Your meeting with Gem Blade may be a wonderful opportunity to start making the inroads to building a community of heroes who support each other like the days in which this foundation was established. And while we have some concern about this Foundation losing its focus on help for the common man, we also understand that the common man can experience great personal tribulation from the kinds of threats a Superhero Team could quell. Regardless, it behooves us to do well on this proposed coffee date.
To this end, here are some things to consider:
- Find ways to flatter her for her beauty, and competence, in ways that are not obvious. Mention clothing choices, and hair style. Mention any areas of herocraft that others may miss, like posture and congeniality.
- Do not ogle her beauty and figure. Do not fawn. Do not succumb to starstruck and smitten feelings. You are a peer, though a junior one. Acknowledge her superior position, but do not allow yourself to be caught up in hero worship.
- Do strive to focus on task-related information sharing. You have the unique position of being at the ground floor of an Archvillian's becoming. Even the smallest details may trigger an epiphany, or help make connections.
- Do not underestimate your staggering handsomeness. Gem Blade, in her other aliases as Gem Girl and Gem Saphire, was known to become involved with her teammates. Do not allow yourself to become compromised. Politely redirect any flirting back to business.
- Keep the fact that this is a supremely important opportunity foremost in your mind. Coaxing Gem Blade back into the field affects not just this new team, but the world at large. We need her. But also understand that this is just a meeting between colleagues.
- Stay focused; stay calm. Be professional.
All the best,
Kitten
Red Fox Action Log 48 cont:
I saw at least five suited men milling around the exhibit. I didn’t bother to stay hidden. I wanted them to see me coming. I wanted to see what they’d do.
“Hey Rick! This a hostage situation?”
“Not yet,” he said with an exasperated shrug.
“Good.”
I popped my knuckles against my neck. I knew these guys meant to do some harm, the Fox Instinct was clear. Let’s see if I couldn’t shake off the rust by showing these guys what a real hero looks like.
I made a beeline for the gauntlet. The five men in suit jackets startled. One pulled something that looked like a cattle prod. Another said, “get it!”
I disappeared.
Man One swiped at where I had been with a large knife. I leapt into the air, became visible, and kicked him in the back of the neck. He sprawled out on the tile, out like a light.
I disappeared again.
Man Two, cattle prod guy, touched the tip of his weapon against the glass covering the gauntlet, causing it to shatter. That was bad.
I exited invisibility and launched a kick that split his head. Man Number Three snatched the gauntlet and ran.
I cursed.
On the one hand, I could have maybe approached this in a more subtle way. On the other, letting them gather all twelve baddies in one room was a recipe for me and Sleuth becoming overwhelmed. I’d taken the initiative, but I didn’t know the game we were playing. If the game was ‘steal the gauntlet,’ then I’d lost.
Sleuth ran in, and tackled the man with the gauntlet, grabbing him by his lapels, then slamming him into the wall.
I turned to the last two, who looked at me with horror. No, not me. What were they looking at? At cattle prod guy.
Something was bubbling on his chest. I approached. It was a piece of paper, some scribble of runes, taped to his shirt. The paper had got some blood on it, likely from the cut on his skull. The blood boiled. The paper glowed.
Blood poured from the man’s eyes and swirled in a dark ball some three or so feet from his body. I had no idea what was happening.
Man Four and Five, pulled knives and sliced at me. I back peddled. They advanced. I kicked the knife out of Four’s hand, then ripped the paper off of his chest. A push kick created some distance, so I could get at Five. I had just the right distance to hook my toe behind the paper taped to his chest, and tear it off.
I had no idea what those spells did, but glancing at cattle prod guy, it didn’t look good. Two head kicks, and I had them on the ground.
I looked back at Sleuth, who still struggled to keep the man with the gauntlet from running. I dipped down and grabbed the first sheet of paper and put it between my teeth so I could tear it in half. That should stop whatever it did. The other paper I stepped on and then twisted between my boots, tearing it as well.
I looked to the spell I hadn’t been able to stop.
The ball of blood, and dark energy above the now very dead man, exploded into a six foot tall humanoid monster with wings. It burned, waves of heat rolling off it. Eyes like hot coals shimmered, and dark skin cracked like a log on the fire, showing the embers within.
Now, I’d seen a demon before, but uh, this one looked a little stronger than any I’d ever seen. The heat, the presence of this thing, was intense.
I launched off a series of kicks at it, each blow sending sparks flying, and searing my boot. The demon lashed out with its clawed hands, once raking me across the chest, but missing the other times.
I disappeared again.
I could feel the blood run down my chest, hot against my skin. I couldn’t take many of those.
Sleuth let the suitjacket guy go, losing the gauntlet in the process. He grabbed the thin metal stand the gauntlet had been on, and heaved it at the demon. It crashed into him.
Using the distraction, I ducked into the curator's office, and grabbed my grappling hook. Looking around for something to use, I saw the statue of Sir Percival, a bronze knight with their sword held high. I had an idea.
Positioning the hook’s two grapples forward, instead of perpendicular, I pointed both barrels instinctively at the right height, and fired. The hooks punctured the demon’s wings.
I ran, hauling on the line with everything I had. The demon screeched, and beat its wings, coming closer to the statue but only just away from the sword.
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“A little help!” I yelled.
Sleuth grabbed my hand, and yanked down. The sword skewered out the back of the creature, and it writhed in agony, sending steaming black goo splattering everywhere.
I scooped the cattle prod thing, and shoved it at the demon’s leg, activating it. The weapon discharged, sending some kind of energy into it.
The demon exploded into embers and black ichor.
An entire second and a half went by. I fell to my knees. The pain searing through my chest was almost too much.
Sleuth grabbed me and pulled me standing.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’ll live,” I replied.
“What the hell was that?”
“I think it was exactly what it looked like,” I said.
He pulled my shirt open, buttons be damned.
Sleuth cursed. He never cursed. I pointedly did not look down at my chest.
Sleuth got my shirt off, and started tearing it into strips to bind my chest.
I missed my supersuit. At least I had found a way to smuggle in my belt.
“You let the guy with the gauntlet go,” I said.
“You prefer I let that monster dice you up?”
Sleuth wrapped the first strip around my chest, and tied it tight.
“Not really. Thanks. Get a good look at that suit guy while you were fighting him?”
“Mark Messina,” Sleuth replied, tying another strip just below the first, “brother to the guy we picked up in Kit City. Have to assume it’s Lady Lovely’s goons.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Can you grab the injector in my pants pocket?”
He did so.
“Just jam it in my leg,” I continued. “It’s a coagulant, and a white cell booster. Should help me not bleed out.”
I didn’t even feel the injector, too busy trying to stay conscious. He finished dressing my wound. I tried to keep us on track, but I was worried I was babbling.
“Okay, so who do we know that can summon demons?”
Sleuth ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, before answering.
“No idea. Magic villains aren’t my wheelhouse. How did it go looking for the armor?”
“Oh! I met Bronze Boy!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! It’s a duo. The janitor, who’s really the UK hero Twitch, and some other guy named Wendel. They’re trying to get it working again. Gave them my number.”
“You think we led the Villains here?” Sleuth asked.
“I don’t think so. But this didn’t seem like a super well planned action. Something must have forced their hand.”
I checked the messages on my phone. One from a new number. I texted back immediately.
I took a deep breath, and went over my plan. Then, we searched the first floor together, gathering any guests we could find, and led them to the Curator’s office. It was the most defensible place we had.
We found two security guards who’d been sliced up by knives. Still alive, but just barely. We dragged them back to the office. A woman with nurse training, Geraldine, immediately worked to get them stable with material from my belt.
At first, I was kicking myself for not getting the good bandages from my belt, but I was glad I hadn’t when Geraldine used just about all of it on the security guards.
The guard’s pistols we gave to two guests that promised they knew how to use them. Vicky, a National Guardsman, and Jon, a private investigator. I didn’t like giving civilians, or as Sleuth said ‘our neighbors,’ guns but there was a real possibility we could be outmatched. If the rest of the men with knives went all demony, we could be in trouble bigger than we could manage.
They were scared. A family, a gay couple and their two kids. One father tried to stay brave, while the other hid tears behind his hand. The daughter wasn’t even a teenager yet. The son was probably seven or eight. He tried to look brave too, but he hugged the stronger father’s arm, and buried his face in his chest. It made my blood boil. This was supposed to be a place to be brave, to be inspired. The fact that whoever did this had desecrated that, had made them…
I pushed the thoughts from my mind.
This was why we did it, to protect them.
I had a boot with some harebrained sorcerer’s name on it. My right one. That was my strongest kick.
Sleuth knelt down to the parents.
“You’re doing a great job. What’s his name?”
“Carson,” the brave one said.
“Well, you’re doing a great job keeping Carson safe. That’s your job. I need to go out, and do mine. As long as you stay behind this desk you should be just fine.” He turned to the scared dad. “And you, if you need to, you scoop your daughter up, and carry her through the front door when it’s time. I have Geraldine’s phone number. I am going to text her with updates. Once we know it’s safe to leave, I’ll text you right away.”
“Aren’t you a hero? Why would you give out your phone number?”
Sniffer Sleuth’s smile radiated warmth. I belted my belt around my waist.
“Because I’m a great judge of character,” he said. “And I just know Geraldine will do the right thing.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
He nodded, and we left the office.
“Sir Cuthbert has to be the Sorcerer, right?” I asked.
“Could be,” he said. “But I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”
I frowned and we climbed the steps to the second floor.
I checked my texts.
“Head back to the office,” I said. “Bronze Boy needs help.”
“Drat.”
I ran back to the entrance to the basement, to the door leading down. It had been ripped off its hinges.
Not good.
I heard the tattering of a machine gun. Not the pitter patter of a submachine gun, but something heavy. I took the steps two at a time, until I got to the last floor, then hopped the railing, and fell the last ten feet.
My feet hit the ground, I rolled, and managed not to break an ankle. Easy enough if you have the training, but I was already starting to get fatigued, and one mistake could be costly.
The machine gun fired again, crashing a staccato wave of sound through my chest. If you thought a gun was loud out in the open, wait til you hear it in an enclosed hallway. I waited, invisible at the door to the hall.
I really didn’t want to run in there. The scar on my back itched. You only had to get shot once to make you wary around guns. And I’d been shot twice. The only reason I didn’t have that second scar is because it was on my left arm. Had been on my left arm.
Sweat slicked my sides, beaded on my brow.
I was scared. I could admit that. I really didn’t want to go into that hall.
But I had no choice.
The gunfire stopped.
A heavy gun like that, the stoppage could be just a simple kink in the belt, or a more critical failure. Either way, I couldn’t wait. I had to move.
I slammed through the door.
On one side of the hall was a door that had been shredded into pulp, and beyond it, a woman with her hands pressed up against a red wall of energy. Twitch, with arcane symbols glowing. The wall was embedded with hundreds of small bits of metal. Who knew how long she could hold out.
On the other side of the hall, stood Atlas, in his slick new armor. It was all black, and even more armored than before, his helmet covering his face. Yeah, he probably didn’t want to be kicked in the head again. Oh, and he was hip-firing an M240.
I say ‘was,’ because it seemed to have some kind of receiver jam.
Between those two was me. And that jam could take anywhere from 2 seconds to 30 to clear.
I ran full speed, leapt, then kicked the receiver of the machine gun. It clattered to the floor.
Atlas cursed. I stepped back. He laughed.
“Oh, I’ve been waiting for another chance at you,” he chuckled, ripping at the straps that carried the ammo drums on his back. “See if I can’t take that other arm while I’m at it.”
“Bridgette!” I yelled, backing up. “Get in that armor!”
“I can’t!” she yelled back. “I’m still working on the barrier!”
“Figure it out!” I said.
She cursed. Atlas swung.