by P. S. Power
“Oops! Sorry there. Well, other side of Peg for me then. Oh, um, hi Penny. Hi Peggy.” He made his voice happy enough and moved over setting the plate of food down. Denis hadn't intended to eat, but it smelled good enough that his stomach growled at him a bit. He took the jacket off to protect it, like he'd been taught as a child and placed a linen napkin, this one done red and gold striped, on his lap. Now if he didn't have salad dressing and ate very carefully, leaning forward the whole time, it should be fine.
When Proxy came in he was dressed in an all black outfit, a real suit, not his normal fake military gear, also nicely tailored, all of it in almost light sucking black. Shirt, tie and jacket. Not a single piece of color in the whole get up. Add the scars on his face, a row of three lines that had a pale silver color to them on the right cheek and he looked like a badass. A real one. Like someone you'd hire to take out your enemies or that a major company would procure for “protection”. Next to him, Denis realized, he looked like a pussy.
Of course, as it turned out, compared to Yi, Denis might as well have been a little girl, so that kind of worked, didn't it?
Getting a few sandwiches on a plate and a small salad with a double helping of ranch dressing Brian sat down and started to eat as if he might be starving. Really, looking at him, Denis could see it. The guy had come in a chubster, but now, not half a year later, he wasn't just lean, he nearly looked reptilian. That look that some men get if their body fat fell below eight percent or so. It would have worked on a body builder pretty well, or someone like Prime that had enough mass. On Brian it looked... Scary.
Insane.
As he thought about this, Denis realized that no one had been speaking much. Kind of an eerie silence, one of those hard to handle things normally, though he had practice now. After half a minute Brian laughed.
“Well, at least he's trying, right? And I know how much you hate being sat on. Seems like a good trade to tell the truth.” Brian looked over at Denis with a huge grin.
“Um, well...”
That there might be a joke coming seemed likely so Denis tried to prepare himself. As a rule he didn't like it when he had to be the butt of the joke. Proxy looked down and cleared his throat.
“So. When you came in just a bit ago and realized that Penny might be in the chair, which she thanks you for by the way... You, um, stuck your hand out to see if she was there? Well, um...” Laughing he had to stop, sandwich fixings threatening to run down his fingers to his lap. Yi dropped it and wiped his hand on the napkin that still sat on the table.
“You kind of felt her up. You had your hand on her breast for like ten seconds without even knowing it.” Laughing still, Brian Yi, Proxy, famous super-hero, got pushed out of his chair by an invisible girl.
He didn't stop chuckling though.
“Stop Penny, I have a meeting after this and Charlot will kick my behind if I ruin the new clothes she got me again. I'll stop laughing, I promise.” He didn't for a bit though, even as he clearly fought for control the mirth kept bubbling out.
Denis had to fight a smile too. He started to apologize when Pegging turned on him, her face unreadable but her voice sounding hurt. Overdone though, so “fake hurt”.
“I can't believe it. I finally get a cute guy into bed and the very next day, not even twenty-four hours later, he throws me over for someone new...” She shook her head, given the structure of her face, which stuck out about fifteen inches further than normal, it probably took work to make it look right.
Denis sighed.
“Well, you know, it's my first mode really. Greed. I want to collect everything and everyone all the time, I can't really help it. Still, I'm deeply sorry Penny. Openly groping a woman is a little crass an opening move even for me. Next time I'll try to aim more accurately.” Then, thankfully, Denis stopped speaking. The next line that nearly came out involved sex and really, it was too crass for an opening line, or any line at all, if he didn't want to have his butt kicked. Penny may still hate his guts, but he'd totally bang her if he could. Even if he didn't know he was doing it. She could just tell him they'd done it.
That would leave Peg out though. In his new, kinder and gentler wisdom he decided that he'd do them both at the same time. That would work. Denis laughed at the idea, which had everyone looking at him with strange expressions. Finally, after a few more bites of sandwich, on whole wheat bread that somehow didn't taste like hippies had mixed it with their feet, meaning Mark had probably made it himself, he spoke softly.
“Thoughts that I shouldn't have been having probably. Not at the table. Let's leave it at that?”
That got a couple chuckles at least. Better than the crippling pain of having his rib cage kicked in by an invisible girl at least, so Denis decided to feel good about his restraint for now.
Before he went off to the meeting, apparently with Brian, the other man waved him aside and spoke in low tones.
“So, this news event thing we're going to? It's supposed to be about the terrorist action that the local police were involved in and the attack on the show. Um, some national brotherhood of police guys are going to be there too, supposedly to defend the honor of police everywhere and show that they aren't all terrorists I think. If it comes down to a fight, I just wanted to make sure...”
That one Denis got. Why Yi hated the cops so much was harder to understand, but he did and the pigs seemed to feel close to the same way about him. Fuck it.
“Then I drop them before they can twitch.” Den said, letting his voice stay soft and almost gentle. They had attacked already, apparently more than once. That was enough of a reason to be wary.
“Non-violently of course, since I don't want to be locked up for it. Still, they won't do anything at all if I can help it. I'll stay alert. Maybe we should get with Mark on it too? His power is crazy, but I wouldn't want to take him on if I could ever help it.” A year prior Denis had worked out how he'd have to do it, which involved making Mark stay calm and relaxed while sneaking up on him with a gun. If the man saw him coming at all his power would trigger instantly, so he'd have to hit him first to prevent that.
It had only been a mental exercise, one to keep himself busy. Even then he'd mainly gotten along with the guy. Always calm and peaceful, didn't make fun of anyone and made lunch each day, even for the guy no one else on the team liked. They were almost BFFs or something. Best friends forever. Denis wouldn't have even heard the term if he hadn't seen it on a television show.
It turned out that Brian already had checked in with Mark. Marcia and Prime too. He wanted to make sure that Kerry got a heads up before they got into place with cameras going, so they stopped on the fifth floor to look for her. The team two residence had been done up in an efficient but slightly tacky blue carpet with walls of a lighter blue. If the wall paper hadn't come from Wal-Mart it was only because the IPB didn't want to bother with the middle man and had gotten it cheaper from the wholesaler directly. Nothing wrong with frugal of course. It just seemed kind of low for a government organization that spent millions on team one and a lesser, but still decent, amount on team three, to cheap out on the actual work horse of the organization. Team two wasn't popular, but when the badies started throwing down, they were the ones that were sent to deal with it most often. They got the job done too.
Yeah, Den got it, they were the ones the public didn't like, the scary or ugly people. He just didn't like what it meant, now that he'd bothered even trying not to be a selfish prick about everything under the sun part of the time.
The Federal government didn't want to spend money on the uglies. That name wasn't one that got used a lot at the base. After all, some of those “uglies” could pop your head like a zit without even trying. Plus a lot of them were actually good people, like Tobin. Still, the whole place had more of a hospital feeling than anything else. Just lock the inmates in at night and it would probably match a privately run psych ward pretty well. Some of them probably would have been in places like that before joining the IPB, messed u
p first modes that wouldn't work in the real world for instance could easily get you locked up. It worked here, mainly because everyone had some kind of support system. In real life, what would someone like Tobin, shy and retiring, end up doing though, out in a world that attacked him daily? Either kill himself or end up killing someone else to prevent being beaten most likely.
Next to him Brian didn't really seem to notice that in passing a few floors they'd gone from tasteful to half thrown together, which made no sense. Well, it did make some... For Denis personally. He wanted, desperately, to have the best for himself no matter what. Really, living at the base he wanted to have a room on the first floor with team one. Yi though was all about self-sacrifice. For him to ignore the difference while getting something better seemed... Harsh. Off and disjointed.
They found the woman herself walking toward the elevator looking like a business person in a tweed suit that had a tidy but unflattering skirt with it. She looked OK, but not much had been done by way of making her look good particularly. Her hair was pulled back, brown and plain in its ponytail. Her face looked fresh, but had no make-up. Almost all women looked better with make-up. It's why it had been invented.
“Denis? Come to pick me up then? Nice of you. Almost like we're teammates or something.” She smiled when she said it but seemed a little sad at the same time for some reason.
“Team baking show?” Den nodded as he said it, “yeah, that's valid. If there's ever a baking emergency I totally have your back. Especially since I'll probably need you a lot more than the other way around, so remember how willing I am to support you... Anyway, Brian here has a problem with the police and wants to make sure that if they attack we've got his back. I already said yes myself...”
The girl looked at Brian and chewed her lips a little, then blushed a bit and nodded, it was a little bit of a shy thing for some reason. The girl had been pretty forward with all the other guys. Then Brian was supposed to be really popular now, however that had worked out.
“Alright. Anyone attacking you today should be expecting a small hail of stones. It takes me a few seconds to get that into play, about twenty, so if you fight stay ready to move back. If they're still alive that is.”
Surprisingly Brian just nodded and thanked her profusely.
“That's great, thanks. So you do the stone rain thing? I'll be careful then, I don't want to get hit with a bouncing ten pound rock again. That was really effective by the way.”
The girl blushed more brightly and grinned. Whatever the hell that all was about. He'd have to pin someone down soon and just ask about what all the hell he'd missed.
That done all they had to do was get to the second floor, where two rooms had been opened up and a large group of people, reporters, had already started to set up. They looked bored already. Denis could sympathize. Sitting in a room wasn't his favorite thing anymore either. Yi led them all into a small section around back, which caused Charlot Chambers to meet them at the door, scowling hard.
“Brian, Ms. Yoder. Good to see you.” She smiled wickedly and turned on Denis.
“Notice how I left you out of that Mr. Tompkins? That's my subtle way of letting you know I don't really like you. I didn't want you to miss the subtlety. If you fuck this up today I'll kill you.” She glared at him as if he'd pissed in her Wheaties or something.
Denis nodded, anger ripping through him, even as he fought to keep it off his face. For half a second the sudden attack nearly set him off, making him go on the offensive. He tried for calm, but it didn't really come. Shaking his head Denis decided to just take the high road and not fight about it.
“Right. OK. I came to help, as asked, but if I'm not welcome... Well, so much for this then, I guess I'll go wait somewhere else, out of the way.” Then he turned, a bit of anger in his shoulders and back and made himself not stop as he went through the door. He really wanted to say so much more than that. It bubbled in his middle, trying to force its way out, to rip into her and demean the woman, to make her feel bad and small.
But he didn't. Instead he just walked.
It was almost adult of him and everything.
The Chambers bitch didn't have a great reason to like him after all. Sure, even Denis could see that pretty clearly. No one did. That didn't mean he felt like putting up with it. If he wanted death threats he'd go and hit on Marcia, which would be more entertaining all the way around at least. His job didn't involve directly taking abuse from the staff as far as he knew. Crowds maybe, bitchy Directors probably, and people in the chain of command certainly, not Charlot fucking Chambers though. She could kiss his ass.
Besides, at the moment it took just about everything he could manage not to rip into her and Den really wasn't certain that would hold much longer. She'd taken him off guard and the emotion had started without warning, so best for him to just leave.
Just past the door Prime stood waiting, patiently it looked like. The room had too many people inside to add an overgrown buffoon to the mix. Denis just stepped around him, which would have worked fine if Charlot hadn't called out for him to stop just then, sounding more than her usual amount of pissed-off.
That meant that Scott Chambers, her loving husband, reacting at speeds Denis could hardly track and grabbed his arm. Hard, just below the elbow on the right. Because he'd been walking briskly the sudden move made something pop at the elbow as momentum carried his body forward, but the arm suddenly didn't move at all, pain washing through him.
Fuck, the moron had broken his arm. Pain not normally being an issue for Prime personally, he didn't let go either. Just one of those things the powerful man didn't really get probably. Denis almost dropped him right there.
“Let go of my arm.” He said softly, teeth clenched, pain reaching into each word, “Prime, let go of my mother fucking arm right now. You broke it dickweed.”
Charlot walked up behind him, seething. Like she had a right to seethe? She'd basically invited him to an insult fest and then got mad because he decided to take off instead of turning it into a bar fight? Glancing at her he saw that her hands were glowing white, a nimbus of energy in the air around them that he could feel as vibrations in his stomach. He'd seen that from her before, a pretty decent power level force blast or something. Probably a class three ability. Functionally that meant the same as if she'd walked out enraged, waving a gun around.
Prime still didn't let go of his arm.
“I came when asked, got here on time and was instantly insulted by the person that asked me to come. So fuck you, fuck all of you. Now let go of my arm or I'm going to put you all down.”
The golden man just tightened his grip, the bones in his upper forearm rubbing together painfully. Right, his giant ego wouldn't let him easily do what someone else told him to. Not without some flattery first. Pain ripped through Denis' right arm, nearly causing his legs to give out. Charlot grabbed his right shoulder and pulled, trying to turn him around. It certainly didn't help anything, since most of the force hit right at the point of damage, the man not letting go and Charlot trying to stretch him the other way.
“Don't you walk away from me! We have work to do and I won't put up with you being uncooperative! You think I can't have you thrown back in holding faster than you can snap your fingers? I have a lot more clout around here than you might think!”
That seemed too likely to Denis, so he made both of them move into a strong sense of paralysis. That didn't get Prime to let go, even adding in numbness didn't do it. The man's fingers just didn't budge at all, which meant as he began to fall, he took Denis down with him.
Fuck. It not only hurt, but now they were going to lock him back up again. This was all a set up to get rid of him the whole time? Why fuck bother?
Brian came out into the hall and looked at him calmly.
“Maybe you should let them up? Charlot's just stressed. She's worried about Bridget in all of this. Yes, taking it out on you wasn't fair, but things like that happen, people get snippy when things go wrong and this
isn't the best of all worlds right now. I don't think Scott meant anything either. He just reacted... That's kind of what he's trained for. That and photo ops.” Then the black suited and dapper looking Chinese guy smiled. It didn't help, but it beat someone screaming at you or pulling a weapon.
Denis shook his head.
“They're going to put me back into lock-up now, and probably kill me. Fuck it, I might as well die fighting. I'm sure that won't take long.” Because class four or not, he was pinned and the best Denis could do was make people uncomfortable or scared for a while. He didn't even have a gun, but then he didn't think even asleep he could kill Prime with something like that.
Even running wouldn't work. Not even if he could get Prime to let go, which didn't seem all that likely at the moment, the hand was just frozen in place. He knew for a fact that they had him chipped and could track him from space. What could he do, hide underground for the rest of his life? Denis got ready for Proxy to attack him, or someone else to, but instead Director Moore just walked out of the little ready room and glanced at the situation calmly.
“Hmph. Well... kindly let them go now Denis. We need to get you to medical and back here in time for the press conference. Go ahead. No one's locking you up for this. Self-defense after all, and as far as I can tell you managed the situation totally without violence? Didn't even make these two uncomfortable? We certainly can't ask for more than that, can we? You're simply not in the wrong here this time and acted in a way that falls well within the best anyone could ask for.”
The voice sounded reasonable and slightly amused. The man also wore a dark suit, not as highly tailored as the one Yi wore and it had a red and blue striped tie and a soft blue shirt for contrast. The look was political rather than friendly, it seemed trustworthy enough for all that.
