- Coffee for two — $31.10
- Grocery Restock — $41.02
- Fuel for Van — $119.14
- Fox Chemical capsule replacement — $514.21
- Genos Motorcycles 150cc Model W — $1,548.34
- Fox Grappling System replacement — $5,054.89
- Fox Cybernetic Prosthetic replacement — $80,004.01
Total bi-weekly expenses: $87,194.57
Special note: While the Fox Foundation is here to support your efforts, the endowment does not possess infinite liquid cashflow. Please be more careful with operational equipment while on mission. As for the legal fees we would typically incur based on your rather creative efforts at the museum, we have denied all involvement, and have successfully escaped scrutiny. So, there is that at least. -K
Red Fox Action Log 48 cont:
Runes swirled around the two armored figures. Bronze Boy held the Black Knight by the shoulders as they both knelt, bent into each other. Bronze Boy had been run through, the other with his hands on the sword that jut through her back.
Look, I wish I could explain it as something other than just some kind of weird magic bullshit that was happening. Light, the kind that they had been using just moments before but brighter, more concrete and connected to a flurry of magic runes, blasted off in four directions, tearing through the roof and floor.
Wendel frantically hurled magic runes at the swirling vortex, but nothing seemed to work. I ran, slid under a passing beam of light, then clasped him on the shoulder.
“You need to get out of here!” I yelled over the wind and the crunching sound of the crumbling building.
“I’m the only one that can stop this!” he yelled.
“What the hell is that?”
“They’ve created a helixing curse flux! The energies are so potent that neither can fully absorb the other. In moments, both sword and armor will be obliterated!
“But she’s in the armor! That would kill her!”
“I know! So shut up, and let me fix this!”
He threw a spectral chain into the vortex, holding on with both hands. It caught. Then it began pulling him in.
“You idiot!"
“I have to slow the arcane reaction!” he yelled above the thrumming beams of power. “Maybe it’ll disperse!”
He turned, hauling the chain over his shoulder, and tried to walk against it to little avail.
I didn’t know what to do. My Fox Instinct thrummed with danger, but I couldn’t do anything.
Then, the beam to Wendel’s left, exactly in his blind spot, began to creep ever closer. In moments, it would burn him alive just as it did the walls.
“Behind you!” I yelled.
He didn’t budge, kept pulling on the chain, oblivious to all outside his efforts. I had to do something. What, I didn’t know. Maybe I could knock him over. But the vortex was slowing. He was doing it! And besides, what if interrupting him now sent the vortex spinning off into the unknown with Bronze Boy?
I had to divert the beam. I had to keep him safe.
How?
My hands tightened on the gem in my pocket. Could I use it? Amulet had. And the Gem Brigade were just regular girls when they were chosen.
But I wasn’t a woman. But then again, neither was Shadegem. And he’d found some way to tap into the Emotional Gemfield.
Here goes nothing.
I drew the gem, and plucked the string of Instinct in my chest. I became invisible. If I tried to use the gem at the same time as my Instinct, maybe I could find some way to tie them together, making it to where if I drew on one source, I drew on both.
I wasn’t afraid. I couldn’t be afraid. I didn’t have space in my heart for it. Just hope. Just need. Just what I must do thrumming through my whole body.
I threw myself into the beam, hand outstretched.
When the beam hit my hand, it seared white hot, burning into my flesh. I could smell it. The beam sucked me in, pulled me into it so that it passed through my chest. I looked down. I was no longer invisible.
I was translucent.
And the beam didn’t pass through my back. It passed through my side.
I was a prism. I was pure energy.
I heard Wendel scream, yanking on the chain with all he had.
Then the beams disappeared. And so did the chain. And so did the vortex.
I fell to my knees.
Wendel ran to Bronze Boy.
Bronze Boy pulled the sword from her chest. Sir Cuthbert lay on the ground, steaming.
I looked down at myself. I was the same as I had been. But better. My chest itched, but it hardly hurt. My hand throbbed.
I turned my hand over and saw the gem — no longer dark, no longer tinged with purple — but clear like a diamond, embedded in my palm.
I glanced up at Bronze Boy, ran to her. Wendel was already trying to get her out of the armor.
“We have to stop the bleeding,” he said, tearing at her helmet. “Just need to get at the latch on the neck.”
He removed the helm. It was empty. There was no face.
Wendel threw the mask aside and fell back, landing on his butt.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
“What’s wrong?” I asked lamely. “Where is she?”
Then I knew. I knew what had happened.
I took the helm and placed it back where it had been. Bronze Boy waved my hands off and latched the helmet back on herself.
“I’m okay,” Bronze Boy said, standing. “I feel fine. What’s wrong?”
She wasn’t in the armor anymore. She was the armor.
Red Fox Action Log 49:
Perhaps overeager for an excuse to be out of the safehouse, I may have arrived a bit too early. We’d rescheduled to give ourselves some time to recover after the fight, so I had had nearly a week to stew on this meeting. She’d be here in half an hour — if she was on time.
My new prosthetic was almost as sophisticated as the one I’d left at the museum. It attached to my shoulder and strapped around my chest. A wire ran to the neural transmitter glued to my scalp. I had almost full range of motion. Just no fingers. The hook at the end was bifurcated, and I could open or pinch it. This was faster than fingers, and so paradoxically felt more natural to me.
Winter had not quite made herself known, but the wind heralded her arrival. Scarves wrapped tight around throats, and folks huddled into their coats as they rushed from one heated door to another. Not a great day to sit outside, but I wanted to see her coming.
I pulled off the little fingerless glove I wore with my hook, and took a glance at the gem. Maybe only two centimeters long and one wide, it seemed both huge and also just a tiny thing. What could I do with this? And also, was I even human still?
I looked at the skin of my hand and arm, as I‘d done countless times since the fight, and it really did seem like my skin. I rubbed the place where it met the gem with my hook. But it couldn’t be, could it? I’d become something more, something luminous. But then again, I still had all the same bodily functions and aches I had previously. I was still me, with all the pain, and all the frailty.
Is this how she felt, all the time?
A set of TVs in the window across the street played an interview with Wendel. Since Sir Cuthbert was in jail, along with Amulet and Atlas, he was sort of the only guy around to talk about the incident at the museum with any authority. At the moment, he was harping on about the danger the cleanup posed. Already, some of the work crew had absconded with ‘souvenirs,’ things they should not have.
Who knew how many more Supervillains could spawn just from this one moment.
Sometimes my chosen profession was just two steps forward, and one back.
But personally, I’d hit a big step forward. Maybe I could eventually learn to control my new powers such that I could go toe-to-toe with Bunny.
It took me longer with the hook, but eventually I pulled my glove back over my hand.
My mind churned with thoughts, and I ordered two more teas. The server was just setting it on the table, as Gem Blade walked up.
Her cheeks shone red against the wind, but the light sent the fire in her hair alight as it streamed behind her in two long pigtails. Thick black stockings were revealed sandwiched between her calf high boots and black skirt, the same color as her wool jacket. The whole black on black ensemble made her stand out starkly against the light grey sidewalk.
It was a much more somber outfit than I was used to seeing her wear, but for the fluffy white earmuffs.
I stood and waved an uncomfortable shoulder-height wave. She smiled, showing characteristically crooked incisors.
Gem Girl smiled at me.
I tried not to let it go to my head.
“Stonewall,” I greeted.
“Oh, hush. Not gonna tell me your real name either?”
“Red Fox is my real name.”
“So you say. Call me Cynthia,” she said. It was only one of her Aliases, so I wasn’t too surprised, but it did mean that we were starting things out alarmingly informal.
“Okay, Cynthia,” I swallowed significantly, trying not to let my nerves trip me up. “Your hair looks nice today.”
“Oh. Thanks.” She ran her fingers through one of her dangling tails. “I just put it up in twin tails because of the wind,” she said, walking up from the street, and passing the little waist high wrought iron gate that surrounded the cafe patio.
I couldn’t place what emotion that passed across her face, but by the time I realized I was staring, it was probably too late. Damnit man, get it together!
“Tea,” I said when she got close. “Got us some London fogs.”
“Thank you,” she said. “You look like you’re doing okay.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight. Seems like yours went well, too.”
“Ah. Yeah, her powers look flashy, but she isn’t too tough.”
“We can stay out here, less people with the cold, or…” I said, gesturing inside.
“Jesus, yeah, I don’t care if it’s less secure — it’s cold as the Dickens out here!”
I grabbed our cups, and found a comfortable place to sit on a large leather couch tucked into the corner. It also didn’t have any seating across from it, since another party had commandeered it for themselves, dragging it off elsewhere. She would have to sit next to me.
I sat first, and set her cup a comfortable ways away from me. She took it, smoothed her skirt, then sat down mere inches from me. My heart began to race. I could hear it practically throb in my temples.
I told it to shut up. I was here on business.
“This is cozy,” she said.
“Yeah, it’s nice.”
She took a sip of the tea, set it back down, then looked at me expectantly, her too-blue eyes shining.
“So,” I continued. “I’m here to invite you, formally, to the Bay Area Superhero Alliance."
“Bay Area — BASA. Cute. Okay, so pitch me!”
“Uh,” I laughed nervously. “I mean. It should be self-evident that the only way we can beat this is together.”
“And what are we fighting? Whitehot? All her allies are defeated.”
“Not just her,” I said. “We haven’t stopped Bunny —”
“Bunny?”
“Oh, her old name was White Rabbit. I call her Bunny so I don’t forget who she was. Villains use fear as much as anything else. One less weapon,” I said, tapping my temple.
“Got it.”
“Her plans are still in motion. She still has Lady Lovely.”
“The charmer?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded, thinking for a moment.
“So what is her plan?” she asked.
“We don’t have the full outline of it,” I said. “But we know she needs a way to reach Low Earth Orbit so she can access the Ancient Maze.”
Her eyes widened with deepening horror.
“What maze?” she asked.
“It’s, uh, well, you should know more than I, right? The Ancient Maze you and Captain Iron discovered.”
She stood and walked a pace, holding herself with her arms. When she turned back to me she had her bottom lip between her teeth and a deep furrow in her brow. Either she let her feelings show right on her face, or she was putting on a show of nervousness.
“What is it?” I prodded.
She sighed. Her boots took her one step closer, just enough so that she could keep her voice low and still be audible.
“We worked well together in those days. Bronze Boy got a ping on his Layline Atuner, realized something strange was happening way off the West African Coast. We flew out. Found a floating palace, ancient, strange. Filled with automata. We fought through the maze to the center. There was a man with an axe buried into his chest. John removed the axe —”
“You call him John?” I asked, a little stunned that someone would call him anything other than ‘Captain.’
“Well,” she said with a goofy smile, “yeah. He’s just a guy. Great guy, but as human as the rest of us. Anyway. John pulls the axe out, and this man wakes right on up. He had some kind of golden goo dripping from the wound, and he went berserk! Strongest monster we ever fought. He overpowered John like it was nothing.”
My blood ran cold. Captain Iron didn’t lose. Not like that. Not in a contest of strength. She must be talking metaphorically. Or something out of his element, magic or something.
“I can tell you’re skeptical,” she continued. “He didn’t have any energy projection or magic powers that I could see. He was just strong. Really, monstrously strong. With the both of us, we were able to finally pin him down. We asked him why he was doing this, I leveraged all the ancient Greek I knew, and he finally answered. He said ‘I know what you’ve done. You’ve taken the kingdom from her.’”
“What did he mean?”
“We couldn’t figure it out. I had to put the axe back in him. That stopped him, but we could see that since he was already awake, that it was only for a moment. We had to put the palace somewhere safe, somewhere away from others.”
“So you put him into orbit?”
“Yeah. I held the palace together with the gem, and he threw it into orbit.”
“So why would she want him?”
“What?” Cynthia asked, sitting down next to me, “what do you mean?”
“Bunny. She said, during her supervillain rant, that up there ‘he is everything?’”
“She must be fucking nuts.”