LotS/The Story/Because I'm the Wanderer/Everyone's a Superhero
Everyone's a Superhero
"What'll it be?"
"Whisky."
"What kind?"
"Anything without an 'e' in the word."
The barmaid's brow furrows. She turns round, revealing the slogan that dances across the back of her t-shirt in glowing letters ("Look, Love, But Don't Touch Unless You Tip Real Good!" -- accompanied by a downwards arrow), and inspects the rows of bottles arrayed along the length of the wall like a battalion of mismatched soldiers. Perhaps she's new to the job, or else used to serving nothing but cheap malt liquor. Either way, she seems lost as she tries to locate your desired beverage. But she's making an effort... She scrutinizes a collection of Neo-American bourbons, named after old states, long-dead presidents, or archaic firearms, and rejects each one in turn. They bear the insolent vowel that separates the Scottish product from those of other dominions.
"One shelf up, over on the left," you say.
Her eyes fall upon the dusty bottle. She gives a squeal of girlish satisfaction, perhaps delighted by the discovery that the fabled spelling does indeed exist, and celebrating this addition to her alcoholic understanding. Then she snatches it from the shelf and places it before you. There's a beaming smile across her face. She reminds you of a dog who's fetched something for her mistress and now wags her tail in anticipation of approval.
"Thanks."
Her smile widens. Your lips return it of their own accord, infected by a merriment that doesn't reach your eyes or mind. She reaches under the bar for a tumbler. You give the bottle an idle perusal while you wait.
According to the label, this Glenmorangie spent ten years acquiring and evolving its taste. Good old Scots... Still doing things the traditional way. An off-world distiller once moved to Scotland and set up a plant where they used artificial aging. He disappeared a week later. The rumor is that he was turned into haggis. You're not entirely certain what haggis is, but you can't imagine the process was pleasant.
From the look of the bottle, it may have spent twice as long gathering dust on the shelf as it did gathering flavor in the barrel. But it'll still work.
The bottom of the tumbler makes an unsatisfying tap against the faux wood surface of the bar. Soft glass. Designed to splat rather than shatter if you hit someone with it. This drinking hole must see a lot of fights. If one breaks out, you'll have to remember to use the bottle instead...
But if the glass is cheap, the measures aren't. The barmaid sloshes amber liquid into the tumbler until it's nearly full to the brim. Yeah, she's new all right. You make a mental note to tip high, to cover the real cost of the drink.
She trips away to serve someone at the other end of the bar, the clicking of her heels playing her off with their percussion -- leaving you alone with your scotch and your thoughts. The memory this reawakens isn't a welcome one. So you stare into the long mirror behind the bar for a distraction.
The first thing you see is a strange face. A woman, her gaze locked with yours. Only the reflection's position allows you to recognize the unfamiliar features as belonging to your own visage -- or at least the one you've adopted.
There are countless humans in the galaxy, trillions of distinct faces. Even the most famous or infamous should be able to slip into anonymity if they divorce themselves of the clothing and trappings for which they're known, and perhaps make a few minor changes -- a pair of cyberpunk goggles here, a splash of bubblegum pink hair dye there. But it's not a risk you're willing to take. There could be any number of people out hunting for you. So you're hiding behind a holographic disguise, staring into another countenance when you look in the mirror.
Maybe you should get something permanent done instead, have a surgeon slap a new identity on your skull. But first you'd have to find one you trusted well enough to let her put you to sleep and take lasers to your face.
You glug the sweet, oaky scotch. Your eyes remain fastened on your reflection's, as though challenging her to a drinking contest. Unsurprisingly, you both set an empty glass down at the exact same moment. The barmaid's heels click their way over. She flashes a smile in which sympathy, understanding, and amusement mingle, then refills the soft glass vessel with the same cornucopian generosity. You decide that you like her.
The rest of the dingy bar is spread out behind your dubious doppelganger. You focus your attention on its denizens as the second dose of whisky follows the first -- hoping to find entertainment in lieu of contemplation.
Two young women sit on either side of a small table, dressed in a way that would make prostitutes blush. The drinks before them -- one yellow, the other pink -- throb with a bright glow which brings to mind neon signs and toxic waste. Alcopops. Twice as strong as beer, as easy to drink as lemonade. Chemistry is the natural enemy of sobriety.
Judging by their laughter and high-pitched babble -- inane even by the standards of their demographic -- these aren't their first drinks of the night. The same thought has probably occurred to the two boys watching them from a nearby table, pondering whether to make their move now or wait until further inebriation will make them seem more handsome and charming.
Teenage courtship rituals... You direct your gaze elsewhere, leaving them to their future of drunken romance and hung-over regret.
You're just in time to see a man get out of a booth, leaving a weeping woman in his wake. His stride is firm and fast. Muscles ripple under his dark flesh. A weapon bulges beneath his shirt. He's a fighter -- primal strength and deadliness radiate from him, tens of thousands of years of evolution warning the universe at large to keep its distance. And yet there's moisture at the corners of his eyes.
The woman cries something out, but it's made unintelligible by the tears which lacerate her thick makeup -- turned into a banshee's wordless wail. Her face slumps onto the table, nestled in her arms, and she shudders with the force of her sobs.
He keeps walking. By the time he reaches the door, a single tear has rolled down his cheek, leaving a glistening wound. Wherever he's going, neither of them believes he's coming back.
You drain your glass. This time the barmaid's heels are silent -- muffled by your thoughts.
"You sure, honey?" She raises the bottle and her eyebrows.
You nod. The amber pours.
"Not seen you around here before. New in town?"
"Just passing through."
"Figures. We don't get a lot of visitors in New Culverton. Except wannabe vigilantes, or supervillains trying to get in on the action. And most of both end up dead in a couple of days. Where you heading?"
"Nowhere in particular. But my ship needed fuel, and I needed a stiff drink. This seemed as good a place as any."
The barmaid waits for a few seconds. When you don't offer any further conversation, she clicks away in search of drinks to replenish.
You take another glug. This Glenmorangie deserves to be treated as a sipping whisky. But you're in the mood for gulping. As the sweet burn works its way down your throat, you return to the looking glass -- seeking interest in the mirrored world beyond.
This time you find something more pleasant than the drunken teenagers (who're now sharing the same booth, kissing and fondling with the clumsiness of drink and desperation), or the crying woman.
There's a group of men sat around a collection of pushed-together tables, the surfaces of which are littered with drained glasses -- the debris of a drinking session that must have lasted for some hours, perhaps ever since they left work for the day. Their laughter and chatter are rough and rugged, sometimes spilling into indecency. When the barmaid comes near she has to field catcalls, propositions both matrimonial and sinful, and slap away groping hands. She does this all with a pleasant laugh and a winning smile that manages to encourage without exacerbating.
The easy camaraderie is enjoyable in spite of its churlishness. You find yourself drinking the spectacle as much as the scotch, taking in the jokes and banter with the sponge-like absorbency of the solitary drinker.
The tumbler is emptied twice, but slower than before. You're savoring instead of glugging, allowing human interaction -- albeit from the perspective of an onlooker rather than a participant -- to supplement the alcohol. Sobriety, or as near to it as a woman with a few scotches in her system can claim to be, is tolerable enough with such distractions.
You're so engrossed in your voyeurism that you don't fully notice the wave of silence washing through the bar until it submerges the men you're observing. First the words and laughs die in the throats of the ones facing towards the door. Their companions follow suit the moment they turn around to see what the first lot saw.
She appears in the mirror first. A young woman, no more than eighteen from the look of her, with a blonde hair and a low-cut top. Pretty, but not good-looking or voluptuous enough to have quietened an entire bar. Perhaps she's some sort of celebrity, a singer or an actress -- part of the vast swath of interstellar pop culture which exists beyond your knowledge or concern. No... There's anger on some of the faces in the mirror. Derision. Disgust.
When you study the woman in the flesh, glimpse the right side of her face instead of the reflection of the left, you understand. There's a semi-perm tattoo on her cheek -- the kind you heat up, slap on your skin, and have to remove with a special chem. From its cheap sheen and bright colors, it's new. Probably applied tonight. And it depicts the Centurian Collective's emblem.
Your fingers tighten around the tumbler, indenting its soft glass.
You saw newscasts about this kind of thing while you were aboard the Silver Shadow. Centurian Pride, they called it. After the Collective's defeat in the war, many of its citizens around the galaxy decided to start displaying their colors. Some of them were interviewed, either crying about the deaths of loved ones and talking about shared grief or else screaming about solidarity and justice.
There's a soft murmur that increases in volume and variety as conversations pick up again. People are returning their attention to drinks or friends. As far as they're concerned, the girl and her tattoo are only of passing interest. Varlec was a neutral world in the conflict -- a collection of autonomous settlements such as New Culverton that had neither the capacity to commit military forces nor the inclination to offer support. To most of the bar's patrons, the battles and the fate of the Centurians were just things viewed on a screen or read in a holo-paper, no different from soap operas, celebrity gossip, or the plight of some unpronounceable species of quadruped on an inconsequential backwater world.
You avert your gaze, throwing your attention back at the mirror. Just a stupid kid. Not worth starting anything over... You swallow a glassful of whisky. The flavors pass you by, leaving only a quick burn.
The group of reflected men, who provided such entertainment just a moment before, haven't returned to their light banter and merriment. One of them is glaring at the girl and muttering to the others in a low voice. Your aural implant relays a torrent of slurred vitriol from the movement of his lips.
"What'll it be, honey?" the barmaid asks.
Her eyes flick between the girl and the men. She's noticed it too. The sign of impending trouble.
"Tyger, Tyger." The Prider says the brand name as though it were a challenge. Her eyes are practically smoldering.
She seems disappointed when the barmaid sets a cylindrical bottle before her, containing a bright orange liquid marred by oily black stripes. Yes... She wanted to be refused service, so she could make a fuss. You've seen her type before. Young, stupid activist out looking for a reason to throw her cause in someone's face. The kind that keeps going until they get what they want or get punched in the face -- which sometimes amounts to the same thing.
The men are leaning in close to each other, their mannerisms reeking of collaboration and conspiracy. The ringleader's face is hidden by someone's shoulder now, concealing his words.
"Honey, you want to be careful-" the barmaid begins.
The Prider glares at her. If looks could kill, the ranks of bottles would be festooned with the barmaid's innards. She takes the hint, stops talking, and clicks away. The Prider takes a long drink of her Tyger, Tyger, as if in celebration of a victory or as a taunt. When she sets it back down, the sloshing black stripes reassert themselves into the 'fearful symmetry' proclaimed in the ads.
Her eyes meet yours in the mirror.
"What're you looking at?" she asks.
In your mind's eye you lunge over, grab her by her blonde hair, and smash her face against the bar until the tattoo is drowned in blood. In reality you look away, leaving her to take another celebratory drink at the thought that she's stared you down.
"Oi, Cent-bitch!"
The men are on their feet now. The dark-haired ringleader calls out again.
"Your lot killed my cousin!"
"Yeah? And both my parents were killed guarding Zhen Bao," she replies, without turning round. "Screw you."
The man's eyes blaze. Red lights flicker at his wrists and shoulders. You can't tell if they're genuine cybernetic implants or just fashion statements. But either way, the Prider's in for it now...
The men march towards the bar, knocking chairs out of their way, bumping against tables and sending glasses tumbling to the floor -- where they make a series of anticlimactic splats. The girl keeps drinking. As much as you hate her, you can't help admiring her guts.
But even if she's nonchalant about her impending homicide, the establishment isn't. Two big heaps of flesh lumber out from a darkened corner. They stop between the men and the Prider, their muscles undulating like boulders shifting through treacle. The bar's Snuuth bouncers.
"Time to go, boys," one of them says. His tone is friendly, but when he cracks his knuckles it sounds like a skull being smashed open. An inauspicious omen for anyone who's thinking of starting trouble.
There are only two bouncers. The men have them outnumbered three to one. But the Snuuth are big. And if this lot are regulars, they'll want to drink here again. So the ringleader raises his hands in a palms-out gesture of acquiescence.
"Fine! Don't wanna drink in the same bar as a Collective whore anyway!"
His friends echo that sentiment as they bustle towards the door. The bouncers bring up the rear, escorting them from the premises.
The girl finishes her drink with a sharp, flourishing upturn of the bottle. She gestures for another before the last drop has slipped into her mouth, the empty cylinder still extending straight up from her face as though she were performing a balancing trick.
A fresh Tyger, Tyger is placed in front of her. Your tumbler is refilled.
The two of you drink.
After a few gulps of her burning bright, symmetrical beverage, she scans the mirror -- taking in the entirety of the bar. From the snort she makes, it doesn't please her. Of course not... With those men gone, there's no one left to hassle her. No chance for her to play the aggrieved martyr, and take a kicking for her allegiance. No bruises to show off when she meets with other Priders.
"We may've lost the war," she says, her raised voice cutting through the conversations floating behind her, "but those Sian bastards don't have their Emperor anymore, do they? Or their damn Princess! Let 'em celebrate the win in hell!"
The tumbler crumples in your grasp. Whisky sloshes over your hand like spilled blood.
She gazes around, making eye contact with everyone who can be bothered looking in her direction. But none of them take the bait. No one's interested. So she snorts again, polishes off her drink, swipes her credits to settle her tab, and heads out the door.
You settle up as well. Then you make for the exit, fists clenched at your sides.
Your Enemy's Keeper
The night air is an icy whisper across your face, after the warmth of the bar and the fire of the scotch. It slashes sobriety into your mind like the cut of a cold blade. But it doesn't cool your anger.
No sign of her on the street, in either direction. Where is she?
The universe answers with a scream. A girl's scream. Followed by jeers and laughter, all male.
They came from the alleyway that separates the bar from the neighboring pawn shop, dividing the place where the desperate gain their credits from the one they fritter them away in.
There, illuminated by the gaudy glow of purple and cyan lights... The men from the bar. And the Prider. Five of them are standing back, blocking the alley's mouth, cheering and hollering like the crowd at a Twisted Steel event. The sixth, their ringleader, has the girl by the throat. She's pressed up against the wall, her eyes wide and unblinking -- the frozen stare of prey looking upon a predator. Spluttered squeals slip from her mouth. Her hands press and claw at the wall behind her, as though hoping to find some form of escape there.
"This is for my cousin, Centi!" he hisses.
His free hand reaches down towards his belt.
You turn and walk away. The Prider was looking for trouble, and she found it. You'll leave her to her fate, and the men to their sport.
"Rhapsody!..."
The voice brings you to a halt.
"Rhapsody!! You can't let them do this!"
It's her voice. Stronger than soul, closer than conscience. The voice which commanded your obedience when it came from living lips, and still overpowers you even from memory and imagination.
"Rhapsody!!"
You turn back, towards the terrified girl, the leering onlookers, and the man struggling to work his belt buckle one-handed.
The people blocking the alley cry out in protest when you shove your way past. You ignore them and keep going, until you're close enough to see the spittle on the ringleader's lips.
"Get off her!"
There's fury in your words. It isn't just directed at him, loathsome as he is. You're angry at the Prider for causing all this trouble, enraged that you have to intervene to help a girl with a goddamn Centurian Collective tattoo stamped on her face. But he doesn't know that. So the anger will show him that you're serious, that he'd damn well better listen if he knows what's good for him...
He eyes you up and down.
"What's your problem? You some kind of Centi-lover?"
The other men are moving behind you, as subtle and stealthy as a gang of drunken rhinos.
"I hate the Centurians more than you could possibly imagine. But I'm not going to let you do that."
They're closer now, almost in striking distance.
"Piss off!" A blob of spittle punctuates his sentence. It splats against your cheek.
Well, you gave them a chance...
High-Kicking Heroine
A punch glances off the side of your face, powered by intoxicated enthusiasm but ruined by the lousy balance of tipsy legs. When you punch back, your feet and thighs lend force instead of stealing it. Knuckles hit the solar plexus. A drunken fool hits the ground.
Scotch is an unreliable ally in combat. But you could drink Scotland dry, along with the entire distillery world of Argyll III, and still be able to handle these punks.
You whirl round, intercepting a kicking leg with your elbow and sending the kicker spinning. Circular motion doesn't agree with him, or at least not with the contents of his stomach. When he falls onto his hands and knees, they make their colorful escape. You shuffle away from him, leaving him to puke a rainbow where he won't trip you up.
If you wanted to, you could have pulled your sidearm and put a shot in each of their heads. But you're not killing anyone for a Centurian. So you pick your blows as carefully as whisky and circumstance allow. You want them to walk away from this one.
The ringleader comes at you next. He's less drunk than the others. Either that, or he can handle his liquor better. He even has the presence of mind to feint with his left before throwing his right in a crisp, sharp cross. The man knows how to box. But the Sian Empire doesn't train its people to lose street fights.
Your forearm parry might have come out of a textbook. Even after all these years, hour upon hour of martial drills have left their imprint. Your arm rotates, hitting his with first one side and then the other -- distributing the impact between both of your bones. A rigid, stylized, traditional block. The kind taught more as a matter of form, as part of kata, than for its practicality. It should be ineffective against a decent boxer. But you're fast, your reflexes those of an ace pilot.
If the block came from a textbook, the riposte comes from the gutter -- a headbutt that sends the top of your skull crashing into the point of his jaw. He collapses forward. You shove him away, hooking his leg with yours as he goes. He falls on his butt, hard.
The others are already stumbling and staggering towards the mouth of the alley, like a pack of zombies chasing after a victim. They've had enough.
Their leader stares up at you, his hands pressed against his chin as though they're all that's keeping the mandible bone attached to the rest of his head. His eyes are sharp and shocked.
"You! Didn't know was you! Sorry! Sorry! Have her! Yours! All yours!"
He scrambles to his feet.
"All yours!" he repeats, with almost comic earnestness.
Then he runs after the others.
"You!" This time it's the Prider who fires the second-person pronoun at you. She's leaning against the wall, as though still pinned there by her assailant's grasp. Her eyes are just as wide as before. But the fear is gone. "You bitch!"
It's then that you tilt your gaze downwards. The shape of your nose is remarkably familiar. Not at all like the one you were wearing earlier tonight...
You sigh. Maybe it was the headbutt that messed up your holographic disguise.
"You bitch!" she shrieks. "You bitch!"
The woman's face twitches. It makes her seem like a malfunctioning robot, her computerized brain locked into a subroutine -- unable to do anything other than spit out the same words again and again.
Then something clicks. Her mind moves on, grasping its next thought. Her eyes flash.
She lunges at you, shrieking and clawing.
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
The backhand you give her is light. Closer to a slap than a punch. But it takes her in the side of the face, right on the Centurian tattoo, and knocks her clean off her feet. She doesn't brace herself well for the fall. Her forehead thuds against the ground. A soft groan and a trickle of blood emerge from under a messy wave of blonde hair.
You sigh. Just a stupid kid... You need to make sure she's okay...
That thought hits you, and you crouch down beside her. Then something else hits you.
Sprawled on the ground. Not good. Moved out of instinct. Slipped some of the blow. Still hit hard. With what? Feels like a battering ram. Warm liquid in mouth. Blood. Great...
"Stay down, creep!"
A woman's voice... Familiar? Head throbbing, but still... Recognize it.
You slip into a roll. Another maneuver made natural by years of training. The smooth, instinctive motion gives you clearance, moving you further away from your attacker. And it helps you clear your head. When you rise in a fighting stance, arms ready to block and counterattack, your mind is focused once more.
"You!"
That pronoun, fired at you again. It's been one of those days...
The woman stands above the groaning Prider like a sentinel, her chestnut hair swaying in time with the movements of her lithe combat stance -- the weight shifting from leg to leg, threatening to throw her into a myriad different forms of attack or defense. There's a light blue glow around each of her boots. And you know they're not just a fashion statement. Nor is energy-discharging footwear the most dangerous element of those long legs...
For the third time tonight, you stare into eyes that gleam with recognition. But this time there's no shock. There's only steely resolve. Unflinching determination. Righteous anger.
"From interstellar war crimes to beating up young girls in alleyways?" she asks. "How the malevolent have fallen."
"Save the superhero babble, Mech-Leg. There aren't any cameras around, and I'm not in the mood."
"You're wanted for questioning by the Union of Human Worlds. Come quietly, and I won't give you the beating you deserve for what you did here."
"She started it..."
"Princess Illaria would be ashamed of what you've become."
"Damn it, Leg! I told you -- I'm not in the mood. Knock off the golden age crap! Take that girl to the hospital, or whatever stupid super-secret clubhouse you guys have, and stay out of my way. I've had enough of this town."
You storm off towards the street. But you don't get far.
Movement flashes at the corner of your eye, where she's standing. You don't look that way though. You know what this one can do, how she fights... Instead you look up.
There she is, at the apex of a jump that would be impossible for human muscle alone -- launched there by the power of her cybernetic legs -- slipping into a diving kick that looks as if it could take your head clean off.
The Leg and the Fist
Her boots flash through the air, each deft kick so swift it seems as if a hundred trailing afterimages are burned into your vision -- a luminous chronicle of the entire fight, fading and evolving every second.
You don't try to block them. Her augmented legs are like metal bars. And now that she knows whom she's up against, Mech-Leg isn't holding anything back. She understands what you're capable of. If you put a forearm in front of one of those kicks, you might need a surgeon to stitch it back on again.
So you dodge, slipping away from the burning barrage -- wishing that you hadn't drunk so much.
A high kick arcs round at your face, threatening to scramble your features so badly that you'll never need a disguise again. You duck under it, throw your arms against the back of the leg. Classic jujitsu: use her momentum against her. Put her off balance. But they didn't have to deal with cybernetic enhancements in feudal Japan...
The leg she's standing on doesn't give way at all. It might as well belong to a steel sculpture. Instead the raised one sweeps round in a circle, thwarting your technique, and cleaves down at the top of your skull in an axe kick. You move aside to let her descending heel flash past you, ready to capitalize and slip a punch through her guard. It doesn't work out as planned.
Her heel stops at shoulder-height, making a mockery of momentum, and her left leg chooses this moment to relinquish its seemingly unbreakable hold on the ground. She twists in mid-air, and thrusts her left foot at your chest.
It isn't a powerful blow, relatively speaking. From that position, she can't throw her full force behind it. But that's cold comfort as you slam into the wall. Your ribs have been through a lot. They remind you of this with a burst of pain that seems to dredge up a host of unwelcome memories.
That's it... You didn't really want to hurt her, but...
As the resolution crystalizes in your mind, and you move away from the wall to engage Mech-Leg again, things go from bad to worse.
This time you're ready, at least. You knew he might show up. He doesn't get to blindside you like she did.
When Tech-Fist drops down from the pawn shop roof, his gauntleted fist drives into the ground where you were standing a split-second before. The crunch, and the network of little fractures that radiate across the concrete like messy wounds, give you ample reason to be glad of that.
The science-nerd-turned-vigilante rises, his armored hand apparently none the worse for having been shoved a couple of inches through the ground.
"You!"
"The next person who says that is getting shot in the face. Yes, it's me. @PLAYERNAME. Now, if you'll just explain to your wife here that-"
"I caught him attacking a young girl."
Tech-Fist's eyes narrow.
"For the last time, she..."
You gesture towards where the Prider lay. But there's only a little rivulet of blood there now. She can't have been that badly hurt after all.
"...started it."
"What happened to you, Rhapsody?" He jabs an accusing finger in your direction. The gesture would seem more impressive if you didn't know that he practices it in front of the mirror. "You were a hero! Children looked up to you! And now you're a fugitive from justice, a low-life criminal, a-"
His sentence ends with a spurt of blood. You've heard enough of this crap...
Over Tall Buildings...
Within five seconds, it's clear that you're in trouble.
Tech-Fist and Mech-Leg are used to fighting crime together. They complement one another perfectly, each creating openings for the other, neither interfering with their partner's lines of attack.
Her flashing kicks and his thunderous punches drive you around the alleyway in a ridiculous dance. You can't even muster a good counterattack. The moment one of them leaves themselves open, the other makes sure you can't take advantage.
You could draw your pistol... Go for non-lethal targets...
The thought of shooting at former friends is repulsive. But as you slip another punch that would have fractured your jaw, dart back from one more hook kick, it starts to seem more palatable...
A loud boom bellows through the night, echoing across the city like a peal of angry thunder. The ground shudders underfoot. It's as though the heavens are passing judgment on your thoughts.
The crime-fighting spouses pause in mid-strike -- her right leg raised and chambered, his computerized first drawn back for a punch.
"That was an expl-" you begin.
Tech-Fist raises his palm to silence you. He taps one of the buttons on his eponymous gauntlet. A holographic image pops into existence. It's a cartoon boxing glove, replete with big round eyes and a broad mouth.
"Fisto, what just happened?"
"Fisto?" you ask. "Really?"
"The New Culverton Bank is under attack!" the boxing glove exclaims, in a robotic voice that seems like it should belong to an archaic computer. "It appears to be the work of the Hat!"
"The Hat?" You roll your eyes. "Does anyone in this town have a grown-up name?"
The two vigilantes frown at you.
"The Hat's a dangerous criminal mastermind," Mech-Leg says.
"We don't have time to deal with you, Rhapsody," Tech-Fist says. "Consider yourself lucky."
The two of them run towards the wall of the pawn shop. She launches herself high into the air, touching down on its roof. He follows a moment later, firing some kind of grappling hook from his gauntlet that latches on and draws him up.
They disappear from sight.
Now would be a good time to get back to your ship. But if they're about to go into danger... Tech-Fist fought alongside you in the liberation of Sian. Even after this, you can't desert him.
You sigh, and look around for a fire escape.
By the time you get up there, the crime-fighting couple are some distance away. They're good at this. But you've had a little experience with rooftop parkour yourself...
Malevolent Millinery
Superheroes and villains are onto something with their predilection for rooftop travel.
The buildings in this part of New Culverton might almost have been designed to give vigilantes, criminals, or traceurs a quick route across the city -- sparing them the monotony of walking the streets like a normal person.
Sprinting across roofs, leaping over narrow alleyways, you follow Tech-Fist and Mech-Leg as they work their way across the city they protect. She's no role model. With her augmented legs, she could easily take a route you'd never be able to follow. But the Fist's legs are no more adept at jumping than yours. Anywhere he can go, so can you.
Only a handful of gaps provide anything like a challenge, and give you that feeling of impending doom as your body passes over a stretch of distant concrete made impossibly vast and seemingly unconquerable by panicked perception. You handle them just fine in spite of your qualms, without plunging to an embarrassing death by misadventure and painting the ground with foolish brains. The thrill it sends through your body is exhilarating.
Even if the athletic figures of your former allies, and more recent adversaries, weren't ahead to guide you, the destination would be impossible to miss. A twisting plume of black smoke rises over the city, a monument to the audacious crime. Robbing a bank... These days most people prefer to hack into systems for that kind of thing -- to simply move credits around on holographic displays, if they possess the skill to work such electronic espionage with impunity. Who'd think it was a good idea to blow a vault open and try to escape with inconvenient piles of hard credits instead?
But this is New Culverton, where crime is as much a hobby and a form of art as it is a way of making a dishonest living.
As you near the billowing black pillar, hear the shouts and sirens that provide orchestral accompaniment to the business of bank robbery, the Leg and the Fist disappear -- dropping down into the street below. It's several moments before you reach the edge of that last building. When you do, the scene which greets you is... ridiculous.
Amid the flame and smoke that caper in destructive triumph around the bank's damaged wall, the two vigilantes are doing battle with the miscreants you assume must be responsible -- more of whom are pouring out of the building each moment. There are men and women, humans and assorted aliens, all wearing the same absurd outfit: long magenta coats and top hats. It reminds you more of a circus than a crime scene.
But the violence is serious enough. Tech-Fist and Mech-Leg are laying into the identically-dressed criminals with brutal punches and kicks, as the gang swarms around them like a pack of garish wolves.
You watch the raging combat as you clamber down the building, using its deep window recesses as stepping stones to the street. At least those stupid costumes will let you know which people to beat up.
The Hat
Your uppercut hits the woman so hard that she practically backflips before collapsing in the street -- a big purple puddle in her voluminous coat. And yet her hat remains in place on her unconscious head.
"What're you doing here?" Mech-Leg asks, glaring.
"Behind you," you say.
Her glare remains unbroken as her right leg swings upwards, the limb perfectly straight -- as though she intended to axe kick you again. Instead, the toe of her boot reaches over her shoulder and meets the face of the man who was coming up behind her. His nose explodes. He falls in the street. But once again, his hat stays on with laudable tenacity.
"This isn't your fight," Tech-Fist says.
He's holding one of the purple-hatted men in a headlock, throwing punches into the poor sap's face in time with his words.
"And freeing Sian wasn't yours. But you came anyway."
He frowns, and tosses the groaning criminal aside.
"If you're still here when we're done, I'm taking you in along with them."
With that, he turns round and charges at a hatted Snuuth -- throwing a shovel hook into his abdomen that seems to deflate the whole of the alien's flabby body.
Only half the gang are left standing. The rest are strewn around in various stages of injury and consciousness, writhing in pain or sleeping the sleep of the unjust. Fist and Leg can take it from here. These top-hatted jokers may keep them occupied for a while longer, but they don't seem like much of a threat now.
You should leave, before you have to go another round with the superheroes...
Something glimmers amid the smoke, drawing your eye and derailing your train of thought. The golden glimmer becomes stronger, supplemented by a hint of chrome and throbbing pinkness.
A hover pallet rises up, breaking free from the entangling darkness like a bird seeking freedom. It's laden down with a big pile of metal. So this is what happened to the loot...
The hard credits stop a dozen feet above the ground and float there, as though taunting those brawling in the street below -- a fabulous prize awaiting the victor of the struggle. No... It's not for them. It's for him.
A man emerges from the smoke, detaches himself from its grey-black folds as if he were part of it, his ashen coat and dark hat formed from the fruits of his devastation. Orange orbs glow from a purple mask so tight around his features that it resembles paint rather than fabric. A cane sways in his hand, conducting an invisible orchestra.
You're no expert on supervillainy. But unless the costume shop just ran out of purple coats and hats, you have a sneaking suspicion that this is the gang's leader. The so-called Hat.
The Hat's grin splits the lower half of his mask like a shark's maw. Tech-Fist and Mech-Leg are busy fighting his minions. They haven't even noticed him yet. He can walk away, escape with his haul. But he pauses, as though in contemplation. Then he angles his cane, aiming the knob towards the whirling melee. A bright blue light fills it, crackling like lightning.
You run. One of the purple goons staggers into your path, reeling from a gauntleted punch. Your shoulder hits him. He goes flying. You leap, arms outstretched.
"Hey!" Mech-Leg yells.
But your tackle comes from behind. She doesn't have a chance to lock her cybernetic legs and resist the impact. The two of you crash down in the street, at the same instant that a beam of bright azure energy sears overhead. It passes through the place where she was standing, strikes one of the goons in the chest, and blasts him across the street.
Mech-Leg shrugs you off and jumps to her feet. Or at least one foot -- the other lashes out before even touching down, and takes a gang member in the chest. You get up as well, grabbing a handful of purple lapel on your way and yanking its owner's face into an elbow smash.
"You'll have to forgive me," the Hat says. His voice is high, tittering. "That wasn't part of my ingenious scheme, but I simply couldn't resist. I've always thought that Mech-Leg would be better off without a head. And perhaps stuffed inside a refrigerator... Maybe that would finally pull the rod out of Tech-Fist's butt and spice things up around here!"
"I'd tell you that you're crazy," you reply, "but I don't think that's news to anyone who calls himself 'the Hat' and color-coordinates his henchmen."
"Guilty!" he trills. "Who's the new sidekick, Techy? I really must keep track of the people in your little crime-fighting circle, in case I ever want to arrange a death in the family!"
"She's not my sidekick!"
"I'm not his sidekick!"
The simultaneous statements become a chorus. The Hat giggles. Then he gazes at you with fresh intensity.
"Wait..." he says. His eyes widen, and his voice is different now -- deeper, stripped of its ridiculous flamboyance. "You!"
"Big mistake..." you reply.
You reach for your pistol.
Twin beams zap across the street, azure lances fired from the Hat's cane and his chunky blaster.
Mech-Leg jumps, letting the searing blasts pass below, and performs an elegant aerial flip that lands her right next to him. He turns. She kicks. His arm flies upwards, propelled by her boot. His blaster fires backwards over his shoulder as he stumbles, before it falls from his hand -- sending a blazing beam straight at the hover pallet.
There's a sharp fizz and crackle as electronic systems fry. The platform lurches and tilts, raining hard credits down to clink and clatter in the street below.
"Damn it!" the Hat cries. Again the camp accent is gone from his voice.
He brings his cane around, trying to shoot Mech-Leg at pointblank range. But you shoot first. The cane and a few fingers are scattered on the ground. He stares at the cauterized stumps on his hand as he screams.
Tech-Fist strides over to him. The villain cringes. But when the vigilante's gauntlet comes up, it isn't to punch. Instead it wags an admonishing finger.
"Who are you? You're not the Hat! Your voice is different."
"Screw you, man!"
"Wrong answer."
Some married couples finish each other's sentences. Others finish each other's happiness. As for Tech-Fist and Mech-Leg... Well, they finish each other's moves.
He punches. She drops, spins, and sweeps. Her boot hits the back of the Hat's leg at the exact same moment his computerized fist smashes into the villain's jaw. The criminal goes down fast and hard.
"Screw... Screw... You..."
His head slumps to the side.
Tech-Fist crouches and yanks at the man's mask. There's a soft, almost fleshy noise as it tears away. The eponymous hat stays in place, however.
You walk over, curious to see what he looks like unmasked. This time it's your turn to have your eyes widen in recognition. Beneath the villainous disguise is a dark face. It's the black man from the bar -- the one who left his girlfriend weeping on the table.
"This isn't the Hat," Tech-Fist says, glancing up at you. "The real Hat's white."
You shrug.
"If the hat fits..."
He and Mech-Leg frown. Apparently only superheroes and villains get to make cheesy comments around here...
The vigilante gets to his feet. His expression becomes somber as he stares into your eyes.
"I should take you down. But after this, we owe you."
"So...?"
"So get off my planet."
"Fair enough."
You turn and walk away.