ic Double Dutch

[Gizmo]

"Well, no accounting for taste, William or Thoughtspeed or Will or The Other Two," Set allowed with an unconcerned shrug. "I'm on the Twitter if you like." Turning her attention to the newly arrived consort of young Richard, she waved pleasantly. "Hail, Paige Cline! You have a lovely family! I must say, however, everyone seems terribly high strung, with so much talk of parole and the silent looks full of veiled meaning!"

"...why does he name me 'fan'?" Sekhmet interjected in a quieter voice evidently meant to be directly specifically to Set but audible to the whole room. Normally she would have commented upon the godling's convicted status but the numerous new faces introduced one after another were making her increasingly uncomfortable.

Set leaned toward the warrior goddess and placed a hand to the side of her mouth to explain, "Tis akin to the upward thumb on the YouTubes. I shall elaborate anon, family drama be afoot." Straightening she gave Clock Queen a knowing look. "Goodness, Anna, you abscond for a scant few minutes and things seemingly fall apart! I'm quite the adept intermediary, you know, surely a resolution may be reached! Come, speak to Auntie Set!"

[Electra]

Paige folded her arms, and it was almost possible to watch her counting to ten in her head. "I understand you want to spend time catching up with old friends," she told Anna in her best conciliatory voice. "I know you've been bored at our house, and I really do appreciate all the casseroles. It's just been... it's been a very hard month, and I hope you can understand that we're just not ready for any more drama with the police or other superheroes or anyone, really. And I'm not sure, but I suspect that this apartment doesn't belong to anybody that any of us know, so if you could please take off the costume, we can all go home and have a nightcap and some pie and look at the old photo albums." 

 

With belated, slightly exhausted politeness, she turned to address the two strangers. "And it really is very nice to meet you, Set. I've read so much about you. Sekhmet, a pleasure as well."

[Avenger Assembled]

Suddenly, a black, shadowy gateway opened in the apartment's kitchenette and out stepped a man in strange garb! With his artfully tattered tuxedo, misshapen but expensive top hat, and skull face paint, he was instantly recognizable as the notorious crime kingpin (and alleged god) Baron Samedi - or at least a very convincing impersonator thereof! He didn't seem to see the group in the foyer at first, instead heading for the refrigerator, opening the door - and looking up to see Clock Queen shrugging as she held up his champagne bottle. He stared at the heroes, and they stared back. "You tink you can enter the private sanctum of da Baron," he sneered after a moment, black shadowfire beginning to coalesce around his hands, "without a fight? I may have gone away for a while, but no one does dat without being eaten by their own shadows!" 

 

"This does not mean you were right, Ma!" Richard just had time to shout before the battle began. 

[Avenger Assembled]

What followed was not the most graceful moment in the careers of Fast-Forward, Clock Queen, or for that matter the villainous shadow controller who was impersonating Baron Samedi. "Like fun you're Baron Samedi!" taunted Fast-Forward as he vaulted over the breakfast bar. "Where'd you learn your accent, Live and Let Dieee-ah dammit waxed floor!" All the speed in the world couldn't stop Richard from sliding forward with all-too-human dexterity, skidding right past the Baron and onto the other side of the kitchen. Clock Queen joined him a second later, whipping her blade around and cutting the Baron's hat in half without actually touching him. 

 

"Lousy punk in a dime-store costume! Hey, quit that!" Shadowy hands were reaching for Clock Queen and Fast-Forward from darkened corners of the kitchen, the two speedsters easily dodging the grasping shadow-limbs. 

 

"Far as anyone knows, I'm de real Baron! And I will be the real deal after I beat you interfering do-gooders!" sneered the false Baron, his attacks not quite matching up with his rhetoric. "I learned this from da best!" 

[KnightDisciple]

William's hands dropped from his ears as soon as some dude stepped out of the shadows. When he realized who the guy was playing at being, his helmet was suddenly covering his face again. The young man's posture was serious but not tense; he'd been trained by the best, after all!

 

At which point he saw "the best" make utter fools of themselves. He sighed and sent a mental message out to his family.

 

--Don't worry, I've got this punk!--

 

With a slight *whoosh* of air, Thoughtspeed grasped two glowing green gladii, his favored setup for actually using two swords in combat. In a move that was a blur to...well, the non-speedsters in the room, anyways, the young hero rushed past his grandmother and the imposter Baron to end up behind him, whereupon he attempted to slam either/both blades into the shadow controller. 

 

He missed by a country mile, and was suddenly glad he was wearing a helmet to hide the blush of embarrassment.

Edited February 20, 2014 by KnightDisciple

[Electra]

Paige nearly missed the start of the battle because she'd put a hand over her eyes in frustration, but she managed to catch the rather spectacular failure of her speedier family members to do anything to the faux-Baron. Of course Anna hadn't merely been trespassing in an ordinary apartment, of course it belonged to an unfriendly supervillain type. Why would she have ever thought it would be otherwise? For a brief moment she thought longingly of Florida, and how if Anna wasn't going to use her perfectly lovely condo, maybe Paige could live there while Anna was in Freedom City. 

 

But first things first. Paige was typically loathe to fight supervillains who weren't engaged in actual villainous acts, and if anybody was breaking the law tonight it was the heroes, but the situation was already way out of hand. Maybe there was still time to defuse things before anyone got hurt. She sent out a subtle psychic probe, hoping to sneak into the back of his mind and encourage him to have a little nap while everyone was leaving. No such luck, though. Poseur or no, the not-Samedi had a pretty decent mental shield on him. Of course he did, Paige thought with a sigh. 

[Gizmo]

"Samedi has a Haitian accent, you ignoramus," Set corrected with a note of professional offense and running a thumb along the underside of one of her top's straps. When the family of speedsters proved to have difficulty catching the loa imposter, she snapped her fingers. "Alright, no more Miss Nice Goddess." Returning to her male form, he made a series of quick, arcane gestures that brought forth an impossible tide of pristine, glittering sand from the corners of the penthouse ceiling, the edges of the door frame and from beneath the fridge to which Clock Queen had helped herself earlier.

The spontaneous desert surged forward with with the zigzagging speed of a predator and collided upon the apartment's owner. Or at least where he had been a moment before, his reflexes keeping him out of the animated dune as easily as he'd avoided the previous attacks. Clock Queen herself was not quite so lucky as the indiscriminate sands quickly rooted the retired super criminal to the spot. "Eh?! Oh for--" cutting back a string of obscenities, Set smacked his forehead. "Apologies, Anna! Truly!"

[Gizmo]

"Oh, well done," Sekhmet congratulated the godling with eye-rolling sarcasm before turning her attention on their surprisingly evasive skull faced opponent. Shifting one foot beneath her, she watched intently for a moment before suddenly launching herself forward without warning. Crossing the length of the penthouse in a blur of blood orange shendyt and toned muscle, she threw all of her weight behind a punch that connected directly with the false god's facepaint, sending him reeling backward and knocking his tophat to the now sand covered floor.

Snorting with derision, she kept her eyes on the villain, raising her fists in a loose fighting stance and placing herself between her quarry and the immobile elder Cline. "Devourer of Hearts, was that truly so difficult?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Ma!" The gloves were off now, the fight having spun way out of everyone's control. Fast-Forward zipped back into the room and tagged the fake Samedi (finally), grabbing time all around the phony god and bringing it nearly to a crashing halt. Samedi wasn't out of the fight, not with his eyes widening and deep voice extended to an impossibly low profundo, but he sure as hell was on pause! If he harms one goddamned hair on Will's head I'm gonna rip that hat off and shove it somewhere the sun don't shine! he thought Paige's way. 

 

Meanwhile, Clock Queen drove her swords straight down into the sand at her feet and yelled "Goddamn wretched piece of-" And then suddenly, in a flash of black light, Baron Samedi (or at least his imposter) vanished from the room, leaving them alone in their hard-won apartment! 

[Gizmo]

"Craven!" Sekhmet growled in outrage, shoulders up and fists clenched tightly as she looked about for any sign of the elusive impersonator. Seeing nothing, the goddess made a rolling, predatory sound in the back her throat and dropped to all fours in her tawny lioness form, claws out and clacking against the penthouse floor as she took care sniffs of the air where her quarry had last been standing, trying to pick up some sort of trail.

For his part, Set took the pause in pitched combat to sprint over to Clock Queen and drop to his own knees with a surprising lack of dignity, scraping away at his own hardened sand construct with his bare hands. "Argh, tis mortifying. 'Eph Em Elle,'" he groaned, casting about for some tool to speed his work along. Quietly enough that it was clear he was talking to himself, the godling grumbled, "Can I truly not be trusted even with such paltry power, brother?" Seizing upon one of the glasses they'd taken out earlier, he began using it as a crude shovel, regaining some measure of composure and looking up at the immobilized speedster. "I will make recompensense, Anna, on my word, for what that be worth."

[Electra]

Paige felt a moment's relief as the villain chose the better part of valor, then sighed as she took in the chaos that remained behind. "Richard, I think we'd better excavate your mother. Will, help your grandmother, please. We need to leave now before he finds a friend or two and comes back. We can call this in as a possible base to the Freedom League and see if they have any information on a new villain with a Samedi theme, but there's no point looking for trouble tonight." Automatically she began straightening the rest of the kitchen, using paper towels to wipe down anything anyone touched. 

[KnightDisciple]

Will almost cursed as the fake Samedi disappeared. He'd wanted to get a couple hits in. It was a chance for a family team hero fight!

 

He sighed as he moved over to his half-trapped grandmother. He pondered the sand pile before re-configuring the psychic energy in his hands. He now held a dull-edged...well, it wasn't quite a shovel or spade, but it wasn't far off. The important part was that it had a broad, flat surface that he could dig into the sand to start moving it away from Anna Cline. 

 

It was a task that would take a normal person quite a while. But a normal person couldn't operate at the paceThoughtspeed could keep up.

[Avenger Assembled]

With all the speedsters working together, it didn't take long for them to work Anna Cline free of her confinement. "It's okay, honey," she reassured Set in an oddly grandmotherly way, "I know you missed. I guess neither of us are as fast as we were back in the old days." She put her swords away and looked around, asking, "So, do we win the apartment now?" with a wink in her grandson's direction. 

 

"No, right now I call the cops and let them know there's a powered Samedi impersonator out there," said Richard, picking up a landline phone that he was quite happy to locate in the apartment. "Loon or not, that guy wasn't fooling around with those powers. The last thing Freedom City needs is another gang conflict. Will, take your nana home, will you? We need to clean up in here before the cops arrive." 

 

Meanwhile, Sekhmet had opened a window and found the scent of her enemy - the false Baron had made it just as far as the fire escape and was now running for his life!

[Gizmo]

"Do you recall the giant sand scorpions my elder self could summon?" Set mused with a wistful sigh, shoulders slumping slight in dejection. "Those were good."

"Thy mortal enforcers of law shall not be necessary, Richard Cline," Sekhmet assured Fast-Forward in a voice that held notes of a pleased purr and a dangerous growl. "She Who Mauls does not abandon quarry so quickly!" Propelled by four powerfully muscled feline legs, she shot through doors out to the patio and launched herself with a mighty leap to the nearby fire escape where the imposter Baron was attempting to make good his escape.

"Oh bother. She's liable to take impersonating a divine personage rather badly, too. I'd best go after her," Set supposed as the warrior goddess sped past. Taking Clock Queen's hand in his own, the godling bowed and kissed her knuckles in a courtly show. "Still, you must at least let me treat you to dinner while you're in town, Anna, I insist!" With that he jogged to the shadowy corner their attacker had used as a doorway and disappeared himself into the darkness, reappearing outside at street level in the similarly obscured space between the building and its neighbour.

[KnightDisciple]

With all the speedsters working together, it didn't take long for them to work Anna Cline free of her confinement. "It's okay, honey," she reassured Set in an oddly grandmotherly way, "I know you missed. I guess neither of us are as fast as we were back in the old days." She put her swords away and looked around, asking, "So, do we win the apartment now?" with a wink in her grandson's direction. 

 

"No, right now I call the cops and let them know there's a powered Samedi impersonator out there," said Richard, picking up a landline phone that he was quite happy to locate in the apartment. "Loon or not, that guy wasn't fooling around with those powers. The last thing Freedom City needs is another gang conflict. Will, take your nana home, will you? We need to clean up in here before the cops arrive." 

 

Meanwhile, Sekhmet had opened a window and found the scent of her enemy - the false Baron had made it just as far as the fire escape and was now running for his life!

 

Will sighed a bit. Hero stuff with your family could be lame, but he hadn't even gotten to DO anything yet! But his father had asked him to do something, and he didn't want his grandmother to get caught up in this. Plus maybe he could get her away from the guy who didn't look any older than himself but had apparently been a big-time supervillain once?

 

"Yeah. Right Grandma, let's go. You want to race me or anything on the way back?"

 

Assuming his grandmother didn't fight him or his father on the matter, Will would escort her back toward their house, keeping his senses alert for the Samedi impersonator.

 

If the guy tried to touch his grandmother Will would give him the worst headache in existence.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Call me!" Clock Queen yelled after Set. With that she ran out the window with Thoughtspeed, zipping along at a pace slightly slower than her grandson's but no less speedy for being a seventy-nine year old lady. "So, kiddo, tell me about this ninja girl your dad is so worried about..." 

 

--- 

 

"Oh." Richard sighed and zipped around the apartment, cleaning up everything they'd touched - door handles, windowsills, and even his mother's wine bottle, with a thoroughly practiced eye. Heedless over the sounds of melee from the street below, including what sounded distinctly like triumphant yowling and an agitated baritone that said "Aw dammit I knew I should have gone with Kriminel!", he approached his wife and put his arms around her. "I'm sorry about this, honey. I know this wasn't how you wanted this week to end." 

[KnightDisciple]

"Call me!" Clock Queen yelled after Set. With that she ran out the window with Thoughtspeed, zipping along at a pace slightly slower than her grandson's but no less speedy for being a seventy-nine year old lady. "So, kiddo, tell me about this ninja girl your dad is so worried about..." 

William laughed at the question.

 

"Which one, Gramma? I mean, there's at least a couple girls who I'm sure Dad would call "ninjas" at the school. I'm not dating any of them or anything. I just flirt at them once in a while. One of them's about to graduate anyways. 

 

I just mostly appreciate being able to talk to kids my age without hiding my powers, you know? It's always awkward at normal schools."

 

There's perhaps a trace of sadness in that, but it's gone quickly.

 

"Anyways, I'm not really spending special amounts of time with anyone right now. Trust me, Gramma, if I get a girlfriend I'll send you the picture ASAP."

[Electra]

Paige sighed. "I knew I owed you one for bringing Jimmy to stay with us and arranging for the lawyers, I just didn't expect you to call in the marker right away," she admitted ruefully. "But you know what they say about picking your friends and picking your nose." A particularly loud exclamation drew her to the window, but the angle was wrong for them to see much. She was confident that the aggressive woman who'd jumped out the window could more than handle the two-bit villain, now that her own family was out of the line of fire. "We'll call it even. Now let's get back, I have to pay the babysitter double if we're out past ten-thirty." Putting her hand in his to keep him from jumping out the window, she headed for the front door, walking maybe just a tiny bit slower than absolutely necessary. Part of being even meant suffering equally, after all.  

[Gizmo]

"There," Sekhmet announced, holding the unfortunate and insensate shadow controlling impersonator off of the street by the collar of his sleeveless suit jacket. "Now even thee should have little trouble hitting the impertinent fool, liesmith." Smugness practically rolled off of the goddess in waves as she confirmed with some small disappointment that the metahuman had no more fight left in him.

With a heavy sigh, Set snapped his fingers, summoning a gust of wind to blow open the lid of a nearby dumpster. "Indeed, Sekhmet, quite droll. The many and varied felines of the internets hold no candle to your wit, truly."

Tossing her prey into the proffered receptacle with a meaty thud accompanied by a metallic clang, the warrior deity eyed the uncharacteristically sullen godling out of the corner of one smouldering golden eye. "Renewing thy old acquaintance proved to be one of thy less terrible notions," she offered conversationally as the pair began to walk down the street, neither bothered by the dark of night. "The Clock Queen has my favour, I believe."

"Nice to see one bridge my elder self failed to burn to bitter ashes, aye," Set agreed, pursing his lips and folding his hands behind his back, simply matching the taller deity's longer stride rather than spurning them on with his more energetic gait. His poorly aimed sandstorm had clearly been a blow to his ego and not one he was taking well.

"Raising the topic of burning," Sekhmet responded with overplayed nonchalance, "the recounting of thy meeting with the mortal Nero remains unfinished."

That drew a wan smile from Set as he looked over at the goddess innocently avoiding his glance. "Surely She Who Mauls has little use for a half-remembered tale of worldly debauchery." He appreciated the attempt she was making but she was hardly skilled in the arts of manipulation and subtlety.

Sekhmet snorted flatly, crossing her arms. "Ah hah, merely another hollow boast of little substance, then. As I thought." Raising her nose in the air she quickened her walk just enough that Set had to job slightly to keep up.

The godling broke into a genuine smile with a shake of his head. Still not so subtle, perhaps, but credit where credit was due. Letting his hands drop back to his sides, he hurried after the statuesque warrior. "People said much the same of Rourke, you know. He made these titanic constructs of flame, great fiery beasts and monsters. The gossip was that he was surely compensating for something but I can assure you..."