The Hypotenuse is Equal to the Sum [IC]

[Gizmo]

"Man, I'm going to get a rep for beating up on college athletes, this keeps up," Jack of all Blades remarked as he vaulted over the back of a snarling university student in full hockey pads and felled the young man with a sweeping kick. The right winger was scrambling to his feet immediately, ignoring the painful fall like a cornered animal. All around the swashbuckling hero, the FCU Minutemen circled, manic grins on heavily perspiring faces as they charged with reckless abandon, Jack's acrobatics keeping him one step ahead of them. "C'mon, guys, I don't want to hurt you."

"Can't say the same for them," the straight jacket wearing villain warned in a disconcerting monotone from his elevated perch on the stairs leading up to university's athletics center. "Such a little thing. Block the part of these cro magnon's brains that feels fear, and they're nothing but animals. Now you'll see. Proof you're all as 'sick' as I am."

"And I'm sure scamming these meatheads out of their hard earned steroid money, rigging a few bets and messing with the kinda jocks who dated the girl you liked in high school was just bonus," Jack grumbled dryly as he ducked under a rocketing fist that landed in the face of its owner's teammate.

[Electra]

At that moment, a bright arrow of red and blue arced through the sky overhead, coming down to land next to Jack of All Blades in the form of Miss Americana, true-blue blonde bombshell and protector of humanity! Even the steroid-addled jocks stopped their menacing long enough to gape at the way she filled out her spangled uniform. She took in the scene with a glance, then gave Jack of all Blades a brilliant smile. "Having a little scrimmage with the Minutemen?" she asked blandly. "Can two play?"

[Gizmo]

Jack returned the smile with a flashing grin even as he sucker punched a momentarily distracted defenceman in the face. "You can cross my red lines any time, gorgeous," he called, leveraging another player's meaty forearm to deliver pair of lightning fast snap kicks in a manner that was considerably showier than strictly necessary. "Fashion-Disaster's using a sound thingy to mess with their heads. Think you can pull the plug on that?"

[Electra]

"Oh, absolutely," Miss A said with perfect confidence. "We'll hold the talk about crossing lines till after that." She gave him a quick wink, then took off, peppering the FearMaster with laser blasts to get him to take cover and leave his machine exposed. A few of the football players gave up the fight to follow her, drooling, leaving the rest of the squad to the able blade of the swordsman. "Come on, FearMaster," she called, her tone dulcet. "You know you don't want to be responsible for these poor boys getting hurt. Surrender now and we'll make sure to put in a good word for you."

[Gizmo]

Fear-Master stumbled backward on the stairs amidst the hail of laser blasts, accidentally letting the vaguely recorder shaped device in his hands fall. Landing badly, a glass pane shattered and there was sound of cracking electronics. "No..." the villain protested in an unsettling monotone, reaching out before turning on his heel and sprinting away.

As the young hockey players stopped in their tracks and stumbled about, confused, Jack of all Blades was free to act. Whipping his grappling launcher from his greatcoat, he fired at the fleeing culprit, the cord shooting between Fear-Master's legs and tripping him. His hockey mask made a resounding thunk as it collided with the concrete pathway below his feet. "Ooh, ouch." Turning to the patriotic paragon, Jack added, "If a guy with a cowboy hat and flying motorcycle asks, I'm totally a better shot than him, okay?"

[Electra]

"Absolutely." Miss A said with a laugh, flying over to pick up the addled villain. She deftly fashioned a gag out of a discarded kneepad, fastening it over the hockey mask and all. "Is everyone okay over there?" she asked as she flew back, squirming villain in tow. "Anybody need a doctor, hospital, band-aid?" She turned her smiling attention onto the hockey players, which in itself was enough to make a lot of minor aches and pains start feeling a lot better.

[Gizmo]

"Maybe you could kiss it better?" one of the starting defensemen suggested, still slightly dazed from the ordeal, but rapidly regaining his senses in Miss Americana's presence. His glib reply earned him a solid smack on the back of the head from Jack of all Blades, however.

The swashbuckler shrugged helplessly. "I thought he was still all mind whammied," the fenced explained with exaggerated innocence.

[Electra]

"Poor baby," Miss A said with a laugh, and obligingly gave the beleaguered defenseman a kiss on the cheek, which was enough to have eve a seasoned hockey player turning red and stammering. "I think it's safe for all of you to head back to the ice now, while we deliver this fellow to the police.You all are lucky that Jack of all Blades was here to stop the Fearmaster. Now be careful out there, and bring home some wins for Freedom City!"

[Gizmo]

"And next time a guy in a flippin' straight jacket offers to give you an edge?" Jack called to the team as they groggily shuffled off, "Check with one of the kids here on an academic scholarship about whether that's a good idea, huh?" Shaking his head, the swordsman turned to Miss Americana and gave her a deep bow with a flourish. "Thanks for the assist, beautiful. Last hockey pun, honest."

[Electra]

"It doesn't bother me," Miss A admitted with a chuckle, "I grew up down south, I know nothing about hockey. I thought they were football players till I noticed that some of them had sticks." Leaving the bound-up Fearmaster on the ground, she walked over to his broken toy and picked it up to examine it. "And you looked like you were doing just fine on your own, I mainly intervened in the hopes that you wouldn't have to give them all headaches to regret later. So they were trying to buy steroids?" she asked.

[Gizmo]

"That would explain the overflowing charm and hospitality," Jack supposed with a lopsided grin as he sauntered over, giving Fear-Master a rough pat on the head as he went. "Something like that. Lotta pressure on these guys to win, especially the ones here on sports scholarships. Live in a city where Joe Average gets a dose of superhuman juju every other Tuesday, you start getting ideas, I guess." He jerked a thumb at the bound villain as he glanced at the broken device Miss Americana was examining. "Finish-Laster there said he could make 'em 'fearless'. Twigged on my radar when the injuries and fights started piling up, on and off the ice."

[Electra]

"I see," Miss A said, turning the device over in her hands as she studied it. "That's a change of M.O. for him, he's usually more keen to inspire fear than take it away. Of course, that strategy hasn't been working too well lately in Freedom City. Looking to diversify, hmm?" she asked the bound villain with an undeniably smug look. "Well, we'll just make sure this stays destroyed, and hopefully that you stay in jail a bit longer this time." She opened the device and took out a few key parts, then set the now defunct contraption back down. "That should be safe now," she told Jackie B. "So is this your beat, then?"

[Gizmo]

"Turns out he was running a little betting ring on the sly, too, so there's that," Jack elaborated with a dismissive snort in Fear-Master's direction. "Guess the tinfoil rain stick took some bank." At the suggestion that the university campus was his usual base of operations, the swordsman laughed aloud. "Ha, yeah, I'm not what you'd call the 'higher learning type'," he admitted with a wry grin. His own college plans had been derailed in his senior year. "Just happened to be in the area." In his civilian guise, he'd been running a few errands getting his sister's application in order when an overheard conversation about the hockey team's erratic behaviour had caught his attention.

[Electra]

"Your timing is obviously impeccable," Miss A told him with a slight curve to her lips, arching one perfect brow. "And your tongue is certainly facile. Still, I can understand not wanting to sit through classes, when there's far more interesting work to be done." She walked back over to Fearmaster, checked his bonds. "Have the police been contacted yet, or are we responsible for dropping off their lost lamb? Last I heard, he'd escaped from the county jail during a transfer."

[Gizmo]

"I get a lot of compliments about my tongue from women," Jack confirmed, laying the fingertips of one hand on his chest with a swaggering flourish that belied the fact he had no idea what 'facile' meant. Looking back to the fuming villain he moved the hand to his chin with a grimace. "Dios, I wonder why we bother sometimes. It's free room and board, ya twisted fruitcake!" he exclaimed. "You even get to keep the straight jacket that you love so very, very much. Stop wasting the tax-payers' dime, Fat-Bas...sinet," the fencer finished carefully with an apologetic bow towards Miss A. "Forgot there was a lady present for a second there."

[Electra]

Miss A laughed. "Quite all right," she told him, "I know plenty of those words myself. "I'll just call this in, and then I won't have to actually pick him up and fly him to the precinct myself. She took out a cell phone, though it was not immediately clear from where, and dialed the police, holding a brief conversation while the Fearmaster himself gibbered and gnawed on his gag and glared balefully at Jackie B. "They're sending a truck now," Miss A told her colleague as she got off the phone. "We have the thanks of the city and all that."

[Gizmo]

"Still waiting on the parade," Jack quipped, tilting his masked head to one side with a broad grin. "I'd settle for the key to the city." The swashbuckler spread his hands emphatically as though indicating an expansive group. "Watch out, here comes Jack of all Blades! Fathers, lock up your daughters! Oh wait, he's got the key to the city! Nice." He laughed loudly, a surprisingly melodic, brassy tone, flush with the thrill of a recent victory.

[Electra]

"It's the problem with living in Freedom City. They only have so many keys to go around," Miss A said with a chuckle. "If you lived in, say, Tulsa, I'm sure you could get the key to the city. Not to mention all the farmers' daughters swooning over you... and their fathers polishing their shotguns. Even so, I can't imagine you have much trouble coaxing the girls to sneak out of their houses." She leaned casually against a decorative brick planter nearby, keeping one eye on the Fearmaster.

[Gizmo]

"Ha, appreciate the vote of confidence, beautiful," the swordsman laughed, hopping up to perch on the edge of the stairs' metal railing, balancing on his toes like a gargoyle, his royal blue greatcoat hanging down behind him. "Usually don't mean 'roll in the hay' quite so literally, but the 'barn raising' one-liners alone..." Jack shook his head exaggeratedly, as if trying to conceptualize a dizzying array of possibilities. "So is that what the codename's about? Miss Tulsa, Homecoming Queen, Belle of the Harvest Ball?"

[Electra]

"That's why they call it a secret identity, handsome," Miss A admonished playfully, waggling a finger at him. "But I will admit that everything I know about Tulsa, I've learned secondhand, as I've only ever been there once. Can't I just be the embodiment of American values and traditions, all wrapped up in one heroic package?" She smiled brilliantly and folded her legs up under her, sitting on the air.

[Gizmo]

Jack laughed again, this time a sharper bark with a slightly ironic edge. "All that, huh? Well, it's an honor, Uncle Samantha," he drawled as he nimbly rose to his feet in a single smooth motion, still balanced atop the round guard rail, and lifted the edges of his greatcoat in a mock curtsy. "You do realize you're not wearing a mask, right? Granted, it'd be a crime to hide that face away, but it is generally considered a key part of the whole 'secret identity' thing."

[Electra]

"Oh, a mask will do, I suppose," Miss A allowed, unfolding her long legs and floating through the air till she was balanced on the railing too, en pointe with the toe of her other foot pressed to her opposite knee. "If you don't feel like being creative about it." She gave him a courtly bow, then pirouetted slowly on the bar. "Showing your face doesn't matter if no one knows it anyway. Though I will admit, you make the masked look work for you," she told him with a sly grin.

[Gizmo]

"Naturally," Jack agreed, adjusting his bandanna mask fussily. "I'm a very private person; hate to draw attention to myself." Hunkering down again, the swordsman rubbed the light stubble on his chin. "But see, now I'm all curious, 'cause there's no way anybody'd forget a face like yours. I've known my fair share of shapeshifters and you don't read like fairy glamour or... Russian." Tilting his head to one side slightly, he frowned. "Disproportionately represented in the shapeshifting community, Russians." Snapping his fingers, he popped back up and began pacing along the railing like a tightrope artist. "Did you invent a Jekyll and Hyde style potion with a clothes ripping transformation sequence? 'Cause that would be fantastic." His manner was exaggerated enough that he clearly wasn't making any legitimate attempt to pry into Miss Americana's secrets.

[Electra]

Politely, Miss A stepped off the railing to let him pass as he paced, standing comfortably on nothing. "Oh my god!" she said with exaggerated shock, her eyes rounding as she made a moue of surprise. "How did you guess? That's it, my cover is ruined. I'll have to return to the motherland in disgrace." She continued speaking in Russian, words he couldn't understand, but that sounded quite overwrought, undercut with humor. "And my clothes will never be the same, either," she finished, switching back to English.

[Gizmo]

"Moose and squirrel," Jack agreed sagely with a vague wave of his hand in response to the string of foreign language. Stopping his pacing he folded his arm in good humour. "Flying is totally cheating, by the way." By this point Miss Americana had to wonder whether the acrobatic hero was trying to impress her or just had that much trouble standing still. "As for guessing, I don't like a brag," he lied, "but I'm kind of a freaky genius like that."