Tony
hated the rain. Even though he had his super speed, he still became wet and the
slick surfaces caused him to slip more than once on his afternoon patrol.
Coupling the rain with the chilly October breeze blowing through the city and
no action whatsoever made Tony’s day miserable. When he finally returned home
to the Frontier mansion it started down-pouring. As he walked towards the
changing rooms to undress out of his wet uniform he saw Natalie getting ready
for her evening shift.
Lucky, he thought to himself as Natalie
put up a telekinetic umbrella before saying goodbye and leaving. She’s only got the cold to deal with.
After
changing into dry clothes and grabbing some food, Tony walked into the rec room
to watch some TV. He checked his step when he saw Marian curled up on the couch
watching a movie. He stood watching for a bit, trying to figure out how far
along the movie was, and it was enough time for Marian to turn around for a
drink and notice him.
Tony
nodded to the movie, “Almost done?” He tried to sound as cheerful as he could,
but it was hard after a rainy patrol day. Obviously his voice conveyed his
annoyance more than he had hoped.
“Guess
so,” Marian said as she stood up and turned the movie off.
“Hey,
I was just asking. I can go watch TV in my room, no biggie.” Tony had heard all
about the botched mission Marian and Matt went on two weeks ago from Natalie
and Francis, including how Matt up and left the mansion afterwards despite the
budding relationship between him and Marian. Tony felt a twang of jealousy
whenever he thought about Marian and Matt together but he pushed it down. Either
nobody knew why or nobody was saying exactly what happened down in the
Caribbean, but Tony knew with certainty that it must have been something bad to
push Matt away so suddenly. He hadn’t had a lot of time to get to know Matt,
and that was one thing Tony had looked forward to when returning from his
break. Still, nobody was more hurt than Marian, and she was shifting between
anger and sorrow ever since.
“It’s
fine, it was a stupid movie anyway.” Marian stormed past him and went up the
stairs to her room.
Tony sighed as he sat down.
Things were still rough between them, given the fact that these past four
months have been insane for the superhero team. The vast increase of super
villains in Hopling had led to a drastic decrease in communication between team
members. Tony remembered when almost every day they were all at the mansion,
doing one thing or another. Sometimes they’d even go out on patrols in pairs.
Now the patrols were more frequent and only rarely did they go out in pairs,
and if that never to the same area. It was a different era for Frontier. Tony
wasn’t sure what Steve was going to do about it, but after returning to a
quiet, tense mansion, Eternal’s offer was sounding nice.
I could be a GMA agent, Tony thought as he turned on the TV and
flipped through some channels. After a moment he looked around the empty rec
room absently and took in the heavy atmosphere of the mansion. But if I leave now, what would happen to
them?
“What’s gonna happen to em?” A
young tattooed man looked at the three women lined up against the wall. Out of
the three, only one looked somewhat decently fed and taken care of; the other
two were undoubtedly whores who lived on sex and drugs. The decent one was
staring at him, her green eyes pulling at his conscious.
“What does it matta to you?” The
big man behind the desk, dressed exactly like a stereotypical pimp, tapped his
cigar ashes into a tray with one hand and pushed a bag across the desk with the
other. “There’s your pay.”
The younger man opened the bag
and started trying to count the money as he attempted to ignore the green eyed
girl’s stare.
“It’s all there, champ. But next
time, when I say no whores, I mean no whores.” The pimp pointed his cigar at
the two drugged up women. “And those two are most definitely whores.”
“Look, your man didn’t tell me
no whores.” The younger man started stammering out an explanation, but found it
was difficult to speak. “He-he just said three gir-women. Three women.”
“You tripping on something
yourself?” The pimp stood up and towered over both the desk and the younger
man. “I think you better leave my office before I show you why I don’t need any
guards to protect me.”
The younger man turned around
and took another long look into the girl’s eyes before stumbling out of the
room. The pimp cursed under his breath at the younger man and then walked over
to the women. The first two he quickly went over but seemed unimpressed.
However he spent more time looking over the other girl. She couldn’t have been
older than twenty, was of medium height, in between five and six feet, with
long dark red hair and a natural beauty that was hidden underneath a layer of
grime and dirt. Her green eyes shone with an eerie light, and he felt drawn
into them as he stared.
“You’re gonna make my boss very
happy,” he tried to say, but instead could only mumble. Suddenly the pimp
crashed onto the floor and started convulsing. The girl slowly straddled the
big man’s chest and held his head forward so she could stare into his eyes.
“You should have made your
living in an honest way,” she said quietly. The convulsions increased until,
with one last heave, the man was dead. Only then did the girl break her stare.
She got up and walked over to the two women, who were cowering in fear by the
door. “Change your lives around, or I’ll come for you too.”
As the two women burst out of
the room running, the other girl followed at a slower pace. When she reached
the front door to the ratty old apartment they were in, she saw the younger man
crumbled on the floor. She turned him over and saw he still had a bit of life
left in him. “Tsk tsk,” she said as she held his head straight and stared into
his eyes. “You’ve been a bad boy.”
Less than a minute later the
girl left the apartment building and started walking down the desolate road. It
was dusk, and the street lights were starting to turn on. She put away the wad
of cash she took from the now dead man and pulled out her cell phone to check
the time. “Perfect,” she said to herself as she stuck her phone away. “Just
enough time to clean myself up and grab a bite to eat before the real work
starts.”
As she walked down the road she
couldn’t help but start humming a song. She felt so alive after finishing a job,
and it was a welcome feeling. Much better than the self-hatred, sorrow, and
disgust that used to follow one of her uncontrollable episodes. Now that she’d
been using her powers more frequently, she had gained some sort of handle on
her powers and could actually use them when she wanted, at least for the most
part.
Though it was a dirty, dangerous
job she had; but somebody had to do it. With the rise of super villains in this
city, the superheroes were too occupied to deal with the little crimes. Someone
needed to clean up the dark streets and back alleys of the city of Hopling and
make them safe. And as far as she could tell, there was nobody better qualified
to kill the criminals of this city than little ol’ Laura.
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