Here, have another surprise chapter. Just so you know this is actually going somewhere. Probably.
CHAPTER TWO
[spoiler]The team’s vehicle was a bulky custom SUV covered in improvised armored plating and waiting just outside the warehouse. Tough, dependable, roomy, and apparently powerful enough to have smashed through a house wall before the team was put together. It actually belonged to Cooper, who treated it like it was his baby. Of course, not many people would be willing to smash a baby through any amount of brick and drywall, but at least now everyone knew it could be done.
“Chop chop, people, let's go!”
“God, we heard you the first time,” scoffed a young-looking teenage girl, currently staring down at her phone. Sabrina Hedgeford-Yamato, better known by her Association pseudonym as Psy-kyo*, disinterestedly tapped away at a text message. Without so much as a glance up, she climbed into the SUV and left the door open behind her.
Sabrina was Cooper’s girlfriend, having met him in college before she dropped out, and not quite as enthusiastic about the superhero gig as Cooper was. She had a lot of potential with her low-level psychic and empathic abilities, and psychics tended not to stay in Class C very long. However, her tendency to make rude hand gestures whenever talk of her unused potential came up spoke volumes. She seemed content enough with where she was and responded poorly to authority, as evidenced by her many piercings, goth makeup, black hair partially dyed pink, and general rebellious attitude.
Nick clambered into the back seat after her and closed the door. He hopped up onto one of the side-mounted benches and clipped his harness to a buckled seat belt.
“Is that everyone?” Cooper asked as he turned the ignition. “Where's Mr. E.?”
“Right behind you,” spoke a French-accented voice from the formerly unoccupied seat. Everyone in the vehicle jumped, then relaxed when they saw who it was.
A humanoid figure in a beige trenchcoat sat there, face covered with a featureless slate-grey mask (not unlike a balaclava minus the faceholes) and topped with a beige fedora. Mr. E., aka Monsieur Étranger**. The name said it all. Literally. No one was sure who he was or what he could even do, because he'd avoided filling in as many fields in his Heroes Association application as he could get away with. Even species was marked n/a, somehow. That of course meant he was placed in Class C purely by default. Whether he deserved to be there or not, only he knew.
“Please,” he said, “do not hesitate on my account. There are villains requiring vanquishing, I am sure.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Cooper grumbled. He floored it, and they were off with a screech of rubber.
A siren activated on top of the SUV, and its roaring V-10 engine rocketed them through the streets as fast as they were legally allowed (taking the siren permits into account). Nick, with a few minutes to spare, checked the alert broadcast on his bracers.
“...According to numerous eyewitness reports and satellite imagery, a possible metahuman or alien entity is currently rampant amid a populated residential area, and has been inflicting significant property damage. There have been no reported casualties thus far, but the entity appears very aggressive with actively hostile intent. Care is recommended in approaching. Situation will be listed as threat level Wolf pending escalation.”
“It doesn’t sound too bad,” said Nick. “Just a serious public disturbance, right? The police could handle this.”
“Not if I get a say,” Cooper replied. He cranked the wheel hard left and then right, sliding around a corner and forcing Nick to readjust his position on the seat. “We might be the first responders on this one. That means extra ranking boost if we do this right.”
“Like we needed the extra paperwork,” Sabrina grumbled.
“What I’m saying is, don't screw this up, okay guys? I actually want to be in Class B by the end of the year.”
Nick sighed and bit back a snarky jab. As if anyone didn't want the promotion just as much.
“We're here,” Cooper called out. “I think we made-- Oh, come on, seriously?”
Nick squinted, staring through the steel louvres that armored the windows. From where he was, he could just make out several black and chrome hoverbikes sitting next to an alleyway, with a human figure in full medieval-esque plate armor standing guard. He was immediately hit with a sinking feeling deep in his gut. Wonderful. The Knights of Humanity were the last thing he’d expected or wanted to deal with today.
Cooper turned off the ignition and swiveled his seat around to face the the back. “Alright,” he said, fitting on a football helmet made to look like a kabuto. “No more delays.” He snatched a golf bag from a side compartment and hiked it over his shoulder. “We’ve got a monster to bag.”
Sabrina opened the rear double doors, letting the last sunlight spill inside. As she and Mr. E. climbed out, Nick pulled a briefcase out from under the seats and opened it. Inside, it contained four small quadcopter drones with cameras attached, held snugly in black foam.
“I’ll get some air support going and scout out where the creature is,” Nick said.
“No, you're coming with us,” said Cooper, shoving past him and hopping outside. “We already know where it is.”
“But I--”
“I can already sense, like, a huge amount of anger and whatever over that way,” Sabrina said.
“But that’s--”
“I said no more delays, come on!” Cooper folded his arms. “Besides, you’ve got claws and stuff, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“It didn’t have to be a delay,” Nick muttered as he shut the briefcase and hopped out of the SUV. He glanced down at his claws and winced. Not if he could avoid it.
“Remember, code names only this point on,” said Cooper as he headed towards the alleyway. “Let me do the talking.”
The rest of the team followed closely behind him.
“Good evening, citizens,” said the knight, his voice echoing inside his bucket-style helmet. “I’m afraid this area is closed for the time being. I’ll ask you to please fall back to a safe location until the threat is dealt with.”
“We're here to help,” Cooper replied. “Just point us in the right direction.”
A distant scream echoed between the buildings. “We appreciate your concern, citizen, but the situation is under control.”
“Look, we're not just citizens, we're with the Heroes Association. We've got every right to be here.” Cooper motioned to the team. “Show him your badges, guys.”
Nick wore his on a ball chain around his neck, so all he had to do was lift his chin to show his Class C credentials while the others dug through their pockets. The knight, however, raised his hand to stop them.
“Enough,” he said. “Your willingness to help is appreciated, but wholly unnecessary. Besides, a couple of Class C’s like yourself are only going to get yourselves killed out here, so just go home where you won't get hurt.” He then looked down at Nick and said, “And make sure you two take your pet with you. Wouldn't want it to be mistaken for some kind of xenospecies threat, now would we?”
Nick bristled at the threat. He opened his beak to say something, anything, but words failed him. He looked down at his paws quivering in rage, the downy feathers around his neck and chest puffing, desperately wishing he were better at speaking under pressure.
Right as he was about to be swallowed by the helpless anger, he was distracted by something else. Did the knight just say, “you two”? Even if he wasn't counting Nick, that still left… Nick looked around. Where did Mr. E. go?
“Sir!” cried a voice from down the alleyway. A young man in light chainmail was jogging their way, looking thoroughly out of breath. He came to a halt, stooped over and panting heavily. “Sir, I have orders from the Captain that you are to let them through.”
“What?” said the knight, not taking his eyes off the team. “That can’t be right, squire, that's precisely the opposite of what he ordered.”
“I have it here, sir,” the squire said, holding a piece of paper over his head.
“Let me see that.” The knight snatched it from his grip and unfolded it. “This is just a blank pa--”
At that moment, the squire unclipped a flanged mace from his belt and swung it in an upwards arc. It tore clean through the paper just before denting the knight’s faceplate with a resounding clang! The knight stumbled dazedly backwards, one, then two steps, before falling flat on his back in front of Cooper. A low groan reverbrated from his helmet. The team bewilderedly looked at the knight, then back at the squire, who was suddenly no longer the squire. Mr. E. stood in his place, cavalierly tossing the mace over his shoulder.
“That,” he said, dusting off his hands, “was most impolite.”
“Wait, how did you…?” Nick trailed off.
Cooper was grinning ear to ear. “Hoho, you are not a Class C, bruh, that was awesome!” He raised a hand to high-five Mr. E., who stared quizzically at the hand for a long and awkward moment. Cooper slowly retracted it and shrugged at Sabrina.
“Well then,” said Mr. E., “shall we continue?”
---
* A play on words, stemming from the Japanese words "saikyou", meaning "strongest", and "kyo/kyou", meaning "unite" (in this case, referring to linking minds, one of her core skills as a psychic/empath)***
** Étranger: French word meaning "a stranger/foreigner"
*** Holy crud, did I just do a translingual pun in a language I don't even speak?****
**** A footnote of a footnote? WTF, is that even allowed?
[/spoiler]
CHAPTER FIVE
[spoiler]
About an hour later, the gang had reconvened at the warehouse, awaiting their after-action review. The Association had been monitoring the entire affair through satellite and local CCTV cameras, so a preliminary report could be expected fairly soon. Full debriefings would generally take place later, if the situation demanded it.
The warehouse roof was slid part way open from the middle so that they could get a signal inside through the faraday cage, a sometimes inconvenient leftover from the previous occupants. Nick was perched on a crossbeam in the warehouse rafters when they received the unfortunate news.
“Six out of ten?! How in the hell did we rate six out of ten?!”
“Ugh, keep it down Cooper,”said Sabrina, nursing her forehead with an icepack. “My head is still killing me.”
Nick groaned in annoyance as he skimmed through the actual text on his bracer’s display. ...Debatably excessive uses of force, it said. Abandoning teammates... ...Willful and accidental damage to civilian and private organization property.
Nick had to reread that last bit several times with context to make sure it meant what he thought it did. Yup. They were deducting points for interfering with the Knights.
To be fair, the Knights were authorized to operate here. Specist ****s that they were, they were still specist ****s with a government paramilitary contract in this area. Some old sympathetic military contacts of Louis Cannon's had pulled strings to make the arrangements. So long as the Knights played by the rules, everyone else had to play nice as well. Not an ideal setup, if you weren't human.
He could still argue self-defense, Nick figured. It was perfectly valid. The thought of how close that Knight had come to impaling him still gave him chills. Hence, why he was perched up on this I-beam about thirty feet up off the ground. The height gave a certain sense of security. Distance from the arguing below helped too.
A loud smash echoed off the walls, giving the gryphon a start. Looking down, he saw Cooper’s beer bottle shattered on the ground near his workbench, lying in a puddle of about half of its original contents.
“Oh, come on,” Nick growled. He hopped off the beam and swooped down to face Cooper, hackles raised.
“Cooper!” he yelled. “You do not throw things in here!” He waved a paw towards the towering construction he’d been laboring in earlier at the back of the warehouse. “I’m working on delicate stuff here that doesn’t need to be smashed or soaked in beer.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Cooper. “If you put half the effort into the fight that you did on that… that whatever, then maybe we’d have a decent rating.”
This took Nick aback. He wasn’t expecting a backlash in that direction, and it stole the words from his beak. “Wha-- I… I did…”
“Then how come I was the only one fighting that big ugly, huh? Where was everyone else?”
“S-supporting you! Everything anyone did back there was to give you the best possible shot!”
“Yeah, and you did such a good job, didn’tcha?”
“We did fine, even though you rushed us in there without any prep time!”
“So this is my fault now? I don't remember being the one running away with his tail between his legs!”
Nick mostly bit back a snarl, suddenly aware that his claws were scraping the smooth concrete floor.
“You wanna go?” Cooper unhooked his breastplate and tossed it aside, revealing just the black turtleneck underneath. He thumped his muscular chest twice with a fist and spread his arms wide. “You, me, right here, right now. Bring it.”
Nick winced, looking away sheepishly. He did his best to relax his paws, and his claws slid back into their concealed position.
“Knew it,” Cooper muttered. “Pussy.”
Nick stared into the distance, feeling utterly paralyzed. He didn't want to hurt Cooper. He really didn't. But Cooper was making it really hard, and had no idea what to say anymore.
“I feel I must agree with our feline companion,” said Monsieur Étranger, apparently relaxing against Nick’s workbench, arms folded across his chest. “You are quite out of line here, Monsieur Caldwell.”
“You stay out of this, bro.”
“Should I? I was under the impression that I was part of the team that you were just making accusations towards.”
“That's not--”
“Shut up!” Sabrina called out, loudly enough for everyone to pause and look at her. She exhaled a long, shuddering breath in the following silence, pressing the ice pack against her temple. “I am going to go lay down on the couch up front, and if I hear one more word about this I swear to god I will liquefy every brain in range. Got it? Got it? Okay.”
With that, she strode to the door leading to an outcropping of offices attached to the front of the building, opened it, and slammed it shut behind her. Nick could just make out a muffled, pained, “Owww” from the other side immediately after.
Cooper shot a contemptuous glare at Nick. With a rude hand gesture, he turned and stalked toward the front entrance. He only made it about two steps before walking into Mr. E.’s outstretched hand, holding Cooper’s discarded breastplate.
“I believe you dropped this,” said Mr. E.
Cooper ripped it from his grasp without a word and continued out the door. Seconds later, four tires screeched their displeasure against the asphalt.
Nick continued staring into space for several minutes, just trying to comprehend how it had gone so bad so quickly. When he finally came back to the present, he was alone.
Cooper’s bottle was still lying in pieces in front of his workbench. Nick sighed, and glided across the warehouse to fetch a broom and dustpan.
As he swept up the clinking glass shards, he began humming to himself, which eventually turned into singing.
I look around here and I want to cry
I feel like the world is passing me by
And I just can't help but wonder
Will my talents ever shine?
And is it a curse I'm under
To fail every try?
The gryphon set down the broom and dustpan, and hopped up on his workbench. He continued:
I signed up to be a hero
Helping every citizen
All I’ve ever wanted in my life
Is to aid the innocent
But my future’s going nowhere at this rate of speed
There's gotta be something better
Something better
There's gotta be something better than this for me
He picked up a crescent wrench and tossed it back and forth from paw to paw, singing:
There's gotta be something better than this
I know there's so much more that I can be
And I know this life I'm living can’t be my destiny
There's gotta be something better
Something better
There's gotta be something better than this for me
Nick set down the wrench and jumped down to finish sweeping the last bit of glass, and sang:
There's something better than this out there for me...
“There is always a future in music,” came a French-accented voice, causing Nick to nearly stumble over his own paws.
The gryphon froze in embarrassment at being caught; he’d been sure no one was there. The self-consciousness began immediately eating away at him inside. Couldn't even bring himself to make eye contact.
“Apologies, was I interrupting? I will see myself out.”
Nick waited until he heard the door open and shut, then collapsed with a groan.
<Well, it's not like you were totally quiet about it,> said Sabrina through a thoughtspeak channel.
Nick buried his face in his paws. “How do they do that?” he mumbled.
<I’m literally psychic, remember? No idea what his deal is though.>
“Right.” Nick got up and paced his way over to the rack that held his bags. He pressed the button to close the warehouse roof and hit the air before it shut. The night was still young, and he needed to get away from here and blow off some steam. Undercity was just the place to do it.
* * *
“Hey Viktor, we're going out for drinks tonight, want to come with?”
No, of course I wouldn't, thought Viktor O’Dennis. I would rather drink bleach than be forced to socialize with you shallow, simple excuses for colleagues. Out loud, however, he responded, “M-maybe later.” He attempted a friendly smile, warping his face into something nervous and slightly off-putting. “I-I-I'm closing the lab tonight, and I just wanted to look over a few last results.”
Viktor’s colleague--was it Mike? Brian? Daryl? He could never keep their names straight--nodded understandingly. “Okay, umm… Sure thing. Just don’t be a stranger, okay? Seeya.”
The other scientist, whatever his name was, left the room through the lab’s sliding glass door. Viktor let out a sigh of relief and let his clenched left fist relax around the copy of the key he was holding.
Fifteen minutes later, when he was sure everyone else had left, he bolted up from his seat and headed for the interior lab. There, the containment vault sat in the middle of a stainless-steel room, a vertical chrome cylinder surrounded by inches of bulletproof glass.
Viktor unlatched the glass case, inserted his personal key along with the copied key into the cylinder and turned both at the same time. It was quiet for a tense moment. However, Viktor was confident that the alarm would not go off. He'd done an impeccable job temporarily shutting down the security measures. Several seconds passed, and there was a quiet whirring noise accompanied by the clicks of internal tumblers sliding open. Viktor grinned, genuinely this time, but still no less off-putting.
The cylinder split along four lengthwise seams, unsealing with a hiss. Pale mist billowed forth, pooling at the bottom of the case. Rays of the palest blue light peeked through as the four sections separated, blossoming open to reveal a gently incandescent orb on a pedestal at its center. It was powder blue, whole sections lit from within, and not much bigger than a baseball. Relatively unassuming, but oh, so powerful. If only those fools would recognize it.
No matter. Viktor recognized it, and he was going to take his creation for the test run it deserved. Maybe even make some money along the way. This access wasn’t being logged, and no one was scheduled to use it for over a week, so no one was going to miss it for a short time. Viktor had thought this through. He was a genius, after all.
He unceremoniously snatched the orb from its resting place, stuffing it and a foot of ribbon cable that trailed from it into his coat pocket. There was a newfound sense of purpose in his stride as he closed up and hastily exited the labs. He would show them.
They would all see.
---
Source song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMgclhlpwb0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMgclhlpwb0)
[/spoiler]