The Girl in the Metal Suit, Issue 4 (Complete)

[Mayabird]

After that last ridiculous adventure, all Amy Chan wanted was a little R & R. Was that too much to ask?

Yes. Yes it was.


Part 1A


Amy zipped up her suitcase She felt like she was missing something, then remembered the stack of papers lying on her keyboard. And then, yes, that was everything. She carried them both out of her bedroom.

Yancy was waiting for her in the den, idly flipping channels on the TV. He barely looked up at her. “Ready? It’s still sorta early.” He’d been very subdued recently, quite understandably. Amy hated to admit it, but she preferred it this way. No more of that unintentionally obnoxious naiveté or the whole “Miss Chan” business which got on her nerves - she was barely older than him; it wasn’t right. A part of her felt that this was what was letting her do something that was probably monumentally stupid.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Amy replied. “But first, here’s all the paperwork. W-2s and everything. I’ve already filled out the parts I needed to, so when you’re done you can fax them or mail them or whatever.” Contract, employment papers, all that legal stuff – she was hiring him as an employee. It knocked Yancy out of his malaise.
“Wow, you’re really hiring me, then? And you trust me to do all this for you?”
“I already trust you with my secret identity and my flamethrower with attached bodysuit. I highly doubt you’ll go all skeevy on me on a tax form.” She handed him the stack.

Yancy was at a loss for words. “I…I mean…”
“Don’t get mushy on me,” Amy said. “The business is mostly tedious and boring,” AND stupid, “but it does pay the bills, and with an extra pair of hands we can get more work, so more money….” And take this vacation, which might be the real reason I’m doing it. “…and you know… money’s good to have…” She trailed off as she noticed the scene on the TV. It showed the aftermath of the last battle at the High Museum.

The announcer said, “Mayor Howard said yesterday that city funds will not be going to repair the High, stating that…”
“Thanks, Clark,” said Amy. “I knew there was a reason I voted for you.” Then she noticed Yancy’s cheer fading as he was lost in thought. Amy shut off the TV. “About time for us to go. And that reminds me. This is also for you.” She pulled a keychain from her pocket. “Copies of all the ones you’ll need for the job.”
He took the keys, house and shed and so forth, trying to pick out the one for the van, when his eyes paused on one. A small one, looking like the key to a safe or lockbox.

“Are you ser-”
Amy took a breath. “I’m not going to give you any instructions, because that would just ask for rules lawyering. You should damn well know right and – the important thing here is that you’ve only been in the suit twice, and that was when I had to run tests. You didn’t fly it, run the flamethrower, anything, and it doesn’t even fit you well. I am going to trust your judgment while I am away. Don’t disappoint me.
“And remember, your main task is to fill out the dead trees and to get to the appointments.”
“Yeah.” He got up. “So I guess I’ll take you to the Marta station now.”

Yancy took the driver’s seat, and as they pulled out of the driveway he asked, “You never did say why you’re going on this vacation.”
“Nope, never did,” Amy replied.
At the first red light, Yancy asked, “So, why are you going on this vacation?”
He thought that she wasn’t going to answer, but she was thinking of how to phrase it. “You know the saying about the other shoe dropping? In a disturbingly short time I’ve gone from an obscure C-list loner patrolling a B-list city to teaming up with the big name heroes and battling real baddies. I don’t know what’s coming next, but it can’t be good, and I want a break before it happens.”

“So you think there’ll be more crazy things happening?”
“Most likely. Definitely if they repair that museum. Place is a trouble magnet.”
“Oh! That’s what you meant by ‘Thanks, Clark.’”
“Exactly! The more trouble it brings, the more media the trouble gets. That attracts more trouble, more …oh hell with it, bad guys like attention and they’ll get drawn in if they think they’ll get it here. I wanted to avoid that. Amuse myself by beating up a few petty thugs, and keep it all nice and quiet and local. The occasional small time metahuman villain? I could handle that and so could the city. All the big stuff just makes…” Amy suddenly realized that Yancy had gotten very serious and quiet during her rant. “…sorry.” They drove in silence, one of those silences of late, the rest of the way to the station.

As Amy got out of the van and pulled out her suitcase, she mumbled the usual stuff about calling her cell if he needed her, and so on. For the first time in a few minutes, Yancy spoke. “And you’ll definitely call if you get news, right? You know…”
“Yeah, like I promised, good or bad, if I hear from-” and shrugged with one shoulder in the direction of what she hoped was north, and thus vaguely towards West Virginia.
Yancy nearly stuttered, “It’ll be almost a year there since…”
“Shh, not so loud. Public.” Amy dropped her voice down. “And yeah, I know. I don’t know if my gals there are still alive or not. But there’s nothing we can do right now. Just wait, see what the, ah, pros can figure out, and then go from there. And I will call if I find out anything from them.”
“Okay.”
Amy reached over to close the van door. “Don’t get killed,” she said, as a final comment, before shutting the door and heading for the train to the airport. She didn’t look back once.


Meanwhile and not entirely coincidentally nearby, a man who had been attracted by the media attention studied his notes. He sat cross-legged in the cheap rented room, which he had chosen because he felt it would help give him insight on his target. This would be the kind of place where his prey’s prey would come from. She was not a proud tracker, in it for the glory of the chase and the trophies of success, but that did not mean this battle would be an easy one. Even the smallest predators could be vicious and dangerous when cornered.

The man was neither hero nor villain, but both were his quarry. He appeared and disappeared as he pleased, onward always to the next safari, and never leaving any trace of himself behind. Few had encountered him, and even fewer knew his name. But privately, he called himself….KLAVO THE HUNTER!

[KlavoHunter]

[Vehrec]

....

Right, vice grips time. Klavo, let's see those fingers.

[Mayabird]

Part 1B

Two excruciatingly boring days passed for Yancy. He would start on the paperwork, then start to think about her, Red Tanya, and wondering if she missed him, and if she worried about him being gone for so long, and how much time was passing there…and then hear an alarm going off, meaning it was time to go to some other appointment to perform some maintenance on some little company’s server or something, or maybe to some person’s house to fix a computer, where he learned exactly why Amy had left that note to not read the fanfiction under any circumstances.

The first night, he came home to his parents treating him to a big dinner and pride that he finally got a real job, even if it was with that crazy chick up the street who’d gone to Tech and ran her business out of her house. The second night, he returned to a dark house, with a sandwich left on a plate on the kitchen counter with a note:

“Gone to the theater. Love ya! Proud of ya! Mom & Dad.”

Yancy took the sandwich back to the shed and pulled the cover off the armor suit. Without anything else to do, he might as well make sure the suit was in peak condition. He took out the checklist, which they very rarely used since they had everything memorized. Anyway, it would’ve been impossible to understand if someone didn’t already know all about the suit. One time he asked Amy why she made it, and she’d responded with some equivalent of “because.”

There was a small box built into the neckline of the suit, barely visible to anyone who wouldn’t know about it. Open it, and there was a small keyhole. As one last protective feature in case anyone found or tried to steal the suit, it would not operate unless the key was in. Amy had left the key in there. Yancy had also asked why she bothered with the little security feature when she completely negated it, like having a password-protected computer and having the password on a sticky note on the monitor. She had made a noise that wasn’t quite a snarl, but a little more than a growl.

It wasn’t there now. Did she have to remove it to make the copy? But if it was her only one, what would she do if she broke or lost it? Was that why she left it in, so she wouldn’t lose it and then we stuck without it? Had she trapped herself in a conundrum, conflicted by equal and opposing needs, finding herself having to choose one or the other, when both are bad in their own way?


In a land of corn and soybeans, a superheroine on vacation had a sudden feeling of extreme laziness and a desire to shrug and say “meh” in response to all of the problems of her species.


Yancy hadn’t even realized that he’d taken out the keychain, and that his hand had drifted towards the keyhole, until the key was dangling in front of him.


“Meh.”


“I’ll just do the checklist and go to bed!” he said too forcefully. He went down the list. The bottom points could only be checked with someone in the suit. Well, she did mention that he’d already done it, so…


Nearby, a man sat on a worn, faintly urine-scented couch and checked his notes. The Panzer Pyro – she had grown in prominence recently, though he had her in his sights before. Klavo ran the details of the latest events against his previous information. She was erratic, didn’t seem to have a set patrol or schedule. Might disappear for a couple weeks at a time, then be seen several nights in a row or even during the day. Hard to say if this was indicative of her actual behavior, as the Pyro kept a low profile. Records of people brought to the city burn wards didn’t exactly match the records of the sightings. The sightings were more concentrated in certain areas, likely near her base, but he could be waiting for weeks for an appearance, and the Hunter wanted to move on to other cities and other masked adventurers soon.

But why wait in a blind for her to blunder into him? Her latest exploits only confirmed the most important item about her: she was an opportunist. If something happened involving a metahuman villain, she would be there shortly. All he needed to do was bait a trap.

[Simon_Jester]

Uh-oh. Looks like we may have an Achilles and Patroclus scenario set up here, and that never ends well.

[Mayabird]

Part 1C

The van was designed to carry the suit. It could be driven away from the house. There were certain areas where someone could go flying around in an armored suit in the middle of the day without being seen. He’d been sworn to secrecy on those locations and how to get there, but he had been there for some flight testing.

There was only one appointment for that day. It was on the way to one of the secret places.

So Yancy was running a flight test.

Amazingly easy to fly. The controls were simple, intuitive. Professional, since Amy had ripped off one of her dad’s patents. Flamethrower worked well, as did the wrist plasma guns from SG-14. Hard to tell if the stun gun did its thing without anything to stun, and he didn’t want to test the other weapons. Still, if he had need to, he could roughly use it. No big problem.

He loaded the suit back in the van and started on the drive back. What would Red Tanya say about him temporarily taking the mantle of the Defender of Atlanta? She hadn’t been all too impressed with Amy, really, just tolerated her because of him and the Oracle’s backing. Maybe she changed her mind after that battle? Did she even survive the battle? She must have.

Red Tanya wouldn’t want him to mope in the dark. She’d want him to be heroic. And he had been heroic. He’d fought with a sword in a barbarian battle. Those skills had vanished when he returned, but it meant he had the right spirit, didn’t it? This technological world of appointments and stupid paperwork didn’t run on the same rules…
…unless they did. Amy Chan was cynical, but there were plenty of idealistic heroes. Some of them had been at that wonderful manor in West Virginia. Though he’d been too gloomy to take advantage of it, to listen to their tales and advice, of course.

Yancy tried to remember one thing they were arguing about. Amy had gotten in a debate with some of the others about their role in society. Someone had been saying – was it Ladyhawk? – that Amy was wasting her time dealing with petty crooks in the town, that her talents would be better used elsewhere and that they shouldn’t try to replace the police in their cities. Amy responded by saying that the armor was something she’d built for her own personal gratification. Besides, even if she didn’t do anything it made an impact just to be seen. People would start behaving if they heard things vaguely close to the sound of the suit’s jet-boots.

Something like that. That and paranoia, the thought that the Panzer Pyro could randomly appear anywhere at any time, not being predictable. Those were the kinds of cynical rules this world worked by. Amy’s kinds of rules, right?

She didn’t say he couldn’t. She said she would trust his judgment. That probably meant that Amy barely wanted him to touch the armor while she was away – no, that’s what it would have meant before the other world. Now, could it really hurt to do a long test flight? Do a long circuit around the metro area, get spotted significantly outside the Panzer Pyro’s usual stomping grounds? He need not actually interfere or interact with anything. After all, a lot of those sightings people reported online were false. The rumors were important, though. Surely a heroine wouldn’t mind a little bit of extra mystique added to her persona?

They needed to do some more runs of the suit’s long term flight endurance, anyway. And it would probably be good for him to have some more flight experience in it, just in case she was ever in trouble without the suit and needed his backup. After all, she knew what he’d been capable of. That body was gone now, but that was what the suit was for. Amy wasn’t exactly a large, physically strong person herself. And furthermore…


The next morning, out in the Midwest somewhere, a young man told his girlfriend, “You know, I’ve been getting automated email alerts of Panzer Pyro-and-I-know-you-hate-the-name news and sightings.”
“Yeah I know. That’s kinda sweet of you.”
“Well…the thing is, the, uh, it was spotted a few times last night.”
“So? Most of ‘em are false alarms. We both know that.”
“You didn’t tell your sidekick to keep out of the suit.”

“Yancy’s not my sidekick, and no, I didn’t. Because maybe there could be a cloud of toxic gas and he would need some clean filtered air to breathe. Or there could be a legitimate emergency that would require a moment of superhero intervention. If I say a flat no, he wouldn’t do it to save his life. If I said, ‘only for emergencies’ he’d justify anything as an emergency…he didn’t set anybody on fire, did he?”

“No, just some reports and a really blurry shot of a streak in the night. Which looks more like a large bird.”
Amy Chan stretched. “Then who cares? I’m on vacation.
“Also it looks like your arch-nemeses-”
“Dear, I’m nowhere near important enough to have a single regular nemesis. Now gimme a back rub.”

[Mayabird]

Part 1D


Night in Atlanta. Clubbing and cruising, drinking and carousing, then making up new activities and names for them. And crime, always crime.

A pounding beat, drowning out the music. The party had poured out of the nightclub and sprawled into the parking lot and adjacent empty lot. Floodlights illuminated the area almost as bright as day. Someone flying above would be able to see all the figures below easily and distinctly, especially if that someone had binoculars or a telescope, or an armored suit with a magnification function.

Yancy couldn’t hear what was going on but he could see it clearly. One of the man’s arms was around the woman’s neck, holding her against him as a shield. The other held a gun, and it was pressed against the side of her head. He was backed against a wall, and a small crowd had gathered in a rough semi-circle around him. Some of the partygoers were fleeing, piling into their cars and squealing off in a panic. One of them had crashed into a van not far away, blocking the traffic trying to escape, making the panic worse, and also blocking the path of the police who had come by that road, and they had their hands full with the crowd.

“I have to do something!” Yancy said after he began descending.


“Get back! Get back!” the security guard shouted at the people around. He waved his arms in a gesture of “move away” in case they couldn’t hear what he was saying. Idiots gawping at a hostage situation, getting in the way. Why someone hadn’t shut off that noise when everything went crazy, he didn’t know. The hostage taker was screaming something that the guard couldn’t make out. Where are the cops? I’m not supposed to have to handle this. Throw out drunks, tell people yelling at each other to take it outside, at most break up a fistfight. Where are they?

Someone finally shut off the speakers. They could finally hear what the hostage taker was saying. “Don’tcomeanycloserI’llshootherIwillI’llshootthebitchI’llkillherI’llkillherdead!”
“Fine, I’m not coming any closer. We’re not coming any closer. What do you want?”
“I’llkillherI’llkillherI’llshootdon’tthinkIwon’tshootIain’tnopussyI’llshoot!”

“We get it! We know! You’ll shoot! We know! What do you want?” Where are the cops…Holy shit, it’s the Panzer Pyro.

“You have one chance to set the gun down and let the woman go,” the robotic voice said, with an upraised flamer arm.

“Stupidbitchyoucan’tflamemeyouwannaflamemeandshegonnacook-”

Yancy activated the stunner while he still jabbered. Both the hostage taker and hostage slumped over.

“Don’t worry,” said the Panzer Pyro’s scrambled voice. “It’s a stunner. They are both unhurt. You can tie up the criminal and let the victim rest for a short while, and the police will be here soon.”

Yancy awaited the praise and adulation, and was even prepared for people addressing him as if he was female. He was not expecting the security guard to get in his face and yell, “Are you crazy? That guy had a gun to her head! His finger was on the trigger! What if he’d pulled it out of some reflex thing when you zapped him? I think his finger’s still on the trigger – hey, bud, you taken any handgun safety courses? Then back off and let me handle it.” The bystander stepped back and the guard turned back towards the Pyro. “Chica, I thought you were smarter than that! That was dangerous!”

“Handling danger is my job. And I have further work to do.” Jet boots firing, the Panzer Pyro lifted off and away from the scene.



“Mrrrr…turn it off. Light bad. Wanna sleep more. The thesis can wait…uhh…gimme twenty more minutes.”
“Actually, Amy, I think you should see this.” Her boyfriend sounded serious, so she pulled herself up and dragged herself over to the computer.

“What’s up?”
“I got an alert last night. Breaking news. Your other body stopped a crime.”
“Aw shithell. What happened?”
“…I think you should read it yourself.” He got up and let Amy take the seat.

Silence. The tiredness on her face disappeared, replaced with shock, outrage, and then plain rage.

“[/i]He did what?[/i]” Amy read it again just to make sure she hadn’t hallucinated it. “HE DID. THAT IDIOT! HE COULD’VE GOTTEN THAT WOMAN KILLED! I WILL BARBECUE HIS HIDE. Where’s my phone?”

You idiot, you idiot, you idiot. That’s me, for letting this happen. Knowing that he’s too starry-eyed, theatrical, dramatic, idealistic. How did I get so soft on him? Should’ve sniped the guy. The stunner’s got range. Hover out of sight and zap him. Doesn’t need to know what hit him. Dude could’ve shot the woman before Yancy could react. Those are delicate situations and he’s trying to be some sort of white knight in shining armor.

Yancy didn’t have his own phone. She called his house and left a message, “Yancy, it’s Amy. Call me ASAP. I need a status update.”

We hadn’t even properly tested the stunner. I’ve used it, what, twice? Or did I use it at the manor? Well, if I did, demons don’t count here. I don’t know how safe this thing really is. I haven’t even tested it on any electronics yet. What if it fries pacemakers? What if it induces seizures in epileptics? Yeah, emergency, I would’ve done it too, but not so flashy…

Then she called her house, just in case he was there. “GODDAMNIT MORON WHAT THE HELL?!? CALL ME BACK NOW!”

Flashy, flashy. That’s the issue. He’s not practical. The suit is a heavy weapon. It’s not a magic plot device for making heroic stances. It is there to break things that need breaking. He doesn’t realize that. He doesn’t understand at all.

Then she sent emails to him and her work account. “Yancy. Phone. Now. The events of last night need explaining.”

If you use something for other than its designed purpose, people can get hurt. I should not have left the suit in his hands.

Then she slumped back in the seat. “Ten AM is too early to deal with this crap.”


At 11 AM eastern, a well-dressed man walked through an exhibition. The pretty lady guiding the tour, wearing a cute little uniform and a nametag that said “Tabby,” continued, “These animatonic robots are capable of a wide variety of motion, lifelike and complex.” She gestured towards the giant slithering snake to her right, climbing up a plastic trunk, and the dancing android to her left, then continued on her memorized spiel. “They can be programmed for multiple actions as well.” She pressed a button and the dancing android stopped, curtseyed to the crowd, took a few steps back and sat down at a set table, delicately picking up the tea cup and pantomiming drinking. The tour group oohed and took pictures, and then they continued on. Klavo half-listened as he studied the number and variety of machines on display. It would be perfect for his plan, just as he had hoped. Still, something about the news from the previous night bothered him; a little thing in the back of his mind was telling him that something was off. The Hunter couldn’t shake the feeling, but as he kept walking through the tour, he knew it would still work.


Breakfast/lunch (“I will not call it brunch,” Amy growled) passed with no returned calls. Wishing she had some other way to contact her errant employee, she tried calling Yancy’s house again. Amy reached his mother, who was absolutely sure he had already gone over first thing in the morning since he wasn’t there when she woke up, and yes he’d been home for dinner the previous evening and went to bed at 9:30, because he’s a responsible young man who keeps proper schedules and Amy must know that since she hired him and did she know that Yancy ran over a supervillain and oh but of course Amy already knew because it was her van and they already said they shouldn’t talk about it in public for safety…

Once she was finally able to end the call politely, Amy tried her house again. No answer. Email, call again, leave another message. No response. Then she started looking up how to change the return dates on her tickets so she could fly back the next day.

[End of Part 1]

[Mayabird]

Part 2A

Yancy had been too tired to even walk back to his house, so he crashed on Amy’s couch. He woke up, realized what time it was, and barely made it to the day’s appointment on time, though he was barely presentable. It wasn’t until he’d left and had something to eat that he was able to shake the feeling that his skull was stuffed with cotton. He went back home, agreed to his mother’s explanation that he had gone to work really early so now he was getting off work really early, took a shower, and flopped over on his bed to take a nap.


Everything was ready. Klavo could trigger his media frenzy at any moment. The Hunter knew the perfect moment for it, and it would come that evening. A gala, a dinner event for the wealthy and famous, staged by the robotics company to woo potential investors and show off their products. It would even be shown live on TV! He couldn’t have asked for a better setup.


“Oh, thank you sir. Thank you! You are the most helpful call center person I have ever had to deal with. Your supervisors, if they are listening, should give you a raise. Or at least a gift certificate. A large one, like forty bucks or more. They’d better be listening, because it’s true. Thank you again so much!” Amy disconnected. Her flight would be leaving in a few hours.

[Mayabird]

Part 2B

Amy Chan apologized, “Sorry I had to cut this vacation so short. We don’t get to see each other enough.”
“It’s alright. At least we did get to see each other for a bit. It’s not your fault that your unwanted flunkey isn’t trustworthy.”
“I dunno if ‘trustworthy’ is the right word, but yeah.” She stifled a sigh as they pulled into the airport parking lot.
“Well…once I finish my thesis and all that, maybe I can move in with you. Then we can see each other every day.”
“Sure you wanna move to Atlanta?”
“The scenery’s gotta be better.” There was no need to gesture at the flat monotony of unending crop fields around.

They pulled into the drop-off area. Amy retrieved her bag and they kissed and said their farewells.
“Love you.”
“Love you too. Now take care of yourself and give them hell.”
“I will. And you should hurry back, ‘cause those storm clouds on the horizon are looking really ominous. Unless that’s normal around here.”
“Yeah, I should go.” Another hug and kiss, and her boyfriend drove away. Amy watched him go for a moment, then went inside. Why do I have the feeling that things are about to go terribly wrong? Because Yancy still has plenty of time to do something stupid before I get back. And the airline probably didn’t update their records to show I’m on the flight. Or maybe they did this one and not the connecting one. They always pull that kind of crap.


Dinner. Some kind of meaty casserole and mushy green beans. Yancy barely tasted any of it, not that it had much of a taste beyond salt. Not much talking or sounds beyond forks tinking against the plate and cups being raised and lowered. His mind was drifting off to a strange world where-

A fist slammed against the table. His dad's. “Too quiet. We need to discuss things more as a family.” He turned to his son. “So Yancy, that Miss Chan is working you hard, isn't she?”
“Well, umm...”
“So how and when are you getting paid, Yancy? Hourly? Weekly? You been keeping track of these things?”
“Ahh, umm...”
“Also, will she be reimbursing you for all that work you did for that Hawk Electronics contract?”
“I, I guess so.”
“Kiddo, didn't you discuss this? Don't you have a contract somewhere?”
“Umm...yeah, I think so.” When he thought back, as hard as he could, Yancy did remember Amy saying something about wages and paperwork and so forth, but he hadn't been listening.

“Ooh, speaking of!” his mother chimed in, “She called us twice yesterday, said she wanted an update. Sorry I forgot!”
“Oh.” Did Amy know about the previous night, or was she just calling to make sure he was getting to all the jobs on time? “I think I should call her back right now.”
“No you don't. Yancy, sit back down,” his father ordered. “We will complete this meal like a family, and you can call once we're done. A few minutes won't change anything.”

And then, quiet again. The tinking of forks had an extra, though faint note in it now, the sound of silverware held by a trembling and increasingly sweaty hand. He had to finish his meal before he could call, but when he tried to shovel the rest down quickly he first dropped some of it on the table accidentally, then choked on a glob of casserole. Then his father chided him and made him eat more slowly.

The phone's ring blared through the hush. Yancy jumped and yelped in surprise.
“I'll get it!” his mother declared as she leapt from the table. His father made a motion to stop her but she was already out of the dining room, so he settled on glowering at the casserole crust that remained on his plate.


Amazingly, they did not pull any crap on her. Everything was already in the computers, so all she needed to do was get the new tickets printed and check in her luggage. No line for security, and according to the boards, her flight was not delayed. Yet. There was still time for things to screw up, but she had an ample margin for the connection in Chicago. Should be fine. Well, that storm looked like it was getting closer. Should be fine. She checked her cell phone, saw that it had no reception, then shut it off. No point in wasting the batteries.

Amy pulled out her book but couldn’t get started. Why was she so antsy, Amy wondered. Just nerves? Worried about something? Female intui-shk, snrk! Chuckling, she looked around at the others loitering about the terminal. Mostly the usual crowd one would expect. A couple of big, beefy guys with identical bleached blonde haircuts stood out because they were obviously signing autographs. Some body-builders, maybe? A bit behind them was a janitor with his cart, mopping at a corner. And coming in were, oh hey, doggies! Pretty golden retrievers!

Huh. Do they let seeing-eye dogs on planes? I guess so, since they're here. And they should. But wouldn't people with allergies complain? And do they sit in the seats or what?

Totally fine. Nothing's going on. You know, if I keep thinking this something will...Shut up! Shut up! It's only if you say it! I say it. Amy reopened her book and began to read.


The family was hastily cleaning up.
“Already? What is it, a month early?” Yancy's father looked more annoyed than upset at the news.
“Two weeks, dear, only two weeks.” His mother was flustered. “I thought I'd have more time to prepare, and I haven't packed up anything-”
“Oh for crying out loud Miranda, it's only an hour's drive.”
“But we can't leave the other baby alone and we-”
“They shouldn't have had another kid so soon! All that boy does is puke and cry and-”
“Thomas we are talking about our grandchildren here!”

Yancy tuned the rest of it out. His big sis, ten years older, was having another baby. It was his sneaking out to avoid nephew-watching duties that led to his discovery of the Panzer Pyro's secret identity.

“I don't think I can come along with you,” he began.
“Of course not!” answered his father. “You have a job to go to and no replacements. While we're out, you're the man of the house. Keep an eye on the place. Miranda? Jesus, just throw some clothes in the suitcase and let's go!”

It took a few more minutes before Yancy waved them off from the driveway. It was like a giant weight was lifted off his chest. For a few days, he was free! No more slipping out of the garage at night, hoping they didn't hear the squeak of the hinges! He could come and go as he pleased, keep late hours as Amy always did, for reasons he truly understood now.

He checked the time when he went back inside. Still a bit early to start a patrol. Yancy dropped onto the couch and turned on the TV. Boring, boring... “Oh yeah! That robotics exhibition!” The show had started a few minutes ago, but the intro was always the boring stuff. He settled down to watch.


“Whaaaaaat?” Amy Chan looked up, searching for the source of the sound. Several people had cried out at about the same time...and there was a cluster of people by the arrivals and departures board. Sigh. She, along with several other people, got up to see for themselves what was going on.

Delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, all down the board. There were angry and annoyed sounds, becoming louder, spreading down the terminal. Amy looked around. Most people were still milling about, but a few were uselessly yelling at the frazzled people at the counters. Then she noticed how very dark it had gotten outside.

The announcement started: “Attention, attention all passengers!” The noise level went down a bit. “A very powerful storm cell is-” And then it was cut off as the lights flickered, went dark, and the emergency lights came on. The first fat raindrops splattered onto the terminal windows.


Klavo the Hunter stood on the roof of a nearby building, watching over the proceedings. His costume had once been described as, “Sorta ninja-ish, but not really, maybe like a safari suit? Big game hunter sort of thing? But then it has some elements of tribal warrior feel, not that it looks that way but it looks like it would fit in somehow, even though it's way too high tech and aw crap that's a tranq darrrr...” Parts of it were made out of the increasingly popular (among certain circles) light-sensitive mesh that was dark in low-light but transparent in bright light. In day battles, he enjoyed the illusion of battling near-naked; it taunted his prey. At that moment, though, it was as dark as the shadows around.

He could send specific signals to the reprogrammed robots though the controls on his arms. They were sufficient to send the triggering code as well, but sometimes he like tradition and a little flair. Out of a pocket, the Hunter pulled out a small grey box with an antenna sticking out of one end and a large red button on top. He pressed it.

“OOF!” said the presenter as he doubled over. A shocked gasp from the audience. The robotic crossing-guard figure had just kicked him in the stomach! Then it ran across the stage to the podium and commenced to kick and shop it splinters.

“I'm alright! I'm alright, just a malfu-ACK!” A robotic nurse had grabbed a flagpole and swung it at him. He scrambled backwards, yelling as clearly as he could, “Code Pineapple Squirrel George! Override! Override!” The nurse robot swung again. “A little help here, please! Aaah!” The robot was now flanked by two others, dog-bots that were now in the obvious postures of growling and snarling.

“Sir! They're not responding! I'm trying everything! It's not working!” That was picked up by the cameras too.

The camera swung quickly to the side, where it showed the robots along the walls encroaching upon the seated crowd. Some androids, dressed as waiters or dancers and a multitude of other professions. Animal bots, many lifesize and some much larger than reality. The camera showed two rams and a bear beside a giant squirrel. The people at the edges, all dressed in their dinner finery, were getting up and backing away.

There was a shrill shriek and the camera snapped back to show an blurry, unfocused shot of the presenter diving off the stage, followed by the dog-bots, and then the general screams and sounds of crashing began. The camera tilted towards the floor as the cameraman apparently fled, and then TV image switched to an overhead shot for just long enough to show the tiny figures scurrying like an overturned anthill before it cut to a network emergency screen.

Yancy was already out the door, dashing to the shed.

Rampaging robots spilling out into the streets, people fleeing in a panic, tables and chairs knocked over, screaming: so beautifully stereotypical. All it lacked was...but there it was, just a little late, the robotic gorilla climbing up the side of a building. He tapped a couple buttons on his left arm. Klavo didn't want the robots straying too far from him, just enough that the regular authorities wouldn't be able to contain them easily or quickly.

He walked around the roof, watching the chaos spread. Below, parked on the street, was an abandoned car. A few taps, and the elephant-bot stopped pulling up lampposts, walked over, flipped the car, and went back to its previous vandalism.

Baited. Now he would wait for his prize to arrive.


Tornado coming, or something. I've done tornado drills. We'll just get away from all these giant windows and find somewhere in the interior...they probably know what's going on. She turned towards the entrance of the terminal, expecting to see some people trotting in with a look that said that they knew what they were doing. And she did see people entering.

It made her exhale an angry sigh, and then Amy Chan grumbled, “Oh for the love of God...”

How do they keep escaping? They’re idiots. Complete, utter, irredeemable idiots. They shouldn’t be able to escape from a wet paper bag. There are dangerously powerful metahumans who haven’t escaped as many times as these doofi.

Oh, that's what he meant about arch-nemeses.

Damnit.

“We are the Freegan Five!”

[Mayabird]

Part 2C

Amy Chan did a double-take. Five? Where did they find another stupid sucker to join them...oh my God, that is crossing a big line.

The super-powered smelly guy (What were their names, anyway? Heck if I can remember,) was semi-pushing a little girl, holding onto her shoulders. She was wearing some facsimile of the tattered attire of the other four but still looked generally cleaner. There were smudges on her cheeks, but those looked intentionally added.

Hostage? Seems low even for them. That poor girl looks like she really doesn't want to be there. But why dress her up like themselves? Or maybe that look is because she's hurting. Five. Right. Crap. I bet she's the one controlling that storm out there, too. That is some serious power there. Not good, maybe even bad. This is just completely wrong. At least the stench man looks uncomfortable with it too.

The scrawny leader guy with the disturbing power stepped forward. “We battle against the evil capitalist system that pollutes this Earth and starves its children!” The crowd was not exactly impressed with the scene. At most, people were gawking at the four weirdos who had just showed up. Amy considered challenging them, and then recognized the only one who had some flesh on him and noted that if she could've put up a fight herself, she wouldn't have made the armor in the first place.

One man, who did not know about the group, stepped forward saying, “Who's that kid with you? What are you doing to her?” But when he moved toward her and body-odor-man, their martial arts expert leapt into the air and kicked him in the chest, with a “mighty tree falls upon the logger!” knocking the man back.

When the crowd started to make noise at the response and a few other people began to move toward the five, the one adult woman of the Freegans held out her hands. Amy shouted, “Cover your eyes!” shut and covered her own, and turned away. She saw a flash anyway. Not enough people heeded her warning in time; Amy heard shrieks of pain, including a canine howl. After a moment, she looked back and saw a number of people on the ground, rubbing their eyes, or staggering around. The light-show lady looked winded from the burst: a big one, or did her visor protect her that much when Amy was dazzled at that grocery store? At least whatshisname shielded that girl's eyes with his arm. So not a total douche. Hmm.

From elsewhere, someone hollered, “Hey, where's the security?”

The scrawny man replied, “Don't expect your rent-a-cops to rescue you! We have already subdued them in the name of Gaia! For I am the Gaian Crusader, and with Moonchild, Lovesalot, and Bruce, we will-”

“Shut the hell up!” It was one of those huge bleached blonde guys. He had lifted up one of the airport two-seat benches and was readying to throw it. Moonchild threw a directed light blast at him. The light was still bright enough to hurt Amy's eyes, even at the distance and angle she was at. It was through a colored smear across her vision, she saw the results of that confrontation.
To his credit, the burly man had thrown the chairs, but they were neither aerodynamic nor easy to throw and he had been temporarily blinded, so he very much missed them. Then Bruce pummeled him, calling out his environmental moves.
“You don't do that to my brother!” the other guy bellowed, but he got a light blast and some kicking as well.

The Gaian Crusader noticed that Lovesalot had not joined in the fray. “John, what are you doing? Why have you not driven them back with the gifts the Earth gave you?”

“We're in this same enclosed space, man.”
“Where has your revolutionary spirit gone, John? Why are you turning your back on us and the planet? It is for a greater cause!”
“But you didn't have to drag Shelley into it!”

“Lovesalot, come to our aid!” uttered Moonchild, melodramatically.

He scowled but patted Shelley on the shoulder as he let go. Then he stepped forward, raising his arms, hands in fists.

Amy looked around for that janitor's cart.

When he was at a distance that was far enough away from Shelley but not quite close enough to the people in the crowd that they could approach quickly, the green lines of concentrated stench poured from his armpits. To the nearest people, the effect was similar to that of any predator getting a faceful of skunk spray. Gagging people scurried back as quickly as they could. After a moment, John Lovesalot stopped, moved off to the side and did it again.

He's making a perimeter with his stink, Amy thought as the smell reached her. Even at her distance it was foul.
Now, the fight had completely left the crowd of air travelers. A few crept away to nurse their bruises. One woman was vomiting into a trash can, probably from the smell. Even the seeing-eye dogs were whining. They'd been beaten and now they were trapped.

Well great. I have no idea how long it will be until rescue could arrive. That storm out there is nasty. As if to punctuate her point, a pelting of hail joined the rumble of pouring rain and frequent cracks of lightning. A window cracked under the storm's onslaught, accompanied by a shrill cry. Does this state even have superheroes? I can't remember if I made up Corn Lad and Soybean Lass or not. There's me, but...yeah...

Lovesalot returned to Shelley. She had crouched down, knees on her chest, hands flailing about her head, and she was crying. Her tears left streaks down her smudged cheeks. John tried to embrace her but she struggled away, probably from his smell. Several simultaneous lighting bolts struck around the airport. Amy wasn't sure how to describe the sound aside from “ouch.” The airport shook and more windows cracked.

Once she picked herself back up, Amy looked around at the crowd. They'd been discouraged before; now they were entirely dispirited. It was one thing to try to wait out a storm, and another when the storm was artificial.

Nothing to do but watch the supervillains at their villainy.

Amy grabbed some scent-absorbing pads from the janitor's cart and crept as close as she could while still staying hidden. The pad wasn't enough but it made the smell more tolerable, and she was getting used to it anyway. It wasn't close enough to hear them talk, but they were arguing and sometimes raising their voices, and those bits she could pick out.

“...my cousin! Look at her!”
Mumbles, mumbles.
The Gaian Crusader barked out an order, “Don't stop! Keep up the storm! These corporatists...”
Mumble mumble.
Moonchild: “You can't tell her what to do! We're not hierarchical like that!”
Mumble mumble.
John Lovesalot: “...not the plan! Why are we even here?”
Bruce: “Yeah! What about the warehouse?”
Some shouting amongst all of them. It was hard to place sound bites with faces. “What happened to us...” “...not cool! Not cool at all...” “We lost our way! Too much...” “Don't abandon the...” “...not too young for...” “This is too much for Shelley!” And so on and so forth.

Amy looked back at the crowd of people. Folks who just wanted to go somewhere else in a hurry. Stuff to do and people to meet and... Damnit Yancy you had better not be doing something stupid right now. But no use thinking about that now. Gotta focus on my own problems. She took a deep breath to try to focus, gagged and coughed and remembered why she wasn't taking deep breaths, and then got her thoughts together without another.

We're disorganized. But we're facing idiots who are bickering amongst themselves, and I organized a bunch of scantily-clad servant girls into a fighting force to battle actual warriors. I have lots more to work with here, much better assets.

I got this.

She looked around for a couple faces. There, the two big guys. They didn't look too hurt, but they did angry, a low, simmering, resentful anger. And understandably so. That's gotta be embarrassing, getting beaten by those jokers. Time for a little revenge? Amy checked to make sure the Freegans weren't watching them and were still caught up in their quarrels, then slipped over to the brothers.

“Hey, I'm Amy. Let's take some dumbasses down. What's your names?”
The two men looked down at her, literally. Her head was at their chest level.
The slightly smaller one said, “Don't you know? We're the Hurt Brothers!” Amy gave him a blank look. “The Hurt Brothers bring the pain!” Still blank. “Pro wrestling. You seriously haven't heard of us?” Amy shook her head. He looked disappointed. “I'm Marty Hurt and this is my brother Randy.”
“Nice to meet you. So, do you two know anything about these dumpster-diver supervillains, aside from the, umm, late unpleasantness?”

Randy glanced over. “I know I could take them, if I could get them one by one.”
“Oh definitely,” answered Amy, “But we can't guarantee that they'd let us, that they wouldn't work together long enough again to beat us up, and then go back to their bull”
“But anyway, I'm from Atlanta and they've struck there twice. I saw them both times, so this is the third time for me.” And that isn't even funny. “You know what those three do, but the fourth one hasn't done his thing yet. And it's nasty: he arouses people around him.” She let that sink in a moment. “As in, yeah, he makes everybody horny. Like, at this one grocery store they raided, he made the random bystanders started making out with each other uncontrollably.”

“Sounds kinda hot,” said Randy.
“That's just messed up,” Marty said at the same moment, then gave his brother a look.

“The important thing here is that it's hard to fight when you're trying to dry-hump your neighbor,” Amy interjected.
“So were you in the middle of that too?” asked Marty.
“Uhh...no, I, I was kinda a little distance away. It only works short-range, I guess. Still, weird. Anyway, they still have one trick, but we have an advantage here. That little girl there, Shelley they said, she's the cousin of, umm, Stinky there.” How is it that I can remember the name of a girl I just overheard, but can't remember the other guys' names? “He's really protective of her.”

Marty interrupted, “Is she the one causing this storm?”
“I believe so, yes. Shelley wasn't with them before, and Stinky doesn't like the idea now. I don't think she wants to be involved in this but she's scared. Promise Stinky that we won't hurt his cousin and she'll be okay if he surrenders, and we don't have to worry about him.”
“Divide and conquer,” the Hurts said at the same time. Amy felt like she'd just missed a reference.

“And then he can get Shelley to let the storm abate so we can get some outside rescue come in. Still leaves, ah, Sparkly, Horny, and Kicky.”
“And the stink that's already there,” Marty pointed out.
With her shoulder, Amy gestured at the janitor's cart off to the side and pulled out the odor-absorbing pad. “The thing's full of them. Anyway, for Sparkly, and I'm going to be really embarrassed when I ask them, we have two blind men, plus we can probably recruit a few more people for that part. With Sparkly out of the way, you two can get Kicky.” They liked that part. “As for Horny...I will not ask anyone to volunteer for that, so I'll handle it.”

“Is this how they got taken down before?” Randy asked.
“Ah, no. There's a really minor superheroine in Atlanta, like really low power, just has a little full body armor robot suit and a flamethrower. She beat them up.”
Marty said, “Yeah, yeah, I think I heard of her...Tank Girl, or something.”
“Yes...Tank Girl...so anyway, here is my plan...”

[Mayabird]

Part 2D


Yancy learned some valuable lessons.

Firstly, the flamethrower was not hot enough to destroy robots. It could set their outer shells on fire, but the damage was mostly cosmetic. The mechanical grizzly bear worked just as well when it was on fire and had a partially melted look, but now it looked more terrifying and it could set things around it aflame as well. Yancy ended up using half the suit's extinguisher fluid before he put out all the fires, and afterward he had no idea where that bear had gone.

Secondly, the stun gun does affect machines, but not well. The little automatons, medium dog sized and below, would twitch and seize up quite disturbingly before shorting out. Human sized or above, the ones that were doing the bulk of the damage? It had resembled a battle with a zombie horde. Still in their costumes, they staggered forward, but with frozen faces, an arm that was jutting out at the wrong angle, some dragging a leg, all flailing and attacking and still coming for him. Punch one, kick another, and there were five more clawing on the armor, tripping him up. Knock off the legs and they would drag themselves along the ground.

Thirdly, the plasma cannon does wonders when it hits whatever the heck is in the torsos or main central parts of the machines, a power pack perhaps. However, it is best to be at a safe distance when they explode, especially if there is a tight knot of them.

It may have been a chain reaction, or Yancy may have shot more than one at the same time. He had enough time to realize that he was being propelled through the air before he smashed through a small tree and a bus stop and slammed into a brick wall. It took a moment for him to get up, groaning, at the pain, the fires that the exploding robots had started, and the knowledge that there were still many, many 'bots to go.

Like that bear. Where did that bear go? Yancy wasn't entirely sure where he was. From the moment he had seen the first rampaging robot, an android dancer that shattered car windows as it did pirouettes down the street. A solid punch to the chest and it was down. Then he saw another one up the street. And then one on top of a building. He landed on a tortoise 'bot and crushed it while humming the into to the Super Mario theme. And so on until he tried to tackle the bear.

Speaking of... As he began to spray down some of the fires, he was tackled from behind.

Fourth lesson: always pay attention to your surroundings.

It had hardly been a ninja, but the mechanized ursine juggernaut had not bothered with a bellow of warning, as it had no way of making sounds. It had begun its charge well away, though, in clear sight, as if it had wanted to be seen. The grizzly, unlike a real one, did not outmass the Panzer Pyro, but it was moving fast enough to knock Yancy onto his face. There was a sound of crunching metal which he could only hope was the robot and not the robot suit, though no alarms went off.

“Bwoof!” he grunted as he thudded into the ground. Fifth lesson: you still get jarred around in the suit? More like sixth lesson: stop being so academic when shit shit shit bear clawing at my head!

He rolled around as the claws raked the suit’s helmet. The bear swung a huge paw at the suit again, but Yancy reached out and caught it. The suit was strong enough to hold it back, but then the bear swung with its other paw. He caught that one two, and then they were grappling, with the Panzer Pyro on its back on the ground, holding up a mech grizzly by its front paws as the bear struggled to slash its opponent, or at least body slam it. The only sounds were screeches of metal and Yancy making noises as they fought.

“Grrrrrah!” The suit was strong but it wasn’t meant for physical tasks like this. Punching stuff, maybe ramming stuff, but shoving a bear off when it was on top of him? The suit didn’t respond as he wanted; it wasn’t built to be agile. He couldn’t just slip away. With no other ideas of what to do, he brought the plasma cannon to bear and fired into its face. The bear’s head blew off in a spray of molten metal, but the rest of the body kept struggling as it had been. So then he fired into the general chest area.

The blast was bright, loud, and forceful. The visor dutifully darkened itself to keep out the light even as the suit flipped into the air, then rolled along the ground and smashed into another brick wall, which then partially collapsed onto him. That brought a wheeze when Yancy gasped for breath after getting the wind painfully knocked out of him. Damage alarms went off in his ears and the display brought up an image of the suit with color-coded reports. ‘Minor, moderate, minor, minimal, what the hell are you doing, moderate…’

He didn’t know how to shut off the alarms, and they were loud and obnoxious. “I know! I know!” Yancy screamed, and yelling hurt. He wiggled partially out from under the bricks, and the alarms quieted; he was relieved for the half a second it took for him to realize that a rhinocerous was running by. The suit’s sensors faithfully transmitted the sounds of the machine lumbering down the road.

“Gah!” Yancy lurched forward, out of the collapsed pile of wall, and struggled back to his feet. He hoped his parents would stay away for a while, long enough for the bruises to fade. But that would have to wait until all the rampaging machines were stopped. He tried to activate the jet boots but they sputtered and nearly knocked him over again. Some kind of damage? Well, the rhino couldn’t have gotten far, so the Panzer Pyro could go on foot. He ran in the direction the robot had gone.

Klavo watched from a building and shook his head in disappointment.


Amy approached the two blind men, holding her breath. I hate doing this. It’s going to be so awkward. Has to be done. “Hi, I'm Amy. I hate to ask this, because it's kinda bad, but-”
“You want us to handle Sparkles?”
“Someone tell you already?”
“The Hurt Brothers already told us the plan.”
Amy didn’t say so much as go ‘phew’ with a giant relieved exhalation. “Sorry, it’s just-”
“Amy, I hate people who pussyfoot around me,” said the older man. “I had eye cancer; now I can’t see, but I have a life and that’s not having my every waking moment being the Very Special Episode about tolerance and disabilities or crap. So don’t apologize or try to be politically correct or crap around me.”

“Alright,” Amy said, relieved. “So, are you in? And, so I can stop feeling like a jerk, can I get your names?”
“I’m Robert,” said the older gentleman, “and I’m in. It’s a good plan, and your backup idea is good too. And we’re the obvious picks to handle Sparkles. I’d agree to about anything now so I could get home.”
“Bob here,” said the younger man, “and I hate people who make jokes about our names being the same.”

“So, are you in, Bob?” Amy asked.
“The plan? Oh yeah.”
“Well good. That’s what I needed to know. So, any questions?”


Yancy was wondering how a rhino could disappear. He had thought he could just follow the tracks and torn up road from its passage, but the expected trail wasn’t there. Granted, the power was knocked out so there wasn’t much light and the night-vision in the suit wasn’t great, and the roads were all twisty and convoluted as Atlanta streets tend to be, but he stood at the five-way crossroads and had no idea which way it could have gone.

Fortunately, he saw people running for their lives towards him from one of the directions. He ran towards them and could hear their screams of, “It’s the Panzer Pyro!” “Help us!” “Save me!” “Oh God, the robots are rebelling!”
Yancy yelled, “Already on it! Keep going and it should be safe behind me!” as he ran past.

A few street lights were on ahead – and there it was! The rhinocerous had stopped to knock over two already-battered trash cans and a heavily spray-painted mailbox. “I have you now!” Yancy yelled as he aimed the plasma cannon, but then an elderly man, strangely familiar, jumped out into the light at the robot, waving his arms and saying something. The rhino ran off, and then from the shadows, humanoid figures emerged. Androids, many of them, lurching out towards the single human like a ravenous horde of zombies, though quiter, which somehow made it worse.

Yancy shouted, “I’m coming to the rescue!” as he charged in. There was no time to try anything fancy, so he simply stood in front of the man and punched the androids as they came near. Swing, smash, down. Swing, smash, down. Again. It went smoothly, and before he knew it, there were no attackers left, just a pile of barely-twitching metal and wires. He turned around, waiting for a thank you from the man for saving his life.

Then Yancy recognized his face, because the man he had just rescued was the head designer of the machines. His face had been on all the promotional materials.

“Noooooo! My creations! Waaaaaaah...” the inventor cried as he curled up on the ground, clutching a fallen arm and weeping.
“Umm...sorry,” was the response from the Panzer Pyro before it continued its chase of the rhino.


Everything was in place. Amy had tied a white washcloth around a mop handle, and she approached the Freegans, waving it. She called out, “Hey! Hey, you guys!” Cautiously but not too slowly, she went closer, still waving her makeshift flag.

Finally, the Gaian Crusader acknowledged her. “What do you want?”
“I just want to talk. Can we call a truce? Just need to talk. Please! It's important.” When he didn't respond she continued, “It's really important! I'm serious! Can we just talk for a moment?”
“I think it'll be okay,” Moonchild said. “She's a wombyn...” Amy could barely believe it but she heard the spelling. “...and we can be trusted. The Great Mother did not make us deceitful!”

“It's my decision!” the Crusader said.
“This is what I was saying!” Lovesalot responded. “When did you become the boss, oppressing us like that? We're supposed to be a team of equals who all have an equal say.”
“Fine, fine.” He gestured Amy over. “Just you. You can talk.”
Amy Chan walked over, slowly, clutching the rag on a stick as if it was a talisman, and hoping that she looked properly nervous. Here I go.



Rhino.

There it was, milling about, if a giant robotic rhinoceros could mill about. Everything around it that could be knocked over or trampled was already on the ground or flattened.

It had been waiting.

Yancy was sure he had it figured out by now, so he immediately took aim and fired the plasma cannon while he was at distance, declaring, “your path of destruction ends here!” The shot simply winged the rhino, melting a strip along its left side and then blasting another large pothole into the street, and Yancy didn’t make it past “of.” The rhino started charging him, so he fired again, but that shot cut right through without stopping and hit a flipped car on the sidewalk. The rhino had a giant glowing hole through its head but kept charging.

Yancy tried to sidestep, but he waited too long and the Panzer Pyro was not that quick. The rhino smashed into his left side and leg and sent Yancy spinning. He couldn’t hear his own howl of pain through the alarms blaring in his ears. Once more he crashed into the ground, hurting all over again. It’d take a moment for the rhino to slow and return, but he didn’t have long. It was a labor trying to push himself back to his feet again – and the rhino was already charging back towards him! The push to his feet became a push to the side, to get out of the way, and it nearly worked, except for the suit’s right arm, which cut right through the skin of the robotic rhino and got snagged on its internal frame.

He felt his arm being wrenched and the suit was dragged along the ground for a moment, a few sparks flying from the contact, but then the rhino’s metallic skeleton gave way with a snap and the Panzer Pyro was dropped. The rhino was clearly crippled now, one leg twitching and trying to run but not coordinated with the others. Still, it turned around and tried a third charge. This time, though, Yancy had more time to prepare and the robot was not as fast as it had been. It approached, and Yancy sidestepped. Then he punched into the frame, used it as leverage to pull himself onto its back, and with his other arm, punched at anything that seemed solid. The second hit struck the battery pack and crushed it.

The mechanical rhinoceros took a few more steps and then stumbled and crashed to the ground, sliding a bit from its momentum and tossing the Panzer Pyro off its back. The armored suit tumbled across the road. Yancy was jarred around in the suit painfully, again. It stopped on his back, and he lay there, sprawled out and wondering how many bruises he would have the next morning, and if he could have some bruises overlapping other bruises. Wincing, he started to get up.

Klavo's original plan was to make himself known by shooting the Panzer Pyro in the back or while she was down: a low, cheap shot that would cause some momentary disruptions in the suit, followed by gloating that he was controlling the machines and only his defeat could stop them. A couple more shots and he would have her full attention.

But now, from watching the fights all night, he was absolutely certain: though it was the Panzer Pyro suit, the man or woman within it was not the usual Panzer Pyro. Less experienced, less of a dirty brawler, less snarky...and more naïve. A disappointment, but the Hunter could still derive some enjoyment from the fight.

Yancy had barely stood when he saw a figure emerge from the bushes, a short distance in front of him. It was clearly not a machine but a man, oddly dressed in a meld of native hunter, safari gear, and futuristic garb. On his back were some items that Yancy could not make out, but the strange man was clearly carrying something that looked like a science fiction hunting rifle. And then he spoke:

“Panzer Pyro, I am Klavo the Hunter. I was the one who caused the robots to go berserk, and I challenge you to a duel.”

[End of Part 2]

[Steve]

Nice update, give us more!

[Mayabird]

Steve, I'm only writing this so you'll write the next issues. You remember that, right?

Also, would like to point out that Amy Chan wouldn't have gotten her ass kicked around if she'd been in the suit. Also she would've been wondering why there were so damn many robots. I know I was. Freaking army of them. Where did they all come from?

[Mayabird]

Part 3A

The synthesized robot voice of the Panzer Pyro responded, “I will accept your duel on one condition.”
“Name it,” Klavo said.
“That you give your word that you will deactivate all the machines you have unleashed upon the city.”
Klavo smiled, ever so slightly. “Then, I give my word that all the robots will be deactivated.” He bowed slightly and with a flourish, tapped something on his arm which flashed with a little blinking light, and as the small EMP went off, the Hunter vanished back into the undergrowth.

It momentarily dazzled the suit's sensors. The static cleared from the display, but Yancy's opponent was nowhere to be seen. He turned around, trying to see where Klavo had gone. Nothing. He yelled, “show yourself!” Still nothing, until a thrown rock tinked off the back of the helmet.
Yancy tried to spin around to face the direction the rock had come from and nearly lost his balance for his trouble. The moment he righted himself a small chunk of concrete smacked his back. “Stop that!” He started to turn, more slowly, but again he was hit in the back of the helmet with a stone. “Quit it!” Then he stifled an impulse to hit himself because that had come out sounding like a whine.

He tried to calm down, think of what Amy would do. It was dark, and he wasn't sure where he was. A park? Seemed to be, because it was natural-looking and there didn't seem to be houses or other buildings around, but which one? Or was it even a park or just one of those random bits of woods that were scattered around?
Did the suit have GPS? Or maps? Some kind of display? Speaking of display, weren't there some ways of adjusting them, magnifying or changing modes? He couldn't remember if there was some way of improving the night-vision. Seemed like it, but with all the distractions, like getting hit in the face with a charged staff-

“Have you broken your armor already, Panzer Pyro?” taunted the Hunter.

Yancy snapped back to attention, swung out his arms to try to catch him or the staff, but Klavo had already spun away in a blur, striking at the joints in the suit. Right shoulder, left elbow, left hip, then the backs of both knees. With a red “UNKNOWN ERROR” warning, the Panzer Pyro crashed onto the ground for the nth time that night, legs kicking spastically and arms flailing. Seconds felt like hours as they dragged on, with Yancy trying to gain control again but not knowing what to do. The suit's systems automatically restarted, and he lay there, vulnerable, his heart racing and breathing heavy.

There was a clang, clang, clang on the helmet, and then Yancy could hear an over-the-top faux British accent. “I say old chap, you seem to have had a bit of a tumble there. Mayhaps this heroing business is a spot of trouble, wot?” Klavo punctuated it with another couple clangs from his staff.

Yancy was angry. This Klavo person was mocking him! The Panzer Pyro's right hand clenched into a fist and then pounded into the ground. When Yancy got up, he saw Klavo standing a short way down the road. He waved, saying, “Catch me if you can, Panzer!” The Hunter sprinted off down the road and onto a field, and Yancy charged right after in a blind rage.

“What kind of a duel is this?” Yancy yelled. “This isn't fair!” He was actually falling behind, as the suit was not swift of foot in the best of conditions and it was heavy on the soil, and the Hunter was a superb athlete.
Klavo looked back and saw that he had gained enough distance. “Do I hear a woman in a mech telling an unprotected man that it is not a fair fight? Indeed, it is not! Let us even the odds!” As he spoke, he slowed to a stop, turned around, and drew his hunting rifle.

“Ha! I have a diamonide coating! Bullets can't penetrate – gah!” Something gooey hit the helmet, covering the sensors. Yancy tried to wipe it off but it was incredibly sticky and held fast. Then, there were more spluts as he was shot some more with the large gel capsules, which expanded rapidly into a gummy net. Not only could he not see, but now it was hard to move at all.

“You are a fool, Pyro!”
Klavo's words stung. Yancy struggled against his bindings, just as the Hunter had hoped. “I'll...I'll make you eat your words, villain!” Then he remembered the flamethrower and ignited it. The net went up almost instantly like Silly String, flaring into nothing. The Panzer Pyro pointed the nozzle at Klavo. “I have you now! Surrender!”

“Oh horrors,” the Hunter replied, faintly sarcastic. “So you do...but what about them?”
Yancy didn't have time to ask “What about who?” when the robotic herd of various animals ran him down from the back. The first ones, small and fragile, merely crushed themselves against the suit, but following them were the remaining larger ones, including some livestock, and they had plenty of force as they collided with the others. They trampled the armor as he fell.

The first audible words that came from the Panzer Pyro were, “You liar!”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“The robots are still running!”
“Indeed they are.”

Yancy sputtered, “You gave your word!”
“Ah, but I did not say when! And it looks like they're all scattering now, so you may want to catch them before they can cause any more mayhem. I'll find you once you're done.” Then, with another EMP, Klavo vanished again.

The Hunter watched from the shadows as the battered suit rose for another berserk robot punch-and-shoot among the crushed vegetation. What terrible dialogue! He had confirmed to his satisfaction that he was not battling the true Panzer Pyro. Whoever this faker was, he was a child and a bit of a twerp as well. No matter. He would have his trophy and move on. Now he need only determine the best way to end it.

[Mayabird]

Part 3B

See? See? Look at me, all nervous and obviously harmless. Amy Chan made her hands tremor a moment so the flag would shake, hoping it wasn't too much, and approached as close as they would allow her. Not close enough to the Gaian Crusader. She didn't expect to be so that was fine. Chatterbox is on.

“Hey, umm, we've got people here who are hungry and tired and kids who need to pee and you're blocking the bathrooms,” said Amy. “So...what are you doing here? Do you have any, you know, demands?” The moment the Gaian Crusader began to open his mouth, Amy continued, “I mean, you said you're Freegans, right? So you're for free food? Or, I guess, against capitalism, or something?” Not enough of a pause for them to say anything, and, “I mean, you've been yelling a bunch of environmentalist slogans and not so much about rights and trash and digging through trash, which I thought your movement was all about.”
Very quick breath. “There's that little store there, it's just junk food mostly, but can we at least raid it for the kids who are hungry? Because you're all into free food, right?”

Bruce managed to get out an, “uhhhh...”

“Or maybe there's some environmentalist component I don't know about, so why exactly are you here, anyway? Why are we being held hostage? What for?”

“We're standing up against the military-industrial-capitalist-Earthraping complex!” the Gaian Crusader was finally able to blurt out.
Amy gave him a Look. “...how?”

“I'd like to know that myself,” said Lovesalot, offhandedly but loud enough that everyone could hear.
Then screechy woman cried out, “Lovesalot! Why are you doing this?”
“I told you all! I don't want Shelley dragged into this!”
“No one is too young to join our righteous cause!”
“What cause, Moonchild, what cause? All we do is get arrested. Over and over again. Fine for me, whatever, but I don't want her being sent to juvvy. She's too sweet for that.”

Bruce, the musclehead, responded, “We've been getting busted out fast these days.”

Lovesalot didn't have a ready retort, so Amy jumped back into the fray. “So...people who need to piss and would like some water and food. Can we go about this now?” A short pause. “And, there are a lot of us and not much food stocked over there, so once we eat our ways through that and the plumbing runs out of pressure, what then?”

The Gain Crusader raised one tightly clenched fist. “Then we will have struck a blow for Gaia!”
“How? Are you planning to starve us to death? How are you supposed to go from this hostage situation to supporting...whatever the hell your cause is supposed to be?”

Moonchild piped up again, “We'll have brought attention to the plight of the Earth Mother!”
“There's no communications in or out. Cell phones aren't working and neither are land lines. No wireless here. Etc. Anyone outside is just going to see a giant freakish storm. Did you leave a note out there or something?” There was another nervous pause.

Amy's rage wasn't entirely simulated. “Oh my goodness! Did any of you think any of this through at all?”
“Obviously not,” Lovesalot growled.
The other three yelled back at him all at once. “What is wrong with you?” “Why are you turning against us?” “How could you do this to your friends?” “You've been like this since we got arrested at that Hawk thing.” The shouting match continued.

Amy thought to herself, They've been getting perfect timing for moving that cart and getting in position. I wish I could look back to make sure it was in position. Or signal them. About time I started the next part. She turned towards the woman.

“Moonchild,” said Amy, and it was hard for her not to cringe, “Lovesalot has a point. You know what I think it is? Testosterone poisoning.”
“Really? What do you mean?”
“Think about it. A bossy guy, trying to act all macho and dominant and patriarchical, pushing all of you into this without a plan and against your wills.”
The Freegan's dirty face lit up. “It's true!” she said. “Even here, the wombyn is being oppressed; the feminine way is being cast aside!”
“Shut up, Moonchild!” Bruce said. She gasped.

Amy tapped her shoulder and hoped she wasn't picking up anything contagious. “They don't want to listen to us. Men never do. We should go talk, alone, just us...” As she said it, she gently pushed on Moonchild's shoulder to get her moving away from the others.
Moonchild was almost on the verge of tears. “I can't believe...even they...”

“Are we getting anywhere?” Robert, no, Bob came forward. His dog made a sad little whining sound. “What's going on? My dog is feeling sick!”
“Mine is too!” Robert added. “I demand some answers!” Their acting was mediocre but Moonchild was already weeping. “If you care about the animals so much, why don't you do something for Ally here?”

Amy wriggled away as the two continued heaping abuse on Moonchild and returned to the rest of the Freegans, making sure to be as close to the Gaian Crusader as she could manage. “As you can tell,” she said, addressing the whole group, “everybody's getting really pissed off over here. Lovesalot, you seem to have your head twisted on more tightly here. Do you think...” Then she saw the look in the Gaian Crusader's eyes. He finally got a clue. He knows what I'm doing.

“Tearing us apart,” snarled the Gaian Crusader. “Hateful consumer!” He practically spat the word out. “There is too much hate in this room. I will stop the anger and hatred!” He stepped back and started going into a power stance; his face was red with anger, but a leer was forming.
Oh well. Here goes nothin'. She lunged.
“I WILL MAKE YOU ALL FEEL THE L-” and then he saw Amy swinging around with a kick. Instinctively, he shielded his crotch with his hands.

Amy was not aiming for the groin. She was going for his left kneecap.

Her form was terrible and her toes didn't like it one bit, but her foot connected. The Gaian Crusader barely kept his balance. He howled with pain and his hands moved over to cradle his knee.

Then Amy kicked him in the groin, which did drop him to the ground. “That was for Atlanta, asshole!”

Right then, Amy heard the shrieking, shrill almost to the point of being painful, and from that same direction there was a flash, not very bright, like cloud-covered lightning. Moonchild's arms were covered with layers of black plastic bags. She was struggling to get them off, but Bob and Robert were holding them down and now more people were running in to help. Moonchild was violently spazzing out. “AAAAAAGH! Help me, Goddess! The poison! I feel the poison on my skiiiiiiiin! The plastic toxins!”

Now where is-
“MOTHER OWL-”
Amy was already leaping out of the way before she could hear the rest of the move shout-out. A near-miss from Bruce's kick. Meaning, if her reflexes had been just a tenth of a second faster, he would only have caught fabric; it was a glancing blow to Amy's back and felt like a rug burn. She hit the ground awkwardly. “Ow! Didn't your mother ever tell you not to karate kick girls?”

Bruce bragged, “My mother is the Mother Earth and she gives me strength so I can fight-”
And then he was smashed between Marty on one side and Randy on the other. There was a crack, and that was all the sound that Bruce made, as the wind had been completely knocked out of him.

“DIVIDE AND CONQUER!” the brothers yelled together, before picking him and performing their signature Twin Body Slam, with a,“THE HURT BROTHERS BRING THE PAIN! YEEEE-EAH!”

Three down. So how were they handling Stinky?

The 'talk down Stinky' group was huddled behind the janitorial cart. Most of them were clutching the odor-absorbing pads and/or various spray bottles, as if they were talismans. She couldn't hear what they were saying through the thunder, Sparkly's screams, and the loud groans from the other two, but it looked tense. Time to wrap this up.

Amy walked over towards the standoff, hands out, open and empty. “Hey man,” she said, “Fight's over.” She tilted her head over at the other three, two of which were lying on the ground groaning and being guarded, and one of which was still struggling faintly and mewling. With the others taken care of, people were approaching, surrounding him and Shelley.

John clutched his cousin tightly and protectively. “I don't want anything bad happening to Shelley. That's all I want right now.”
One of the women behind the cart yelled, “Maybeya shoulda thought about that before you-”
“Quiet,” Amy said firmly, straight at her. She noticed the people encroaching on all sides and held out her hands in a gesture of, 'Stay back; I've got this.'

“Nobody,” she declared, “Is going to hurt Shelley. Isn't that right everyone?” There were a few shouts of agreement.
“Don't hurt John!” Shelley shouted, speaking up for the first time. “He's not a bad man!”

Amy held out her hand again to keep everyone else quiet. “Nobody's going to hurt anyone else tonight so long as nobody tries to fight back again. So Shelley, if John agrees to surrender, we won't hurt him.” She turned back toward the crowd. “Right, everyone?” The agreements weren't quite as enthusiastic. She raised her voice a bit more, “Right?” It was a bit louder this time, mostly from Randy and Marty adding their voices. Not great, but good enough.

She crouched down to be level with Shelley. “He'll be fine, and you'll be fine...so long as your cousin John...” John was already nodding his head. “You'll both be fine. I won't let anybody hurt you. So Shelley, you can let go of the storm now, let it blow out.”
Shelley looked up at her cousin's face. He nodded again and mouthed, “Yeah.” She smiled and slumped over on John's chest, relieved but exhausted. Amy thought that the sounds of wind and rain got quieter.

“You smell bad,” said Shelley.
“Yeah. Yeah I do,” John answered.

The crowd had gathered around them the moment Amy had stopped holding them back. They were loosely surrounded. John spoke up, aimed mostly at the nervous people still huddled behind the janitor's cart. “Dudes and dudettes I totally surrender so please don't dump those chemicals on me.”

“Alright,” Amy started. “Marty, Randy, do you both need to watch Kicky over there? One of you please come over here, make sure nobody tries anything at Shelley or John.” Marty headed over. “Thanks. Someone...you!” She pointed at the nearest person milling about. “Go over to that shop and get some water and snacks for Shelley. She probably needs it. Thank you. Robert, Bob, you need any help over there?”

“We're good,” Bob said back.
“Excellent, and thank you.” Amy noticed that the Gaian Crusader wasn't moaning anymore and was giving her an angry look. She raised her foot at him, as if she planned to stomp him, and he curled back into a ball. “Also, everyone, bathrooms!” She pointed, and there was an immediate rush towards them with a few oh-thank-Gods.

And just like that, it was done. About three minutes had passed.

“Well,” said Amy to herself, “that was easy!” Too easy...Shut up! Shut up! Just enjoy the freaking moment. She grinned, and then squashed a desire to pose with her hands on her sides and elbows out, and then squashed a most bizarre inclination to say something gushy about the power of teamwork. “Great job, everybody! And thank you all very much for your help!” The sky outside was already getting lighter and the rain was definitely slackening. “This'll all be done soon, and we're getting out of this place!” She got a few ragged cheers in response, but that grew louder until it became applause.

When it started dying down a bit, she turned back towards John. “Now...” said Amy, “where are those security guards?”
“They're tied up by the baggage carousels; you can't miss them.”
“Thanks,” she said, then turned back to the crowd. She pointed at the nearest group of people. “You three, come with me. We have some security to rescue. Everybody else, keep watching this lot.” She started trotting out of the terminal, then turned back around when no one was following. “Come on, follow me!”

[Mayabird]

Part 3C

When there were only a handful of droids left, they all suddenly stopped where they were at and powered down. Yancy waited for a moment, watching for the trap. Finally, he called out, “Is this your idea of keeping your word?”

From off in the distance, Klavo replied, “Finally you learn, child!” The sound came from a garden scattered with large topiaries and small trees and covered with overlapping shadows. Yancy's first impulse was to charge in after him, but then he realized that the area was perfect for a man who wanted to hide and set a trap. His very brief feeling of triumph at having figured it out was quickly squashed by the stinging, mocking words. That man had been toying with him for too long. Maybe it was time to try to change the rules.

There was a twisted remnant of a bike rack near the path. Yancy took it up and began pulling off the straightest pole remaining on it. “Why don't you come out here? I am an honorable m...person. Your skill with your staff versus mine.” He hefted the pole and held it in a swordman's stance, remembering his lessons.

There was a quick bark of laughter. “I am disappointed, Pyro. I expected, at most, a 'screw your games' spoken after you began torching the entire garden. Uncharacteristic of you.”


Yancy gasped; had this villain figured it out? He jerked the flamethrower up and pointed it vaguely in the direction the voice had come from. “Don't make me hurt you...poacher! This flamethrower has sent a lot of people to the Grady burn ward.”
“Then whatever are you waiting for? Fire it!”

The Panzer Pyro shot flames at nothing. The ground was lit up briefly and a topiary in the shape of an angel got a wing singed, but that was all. Then it was dark again, except for the light of the waning moon, some distant street lights, and the red glowing twigs on the angel. “I will do it!” the electronically distorted voice declared, but with a hint of a waver.
“Then do it!”
What are you waiting for? Then Yancy remembered that the suit had a stun gun. The stun gun he made! He hadn't used it for most of the night so he'd completely forgotten about it. After checking an impulse to slap himself in the head, the Panzer Pyro charged into the garden, ready to shoot at anything that moved.

And there he saw it. That hedge shook! He brought up his arm, pressed to shoot it, and the display flashed red. It read, 'ERROR: ELECTRICAL FAULT' and indicated that the problem was with the stun gun hookup to the main system.
“Oh.”
Then Klavo struck him in the back with the staff again.
“If you have not noticed,” Klavo said, “the staff is also electrified. It evens the odds a bit, one man facing a mech hand-to-hand.”

He jabbed at a joint, but the armor jerked away at the last moment. Klavo swung and side-stepped but one of the Pyro's arms happened to be in the way of the staff. He tried to compensate, but the arm twisted and caught the staff in its elbow. Then the Panzer Pyro pulled it away, grabbed it, and tossed the staff behind it.

Yancy pointed the flamethrower. Klavo stood still, in front of him, silently, watching him hesitate. He held his hands out to his sides, open palmed and facing him. Yancy got his first good look at him. His opponent was...just an athletic man in a costume. A well-made costume with some nice gear, but as far as he could tell, that was it. There was nothing obviously metahuman about him. Just a man.

What are you waiting for? He'd been so angry before. He wanted to shoot this man. At least, he thought he wanted to shoot him. He still thought he wanted to.
Just twitch your fingers. You know how to. He's right there. Fire.
Stunning people, that was fine. It didn't hurt them, just knocked them out a bit.
What are you waiting for?
But he couldn't do it. Now that he was here, now that he had a man at his mercy, he couldn't bear to hurt him. It wasn't even a moral impulse; he just couldn't make himself do it.
What would Ms. Chan do?
Amy wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

He lowered the flamethrower arm and slumped. The Hunter took the opportunity to slip away and recover his staff.

Yancy had never felt this sense of doubt before. Everything except for Amy Chan's thinking had been so clear to him, up to now. Wasn't that how it was supposed to be? Everything clean cut, in neat categories, good guys here and bad guys there, and the good guys beat up the bad guys and send them to jail. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Klavo had some obvious metahuman powers or look to him. Metahumans were usually tougher or stronger or something – throw them through a brick wall and they'd be perfectly fine, just stunned for a moment maybe.

And what about the battle? How many men did you strike down on the field?
But that was different! That was a different world!
So? If Martians showed up tomorrow would it be okay for them to start destroying us all because we're from a different world?
No! That's different! That was a magic world. Maybe it was made by that god-child Laird.
So what are you saying? It doesn't count because those people didn't exist? So Red Tanya wasn't real?
No...no! She was real! I...what would Ms. Chan do? I don't know what Amy would do...

The Hunter realized that this false Panzer Pyro was not going to strike him. It did not whether it was paralysis or timidness at the thought of causing harm to a person; he could try to drag it out longer, but there would be no more sport out of this one.

“Enough of this. It has become tiresome.” Klavo took up his energy cannon for the first time that night and charged the shot he had intended to use at the beginning of the battle, but against his real prey. It fired in a dazzling flash of pure blue light and hit the suit squarely in the torso.

Yancy screamed, but mostly from shock as all the suits' equipment completely shut down. He was trapped in utter darkness, unable to move at all. Then he screamed again, in frustration. Klavo could hear it, muffled from the suit, as he pushed the Panzer Pyro over with his foot.
The Hunter stood above the prone suit. “I know not who you are, a temporary replacement or scab or perhaps even a sidekick, but you are NOT the Panzer Pyro!”

Klavo took out a thin blade and wedged jabbed it in the connections around the helmet. He could feel something click, and then there was a hiss of escaping air as the helmet detached from the suit. The gap that appeared was just wide enough to fit the end of the staff, so he placed it within one-handed and pulled up. In one smooth movement, the helmet came off and Klavo swung it into his other hand.

Yancy stared at Klavo, while Klavo looked Yancy's face over. “So this is the fake in warrioress' armor,” the Hunter said.
“I...I'm not scared of you! You don't scare me!”
“I desired a hunt but instead the night was a farce. You, boy, are a wannabe. You lack understanding of heroism, duty, practicality, dry wit, and yourself. What's worse, in their places you hold empty ideals, delusions, and beliefs. Your ignorance and immaturity leave you too easily goaded into rash action. I hope the true heroine takes back her rightful place before you get yourself or someone else killed.”

Yancy showed no signs of having absorbed or listened to the lecture. Instead, he glared at Klavo with all the vitriol he could muster. His face was not made for it, and the effect was amusing. The Hunter sneered and held up the helmet. “Boy, tell your mistress that if she wants this back, she’ll have to come get it.” He began to turn away, but then looked back once more and tapped the suit with the butt of his energy cannon. “Her armor should start waking back up in a minute or two. I recommend hiding your face.” And with that, he turned and vanished into the greenery.

[Steve]

Excellent job.

[Mayabird]

Part 3D

It wasn't until the next morning that Amy was finally able to head to Chicago. The police had to file their reports and she had to talk to all sorts of people about what had happened, give contact information, discuss possibly testifying in court, what she could and couldn't say to the press, and on and on. It was nearly as tiring as dealing with the Freegans. They'd finally left her alone long enough for her to crash on a bench for a few hours' sleep before she got the wakeup.

Since the airport had taken a lot of damage, they would have to clean up and do repairs before it would be operational again. Amy didn't catch who they said did it, but someone chartered buses for all the people who had planned to fly to Chicago so she had a seat. She slept the entire way.

Someone patted her on the shoulder when the bus caravan reached O'Hare, and she woke up hearing an announcement about tickets for connecting flights that would be handed to them by an agent. The buses pulled up to the terminal...and the press was already there. Cameras, microphones on poles, people with all sorts of little electronic doo-dads, all rushed forward, fighting to be in front when the passengers departed the buses. Behind them were a motley group of people pressing around as well – probably friends and family members wanting to pick people up. A few security guards and police were trying to fight their way through, unsuccessfully. Behind all of them was a airline-uniformed young woman jumping up and down with a mildly horrified look on her face. Presumably, she was the agent with the tickets.

It took a long time for them to get off the bus. Even when the press pulled away from their bus toward another one (Amy looked over and saw bleached blonde hair), it was still hard to push through the onlookers and family members, but eventually they began to clear out. Finally, Amy was able to reach the ticket agent.

“Hey. I'm Amy Chan. Are there tickets for me?”
“One moment.”

From the crowd, Amy heard two voices together: “The Hurt Brothers Bring the Pain! Yeeeeee-ah!”

“Here you go, Ms. Chan. Your flight to Atlanta. Oh, and,” she learned towards Amy and dropped her voice, to speak privately. “Just want to say, I heard the story, and that was awesome.” Then the agent straightened again. “Mr. Davies? Is Mr. Scott Davies here?”

Finally. Finally she would be going home. Flying home to confront Idiot Boy in...”SIX HOURS? I have to wait another six hours? Can I at least get a meal voucher or something? I haven't had anything to eat but a candy bar and a teeny bag of nuts since yesterday afternoon!” The agent flashed her a look of apology that she couldn't do anything about it.

“...shouldn't give us all the credit. We were just the muscle.” Marty...oh no. “Amy Chan, the woman who got us all organized, she should get credit for that. That's her right over there.” He pointed. The mass of media pressed towards her.

Ugh. Well, it's not like I have anything better to do for a while.

…

Aw damnit, it's probably going to be like this in Atlanta, too.

[Mayabird]

Epilogue

A very haggard Amy stared a very bruised Yancy down.

“Yancy.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Chan. It was stupid. I-”

“Don’t make excuses. I don’t want to hear any of it.” She took a deep breath. This idiot could out me. That could make Mom and Dad targets. Even worse, he could out many, many others. He knows way too much already and I don't know if there's such a thing as erasing memories. For better or worse, I have to keep an eye on this idiot to make sure he doesn't get in some kind of trouble that would get all the rest of us in trouble.
“There was so much stupidity, you did so much stupidity, that I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I should start from the beginning, when you took my suit out for no good reason, and end at the end, when you got my helmet ripped off and stolen by some safari-themed jackass.
“And you will be getting a roasting, over a slow, slow fire, as I go through every single thing you did wrong and all the work you will have to do to right it – and I don’t just mean repairing the suit.” Yancy looked up hopefully, but Amy glared at him and he turned away again in embarrassment.

“I should be really angry at you, and I am, oh how I am, but lucky for you this has given me a foolproof alibi. Nobody’s going to suspect that I was the Panzer Pyro now that there’s documented evidence of me being elsewhere while the Panzer Pyro was getting an ass kicking.” Aside from all those people who already figured it out. But maybe random people will stop asking if I was involved with that super-battle at the High because they heard/saw on TV that my van was there. Nah, doubt it.

When he started to look relieved, she continued, “But I resent that. That and the need to make a replacement helmet, but especially the ‘getting my ass kicked’ part.”

“Nobody else even saw it, Ms. Chan!”
“Doesn't matter! It's the principle of the thing!”
“What about Steve?”

“Steve, if you remember, transformed into an unstoppable juggernaut of muscular rage. That’s nothing to be ashamed of; he beats down everyone. This Klavo character was some dude with a few fancy gimmicks. He should’ve been ignored or swatted away with a few cheap shots. And come on, asking him to give his word? Really? Why- no, don’t tell me. Don’t wanna know.”

There was an awkward silence as Amy paced across the room a couple times, arms crossed behind her.

Yancy finally spoke up. “May I ask something?”
“Eh, go ahead.”
“Am I fired now?”

She let a few seconds go by. “No. You’re still working for me. I haven’t decided how much I will dock your pay. Also, you’ll have to do all the scut work while I’m making the new helmet.”

“I guess that’s fair.”
“Also, give me the suit key back.” Yancy gulped, sighed, reached into his pocket, took it off the chain, and placed it in her outstretched hand. That visibly hurt him inside. Enough for the moment.
“That being done, I need sleep, tomorrow I’m going to have to deal with media requests, and there's some court stuff, and you’ll have stupid peoples’ broken computers to deal with. Go home. Get some rest. We’ll discuss the details later. That’s including the roasting.”

Yancy didn’t get up. On the one hand, he was sore about the loss of the key, but at the same time, this wasn’t what he had been expecting at all. He had been rehearsing things to say all day, and now he had no idea how to respond.

“Geez, man, what are you waiting for? I’ll see you tomorrow. Go. Git. Shoo. Vamoose. Leave. Goodnight.” Amy waved him out and watched him scurry off through the gap in the fence. With a shrug, she turned around and idly flipped through the stack of paperwork sitting on the table, wondering what it was.

The object of her ire was safely out of earshot when Amy screamed, “God damn it, Yancy! You didn’t fill out any of this!"

[Steve]

*applause* Excellent story! More! More!

*is ignoring the fact that I'm expected to write the next one.*

[Beowulf]

Great! Now where's GitMS #5? Steve? Steve?

[KlavoHunter]

*Puts on the helmet, spins around a bit, bumps into a wall*



Fear not, Klavo the Hunter has a plotted re-appearance in a later story in this 'verse!