That wasn’t all of it either. The excitement of that first time wasn’t all vanity. There was also a wickedly impish feeling. You know the one. That feeling you get when you get away with something, a small cheap thrill. Like getting away with a cookie when you’re a kid. I was the most wanted supervillain in the city, and I was just strolling down the street with an extra swish in my hips like I owned the place. It was all the little things, they added up to an invigorating experience and my heart was pumping with excitement.
Then my new best friend brought me back to reality.
Prisma’s cute chirpy voice said, “Superheroes are converging, five seconds.”
I sighed, and looked around, then turned invisible as I rose back up in the sky and hovered close to a building. Sure, I was invisible, but I could be run into, and no supers flew that close to buildings.
A few flew in, and scanned with their goggles, but of course no one saw me. I’d also made sure I didn’t make any sounds, or rather that my sounds were muted past a foot around me. My movement, the beat of my heart, all of it, including breathing and my voice. A foot around meant I could still talk to base.
“How does it work? The thermal thing, I mean my head is pretty exposed right now.”
Prisma appeared floating next to me, wearing a lab coat that hugged her slight curves, with thin rimmed glasses and a voltmeter half sticking out of her coat pocket. Tech explanation outfit? My A.I. was a ham. It also startled the hell out of me, until I realized she wasn’t actually there with me. She was part of my holographic HUD and only I could see her.
She was freaking adorable, but I wasn’t going to tell her that anytime soon. I was afraid it’d insult her, because she was obviously trying to be professional and clever.
Prisma replied, “It’s not the clothing, not directly anyway. That would make the suit extremely uncomfortable to wear. It’s more a shield of energy that’s around you, it keeps your heat from being seen, projecting the heat of its surroundings instead. The small emitters are all around your suit, in a new central layer, which is why it’s a few millimeters thicker than the old one. Ironically perhaps, the shield to block heat is powered by your body’s heat. Regardless, to answer the point of your question, the emitters in the suit expands the field out far enough to cover your head.”
I bit my lip, “Can it be turned off then?”
Prisma said, “I suppose it could, why?”
“Sometimes I wore the old suit under my clothes. I suppose that’s not necessary with a quick-change teleport on the table, but if it blocked heat then I couldn’t wear it out as Belladonna for an even quicker change. A hero might see me and not my heat signature, which might make them curious why I didn’t have one.”
She nodded thoughtfully, “I should be able to turn it off and on for you, I just need to rewrite a little piece of the control software and upload it tonight. Right now, it’s always on if it has power.”
“Thanks.”
Prisma beamed at me before she disappeared.
“Having fun?” asked Debra.
I said snootily, “What kind of a twisted person would enjoy innocent citizens running and screaming, while in this scandalous attire.”
Germaine snorted, “Do we have to answer that? Because I have to train you later today.”
I laughed.
The superheroes moved off to the surrounding blocks, and I continued my patrol. The same scene played out again and again, and I knew the superheroes were close to pulling their hair out and were extremely pissed off that they kept showing up too late. Or so they thought. Eventually they’d figure out I’d overcome my weakness, but for the moment I was fairly sure they thought I was one step ahead of them.
I certainly took no petty enjoyment out of their frustration. Well, maybe a little. But I really wasn’t letting it go to my head, in all seriousness. I’d done well so far because I was disciplined and careful, so I wasn’t about to become arrogant and reckless.
I was still a target an energy wielder could turn into Swiss cheese, and I wasn’t going to forget this was dangerous. And more than a little fun.
It was the beginning of the second hour when my HUD blinked red and a flight path through the city streets popped up.
Prisma said, “Silent alarm at a jewelry store, super threat. Those kinds of places have two buttons.”
“That’s good to know,” I said while I raced down sixteenth and then turned onto main toward the shopping district. It even made sense, because jewelry stores, banks, and other high money businesses were the most often hit by supervillains.
She said, “Superheroes are being dispatched to the scene. They’ll arrive before you, since they were two blocks over.”
That was fast, because I was going close to three hundred miles an hour. I could go faster, but I wasn’t sure that I could dodge the occasional power line or other utility that hung across the streets in a few places if I did.
My HUD updated, Flame and White knight were the team on scene. The former a female fire wielder in a red, white, and blue suit. Though I supposed it was a white suit with red and blue flames. The White Knight was in a white super-suit and he was a brawler. The HUD also told me his max lift was eighteen tons, which was awesome.
My power learned by doing, and when I’d done the strength test, I’d been listening to Raymond counting off the weights by hundreds of pounds. So, my power knew exactly how hard eighteen tons was. So if I hit him with a punch giving off eighteen tons and a hundred pounds, I should knock his ass out without killing him.
Of course, the aim wasn’t to fight the superheroes, it was to take down the supervillain while avoiding the superheroes, so I stopped to take stock and see what would happen. There was no data on him at all which meant he probably hadn’t been arrested, identified, and tested before. He was in a dark blue on the verge of violet suit, and there was a purple aura of energy around him, so probably not a brawler. I just wondered what the purple shit was.
I’d taken all that in over a split second as I arrived on scene. There were also civilians clearing the street.
White Knight charged him, although I suppose dove would be a better word to use for it. His name brought charging horses to mind. He pulled back his arm, but the purple guy shot him with purple lightning which sent him back on a trajectory to slam into the street.
Flame shot fire at him, but he didn’t even bother to do anything for that, and he took it on his purple shield for just a moment as he ran for it. Unfortunately for him, he was heading in my direction.
I cancelled the invisibility, and I punched him hard in the face. Or I tried to. It felt like sticking my hand into a light socket when I hit his shield. I got slammed backwards, every nerve in my body screaming at me in a pain that I hadn’t felt since I’d quickened as I cratered against the side of a building.
Note to self, don’t punch anyone with reactive energy offensive shielding.
The supervillain didn’t come away unscathed by it however, as he was slammed into the street below by the physical force of the blow.
Flame shot fire at me instead of the supervillain, which I should’ve really expected, but I turned invisible and dodged to the side. Her fire was fast, so I didn’t get away totally unscathed, but at most I had first degree burns on my hands and face, and the suit protected the rest of my body. The burns themselves started to heal almost immediately.
Still, I’d hate to stand in her inferno style attack for more than a split second.
Her eyes narrowed in my direction, and she didn’t have goggles, so I suspected she was one of the supers with a thermal vision power. The tech in my suit appeared to defeat her power just as handily as it did the thermal vision goggles. Regardless, she’d totally unheeded the supervillain at seeing me, and was obviously straining to see me, so she didn’t notice the purple bolt of energy slam into her ass from below. Literally, it hit her right on her rear end.
Maybe she needed to go back to her trainer and learn area awareness, but then t
hey said pain was the best teacher.
Flame screamed in a deep agony I recognized, and Purple started to get up but was sucker punched in the back of the head by the recovered White Knight. Purple faceplanted in the road, but White Knight went flying back the same way I had, and I winced as he slammed into a car. At least the people were off the road.
I screamed and focused the sonics of it, and quickly ramped it up like I’d practiced, until Purple started to scream bloody murder. I maintained that level for several seconds, and his purple aura disappeared as he was knocked out cold. So much better than punching that shield again, which was really very unpleasant.
He probably had a major concussion, organ damage, bone stress fractures, and all sorts of other crap that would kill a human, but as a super he’d be fully healed in a manner of minutes.
Flame and White Knight got up, and they started to look around warily, probably for me. No doubt saving them from a beating, and also a whole lot of taxpayer money for collateral damage must be part of my nefarious and murderous plans. Yeah, sorry, I did say I’d cut down on the sarcasm, but it came out when I was excited and annoyed.
I rolled my eyes, “Cuff him, you idiots,” and I wrapped the words of my voice around them, so it sounded like it was coming from every direction at once, in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sphere.
They spun around in a panic, it was almost funny but not really, and I rolled my eyes, again. Purple was going to wake up soon.
“You know, I’m going to upload this later, how I saved two of our city’s superheroes, but then you let purple heal up and fly away in your paranoia. I bet it gets a lot of hits.”
Prisma said, “Four more teams converging on your position.”
Of course there were, and those two didn’t let their guard down at all until the other eight supers converged from four different directions, two of them on foot. Those last two grabbed Purple and took off toward SAB. The remaining eight heroes talked for a minute. My secret was out, but it wasn’t really a secret I’d thought I’d ever get to keep. I knew they’d know about the thermal imaging suppressor field sooner or later.
They also looked paranoid, and a little scared. My job was clearly done there, and I continued my patrol, but there were no more incidents in the city to respond to.
Well, except the ones I caused of course, all the staring, screaming, and panic of the citizens when I showed myself for brief intervals…
Chapter Fourteen
The YouTube video ended, and Maria was lost in giggles as she slouched down on the couch and held her stomach. Her warm bright smile had a bit of a wicked edge to it.
Maria said, “We need to celebrate your hot city debut. Barkers, I think there’s a live band playing tonight.”
I held back a sigh, but before I could beg off Debra glared at me from where Maria couldn’t see, but her voice held only excitement, “What a great idea. We should definitely celebrate the occasion.”
No doubt she’d picked up my doubts with her empathy. She also wasn’t wrong. I needed to get out there and face life too, not just super fights and evil government conspiracies.
Maria snorted, “You looked like you were having way too much fun, and the faces on Flame and the White Knight were classic when you were talking shit. Ooh, you already got ten thousand hits, and rising.”
I held up a hand in surrender, “Alright. Is it a jeans and casual blouse kind of place? Otherwise I’m going to need to pick up a dress.”
Maria grinned, “Yes! It’s a casual bar, it has two rooms, so if the band gets too loud you can retreat. Pool and darts, pizza, wings, and other snacks. I’ll probably wear jeans myself. I don’t always go clubbing. Barkers is a nice change of pace sometimes, and a good atmosphere to celebrate and talk.”
I nodded, that sounded good to me actually. I needed to get out and have fun, though it wouldn’t be easy. Men were out for me of course, for that time of my life and a long time to come. It was far too soon to get back on that horse, but drinks, music, dancing, and food that was bad for me really didn’t sound all that torturous. I might even have fun. The adrenaline from the day was still with me too, and it was a good day. As long as I didn’t focus on the negatives.
Maria sighed, “I wish I could help you, but without your talent to hide I’d go down in a blaze of glory, literally. Although, I doubt any of you could keep up with me on the ground, but there are some speedster superheroes that could.”
Debra and I exchanged looks, maybe she wasn’t as reckless as she appeared, at least not when it came to serious things. She just didn’t take the small things seriously, maybe? Her powers were speed and toughness, and that speed came out in her personality as sweet and fiery, but maybe she was just embracing the hell out of her normal day to day life.
In short, between her speed and a teleport watch she could hit a fight and disappear before I could blink. I pushed that down, maybe we could discuss it another time after some thought.
I said, “We’ll have to see if Sarah’s available tonight.”
Jermaine waved a hand, “If not just make it a girl’s night out, and I’ll keep Wynn company.”
I nodded, and Maria smirked, “Fifteen thousand hits now, bet it’s in the hundred thousands by tonight, if not more. Oh… umm, don’t read the comments.”
I laughed, “That bad?”
Maria shrugged, “Depends on what you mean by bad.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, so I just let it drop, “Training?”
Jermaine asked, “Sure, and as the first part of it, why did you try to punch an energy wielder. You should’ve started with the sonic attack.”
I sighed, “I had no way to know his shield was reactive, or that it’d block physical attacks at all. I think the sonic attacks are riskier.”
He grunted, “You’re right. To win and stay safe you should’ve gone for the sonic first, but it was better to make sure.”
I smirked, “At least I didn’t pull a Flame. She needs some training badly.”
He snorted and got up, “Don’t get cocky, or did you forget Flame gave you first degree burns on your face because you weren’t expecting her to attack you. You need to be ready and waiting for an attack at all times when you’re in that suit. You’re fast enough in the air you should’ve dodged that easily.”
Suitably chastised, because he wasn’t wrong, and holding back a grin, I followed him toward the backyard for afternoon training. Just because I was patrolling now didn’t mean I got out of it. It just meant shorter training sessions, and that I was minimally competent.
I wondered if I could get a buzz from a beer or two if I suppressed my healing power. I used to be able to. I’d never been a big drinker, and I had a petite body. I also didn’t get drunk if I could help it.
The answer to that question was a resounding yes. I was also almost positive I’d completely sober up if I switched it back on. Well, if I could focus enough to turn it on, but that wouldn’t be a problem with only two beers.
Barkers in Excelsior City was much like she’d described it. It had an atmosphere that was perhaps best explained by the concept of a sports bar and a local dive bar having a love child. There were some televisions playing baseball, but it had a more relaxed vibe than a sports bar while the music was louder and televisions were muted. All of it was light brown woods of different shades, from the floor to the tables and chairs, to the bar and barstools save the black seat cushions, and even the walls.
The right side of the bar was about a hundred feet long and about thirty feet wide, and had the bar along the left wall, it was the whole left wall and one of the longest bars I’d ever seen. The right had some tables, high tables, and toward the back were some pool tables and some dart boards. On the back left, there was a door to the other side where the band was playing. Along with a second bar, a few tables in the back, and a pretty big dance floor.
It was a pretty good time. I felt a little flush from dancing, and we were back on the quieter side getting a round
of drinks and relaxing around the table. It was just the three of us, Debra, Maria, and myself, as he’d promised Debra’s husband was babysitting because Sarah couldn’t do it that night. Debra kept smiling in a smug way at me, also like she was happy I wasn’t… wallowing anymore.
Debra and I were in jeans and casual blouses, but Maria had decided on a casual black and red matching skirt and top that looked good. Red with black design skirt, black with red design shirt.
“If I can ask, how did you wind up… unregistered.”
Maria snickered, “There’s a lot more of us than you’d think, you know. They lie about that too. They make it sound like everyone that doesn’t turn themselves in turns supervillain or dies a horrible lonely death when their power goes out of control, or that they become a danger to those around them. It’s all bullshit. Mostly. There are a higher percentage of supervillains among us, but only because most law-abiding people don’t know better and register.
“My aunt on my mother’s side has some minor powers, a late baby, she was friends with Glenn’s wife in college and beyond. My mother never liked him, but when I was a teen, I remember the fights that she used to have with her younger sister about it after Glenn’s wife died in processing. When I triggered, I knew mom wouldn’t understand, and Glenn had been expecting me when I showed up at his door. I hardly knew him really.
“As for how I quickened, I was out in the middle of nowhere when my car died, upstate and in the mountains. I was stressed, cell phone dead, didn’t feel safe when it happened though I don’t want to go into detail why in here. I wound up running home and it took me about ten minutes to run over two hundred miles.”
She snickered, “My shoes were smoking.”
I laughed.
Death's Mistress: Origins of Supers: Book One Page 13
