Flick
It was happening again.
Not only was Sapphire having trouble finding trouble...
...she was having trouble staying airborne.
Her altitude dipped again as the superheroine stumbled through the air. Just when she thought she was back to normal, something weird happened to her and her powers took some kind of lateral jump. They weren't cutting out exactly, not like before, just exerting themselves differently, she told herself. It wasn't anything she couldn't handle, but it was getting annoying. She didn't know if it was some lingering Xanax withdrawal, or maybe just a bad pill -- she'd have to find out where Dino got his from -- or the lack of sleep, or her inability to focus, or just stress...
...but whatever it was, she hoped she'd get past this rough spot in her life soon because she didn't want it to affect her work.
Not that work. Her other work. Sapphire's work.
After the stressful night at the club, she needed to know she was good at something besides making men stupid and women psychotic. But despite a fresh hit of Perfectua, something wasn't right.
Not that there was any work to be found. Rubio told her to stay away from the chop shop, and as the coming winter chill thinned out the casual nightlife, so too were the ranks of crime -- at least, the kind of crime Sapphire was equipped to handle.
Why couldn't she catch a break? And why couldn't she get herself evened out?
Even as her heart pounded excitedly in her chest, Sapphire felt an exhausting dizziness overcome her. She half-landed, half-fell onto a tenement rooftop, tumbling to a halt leaned up against the side of some air vent.
Okay, I'll just sit here for a minute and calm down, get my bearings.
As she sat there, struggling both to catch her breath and keep her eyes open, she thought back to her first night back on the job. Why couldn't she capture the simple high of that first success? When did being a superheroine get so complicated? Things had started off well enough . . .
< < Friday night in mid-September -- the weather hadn't yet turned cold, classes at State University had just started, the social vaccuum that followed the weirdly aborted Alluring Enduring Party was filled, the fake-ID business was in full swing, and there was plenty of celebration to go around.
And with the return of revelry came the return of crime.
A string of nasty muggings had been reported in the downtown and warehouse dance club districts last weekend, continuing through the week as college students and single yuppies re-invaded nighttime neighborhoods that were not so gentrified as real estate mavens would have people believe.
Perhaps small-time crooks were anxious to get the city back to basics after the summertime emphasis on the bizarre and the spectacular.
More likely, they were just greedy.
An aggressive PR-minded Chief of Police had been anxious to cash in on the spate of special state task forces being set up, hoping that if he lent manpower to high-profile inter-jurisdictional operations elsewhere it would bring a disproportionate number of them back to Oak Valley, letting him double-dip in the publicity trough and divert attention from the basic shortage of resources allocated to routine issues. And the city saved money on the labor budget in the meantime, since the state was picking up the tab for the transferred officers' salaries and benefits.
The real cost of the Chief's political maneuvering was felt on the streets, where the thinned ranks resulted in fewer patrols -- and the local hooligans were taking full advantage.
Poor Noel Aquino had been among the volunteers who took up watches over the worst-hit places in addition to their regular duties. But there was only so much territory a few exhausted detectives and sergeants could cover.
Other cities that stretched the police force too thin had no safety net, nothing but the vigilance of their citizens to stave off chaos and strife.
Oak Valley had Sapphire.
The city's only genuine superheroine was thought to be nothing more than a persistent fairy tale -- no one had a better explanation for a summertime of strange events culminating in something so fantastic it was only referred to as the Labor Day Incident. Officially, Sapphire had been exposed as a hoax -- wires and cheap props made credible by misdirection and the loud tales of shills. Unofficially, witnesses swore they'd seen a supernatural phenomenon sacrifice her life to save thousands of innocent citizens from a terrorist attack. It was just too weird to believe -- like UFOs and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, better to just forget it and move on.
But Sapphire was no hoax, no fairy tale. She was the real deal -- five feet four inches of fantastic female fury -- flight, forcefield, and force-attack, powered by four glowing blue crystals. And though she'd sacrificed much, she was still here.
Only four men knew the truth: two shadowy former government agents who'd vanished altogether, and Noel and Ricky Aquino.
Sapphire liked to think that agents Eric Lockwell and Andrew Dean were out there somewhere, silently cheering her return to active duty.
As for the Aquinos, well, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
It hadn't quite been three weeks since the Labor Day Incident, but they'd felt like the longest three weeks Angela Barrett had ever experienced. Depression and hysteria over her mom's murder, mixed messages from Noel about who she could be and how she should act, and in Ricky a boyfriend who'd started off a supportive and mature companion but quickly degenerated into a childish and selfish horndog. Her housing situation was a disaster, her money situation seemed headed the same way, and between the elder Aquino's almost puritain fixations and the younger Aquino's constant pressure for sex... everything in her life felt wrong.
Except this.
Perched like a hawk atop a skyscraper, night's gentle breeze wafting her scant costume to caress her bare skin, the young woman looked out over the city with a sense of purpose. This was her home. Growing up, she'd taken it for granted, but after the events of this past summer she knew just how imperiled a city could be. Whether by the schemes of power-mad fiends or the callous greed of the common criminal, Oak Valley and its inhabitants were under constant siege. And sometimes the valiant efforts of the city's police officers weren't enough.
Sometimes the forces of evil needed to be met with a singular opposing force.
Sapphire felt the sweet untainted rush of her gemstones' energy coursing through her. Challenging her to be strong in the face of danger. Calling her to help those in need, to protect the innocent from the brutal misdeeds of the wicked.
This is what she was meant to do.
As her eyes scanned the dimly-lit streets below, she thought briefly back to the Aquinos, father and son, probably sitting at home watching TV and making a point of not speaking to each other. Things had been more than tense the past couple of days -- Ricky caught sleeping in class, Noel no doubt blaming it on some imagined sex-marathon between Ricky and Angela, when in truth Angela had been too zoned out by her meds to even think about being intimate (not that that selfish jerk Ricky deserved to get any in the first place). Ricky grounded, Noel exhausted from his futile all-night stakeout last night, and Angela... what excuse did she use to get out of the house? That's right, a Corey Feldman movie marathon. Where she'd pulled that old name from she didn't know. She supposed she should be more careful in making her excuses, though deep down a part of her was past caring what the old fuddy-duddy Noel Aquino thought she was doing with her time.
Sapphire pushed these thoughts out of her head. Tonight, none of those things mattered. Tonight she had a job to do.
Best get to it.
The gossamer girl stepped off the skyscraper's ledge into the void. The steady blue glow of her sapphires marked her gentle descent toward the streets below. In this, her return to active duty, she knew where she wanted to start -- the nightclub district.
This was where the new crime wave was at its worst. Muggers hit restaurant patrons and nightclub goers, burglars hit parked cars and small shops, and car thieves took their pick from in lots and on the streets. More than any actual monetary losses, these petty offenses added up to a pall of fear cast over downtown. If left unchecked, such urban terrorism would leave a deep scar on the city's psyche that might never heal.
The nightclub district was also where Sapphire had ended her very first night of crimefighting in both triumph and humiliating defeat. She'd fought a nasty trio of muggers off an innocent couple, only to fall prey to them herself. She'd been so naive then, unaware of the extent and limitations of her sapphires' power. She was anxious to erase those old mistakes and write a new legacy as a crimefighter to be feared.
Sapphire would not have long to wait.
There below, two women on a corner, perhaps waiting for a cab, perhaps on their way to another club, perhaps just trying to get home.
And blocking their path, three dark figures.
The superheroine touched down silently on the sidewalk behind them. She cleared her throat dramatically; they spun around to see who dared interrupt their transaction.
"Hi, boys. Remember me?" Of course they didn't; these were not the same punks she'd met on that first night. But the result would not be the same as that first night, either.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Yo Cal, I think she's your date for the evening."
"Naw, dude, I think I'd remember a date like that. Dayum!" The trio split, moving to surround her.
The slender stilletto-heeled young woman was unfazed. Her eyes followed the one they'd called "Cal." She took a step back, so they were all within her field of vision, and planted her hands defiantly on her hips.
"The only date you have tonight is with justice."
Sapphire knew the line was corny, but it was the kind of thing a superheroine was supposed to say. And corny or not, it felt really good to say it.
But the trio of young toughs weren't convinced of the girl's purpose. Perhaps they'd been a little too preoccupied with liberating that pair of pasty-faced women from their purses to really notice her dramatic airborne entrance. For their part, the women were slack-jawed.
The stocky punk spoke. "Nice to meet you, Justice." All three of them started to snicker.
Sapphire was resolute. "I think you have something that belongs to those women."
"I think *you* have something that belongs to me." The tall one who sported a black Oak Valley Knights ski cap leaned toward her from her left, reaching around to grab her ass.
Sapphire roughly smacked his arm away.
The thieves' expressions turned suddenly hard. She'd apparently crossed the line from amusement to threat-to-manhood.
Ski Cap stepped toward her quickly, his other arm extending, palm hardening for a bitch-slap. Sapphire, her upper body already turned toward him, crossed with her right, open palm, bent fingers, jabbing it toward him but appearing to stop short. Ski Cap's face was pure surprise when despite her pulled punch he felt a hammering to his chest. The blow dropped him where he stood.
Ski Cap hadn't even hit the ground when his buddies both lunged for Sapphire at once. She brought her right hand back across in a slapping motion, striking-without-touching the stocky one in the forehead. Stocky's head snapped back as his body continued forward. Sapphire raised her right knee slightly, making a quick kicking motion with her right foot, just a few inches before planting it again. Despite still being almost a yard away, Stocky's ankles suddenly took off in the wrong direction, felling the punk like a tree in front of her.
The muscled one was two steps into his two-armed tackle when he saw the scarcely-dressed girl's left palm thrusting up from her hip. The strike was too far away, but it somehow caught him at the top of his chest anyway, just below the throat; he thought he heard something Crack! as his head snapped forward -- suddenly he was looking at her knees, then her shoes, then something large and lumpy laying in front of her... Muscles coughed "Oof!" as he landed on his friend.
The skirmish had taken less than two seconds.
Sapphire stepped neatly up on the center thug's back, a single tiptoe of her seemingly-weightless body vaulting her over and to his side where his flaccid hand had released the straps of two purses. Sapphire kneeled down neatly, hooked them in her small hand, then sprang up and strode confidently toward the two flabbergasted women.
"Ladies," she said, offering them their handbags. They took them, hands shaking.
"Th-thank you," one of them said.
"You're welcome. Sorry about the mess." Sapphire jerked her thumb over her shoulder, where the three punks were just now getting unsteadily to their feet, each one wheezing at a different pitch.
Sapphire turned to look over her shoulder. They stared at her, more in disbelief than anger or fear. She fixed them with a hard stare. "Next time I won't be so gentle," she growled. Her attitude seemed to galvanize them; they were still strapping young men, and she a mere wisp of a girl. Their faces hardened...
Sapphire brought her left hand up sharply, as if cocking it for a backhanded slap. She flinched toward them. They flinched back a half step, but weren't going to back down. Without a word, they stepped toward her in unison.
Sapphire shook her head slowly. They just don't listen, she thought. Her left foot stepped toward them, bringing her body sideways to the approaching punks, still looking over her left shoulder at them, left backhand still raised. She settled a moment as they took another step. She rotated her left palm to face out, then slowly extended her arm toward them, curling two fingers and thumb to point at them with index and middle finger extended. Their brows furrowed in confusion for a step, but then their scowls returned. They didn't know what weird kind of pose that was, but they didn't much care -- they were going to teach her a lesson...
Sapphire closed one eye, looking down her arm, visually placing the tips of her outstretched fingers over Ski Cap's hat.
I always wanted to try this...
Flick.
And Ski Cap's hat took flight.
He stopped, looking up to see what had happened, head snapping about, searching for a branch, or a bird, or some sign of a sudden gust of wind, but finding only open night sky. He looked back and to his right as his hands reached for his head, confirming with two senses at once that he had in fact lost his cap.
His two partners slowed and turned, wondering what Ski Cap's problem was. They saw him scramble for the errant headgear, then turned back to see the girl's strange pose, understanding but not believing the impossible mechanics.
No, she didn't just... did she? It was the wind or something, right?
Still in the same turned-away pose, the girl calmly rotated her hand, staring down the middle one the whole time, now pointing at him with a loose fist, index and middle finger spring-loaded under her thumb. She lowered her hand ever so slightly, his chin just visible above her knuckles...
Stocky stepped further to one side, his head pivoting from the young woman who was brimming with confidence to his partner who was quickly losing it. The muscled one's expression was fast-blinking confusion. Just who was this girl? Was she for real?
Stocky saw his partner's eyes shift down several degrees...
Muscles looked down. This pretty young thing wore less than most career clubbers, her filmy top and skirt rustling in the slightest of breezes, her perky tits pushing out the top one way, her tight ass pushing out the skirt the other way, each garment almost but not quite revealing her charms.
Sapphire saw his eyes shift. He was looking at her. She couldn't blame him -- she *was* quite a sight. She knew he couldn't help it. Men never could.
It was the moment she'd been waiting for.
Flick.
Muscles staggered back, his hands suddenly waving spastically in front of his face. What the fuck?!? One hand went to his chin, wiping it, checking it for... he didn't know what. He looked at her again. Just stared, mouth agape. Stocky and Ski-Cap joined him.
Sapphire lowered her hand to her side, giving them her best wicked smile.
She twitched.
They ran -- a panicked, full-bore, arm-pumping sprint down the street.
Sapphire turned back toward the women. "I don't think they'll bother you again," she said.
"Wh-what was... how did you do that?"
"I didn't do anything," she shrugged. "Must have been the wind." She broke into a broad smile.
The women just stared.
Finally, the other one spoke. "Who- what's your name, miss?"
"Sapphire," the spunky young heroine said with a nod of her head.
"Here," the woman said, looking down to dig into her purse, "at least take a little money for your trouble..." But when she looked up, the girl who called herself Sapphire had vanished.
"Where'd she go?" The woman looked to her companion, who was staring dumbly up into the night sky. "Hey, Amy, where'd she go?" she repeated, tugging the other woman's sleeve.
Amy looked at her friend, then back at the sky, then at her friend again.
"I am never drinking Tequila again."