“Yes
I understand. You have my word Frontier will jump back into the search for her.
No, thank you, Chief.” Steve hung up the phone and looked over towards Natalie.
She was sitting at her desk rubbing her eyes, trying to ease the stress.
“They
still haven’t caught her.” Ever since she realized she was inches from the
killer and didn’t catch her, Natalie had been mentally punishing herself. It
had been three days since the big night-long chase, and the killer still had
not been caught. Natalie was incredibly grateful Steve had returned from West
City because she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up the full-time
leadership role. “How many more deaths?”
Steve
got up and walked over to comfort his wife. He kneeled down next to her chair
and put his large hand on her back. “No more deaths, Nat. But she has moved on
from mere criminals. The chief of police just called; a few of his officers
were found in critical condition last night, and they were attacked just like
the other victims.”
Natalie
stood up and started pacing, her fists in tight balls. “I had her, Steve! She
was right in front of me!”
Steve
walked over to try and stop her from pacing but she pushed him away. “Natalie
there’s no one who blames you but yourself. It wasn’t possible for you to know
that girl was the killer. But you got a description, and that’s more than
anyone else. Now that the killer’s becoming more aggressive, we’ll be more
vigilant. We will find her, Nat. And you can be the one to lock her away for
good.”
Natalie
breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. Logically she knew Steve was right,
but a part of her couldn’t help but feel guilty. “Alright Steve, I’ll go call
Tony since he’s already on patrol.”
“Good.
I’ll go talk to Marian.’
“Steve?”
Natalie stopped him before he left the office. “Maybe you should talk to her
about more than just the current situation. She needs someone to talk to, and
she won’t open up to me.”
Steve
nodded and headed towards the gym. Marian had been blowing off her pent up rage
in there for a couple days now. To a normal person, it would be dangerous to
work out that hard. But to Marian, a few days straight in the gym was a walk in
the park.
As
Steve entered the gym, Marian was busy on the punching bag. She had earphones
in and was listening to music, so she didn’t hear Steve walk near her. For a
few minutes he just watched his daughter attack the bag. Her fighting style was
different from his; while Steve preferred the traditional boxing style, Marian
used her lithe body to incorporate kicks into her arsenal. She was a formidable
fighter, and could take down opponents twice her size due to her sheer skill in
a brawl. Steve knew she had always harbored a jealous side when teamed up with
other metahumans who had more ‘powerful’ abilities, but he hoped she would
fully accept her powers are truly super at some point. No one else can fight
for days on end without tiring like her.
Finally
he walked up into her view, getting her attention. When she pulled out her earphones
he began. “A lot’s happened since I left for West City. Wanna talk about it?”
Marian
shrugged as she toweled off, “Not really. Matt gave some stupid, half-assed
reason and left me. Me and Frontier.” She caught herself, and willed herself to
forget her feelings for him. “Guys are idiots. It happens, I’ll live.”
“I
raised you to be too tough, Marian.”
Marian stopped drinking her
water. “What do you mean? You have to be tough to be a superhero.”
Steve sighed and sat down on a
bench. Long ago he had become accustomed to his daughter’s lack of fatigue, but
to anyone else her unlimited endurance would be a bit odd. She never panted,
was never out of breath, and was never physically tired. Despite the power
everyone else had, they still succumbed to basic human needs. Marian, not so
much.
“Yes, but you also need to be
able to open up when the time comes for it. You’re so much like me when I was
your age. I bottled everything up just like you do, and tried to let it all out
when I was fighting in the field. But punching things only eases some of the
tension. Talking out your problems is just as important, especially to someone
in our line of work. We see things, and sometimes even have to do things, that
we might not be comfortable with. After this past summer, we need to be here
for each other. And I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you, Marian. But that’ll
be different now. No more trips for me for a while. I’m going to start focusing
back on my family and my team.”
Steve looked at Marian and she
returned his smile. “I’m glad to hear you’re going to be here more often, dad.”
She sat down on the bench next to him and sighed. “I guess I just fell really
hard for Matt. He was new, and different, and…” Marian paused, not sure she
should continue. She and Steve have never really talked about their feelings to
one another. Steve was always very supportive, but Marian never took the
opportunity to open up to him, and he never pushed her to.
“He was so powerful, but he made
me feel like an equal. Matt was always talking about how awesome my powers
were. Despite what haunts him in his past, he still tried to be optimistic
about the future. How he felt was exactly how I wanted to always feel.” Marian
sighed, then started to become angry at him leaving. “If only he wasn’t so damn
stubborn about being licensed! Why can’t he just let the people see him for the
hero we know he is?”
Steve laid a hand on her
shoulder. “I’m sure he has his reasons, Marian. Despite his involvement in
Frontier, we still don’t know a whole lot about his past. We don’t know what
all happened to make him so fearful of the public eye.” Steve gave Marian’s
shoulder a squeeze. “I just want to make sure my daughter is okay. Do you want
me to go beat him up for you?”
Steve laughed as Marian smiled
and shook her head. “No Dad, don’t go beating up any of my exes. You’d have to
start with Tony if you do.”
Steve continued laughing. “Oh
trust me honey, some days I’d like to. Now, how about we go to the kitchen and
grab some food? There’s news about the latest threat that you should get caught
up on.”
Marian left with Steve and the
two joked and laughed the whole way, each glad to have one another back home
again.
“I knew I heard a commotion,”
Tony muttered to himself as he burst onto the scene. Taking in the view
quickly, Tony saw three police officers engaged in a fight with a group of
criminals that outnumbered the police two to one. Without slowing down, Tony
took out the six criminals. In a matter of seconds, four were knocked on the
ground hard, one was in Tony’s hands, and the last was hanging on the street
light by his underwear, which was a personal favorite technique of Tony’s.
After disarming the still
conscious thug in his hands, Tony called over to the police. “You want to ask
him some questions?” But when Tony looked over, the three officers were no
longer standing. Tony watched as the last one went limp in the hands of a cruel
looking woman. She was of average height, with blood red hair that was adorned
by an evil looking black spike crest. She wore skintight black leather and her
eyes glowed bright green.
Without hesitating, Tony clicked
on his distress beacon and flashed over to her. But something happened in the
split second it took him to get over to the villainess. With a flick of her
eyes, hers found Tony’s and he was struck with the force of a brick wall. Tony
slammed into the ground and tumbled past her, actually crashing into the brick
face of a building. Tony groaned, trying to stand up but found his body
unwilling to cooperate.
The woman walked over to him and
bent down to where Tony was on all fours. She tilted his head up and looked
directly into his eyes. In that moment, Tony felt his very life leaving his
body. He grew weak and his body began to slump to the ground, with only the
woman’s hand on his chin holding him up.
“Such power,” he heard her
whisper. “A metahuman’s life force is so much more rich than a normal human.
Your life is…delicious!” Tony’s eyes wanted badly to close, but her powers kept
them open so she could continue feeding on his life.
Suddenly the woman was knocked
into the building, and Tony’s head dropped to the ground. He heard a struggle,
some shouts, but then all went black.
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