girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Apr 17, 2018 19:03:15 GMT
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? This dude, presumably! (… that's literally my only superhero joke, I hope I didn't use it already when discussing the Phantom in a previous review.)
So much about the Phantom (excluding, perhaps, his inability to know irony when he sees it) really emphasises the theatricality of what it means to be a superhero in Clarus City. His whole deal is stage magic, illusions, smoke and mirrors; he has invisible assistants to create visible effects, even a weapon that masquerades as something other than itself. At every moment, it seems, a superhero's actions are framed – on the TV screen, as with Blaziken Man in that early chapter, or in the eyes of criminals, as here. The Phantom shows up, confronts people who don't recognise who he is, and goes out of his way to ensure that they will never forget him. There's more at play here than brand identity, I think; he's making a bigger version of himself, a phantom Phantom that will live on in these guys' heads in a way that he himself can't. Maybe this is just what you need to do in a world where there aren't bards to sing the exploits of heroes – great deeds of valour and cunning don't become myth until you fictionalise them, after all. You can go to war with some city near the Dardanelles, but until someone sits down and goes “Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus”, it's just that, just a war.
And it's really interesting how these different heroes approach this project of building their heroic identity. Blaziken Man, the high-powered entrepreneur, has TV spots that cast him as a symbol of hope for the citizenry; the Phantom, the embittered recluse, works in darkness, away from the camera, and focuses on developing himself as an object of fear for criminals. Then you've got Alex, of course, who's basically just promising everyone they'll know about the Amazing Hawlucha Man soon enough, and that's … kind of hilarious, and kind of adorable. He's getting there! He just doesn't really have a marketer's soul, and honestly that's probably for the best.
Anyway, leaving aside all of that (I'm sure I must have said it all at least twice over at this point), this was one of those side chapters that I remembered really vividly, in contrast to some of the other heroes. It might be in part due to the fact that the Phantom is one of the only characters I recognise as being derived from a comic book superhero – I've picked up from other people that Hawlucha Man is Spiderman, and Blaziken Man is Iron Man, but I didn't know enough about superheroes to make those connections by myself – but I think it's also because it's such an effective chapter in its own right. It introduces the Phantom, it builds up our picture of the Sins, it gives us some pretty sweet action scenes, it tells the Phantom's backstory, it helps to expand our view of Clarus City, it feeds into the overarching plot thread that will culminate in That One Fight Scene – and it's super fun to read. The plot is relatively simple – the Phantom goes out, picks a couple of fights, catches a bad guy who escapes, and retires home to brood – but you get an extraordinary amount of mileage out of it. Not only do you twist both of the Phantom's encounters into reminders of his past and slot in an encounter with the police to show how someone like him as opposed to Alex interacts with them, you have his reflection at the end be suggestive of the bigger picture to tie it back in with the story's main plot – and to remind us that that main plot is mostly Alex's, which invites a fruitful kind of comparison between the Phantom as an established vigilante and Hawlucha Man as one just starting out. Honestly, I'm just really impressed at how tightly and elegantly it's structured. I have to commend you on that.
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Post by Firebrand on May 5, 2018 0:27:19 GMT
Chapter 6
Though he was loathe to admit it, Alex’s side still ached from a blow he had taken the night before. His suit had managed to cushion the impact, but not enough to avoid leaving a nasty bruise. He knew that bruises came with the territory of being a freelance superhero, and as tempting as it was to take a night off to let the bruises fade, he couldn’t let himself slack off after every fight where he got banged up, especially not after Wrath’s anarchists had blown up the old City Hall in Greenpoint. The whole city was on edge, and crime was only on the rise. The major criminal factions were consolidating their forces for something or other, and the minor elements, the garden variety muggers and thieves, were sensing the tension in the air and capitalizing on the city’s fear. The police force was doing everything it could to keep the rise in crime under control while still trying to get to the bottom of what the Sins were up to, but it was starting to strain their resources. The last time Alex had seen Captain Anderson, it looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
And so Avenbrooke’s friendly neighborhood Hawlucha Man was doing everything he could to help.
Two nights ago, he had helped Detective Reyes and Sergeant Hinako Matsuri chase down the chemists and distributors from a notorious smuggling ring pushing a dangerous new opiate. When Alex had tackled the last man, he had screamed that Gluttony would make them pay for this, that it wouldn’t be long before the whole city was paying tribute to the Sins, and the police would wish they had turned tail and ran when they had the chance. Matsuri dismissed it as the usual crap, but something about the way the man said it made Alex uneasy. Normally when criminals talked about their connections to the Sins, it was all bluster and braggadocio to affirm their status in the underworld.
But this man had sounded terrified.
He and Hierro soared from rooftop to rooftop, listening for the sounds of breaking glass or sirens. Instead, they heard a scream. Alex slid to a stop, quickly calculated the best route to the direction of the sound, and took off at a sprint. When he reached the edge of the roof, he spread his arms wide, letting the wingsuit catch the night air and carry him along. It didn’t take them long to reach where Alex determined the scream came from, and they saw a woman running out from an alley, nearly tripping in her haste to get away.
She had rounded the corner and vanished before Alex could land, but he heard a man in the darkness pleading. “No, please, Arceus no, you can’t do this, please…”
“Stop right there,” Alex called as he and Hierro stepped forward.
A snarling mass of fur jumped from the darkness and barred their path. The streetlights made the shells on its legs and head gleam, and a low growl reverberated deep in its chest. Hierro’s feathers puffed up as he stared down the Samurott, slowly flexing his talons. “Just keep moving, Hawlucha Man,” someone said from the darkness. “This doesn’t concern you.” There was a thud and the sound of scrapping metal. Then came the sound of a boot striking flesh, and a man fell out of the shadows, blood streaming from his nose. The assailant in the darkness drove a booted foot into the victim's chest, and Alex saw the light catch for just an instant on the broadsword the man carried. He stepped out of the darkness and pointed the blade at the sniveling man.
“Ronin,” Alex said. “I don’t know what this man’s done, but this isn’t how we do things. There’s a system. It will see justice is done.”
The vigilante scoffed. “Bullshit.” His silver-gray hair was tied back in a severe ponytail, and he idly swiped at a strand that had come loose. The Ronin pointed with his free hand at the man cowering at his feet. “Take a good look as this bastard. He was in the papers.” Alex looked past the blood and grime and tears and realized he did vaguely recall the face, a well-heeled investment banker from midtown who had preyed upon desperate women as a kind of sick hobby, allegedly picking them up off the streets, having his way with them before maiming and killing his victims. The trial had been widely publicized, and there had been a public outcry when he had been released after a few key pieces of evidence vanished under mysterious circumstances and the only two survivors among his alleged victims had recanted their statements. “Scum like him think they’re above the law” the Ronin growled as he lifted his sword. “I’m showing him that he’s not.”
“You can’t just make yourself the judge, jury and executioner!”
“Oh really?” the Ronin said. When Alex tried to stop him, the swordsman shook his head. “Muramasa, keep them out of my way.” He picked the prone man up by the collar of his shirt. “I'll let come clean before I send you on your way.” The man was too terrified to say anything. The Ronin shoved him against the wall. “Did you kill those women?”
Finally, the man found his voice. “Please, let me turn myself in. I’ll confess to the police, I’ll make a statement, I swear!”
The Samurott had tackled Alex and forced him against the far wall of the alley, trapping him with its bulk. Hierro screamed and lunged at the water type, only to be sent sprawling when the Samurott struck him with a torrent of water. Alex struggled to escape the press of fur and muscle. “We can take him to the Eleventh! Don’t do this!"
“He had his chance.” The Ronin threw the man to the ground again. “Pick a god and pray.”
“Please, no,” the man cried. “I’ll give you anything! Name a price! Please, let me go!”
“Pathetic,” the Ronin spat. He hauled the man up by his elbow and then forced him to his knees. And then, with no further ceremony, he raised his sword and cut the man’s head from his shoulders.
“No!” Alex screamed as the Samurott released him. “He was ready to confess! We could have… it didn’t have to go this way!”
“This is was better than he deserved.” The Ronin pulled a rag from his belt and wiped the blood from his blade. “If I let him go, he’d just slip through the law again and be back to his old ways in a week.” He prodded the corpse with his boot. “He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“You’re a monster.”
The Ronin shrugged. “You aren’t wrong. But at least I’m on your side.” He sighed and returned his blade to its scabbard. “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea here, Hawlucha Man. I think you do good work, but you’re hopelessly naïve.” The Ronin’s Samurott padded over to him, and the swordsman scratched it under its chin. “Stop me if I’m off the mark here. You started doing this because you saw people getting hurt. Criminals were getting away with things that the police were powerless to stop. They knew how to exploit the laws and get off, so the city needed people to operate outside the law to bring them to justice.”
“Yes, but— ”
“But nothing. The law can’t touch the people you’re fighting, just like it couldn’t touch this man. For people like the Sins, the Baron, the Kuromori, the truly warped and disgusting, the only way to deal with them,” the Ronin patted the sword at his hip, “is to put them down for good.”
“I have to believe that there’s another way,” Alex said, his eyes still fixed on the dead man. “I have to have faith that the law knows better than I do. If I take that power into my own hands, how am I any better than the people I’m fighting?”
“You can’t be that fucking stupid,” the Ronin snapped. “So long as you’re only using your power to hurt people who have hurt others, then you’re just balancing the scales.”
“That’s a slippery slope.”
The Ronin scoffed. “The hell it is. Someday soon, you’re going to have to make the hard call, or innocent people going to get hurt. Killed.” His face softened, and for just a moment, he looked like nothing more than a tired old man. “Listen, Hawlucha Man. You must have seen it too. The Sins are planning something. A heist at First Clarus in broad daylight, the old City Hall, Sloth himself at the Industrial Trust… that bastard is moving pieces around the board, and we can’t see what he’s planning. If you aren’t ready to do what has to be done, then maybe it’s best you keep your head down and stay out of the way.”
“I’m not running from this. I made my choice. I swore an oath to protect this city.”
“How noble,” the Ronin drawled. “Fucking stupid, but noble. I used to be like you once. A long time ago.”
Alex couldn’t stop himself from asking. “What happened?”
“I went to war.” The Ronin looked straight at him, but Alex got the sense that he was looking through him, at something far away. “I did things, overseas. Things a lot worse than this. It was decades ago, but I’m still trying to atone for it.” His focus snapped back. “I may be a monster. But sometimes, a monster is just what this city needs.” The Ronin palmed a pokeball, and his Samurott vanished in a flash of red light. “Call the police if you want. They’ll find the body soon enough either way.” He brushed past Hawlucha Man and straddled a motorcycle parked on the street. He gunned the engine once. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.” And with that, the bike roared to life, and the Ronin shot off up the street.
Alex slumped against the wall and tried to take a deep breath, but the scent o blood and death filled his nostrils. He gestured to Hierro and the two of them crossed the street. Alex dug his cell phone out of a small pouch on his belt and dialed the emergency dispatch. “I… I need to report a homicide.” The dispatcher on the other end of the line took down Alex’s location with a professionalism that bordered on outright coldness, and informed him that the police would be on their way.
Alex hung up and climbed a low-hanging fire escape to a nearby rooftop. He waited until he heard sirens in the distance before soaring over several streets to a rooftop he had found about a month earlier with a good view of the Concord Bridge and the Umber River. When he alighted on the gravel rooftop he pounded his fist against his leg in frustration. Hierro landed behind him and made an inquisitive chipping deep in his throat. Alex shook his head for a moment as he clenched and unclenched his fist.
Finally, he turned to face his partner. “What if he’s right? What if I’m not cut out for this?”
Hierro blinked, turned his head to the side, and shrugged. The chirps turned into a more drawn out coo.
Alex sighed and kicked idly at the gravel. “I just… damn it.” The heroes of Clarus City walked a thin line, operating outside the bounds of traditional law enforcement, doing the things that the police couldn’t, but it didn’t take much for a hero to feel like they were above the law, that just because they fought for the good guys they could hold themselves above the same rules everyone else played by. But Blaziken Man, the city's first hero, the city's greatest hero, had a code. He wouldn’t overstep, and he wouldn’t kill, because everyone deserved a second chance, an opportunity to repent, or at least to have a fair trial in the eyes of the law.
When Alex first donned the Hawlucha Man suit, he had taken a private oath to abide by Blaziken Man’s code, to obey the same strictures that Blaziken Man placed on himself, even if doing so put him in danger. The laws existed for a reason, and if he started playing by his own rules, doing what he felt was right with no thought for others, then he was no better than the Baron. Just like Blaziken Man, he had promised himself that he would play by the book, even if the book wasn’t always right.
Alex knew he was no Blaziken Man. He wasn’t a great hero. When people saw the Ronin, all they felt was fear. But he had seen the effect that Hawlucha Man had on people, the way their eyes lit up when he dropped out of the sky to defend them, to beat back the bad guys wherever they showed up. Hawlucha Man is here! He’ll save the day! He’ll protect us! For years, Avenbrooke had been ground under the Baron’s boot, and the people had learned to live with it. But now, they had hope, and a symbol to rally behind, because Hawlucha Man was here and…
Bullshit.
Alex could delude himself into thinking that all he wanted, but he knew, deep down, the real reason he put the suit on night after night, risking serious injury or death, was because it was a rush. He had become addicted to the adrenaline that pumped through his veins when he dropped out of the sky and into a fight, the way the wind burned his throat on sharp descents, and the satisfaction of winning a fight. He was just using Hawlucha Man as a pretext to get his fix, and how was that any better than the Ronin taking out his anger at the world on Avenbrooke’s criminals in a misguided sense of atonement? They were both being selfish, gambling with their lives and the lives of their partners. Even if he saved people, the very act of saving them was corrupted by his selfish motives, by his desperate attempt to chase his adrenaline rush.
“Hierro, what are we even doing here?” His Hawlucha blinked up at him, clearly not understanding the question. Alex stared down at his hands. “Why are we out here night after night? What’s it going to accomplish?”
Hierro seemed to consider this for a moment, and finally he extended his right claw towards Alex. He glanced up at his trainer and then down at the claw, obviously intending Alex to take it. When he did, Hierro led him to the edge of the rooftop and make a quick, all-encompassing gesture with his left claw before extracting his right claw from Alex’s grasp and placing it over his heart. “You love the city? Is that it?” Hierro nodded and pointed at Alex again. If his partner hadn’t had a beak, he could have sworn that Hierro was smirking. The question Hierro was posing was obvious. “Yeah, I love this city too. And you’re saying that’s a good enough reason to fight for it on our terms?” Hierro nodded, and Alex knew in his heart that it was true, far moreso than a misguided and quixotic quest to be an agent of justice, or the pursuit of an adrenaline rush. He was Hawlucha Man because he loved his city, and he knew that it was worth saving.
Alex reached down and smoothed Hierro’s feathers. “Thanks, buddy.”
They stood watching the distant glow of taillights crossing the Concord Bridge, the lights on the suspension cable reflected in the dark water below.
Down on the street, a pane of glass shattered and someone screamed. Alex shook himself and Hierro’s feathers puffed up. Hawlucha Man spread the arms of his wingsuit and took several steps back from the ledge to get a proper running start. “Break time’s over, partner. We have a city to protect.”
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Post by bay on May 6, 2018 6:02:06 GMT
I like for this chapter instead of Alex fighting another villain you have him get some self doubt during his confrontation with the Ronin. Must be traumatizing for Alex seeing someone get beheaded like that, yikes. Even though Alex's self doubt ended a bit quick, Hierro comforting him at the end is very sweet.
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Post by Firebrand on May 11, 2018 21:50:05 GMT
Chapter 7
Reyes glanced up as a shape eclipsed the streetlight above the small parking lot. “Right on time,” the detective said, feeding the Noctowl on his shoulder another piece of the poppy seed bagel he was picking apart in his hands. Hawlucha Man landed with a grunt and jogged over to where the police cruiser was parked.
“You got the stuff?” Hawlucha Man asked. Reyes picked up a small brown paper bag from the hood of the car and shook it.
“Same as usual. Maple frosted donut for you, sesame seed bagel for your partner.”
“Sweet.” Hawlucha Man rummaged around in the bag and held out the toasted bagel to Hierro. The flying type snatched it and began to nibble away. Hawlucha Man took a bite of his donut. “Sergeant Matsuri not here yet?”
Reyes gestured at the all-night donut shop with his chin. “She had to pee.” He scratched his Noctowl’s feathers. “Man, I can’t believe it’s collection night again. Seems like it just happened.”
Every month in Avenbrooke, the Baron sent his men around to collect tribute from the local businesses and landlords. The police had done everything in their power to shut down the extortion, but the Baron was savvy enough to have his accountants and lawyers set the whole enterprise up in a way that was entirely legal and, to the surprise of many, entirely tax deductible. The Baron’s men would go and obtain a “voluntary donation” to the Avenbrooke Community Fund, the charity and shell company that the Baron had established to take the “donations”. The Fund acted as a perverse sort of insurance that the Baron would dip into to reimburse any business or residence that had been damaged in an operation by one of the other organized crime factions in Clarus City. Though the people of Avenbrooke hated the Baron shaking them down every month, they also weren’t fond of the idea of one of Wrath’s firebombs going out of control and taking a whole neighborhood with it, so they mostly paid up.
And because every carrot needed a good stick, those that didn’t pay tended to wake up one morning and find their home or place of business had been struck by some sort of terrible accident. Holdouts on collection night generally didn’t hold out for very long.
Nearly a decade ago, when the Baron had first started collecting, the police had tried to crack down on the Baron’s enterprise and stop the whole thing. The Baron had fielded his entire private army of thugs and enforcers against the police force in one of the most infamous nights of violence in Clarus City’s history, second only to Sloth’s vicious and bloody coup several years later. When the members of the Eleventh who were not comatose or worse arrived at the precinct the next morning, bruised and bleeding, they were greeted in the foyer by Bruce Giordano and Carlo Pirozzi, the latter of whom cheerfully informed them that what he was doing was entirely within the letter of the law and that he had the documentation to prove it.
When they had tried to arrest him for his role in the previous night’s riots, it came to light that the rioters had taken their orders from a byzantine array of lieutenants and section bosses, and financed through an equally thorny tangle of shell companies, that there was no way to conclusively tie them back to the Baron, or even substantial evidence to prove that the Baron had been involved in the riots at all. Of course, none of the men they brought in would testify against him.
And so they had been forced to let the Baron walk free.
Now the Avenbrooke police deployed en masse on collection night, but only to step in if things got out of hand. An uneasy and unspoken truce had been established over the years that should one of the Baron’s men become too overzealous in extracting tribute, the police could apprehend him and the Baron would disavow any association. It usually led to a quick trip across the harbor to Redstone Prison, and the looming threat of abandonment by their patron and summary incarceration was enough to keep most of the enforcers in line. But the Eleventh knew better than to take that on faith.
Sergeant Matsuri walked out of the donut shop, her Raichu bounding along after her. “All right boys, up and at ‘em.” She glanced at Hawlucha Man. “You saving that frosting for later or something?” Hawlucha Man grinned sheepishly and wiped at the corners of his mouth. “Anything on the radio?” Matsuri asked Reyes.
“Nope, but it’s early.” Reyes watched a few feral ghost types pass in front of the moon and sucked at his teeth. “Seems like there’s a lot of new Unovan immigrants around this month. I’m sure they’ve been warned what’s coming, but they aren’t gonna like it."
Matsuri nodded and folded her arms. “The whole city feels like a powder keg ready to blow. One little spark is all it’s going to take to send the whole thing up in flames.”
A crackle came over the police radios. The three pokemon all perked up at the sound, and an instant later, Alex caught the garbled voice of a dispatcher. Reyes glanced over at Alex. “Call for backup at Third and Cedar. It’s a bit of a winding route in the car…”
“But as the Murkrow flies, piece of cake,” Alex said, finishing the thought. “I’ll head over.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Matsuri said, swinging into the driver’s side and firing up the sirens.
Reyes muttered something to the Noctowl on his shoulder, and the bird took off on soundless wings, spiraling up into the night air. “I’m sending Bella with you,” the detective said. “From what we got over the radio, sounds like there are shots fired. If you get there before us, be careful.”
“Got it.”
“I’d say don’t be a hero, kid…”
“But that’s kind of the job description, yeah.” Alex was already sprinting to one of the four fire escapes he had identified around the donut shop. Hierro kicked off the walls of the alley to climb progressively higher while Alex scrambled up the iron steps, the metal clanging under his footfalls. He and his partner sprinted across the rooftop and spread their wings, soaring out over the street. Reyes and Matsuri’s cruiser screamed around a corner, and Reyes’s Noctowl swooped down to fly alongside them. Alex hit the next rooftop running, and in seconds he was airborne again. Hierro caught his eye as they glided, and he saw the Hawlucha’s irises shining in the streetlights flashing along below.
The rapid report of gunfire greeted them as they touched down on a tenement rooftop on Cedar Avenue. Two pairs of police officers were crouching behind their cars, trading gunfire with a group of the Baron’s enforcers taking cover behind a car of their own in front of a storefront with shattered windows. Alex could see an older couple huddling near the store counter trying to make themselves as small as possible to avoid stray bullets. “You go left,” he said to Hierro. “I’ll go right. Ready?”
Hierro bobbed up and down in a full-body nod. They stepped back a few paces to get a proper running start before jumping. Alex counted three enforcers, a Machoke, a Tyrunt, and a Magneton. He knew that the advantage of a surprise attack would only last for a second, and he needed to make that second count. Humans and most pokemon that weren’t small prey animals didn’t usually bother to account for an attack coming from above, and that was an advantage Alex and Hierro had continued to press.
“Listen up assholes!” Alex shouted as his foot connected with one of the enforcers’ noses. The man fell to his knees, clutching his face as blood poured between his fingers. Hierro slammed into the Machoke before executing a backflip and driving his taloned foot into the sternum of the second enforcer. “I’m guessing the cops already gave you a chance to drop your weapons, so I’m skipping right to the part where we kick your asses.” Alex spun his batons and clubbed the Tyrunt across its snout. The rock type gave a stunned yelp while Alex turned and drove the heel of his foot between its eyes. He snapped his leg back and threw out a kick behind him, catching the third enforcer in the groin. When the man bent over with a low moan of pain, Alex whirled around with a roundhouse kick and dropped him.
Hierro swept the Machoke off its feet before bounding off one of the bullet-riddled cars to deliver a punishing jump kick to finish the hulking fighting type off. Before Hierro could recover, the Magneton began to hum as electricity sparked along its magnetic poles. Alex knew his fists couldn’t deter the steel type, and he had been unable to find a non-conducive metal to make his batons. Anything he did to try to stop the Magneton would have been not only fruitless, but also very likely to seriously injure himself as well. And unlike Hierro, Alex’s body lacked the rapid metabolism that allowed pokemon to recover from severe attacks quickly.
Just as Alex had braced himself for what was to come, Bella dropped out of the sky with a rush of wind. The gale spun the Magneton around, and the steel type’s eyes rolled as it struggled to reorient itself and charge up again. Before it managed to do so, Hierro had slammed his foot into the center of the cluster before hurling it to the ground. The Magneton buzzed faintly before it went offline. Bella landed on Alex’s shoulder as the Tyrunt struggled back to its feet. The Noctowl’s eyes briefly flashed red, and the rock type fell in heap, knocked unconscious by the Noctowl’s psychic powers.
Reyes stepped out of the cruiser and held out his arm for Bella. The flying type flapped over to him, and the detective raised an eyebrow. “Matsuri and I got here a minute ago, but you seemed like you had things under control. You earned that donut tonight.”
Alex reached out to smooth down Hierro’s ruffled feathers and grinned. “All in a night’s work.”
Matsuri and the other officers were helping the shopkeeper and his wife out of the wreckage of their storefront and calling for a paramedic team for what looked like a possible concussion for the man. One of the officers handcuffed the three enforcers and put in a call for the PPS to take care of their downed pokemon. He nodded to Alex. “Nice work, Hawlucha Man. Who knows what they could have done if you hadn’t shown up?”
The police radio crackled again, and this time Alex was close enough to hear it for himself. “Requesting backup from all available units. Code three-five-nine at Seventh and Whitechapel. Repeat, code three-five-nine at Seventh and Whitechapel.”
Alex caught Reyes’s eye and nodded, already running for the nearest fire escape. Whitechapel was only a few streets over, and Alex could be there in minutes if he hurried. Three-five-nine meant an esper was involved, and when espers were involved, things tended to get messy.
As Alex hauled himself up an iron ladder, he shook his head. “I’ve got to get myself a grappling hook or something.” He and Hierro took off over the blocks of the apartment buildings, angling towards Whitechapel. The wind was in their favor, and they quickly made their way over the three city blocks. They ran parallel to the street across the rooftops towards the flashing police sirens.
Two of the Baron’s men stood before the arched doorway of a rundown brownstone apartment building, glowering at the police. “No one’s getting roughed up here!” one of the enforcers shouted. “Mr. Pirozzi is just conducting some business. No need for this to get ugly.”
“Yeah!” the second man added. “We don’t want to waste the CCPD’s time, now. I’m sure you got better things to do than harass a local businessman doing some community outreach.” A third floor window shattered outward, and a desk fell to the street below, the wood shattering with a sharp crack. The Baron's men had drifted towards their guns, but stopped when they remembered the police. "Looks like Mr. Pirozzi's associate is just giving a little demonstration."
Alex glanced at his partner. “Looks like we’ve got a way in. I’ll take point.” They soared out over the street, and Alex adjusted his body so that he fell through the broken window feet-first. He rolled across the uneven wooden floor to cushion the impact and came up with his batons in hand. Hierro dropped in behind him, landing nimbly on his feet. Alex heard the click of a gun being cocked, and raised his eyes to see Bruce Giordano pointing a pistol between his eyes.
“Bad move, Hawlucha Man.”
Alex signaled for Hierro to stand down, and the Hawlucha complied, though his feathers remained puffed up. Carlo Pirozzi turned around and rolled his eyes. “You really do have the worst timing, don’t you?” He smoothed a crease in his suit jacket. “It would be troublesome to kill you at the moment, but I really can’t have you interfering. Mr. Espalier, if you would be so kind?”
Something shifted in the shadows behind the Baron, and an instant later Alex found himself trapped in an invisible box. “No,” he gasped, realizing why the Baron was here. What he had come for. And then, louder, “No! Pierre, whatever he’s told you, do not listen to him!” He hammered his fists against the invisible walls that contained him, and though the walls felt solid beneath his hands, they made no sound. Pierre slunk out of the shadows and spread his hands in an apologetic shrug.
“I’m sorry, Hawlucha Man. But every time I listen to you, Mimsy and I get hurt.” He tugged at his tattered stripped shirt. “But Mr. Pirozzi promised to give me a job. With his help, I protect Mimsy.”
“He’s going to exploit you. He wants to use your powers to do bad things!”
Pierre sighed and turned his head in a slow circle before settling his half-vacant stare back on Hawlucha Man. “I didn’t ask for my powers. I don’t want them in my brain. I just want to have friends, but I can’t because of my stupid powers.”
“The Baron is not your friend.”
“I know. But at least he’s honest with me.” A smile tugged at the side of Pierre’s mouth. “I’m going to go with Mr. Pirozzi. Something bad is coming, Hawlucha Man. The whispers in my head have been telling me that for a long time now. I just want to make sure that Mimsy is safe.” Pierre turned to the Baron. “Please don’t hurt him. I know we’re on different sides now, but Hawlucha Man is the closest thing I have to a friend.”
The Baron and Giordano shared a look. The bodyguard shrugged and cracked his knuckles. “I won’t hurt him if he compromises. That’s all I can promise.”
“Okay.” Pierre’s melancholy disappeared, replaced by an effervescent bubbliness. “Bye, Hawlucha Man!” Two of the Baron’s men hustled him down the darkened back stair of the apartment. The Baron strode over to where Alex was trapped, the heels of his expensive shoes clicking on the scuffed, uneven wood floor of the apartment.
“Mr. Espalier, addled though he may be, does have a point, Hawlucha Man.” Carlo Pirozzi adjusted the sleeve of his silk shirt underneath the cuff of his tailored suit jacket. “A storm is coming to Clarus City. When the dust settles, we’ll see the strong separated from the weak. You ought to take care to batten down your hatches.” The Baron shrugged. “Consider this a warning, in the interest of fair play.”
“Whatever you’re trying to do, I’ll stop you!”
Pirozzi chuckled. “My boy, I have no intention of doing anything. I am merely heeding my own advice and consolidating my resources. The various other factions at play in the city are more than welcome to tear each other to shreds. I shall wait on the sidelines. Scavenging among the scraps is not glamorous work, though it is profitable.” He turned on his heel and walked over to the darkened doorway Pierre had disappeared through. “When everything hits the fan, as they say in the common parlance, do remember: I did warn you.” He cleared his throat. “Mr. Giordano, wrap things up here and report back to me at your earliest convenience. You’ll have to excuse me, but I have a contract to draft up for Mr. Espalier.”
The sounds of his footfalls vanished down the stairs, and Bruce consulted his expensive wristwatch. “That box is gonna disappear in a minute. The esper is a weird one, but I kinda like him, and the boss didn’t exactly tell me what to do. So I’ll give you a choice. You want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?”
Alex felt the invisible wall start to give way underneath his hands. It didn’t shatter or crumble, it just began to feel less solid, until finally the sensation of pressing up against something simply faded as though it was never there. Alex’s hands twitched down to the batons on his belt and he saw Hierro bracing himself in his peripheral vision. But before Alex could respond one way or the other, the door to the apartment flew open.
“Freeze!” Detective Reyes shouted, leading in a team of armored and helmeted response units. A Drapion squeezed its way through the doorframe and clacked its mandibles, awaiting the orders of its trainer within the squadron. Reyes turned his gun on Giordano. “What’s going on here?”
Giordano held his hands up. “Easy, officers. No need to raise our voices. Hawlucha Man and I were just having a civil discussion. I assume that’s still legal?”
Reyes flicked his gaze over to Hawlucha Man. “Is that all?”
Alex nodded. “They weren’t doing anything illegal. Nothing we can pin them with, at least.”
“The esper?”
“Pierre Espalier. He’s gone, and the Baron is too.”
Giordano smiled, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “Now that our fine feathered friend has vouched for my conduct, am I free to go? Or am I being detained?”
Reyes stepped aside. “Go.”
Giordano’s smile widened a nearly imperceptible amount as he sauntered past the riot squad and made his way down the creaking front steps. Once he had reached the street level, Reyes dismissed the armored police as well. When they were gone, he holstered his sidearm and turned back to Alex. “What happened?”
“The Baron made some kind of offer to Pierre—”
“Pierre’s the motor mouth mime that keeps breaking out of St. Ambrosius, right?”
“Yeah. Anyway, he made him and offer and Pierre took it. I don’t know the specifics. I tried to talk him out of it, but…”
Reyes laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You did everything you could. You can’t win every fight, and you can’t save everyone.”
“I know, it’s just…” Alex sighed. “This one was personal. I let him down. Pierre went with the Baron because I failed him.”
“You’ll have another chance. He’s still out there. In the meantime,” Reyes clapped Alex on the back, “you saved a few good police officers tonight. You ought to be proud yourself.” The detective grinned. “I’m thinking you might have even earned a second donut. I’ll even throw in a cup of coffee.”
“Well, aren’t you in a giving mood.”
Reyes laughed and led Alex and Hierro down the stairs of the apartment. Before they walked out into the street, Reyes caught his arm. “All joking aside, you do good work. The Eleventh is lucky to have you.”
Alex nodded. “Reyes, before the Baron left, he said that a storm was coming to Clarus City. Do the police know anything I don’t?”
“Ah, hell,” Reyes replied with a shake of his head. “When isn’t this city teetering on the brink? Whatever’s coming, we’ll ride it out, same as we always do.” |
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on May 12, 2018 10:02:46 GMT
Ah, the Ronin chapter! If I remember right, I think that there were two issues with it in its previous incarnation – one, the weird and kinda forced mock-trial that the Ronin put the dude through, and two, the part at the end where Alex delivers a soliloquy about his conflicted emotions, which didn't really feel like something anyone would do. Both of those things have been substantially reworked – Alex's thoughts stay internal, which goes a long way towards making them feel more natural (though I think it might have worked better had some of his doubts lingered in the back of his head rather than all of them being wrapped up at the end of the chapter), and the Ronin simply makes sure he's got his guy before he takes his head off, which is much brisker and simpler.
What remains great, though, is Hierro stepping in to comfort and re-centre his partner; because of the pace of the action in this fic, there aren't so many moments where pokémon can be much more than adjuncts to their trainers, and it's nice to see one of those moments here. You get a real sense of this being a partnership here.
The next chapter is much more of a chapter in the overarching narrative than one of the little self-contained stories that make up many of this fic's chapters; there's a lot of set-up, but of course at this point I already know what it's setting up for, and the pay-off is absolutely amazing. Definitely looking forward to experiencing that all over again!
Finally, there are a couple of typos in chapter six – probably introduced when you reworked the Ronin's little mock-trial.
Missing a comma here after “law”.
Missing “you” between “let” and “come”.
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Post by bay on May 17, 2018 2:28:10 GMT
During Alex's fight with the three Pokemon I do like how he's aware of the disadvantage he's in with Magneton. Not surprised Pierre decided to take the Baron's offer there after the Unova Man incident, but understandable Alex would be upset over that. I look forward to what kind of "storm" is heading to Clarus City.
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Post by Firebrand on May 26, 2018 1:37:15 GMT
Chapter 8
The commissary buzzed with conversation as Alex loaded up a lunch tray and scanned the room for an empty spot to bolt down a quick meal before his next lab. He was reaching for an apple when the large television screens in the dining hall all flashed to an emergency broadcast signal. Someone lunged for the AV controls and turned up the volume. A female news anchor appeared on the screen, looking slightly panicked.
“Attention, citizens of Clarus City. By order of the CCPD, a lockdown is now in effect. Midtown Clarus City has been targeted in a terrorist attack by Marcus Braun and his associates. Citizens are advised to stay in a secure location. The police are mobilizing to deal with this threat, and more information will be forthcoming as soon as we have it.” She touched her earpiece and nodded quickly. “I am being told that we have received an audio transmission from Jiro Sasaki now, who is working with the Clarus City Police. Uh, Jim, play it, okay?”
A file photo of Blaziken Man appeared on the screen and the recording began with a burst of static and a loud report of what could only be gunshots. “Citizens of Clarus City,” Blaziken Man’s voice said. “I implore you to remain, oh son of a, to remain calm! The CCPD is doing everything in their power to contain this. Volcarona Mask and I are already on the scene, and officers from precincts all over the city are reporting in.
“But Police Commissioner Bright and I want every available resource at our disposal to deal with this threat. I’m not sure I have the authority to do this, but at this point—” His voice was cut off by a burst of static. “At this point, I don’t see much of a choice. Heroes of Clarus City, I’m calling all of you in.”
Alex’s tray clattered to floor as he turned on his heel and sprinted for the nearest bathroom. He dug the Hawlucha Man costume from his backpack and hastily pulled it on, dragging the mask over his eyes and calling Hierro from his pokeball. “This is the big one, partner. We just got called in by Blaziken Man himself.”
Hierro straightened and puffed up his feathers, clearly ready to be off. They raced up the staircase of the student union building to the small utility closet that led to the roof access. “Hey!” a maintenance worker shouted as Alex and Hierro ran by. “You can’t go in there!”
“Official city business!” Alex called as he pulled himself up the ladder to the roof. He didn’t wait to hear the man’s reply. He took off over the rooftop, his legs pumping as he ran for the edge. An instant later, he was soaring out over the quadrangle of the Avenbrooke Institute of Technology, angling to reach the lower roofs of the administrative buildings on the far side where he could climb to a better vantage point.
He and Hierro bounded from rooftop to rooftop, soon leaving the campus behind as they crossed over into residential Avenbrooke. Police sirens filled the air, and columns of smoke rose up over midtown Clarus City across the river. Alex put on a burst of speed, every fiber of his body straining to be closer to the action, to the fighting.
A squad car sped along the street parallel to him, its siren whooping. “Hawlucha Man!” Captain Anderson called from the loudspeaker. “Get down here! We’re supposed to get you across the river!”
Alex angled his body and swooped down to street level, where Anderson’s police cruiser stopped with a squeal of tires. Captain Anderson reached across the central console and popped the passenger side door open. “The whole city’s gone to hell!” the captain snapped. “But if the commissioner says she wants all boots on the ground, then who am I to question her?” Alex slid into the passenger seat as Hierro crammed himself into the back with Oscar, Anderson’s Houndoom. The police radio in the cruiser crackled constantly, and Anderson drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on the dial, constantly changing between frequencies. “Whole city’s gone to hell,” Anderson said again.
“What happened exactly?” Alex asked as they hurtled down the streets of Avenbrooke. “The emergency broadcast just said there was a terrorist attack and the Sins are responsible.”
“Explosions,” Anderson replied through clenched teeth. “All across the city, all at once. And if that wasn’t bad enough, as soon as we move in to start damage control, every damn thug in Clarus City shows up and starts rioting. I have no clue what Sloth’s game is here, but I can tell you one thing. Wrath must be as happy as a kid on Solstice.”
They pulled into an open lot near the piers where four black police helicopters stood waiting. Anderson got out of the car and motioned for Alex to follow. “We’re taking those?”
The captain nodded. “Pride has her goons blocking the bridge. We’re trying to break through on the ground, but there’s no time to waste.” He swung up into the first chopper where Reyes, Matsuri and three other members of the Tenth Precinct’s best and brightest were waiting. Anderson returned Oscar to his pokeball and grabbed one of the canvas straps hanging from the ceiling, motioning for Alex and Hierro to do the same. The rotors began to whir, and soon they were airborne. The small fleet of helicopters swung out over the river, keeping the Concord Bridge to the right. As they came in low, Alex spotted a solitary motorcycle hurtling towards the barricade of wrecked cars Pride’s men had created.
The motorcycle weaved between the police cars the officers were using as cover in the shootout and poured on speed. The rider tossed something out in front of the bike, and a large blue mass appeared beside him, already charging forward even before the light from the pokeball cleared. The rider reached for the long parcel on his back, and when he held it alongside him, the afternoon light glinted off the blade of his broadsword. The Ronin and his Samurott didn’t slow down as he raced towards the blockade, the water type knocking cars out of the way to clear a path for his trainer. The Ronin’s blade flashed as he swung it around, decapitating one of the terrorists as he continued to speed on towards the city. The whole thing happened so fast that Pride’s men hadn’t had the chance to come to their senses and fire off even a single shot.
Alex glanced over at Anderson, but the captain just shrugged. “Good riddance.”
The helicopters angled southward, passing over the fringe of the financial district. Alex saw smoldering craters dotted across the city, the source of the smoke pillars he had seen from Avenbrooke. “This is awful,” he shouted over the helicopter blades. “They won’t get away with this!”
Hierro tugged at his arm and pointed at the streets below. Alex squinted and saw a man in a black cloak whirling amidst a crowd of Wrath’s anarchists and surrounded by a seething mass of ghost types. More reinforcements were arriving, and soon the man in black would be overwhelmed. Alex nodded and turned to Anderson. “We’re going down there. He needs help.”
“Don’t be crazy!” Reyes shouted. “Backup is probably on the way!”
“We’ll see you when this is over.”
Alex and Hierro jumped from the helicopter, angling their bodies into streamlined arrows to cut down on wind resistance. The ground rushed up towards them, and Alex exhaled. He had never tested his wingsuit from this height before, and he had no way of knowing if this would work. He supposed he was about to find out.
Hierro caught his eye and nodded, and they spread their wings. Alex felt the material catch the wind and buoy him up, slowing his descent as he soared over the street. “Wa-hoooo!” he screamed as he shot between two buildings, Hierro just behind him. Gliding over the roofs of Avenbrooke was one thing, but this was truly flying! Alex adjusted his weight to drop to the ground and landed with a somersault to spare his knees the impact. His batons were already in his hands when he came up, and he clocked an anarchist across the face as Hierro dropped a second with a kick. Alex cried out when a Dusknoir appeared next to him, but the ghost type’s fist shot out and struck a pouncing Darmanitan.
“What are you doing?” the Phantom snapped as he lashed out with his cane. “I have this area under control!”
“You were about to be overwhelmed!” Alex parried a Mienshao and sent it towards Hierro. The Hawlucha jumped backwards to kick off a Graveller and tackled the vulpine fighting type.
The Phantom scoffed as he twirled his cane around and clubbed the heavy weighted end across a rioter’s temple. “Overwhelmed?” He snapped his gloved left hand, and the cloud of shrieking ghost types overhead descended on the mob, flitting between the combatants and wreaking havoc. “I can handle it myself! Just stay back!”
The Dusknoir appeared at the Phantom’s side and threw a series of punches at an approaching Seviper and Toxicroak before vanishing again, only to reappear in the midst of a cluster of anarchists. Hierro took up position at Alex’s back, his claws flexing as he surveyed their foes. Alex twirled his batons and shook his head. “Blaziken Man called us in. We ought to be working together!”
“I don’t need help!” the Phantom growled. He snapped his fingers twice, and a massive Haunter descended from above to attack a group of anarchists. “Damn it, you’re only getting in my way!”
Hierro whistled through his beak as he lunged at a Machoke’s knees, knocking the hulking fighting type off-balance. Alex dropped to a crouch and kicked the Machoke off its feet, sending it toppling backwards on top of an Exeggutor. A pack of Mightyena loped towards them, and Alex and Hierro began to beat them back, away from the Phantom’s specters. “This isn’t the time to show off how tough you are!” Alex called to the other hero. “We need to protect the city, and we’re stronger together!”
“I am trying to protect the city,” The Phantom punched a thug and sent the man sprawling backwards, blood pouring from his nose. “By taking out the greatest threat to it. I need to lure Wrath out and take him down.”
“You can’t go up against Wrath on your own!”
“I did once before, and this time, I’m prepared.”
Before Alex could reply, several clouds of thick white smoke appeared in the mob and rapidly spread out over the ground. He heard police sirens and saw their flashing blue and red lights through the haze. A large glowing shape passed by overhead, and he heard someone alight on the ground not far from him.
“Hit the showers, rookies! The pros will take it from here!”
A hot wind blew the smoke away, revealing Volcarona Mask and her partner, and a police perimeter surrounding the mob. Volcarona Mask winked at Alex. “Not bad, boys. But we’ve got to wrap this up quick, so I’ll take this off your hands. Why don’t you go find somewhere else to play?” She pirouetted in place and pointed at the crowd of anarchists. “Let’s give ‘em hell, Aethon!” Her Volcarona shook out its wings, shaking burning scales out into the mob. The men began to run as a hot wind blew from the fire type’s beating wings, setting their clothing ablaze. They ran right into the police cordon, where the assembled officers and riot squads attempted to apprehend them.
The Phantom hissed a curse and seized Alex and Hierro’s hands. Before Alex could protest, the Phantom’s Dusknoir loomed up behind them and wrapped them in an embrace. Alex’s vision went dark and he experienced an acute sense of vertigo even as he felt his body stretched out and narrowed, as though he was being drawn through a straw. He began to panic, but he felt the Phantom’s hand tighten around his own, a hard pressure that was at once comforting and an admonishment. Then, as quickly as the bizarre sensation began, Alex was free of it.
He staggered forward and found himself on the gravel roof of a nearby skyscraper. Volcarona Mask and her police allies were still fighting down below. Hierro whirled on the Phantom and shrieked angrily, his feathers puffed up and his eyes flashing with rage and indignation. The Phantom raised a contemptuous eyebrow. “Hardly the thanks I expected.”
Alex turned to him, his hands balled into fists. “What did you just do?”
The Phantom gestured to Alex’s wingsuit. “Your gimmick is useless unless you have somewhere to fly from, right?” He nodded towards his Dusknoir. “Gregor can travel between shadows. I just let you two hitch a ride.”
“I, well… thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“But why did we leave?”
“Like Volcarona Mask said, she can handle things herself. Just like her to show up and ruin everything.” The Phantom kicked at the gravel. “Anyway, with her there, Wrath was never going to show up. I’ll have to start over again.”
“We should stick together. We make a good team.”
“I don’t do teams.” The Phantom flicked his cloak back as his Dusknoir put a hand on his shoulder. The ghost type seemed to narrow and slip into the nearest patch of shadow, vanishing in an instant.
Hierro glanced at Alex and shrugged. Alex huffed out a breath. “Well, he didn’t have to be rude about it.” He stepped back from the edge of the roof and looked up and down the street. This was one of the shorter buildings on an avenue lined with skyscrapers, but further towards the city center, Alex could see several older buildings with lower roofs, roofs he could jump from. He signaled to Hierro, and the two of them launched themselves into the air.
They flew down the steel and glass canyons of Clarus City, the bomb craters only growing worse the closer they got to midtown. They landed in rooftop gardens and on office patios, catching updrafts from subway vents and the sea wind where they could. The sounds of sirens, explosions and gunshots echoed between the buildings. As they alighted on another gravel rooftop, Alex saw movement on a nearby street. A girl with platinum blonde hair stood on a narrow stone platform supported by two baroque columns marking the entrance of the main branch of the First Clarus Bank. She was flanked by a Loudred and an Exploud, and her hair flew about her face as she snapped her head up and down, playing hard on a red electric guitar. A Noivern swooped and dove over her head, harrying another mob of the Sins’ thugs below her.
Alex squinted and saw that something about her music was holding the men in place, as though they were fighting a strong wind. She reached down and flicked something on her matte black bodysuit, and her music amplified even louder, so Alex could finally pick out her words.
“…no retreat, no surrender, never compromise! We’re gonna burn you up, you’re gonna feel the heat!”
She struck a pose with a flourish and shouted down a taunt that Alex didn’t catch before going back to playing, her hair flying around her face like a halo.
“Tonight, all warriors scream! Justice and metal! Justice and metal! The crusade goes on and on!”
She threw her head back and took a deep breath, and Alex saw her Loudred and Exploud brace themselves. Her Noivern dropped out of the sky, the dragon’s nostrils flaring. The guitarist struck another chord as she snapped her head forward and screamed in unison with her Noivern.
“JUSTICE AND METAAAAAL!”
The force of her shout and the sonic blast of her Noivern merged with the explosive power of her other pokemon’s abilities, and the resulting sound wave struck the assembled mob with a physical force. Alex could have sworn he saw the pulse actually ripple through the air. The thugs closest to the guitarist were lifted off their feet and flung through the air, some of them tumbling almost half a block before they came to rest.
Alex turned to Hierro. “I think she’s got that under control.” Hierro nodded, and they took off again.
A few blocks later, they heard someone scream in terror. A group of Gluttony’s men had herded a crowd of people into a plaza and were prowling around their perimeter. A Tyranitar, a Drapion and a pack of Pawniard and Bisharp circled the civilians as the leader of the thugs shouted at them. Alex didn’t even stop to think, and an instant later he was soaring out over the plaza. “Listen up, assholes!” he shouted as he dropped out of the sky. He drove his fist into the leader’s solar plexus and gritted his teeth. “I don’t know what filthy sewer you crawled out of, but you’re in for a world of hurt!”
One of the thugs rushed at him with a switchblade, and Alex disarmed him with his batons before smashing them across the man’s face. The Tyranitar roared and lumbered towards him, but Hierro dropped out of the sky and pummeled the dark type, darting in circles around the larger pokemon. Alex and Hierro twirled and circled, beating back the gangsters and their pokemon and taking care not to let the Drapion sink its poisoned mandibles into them. “Go!” Alex called over his shoulder at the terrified civilians. “Run, get out of here!”
A few people raced off down the nearby streets, but most of them were too afraid to move. Alex kicked away a Pawniard and growled under his breath. He and Hierro were painfully outnumbered, and they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. He had hoped that he could draw the attention of Gluttony’s men for long enough to allow the civilians to escape, but if they weren’t moving…
As Alex tried to formulate a plan, a large dark shape eclipsed the sunlight. There was a flash, and a beam of green and gold light shot across the ground, striking the Tyranitar. A pair of vines lifted a figure off the creature’s back and carried her to the ground. Alex could only watch in wide-eyed astonishment as a goddess descended before him. Her orange sari flared around her ankles as she twirled, casting a handful of pokeballs towards the thugs. Her golden bangles flashed as she raised her hands above her head and snapped her long, elegant fingers. “Isolate and contain!”
Her three pokeballs flashed, revealing two Torterra and a Venusaur. The behemoths lumbered towards the criminals who were now hastily calling out more pokemon. A flock of Golbat and Crobat took to the sky, only to be struck by a gale from the woman’s Tropius. The first Torterra slammed into the Tyranitar while the second barreled towards the Pawniard harrying Alex and Hierro. The Venusaur roared as vines whipped from the flower on its back, snapping around the waists and arms of the men. Alex stood with his mouth agape. A pack of baying Mightyena raced towards the woman, but she seemed blithely unconcerned. “Rose legion! Iron legion! Time to shine!”
Several dark shapes leapt from the roofs of nearby buildings, landing lightly on the street. A group of fifteen to twenty Scizor jumped back up into the air to beat the bat pokemon into submission while a similar number of Roserade set upon the Mightyena. A Raticate pounced at the woman in orange, only to be tackled to the ground by a Tsareena. A second hustled out of an alleyway and kicked the rodent back into the crowd of thugs before standing guard with its compatriot in front of her trainer.
When the Roserade had managed to subdue the Mightyena, the Dryad snapped her fingers again. “Rose legion, that’s enough. We can handle things from here, get the civilians to safety.” The Roserade raced forward and began to corral the civilians away from the plaza while guarding their retreat. While the Dryad’s pokemon continued to drive back Gluttony’s men and their pokemon, she turned to Alex and walked to his side, her Tsareena honor guard just a pace behind. “You did very well, jumping in when you did.” She smiled, and Alex felt a warm glow spreading from his chest and through his limbs. Just feeling her eyes on him was like standing in a pool of sunlight.
Hierro’s elbow jabbed him in the ribs. “Oh, uh, thank you.”
She winked. “I almost felt bad stepping in. The way you fight, I’m sure you could have handled them on your own.”
Alex was glad that his mask mostly covered his blush. “Well, I, uh, I appreciate the assist.”
The Dryad nodded and looked over to where her Scizor and Torterra were subduing the few remaining thugs. “My pokemon and I can finish things up here. Once my Roserade get back, we’ll move on too.” She ran a hand through her thick dark hair and sighed. “Keeping this under control is a nightmare.”
“No one said the hero thing was going to be easy.”
The Dryad smiled again. “You’re absolutely right. If we get through this, perhaps we’ll have the chance to team up again someday, Hawlucha Man.”
After Alex and Hierro had taken off again down the eerily empty streets of midtown, Alex turned to his partner. “She knows who I am! The Dryad knows who I am!” Hierro just rolled his eyes and scanned the buildings for a fire escape.
For all the Dryad’s praise of Alex’s prowess, he and Hierro were at their best when they could drop down on their quarry from above, taking them by surprise and ending a fight quickly. Trapped on the ground, Alex was little better than a street brawler in a fancy costume. In Avenbrooke, the proliferation of tenement buildings only a few stories high with convenient fire escapes made rooftop access easy, but here in the heart of midtown Clarus City, the buildings rose up in sheer cliffs that were thirty, forty, fifty stories tall, depriving Alex of his principal advantage. Even if he could just get to where the subway switched to an elevated train several blocks uptown, that would be something.
“Well, well, well. A hero.” A man with a scarred face slunk out from the shadows of an office building atrium. A Weavile crouched at his heels, and a Druddigon lumbered out behind them. Alex turned to run, but a Muk oozed up from a sewer grate, spreading its arms and cutting off Alex’s escape. The man drew a long, wickedly sharp knife from his boot and whistled. “I was about to take a break, but Pride did say she was paying good money for the head of every hero we brought back.”
Alex drew his batons as Hierro slid into a fighting stance. One man wouldn’t be hard to take out, and if Hierro could dispatch the Weavile, they could escape the dragon and the poison type. It was hardly a noble retreat, but Alex was starting to feel like he was in way over his head, and no one could blame him if he cut and run from one fight.
“I don’t know this one,” a new voice said from across the street. A heavily muscled man lurched out of the alley, a Krookodile sauntering after him. “You sure Pride will pay?”
“He’s got a mask on, and he looks ready to fight,” a third man scoffed, this one skinny as a broom. “He fits the profile. Pride may not pay top dollar for a pipsqueak like him, but I wager that she’ll pay something.” His two Scyther leered at Hierro. Alex glanced around and saw more men and woman bleeding out of the shadows. He had somehow managed to wander into a nest of Pride’s capos, and the lapse in judgment was undoubtedly going to get him killed.
He settled into a fighting crouch beside Hierro. “We may be going down, but we’ll go down swinging.” Hierro nodded and flexed his claws. The scarred man rushed in, and Alex swept low, taking out the man’s knees. Hierro delivered a quick one-two punch to the leaping Weavile, stunning the ice type long enough for Alex and Hierro to dodge out of the way of the Muk and attack the Druddigon together. One of the thin man’s Scyther rushed in, and Alex caught the bug type’s blades on his batons. Hierro launched himself off of Alex’s back and delivered a flying kick to the bug type’s jaw, knocking it back into the atrium of the building the scarred man had emerged from.
While Alex turned to deal with an approaching Hitmonlee, Hierro finished off the Weavile, hurling it against the pillars of the First Clarus Post Office. Alex ducked out of the way of the Hitmonlee’s first kick, but before he could counter, the fighting type was struck by a spray of incendiary seeds. The large man and his Krookodile charged in only to be hit by a similar barrage. Alex and Hierro shared a glance and decided in an instant not to question their mysterious benefactor, but before they could strike out again, someone up the street whooped, the sound echoing between the buildings.
“Yippie-ki-yay, bitches!”
Some kind of siren arced over Alex’s head, emitting a bizarre, high-pitched whistle. Alex gritted his teeth and tried not to let the noise get to him, knowing that if he threw up his hands to cover his ears, Pride’s men would seize the opening. “C’mon, partner, get outta there! I’m trying to give you an opening!” a man’s voice shouted. A series of small explosions burst at the feet of Alex’s foes, forcing them to retreat just long enough for Alex and Hierro to run towards the source of the voice. “The range is hot!” the man hollered, firing another barrage of his incendiary projectiles. A Darmanitan tried to grab Hierro as they ran by, but another blast of seeds sent the fire type back.
Alex’s benefactor was a man in an anachronistic leather vest over an embroidered blue and white gingham shirt, and a red bandana knotted around his neck. He had strapped a bandolier over his chest and carried a six-shot revolver in his right hand. He didn’t look up as he chambered six bullets, but when he slid the last cylinder home, he tapped two fingers on his left hand to the brim of his wide-brimmed hat. “Figured you could use a hand, partner,” he drawled. The way he said it drew out the sounds of his words, so that Alex could hear every syllable of “parrdner”. “Let me take a crack at ‘em.” He raised his gun and closed one eye. “Keep ‘em pinned, Geronimo!”
The Gunslinger fired off five shots in rapid succession. Alex waited for explosions or a burst of noise, but nothing happened. “Wait for it,” the Gunslinger muttered. A few of Pride’s thugs, seeing that the Gunslinger’s bullets had seemingly all missed, took a few hesitant steps forward. A burst of seeds shot out in front of them, clearly marking a line they were not to cross. A few more of the thugs moved in, scanning the buildings for the unseen assailant.
“First you line ‘em up,” the Gunslinger said. “Then you knock ‘em down.” He fired his sixth bullet into the ground at the thugs’ feet, and Alex watched in a mix of awe and horror as their bodies contorted and fell to the ground. The Gunslinger smirked and doffed his hat. “Now that’s how it’s done, partner! Yeeee-haw!” He winked at Alex. “Galvantula thread. Conducts current like a dream, once you give it a little spark.” He plucked another cluster of bullets from his bandolier and deftly chambered the rounds. “But the fun’s not over yet. You ready to go another round?”
“What?”
“There’s a fair few varmints left to round up and I’m fresh out of Galvantula bullets, so we gotta do this the hard way. But,” the Gunslinger shrugged, “I’m not much for hand-to-hand combat. Why don’t you and your bird take point? I’ll get your flanks, and Geronimo will watch your back.” He clicked back the hammer on his revolver. “You in, partner?”
Alex couldn’t help but grin before nodding to Hierro. The two of them sprinted back down the street as the Gunslinger whooped behind them. Hierro bounded up and over an abandoned taxi and sprang into the air, spreading his wings and soaring towards the mob of thugs and enforcers. The Hawlucha crashed into an Electabuzz, and before the electric type could recover, Hierro had bounded backwards and tackled it into a charging Machoke. Alex slid under a Darmanitan’s swinging fists and kicked up at the fire type’s center of mass, knocking it off its feet. As Alex stood, he saw one of Pride’s enforcers rushing at him with a switchblade. Before he could get his batons up, the woman crumpled in a heap, a strange dart sticking out of the side of her neck.
The Gunslinger fired off two more shots, and two more thugs went down. Alex could see that the men were still breathing, so he assumed the darts used some kind of fast acting sleeping agent, another one of the Gunslinger’s trick bullets. As a Staraptor dove out of the sky at Hierro, it was knocked off-course by a green and brown shape that pummelled the bird to the ground. When the Staraptor fell unconscious, the Nuzleaf back-flipped off its prone form and snapped a quick salute to Alex before jumping back up into the air to spray the enemy combatants with another barrage of seeds.
As the Nuzleaf dropped, the Muk from before rose up from the street and snatched the grass type in its slime-covered hand. “Hey!” the Gunslinger roared. “Leave Geronimo alone, you slimy bastard!” His gun discharged four shots, and patches of ice began to spread across the Muk’s viscous form where the bullets hit. While the poison type thrashed and tried to break free of the spreading ice, Geronimo managed to wriggle out from the Muk’s grasp and jump back into the fray. The Gunslinger fired off the two remaining frost bullets in his revolver at the ground near the thickest clusters of enforcers, trapping their legs in patches of thick, fast-forming ice.
Alex and Hierro fought back-to-back, covering each other’s blind spots. Without the Gunslinger and Geronimo providing backup, they would have been quickly overwhelmed, and even with their help, it was a near thing. The Gunslinger’s sleep bullets seemed far less effective on pokemon, with the larger specimens taking two or three shots to go down, and for every enforcer they dropped, their pokemon partners fought on even more fiercely. When the Gunslinger gave an exultant whoop, Alex wasn’t sure what the man was celebrating. They were clearly no closer to victory.
“You hear that, you varmints?” the Gunslinger called. “The cavalry’s coming! You better run if you know what’s good for you!” Now that Alex was listening for it, he could dimly hear the clatter of hoof beats echoing between the buildings. The Gunslinger gestured with his left hand. “Clear out, partner! You don’t want to get caught up in this!”
Hierro began beating a path clear of the crowd of enforcers, and Alex hurried to follow him. The sound of hooves was closer now, and an instant later, a Rapidash charged down the street. The figure sitting astride the fiery steed held a lance held in their right hand, and their full suit of plate armor gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. “VERMIN!” the armored knight bellowed, their voice seeming to come from every direction at once. “IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES, QUIT THIS PLACE AT ONCE!”
The enforcers turned their attention from Alex and Hierro to the new interloper. The Gunslinger shrugged. “Well, can’t say we didn’t warn you.” He turned to the Cavalier. “About time you showed up.”
Though the Cavalier’s eyes were hidden by their visor, Alex was fairly sure that the armored figure was glaring at the Gunslinger. “ONLY BECAUSE YOU CAN’T FIGHT YOUR OWN BATTLES.” They swept their lance down and raised their shield. “ON GUARD!” The Cavalier tapped their heels against the flanks of their Rapidash and the horse sprang forward, quickly breaking into a gallop. The Cavalier’s lance was blunted, but Alex watched as a Pangoro leaped at the armored fighter and was lifted off its feet by the sheer force of the Cavalier’s thrust. Geronimo and the Gunslinger laid down cover fire as the Cavalier swept through the crowd of thugs. Alex and Hierro climbed up onto the raised plinth of a statue portraying a long-deceased member of Clarus City’s moneyed elite mostly to stay out of the newcomer’s way.
“FACE ME, FACE DEATH!” the Cavalier boomed as their Rapidash darted in quick looping circles through the mob, fire trailing it in long, elegant arcs. Alex could vaguely make out a blue-gray blur whipping through the vortex of flames around the Cavalier, but it moved too quickly for his eyes to track. Wherever the blur passed, humans and pokemon fell back with shallow lacerations on their chest and limbs. The Cavalier’s lance rose and fell, driving the enemy host back until a Jellicent braved the fires to wrap its tentacles around the weapon and wrenched it from the Cavalier’s grasp. The blur set upon it almost instantly, forcing the water type to retreat, but not before the knight’s lance had fallen out of reach.
But the Cavalier did not appear to be daunted. They raised their right hand skyward, and Alex saw that they wore no armor from their bicep to their fingertips. The blur slowed before racing towards the Cavalier’s outstretched hand. A blue tassel wrapped around the Cavalier’s arm, and Alex watched as the knight swept down with their Honedge in hand. “TWO CHANCES I HAVE GIVEN YOU!” the Cavalier’s voice boomed again. “I AM NO LONGER INCLINED TO BE GENEROUS!” They lashed out with the spectral blade, giving their foes no quarter. Many of Pride’s enforcers cut their losses and ran, disappearing into the dark alleys lining the street. The Gunslinger picked off several of the runners with his sleeping bullets. The Cavalier’s Rapidash dashed through a gap and cut off the escape of the stragglers while Geronimo kept them pinned on the flank. The Honedge flashed as they swung forward. “NONE SHALL FLEE FROM ME! I’M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU YET!” Their Rapidash reared up and struck out at the Krookodile with its hooves. The Cavalier battered the ground type’s nose with their shield. “COME, GUNSLINGER! LET US CRUSH THEM!”
The Gunslinger sauntered forward and doffed his hat at Alex as he strolled past. “Why don’t you go on ahead?” He fed six more bullets into his revolver and sighted down the barrel. “The Cavalier’s going to suck all the fun out of this.”
Alex jumped down from the pillar. “Thanks for the help.”
“Anytime, partner.” He pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. Three men dropped. He spun out the cylinder and slid in two more bullets. When he fired them, two piercing sirens split the air. “Yeeee-haw! Better leave some for me, Cavalier!”
Alex left the Ridgewood heroes to their fight and slipped into an alleyway between two skyscrapers. He and Hierro emerged in what had once been an elegant cobbled square with a fountain or small statue in the middle, but it had been reduced to a smoldering crater, pieces of wrought iron wreckage strewn about on the intersecting streets. A police helicopter roared by overhead, and after the sound of the rotors faded, Alex heard sirens and the cries of pokemon echoing through the city streets. Hierro tugged Alex towards the older quarter of the city, where the buildings were shorter and they could try to find a rooftop to climb.
As they trekked through the labyrinthine streets of the upper west side of Clarus City, they took care to avoid fighting. The police and the Sins’ enforcers battled on the streets, with several brave civilians and their pokemon joining the fight to protect their neighborhoods. Alex and Hierro were heavy with fatigue, and there were several times they nearly leapt into the fray, only to see reinforcements arrive an instant later. Alex hated running from a fight, but he was near the end of his stamina. He had gotten in over his head again, and if he knew that if he and Hierro had gotten lucky when the Gunslinger had arrived to bail them out. Sooner or later, the odds weren’t going to come up in their favor.
Eventually, they reached a quiet street near the industrial quarter. Old tenement houses from two centuries ago were slowly sliding into disrepair, and had been since the steel plants had closed down nearly seventy years ago. The street had been torn up in an earlier battle, the concrete pocked with old potholes and new craters. Alex scanned up and down the streets for a fire escape or ladder, and was about to duck into an alleyway when he heard a clanking behind him.
“Where do you think you’re going, hero? Don’t you know you’re in my way?” |
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Post by bay on May 31, 2018 5:19:39 GMT
Looks like Alex had quite a day there meeting all those other superheroes there. A lot to keep track of, but not hard to recognize their behaviors and personalities. Alex and Phantom Man's first interactions off to a cold start, but I suspect Phantom Man will need his help someday. Alex's crush on the Dryad is cute, and I like Gunslinger and Cavalier (though does he need to shout like that always, haha).
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on May 31, 2018 21:49:33 GMT
It begins.
And man, what a start it is! It really speaks to Alex's character that he opens this massive fight by jumping out of a helicopter without even knowing for sure if his wingsuit's going to work. That's so him, you know? God, this kid is such an idiot. Love it. I also love how much he takes time out of these fights to fanboy all over the heroes (his heroes, even); that line about the Dryad knowing who he was is just fantastic. As is Hierro's exasperated reaction. There are actually a couple of great Hierro reactions here that I'd forgotten about; I like his outrage at being shadow teleported, too.
This is also where you introduce the Gunslinger and the Cavalier properly (were they mentioned before? I don't remember, but either way this is definitely their first real appearance) and they are such a good pairing, thematically; cowboys and knights occupy the same mythic position, and it's very easy to see why superheroes and vigilantes would take their thematic cues from them. Actually, while we're on the subject of themes, I kinda love how committed these two are to their themes. Like, imagine seeing a guy dressed up as a cowboy, or wearing full plate armour, just like standing around on the street. Most people have practical themes – Blaziken Man has power armour with jets and stuff, so he made it blaziken-themed because they punch and kick and have flame jets in their feet; Hawlucha Man made a wingsuit and has a hawlucha partner, so the parallel obviously suggested itself.
But the Gunslinger didn't even have a shooting-themed partner; he has a nuzleaf, which suggests he didn't take his design cues from his pokémon. He was presumably just like “I wanna be a cowboy” and then, well, he did it. He even made the limitation of his six-shooter into a benefit; he has to reload all the time, but that's fine, because he constantly wants to be switching up his special ammunition. You kinda have to respect that sort of drive.
This chapter, and indeed this whole series of chapters, is basically a series of elaborate set pieces, but this is exactly the right time and place for that; it's so fun, and so well executed. Everyone is just thrown together into one great mess. And we aren't even near the climax yet. I'm really looking forward to what comes next!
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Post by Firebrand on Jun 9, 2018 16:23:59 GMT
Chapter 9
Alex whirled and saw a man in combat fatigues standing astride a Metagross, with a Bastiodon crouching next to him. The man’s bare arms were covered in tattoos, and he wore heavy metal gauntlets on his hands. A scar on his lip twisted his face into a leering grimace. “You aren’t the hero I was hoping to catch, but I have orders, kid. I see anyone who could be a spanner in the works, I take them out.” He pounded his right fist against his left gauntlet. “And no one escapes the Iron Boyar.”
“Guess we have to do this the hard way, then.” Alex settled into a defensive stance and saw Hierro square up beside him. Mentally, he cursed. Sergei Polovich, or as he styled himself, the Iron Boyar, had been a minor name in the criminal enterprises of Clarus City before Sloth’s coup several years previously. He had controlled a small bit of territory on the upper west side, but had been largely unsuccessful in expanding his domain. When Sloth had turned the underworld on its head, Polovich had cut his losses and fell in behind Greed, quickly becoming one of her lieutenants and bolstering his status considerably. He was known for being implacable and no stranger to violence. Alex doubted that he and Hierro could do much to dent Polovich’s steel types, but if he could create enough of a distraction, Hierro could go get help. Alex figured he could hold out on his own for a little while, provided Hierro didn’t need to go far…
“Boyar!” a voice boomed. Alex heard a hiss followed by a heavy thud, then a hiss again. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Too cowardly to come out and face me?”
A suit of mechanized hydraulic armor, at least nine feet tall, stomped down the street, massive metal fists swinging at its sides. Polovich snarled a curse and beat his gauntlets together. “Hammer!” The Iron Boyar jerked his head to the side, and his Bastiodon lumbered forward. “I don’t have time for you today.”
“You’d best pencil me in, because I’m not going anywhere.” The hydraulic armor strode past Alex, and he saw the man operating the colossus. The Hammer stood in the cockpit, his torso exposed. His white beard was neatly trimmed, and his muscles rippled underneath his shirt as he worked the levers that controlled the suit. He shifted something, and the suit’s fingers flexed before forming two heavy fists again. “Pay attention, young man! It’s time to see what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object!”
The Hammer raised his right fist, and the hydraulic piston at his shoulder hissed as it propelled the arm forward. The Boyar’s Bastiodon lunged forward and intercepted the blow while Polovich signaled for his Metagross to advance. The silver cross on the psychic type’s faceplate began to glow, but two streaks of light shot out from the cockpit of the Hammer’s suit. A Hariyama appeared and hurled the Bastiodon away, while a Conkeldurr swung one of its concrete pillars and knocked the Metagross off center. “Albrecht!” the Hammer bellowed. “Siegfried! Give them no quarter!” He turned to Alex. “Young man! Where has your fighting spirit gone? Just moments ago you were ready to charge into battle! Are you going to leave this fight to a pensioner like me?”
Alex twirled his batons and grinned. “Not chance, old timer!” Hierro puffed up his feathers and leapt into battle with a shriek, Alex racing in just behind. Facing down a small army of Pride’s enforcers was one thing, but going head to head with one of Greed’s top lieutenants with the Hammer at his back was another matter entirely. He had a second wind now, and the opportunity to fight alongside one of Clarus City’s original four heroes.
All day, Alex had felt himself pushed to the sidelines by the other heroes, more of a distraction and a hindrance than an equal. But now the Hammer himself was giving Alex a chance to prove his worth. He gritted his teeth and lashed out at Polovich, determined to make every blow count. “Yes!” the Hammer boomed as he wrenched a lamp post from the sidewalk and swung out at the Metagross. “Give it everything you’ve got! Don’t hold anything back!”
The Boyar used his metal bracers to parry Alex and Hierro’s blows, fending off their assault with a speed that belied the weight of the gauntlets. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, kid!” Polovich snapped. “Do you really think a whelp like you can best the Iron Boyar?”
“I was just asking myself the same question,” Alex growled. He jumped up and delivered two swift kicks to Polovich’s abdomen, making the man double over and stagger back three paces. “And I like my odds!”
Polovich gestured to his Metagross. “Crush them.”
The abandoned cars scattered up and down the street rose up into the air as the Metagross’s steel cross began to glow again. The cross flashed and the cars flew towards the heroes. Alex was about to retreat when the Hammer’s Conkeldurr blew past him, twisting his entire upper body and swinging his heavy concrete blocks around. The fighting type deftly battered away the first three cars and shoved the block in his left hand through the hood of a fourth. The Hammer threw his lamp post away and caught a fifth in his mechanized hand. The Metagross tried to raise two more cars, only to have the Conkeldurr hurl his cement pillars and pin the automobiles to the ground. Meanwhile, the Hammer’s Hariyama threw its considerable bulk behind a reckless blow and sent Polovich’s Bastiodon sprawling. “Well done!” the Hammer cried, the joints of his suit hissing as he flexed its arms.
“Damn them,” Polovich snarled, fumbling for something tucked into the back of his waistband. “Barrier, now!”
A translucent wall sprang up, stretching from one side of the street to the other. The Hammer and his pokemon immediately rushed forward and began pounding against the barricade, their fists making the psychic barrier ripple. Alex could see tiny hairline fractures begin to form with each impact, but he couldn’t be sure that they would break through before Polovich could pull off another trick. He watched where the ripples traveled, tracking the contour of the wall.
It seemed just like the barriers Pierre and his Mr. Mime would create, and those were finite. Depending on how much power the Metagross had, it was possible to get over it. Alex watched carefully as the psychic wall flashed with each successive blow and saw where the ripples stopped on the vertical plane. Almost fifteen feet up, but that was hardly insurmountable.
“I can get over this!” he called to the Hammer. “But I need a boost!”
The Iron Boyar ignored them, pulling out a flare gun and aiming it skyward. A bright yellow flare shot up into the evening sky with a loud whistle, and Polovich grinned. The Hammer gritted his teeth and turned to his Conkeldurr. “Siegfried, get him over!” The fighting type nodded and cupped his hands. Alex took off at a sprint and heard Hierro’s talons skittering across the pavement behind him. He sprang up into the Conkeldurr’s palms, and the fighting type launched him high into the air. Hierro bounded up the Hammer’s massive back, and the older hero raised his arm to give the flying type a better vantage point. As soon as Hierro reached the Hammer’s fist, the hero deployed the hydraulic mechanism, shooting Hierro past Alex.
Spreading the wings of his suit wide, Alex dove at the ground and twisted at the last minute, bringing both of his metal batons to bear on Polovich. The Iron Boyar managed to raise his gauntlet in time to stop the first of Alex’s blows, but his momentum carried him through, and the second baton collided with the side of Polovich’s face. Alex heard a satisfying crunch as Polovich’s nose broke, and the man swore. “Take it down, buddy!” Alex yelled.
Hierro shot down from the sky with a scream, driving his taloned foot into the Metagross’s back. The force of the kick knocked the hulking steel type off balance, and the wall vanished. The Hammer and his pokemon barreled through, but Polovich only laughed, the sound strange and nasally now. “Idiots. The main event is just getting started!”
The sharp report of gunfire made Alex freeze. “So,” an accented voice drawled. “My boyar has finally drawn out the Hammer. I knew it was only a matter of time.”
The man in the mechanized suit turned towards the sound of the voice. “Young man, get behind me.” His tone brokered no argument, and Alex hurried to comply. Peering around the bulk of the Hammer’s suit, Alex saw Greed stride confidently down the street with several of her men, her half-shorn auburn hair plastered to her skull with sweat. Each member of her band was toting a belt-fed machine gun, and their pokemon loomed behind them.
Greed smirked. “You have been a thorn in my side for many years. Now that we have secured the primary objective, Sloth is letting me hunt you down.” Her finger curled around the trigger. “And with that star spangled moron out of my way, there is nothing that will stop me!”
She and her men opened fire, and the Hammer threw up his armored fists in front of his face. The bullets pinged harmlessly against the armored suit, and Alex and Hierro pressed themselves up against the Hammer’s legs. His Conkeldurr had retrieved his concrete blocks, and used them to form a hasty cover, while the Hammer’s Hariyama moved with surprising grace and speed for its size to duck into an alleyway. “You can’t protect yourself forever, old man!” Greed shouted above the roar of her machine gun. “Soon your armor will break and I will tear you apart!”
“Not if I have anything to say about it!”
Something dropped out of the sky and into the midst of Greed’s forces. Alex heard shouts of dismay and the solid thumps of blows. A large bird of some kind shrieked, and Alex saw Greed’s gun fall as the belt jammed. Someone laughed, a loud, deep laugh that came from low in the diaphragm. “You almost got away from me, Red!” Captain Unova exclaimed as his Braviary battered her Ursaring. “Fortunately, I tracked you down. Hey there, Hammer!”
“Captain Unova!” the Hammer cried. “Am I glad to see you!”
The man in blue and white spun on his heel and drove his elbow into the face of a man trying to approach him from behind for an ambush. “Have a taste of my Striaton Smash!” He whirled again, delivering a combination of punches to a second man. “And a Castelia Crusher!”
The chaos Captain Unova had sown with his arrival had thrown Greed’s entire force into disarray, and it gave the Hammer the opening he needed. With a wild roar, the man charged forward with his Conkeldurr and crashed into their ranks, scattering the men still further. Sergei Polovich had used the confusion to limp back to his Metagross, and Alex saw him lean against the steel type’s leg and hiss “Smash ‘em to bits!”
An eighteen wheeler from a nearby loading bay rose up into the air and hovered over to the street. The Metagross’s eyes had narrowed to slits as it focused its energies. With a screech like rending metal, the Metagross hurled the truck at Alex and his partner. Alex and Hierro could do nothing but watch in wide eyed horror as the truck arced towards them, knowing there was no way they could run out of the way in time.
Alex let out what was sure to be his last breath and closed his eyes. “Motherfu—”
“Be not afraid!”
Alex’s eyes snapped open, which was his first surprise. The second was that a barefoot young man in a white collared shirt and jeans was hovering a foot off the ground in front of him, his right hand outstretched and the eighteen wheeler hanging suspended in the air. The man was obviously an exceptionally powerful esper to be able to hold at least thirty tons in place without breaking a sweat. He slowly lowered his right index finger, returning the truck to the ground, and turned to meet Alex’s eyes. His face brightened into a beatific smile. “I am Archangel. I’m here to help.” He spun in the air and reached out his left hand towards Polovich’s Metagross. With a flick of his wrist, the esper sent the heavy steel type flying two hundred yards down the street, where it crashed and lay motionless.
“Uh… thanks,” Alex managed to say. Hierro looked to his trainer and nodded slowly.
Archangel’s smile grew wider, making the skin at the corners of his eyes corners of his eyes crinkle. “All in a day’s work. Shall we join the fight?” Somehow, a Kadabra had appeared at the esper’s side.
“Right. Yeah. Let’s do that.” As Archangel began to glide away, Alex held up a hand. “Could you maybe give me a boost? My partner and I are best in the air.”
“Of course! Brace yourself!”
Alex was flung into the air by an invisible force, and when he reached the peak of his arc, he spread his arms wide. He and Hierro dove into the crowd together, their wings spread. As they came level with the fighting, Alex lashed out with a series of spinning kicks and punches, attacking human and pokemon alike. Just before his feet touched the ground, he saw Archangel snap his fingers, flinging Alex skyward again. When he descended again, he whooped and knocked out a lunging Mienshao. “That was so cool!”
Captain Unova and Greed traded blows, and though Alex begrudgingly admitted the man’s technique was impeccable, Greed’s raw strength was starting to win out. The Hammer was unable to go to his aid, too preoccupied with fending off a Tyrantrum. Alex whistled to Archangel and pointed at Greed. The young man hurled a Hippowdon and Barbacle away with his telekinetic powers before flicking two fingers and giving Alex a psychic push towards the hulking woman. Alex slammed into Greed feet-first, knocking her off balance. She whirled on him, her face twisted into a demonic mask. “Little insect! I will crush you like the bug you are!” She brought her fists down, but before she could make contact, Hierro kicked out her left leg and sent her crashing to the ground.
The Hammer watched her fall as he held back the Tyrantrum’s gnashing jaws. He threw back his head and laughed. “You see? We win every time! Stack the odds against us however you want, but I’ll always bet on the heroes of Clarus City!”
“Then how about a gamble, old man?”
Another crowd of thugs advanced from the opposite side of the street. At the head of the mob was Kekoa Aukai, known to most as Wrath. The Alolan’s Incineroar stalked by his side, and the anarchist grinned, spreading his arms wide. “I figured you couldn’t hack it on your own, Anya. But the Hammer’s a pain in my ass too, so I figured I’d give you a hand.”
“Stay out of this, Wrath,” Greed snarled. “This is my fight!”
“And you’ve royally fucked it up. Time for me to step in.” He cracked his neck and flicked open a switchblade. “Let’s get ‘em, boys!” His anarchists rushed forward with a roar, but as Alex watched, Wrath’s shadow blurred and wavered, and a figure leapt from the darkness, his fist connecting with Wrath’s chin.
“Not so fast!” the Phantom cried, his Dusknoir looming up behind him. “I’m not letting you slip through my fingers again, you bastard!”
Wrath’s men began to turn to help their leader, but they stopped in their tracks when a loud guitar chord split the evening air. “Heroes of Clarus City!” a woman yelled. “Are you r-ready to ROCK?” From the alleyways and side streets lining the ravaged thoroughfare, the Phantom’s army of ghost types rushed forth to engage the Sins’ fighters, shrieking with savage delight as they swooped and dove through the evening air.
The Hammer hurled the Tyrantrum away and flexed his arms. “Like I said! Always bet on Clarus City!”
The sound of the guitar came again, freezing Wrath’s reinforcements in place with a wall of sound. The Phantom continued to battle back and forth with Wrath, matching the man’s knife attacks blow for blow with his cane. Alex saw the anarchist’s Incineroar about to pounce and raced forward with Hierro. The two of them tackled the fire type before it could interfere. The Phantom whirled to dodge Wrath’s telegraphed slash, his cape flaring. “You again?”
“We can help,” Alex replied, ducking one of the Incineroar’s claws. “You focus on Wrath. We’ll do the rest.”
The Phantom’s lip curled. “Fine.”
Alex nodded towards where he figured the guitar was coming from. “I thought you didn’t do team ups?”
“Shut up. It’s not the same thing.” The Phantom turned his attention back to Wrath while Echo continued her auditory assault.
“Stand your ground against the storm
And dare to stand upright!
Charge! Fight! Onward and attack!
Army of the shadows, sworn
Defenders of the night!
Right here! Onward and attack!”
The ghosts tore through the crowd of thugs and enforcers while the other heroes rallied around the Hammer. The colossus of a man charged forward with a joy just as fierce and destructive as the Phantom’s legion, tossing foes aside with his hydraulic arms. Alex and Captain Unova battled hand to hand in his wake while Archangel and his Kadabra hurled their adversaries against the masonry. Hierro grappled against Wrath’s Incineroar, the two of them trading lightning-fast blows as they shrieked and snarled.
“When the night is cold and black,
We sing onward and attack
And we lead the storm of the wild!
Be the fiercest of the pack!
Screaming onward and attack!
We’ll fight ‘til our last breath!
Attack! Attack! Onward and attack!”
The Hammer swatted Greed’s Ursaring aside and cheered. “Yes! Onward and attack! Don’t falter now, boys! Onward!”
The street had descended into an all-out brawl, with the heroes surrounded on all sides by Greed and Wrath’s top fighters. Captain Unova wiped a rivulet of blood from his nose. “I’m not one to be pessimistic, but this isn’t looking good. We can keep taking them down, but we’re still outnumbered almost ten to one.”
“We’ll just have to fight on with ten times the power!” the Hammer bellowed, tossing aside a Boldore and whirling on a Haxorus. The heels of his suit dug into the pavement with enough force to leave craters in the concrete. He fended off the dragon with one hand while he drew the other back, then shot it forward with a loud hiss, knocking the Haxorus back through the crowd. “Hawlucha Man! Watch your six!”
Alex spun in time to see an Arbok coil and pounce, its fangs dripping with a dark green venom. “Oh hell,” Alex hissed as he dropped his weight and tried to dodge. The serpent sailed over his head but lunged again, and Alex just managed to avoid its snapping jaws. When he tried to land a blow on the Arbok’s head, a Machoke seized him from behind and held him in place. Alex struggled against the lock and winced away from the Arbok’s next lunge.
Two roars, one deep and bestial and the other mechanical, cut through the air. The crowd before Alex parted as a massive blue pokemon barreled through, a man on a motorcycle close on its heels. The Ronin spun his bike into a stop as his longsword slashed out, cleaving the Arbok in two as it launched through the air. The bisected halves of the snake fell to the ground as his Samurott slammed into the Machoke, breaking the fighting type’s hold.
“Be more careful, kid,” the Ronin growled as he swung off his motorcycle and switched his grip on his blade. His silver-gray hair had mostly come free of its ponytail and floated around his head in thin wisps. “I’m not always going to be there to save your ass.”
“What took you so long?” Alex grunted as he battered down one of Greed’s men.
“Midtown traffic is a bitch.” The Ronin spun his blade around and plunged it into the chest of a man who was struggling to reload his machine gun before wrenching it out again and drawing a long slash across the chest of another enforcer.
They continued to fight on, but Captain Unova had not been wrong. For every opponent they took down, two more ran forward to take their place. All of the heroes were giving it their all, but their strength was beginning to flag. Even Archangel’s incredible psychic powers weren’t enough to decisively turn the tide. The air popped, like a small thunderclap, and where before there had been just empty air, four figures stood atop one of the tenement buildings. As quickly as they appeared, two vanished, leaving a woman in bullet-proof vest and a hulking figure in a suit of powered armor.
“So this is what’s been holding you two up?” the man in the armor rumbled. “Just a few heroes?”
“They are remarkably tenacious, Mr. Braun!” Greed shouted back.
“Then maybe we ought to lend a hand.” Sloth leapt down from the rooftop, and the force of his landing shattered the pavement. His female associate swung down after him, breaking her descent by vaulting nimbly from the windowsills. When she touched down, she flicked out two pokeballs, calling forth a Seviper and a Pyroar. Sloth flexed his fingers, and a Slaking appeared at his side.
“This is bad,” Archangel muttered, and an instant later he and his Kadabra simply vanished.
“Damn coward!” the Phantom hissed, throwing back his cape. A pack of Haunter jumped from the patch of shadow it created and rushed towards Wrath. “Echo! Turn it up!”
Alex saw the young woman with the red guitar from before standing between her Exploud and Loudred on the roof opposite from where Sloth and Pride had appeared, her platinum blonde hair blowing about her head. She gave the Phantom a thumbs up and quickly switched her chords while her pokemon opened their mouths wider to increase the power of their sonic assault.
“We’re out of control
Without any fear of facing the madmen
Out of control!
Defying the lords of hell
We are…
Out of control!”
The staccato burst of lyrics segued into a wailing guitar solo and created wall of sound kept the entire left flank of the Sins’ forces pinned while the Hammer swept through the crowd. “Marcus Braun! I should have put an end to you a long time ago!” He raised both of his arms up and brought them crashing down over Sloth’s head. The heavy powered suit moved with surprising dexterity, reaching up and stopping the strike cold. The Hammer’s armor hissed as he applied more force, but Sloth was proving too mighty a foe. He broke off contact and surged forward, thrusters on the back of his legs giving him an extra boost of speed. The leader of the Sins reached up and wrenched off the left arm of the Hammer’s armor with a squeal of rending metal and burst hydraulics. He flung the broken arm away as his Slaking leapt on the opposite side, striking the joints with its heavy fist.
Alex sprinted towards the Hammer, not sure what he could do to help but desperate to try something. Pride lashed out with a kick and sent Alex sprawling back. “Not so fast, kid.” Alex jumped back to his feet and raced in again, heedless of her pokemon coming in from his flanks. Hierro screamed as he dropped out of the air and kicked her Pyroar away, while the Phantom and his Dusknoir jumped out of Alex’s shadow and knocked the Seviper down.
“Thanks for that.”
Alex saw the Phantom go red beneath his mask. “Don’t get used to it.”
Alex shrugged. “So about that team up?”
“Just this once. You go high.”
Alex and the Phantom charged in at Pride. The woman cracked a long whip, tangling the Phantom’s legs. As he fell, he flipped his cape aside and a Ghastly flew out with a scream, racing towards Pride’s face. It provided enough of a distraction for Alex to bound up and over a wrecked car and leap at Pride. “Listen up, asshole!” He descended with a spinning kick and finished up with a punch as he landed, knocking Pride off her feet. “Clarus City’s got a new protector! I’m the amazing Hawlucha Man!”
Pride got to her feet and snarled. “I’m going to make you regret you were ever born!”
The Hammer’s pokemon had managed to fight through the crowd and free their trainer’s arm from Sloth’s Slaking, but the giant ape had already managed to cripple the limb. Sloth stalked in for the kill, his dull gray armor glinting in the evening sun. The Hammer furiously tried to work the controls of his own suit, but gave up in disgust. “It’s no use, old man,” Sloth said. “We’ve beaten you.”
“Like hell you have.” The Hammer reached behind him in the cockpit and drew out a sledgehammer. “How do you think I got my name?” He flicked several switches and the restraints keeping him in the open cockpit retracted. He jumped down to the street and hefted the heavy club. “Looks like I’m going to beat you down the old fashioned way!”
Sloth’s arm swung down, only to be knocked away by the heavy club. The old man’s biceps bulged as he followed through on the swing and brought it back around, managing to dent the kingpin’s chest plate. His Hariyama held the attention of the Slaking while his Conkeldurr rushed in to distract Sloth. Sloth hurled the fighting type away while the Hammer rained blows on the armor until Sloth reached down and seized the Hammer’s left arm in his fist. The old man winced in pain, and Sloth flung him away. His Hariyama pushed the Slaking away and sprinted to intercept his trainer, catching him out of the air and sliding to a stop across the pavement.
Sloth turned on the Ronin and Captain Unova, but before he could attack, a blast of red-hot plasma scorched the street in front of him. Blaziken Man descended on a pillar of flame, followed by Volcarona Mask and their partner pokemon. Blaziken Man blasted Sloth with several more fiery pulses. “Try picking on someone your own size!”
Volcarona Mask dropped down in the middle of Greed’s men, spinning her metal quarterstaff. Captain Unova cheered as Echo played harder. “These guys have been going easy on you!” Volcarona Mask cried. “But that changes now!” Her partner pokemon bathed the combatants with scalding wind as the young woman pirouetted through the throng, hurling flash grenades to blind her opponents before dispatching them with a few quick blows from her staff.
Alex took a breath as Pride retreated and glanced over at Hierro. “That’s Blaziken Man. Oh Arceus, that’s Blaziken Man!”
Archangel descended to float beside Alex, his Kadabra appearing at his side. “In the flesh.” At Alex’s gaping stare, the young man shrugged. “I thought it was time to bring in the heavy hitters.”
Jiro Sasaki’s Blaziken sprinted by, turning it into a running start for a leaping kick that knocked Sloth’s Slaking flat. The man himself strode forward confidently, his glowing metal suit clanking. “Thank you for holding them,” he said to Alex as he unleashed another barrage against Sloth. “The heroes of Clarus City never disappoint.” He turned to Alex, Archangel and the Phantom. “I have something that might be able to disable Sloth’s armor, but I need time to charge it. You’ve seen how powerful he is, and I can’t ask you to engage—”
But Alex was already off and running. Hierro swooped down beside him, and together they jumped at Sloth. They managed to catch the kingpin by surprise, with Hierro landing a solid kick to Sloth’s center of mass. Alex jumped after his partner, beating around Sloth’s head with his batons. Sloth lashed out at them, but Alex and Hierro were light on their feet, ducking out of the way. The Phantom’s Dusknoir appeared behind Sloth and delivered a sharp punch to the man’s head. Though Sloth’s helmet absorbed most of the force of the blow, it gave Alex and Hierro enough time to renew their assault.
This time, Sloth managed to seize Hierro. He lifted the Hawlucha in the air in his right hand and clenched his fist. Hierro cried out in pain, and Alex lashed out in pure unbridled rage. “You bastard!” he screamed. “Let him go!” He jumped up and wrapped his legs around Wrath’s torso, battering the man’s armored skull with his batons. Alex glared into the glowing eye slits of Sloth’s suit as metal rang against metal. He felt Sloth’s metal fingers close around his waist and pull, but he didn’t unclench his legs, continuing his attack until Sloth wrenched him away. Alex screamed again and tried to attack the gauntleted hand, but to no avail. Sloth flicked his wrist and flung him away.
Alex saw the brick buildings rushing up as Blaziken Man’s gauntlet flashed. Just before he hit the wall, he felt something seize his waist and pull. The force jerked his neck forward.
And then everything went black.
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Jun 16, 2018 10:21:39 GMT
This chapter is just so much fun. I could do for these heroes what I did for the Cavalier and the Gunslinger, could pick apart their themes and decide what flavour of hero they're trying to be (national icon/avatar, et cetera), but this chapter really demands to just be enjoyed. It's one reversal after another, the fight flipping back and forth so fast it almost seems to strobe: Alex is overwhelmed! But the Hammer arrives! But there's a barrier! But Alex flies over it! But Sloth destroys the Hammer's exoskeleton! But he has a sledgehammer! And so on and so forth, over and over without ever slowing down or letting up. When the end abruptly arrives, it really does feel like that's the only way it could have ended, with our POV character being knocked out, because otherwise the forward momentum of this chapter would have thrust it onwards forever. It's just that energetic.
One note:
There aren't any blank lines separating these paragraphs.
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Post by bay on Jun 18, 2018 0:05:35 GMT
I admit that I kinda lost track who's who in this chapter compare to the last one, but then I get the overall picture that Alex's getting several pulled in several different directions there. Some more neat interactions with him and the Phantom there, and also it's cute when he mentions he and Hierro work best when in air. I expected his reaction to seeing Blaziken Man to be like that, too bad he went head straight on at the end there ouch. Still another fun chapter there!
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Post by Ambyssin on Jun 21, 2018 21:30:50 GMT
I see that the Review Game hasn't moved in awhile. And, while I admit I've been waiting for this fic to catch up to the point that I had read to previously, I thought I should repay your kindness and take a look at chapter 6. Checking back on my old review, it looks like the big sore thumb to me was the bout of introspective monologuing that Alex opts to engage in toward the end of the chapter. Now it's entirely introspection. A sort of back-and-forth with his conscious, if you will. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of a large chunk of text where a character's just thinking because it normally feels like the narrator is just telling me a bunch of stuff the author didn't feel like showing. But I think you do a good job because you incorporate some of Alex's memories into the mix, only to counter with a comparison to the Ronin's behavior and the adrenaline junkie claim. And closing it out with Hierro comforting Alex makes it come together well.
For the Ronin's part, looking back at this a second time, I think the cuts were worth it. I don't think I had a mental image of the Ronin as a silent killer type, but looking at some of your older reviews, I feel like that's what people were expecting? In any case, I think the Ronin's image is best when you make his kills short, sweet, and to the point (pun intended). And that's what it feels like he does to the banker. He tersely tells Alex to back off, quickly says that the banker is scum, and does away with him. That's probably the style you should go for with him. He shows up, looks frightening and imposing for a short while, and then kills his target (possibly with a struggle). For bonus points, have him leave rather quickly. I do think he maybe stayed around a bit too long telling Alex about the harshness of war. I feel like he'd have just made a quick, silent exit. At least, that's what I may end up expecting in the future.
Anyway, I do think this was better than I remember it, so your changes worked. ^^
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Post by Firebrand on Jun 22, 2018 22:57:02 GMT
Chapter 10
Alex rose to consciousness with a gasp, as though surfacing from underwater. He thrashed for a moment, kicking the pristine white sheet off his legs, where it fell beside the narrow hospital bed. A heart monitor next to him began to beep rapidly, and Hierro stirred from the stool beside Alex’s bed to place a clawed hand on his partner’s chest and force him to lie still. Hierro stared intently into Alex’s eyes, willing him to be calm, and Alex felt his breathing relax as his heart rate lowered.
The sunlight streaming in through the two story floor-to-ceiling windows bathed the room with light. Through the large glass panes, Alex could see the midtown Clarus City stretching out below him. His hospital bed stood in the middle of the bank of windows, connected to the heart monitor and IV drip. The rest of the room was done up in chic modern décor, with leather sofas, an electric fireplace, a titanium and steel workbench, and what Alex could only assume were expensive minimalist paintings.
Alex tried to ignore the pain in his ribs and struggled to sit up, only to have Hierro flick a switch on a small console, raising the upper part of his bed into a sitting position. Alex nodded his thanks and surveyed the room “Where the hell are we?”
An elevator at the far side of the room swished open and a man and woman stepped out. The woman wore a modest black dress and heels, her hair held in a sharp up-do with not a single strand out of place. Her makeup was minimal and rather severe. The man wore a collared shirt and charcoal gray slacks with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Though his beard was well-trimmed and he gave the appearance of unflappable professionalism, Alex could see deep dark circles under his eyes.
“You’re awake, thank Arceus,” the man said, pulling over a stool from the workbench. Alex winced as its metal legs dragged across the floor.
“What’s going on? Where am I? How long was I out?”
The woman continued walking past Alex, her heels clicking rhythmically. “You’ve been unconscious for fifty-odd hours. You’re in Sasaki Tower, obviously.” She sighed. “Pretty much the only place spared from this clusterfuck.”
“Easy, Takeda,” the man said. “He’s still going to be disoriented. We agreed we’d take it a little at a time.” He turned to Alex. “Thank you for all your help, Mr. Alvarez. What you did was incredibly brave, but it was also incredibly dangerous.”
Alex jerked as he remembered his attack on Sloth and turned to his partner. “Are you all right? You aren’t hurt?”
The man placed a hand on Alex’s arm. “Your Hawlucha is fine. With your help I was able to temporarily disable Sloth’s armor, and we had the upper hand for a little while.”
“You disabled…? Does that mean… Oh Arceus, you’re Blaziken Man!”
Jiro Sasaki smiled. “I am.”
“What happened to me?”
“Archangel managed to catch you, but the force of Sloth’s throw knocked you out. You had a mild concussion, and when the fight was over I brought you back here so you could recover. Aside from that, you had minor cuts and bruises. You were very lucky.”
“What about the others? What happened to the Sins?”
“The police arrived shortly after you were knocked out, but Sloth managed to get his systems back online. We apprehended plenty of their men, but the four Sins all managed to get clear. The Phantom and Volcarona Mask pursued, but they lost them. The other heroes fell back with me to regroup.”
“And the Hammer?”
“He was captured.” The woman, Takeda, turned from the windows. “Greed grabbed him in the confusion.”
Seeing Alex’s stricken look, Jiro held up a hand. “To the best of our knowledge, he’s still alive. The Sins have holed up in Nimbus Tower, and they’re holding him there.”
“Along with plenty of other hostages,” Takeda added. “Commissioner Bright, the mayor, the president of our board of directors…”
Jiro Sasaki nodded. “It seems that the chaos the Sins created was just a ruse so that they could kidnap the elite of Clarus City, hobbling the bureaucracy and the police. From what we can gather, their erratic operations the past few months have allowed them to seize control of several notable pieces of property and other assets throughout the city. The property allowed them to place the bombs that crippled the infrastructure, and once we were preoccupied trying to contain that, they went after their ultimate goal.”
“So now what do we do?” Alex asked. “Hierro and I, we want to help.” The Hawlucha nodded and turned to Jiro.
Jiro inclined his head. “For now, stay put. Volcarona Mask and I are convening a meeting of all available heroes shortly where we’ll plan our next move. We know where the Sins are, and for now the police have them pinned. But if we act too hastily, we could jeopardize our chance.”
Takeda dropped a canvas gym bag at the foot of Alex’s bed. “I took the liberty of getting a change of clothes from your apartment, Mr. Alvarez. And I fed your Skitty.” She glanced over at Jiro. “I also expensed him a mop and a vacuum cleaner.” Before Alex could formulate a reply, Takeda had crossed the room to the elevator and disappeared to another floor.
“Noriko doesn’t mean to be so brusque,” Jiro said. “She really does mean well. Sorry if she ruffled your feathers.”
“No, it’s fine,” Alex said. “Wait. How did you know where I lived? How do you know my name?”
Jiro smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry to have outed you. I understand how important a secret identity can be. But I needed to figure out who you were so that we could look up your medical history and make sure that we alerted your family in case things went south. I hope you understand? If it makes you feel any better, the only people who know outside of Noriko and myself are her brother and my Blaziken.”
Alex shrugged. “And you trust them?”
“With my life. Your secret is safe.”
“Then I’ll live with it.” Alex shifted to a more comfortable position and looked down at his hospital robe. “Where’s my suit?”
Jiro walked over to his workbench and picked up the red and white garment. He silently passed it over to Alex, who ran it through his hands. A large rent had been torn in the right wing, and there were various tears along the material. “No,” Alex whispered. “No, this can’t be happening. The whole design is compromised. I’d have to start from scratch. I don’t… I can’t afford to make another one.” He felt his throat close up. “I can’t be Hawlucha Man anymore.”
“That may not be entirely true,” Jiro said. He hefted a silver briefcase off the workbench and carried it to the hospital bed. “See, when I get stressed, I like to keep my hands busy. Repairs to my armor are mostly automated now, so after what happened three days ago, I was kind of a wreck. But after I saw what happened to your suit, well, I couldn’t help myself.” He set the case on Alex’s lap and pressed the clasps. “I tried to stay as loyal to your original specs as I could, but I couldn’t resist adding in a few little tricks of my own.”
Alex opened the case and gasped. He ran his hands over the black and red material inside. “It’s so light! How did you…?”
“Carbon nanofibers. It should be more durable than your old one, but with far less weight. It won’t be stopping any bullets, but it should protect you from knives, and it’s mostly heat resistant and non-conducive. We ran some simulations, and you should be able to fly just as well as before.” Alex slowly removed the new suit from the case. The black and red material ran smoothly through his hands. Jiro watched as Alex inspected it. “I opted to go with the black and red color scheme that some Hawlucha have. I figured it would be better than your red and white, since you’re doing most of your work at night. If you prefer the old colors, I can make a new one…”
“No, no, this is great.” Alex tugged at the wing beneath the right arm. “This seems smaller than my design. Will it really be able to glide?”
“The nanofibers are elastic. They’ll expand when you need them to. Check out the mask.” When Alex held up the black and green headpiece, Jiro leaned over and tapped the lenses over the eyes. “I installed night vision, infrared and heat sensors. And,” he reached into the case and drew out two metal batons. “I’m particularly proud of these.” Alex turned one over in his hand, feeling the solid heft of the metal, roughly the same density as his old pair. His fingers found a switch on the handle. “What’s this?”
Jiro grinned. “Stun feature. I know electric types aren’t really your gimmick, but I thought it would be a good idea to have some extra oomph behind it. It’s not a particularly strong current, but I wouldn’t advise putting your hand on the end.”
“This is… it’s incredible.” Alex shook his head. “I really can’t accept this. It’s got to cost a fortune.”
“Don’t think of it as a gift,” Jiro said. “If it makes you feel any better, call it an investment.”
“But why me?”
“Because I saw you throw down with some of the most fearsome and deadly criminals in Clarus City without a second’s hesitation. Because I see the potential you have to become a truly great hero. I’ve read your file, Alex.”
“I’m not anything special. I’m just a broke student from Avenbrooke.”
“Nothing special? Are you crazy?” Jiro shook his head. “You’re a three time regional mixed martial arts champion. You could have been a professional gymnast, but you gave it all up to go to AIT on a full merit scholarship. Because that’s not enough, you’re a genius engineering prodigy too. For Arceus’s sake, you built a functioning wingsuit on… what’s your R & D budget?”
Alex blushed and looked down at his hands. “Whatever’s left over after rent and instant noodles.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Jiro exclaimed. “You built that on scraps? I mean, if you had access to a real lab, with the resources of one of my engineers…” He shook his head. “Anyway, sit tight for now. Like I said, we’re arranging a conference with the other heroes we can reach to talk over what to do about all of this.” Jiro rose and walked over to the elevator. “Hierro knows where the food is, he can get something for you if you think you can keep it down. I’ll be back soon.” The elevator doors hissed open, and Jiro shot off to another floor.
Alex put a hand on his stomach as it growled, and Hierro jumped down from his stool. The Hawlucha walked over to a small stainless steel refrigerator and opened a cabinet nearby. He quickly prepared two peanut butter sandwiches and fetched a fruit-flavored sports drink for Alex. He hoisted the tray up onto the hospital bed and nudged Alex aside so that he could sit next to him.
Alex took the sandwich in one hand and ran the other through the feathers on his partner’s head. “I’m sorry to make you worry about me,” he said. “If things were the other way around, I know I’d be a nervous wreck.” Hierro tore off a bit of his own sandwich and cooed. They stayed like that for some time, until Alex felt his eyelids grow heavy.
When he woke up again, the bed had moved several feet and now rested in a patch of shadow. Hierro had moved it out of the sun while Alex slept, and by the angle of the light, Alex guessed he had been out for at least an hour or two. The hissing of the elevator doors had roused him, and he saw Jiro and Noriko enter the loft again. “Think you can walk?” Jiro asked.
Alex slowly lowered himself out of bed and massaged his legs. “Yeah, I’ll be good.”
“Then you’d best get dressed. We’re heading uptown.”
Alex hurriedly pulled on the t-shirt and jeans Noriko had gotten from his apartment and went over to the elevator. He felt his stomach drop as the elevator descended, moving rapidly down the floors of Sasaki Tower before slowing as it reached the sub-basement. They emerged in a nearly empty parking garage, and Jiro led Alex and Hierro to an unassuming black sedan parked nearby. His Blaziken and another man waited for them there.
Jiro smiled when he saw his partner. “Ready to go, Masakado?” The fire type nodded and popped open the passenger side door, folding himself into the seat. The other man inclined his head to Alex.
“You must be Alvarez. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand. “I’m Takeda. Noboru Takeda.”
Noriko saw Alex’s glance. “My younger brother, and your driver today.”
Noboru smiled. “Well, you do keep trying to get me out of the lab.” He slid into the driver’s seat while Alex, Jiro and Hierro piled into the back. Noboru waved to Noriko as he swung the car around and headed for the exit ramp. He caught Alex’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Jiro says you’re at AIT, right? I was a Clarus Tech guy myself, but I gotta admit you guys have a better campus.”
“You mentioned you work in a lab?”
Noboru nodded. “I’m a chemist here. Mostly I’m working in the pharmaceutical division, but I dabble in some other stuff in my spare time.”
“The Takedas are some of my oldest friends,” Jiro explained. “When I was starting Sasaki Industries, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without their help.”
“Always a sweet talker,” Noboru said as he turned the car out of Sasaki Tower and onto the main thoroughfare.
Alex stared out the window, where city crews were already working to repair the damage caused by the Sins’ bombs. Workers in hard hats and reflective vests guided their rock and ground type pokemon to fill in the craters as cement mixers stood by. Fighting and fire types worked alongside welders on damaged municipal buildings. “Aren’t they worried about being attacked?” Alex said.
“It’s always possible, but it’s not likely,” Jiro replied. “We’ve mostly pushed back the Sins and their high ranking lieutenants to a couple blocks around Nimbus Tower. Any of their rank and file members are scattered, and the police are out in force. There have been a few flare ups while you were out, but nothing the police couldn’t handle.”
Noboru flashed a badge of some kind at a police checkpoint, and they were waved through. The driver sucked at his teeth. “We’re going to have to take the side streets, Jiro. The expressway is still shot to hell.”
“Where are we headed anyway?” Alex asked.
“Volcarona Mask is holding the meeting uptown, away from most of the damage. Try and relax a bit, it’ll be a while before we get to Forbes Manor.”
Alex’s eyes went wide. “Forbes Manor? You mean Volcarona Mask is Isabelle Forbes?” But as he said it aloud, it started to make sense. Volcarona Mask seemed to have a large array of varying types of technology in her arsenal, but she didn’t seem to have anything in the way of technical know-how. Having access to the inexhaustible resources of the Forbes Corporation would allow her to supplement her acrobatics with the latest in non-lethal weapons technology. Not to mention, she needed to have the resources to support and care for her Volcarona, so she obviously came from some means.
And after what the Sins had done to the Forbes family several years ago, she had a solid motive for becoming a hero…
“Yeah, that’s Izzy. We’re pretty sure the Sins have figured it out by now, but one of the perks of having virtually infinite money is you can afford a really good home security system.” Jiro laughed. “You wouldn’t know from looking, but Forbes Manor is more secure than most military installations. Whenever we meet with other heroes, we do it there.”
The steel and glass canyons of the city gave way to upper class residential neighborhoods where the Sins’ destruction was less evident. They had concentrated most of their attack on the commercial heart of Clarus City, striking primarily at the bastions of industry in the financial and manufacturing districts. Most neighborhoods far from the city center had been spared the worst. Eventually, the upscale brownstones and terraces receded as they reached the sprawling estates of the city’s moneyed elite on Clarus City’s northern outskirts.
Noboru stopped in front of a large iron fence accentuated by intricate whorls in the metal. The artistry of the barrier did little to hide how thick it was, and small metal nodes along its length subtly hinted that it was electrified. Noboru held up an identification card to a panel set into one of the pillars alongside the entranceway, and the gate slowly rolled open. He eased the car up the tree-lined drive and parked just in front of the pillared veranda. Noboru popped the locks and swung out of the car, winking to Jiro as he leaned against the hood.
“I’ll wait around out here. No need for me to get involved in the hero stuff.” He dug in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and lit one behind his cupped hand.
Jiro, Alex, and their partner pokemon ascended the steps to the manor. Alex followed Jiro, who seemed to know exactly where he was going. They passed through several large open rooms, decorated in a more opulent classical style than the room Alex had woken up in several hours earlier. Crystal chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, and the art adorning the walls was several centuries old. Jiro led Alex to a wood-paneled room lined with glass cases and bookshelves of varying heights that seemed to be exactly in the center of the first floor. He tapped his knuckles against the doorframe.
The two women sitting within looked up as Jiro entered. The young woman in a white sundress was sprawled on one of the antique leather couches, and she lazily raised her head. “Hey Jiro. I don’t want to play hostess yet, so just like, grab some food or whatever? Cool?” She glanced over at Alex. “Oh, you’re the Hawlucha guy, right? How’s your head, dude?”
“Honestly, it’s like a hangover on steroids.”
“Ugh, brutal.” She fiddled with a remote on the table in front of her, pointing it at three monitors on the wall. Alex waited for her to say something more, but it seemed like the girl was done. The other woman gracefully rose to her feet and swept across the room, her red and gold sari swishing. She laid a hand on Alex’s arm, and Alex caught a whiff of jasmine and saffron that seemed to cling to her caramel-colored skin.
“Don’t let Isabelle’s lack of social graces put you off,” the woman said, leading him over to a table pushed against the far wall. “She gets like this when she’s just woken up. Please, help yourself to something to eat. You must be exhausted after what you’ve been through.”
Alex tried without much success to gather his wits about him. “Uh… yeah. Uh.”
“Oh, of course, I haven’t introduced myself! And we only met for but a moment the other day!” the woman said with an expansive gesture. “I am Lakshmi Kandhari. And you, Hawlucha Man, need very little introduction.”
Alex could only nod at the Dryad. “Alex. I’m, uh, Alvarez. Alex Alvarez. That’s me.”
Lakshmi hid a dainty laugh behind her hand and handed Alex a plate. She selected several sandwiches from a spread across the table and piled his plate with fruit before getting food for herself. Alex walked in a daze to a couch perpendicular to Isabelle’s and picked up a pesto and arugula sandwich. Hierro hopped up next to him and snatched something with meat in it. Jiro and Masakado sat off to one side, tapping away on a tablet, while Lakshmi returned to her chair on the far side of the room.
A matronly woman cleared her throat in the hallway. Izzy waved her hand lazily above her head. “Send ‘em in, Vivi. Just keep ‘em coming.” She made what appeared to be an attempt to sit up before flopping back down on the couch and pointing. “Food’s over there, dude.”
Alex glanced up and dropped his sandwich. “Archangel!”
The young man’s face lit up with a smile as he strode forward, his feet leaving the ground as he glided over to Alex. “Please, when I’m not working, call me Joshua.” He eagerly pumped Alex’s hand, though he had not yet touched down on the floor. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you’re all right! I was so worried when I realized you were unconscious. In the heat of the moment, I didn’t think to check my power and—”
“You don’t have to apologize for saving my life!” Alex said with a laugh.
Joshua sat down beside Hierro. “You’re sure you’re both fine?” He turned his smile on the flying type. “You were terribly brave out there.” Hierro puffed up his chest and began to preen. Joshua glanced over at Alex. “It’s really awful about the Hammer. We’ll have to do everything we can to get him back.”
The woman from before, Vivi, appeared in the doorway again. “Captain Unova has landed on the south lawn. He should be joining you momentarily, Ms. Isabelle.”
Isabelle groaned and looked over at Jiro. “Dude, why’d you have to invite Captain Loudmouth?”
Jiro glanced up from his tablet. “Captain Unova is as much of a hero as anyone else in this room. He earned his place here, same as all of us.” Isabelle rolled her eyes and groaned again. She looked as though she was about to say more when the shadows in the corner of the room blurred, and a man stepped out from what had once been empty space. The Phantom was dressed in his full hero costume, mask in place. He inclined his head to the room.
“Eddie,” Isabelle said, curling her lips into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Izzy,” the Phantom replied, and Alex could see him raising his eyebrow behind the mask. He swept across the conference room and fell into a chair near Alex and Joshua.
A moment later, Captain Unova strode through the door, also in his signature blue and white hero suit. “Hello! I hope I’m not too late?”
“Think nothing of it,” Lakshmi said with a lazy wave of her wrist.
Jiro stood and used his tablet to send something to the large television screens that lined the room. The monitors flickered, showing a map of midtown, a red circle drawn around the block with Nimbus Tower. “I think that’s all of us for now,” he said, fixing a small microphone to his collar. “Echo, Gunslinger, Cavalier, do you copy?”
Two green circles appeared on the top right corner of the monitor. “Loud and clear, partner,” the Gunslinger drawled through the connection. “The Cavalier’s havin’ a lie down at the moment, but I’ll brief ‘em on anything new and interesting later.”
“Copy that, Gunslinger. Echo, what about you?”
A crackle of static interference came through the speakers. “I-I hear you,” a woman’s voice said. “I’m j-j-just keeping m-my mic on mute in c-case something happens. Feedback, y-y-you know?”
“Good plan.”
Joshua leaned over to Alex. “We’ve all taken turns standing guard with the police perimeter around Nimbus Tower for the last few days to keep the Sins pinned down. Those three are all onsite now.”
Alex nodded and waited for Jiro to go on. “For the last sixty hours, the Sins have forced us into a stalemate. Not only have they captured the Hammer, but they are holding Commissioner Bright and Mayor Lynden, along with various other Clarus City elites. Dorian Westfield, the chairman of the board of Sasaki Industries and my personal friend, was kidnapped from his home. Volcarona Mask has also confirmed to me that Ms. Emily Sage, the CFO of the Forbes Corporation, was also taken.”
“The CEO of Harcourt Industries is being held too,” the Phantom said. “So I’ve been told.”
Jiro nodded to him and then turned to the room. “As you can see, the situation is not ideal. The Sins have made it clear that if we move against them, they will kill their hostages. I’ve gathered us all here today because it seems the only way to effectively combat the Sins is to remove the hostages from the equation entirely. To do that, we would have to infiltrate Nimbus Tower unseen. Phantom, Archangel, both of you have pokemon partners that allow for some degree of teleportation, yes?”
Archangel nodded, but the Phantom folded his arms. “Archangel, I don’t know about you, but for Gregor and I to take people along, we need to be physically touching them. That limits how many people I can bring along at once. Should I assume that you have a similar limitation?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Right. And don’t we estimate that the Sins have something in excess of forty hostages?”
Jiro sighed. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“I can take maybe four people at once,” the Phantom said. “Archangel, what about you?”
“Yes, four or five would be about all I could take as well.”
“So between us, that’s only eight or nine people per trip. It would take at least five or six trips to bring everyone out, and I don’t think the Sins will give us that kind of time once they notice their only leverage vanishing from under their noses.”
“We can all do basic math, Eddie,” Isabelle said. “If you have a point, like, get to it?”
“I’m saying that if it was as simple as us teleporting in and removing the hostages, you all would have found a way to do that already. So there’s more to this plan, right?”
Jiro glanced at Lakshmi and nodded. “We’ll need to work in three teams. The first group, the majority of us, would remain outside the tower, consolidating our resources with the police to draw the Sins’ focus while the other two teams maneuver into place. The second team, should you agree to it, would be the Phantom and Archangel, who would work to evacuate the hostages as quickly as possible. The third team would be teleported inside the tower beforehand to distract the Sins from inside and give the second team time to work. This would be the most dangerous assignment, and I can’t ask any of you to undertake it. I’ll lead it myself, and if need be, Masakado and I will go in alone.”
“Listen partner,” the Gunslinger drawled. “That’s all real brave and everything, but my skillset ain’t suited to hallways and blind corners. I’m going to have to stay out here. I can’t really speak for the Cavalier, but closed spaces and Rapidash don’t generally mix.”
A burst of static punctuated Echo’s words. “I’m n-no good up c-c-close either. I ought t-to stay out here.”
Lakshmi nodded. “My grass types and I can do our best work mobilizing outside the tower. It could inflate our numbers on the ground.”
“I’ll do what I have to do,” the Phantom said. “But you all need to understand that Gregor needs shadows for his teleportation to work. If there’s too much light around the hostages, I won’t be able to reach them in time.” He sighed and adjusted his mask. “But I’ll deploy my ghost types to run interference outside either way.”
“I’ll do everything I can to get the hostages out,” Joshua said. “Phantom, perhaps my Kadabra and I could carry in something that casts a shadow, to make things easier for you?”
The Phantom nodded. “We’ll talk.”
Alex looked around the room and then glanced at Hierro. His Hawlucha nodded, and Alex cleared his throat. “Jiro, I’ve got your back.”
“Are you sure, Hawlucha Man?”
“Yes. Hierro and I won’t be able to do much good outside, but we can handle close combat.”
“I’m going too,” Isabelle added. “Aethon will have to stay with the first group, but I don’t need him to fight.”
“Count me in.” Captain Unova grinned. Isabelle scowled but held her tongue as the Unovan hero laughed. “Between the four of us, the Sins won’t know what hit them!”
“I really can’t overstate the danger of this—”
“I eat danger for breakfast,” Isabelle snapped. “And I wash it down with a side of impossible odds! We’re going to go in there and kick the Sins’ asses and free the Hammer and Ms. Sage and everyone else.” She smirked. “But like, if you don’t think you can handle the heat or whatever, just say so. I’ll go in and bust them up myself.”
Captain Unova jerked his thumb at her. “What she said.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah. We can do this.”
Jiro allowed himself a small smile. “I’m sorry I doubted you. All right, the best time to strike will be in the middle of the night, which doesn’t give us long to prepare. If we mobilize now we could—”
He was cut off by a burst of static. “S-Sorry to interrupt but uh…” Echo left the connection open, and Alex heard her Exploud bellowing in the background. “Uh, Gunslinger, d-do you see this?”
The Gunslinger swore. “Who is that? What the hell is that woman doing? She’s going to blow this all to pieces!”
“What’s going on?” Jiro demanded. The Phantom was already on his feet and running for the corner he had stepped out of. His Dusknoir appeared, and the two of them vanished while the room descended into chaos. “Gunslinger, Echo, come in! What is happening down there?”
“Some crazy broad’s walked right up through the front door of the tower!” the Gunslinger shouted. “Ah, hell, we got gunshots! This is going to be ugly.”
Jiro turned to the others. “All right heroes, suit up. We’ve got to contain this.”
Isabelle was bounding out of the room. “Jiro, I’ll get the helicopter going. Head out back once you’ve got your armor on!”
“See you there,” Joshua said to Alex before his Kadabra appeared and whisked him away.
Lakshmi sighed as she got to her feet. “The best laid plans of Mienfoo and men…”
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Post by bay on Jul 4, 2018 5:35:51 GMT
That was very nice of Blaziken Man to give Alex a remade version of his suit and to compliment that he has potential. His reaction to Alex barley having a budget is amusing, and also the very beginning where Hierro was by Alex's side was cute. And speaking of budget, nice contrast with Alex and Isabelle who is able to have an infinite amount of resources thanks to her background.
I don't have too much thoughts on the meeting with the heroes, but sounds like it'll be a fun heist/rescue mission there. Too bad they have to deal with the commotion upfront first, though I'm still looking forward to that confrontation also.
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Jul 7, 2018 10:32:34 GMT
So much of Hawlucha Man seems pulled from an action movie kinda playbook, and this follow-up to the giant battle seems even more so – right down to the kind of people who Alex wakes to find around him and the type of conversation they proceed to have with him, and the way in which the big meeting he's brought into is suddenly broken off in the face of another crisis. Maybe this is pretty common in action fiction, too, and I just haven't read enough of it to know this. :V
The whole structure of it – you proved yourself, Upstart Kid, now you get Resources and a ticket into a world several orders of magnitude wealthier and more professional than your own, and by the way we would all like to collectively adopt you – is very familiar, too, but it's carried off very well. Like, it's almost monomythic, in a specifically modern format (and I suspect a specifically superhero one too, though I don't know enough about the genre to be sure). It's a structure that your archetypal characters fit into very naturally and easily, and which they complement well. Monomythic stories can either feel very flat or very satisfying, depending on how engaging they are; I think Hawlucha Man falls into the second category.
The interlude doesn't last, of course; the only breaks we ever get from the action in this fic are brief ones! The big takeover thing is coming up, if I remember correctly. I'll be interested to rerea that and see if my thoughts about it have changed.
You know, it occurs to me now that I should really have started an orphan count at the start of this fic. Would've been entertaining. Or depressing. One of the two.
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Post by Firebrand on Jul 7, 2018 16:08:39 GMT
Chapter 11
Some time earlier…
Julia Richelieu crossed her legs and lifted a glass of wine to her mouth. Her lipstick left a burgundy stain on the rim, and she savored the taste of the vintage on her tongue, the cask having been liberated from the cellar of an exclusive upscale restaurant in the confusion of the last few days. The rest of the Sins lounged around what had once been an executive boardroom near the top floor of the Nimbus Building.
The preceding few hours had been hectic. Once she and Sloth had beaten back the heroes on the upper west side, they had retreated to Nimbus Tower to regroup, much as she assumed the heroes were doing as well. Though the police seemed to think they had them pinned here like a treed Meowth, Julia knew that was far from the truth. Lust and his Xatu had been teleporting the Sins all around Clarus City’s boroughs for the past three days so that they could position their men and consolidate their hold on the city. So long as they were not seen outside the tower, the police force would be none the wiser.
They were all waiting on Sloth’s next orders, but Marcus Braun seemed content to let them linger around the tower for the time being, only dropping cryptic hints as to the next stage of their plan.
Julia had to give Bran the credit he was due; their plot had gone over marvelously well. For months, the Sins had appeared to act erratically, striking seemingly random targets, occasionally in broad daylight. However, the attacks had all been sleight of hand, designed to draw the focus of the police and the self-proclaimed heroes, forcing them to step in to halt the showy displays while the Sins gathered up the property rights and assets needed to truly throw the city off its axis. They had secured the rights to several key sites, and that allowed them to access the sprawling network of old sewers under Clarus City to plant their bombs with no one the wiser.
It had all come together brilliantly, bringing the city to its knees while they instilled terror in the citizens and hobbled the police force. Braun had a brilliant tactical mind and terrifying physical prowess even without his powered armor, though Julia could not help feeling that his tendency to grow indolent after a successful heist was more of a liability than the other Sins would let themselves admit. But Braun got results, and she was nothing if not loyal. Braun had come to power in a desperate and bloody struggle for ascendancy in Clarus City’s underworld, and he had bested her with ease. Though he would have been well within his rights to have killed her right then, he had offered her a chance to join her strength to his and to rise at his side as his trusted lieutenant. Julia had agreed, and had never been given reason to second guess her choice.
Together, she and Braun had brought order to Clarus City’s underworld, and he ruled with an iron fist. She could respect that, and he, in turn, respected her. Sloth had very little in terms of manpower that answered directly to him. Outside of the six other Sins themselves, he had a few cells of men from his original gang, but he preferred to delegate operations to his immediate subordinates, only dealing with the organization on a macro level. It was Julia’s keen business acumen that had helped them establish a solid power base as the dust of the coup began to settle and cemented her as the strong right arm of the Sins’ enterprise. Braun was the brains, she was the scalpel, and between the two of them, they could exert enough control over Aukai, who was the stick they used to beat down any opposition. Once they had all of that, the rest of the Sins had fallen in line easily enough.
Braun, sprawled out on a large leather sofa across the room, caught her eye and turned his lips up in a lazy smile. He held a cut crystal glass of scotch with his large fingertips, slowly shaking the tumbler to make the amber liquid circle the base. He tilted it ever so slightly in her direction and raised it to his lips. Julia inclined her wineglass towards him, acknowledging his acknowledgement, and took a sip of her own.
The small, reedy man sitting on the other end of Braun’s sofa nodded to her and fingered the stem of his martini glass, careful not to disturb Braun’s Slaking, who was sprawled at his feet. Johnathan Stocks, known more by his reputation as Lust, was an utterly nondescript man whose only distinguishing feature was the varied and somewhat garish collection of rings he wore. He had the uncanny skill to blend into the background of any surroundings, a useful skill when one traded in secrets and blackmail like Lust did. Julia was certain that he knew enough to take any member of the Sins down, and though plenty of her other associates were far more intimidating physically, she was reasonably sure that Stocks had the potential to be one of the most dangerous men in Clarus City.
Between her chair and the sofa, Kekoa Aukai and Anya Petrovna sat on either side of a small circular table, their hands locked together in an arm-wrestling match. Veins bulged on Aukai’s forehead as he strained with all his strength to budge Petrovna’s hand even an inch, with no apparent effort exerted on her behalf. For her part, Greed gave an exaggerated yawn and waved over one of her men standing at the fringes of the room. “Boris!” she called. “More vodka!” Then she turned to Aukai and smirked. “You are being rather depressing. Maybe use both hands to give me a challenge?”
Aukai snarled with wordless rage while Petrovna casually threw back a shot and laughed. “You do not want my generous offer? All right.” With a casual twitch of her arm, she slammed Aukai’s hand down on the table. “I win again! That makes me four for four, yes?”
“This is unacceptable!” Wrath snapped. He dropped his elbow on the table again and flexed his fingers. “One more round.”
Petrovna waved her hand dismissively. “It will not change anything. Come, have some vodka.” Aukai begrudgingly accepted a shot, and the two of them drank together. Julia rolled her eyes at the two rowdiest members of the Sins, but privately she was glad that they were taking out their pent up energy on each other rather than driving the rest of them up the wall. Eva Muller, alias Gluttony, chortled and elegantly sipped from a small sherry glass, the cup looking all the smaller in her swollen fingers. She sat next to an abandoned poker game, one that they were not likely to return to. It just wasn’t as fun when more than half of the players could count cards.
Yousef al Najem gave a derisive snort and leaned back against his Luxray, pushing his hair back from his forehead in what was obviously an affected pose he was trying very hard to make look natural. Envy was the youngest of the Sins by several years, and while he and Julia were of a similar temperament, she found him to be finicky and too obsessive for her tastes. The young man didn’t know when to let things go once he had set his sights on something, and that had made trouble for them all in the past.
As she looked past al Najem, her eyes fell on the handful of hostages they had brought up to keep an eye on and occasionally taunt. The rest were being held in a conference room one floor below under heavy guard, but the truly special VIPs had been dragged up for a personal audience with the Sins. Commissioner Bright had been a thorn in their side for years now, and while her aggressive policies had forced the Sins into difficult corners, Julia noted with some satisfaction that she didn’t look nearly so “tough on crime” now. Mayor Charles Lynden had visibly lost all hope several hours ago after a beating by Aukai.
And yet no matter what they did, the only one they couldn’t break was the Hammer. They had already broken his left arm, and his face bore a rainbow of bruises. Every few hours, they would beat him again, try to make him submit, but the old bastard refused to give them the satisfaction. Even now, he glared at her from across the room, daring her to get up and try again. No matter what they did, they couldn’t even make him cry out in pain.
Even when she looked away, Julia could feel the Hammer’s eyes on her, and it infuriated her. She set her wineglass down and prepared to stand up when Sloth waved her down. “Let him be for a little while,” Braun said. “If he’s making himself a tough nut to crack, it only means we get to drag out the fun a little longer.”
Julia acquiesced with a nod and waved over one of her subordinates to fill her cup. The enforcer poured inexpertly, making a few drops splash out of the glass and onto the black marble tabletop. Julia’s nostrils flared, but she bit back her irritation. She expected her men to be killers, not busboys. She crossed her legs and took a slow sip of wine before tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “So Braun, you’ve kept us in suspense long enough. What’s our next play?” She raised an elegant eyebrow. “I’m starting to get antsy.”
***
The woman walked past the police cordon with a blasé disregard for the heavily armed officers in riot gear standing all around. For their part, they seemed not to register the woman in a simple white blouse and sharp pencil skirt as she walked quickly but without apparent haste through their ranks. Once she was through, four vacant-looking men in nondescript suits fell into step alongside her, and a Gothorita skipped along at her heels. Together, the odd party stepped through the large glass doors of Nimbus Tower just as the assembled forces outside realized what had happened and the uproar began.
The woman, however, heard none of this. The glass doors closed behind her with a whoosh, and the Sins’ guards stationed around the lobby sprang up with a shout. They pulled their weapons, and the woman shook her head. “Put your gun in your mouth,” she said. The enforcers’ eyes went wide as their hands moved of their own volition, and they all raised their guns to their mouths and bit down on the cold metal. The woman’s blank visage cracked into a small smile. “Pull the trigger.” She pointed to one man standing by the elevators. “Not you.”
Seventeen guns fired at once, and seventeen enforcers dropped to the ground with holes in their skulls. The remaining man trembled as the woman and her guards walked closer. “Tell me,” the woman purred. “Which floor are your employers on?”
“Forty six,” the man mumbled, the words muffled by the gun.
The woman keyed the number into the elevator’s number pad. “Thank you. Now you may pull the trigger.”
There was a crack, and the man fell to the ground in a heap. The woman stepped over the spreading pool of blood, careful not to get any on her stiletto heels. The elevator doors dinged and swept shut, whisking them away from the carnage in the lobby.
***
Sloth took another sip of bourbon and swirled the glass again before setting it down on a small circular table next to the couch. He shifted his position and rolled his shoulders back. “I guess I’ve kept you in suspense long enough,” he rumbled. “Stocks and I are already moving the money and liquid assets we’ve seized around our offshore accounts. About a year ago I set up three shell companies, so most of the money will be held there.” He paused, something his lieutenants were used to. “Interpol is going to be up our asses, so I’ll be going to ground for a while. The rest of you ought to take some vacation time and get out of Clarus City for the time being. I hear the Coumarine Riviera is nice this time of year. Or a sightseeing trip to Orre? No extradition there.” He laughed, and Julia felt her mouth twitch up in a smile. Ruthless crime lord he might be, but when Braun's stoic facade came down, his mirth was infectious. “It’s in our best interests to keep a low profile for now. We’ll let the enterprise run on autopilot for as long as it takes to get the powers that be to let their guard down. Stocks is going to stay here and keep an eye on things while we get some R&R and let us know when everything’s clear.”
“So your orders are to take a vacation?” Muller said. “I could get used to this.”
The elevator dinged, and Julia whirled in her chair. They weren’t expecting anyone to come up. Four men in drab suits spilled out, guns in hand. The enforcers stationed around the room raised their own guns, and various pokemon prepared to pounce. As Julia reached for her own weapon, a woman stepped out of the lift. “Stop.” Julia’s hand froze and, try as she might, she couldn’t move a muscle. She tried to cry out and demand an explanation, but her throat wouldn’t move. The woman from the elevator raised a finger and slowly lowered it. The enforcers’ weapons dropped too, and a smile spread across the woman’s lips. “That’s better. Why don’t we all try to be civil?”
Braun’s knuckles were white on the arm of the sofa. “Who are you?” he gasped out.
“So you can resist?” the woman asked. “You aren’t just a dumb slab of muscle, are you?”
“Who are you?” Braun repeated.
“A business rival, I suppose. I thought I’d swing by and scope out the competition.”
Braun struggled to rise, only to be pushed back into his seat by a physical force. Esper, Julia thought. And a damn powerful one. The woman tutted and folded her arms. “Now let’s have none of that. You know, I was perfectly content to lay my own plans and carry on without interfering with you all, but your ill-conceived charade the other day made a real… well, a real clusterfuck of everything. I hate to curse, but there you have it. I had to step in and clean this up before you ruin absolutely everything.”
Julia’s eyes darted around the room and saw that all of the other Sins were likewise incapacitated. Aukai’s eyes were practically bulging out of his skull as he strained against the invisible bonds that held them, while Petrovna and al Najem were quietly seething. Muller and Stocks were not visibly struggling, but they were watching intently.
Braun had managed to raise himself to his feet, though the effort had seemed to take all of his incredible strength. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he growled.
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with!” the woman from the elevator cried. “I’m dealing with a man who thinks he’s so very clever, but any time you run into a problem you just pummel it into the ground. You have no sense of nuance, no sense of subtlety, all you do is break and destroy, and honestly, you have been nothing but a nuisance!”
Braun lurched forward, his fist swinging through empty air as the woman stepped back. She snapped her fingers and her four men turned their guns on Braun. “I was willing to negotiate with you, but I see that’s rather pointless.” She flicked her finger at Braun’s Slaking. “Get rid of him.” The Slaking lumbered to its feet, its vacant eyes hooded as it lurched towards its trainer. It raised one hairy fist and brought it down, but Braun was moving quicker now. He threw up his arms and stopped the normal type’s blow, but the impact shook him. The Slaking grunted and used its other arm to strike Braun across his ribs, hurling him against the glass windows on the far wall. The reinforced glass cracked with the impact, and Braun picked himself up with a groan. Julia could only watch in mute horror as Braun and Slaking traded punches, though the leader of the Sins could barely seem to wind his pokemon.
The woman in the white blouse rolled her eyes. “Tick tock, tick tock. Let’s wrap this up.”
The Slaking hip checked Braun against the window and threw another fist. Braun’s hands came up and seized it, stopping the blow in mid-air. Sweat poured down Braun’s face and his arms trembled as he struggled to hold it back. “Snap out of this,” he rasped to his partner. “You’re stronger than this bitch.” For an instant, the tension in the Slaking’s arm relaxed, and Julia thought that Braun had the woman beat.
But she just gave an exasperated sigh. “Oh, put your back into it, why don’t you?”
The Slaking growled and shoved off its back foot, slamming Braun into and then through the window. The momentum of the shove carried the Slaking out too, and Julia’s eyes went wide as Braun and his pokemon tumbled out the forty sixth floor window and disappeared. “You bitch!” she screamed and jumped up from her chair. Before the shock of being freed could pass, she felt herself locked in place again.
“Let’s not make this any messier than it has to be,” the woman said. Julia felt a pressure in the back of her head, like an acute migraine. “I believe this is what the finance types refer to as a hostile takeover? So I’ll make you all an offer.” The migraine at the back of Julia’s head seemed to shift, as though it were a tentacled thing, and she felt another alien presence in her head. I can see you want power and order. I can give you that. It sounded like the woman was speaking just beside her, but Julia also knew that the voice was coming from inside her head. Julia tried to shut her out, but she heard the woman tutting again. Now you know that’s counterproductive. Julia Richelieu, I’m in your mind. I know what you want. You want to rule this city and remake it in your own image. What if I can give you that?
Julia tried to amplify her anger, to force the esper out. She could see the other remaining Sins fighting their own private battles, and she had no doubt that the woman was in their head as well. You followed Marcus Braun because you admired his strength, the woman said. And while I’m not the muscle-bound colossus he was, I think it’s fair to say my strength is greater than his, but even so, I can’t accomplish my aims alone. Julia, if you join me, I’ll use my strength to pull you up along with me.
It seemed acquiescing with the esper was the easiest way to escape this. If she agreed, she could just wait until the bitch’s guard was down and quite literally stab her in the back. The esper tutted in Julia’s head again. Now dear, that’s hardly a good idea. I’m giving you the chance to join me of your own free will because I value what you bring to the table. But if you don’t give it to me freely, I can just make a puppet out of you the same way I did with that poor Slaking. I’ll use you up, and then when I’m done with you, I’ll have you put a bullet in your head. That hardly sounds pleasant, no?
So, Julia reasoned, she could join this esper and raise her status by being no better than a Herdier trained to come at her beck and call, or she could be a mindless puppet that would be summarily disposed of as soon as it became too troublesome to keep around.
So glad to see we’re on the same page, dear. I think you’ll rather enjoy working for me.
Julia gave a brusque nod, and saw Envy, Wrath and Greed do the same. Muller took another moment as she and the esper seemed to confer privately, perhaps working out the terms of their arrangement. Muller always was a stickler for contracts. Finally, after a long hesitation, Stocks gave a barely perceptible nod, really more of a narrowing of his eyes and a twitch of his head.
“Wonderful,” the esper said aloud. “Now, you can keep those ridiculous codenames Mr. Braun gave you if you like, though I shall not be using them. We have a lot of business to attend to, and as I understand it they have already mobilized the national guard to…” She turned to the hostages as though noticing them for the first time. “Who the hell are they?”
“Some VIPs,” Muller explained. “The elite of the city. We were going to—”
“I don’t give a damn what you were going to do with them,” the woman said sharply. “I have no use for them. Get them out of here.” She paused for a moment and pointed at the mayor. “Except him. I could have some fun with him.”
Al Najem leaned forward. “But we spent weeks planning to—”
“And your plans changed. Get them out of here.” Her four men and the enforcers around the room moved stiffly to the crowd of hostages and lifted them to their feet. Those that had their legs broken were supported by the other captives and bustled to the elevator. Julia felt the alien prickling sensation in the back of her head again, and the esper groaned. “You have more of them?” She flicked her fingers at two of her men. “Get down to forty five and move the rest of them out too. For Arceus’s sake…”
Once the clamor had died down, the woman flopped down in Braun’s place on the leather sofa. “Now, as I was saying, we have quite a bit of ground to cover and very little time to do it, no thanks to the heavy-handed tactics of your former boss…”
***
Alex adjusted his grip on his new batons and took a deep breath. The suit Jiro had designed for him fit like a glove. The nanofibers were light and breathable, and just like Jiro had promised, the material that made the wings was elastic and would stretch to increase drag. He hadn’t had time in their frantic rush to Nimbus Tower to test its flight capabilities, but if Jiro was to be believed, it would measure up with his old suit.
According to Echo and the Gunslinger, not long ago a woman had breached the police perimeter and entered Nimbus Tower. The heroes had mobilized quickly, aided by Isabelle Forbes’s private helicopter. Alex, Jiro, Lakshmi and Isabelle had all piled in while Captain Unova flew ahead with his Braviary. Alex had watched in amazement as Jiro had procured his armor from the trunk of Noboru’s car, the various pieces anchoring themselves to his body with a hiss of their powered clamps. Pulling on his own suit had miraculously taken less than a minute, a far cry from the struggle it had been to don his old one. He had changed right in the driveway of Forbes Manor, sparing no thought to modesty.
The helicopter flew at top speed over the city, and they quickly landed in a square a block away from the tower, arriving just before something was hurled out of the windows near the top of the tower. Echo had rendezvoused with the rest of the heroes when they had all arrived and reported that she was fairly sure she had seen a Slaking fall through the window, and a large human whose body type would be consistent with Sloth. However, only dental work would be able to prove that, as the only thing left of the falling forms was a large bloody smear on the pavement and an assortment of shattered bones.
Using the combined credentials of Blaziken Man, the Dryad, and Volcarona Mask, the heroes made their way to the front of the police barricade and were soon joined by the Cavalier and the Gunslinger. The Phantom and Archangel teleported to their side a moment later, and they formed a line just behind the riot squad’s clear shields.
Hierro whistled low in his throat, and Alex glanced up. There was movement in the lobby behind the glass doors. The riot squads raised their guns as the doors hissed open and a crowd of people came tumbling out. Several had their hands raised over their heads, and many seemed to be injured. “Don’t shoot!” Blaziken Man commanded.
“But what if it’s a trick?” a sergeant next to him said, still sighting down his rifle.
“Don’t shoot yet.”
Blaziken Man strode forward with his hand extended, his armor clanking. The white circle on his armored hand began to glow as he charged a blast, and fire crackled around Masakado’s wrists as he walked at his trainer’s side. As Blaziken Man reached the first people in the disorganized mob, one woman pitched forward, and he caught her with his left hand. “These are civilians!” he shouted. “Many of them are hurt!”
“MEDICS!” the Cavalier boomed. “WE NEED MEDICS.”
The police lowered their weapons as the heroes and emergency teams rushed forward to see to the injured. Alex and Hierro each got on one side of a swaying middle aged man who had a thick crust of dried blood on the side of his head, and supported him until a doctor relieved them. They turned back to find more people to aid, only to spy a familiar face.
The Hammer and Commissioner Bright limped out through the lobby doors, the old man’s arm held in a crude splint. “Johannes!” Blaziken Man cried as he ran over. “What happened to you?”
“I’ve had worse,” the Hammer grunted. “See to the commissioner.”
While Blaziken Man led Bright away, Alex slipped under the old man’s good arm. The Hammer grinned despite the obvious pain he was in. “Well, if it isn’t Hawlucha Man! You changed up your wardrobe!”
Alex couldn’t help but smile back. “It was time for an upgrade. What happened to you in there?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” the Hammer replied.
“Is it true what they’re saying? Is Sloth…?”
The Hammer nodded. “Yeah. Once the dust here settles, Jiro and I will have a talk and figure out how to proceed.” He and Alex reached the perimeter and an emergency technician shooed Alex away. Before he could leave, the Hammer grabbed his arm. “Don’t think that just because Sloth is gone the city is safe. The fight has only just begun, Hawlucha Man. Clarus City still has need of your talents. I’ll be in touch.”
Alex nodded, and he and Hierro ran back into the press of bodies. Lakshmi glided to the Hammer’s elbow, and a single look at the medic made him think twice about sending her away. “Thank goodness you survived, Johannes.”
The Hammer thumped his chest with his good hand. “It takes more than a few beatings to keep Johannes Schlagen down.”
The Dryad smirked. “You and your bluster. You don’t have to keep the brave face up around me.”
The Hammer looked around at the milling crowds. “I’m not doing it for you. In times like this, people look to heroes to set the tone. If I gave in to pain and despair, they would have too. I can lick my wounds when this is over.” He winced and sucked in a breath as the medic prodded his broken arm. “Jiro and Isabelle, they’re doing what I can’t do right now.” He glowered down at his arm. “I should be out there helping. That’s what’s expected of me.”
“Johannes,” Lakshmi said gently. “No one expects anything more out of you right now. You stood up to the Sins and came out alive and undaunted.”
“So has every hero here today,” the Hammer said.
“You aren’t the only hero in the city, Johannes. Let the rest of us carry the burden for a little while.” Lakshmi turned and helped a woman through the police barricade and signaled several of her grass types to move further down the perimeter as the crowd began to disperse. “We won’t be around forever.” She nodded to where Volcarona Mask was herding a group of dazed men and women to safety. Nearby, the Phantom escorted a man in a tattered suit to an ambulance while his ghosts took up positions around the doors to Nimbus Tower. Archangel spoke softly to a hysterical man, and he quickly calmed down. Echo used the microphones wired into her bodysuit to direct the traffic, waving over those who needed help and sending them onward in an orderly fashion. Hawlucha Man supported a woman with a broken leg while his pokemon partner held the hand of a blind man who was clearly in shock. Lakshmi turned to Johannes and smiled. “You’ve done your part. Now it’s time to let the younger heroes have their chance.”
“You’re right. As usual.”
Lakshmi tracked the Hammer’s eyes and winked. “You’ve taken quite a shine to Hawlucha Man, haven’t you?”
“Can you blame me? A talent like his, and no hesitation when it comes to facing down danger? For Arceus’s sake, he charged Sloth himself without a second thought.” Johannes laughed. “The lad has balls of steel!”
“I watched him run to the aid of civilians in the initial attack. I almost wonder if the thought of his own safety even crossed his mind.” Lakshmi sighed. “We spent all this time grooming Izzy to be Clarus City’s hero when we’re gone. I’m starting to think we might have been too narrow-minded. We could never protect this city on our own, and it’s cruel to expect her to do it.”
“I don’t doubt the little sparkplug could, but I see your point.” The Hammer settled back on his stool. “But we’re learning too. We already know what Izzy and Archangel are capable of, so maybe it’s time to widen our reach. With my arm busted, I’ll be out of commission for a while, so I’ll see if I can start laying the groundwork there.” He nodded. “Hawlucha Man, Echo, the Phantom, they all have the makings of great heroes, they just need a little guidance. It’s a hard road to walk, but it’s up to us old timers to smooth the way as best we can.”
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Post by bay on Jul 12, 2018 5:45:05 GMT
Looks like we have a new villian challenger here. While espers isn't anything new, it's still crazy how much potential they can have like with her able to kill the guards and get rid of Braun there. The imagery of not only Braun but also his Slaking's bodies being bloody smears is an unsettling one.
The end of the mention of older heroes being mentors to the newer/younger ones is cheesy but still sweet and made me smile.
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Post by Firebrand on Jul 21, 2018 15:03:35 GMT
Chapter 12
In the weeks following Marcus Braun’s death, life in Clarus City returned to normal. Or as close to normal as things could be in Clarus City, anyways. The heroes had gone their separate ways, and Alex had not heard from them since. The specific details behind Sloth’s demise were a closely guarded secret that Alex had not been made privy to, but the ultimate result was that the Sins had gone silent, leaving a power vacuum in the underworld. The Baron had always kept the Sins more or less out of Avenbrooke, but he had begun expanding his enterprise out into Greenpoint, and thwarting that had kept Alex busy. Though he knew that Greenpoint was Echo and the Phantom’s beat, they seemed to have other things they were dealing with, leaving Alex to fight on alone.
On the other side of the city, across the West River in Ridgewood, the mercenaries and thieves of the Kuromori clan were grabbing as much of the Sins’ territory as they could. However, Alex had yet to see any of their black-clothed warriors lurking around Avenbrooke, so he was content to leave them to the Cavalier and the Gunslinger.
In the aftermath of the Sins’ offensive, Jiro Sasaki had given Alex a cellphone and had instructed him to keep it close, and that he would use it to contact Alex once he, the Dryad and the Hammer had figured out what their next move should be. But nearly three weeks after the incident at Nimbus Tower the phone hadn’t so much as lit up, and Alex was starting to wonder if it ever would.
He and Hierro glided over the rooftops of Avenbrooke, letting a wind coming down from the north lift their wings and carry them along. True to Jiro’s word, the new suit flew like a dream. The material was lightweight and had very little drag, and the wings expanded to catch the breeze. It was durable, and Alex could fight more freely knowing he didn’t have to worry about errant tears, which meant he was able to eat a little better without having to sock away money for suit repairs.
He and Hierro had picked up on a strange amount of activity by a nearly abandoned wharf over the last few days. The police had noted several cars with tinted windows pulling up, and occasionally men were seen lurking around the docks. The Eleventh’s informants had heard rumblings that some sort of deal would be taking place here tonight, but as far as they knew it wasn’t a gun runner or a particularly large shipment of drugs. As such, the Eleventh had placed it at a low priority and Captain Anderson had decided not to allocate resources that were better served cracking down on the Baron. But Alex’s curiosity was piqued, and he had struck out with Hierro to keep an eye on things.
They reached the wharf and dropped down into a narrow alley between buildings, slipping into the shadows and keeping an eye on the gravel lot illuminated by a single flickering lamp. The scrape of a boot behind them made Alex whirl around, only to be shoved up against the wall of the warehouse. He instinctively reached for his stun batons, but his angle was wrong. Even if he freed them from his belt, he wouldn’t be able to bring them to bear on his unseen assailant, and as of now, they were concealed by his wings. If he kept them holstered, he could still surprise his attacker once he squirmed free of their elbow. He heard Hierro shriek and the Hawlucha’s claws skitter over the pavement, and his unseen foe grunted.
“Damn it, you two?” The pressure on Alex’s back released and he spun around. A woman in a battered leather jacket swung her metal baseball bat over her shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Alex asked.
Gwen Culain rolled her eyes. “I’m working a contract.”
“What kind of contract?”
“As far as I know, it’s all legal, if that’s what you’re wondering. Just some extra security for a hand-off.” The woman scowled. “More than that, I’m not at liberty to say. All I know is my employer wants this kept off the books for what I assume are tax reasons. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t get cheated out of his payment.”
“Who’s the buyer?”
“None of your damn business.” Gwen lowered her bat and looked out over the wharf. “Listen, this is legit, okay? You heroes may not buy it, but I do have morals. When the Sins started getting aggressive a few months ago, I turned down a lot of their contracts. There hasn’t been a lot of solid protection work coming my way lately, and I need this.” She sighed. “It’s a simple drop off. I don’t want to make it all complicated. I just want to take my money and go.”
Alex glanced at Hierro and shrugged. “You want backup?”
“What?”
“I figure another pair of eyes won’t hurt. My Hawlucha and I will hide out on a roof and keep watch. If something about the deal seems off, we’ll tail them and take care of it once you’re clear.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“I’m here, and I see a way to do something that will help. That’s what being a hero is all about.”
“You heroes are fuckin’ weird.” She tensed and looked up at the rooftops above them. “Son of a—”
Alex grunted. “I saw it.” Hierro bounded up the side of the building and took off after the interloper. Alex hauled himself up an access ladder and gave chase, sprinting over the rooftops. Gwen ran alongside on the ground, her teeth clenched. Hierro quickly caught up with the fleeing intruder and pinned her down. Alex quickly reached his partner’s side and glanced down at the captive. “You? Really?”
The Shadow struggled against Hierro’s grasp. “Are you kidding me? You?”
Gwen climbed up to the roof and glanced between the two of them. “What’s going on? You know each other?” She groaned. “Why does everything have to always be so damn complicated in this town?”
The Shadow slithered out from under Hierro and jumped to her feet. Alex reached for his batons, but she threw her hands up. “Hey, easy buddy! No need for this to get ugly. I’m probably sort of on your side. Kind of.”
“You want to explain that?” Gwen thumped her bat against the palm of her hand.
“I’m just here to swipe something from the Kuromori. You heroes don’t like them, right?” The Shadow smirked at Alex. “And I figure the enemy of your enemy is basically your friend.”
“The Kuromori are in Ridgewood.”
“Not tonight they aren’t.” The Shadow jerked her head towards Gwen. “But she already knew that, didn’t she?”
“What’s she talking about?” Alex demanded.
Gwen sighed, and the Shadow turned back to Alex. “Ms. Bodyguard didn’t tell you? Her employer is selling a priceless historical artifact to the Kuromori clan.” She was unable to keep the glee from her voice. “And I’ve been hired to make sure they don’t get their hands on it.”
“Then I guess we’re going to have a problem.” Gwen stalked forward, and the Shadow skipped two paces back. “I signed a contract stipulating that I ensure my employer’s transaction is completed and that he gets away safely. If you’re standing in the way of that…”
“No, I don’t care about that,” the Shadow replied. “He can take his dirty money and go. My employer just wants to make sure that at the end of the day, the Kuromori don’t have it.” She waved her hand in a lazy gesture. “And while I’m pretty sure I can handle this solo, it won’t hurt to have my ass covered. So what do you say, birdbrain? Want to help me spite some ninjas and keep some ancient Johtonian voodoo out of their hands?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “I definitely can’t see any way this could go horribly wrong. But if it keeps the Kuromori out of Avenbrooke…”
“That’s the spirit! What about you, Ms. Bodyguard?”
“I have a contractual obligation to my employer to ensure he isn’t harmed and that he gets his money. Insofar as I have a guarantee of that, I’m willing to hear you out.”
“Awesome. All right, so here’s the plan…”
***
Gwen stood underneath a fluorescent streetlight, her bat slung over her shoulder and her Aggron looming behind her. Somewhere on a nearby rooftop, Hawlucha Man and his partner crouched in the darkness. The new suit had thrown her off at first, but she had to admit it was effective for staying concealed. She had no idea where the so-called Shadow was lurking, but that was probably for the best. The entire plan had sounded like something the girl had pulled out of her ass. But Hawlucha Man had begrudgingly attested to the cat burglar’s skills, and Gwen had decided to watch and see how it all played out. Her involvement in the plot was fairly minimal, and not much more than she would have been required to do under her contract. There was the slight chance that the Kuromori would retaliate against her employer later on if they suspected his involvement in the scheme, but that was beyond the scope of her contract. It might even make him consider employing her services again on a more long term basis.
If that worked out, she could negotiate for health insurance. So it was probably a win-win for her.
The Kuromori had stiffed her on a job almost a year ago, but as she was neither stupid nor suicidal, she had decided to let the matter drop. But the slight to her reputation and professional pride still stung, and if this was a way to get back at the ninjas who thought they could cross Gwendolyn Culain and get away with it, then she was game to try. If nothing else, she and Maximus could bust a few heads.
Gwen was pretty good at busting heads.
A car pulled into the gravel lot behind her, and Gwen turned around. The driver’s side door swing open, and a reedy man hurried out to open a back door. Klaus Overstreet was helped out his car by his assistant, a man Gwen hadn’t bothered to learn the name of. Her employer was known to most of Clarus City as a well-heeled financier and the owner of a substantial family fortune. What fewer people knew was that Overstreet had made a series of abjectly terrible investments, and the recent upheaval with the Sins had left him in somewhat dire financial straits. He still made enough in a month to cover Gwen’s expenses for a year, but rich assholes have the tendency to want to keep up the luxurious lifestyle to which they are accustomed, so instead of selling off one of his yachts, renting out one of his townhouses, and cutting gold Magikarp caviar from his diet, Klaus Overstreet had begun fencing a few of his family treasures to finance a new round of investments in an effort to save his fortune.
Gwen found the man insufferable, but she wasn’t paid to like her clients.
Overstreet walked over to her, aided by a gilded cane. His assistant stood at his left arm, holding a box made of carved hardwood. A Kriketune hopped along on his right. Overstreet coughed into a handkerchief and looked up at Gwen from under eyebrows in sore need of a trim. “Ms. Culain, is everything arranged?”
“The lot’s clear. Everything is ready for the handoff. The buyer will be here in,” she checked the clock on her phone, “five minutes, I guess. Now, about my fee…”
“Yes, yes,” Overstreet grumbled, pulling his own phone from a pocket of his suit. He tapped a few buttons and nodded. “Half of the agreed upon amount has been deposited in your account. You will receive the rest when the handoff is completed.”
Gwen checked the notification from her bank and nodded. “All right. When the buyers arrive, your assistant and I will go and make the handoff. You’ll wait here with Maximus. Then, once everything is finalized, your assistant will come back with your money, you’ll get in the car and drive away. Understand?”
“Ms. Culain, I am perfectly capable of handling my own dealings.”
The bodyguard fought the urge to roll her eyes. She was a professional, after all. “Mr. Overstreet, I’ll be blunt. I’ve worked with the Kuromori before, and I have found it never hurts to be excessively wary when dealing with this type of buyer. It is better for all of us if you remain here. It minimizes the risk and liability, and my Aggron is perfectly capable of defending you until I can cross the distance from the handoff point. The price of the artifact has been agreed upon already, and so there is no reason why the handoff cannot be made by proxy.
“My responsibility here is to protect you, and the best way for me to do that is to keep you out of harm’s way entirely.” Gwen planted her metal bat on the ground in front of her. “I don’t tell you how to do your job, so please stand back and let me do mine.”
Overstreet’s face went red. “You’re an impudent one!”
“And I get results. You hired me for a reason, Mr. Overstreet.”
The rattle of tires over gravel cut off her employer’s response as four black cars with tinted windows pulled into the lot. Gwen pulled a cigarette from the pack in her jacket pocket, stuck it between her teeth, and lit it with the lighter she had taken from her father. She rolled the cigarette over to the side of her mouth, clenching it between her teeth like the detectives in movies she had watched with her mom when she was a kid. Some people thought she did it to look tough, but mostly it was to keep her hands free. She snapped her fingers at the assistant. “Come on, poindexter. Let’s get this over with.”
As she crossed the lot, she glanced up at the rooftop Hawlucha Man was on. She thought she could make out his shape in the darkness, but only because she was looking for it. But for all she knew, it was just an exhaust fan. The streetlights had killed her night vision, but Overstreet had insisted the handoff be carried out somewhere well-lit, despite her advice otherwise. The Kuromori delegation met them halfway across the lot.
The Kuromori were dressed in sleek black suits, none of the lightweight body armor and hoods they favored when engaged in their more usual business. She thought she could see the bulge of knives and perhaps a gun strapped underneath the jackets of the four bodyguards the Kuromori representative had brought, but that was to be expected. She had never known a Kuromori to go anywhere unarmed. A Sabeleye, a Toxicroak and two Bisharp waited attentively at the bodyguards’ side.
Sukiyama, the younger brother of clan patriarch Saito Kuromori, flashed a smile devoid of any genuine warmth. “Gwendolyn, how nice to see you again.” To Gwen's immense frustration, Sukiyama Kuromori had the gall to age with dignity; his hair was now more salt then pepper, but his beard was well-trimmed, and his eyes glinted with what could have been mirth or malice. His hands still seemed strong, and his name still instilled fear in the right (or wrong, Gwen supposed) circles. A Crobat perched on his shoulder, and Sukiyama reached up to scratch the flying type’s ear.
Gwen didn’t like bats.
She exhaled a plume of smoke, not quite in Sukiyama’s face, but certainly close enough to annoy him. “Suki. You have the money?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to practice some social graces, Gwendolyn.”
“I’m not paid to ‘practice social graces’. I’m paid to get results.” She saw a movement off to the left. It could have been nothing, or it could have been the Shadow moving into position. She exhaled another cloud of smoke and scuffed her boot against the gravel to distract Sukiyama and his bodyguards before gesturing to Overstreet’s assistant. “We upheld our end of the deal. Where’s the money?”
Sukiyama sighed and snapped his fingers. The bodyguard on the left picked up a steel case and brought it over to Gwen and Overstreet’s assistant. He popped the clasps and showed them the stacks of bills within. Gwen glanced over at the assistant. “You ought to count that.”
“You don’t take me as a man of my word?” Sukiyama asked, sounding almost genuinely hurt.
“Absolutely fuckin’ not,” Gwen muttered. She would have advised the reedy guy to do that anyway, even if she weren’t trying to buy time for her co-conspirators.
The assistant counted the stacks and nodded. “It’s all here.”
“Well would you look at that,” Gwen said. “All right, give them the package.”
The assistant handed Sukiyama the carved box, and Sukiyama reverently lifted the cover. His eyes shone as he looked down at the artifact within. “Incredible,” he gasped, running his finger along the edge of the glittering, multi-colored feather resting on a red velvet cushion. “To see a Rainbow Wing so far from Johto, and in this condition…” He snapped the lid of the box shut. “Thank you, Ms. Culain. As always, it is a pleasure doing business with you.”
“Whatever, Suki.” Gwen dropped her cigarette to the gravel and took her bat off her shoulder, pounding the cigarette twice with the circular tip, the signal to Hawlucha Man that the handoff had proceeded without any complications.
They hadn’t decided on a signal for what would happen if there were complications. Gwen figured it would probably have been obvious enough.
She and the assistant walked back to Mr. Overstreet, and Gwen quickly bundled him into the backseat of his car, all but throwing his Kriketune into his lap. “Go,” she hissed. She turned to the assistant. “Drive, and don’t stop until you hit the expressway. If you need anything else, Overstreet has my card.”
Overstreet shouted a protest from the backseat. Gwen leaned down to the window. “Shut up and do as I say. You have your money, and you’re going to get out of here safely. Send me the rest of my fee from the car.”
By this point, the Kuromori had reached their cars. Gwen heard muffled cursing as the drivers tried and failed to get their engines to start. Despite herself, Gwen couldn’t help but be impressed. If the Shadow had the skills to silently slip in and cut four engine lines without being detected in the tiny window Gwen had given her, maybe she wasn’t as much of an airhead as Gwen had thought.
Sukiyama stepped out of the backseat of his car and pointed at Gwen and Overstreet. The orders he was shouting were indistinct from this distance, but Gwen caught the meaning well enough. She pounded the trunk of Overstreet’s car with her left hand. “Go!” Gwen turned to her partner pokemon. “Maximus, it’s time to earn your keep!”
Her Aggron lurched in front of her as the first volley of gunshots rang out across the lot. The bullets pinged against the steel type’s armor, and Maximus dug his claws into the gravel. Indistinct shapes bounded across the rooftops as Kuromori ninjas sprang from their hiding places. Several of them leapt to the ground and began to sprint across the lot. Maximus roared and swung his tail around, flinging several of them back. Two managed to drop their weight and slide underneath her partner’s tail, only for the first to be clubbed by the base of Gwen’s bat in the center of his forehead. The second managed to regain his feet only for Gwen to swing across his ribs and knocking him right into Maximus’s follow-up swipe.
On the rooftops, she saw Hawlucha Man’s partner kick a pouncing Seviper in the face, while the masked vigilante himself battered two ninjas with his batons. The Hawlucha screamed and jumped forward, its taloned feet lashing out with a series of spinning kicks. The disruption prevented more of the Kuromori from descending on her and Maximus, and she supposed she owed Hawlucha Man one for that.
While Gwen had talked to the Kuromori representatives, Alex had activated the night vision Jiro Sasaki had implemented in his mask. However, the bright floodlights over the meeting had interfered with Alex’s view, so as he fumbled to deactivate it, he had accidentally turned on the heat-sensitive lenses. The world had changed to a large expanse of blue-black, dotted sporadically with blotches of yellow and red. He had silently alerted Hierro to the threat, and they had made ready to reveal themselves when things went to hell.
Alex had to admit that the Kuromori were far more skilled than the average thugs he and Hierro normally found themselves up against. Even among the organized crime factions, the Baron’s enforcers tended to rely on brute strength and blunt force trauma to get their point across, and the few times he had tangled with the Sins’ forces, it was their numbers that had made them a daunting challenge rather than their combat prowess. But the Kuromori were all obviously skilled martial artists trained for close combat. Alex had no time to catch his breath after dispatching one ninja before another one leapt at him. Hierro was similarly pressed, and Alex found himself glad that the Kuromori weren’t usually his problem.
He jumped back as one of the ninjas swiped at him with a curved knife. Jiro had told him that the new suit was reinforced to protect him from knife attacks, but he wasn’t going to tempt fate. Alex went low and swiped out his foe’s legs from underneath him and then, when the ninja fell to the gravel rooftop, he jabbed his stun baton underneath the man’s ribs. The ninja briefly convulsed before falling still. As his next opponent jumped at him, Alex quickly scanned the ground below. Gwen seemed to be holding her own, but he saw no sign of the Shadow.
Hierro jumped to Alex’s side, his claws balled into fists. The two of them stood back-to-back as the Kuromori closed in. His partner caught his eye, and Alex could see what Hierro was thinking just from the tautness of his muscles and the way the Hawlucha had adjusted his pose. Alex nodded, and Hierro flew back out towards the group of Kuromori attackers. The first ninja and his Bisharp lunged in, but Hierro bounded over them and seized the head of a Zangoose in his claws. He hurled the normal type at its trainer while Alex clubbed the Bisharp and grabbed the first ninja in a lock. He then used the momentum of the man’s forward motion to redirect him and hurled him back at his comrades, bowling two of them over.
“Hawlucha Man, look out!”
Alex dropped to a crouch when he heard Gwen cry out, and barely avoided Sukiyama’s Crobat as it swooped down. The poison type banked sharply in the air and whirled on Hierro, but the bodyguard’s shouted warning had given the Hawlucha enough time to react. As the Crobat stiffened its wings to strike, Hierro dropped his weight and rolled backwards. The Crobat passed overhead and Hierro’s legs shot up, the talons balled. He struck the Crobat in its abdomen, throwing it off balance. Hierro bounded back to his feet and seized the flying type’s lower right wing. He spun it in an arc and threw it at the ground, where it slid across the gravel. A Darmanitan leapt at Hierro’s exposed back, fire brimming in its grinning maw. Alex sprinted forward and jumped, throwing his body weight behind a hip check that caught the Darmanitan in mid-air, throwing it over the side of the roof.
On the ground, the Shadow watched Sukiyama send his pokemon away from her hiding place. She rolled out from under the Kuromori town car she had sheltered beneath and kicked out Sukiyama’s legs. As the man fell, she seized the wooden box from his hands. Sukiyama snarled and reached for the knife in his suit jacket, but an indistinct purple shape sprang from his shadow and licked his face. Sukiyama went rigid as the toxins from the Haunter’s tongue attacked his nervous system, locking him in place. “You!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
The Shadow tucked the box under her arm and smirked. “You’re damn right it’s me.” Then she was sprinting away as Sukiyama’s stunned bodyguards struggled to disengage from their fight with Gwen and Maximus to pursue. A group of Hawlucha Man's opponents on the rooftops broke off and raced after the fleeing thief. Gwen clubbed another man down and signaled for Maximus to spin again. As the Aggron pivoted his considerable bulk, Gwen jumped up on Maximus’s back leg and hauled herself onto the safety of his back. Sukiyama’s men ran as the armored behemoth’s tail bore down on them and their pokemon. She waved up at Hawlucha Man. “Go after the Shadow! I’m clear!” Once Maximus completed his turn, she jumped off his back and returned him to his pokeball. She dashed across the parking lot to where she had parked her motorcycle, and swung up onto the seat. She gunned the engine, pulled a pair of cracked aviator sunglasses from her jacket and slid them on. The bike roared to life and tore out of the shipping yard and towards the expressway. A group of ninjas hurried after her, but even they couldn’t keep pace with a motorcycle going full throttle.
Alex and Hierro ran to the edge of the rooftop and took off. By now, bounding across buildings was as natural to Alex as running, and the flat roofs of the warehouses in Avenbrooke’s shipping district made this easier than usual. He followed the Kuromori pursuing the Shadow, no longer making any effort to disguise their presence. The Shadow came to the tall barbed wire fence that marked the edge of the shipping yard and slipped through a gap in the links. The barrier only slowed the ninjas for a moment, and soon they were after her again.
Alex and Hierro took a running start and soared out over the fence, clearing it with ease. The first of the ninjas reached the Shadow, but before he could reach out and grab her, a purple blur jumped at him. The man buckled as whatever it was hit him in the chest, and then fell back clutching his bleeding face. The Shadow’s Purrloin jumped back to its trainer and bounded along at her heels as Alex cruised in low. He and Hierro dropped onto two more Kuromori, knocking them flat. Alex saw the Shadow turned a corner up ahead and sprinted after her. They turned onto a long, straight alley, a straight shot through rows of old brick clerical offices with small blind alleys every ten or twenty yards. The ninjas were gaining, and Alex ran as fast as he could, though his lungs had begun to burn. Just as he caught up with the Shadow and her pokemon, he heard a car peel out of a blind alley just behind them before coming to a screaming halt. Alex whirled and prepared to fight, but he felt the Shadow grab his shoulder and pull him back. “Take it easy, birdbrain! That’s our backup!”
A towering figure jumped from the car and leveled a machine gun. The staccato burst of fire echoed up and down the alley as he fired several times into the oncoming crowd of ninjas. Alex saw several drop, while others ran down alleys to the side. The man with the machine gun glanced over his shoulder. “Hawlucha Man? What are you doing here?”
Alex raised his batons again. “Giordano? What the hell?”
The Shadow stepped between them. “Take it easy, Bruce. He’s cool.”
“You didn’t tell me your employer was the Baron!” Alex shouted.
“You didn’t ask!” the Shadow snapped back.
“So we just stole some powerful ancient artifact from ninjas and gave it over to my arch nemesis?”
“You got a high opinion of yourself, kid,” Giordano grumbled as he fired down the alley again.
“It’s going to the museum!” the Shadow said. “And is this really the best place to have this conversation?”
Giordano lowered his gun. “We’re clear.” He grinned. “I sent those ninjas running with their tail between their legs. You have the package?”
The Shadow held out the box, and Giordano put it in the passenger seat of the car. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped a few keys. He nodded to the Shadow. “Pleasure doing business with you.” He slipped back into the car, reversed, and then drove away.
Alex and Hierro almost raced after him, but the Shadow stopped them. “It’s not worth it, dude. Look, it’s not a big deal, okay? You can still be one of the good guys.”
“We just aided and abetted criminals!” Alex growled. “I thought the Rainbow Wing was too dangerous to be in the Kuromori’s hands. How is it any better in the Baron’s?”
“Because the Baron’s not keeping it, duh. He’s going to donate it to the Clarus Museum of Art and Culture.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, the last six priceless historical artifacts I stole for him all ended up there, so I’d say it’s safe odds.”
“I… you… what?”
The Shadow shrugged. “The Baron and I have a deal. He hears about things that he’d rather his rivals not have, so he contacts me to get them out of their hands. Then he makes an ‘anonymous’ donation to the CMAC and gets that artifact the best protection the city can afford. The museum gets priceless treasures to study basically for free, so they don’t ask too many questions.” She pulled out her phone and checked a notification for a secure money transfer. “And the gigs pay pretty well too.” She tilted her phone screen towards Alex.
“That’s, uh, a comma, not a decimal point?”
“Damn right. You ever think you’re in the wrong line of work, birdbrain?”
Alex glanced at Hierro and sighed. “So what we did… it was technically the right thing?”
“Yeah dude, I guess.” The Shadow shrugged. “Or at least the only people getting hurt are the ones who deserve it. Anyways,” she turned and gave him a jaunty wave. “I’m calling it a night. See you around, Hawlucha Man. I like the new suit.”
Before Alex could stop her, she had vanished into the darkness. Alex slumped against the wall and sighed. “Hierro, when did everything get so damn complicated?” He dug the phone Blaziken Man had given him from his belt and glanced down at the screen. Still no messages. Alex sighed and put the phone away while Hierro looked for a fire escape. It was still a few hours until dawn, and that meant a few hours for things to go bump in the night in Avenbrooke.
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Post by bay on Jul 27, 2018 6:01:49 GMT
Even bodyguards deserve health insurance.
That's a fun twist at the end, stealing an artifact from one organization only for it to be in the hands of a rival's. This makes me wonder if Alex will soon realize all this hero stuff isn't all black and white as he thought.
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