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HEROES FOR HIRE
in
A SNAKE IN THE GRASS
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A SNAKE IN THE GRASS
While the weather is starting ever so slightly to turn towards spring, the night New York air is still cold against the light fabric of my Iron Fist robes. Luke’s always making fun of me for picking literally the worst possible costume for the bitter New York winters, and he’s totally not totally wrong. The green kung fu outfit adorned with golden hand and foot wrappings, and a golden mask is as sparse as you’ll find in the vigilante world. Still, training in K’un-Lun helped me prepare. The mountainous regions it appeared in, not to mention the ones that it occupied in its own dimension, made sure I was fighting in the snow more often than not. The Thunderer wasn’t an easy master, to say the least.
Underneath the garment, the scare where I was burned by Shou-Lao the Undying feels warmer than the rest of my body. The Scholars of the city figured it’s imbued with some of the dragon’s Chi, leaving it imbued with its energy.
I take a deep breath and center myself, feeling the city move around me. Most people see cities as lifeless and inhospitable to the natural order of things. While modern cities are a bit behind on the whole pollution thing, the multitude of human life in the immediate area is powerful, making them a hotbed of natural power. It’s why madmen, conquerors, and despots all focus on conquering cities. That’s where the human power is.
Once centered, I take off across the lower-lying rooftops of New York. Free-running has been adopted by the masses, at least by some of the more adventurous members of the masses. Still, they can’t compare to a truly trained martial artist. During my training, I was though how to traverse the city like the wind. It’s the kind of training the ninjas of old would learn, but I’m not trying to assassinate anyone.
As dumb as it sounds, the secret to good free running is paying attention. Yea, not crap, right? Still, most people see it and think it’s about speed and strength. But without the correct site, you’re just going to fall out get stuck. But when you do it right, there’s nothing like it.
I kick off the ledge of one rooftop, fly easily through the air, and land in a roll on the next, which just happens to overlook Central Park. Everyone always tells me I’m crazy, but I swear the air smells better out here.
As I take in the view, something catches my eye from the top of the Natural History Museum. A solitary figure slinks across the roof before disappearing through a door.
“Well, that’s interesting,” I say to myself and take off towards the museum. Once I’m on the roof, I follow the way of the interloper. Inside, there’s no evidence anyone has broken in save for the door I entered through.
That is, there’s no sign until a guard comes screaming around a corner towards me. His face is a crimson mask with blood flowing from a cut on his forehead. He screams unintelligibly about spiders while running headlong into me. When the shock wears off, I use the same sleep technique I used on the doctor earlier on the guard.
While the doctor was merely confused, the guard’s fear is radiating off him like a tidal wave. It’s a frothing, rabid type of fear, the kind that only comes from the deepest, most primal parts of our brain. I can see in his eyes, bulging so much they seem to be trying to escape the skull, that there’s nothing going on inside besides the fight or flight instincts. I have to work a lot harder to put him asleep, and it takes more out of me.
My Chi abilities aren’t unlimited. Not even close. The more I use the higher level abilities, the quicker I’m going to tire myself out and leave me open to attack. It’s a double edged sword, for sure.
Once the guard is out, I take out the burner phone I keep in my suit, and call Luke’s. When I hear him pick up, I don’t waste any time, “Luke, I’m at the Museum of Natural History.”
Groggily, he responds, “Never took you for the learning type.”
“Funny,” my tone shows I’m not messing around. “Someone broke in. A guard attacked me. Seemed to be some sort of berserker poison in a cut.”
“I’ll make a call,” he responds. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
Following the frantic path the guard took towards me, I find myself in an exhibit dedicated to ancient religions of the world. In the darkened hallway, I pass by shadows of the past. Druid masks leer out at me with dark, dead eyes. Carved idols watch as I slink silently towards whoever the hell broke into the museum.
I find what I’m looking for at the end of the hallway. There, carving into the glass of one of the cases with bladed fingers is a short-haired woman clad in what looks like snakeskin. The circle of glass comes out, and she grabs some sort of rock from the display, and turns to face me. She has dark paint around her eyes, which seem to be...snake like.
“You know, you’re not even supposed to tap on the glass, let alone break it,” I smile at her.
Her eyes narrow as her tongue darts out in a quick lick of her lips, “Well, well, well. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
“Yea, well, I wasn’t expecting to run into weird...snake...claw lady either,” I shake my head at how lame that is.
“You can call me Copperhead,” she hisses. “Now...time to die.”
Crap.
Iron Fist post will be up tomorrow, and I'm working on a CS.
an X-citing CS
an X-citing CS
HEROES FOR HIRE
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A SNAKE IN THE GRASS
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A SNAKE IN THE GRASS
Manhattan General Hospital
The thing about breaking into a hospital is that they’re never closed. There’s always gonna be a lot of people around to accidentally bump into while you’re just trying to see how a bullet entered some guy’s head. It’s not like you can waltz into the morgue and roll every stiff out of the freezer willy nilly. It takes a lot more finesse than that.
“It’s that one,” Claire points to the door. “It’s locked though.”
Oh, having a friend who works at the hospital helps a lot too.
“Claire, what would I do without you?” I flash a smile at her.
“The question is how much less stress would I have without you?” She gives him the side-eye. It’s not out of line to ask. Claire puts her neck out for us often. Helping superpowered vigilantes one the side could be an arrestable offense depending on how much the feds felt like being ballbusters. And Claire helps us a lot.
“Well, you could always go full time with the nightly activities,” I respond, adjusting the surgical facemask I have to conceal my identity. It’s not as flashy as the Iron Fist suit, but it certainly stands out a lot less here. “I’m sure Spider-Man could use a good medic.”
“Yea, the last thing I need is more guys in spandex in my apartment,” she rolls her eyes.
“Well, thanks,” I nod. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
Approaching the morgue, I jiggle the handle hoping against hope that someone forgot to lock the door when they left. The resistance that greets my gentle push tells me I’m not that lucky. But honestly we’re never that lucky. If being a superhero was easy, everyone would do it. Actually, that’d be nice. Focusing my Chi, I slam my palm against the handle. The force of the blow snaps the lock in the door, allowing me ingress.
As I cross the threshold, the frigid air of the morgue greets me, sending a tremor up my spine. The dead bodies don’t help either, of course. I mean, come on, dead people are a bit freaky.
Unfortunately for me, there’s also a living person in this room as well. A doctor stands over a body performing an autopsy, with earbuds blocking out the world around him. I slink silently towards the drawers where the bodies are held. I search the names for the one I’m looking for, spotting “Officer Jonathan Rogers” after a few seconds. After flipping the latch of the drawer, the body slides out, revealing the body bag within.
With a quick flick of the wrist, the zipper comes down, showing the gruesome visage of the slain cop. The number of bullet holes in the body is astounding, so many that there’s no way any doctor would give the cause of death much thought. My gaze drifts to the body’s head, where there is indeed a perfect shot right between the eyes. Even more interesting, however, was the angle it was at. The bullet had entered the skull at a downward angle, leading credence to what the mother and daughter had said.
“Hey, who are you?”
Crap.
I turn to find the other doctor standing behind me and looking very confused, “You’re not supposed to be here. It’s restricted.”
As he talks, my right hand begins to glow green as I focus my Chi again, this time also tapping into the lifeforce of the man standing in front of me. I can feel waves of confusion and trepidation flowing off of him, an odd sensation to say the least. I’ve been learning a lot from the Book of the Iron Fist, an ancient tome that chronicles the life and abilities of the other Iron Fists throughout time. Orson Randall, my predecessor, had stolen it from K’un-Lun and handed it down to me. It helped me save the Seven Cities, but I honestly haven’t practiced the things in it enough.
“Hey, sorry about this,” with my Chi powered hand, I place my thumb and index finger around the man’s brow. Instantly, he falls asleep. The technique is also supposed to erase the last few minutes of his memory, as long as I didn’t overdo it. “God I hope you don’t wake up thinking you’re late for kindergarten.”
**********
Heroes for Hire Offices
After I finish explaining to Luke about the bullet holes, he nods, “That lines up with the mother and daughter’s story. They said the first bullet came from a high angle. They also claim he kept claiming ‘shadows’ had been following him. He was on paid leave after a case, though he never told them why or what happened.”
“Did he have a partner?”
“Yea, guy’s name is Burr, he was reassigned when Rogers went on leave,” Luke explains. “Desk jockey right now. You want to talk to him?”
I consider it, but shake my head, “Not until we have an idea on what we’re dealing with. I don’t want to put a target on his back as well.”
“Good point. You’ll go talk to Misty to see if she can get her old contacts to get info on this case that apparently scarred a man and put him in line for a bullet to the head?” He asks with raised eyebrows. The grimace I shoot back at him is all the answer he needs, “Come on man. You gotta talk to her sometime.”
Misty Knight is my girlfriend. Well, she’s my ex-girlfriend, I should say. The two of us are like dynamite when we’re together, the problem is dynamite explodes, and we’re currently in the fallout of one of those explosions. It was definitely my fault, as I kept her out of the loop during the events of last year. But I stand by my decision, and I don’t need to have a screaming match while trying to solve a case.
”Luke, I…” the sentence trails off as I think of a good excuse.
“Listen, man, if you’re too much of a pansy to suck up your pride and talk to your ex, I’ll do it tomorrow,” he shakes his head. “But why don’t you look for your testicles tonight when you get home?”
“Great, thanks. That’s helpful,” I smirk meekly.
Luke leaves the office, flipping off the reception light, leaving me alone in my office, the only illumination coming from a weak lamp on my desk. While it was good to be back in the normal flow of things, it certainly took getting used to. After fighting in a war, the drama of normal life seems trivial, even if it isn’t.
“Maybe a fight is exactly what I need right now,” I muse to myself, grabbing my Iron Fist costume out of the desk. Night in New York always means there’s some scumbag that needs to go to jail.
Time to find some.
I should have my next Lex (well, kind of Lex) post up on Saturday afternoon at some point providing I can get online whilst I'm away.
When I get back I hope New Frontier's cup will have runneth over with posts. I mean, it's more likely that there'll have been three posts, mine including, but it would certainly be nice. So smoke 'em if you got 'em, people.
There's a chance I'll have another character sheet to greet you when you return.
<Snipped quote by Sep>
This will no doubt sound like more excuses/justification on Supergirl's behalf, but I really thought that other than the crossover, this was one of the more mediocre episodes. It also doesn't help that two of the leads, Hank Henshaw and Alex Danvers (the former of which is one of the best characters), weren't present because they're away on a mission for a few episodes. So basically, this is my roundabout way of saying that you may find "World's Finest" more palatable than the pilot, but it's still not Supergirl's best. (For that, I'd recommend "Human for a Day" or "Falling.")
I watched last night, but I'm so behind on Supergirl otherwise, and CBS makes it impossible to catch up on, so I dunno if I'll watch the rest of the season at this point.
I definitely want to see Deathstroke and Iron Fist cross paths at some point.
Annnnnd we're off with the Heroes for Hire.
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