past Reaper. He felt Reaper getting more distant. Was he or wasn’t he out of sight?

He’d have to chance that he was. He got leverage on the wall to climb up on one of the containers. It was time to make use of the final tool he’d brought tonight. Remote detonated explosives.

He set the charge then dropped back down to the ground cautiously. As he moved towards his next target Reaper dropped his cloak and became fully visible to Frank’s senses again.

Apparently Reaper couldn’t stay cloaked forever. Thanks to this Frank easily managed to place two more charges at good perches.

He moved back into cover, and then waited and noticed Reaper wasn’t moving much. He was probably waiting for when he could cloak again. He’d have to draw him out.

“It’s interesting to see how your mind works. Most people hung up on not being cliché would put work into an original theme, but you instead picked a cliché one and tried to force it not to be cliché by removing everybody else from it.”

The echoes made him hard to locate, but he hoped that Reaper would get a vague sense of his direction.

“Well I can’t say I’m impressed. You do seem to be near totally reliant on what powers you have. And now that they aren’t enough to let you win easily you are floundering and getting slowly worn down.”

Reaper held himself as a superior hunter, always in control and holding the initiative. But now it came down to having a lot of power he couldn’t apply as the prey was too evasive. He could feel Reaper’s frustration over how hard it was to track Frank.

“You hold yourself to be the superior one don’t you? That you are the one person who are worthy, both of the name and of victory in general. But you only seem to win when your prey has no clue you really exist and you take them down before they can figure you out, and you failed to kill me in that window of opportunity. And while I’m easily the weakest of your targets you can’t crack me anymore. I’m giving you a chance to surrender and be handed over to the authorities. Otherwise I might have to seriously injure you to take you in.”

Reaper was moving. It wasn’t a mad dash, but the frustration and the insults meant that he was now too impatient to wait.

Reaper was moving like Frank had anticipated, above ground level, but not on top of the containers where he might be seen in profile. And he was moving directly into the mined zone. Frank flipped open the button cover on the detonator and put his finger on the trigger.

Reaper cloaked, but he had made the mistake of cloaking in mid air so Frank had his speed and direction. He knew he’d land next to his first charge, so careful timing.

A split instant too early he pushed the detonator and the deafening thunderclap of the explosives rang out shifting the containers next to the charges and causing a few of them to fall.

Reaper was thrown off his perch like a rag doll and hit the wall of another container already dangerously unstable due to the detonation that the final knock made fall over. Reaper fell forward onto the hard concrete floor, his scythe dropping out of his hands and ending up somewhere in the mess.

His cloak failed, Frank wasn’t sure if it was actual damage or a failsafe, but Reaper laid there, visible, dazed and in pain.

NOW! Frank dashed forward. Reaper was successfully getting up, but now he was just standing there swaying trying to stay standing after shock to the inner ear had severely hurt his sense of balance.

Frank brought his PDR to his shoulder and fired aiming low

The chest had taken the fire due to a combination of durable muscles and the rib cage. The lower body had no bones, and far more soft organs.

The hammer blows from the automatic weapon knocked the breath out of Reaper and in his weakened state he collapsed.

Frank reached him, and aimed his weapon straight into Reaper’s right hand almost touching it with the barrel.

At this range against the thinner bones of the hand it was causing fractures, not outright breaks, but enough damage that he’d take weeks or months to fully recover.

One hand effectively disabled, he was trying to aim at the other when Reaper lashed out blindly with his leg and hit Frank knocking Frank several meters back into a hard container wall.

Frank forced himself up despite the raging pain in his chest. It didn’t feel like anything was broken, but he may have taken hairline fractures and similar.

Reaper was getting up, in so much continuous pain that even he couldn’t shrug it off anytime soon.

Frank forced himself around a corner. He was in no shape to continue fighting, but he couldn’t let Reaper know that.

“I’d appreciate if you’d give up now. This ammunition is expensive you know.” He reloaded, making sure it was audible.

“And frankly I’m not sure how much longer you’ll last. I don’t like killing and I think I can take you alive so I’m making the effort, but you are losing a lot of blood.” It was a bluff, pure and simple.

He wasn’t sure he could take Reaper as it stood. It hurt to breathe, his limbs were aching so much he was fairly sure he didn’t have the mobility to stay out of Reaper’s reach even after all that damage.

His sole chance would be to press the attack and hope Reaper didn’t decide to bull through it. Because while he felt certain that as it stood he could inflict mortal wounds on Reaper, Reaper could certainly crush his neck before he expired.

But he also knew that Reaper was genuinely worried. He was frustrated, he was angry, but he was also scared. And he had enough rationality to override the need to get back at Frank. Reaper was wavering. Just a little more and he’d retreat.

“So, I offer again. Surrender now and you’ll at least be able to stand trial.”

Reaper stayed quiet, he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t acting. He was considering his next course of action carefully.

Frank decided to force the issue and rounded the corner firing.

If Reaper hadn’t been in such a bad state he’d have noticed that Frank’s accuracy was greatly diminished, and out of five rounds only three hit.

However, it was enough. It gave Reaper the image that Frank was able to keep it going, but Reaper sure as hell couldn’t.

Reaper cloaked, and Frank felt it fading fast. Not as fast as he knew Reaper could move normally, but as fast as Reaper could manage right now.

As soon as he felt sure Reaper was gone Frank sunk to his knees.

This had been a spectacularly bad idea, but he had gotten off easier than Reaper.

He’d failed in his overall objective to take Reaper out of action for good, but he certainly would take weeks or months to recover from this fight. And Frank hoped he’d recover from his own injuries faster.

A small victory, but he’d take it.

**********************************************************************

Frank took his time getting home. He’d spent some time getting shrapnel out of odd places (Thank god he wore a cup under his suit), and patching up the wounds with what first aid equipment he’d brought.

The armor was a mess. Given the sheer number of cracked plates it would take him days to fix it. He had risked taking off his helmet/mask and go without it for now taking care to avoid being spotted.

He was fairly sure no bones were broken, but his entire body ached so it took a while before he reached his apartment building.

He sensed Miranda even before he entered the building thanks to the general lack of background noise at night for his sense.

What surprised him was that the door hadn’t been broken down. Then he realized she’d probably come in through the window. He probably should just give her a key or something because that’d cut down on his property damage.

She felt... The best description was that she felt something that like a hollow depression mixed with dread. She wasn’t crying your eyes out mourning, but it was the resigned type of mourning.

It annoyed him more than it should that she had already written him off as dead.

He opened the door carefully, she was sitting in a chair facing the door in front of his table. She perked up immediately as he entered.

She was feeling total and complete astonishment. What she saw was something she thought impossible. She sat for a couple of seconds completely frozen, then her mind started moving again.

She stood up fast enough to send his poor chair sliding backwards. He knew what was coming next and was seriously considering reaching for a flashbang.

“You are alive!” He wasn’t sure he could survive the sort of hug she was certain to give him now.

As predicted it was a powerful hug, as he was halfway surprised it wasn’t superhuman. It was a crushingly powerful hug albeit still within human norms and which made his already greatly bruised ribs scream even louder in protest.

“Nnghhhkk!!” He grunted in pain, it really wasn’t something that could be helped. Miranda immediately backed off and finally took a good hard look at his physical state.

“Just how badly are you injured?” Miranda asked. She was clear headed enough to easily realize that if he could walk home it probably wasn’t all that critical, but she was definitely concerned.

“Mostly bruises, a few minor cuts. I came off far better than the other guy. He’s combat ineffective.”

“I don’t give a damn about whether you won or lost your stupid little showdown.” Miranda tried to assert, if Frank read her correctly both to herself and to him. So he took pity on her and answered the question she wanted to ask, but was fighting back the urge to ask.

“He got away unfortunately. I injured him badly enough that he’ll be out of action for weeks or possibly even months. And I did manage to scare him off. He’s going to remember that. Overall I’m calling this a minor victory.”

“And that makes almost killing yourself all right?” Relief, then concern and now anger, she was right on his predictions so far. He moved over to a chair to sit down. She stood across his table with her arms crossed waiting for an answer, and he took a deep breath.

“I think so. I didn’t succeed in removing him as I intended, but I did succeed in ensuring he’ll have a harder time killing for a significant period of time. I think that was worth the risk.”

He wasn’t sure how ethical this was, he was using his talent to keep her calm. She was close to exploding at him, but right now her concern was holding her back. He simply played up the concern. Then he needed to defuse that.

“I say risk, I never intended to die and I did think I could take him or if I couldn’t figure that out in time and get out of there.”

That was when she changed the script on him.

She sighed and sat down.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” He’d expected her to be stubborn but eased into backing off. He was sure she’d been doing her pitbull impression again and he’d have to coax her into letting go.

“You were right. You could handle it. Not as well as I’d like, but you walked away and it doesn’t look like you need a doctor. I underestimated you. And I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. I’d love to chat longer, but my entire body aches, I desperately need a shower and some sleep. And I’ll be passing up any sort of late night outings for at least a week. So could we continue this at another time?” He was off his game here. And she was an enigma

“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you later.”

“And I’d appreciate it if you fixed my window frame sometime.”

“Call it payback for flash-banging me.” She smirked as she left his apartment.

So he’d have to eat the cost of both the grenade and the window. Well if that was all he’d have to take for slighting her he’d consider himself lucky. He still wasn’t quite able to divorce her from her incredible power.

***************************************************************

This was one of the reasons the Captain didn’t like computers. Sometimes you liked being blissfully ignorant how bad the situation truly was while getting enough to make a good decision.

The screen he had was an email from a mobster private doctor. And it showed Reaper’s medical state.

“Damn. If I’m reading this right you are going to be out of action for at least two months Reaper.”

“That is what the doctor says. It would appear we greatly underestimated our enemy.” When Reaper had upgraded him to enemy status that said a lot about what had happened.

“That’s outside the timeframe we’re working on here. And I can’t shift around other assets to deal with this. The mission was a failure, more than that this greatly complicates things.”

This guy was not going to ignore them if he encountered them. And that city was crucial to their long term plans. Given the beating they had given Reaper it was entirely possible they couldn’t take them down without committing more force than they could without weakening support operations to an unacceptable level. At least until the final stages they couldn’t free up enough force.

That meant working around them and eating some losses. That meant more slowdowns both there and elsewhere.

Perhaps he could convince his boss to switch targets, but he suspected the Doc wouldn’t budge. This was too tied up in ideology.

The Captain didn’t really care. He cared about getting the job done, and he worked on this job because he owed their boss big time.

They would have to set the level of acceptable rate of losses higher, and take some delays, but they could still do it. He had put together contingency plans for this.

The Plague Doctor’s plans would go ahead as intended even with this complication.


End.

Good job, this was a fun read with interesting characters. I’m curious do you have any plans to continue this storyline?

It may have taken a while to finish posting, but DAMN IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!

You had me on the edge of my seat, which is always a good thing. You also had me laughing my ass off with your wit.

“I’d take your outrage worse if I wasn’t acutely aware part of you is still laughing gleefully over how cool that was.”

Classic, and classy

Now, the question of the hour: Will you be continuing Miranda and Frank's exploits in the future?

Honestly that is the 1000 dollar question isn't it?

Not sure. I'm trying. But I find it hard to continue a story if it's stopped for any period of time. Which is one of the main reasons for my stories to die. I'm HOPING to continue it. But I can't guarantee anything.

Perhaps if I keep reminding him how cool this 'verse is and help bounce ideas off for him, perhaps you'll see more?

I think I preferred these updates to the earlier chapters. Some specific comments:

-I really liked getting some insight into Frank's motivations. He was hard to sympathize with for me until now, because he's so willing to break the law, up to and including murder. The idea that he can sense what everyone around him is going through, and that this drives him to have to do something about it, was really interesting, and made him someone I could at least sympathize with.

-That said, I did not like Miranda so much in this chapter. Frank was completely right about her having no right to do what she did. Her attitude, while perhaps understandable, was arrogant, controlling, and generally offensive.

-The flirting is rather obvious, but I can understand Frank's misgivings. Miranda very obviously views him as weak and inferior, even if she cares about him, and she behaves in a controlling way towards him. That doesn't seem like a healthy basis for a relationship. She's going to have to undergo some character growth, I think.

-Frank's showdown with Reaper was quite suspenseful.

-Interesting hints as to this "Doctor"'s plan.

-Noted the Doctor Who and Diskworld refferences.

-How the hell is Frank not getting into trouble with the cops? When he was going to confront Reaper, he's going down a public street heavily armed and then starts tossing grenades. How the hell did he not get law enforcement swarming his ass? Are they really that incompetent in this world?

So, a mixed review, but good enough that I too hope their are future chapters.

Thank you. I've pretty much been hoping for reviews like these. Constructive criticism is very useful and WILL be put to use.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I think I preferred these updates to the earlier chapters. Some specific comments:

-I really liked getting some insight into Frank's motivations. He was hard to sympathize with for me until now, because he's so willing to break the law, up to and including murder. The idea that he can sense what everyone around him is going through, and that this drives him to have to do something about it, was really interesting, and made him someone I could at least sympathize with.

I thought I had hinted enough at this being the case in earlier chapters to make it obvious without him having to say it. Obviously not. I think it's because I've tried to avoid datadumping so the exact capabilities he has aren't made clear yet. This just fell on the wrong side of the "Try to avoid datadumping about my world notes". I'll keep that in mind in the future.

That said: I AM seriously ambigious myself about the morals of what he does himself. Right now I'm trying to "Put together traits and see where it feels as if they should lead." style of character writing.

If Frank was more rational about this he'd screw the superheroing and go into politics. With his capabilities he'd be able to achieve a lot more than an average person. Well... Provided there aren't a lot more hidden teeps in politics.

It IS kinda suspicious that there are no laws on the books against that

EDIT: Also to make something perfectly clear: I think I've stated this already, but this is NOT meant to be our world + supers, or a thought experiment about how actual supers would play out (Been there done that), or political commentaries. The world is as it is because somebody wanted suggestions for how to do something with supers, and after starting it off I got too carried away.

I just figure that if you have a setting that allows pretty much revolving door supervillains there'll be a lot of other rot setting in fast. There are more differences, but I'm for character oriented story first, alt history distant second as far as it affects the immediate story and frankly there's stuff I'm struggling with to work out that I try to avoid touching on.

To go into full indepth detail of the world differences WOULD fall into the "Too much datadump"

But it plays into Frank's decision to do what he does because law enforcement as a consequence is far less effective in this verse in a lot of ways. In short Frank's actions is not in the least sensible in the real world. Or in 90% of my fictional settings for that matter. But they work in this.

tl:dr Disclaimer: I do not endorse violent vigilantes in real life

END EDIT

-That said, I did not like Miranda so much in this chapter. Frank was completely right about her having no right to do what she did. Her attitude, while perhaps understandable, was arrogant, controlling, and generally offensive.

Pretty much the point. Again I'm trying to envision how they'd act given backgrounds and traits and core personality. That gives some good traits and some flaws. Compared to her nearly everybody is made out of glass. Some just happen to be a bit reinforced and Frank isn't. Don't fear the Reaper isn't intended to be her proudest moment. Still, she's a very high end super power wise. That does lead to a serious case of "I'm best suited to handle whatever comes up stand aside citizen." attitude.

Hopefully though she'll be made more likeable in later chapters.

And it's not like Frank is innocent what with pushing her off a bridge without permission

-The flirting is rather obvious, but I can understand Frank's misgivings. Miranda very obviously views him as weak and inferior, even if she cares about him, and she behaves in a controlling way towards him. That doesn't seem like a healthy basis for a relationship. She's going to have to undergo some character growth, I think.

You have NO idea. I just hope the story lasts enough to use it all.

-Frank's showdown with Reaper was quite suspenseful.

And you have no ideas how many times I rewrote that part

-Interesting hints as to this "Doctor"'s plan.

Setzer actually wrote that plan. He made that particular villain group, I'm modifying it to fit how the world goes, but otherwise he takes credit for the core plan and most their characters.

-Noted the Doctor Who and Diskworld refferences.

Couldn't resist. I'm an addict I know:P

-How the hell is Frank not getting into trouble with the cops? When he was going to confront Reaper, he's going down a public street heavily armed and then starts tossing grenades. How the hell did he not get law enforcement swarming his ass? Are they really that incompetent in this world?

I got no good excuses for that. I sent it by 3 pre-readers. NOBODY noticed anything weird about that segment. I didn't think about it at all. It just totally slipped my mind for some reason.

For anything less than the grenades though: It was night time, in an area with low night transit. He knows instinctivly if somebody was looking at him (Or even if somebody is nearby and paying attention) so he got better chance of avoiding being spotted.

The grenades though should have done something. Only excuse I can give is that it was over too fast and stayed too mobile for the cops to get there in time and by the time they were on the scene it was all over. But that's just an excuse

So, a mixed review, but good enough that I too hope their are future chapters.

Thank you. And I do hope for more reviews like this. It's hard to improve my writing and plotting without detailed feedback.

Rogue 11 wrote: I thought I had hinted enough at this being the case in earlier chapters to make it obvious without him having to say it. Obviously not. I think it's because I've tried to avoid datadumping so the exact capabilities he has aren't made clear yet. This just fell on the wrong side of the "Try to avoid datadumping about my world notes". I'll keep that in mind in the future.

On the contrary, it was just as probably an oversight on my part. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I can see where this was hinted at before.

As to the extent of his powers, that was fairly clear since the first couple chapters.

That said: I AM seriously ambigious myself about the morals of what he does himself. Right now I'm trying to "Put together traits and see where it feels as if they should lead." style of character writing.

If Frank was more rational about this he'd screw the superheroing and go into politics. With his capabilities he'd be able to achieve a lot more than an average person. Well... Provided there aren't a lot more hidden teeps in politics.

It IS kinda suspicious that there are no laws on the books against that

Why not run with that idea? Not for Frank, but maybe have a supporting character in one chapter who uses their powers for politics? It would make a nice contrast with Frank's methods, and since early in the thread you did ask for character suggestions...

tl:dr Disclaimer: I do not endorse violent vigilantes in real life

Of course not.

Pretty much the point. Again I'm trying to envision how they'd act given backgrounds and traits and core personality. That gives some good traits and some flaws. Compared to her nearly everybody is made out of glass. Some just happen to be a bit reinforced and Frank isn't. Don't fear the Reaper isn't intended to be her proudest moment. Still, she's a very high end super power wise. That does lead to a serious case of "I'm best suited to handle whatever comes up stand aside citizen." attitude.

Hopefully though she'll be made more likeable in later chapters.

And it's not like Frank is innocent what with pushing her off a bridge without permission

Granted, though I cut him a little slack there because a) there was no way he could possibly hurt her, and b) its the only thing of the sort I can think of that he did.

You did make Miranda's motives pretty clear, however. I still won't say I liked her in this chapter, but I could get why she was behaving the way she was.

I got no good excuses for that. I sent it by 3 pre-readers. NOBODY noticed anything weird about that segment. I didn't think about it at all. It just totally slipped my mind for some reason.

For anything less than the grenades though: It was night time, in an area with low night transit. He knows instinctivly if somebody was looking at him (Or even if somebody is nearby and paying attention) so he got better chance of avoiding being spotted.

The grenades though should have done something. Only excuse I can give is that it was over too fast and stayed too mobile for the cops to get there in time and by the time they were on the scene it was all over. But that's just an excuse

You're correct that given it was night (something I am embarrased to admit I missed in my first reading) and given his abilities, he could probably avoid any notice by casual observers. But seriously, chucking explosives around in the middle of the street?

Not a huge superhero fan, but your writing style, characters and universe really grabbed me. I especially like your attention to detail in describing everything from weapons, costumes and characters without going overboard and drowning us in the deluge.

However, some more descriptions of Frank, and possibly more exploration of his backstory would be welcome, as I'm having a hard time picturing him.

I'm also loving the moral and ethical dilemmas faced in each chapter, as well as the personality conflicts.

Best of luck with your story.