[h3][i][b]Then...[/b][/i][/h3]
[color=darkgray]The waves rolled in as the tide gently eased out.

Rick looked at her tanned physique, the way the light shimmered in places off her lotioned flesh.  Tried to remember it for later.  Less that 15% cloud cover.  The late afternoon, not-yet-evening light that caught the waves at an angle just before cresting, and shimmered off her flesh.

The sands blew gently on a moderate breeze; just enough to keep the sting of the summer heat at bay, as if counting away the lazy infinite seconds that a place like the shack could afford.[/color]

"What are you thinking, Ricky?"

[i]I'm thinking about how you look, how all of this looks, for when I have my oils out later, and a fresh canvas in front of me.[/i]

[color=darkgray]Except you can't say that.  It's weird.  Becky's also a little too basic for that to be a response.[/color]

"Ricky..?"

[i]Well, maybe.  I mean, give her a little credit.  People might surprise you.[/i]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"I guess I'm just thinking about how good this all looks, and thinking about painting it later."[/b][/color]

[color=darkgray]She gasped.[/color]  "You paint?  I mean... I knew you paint, but you paint here too?  In your free time?  I thought that was just stuff you did for school."

[color=darkgray]He smiled politely.  As the closed-mouthed smile kept him polite.  And his mouth closed.

Excitement took over her.[/color]  "Oh, you've got to show me Ricky!"  [color=darkgray]And after some begging and pleading and false modesty on his end, they walked back to his beachside shack which was left to him by the dead grandfather he never met, where he would sit her down and show her a few of his more recent attempts from here.  Without the other girls in them.  Although honestly, it mightn't make much difference...

He produced a few of his more recent efforts.  Including an impressionist effort to capture the dappled light off the shore and the swirl of the swell rising to the fine spray of an evening mist.[/color]

"Oh..."

[color=darkgray]She sounded disappointed.[/color]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"Well... I have other's.  That's from when I was working through some impressionist stuff, and trying to experiment with--"[/b][/color]

"Well, if you're asking me my opinion..."

[i]Wasn't.  But go ahead anyway.[/i]

"I guess my impressionist is that it doesn't really look like the thing that you were tring to paint."

[color=darkgray]Rick laughed spontaneously at her joke, which caught him so well off guard.

Then he saw she still had a straight face.

A very straight face.[/color]

[i]Oh Becky...  No...[/i]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"Impressionism is an art style.  I was-- trying to do a thing.  Anyway, sounds like you might like something a bit more... realism...  Landscapes.  Have a few in here..."[/b][/color]

[color=darkgray]He handed her a smaller canvas that had a fine brush landscape immediately recognisable as the shack with the beach and surf in the background.

Then in his haste to produce more slice of life artwork that might take her fancy, he failed to suitably filter the art and handed her another from last year when he brought Lauren from that Theatre group down here.[/color]  [i]Wait, was it Lauren?  Laura..?  No, Layla?  Oh this is bad, Rick...  you're bringing that many down you're losing track of the names now?  It hasn't even been that man--  no.  It was definitely Laura.  Laura or Layla.  Laura sounds right though.

Well, it's gone pretty quiet.  You should probably say something.  Or-- you know-- at least make eye contact.

OK.  Here goes.  Pick our eyes up off the floor.  Knees.  Wow, she's got good legs.  Pity you messed this all up.  OK, keep going up.  Eye contact, we're gonna be doing eye contact and three, two, there it i--[/i]

[color=darkgray]She was looking at him and biting her lip.[/color]

"I have a bit of a naughty idea, Ricky..."

"...maaaybe, it'd be fun if you painted me."

[colour=saddlebrown][b]"Well there's nothing naughty about--"[/b][/colour]

[color=darkgray]The two piece swimsuit became a one piece as the top half hit the floor, with the conspiratorial promisary look of even less to come.[/color]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"I'm gonna go get my paints..."[/b][/color]  [color=darkgray]He walked quickly out of the room towards his art supplies, before hastening his pace to a frantic frenzy as soon as he was out of view.[/color]

[i]Paints... Gotta find paints.  Grab a canvas.  Paints.  There![/i]

[color=darkgray]Then he raised his head and considered possible outcomes from the direction things had been taking.[/color]

[i]Rubbers...  Gotta find rubbers.[/i]

[color=darkgray]He scrambled across the room and started going through a set of drawers in desperation.  He opened drawers and grasped around blindly hoping to find a familiar square wrapper.

...and instead his hand found a different kind of plastic.  Taped to the underside of the drawer above.  One of the drawers had a false bottom, but whatever this was hadn't been returned carefully enough and plastic still protruded.

He pulled the drawer out further and pulled on the plastic just to find a baggie containing dozens of small pills.[/color]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"Oh Gramps... what were you into?  What is this, E?  Viagra?"[/b][/color]

[color=darkgray]He drew one of the small pills from the bag and held it up to the light.  They were stamped with a marking he hadn't seen adorning pills before.

A single hourglass.[/color]

"Ricky..?!?"  [color=darkgray]He heard Becky call out to him from areas unseen.  Presumably in a state of undress unseen.

He dropped the pill in the bag and threw it back in the drawer.  Back to the task at hand, there'd be time for... whatever that was... later.[/color]

[hr][sup][h1][center][img]https://www.cizgikafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/hourman-tv-show-hourman-570x294.jpg[/img][/center][b][center][color=saddlebrown] H O U R M A N[/color]
[color=gold]H O U R M A N[/color][/center][/b][/h1][/sup][hr]

[h3][b][i]Now...[/i][/b][/h3]

[color=darkgray]There was no time for dalliance.  This was the Hour of Chaos.  And as he felt the surge as more and more Miraclo surged throgh his blood stream, it would be an hour of power.

As Kobra had looked to seize an entire sporting arena, seemingly eager to rapidly increase their number beyond what had been creeping growth for the cult, the J.S.A had stormed through in response in familiar style.  With Rick dropping from S.T.R.I.P.E like a bomb.  First point of contact.  The tip of the spear.

Kobra cultists converged.  This was not an enemy which would sit and wait and attack in ones or two.  A mass of humanity converged on him.

But not enough to overwhelm the heavy hitter.

Blasts launched from S.T.R.I.P.E as cover for the secondary point of contact.  Stargirl swept through, with green blasts from the augmented cosmic rod that Ted Knight had recently provided her with, to better attune to her sensibilities.  She landed and began striking at the cultists who splintered from her Miraclo juiced teammate, as two more were sent sailing by heavy punches.

Sanderson Hawkins landed near homeplate, and with a smile quickly took control of the environment.  Kobra members sank up to their necks in the dirt.  He threw a wave of dirt across the ball park, staggering a morass of humanity and throwing out whatever little order they had left.

The left field lights suddenly cut out, and Doctor Midnight made good use of their discombobulated order, with blackout bombs and well timed kicks, attacking the fringes.  She called Dugan to, and the pair worked on driving them across, controlling the brawling mass with a semblance of order.

Stargirl took to the skies again, and made a sweeping run, giving the pack little chance to regain control, as green blasts further kept them off balance.

Sandy, changed tactics from the broad, to the more focused.  Using dirt waves to sweep across and clear the right field side, giving Kobra nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.  Collapsing their attack and converging it back to the middle, where Hourman was still wading through their ever-present numbers like he was back at the shack and waiting to hop on the perfect wave.

They were herding Kobra like sheep.  Dispatch enough of their numbers, knock as many as they could out.  Maybe some of these ones would take to the attempts to remove the brainwashing.  It had been tricky, they used chemical psychotropics and some kind of drug that Beth hadn't yet been able to isolate, in addition to the age-old and time tested brainwashing techniques from other cults down the years.  But, if nothing else, they'd add no more to their numbers today.  Left field and right field started to converge into a singular column.  Stargirl took to the skies once more.

But they had forgotten about the bullpen.  And Kobra had brought one Hell of a reliever.

A single blast, a flash of plasma, stopped time.  Halted breath.  Changed everything.[/color]

[b][color=blue]"[/color]--Courtney![color=blue]"[/color][/b]  [color=darkgray]Cried out the mechanical voice of S.T.R.I.P.E, momentarily losing track of keeping to codenames in the field.

The Stargirl fell.

Kobra fell all around as Rick exploded upon them with a surge of Miraclo-infused rage.[/color]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"Sandy.  Clean up.  I'm taking that weapon off the field.  Clear a path for S.T.R.I.P.E."[/b][/color]

[color=darkgray]Rick sprinted to the bullpen and kicked the door in, which blasted through and took out three Kobra men lending support to the plasma rifle unit.  They fired the weapon at him, it knocked him off balance, blasting him into a wall.  But with gritted teeth he pushed through and the area was soon cleared.

He dragged Kobra cultists out, three-to-a-hand, to the field proper to join the rest of their ilk.

The rest of his team had taken down the remaining Kobra scurge.  Pat Dugan had left his robotic power-suit behind and now knelt over his step-daughter, holding her in his arms and visibly weeping.  Sandy had raised dirt waves up to turn the ballpark into a contained bowl, to keep the personal moment and private identities away from the prying eyes and cameras which had anticipated a very different evening of excitement.[/color]

[color=gold]"Doc?"[/color]  [color=darkgray]Sandy asked Beth, the team's resident physician.  With the implication of asking whether anything could be done.

Beth solemnly shook her head.  She'd had a good angle on the shot.  The fact that the plasma had burnt an exit wound through the back of Stargirl's uniform that was visible as Pat held her was not a good sign.[/color]

[color=yellow]"Plasma rifle, straight to the vitals.  Scorched right through.  Her eyes were open, but she was probably gone before she ever even hit the ground."[/color]  [color=darkgray]The doctor uttered.  It was overly clinical, but delivered with the intention of providing some small hope of a silver lining of having not had the time to significantly suffer.

Whilst Pat held her and sobbed uncontrollably, Rick watched their former teammate's face and cocked his head to one side.  A single eyebrow raised in curiosity.[/color]

[color=saddlebrown][b]"Uhh Beth--?  You'd know better than me... how long does rigor usually take to set in?"[/b][/color]

[color=darkgray]A less than sensitive question given the circumstances at hand.  But not without merit.  Her jaw had seemed to tighten in the few moments since passing.  And the skin's colour was shifting pallor very quickly, given how recently the blood would have stopped circulating.

Pat turned to scowl at the crude question, but Doctor Midnight pulled him up before his indignation was given voice.[/color]

[color=yellow]"He's got a point, Pat.  Look!  What's happened to the side of her mask?"[/color]

[color=darkgray]Pat lay Courtney down on the infield grass, and looked at what she was referring to.  A bulge had begun to form on the side of her head.  With great care, Dugan pulled back the mask to reveal the fresh bulge.

Just to find an ear that clearly never belonged to Courtney.[/color]

[color=gold]"He's not the only one with a point."[/color]  [color=darkgray]Sanderson said, referring to the ear.  Pat scowled.[/color]

[color=gold]"Look, I was kept in a state of suspended animation for literally decades... sometimes I fall short on the social cues.  Ok?"[/color]  [color=darkgray]He justified his ill-timed joke.[/color]

[color=darkgray]They looked back at the body of the fallen 'Stargirl', the skin hadn't merely gone translucent.  It had taken on a clear green shade.  And her previously tightening jaw now revealed clearly defined ridge folds, vertically upon her chin.

Nobody was joking now.

The atmosphere turned thick as the present moment washed all over them.[/color]