A Hero's Quickening (IC)

[Supercape]

From the outside, Hornbrass munitions dump looked fairly ordinary. Sure, it was well built, a heavy concrete structure, but nothing about it seemed otherwise out of the ordinary.

Two police cars were already outside, waiting for backup, with the cops aiming their guns at the front entrance to the building, and looking decidedly nervous. The only other unusual feature were a six motorbikes and a beat up old van a few dozen feet from the building, parked with little thought for parking restrictions.

[Cubist]

Having circled around the Hornbrass property once, the fastest cat alive chose a spot out of the cops' lines of sight, and then downshifted to match their tempo of 1. Then he tried to use his comlink to talk to the police at the Hornbrass front entrance...

[Supercape]

"Roger Roger, its a twenty - fifty five!" spluttered the police captain over the radio. "We gotta buncha' terrorists in the building. Overpowered the security guards, and no, I don't know how. Maybe they are taking Zoom or something. Haven't made any demands, but we have been hearing explosions and loud music from inside. Sounds like they are having a party... and they have a ton of explosives to party with..."

Jubatus' voice crackled over the car radio.

"Hey, who is this?" demanded the Cop, not recognising the voice.

[Cubist]

"Roger Roger, its a twenty - fifty five!" spluttered the police captain over the radio. "We gotta buncha' terrorists in the building. Overpowered the security guards, and no, I don't know how. Maybe they are taking Zoom or something. Haven't made any demands, but we have been hearing explosions and loud music from inside. Sounds like they are having a party... and they have a ton of explosives to party with..."

Jubatus' voice crackled over the car radio: "You guys accepting assistance from someone who's not a professional ell-ee-oh?"

"Hey, who is this?" demanded the Cop, not recognising the voice.

"My name is Jubatus. I'm a supertype who's on your side. ETA at your location will be 2 seconds after... mark."

And in two seconds, Jube does indeed show up at the cops' location -- about 30 feet in front of their cars, well within the cops' field of vision.

[Supercape]

"Whoa!" exclaimed the police captain. It was hard to tell if he was shocked at the speed of Jubatus, or his appearance. Even in freedom city, residents never quite got used to the amazing superheroes that patrolled the streets. And Jubatus was certainly one of the odder looking ones.

In fact, he was shocked at both speed and appearance.

"Pleased you can help...err... sir. We got some serious trouble in there, maybe just kids, maybe worse. Maybe both. They got themselves holed up. At least four or five workers, including security, are holed up in there with them. And they have enough firepower to blow up a few blocks. Maybe not the knowhow to use it.... we hope. "

[Cubist]

The fastest cat alive nodded at the captain. "What's your best guess on the number of terrorists?" he asked, and then similar queries on what (if anything) was known about the terrorists' powers (if any -- the captain had speculated about Zoom usage, but that wasn't certain), their tactics, and their weaponry. The speedster wasn't expecting to learn much, but however little the captain could tell him, that little was quite a bit more than he, Jubatus, knew. After gleaning what information he could, Jube upshifted and spent a few clock-seconds working over the poorly-parked vehicles he'd noted (which he presumed to be the means by which the terrorists had arrived here in the first place): He removed all the nuts holding the wheels onto their respective axles, putting the hubcaps back on the van's wheels to conceal his handiwork, after which he stored all the nuts in one of his vest's many pockets. You never knew when a small, dense projectile might come in handy, after all.

Then, after disabling the terrorists' getaway vehicles, Jubatus put on his eye- and ear-protectors -- apart from things like flash-bang grenades, any armory contained lots of toys that made loud noises and bright light -- and rushed into the building.

Since his Timeshift messed with gravity, the fastest cat alive decided to try something a little different: Once he was inside, he'd run on the walls, close to the ceiling. Hopefully, any sentries the terrorists might have deployed on corridors or whatever would be focusing their attention on the floor rather than the ceiling...

Jube's game plan, like Gaul, was into three parts divided: First, recon the entire interior of the building, finding out where everyone, perp and hostage alike, actually was, and seeing what weapons and other resources the perps had access to. Hopefully his speed, his unorthodox wall-running, and the innate stealthiness of the cheetah he'd become, would keep any of the perps from detecting his presence while he was scoping out the battlefield.

Second, pull the hostages out and carry them to safety. This would necessarily be a one-at-a-time process; Jube would have preferred to move all of the hostages to safety in one pass, but that wasn't a live option, so he'd live with it. "Needs must, when the Devil drives", as the saying went.

Third, disable the perps. While he wasn't thrilled about this part of the plan, he also recognized that it would probably be necessary. Perhaps if he sprayed his fire extinguisher into a perp's face, that would give him an opening (while the perp was dealing with his faceful of foam) to duct-tape the perp into harmlessness?

The plan sounded good... but Jubatus had no illusions about how likely it was that the perps would play along. The cheetah had been lucky so far, tonight. He wasn't at all sure how long his luck would continue to hold...

[Supercape]

The building was secure, after a fashion. The main entrance had been ram-raided by a reinforced truck, and patched up - again, after a fashion. It was not difficult to slip into the building through the remains of the door.

The building was a goodly size, and divided into several areas for transportation, construction, and storage. From what Jube could make out, it was the storage area that had been taken over. Almost straight away, he ran into three youths and a tied up security guard. The youths were spray painting the walls and smashing up the decor with baseball bats.

Despite his uncanny speed and agility, the cat was not quite fast enough. Perhaps he had been running too fast today, with a spine still not sure if it was built for two or four limbs. But having sped through half the city in less than an hour, it decided, at this most unfortunate time, to give a small complaint, and even this temporary spasm was enough for one of the youths to turn around, raising his baseball bat.

"Heads up, trouble!" he yelled.

[Cubist]

The first part of Jubatus' battle plan, 'recon the entire building', started off well enough. Running on the walls, close to the ceiling, felt a little odd at first, but the cheetah got used to it soon enough. And much of the building's interior proved to be deserted; as best Jube could tell, the only part of the building the perps could be in was the storage area. But things fell apart when the fastest cat alive encountered his first set of terrorists!

He'd just entered a mid-sized chamber which contained, among other things, three (rather young, actually...) perps and a person all tied up with nylon rope; this last person looked to be wearing a security guard's uniform. And then Jube's lower back spasmed in pain! It threw him off-stride -- and lurching into the ceiling. The impact did far more damage to the cheetah's dignity than to his body, but between the spike of pain and the ceiling-scrape, Jube lost his concentration...

...and just like that, his Timeshift dissipated, leaving him at his normal, default tempo of only 6 times faster than normal.

Jubatus recovered himself almost instantly -- certainly less than one clock-second -- but the damage was done. When he looked at the perps after re-establishing his Timeshift to a tempo of 40, one of the perps was looking right at him, and the perp's mouth was open in speech! Blast it! Jube thought. He noticed my screw-up -- he's gotta be sounding the alarm! And how many other perps heard the noise when I stumbled?

In this situation, not even the fastest cat alive could afford to waste any time. Jube sped down the wall and across the floor to the nearest of the three perps; taking advantage of the Timeshift-reduced gravity, Jube carefully lifted this person up a few inches off the floor... and then gently shoved him towards the second-closest of the three perps. As the cheetah didn't want to risk giving the perp a case of whiplash, he performed this feat with exaggerated care, and then he turned to the third perp. Jube's fire extinguisher was already in one hand, even as his other hand was in process of retrieving a roll of duct-tape from his vest...

[Supercape]

"What the..." spluttered one Anarchist, dazzled by the speed of the cat, and barely able to speak before he crashed into his fellow, knocking them both to the floor. His head clunked against the concrete and his consciousness faded into a deep sleep.

His entangle friend pulled out his gun and fired in a reflex move, with the shot going completely wild, hitting a light which fizzed briefly and dimmed, adding to the confusion caused by Jubatus' blistering speed.

The very confusion that saw the last remaining upright anarchist take a telepgraphed swing at the hero with his baseball cat. But he was no match for the Cat's reflexes and speed, even if he had been thinking clearly.

[Cubist]

The bullet which took out the overhead light wouldn't have been much of a problem for Jubatus even if it had been aimed properly -- he could see the thing as it moved through the air, at a velocity which (to Jube's accelerated eyes) looked to be in the neighborhood of 20 MPH. Still, it would have been better if that bullet hadn't been fired at all, considering that they all were located in the storage area of a munitions dump. Who knew what sort of secondary explosions could have been sparked off by that stray bullet? But even if that weren't a valid concern, the noise of the gunfire definitely was!

Jubatus raised his fire extinguisher to 'point blank' position and gave the third perp a face-full of opaque foam. To discourage any further weapons fire from the second perp, Jube moved around the third perp, making them a living shield in between Jube and the second perp. The cheetah duct-taped the third perp's wrists together behind their back...

[Supercape]

The last anarchist, startled at the blistering rate at which his two comrades had been subdued, lost all sense of reason. He stood up and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. If his brain had been functioning at all, he would have realised that the chance of outrunning the blur that was Jubatus was futile at best...

[Cubist]

The fastest cat alive didn't even try any sarcastic banter on the running perp -- with the sound-distorting effects of Timeshifting to a tempo of 40, he and the perp were mutually unintelligible and inaudible to one another -- but in his head, he thought, Yeah, that'll work. The cheetah's fleeing quarry found himself immobilized with duct tape in the short time between two strides. After that, Jubatus served up a nice, hot helping of Duct Tape Special to the first (unconscious) perp, too, just in case he recovered quickly or was playing possum.

Jubatus didn't like leaving loose ends.

Before perp #3 hit the ground, Jube had transported the tied-up security guard outside, close beside the police car, where the officers in attendance could see him and deal with his bonds. The cheetah downshifted to the officers' tempo of 1 just long enough to let them know the guard was here, then he blurred back in and out, three times, carrying one immobilized perp on each trip, and leaving each perp at least 15 feet away from either of their two comrades (because leaving them next to one another, so that Perp A might have half a chance of removing the tape from Perp B's limbs, would have been stupid. Each time he re-entered the building, Jubatus was alert for any indication that his stumble, or the subsequent gunfire, had attracted any attention from whichever other perps might be in the building tonight...

[Supercape]

As Jubatus whizzed back and forth, all he could here was the drum and bass of a dance track that was now pounding through the intercom of the building, making it hard to ascertain exactly where it was originating from. The signs of general vandalism were everywhere: tipped over bins, smashed machinery, grafitti...

And now, the smell of burning...

[Cubist]

While Jubatus could distinguish a goodly number of the specific aromas in the smoke he was smelling, he didn't recognize most of them... then again, it hardly mattered. A fire in an armory just wasn't a good idea, end of discussion -- and it could have catastrophic consequences, depending on what specific items might be ignited.

After putting on his gas mask, the cheetah sped through the building, looking for the actual fire. This task was made more difficult by the fact that the fire's smoke traveled through ventilation conduits; Jube did have something of an 'ace in the hole', however. Specifically, the fact that his Timeshift worked both ways. When he upshifted, running faster than normal, the Timeshift caused light to doppler down, so that he saw by ultraviolet wavelengths; the other side of that coin was that when he downshifted, running slower than normal, he saw by infrared wavelengths. Jube didn't like to downshift that far -- the accompanying gravity boost wasn't nice, not to mention the whole slowing down thing -- but when you were looking for the epicenter of a fire, infrared vision was the right tool for the job.

As Jubatus ran through the corridors, he kept an eye out for any fire extinguishers which had been installed in the building. His own fire extinguisher was very small, and he'd already used up some of its foam earlier tonight; as well, he figured that if there were any exotic materials here that would react strangely to a 'standard' fire extinguisher, he'd be better off using the on-site FEs anyway. Every time he saw an extinguisher, Jube downshifted momentarily, just long enough to get an infrared look at things and decide which direction was hottest, and collected that extinguisher.

[Supercape]

The heat was coming from the central room of the factory. It didn't take long for Jubatus to find it, with his infrared vision - the walls were positively glowing.

In the room, five anarchists were dancing around a large bonfire they had lit in the middle of the room. Smoke and heat belched forward, obscuring vision - and a heavy drum and bass track made hearing almost as hard. Every now and again, one of the anarchists would come forward and smash up a piece of machinery or electronics.

Two security guards and two scientists had been tied up next to the fire, and were clearly suffering from the smoke and heat.

[Cubist]

'First things first' was usually a good rule of thumb. In this case, however, it wasn't clear which 'things' were 'first' -- douse the bonfire, or rescue the hostages? Dealing with the idiot perps could wait, at least for the few clock-seconds it'd take Jubatus to handle the first two tasks...

Having collected a number of the building's fire extinguishers while he was seeking out this room, Jube now prepped them all for active use. Then he sped inside and put them around the bonfire with their long axes parallel to the floor, 'floating' in midair at knee-height and aimed at the fire's base. After placing each extinguisher, Jube paused long enough to confirm that its smothering spray was indeed inching out of its nozzle before moving on to set up the next one.

Once he'd gotten all the extinguishers set up to do their job, the fastest cat alive turned his attention to the hostages. One at a time, Jubatus moved them bodily into the corridor outside this room. After moving each hostage, Jube checked the 'ring' of extinguishers, adjusting their positions and points-of-aim as needed to ensure that they were still going to do what he wanted. Then he took the next hostage to (relative) safety.

After the four hostages were out of immediate danger, the cheetah could focus on the bonfire. Keeping N fire extinguishers pointed in the right direction from in midair, all in realtime... it reminded Jubatus of a vaudeville act he'd seen on television a while ago: Plate spinning. The stakes here were a little higher than a broken plate, of course...

Only after the bonfire was out, did Jubatus turn his attention to the idiot perps. He moved to a spot where none of them would be within arm's reach of him; downshifted to their tempo of 1; and said, rather loudly, "Okay! Funtime's over, people. You can come quietly, or you can yell and scream. Your choice."

[Supercape]

The Thugs stopped what they were doing, and seeing the Cat pounce out of the smoke and flames, just as they died (From Jubatus' efforts) was enough to put the fear into them. All but one scattered, running every which way around the building.

The leader, however, was not so immediately impressed. He brought up his shotgun to bear on Jubatus, and, screaming at his subordinates to return, opened fire with the weapon.

"I don't care what you are, Cat-Man! But you will regret the day you stepped into our party - it's invitation only, darling!" he sneered with a face stuffed full of malice verging on insanity.

[Cubist]

He delays firing so he can try to taunt me? Idiot! Jubatus thought, moving right beside him while the idiot's mouth was still making the talking noises. When the idiot finally did pull the trigger, of course Jube wasn't there to be hit. And then...

The cheetah paused -- just a fraction of an upshifted second. The obvious thing to do was hit this idiot with his claws... but he'd never actually done that before. Not while he was in his right mind, anyway. And sure, he'd hit canvas-covered dummies in practice sessions, not to mention slashing at targets that he'd gimmicked to record the force with which they were struck, so he had a very good idea of how many foot-pounds of force he could exert while upshifted.

What Jubatus didn't know, was what N foot-pounds of force, while upshifted, would do to a living, breathing human being. Not for sure. There were cases on record of people getting crippled for life, even killed, by absurdly weak impacts...

Jube steeled himself. There was no way anybody could hope to get into the heroing game without needing to hit people every now and then, and permanent damage was reassuringly rare. Still and all, he didn't need to start off hitting this idiot as hard as he possibly could... right?

One tentative slash later, Jubatus downshifted to he could see what his attack had done to the idiot. Answer: Not much, apparently.

"You call that a cut, Kittyboy?" the idiot said. "I got a Siamese at home whose claws are sharper'n yours!" More trash-talk, Jubatus mused. Ignore it. The idiot's second shotgun blast, like the first, missed its intended target; the fastest cat alive evaded the blast completely, without any difficulty. Whatever had been hit by the two shotgun blasts, well, Jube would worry about that after he dealt with the idiot at hand.

And then Jube slashed at the idiot again, with a lot less 'tentative' on the side...

[Supercape]

The leader was tough, and fast, and no pushover. Although Jubatus' claws ripped through his leather jacket, drew blood and winded the man, he only staggered back and grimaced.

"You'll pay for that" he shouted, unleashing blast after blast from the souped up shotgun as he walked backwards towards the bonfire in the middle of the room.

[Cubist]

"You'll pay for that!" the gun-wielding idiot shouted.

Oh, joy and rapture. Two upshifted hits, and this yutz is still mobile? Jubatus thought. Okay, he's on some kind of drugs. Better make sure my third hit counts. At his highest level of upshift, the cheetah grabbed hold of the idiot's shotgun and shoved its barrel up, as hard as he could. The idiot's grip on his weapon did not slacken; that was alright, because it just meant that the shotgun pivoted upward so that its hot barrel slammed, hard, into the idiot's face. And...

Yep; the idiot was out of it, as Jube confirmed during a momentary downshift to the normal tempo of 1. The fastest cat alive didn't waste any time; he pulled the idiot's leather jacket off and duct-taped said idiot's elbows together behind his back, then duct-taped his ankles together, and finally fastened his ankles to his wrists. After immobilizing the idiot, Jube checked the room over. If the perps had planted any unpleasant surprises -- bombs, maybe -- before they decided to party around a bonfire, he didn't want to miss that! As well, the cheetah wanted to be sure the frickin' shotgun blasts hadn't damaged anything important.

Fortunately, the room looked clean. Next item on the agenda: Transport this bozo to -- wait -- the other clowns, the ones who'd run away! They hadn't been gone for that many seconds, as measured by a clock, but that didn't excuse his overlooking them. After all, how many seconds did it take to pull a trigger? Jubatus rushed out the door... and stopped, because the perps who'd run off weren't running now. All of them were right here, lying on the floor or awkwardly crammed up against a wall. Considering where the idiots were, and the relative positions of the hostages he'd moved into this corridor earlier, it seemed fairly clear: In their blind panic, the perps hadn't been watching where they put their feet, and so they must have tripped over the inadvertent 'obstructions' Jube had left in their way. Heads met floor and wall, with predictable results. The cheetah duct-taped these perps into immobility, as he had their leader, and went on to complete his interrupted search of the building. If there were more of these clowns than just the ones he'd encountered thus far, Jubatus was not going to miss any of them; not if he could help it, he wasn't!

More good news: The ones he'd dealt with were the only perps in the building. Excellent! My work here is done, Jubatus told himself -- except his work wasn't done, was it? The cheetah spent a few (upshifted) seconds gathering his thoughts... then he transported the remaining hostages outside, where the police were helping the first group of hostages out of their bonds. He downshifted to talk to the police. Waiting only long enough for them to recover from the surprise of his abrupt appearance, the cheetah said, "I got the rest of the perps, too. I'm gonna drag them out next." Which he did, making sure (as he had with the first batch of perps) that none of them would be in any position to assist any of their comrades.

Jubatus stayed slow -- a tempo of 1 -- while he swore out a complaint against the perps, answering the cops' questions as accurately and completely as he could. Reviewing his actions, the mistakes he'd made here were glaringly obvious: He should have had his cameras out to record his interactions with the perps, he should have given the idiot with the shotgun a faceful of extinguisher foam... should have, should have, should have.

For whatever reason, the officers didn't seem to notice the cheetah's errors. Or if they had noticed, they weren't inclined to make a fuss over any of them. Thank Themis for small favors, I guess, Jubatus mused. But how could I have been so stupid --

Oh.

Right.

I've burned Clausius-only-knows how many calories rushing around the City, and haven't eaten a thing since sundown! Of course my brain's running on empty now. Should have noticed the signs... feh, adrenaline rush probably papered over 'em.

Finally, the debrief-cum-interrogation was over. Jubatus vanished in an upshifted blur, heading to the converted SUV he called 'home', drooling at the thought of the meat he'd defrost -- Wait. I got protein in the vest. For exactly and precisely this kind of situation! Then, gnawing on beef jerky: Hoooo-boy. I feel like I could sleep for a week. Which means I'll be okay if I lapse into a coma for a while... two clock-hours should cover it, then back on patrol...

[Supercape]

That Evening...

All over the TV, the media was screaming about the exploits of Jubatus outing that day. He had squeezed a week of heroics into a whole day.

The Feline Fantastic! shouted out one reporter. A whole library of other names were being used, including, predictably, Whizz-Cat. But eventually, the name Jubatus had perculated through the reporters and it was the one they had settled on.

Jubatus had made quite an impression, and was the toast of Freedom City, for today at least. One thing was certain, everybody now knew of the newest, and fastest, cat hero in town!