Dirty Doug
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Chapter 4: Heroes and Villains
🕑 Added 2025-06-30 03:55:42 +0000 UTCA lazy dinner followed by more research was the course for James’s evening until the knock on his door came.
He groaned rising from his bed idly scratching his stomach as he walked to the door opening it to be greeted by a slightly red cheeked Ana her blonde hair swaying slightly as she rocked back and forth on her heels doing interesting things to the rest of her body, her hips swaying in idle circles as she shifted about as her breasts gently rose and fell with the motion of her chest. She was wearing faded blue jeans that hugged her legs and a red t-shirt that had a band that he didn’t recognize, which was a little loose, draping off the side of one shoulder.
She looked great, and it made James feel a little self-conscious with his simple grey t-shirt that hugged his somewhat newly formed muscles and black jeans. He hadn’t been exactly expecting a visitor.
“Good evening!” she blurted out seemingly instantaneously as her eyes landed on him, her cheeks tinged a further shade of red.
“Evenin’,” James replied, suppressing a small smile at the strange feeling of embarrassment that was wafting off from Ana.
He was better now, with continued practice, he could now avoid the thoughts of others almost entirely, and he would instead occasionally instead get impressions of their emotions if they were strong enough.
“Have you eaten yet?” Ana asked, seemingly pushing forward, despite her own discomfort.
“Ah, no, I haven’t actually,” James gave the girl a half smile. “Would you like to eat with me?” he asked, deciding to save the girl the trouble.
“Want to grab dinner with Sam and me then?” she asked, almost blurting the words out before James had finished, her smile lighting up her face, her blue eyes sparkling.
Looking like that, James was struck by how remarkably pretty the girl was before he shook the thought away. Ana’s cheeks flushed red as she realized she had asked a question he had already answered.
Still, she persevered even as James felt the flush of embarrassment, stronger this time, emerge from her again, “Uh, great, let’s go then!” she exclaimed.
James grabbed his shoes and stepped outside to join Ana, somewhat cursing his burst of shyness, preventing him from holding Ana up any longer to change to a more appropriate outfit.
They walked down the hallway to knock at Sam’s door.
Ana knocked several times and waited and James noted that he could hear nothing behind the door until seemingly without warning it swung open to reveal Sam her eyes closed in their typical half lidded expression as she grinned softly her lips just barely turned upwards, “Ana,” she acknowledged, “Dinner time?” she finished with a soft yawn.
“Yeah, if you’re up for it?” Ana said with a smile on her face.
“Sure, let’s do something off campus, I’ll treat everyone,” Sam said, stepping out dressed in a black crop top that exposed a stomach that was far more toned than James expected with small indents indicating her abs, though they were not fully formed. She had similarly black shorts with boots laced up to her knees, a stark contrast to her red hair. It was strange that she seemed already so dressed up, given that at the same time she gave the impression of someone who had just woken up.
Instant discomfort flickered through James at her words, “I think I can treat myself,” he said with a half smile.
Sam turned, giving him a long look with a raised eyebrow, “If it makes you more comfortable, do what you feel is best,” she replied.
“It does,” James' smile felt more real this time, now that he had much more money, he didn’t particularly want to have the feeling of being in someone else's debt again.
“Let’s go then!” Ana proclaimed, starting forward ahead of them, her faded blue jeans giving James an excellent view of her well-shaped rear trailing down to long, well-constructed legs.
They exited the dorm with little trouble, the night air hugging them in a warm embrace, and took a short walk to a bus station that was nearby, boarding the bus together and taking seats side by side.
The night felt nice on James’s skin, instantly bringing up the memories of his own recent adventures through it.
Perhaps not the thing he was supposed to be focusing on, but he couldn’t shake the thought as he looked at the bright city lights contrasted against the fading evening sun, his eyes trailed the rooftops he often jumped.
It wasn’t that he liked being a thief, villain, whatever it could be called; it’s just that sometimes, now that he had started to experience the other side, he would find himself waiting for the next opportunity, unable to shake the feeling that he could be up there.
“What’s on your mind, James?” Ana asked with her bright blue eyes, looking at him with interest.
“Nothing really,” James shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t see this part of Devil’s Rest often, is all,” he said easily.
“Really?” Sam asked, raising a single elegant dark red eyebrow at him, “You seem to go out often enough?”
Why was it that every conversation with Sam felt like an interrogation?
James didn’t think it was intentional, but it was like Sam just naturally fell into the mode where she would lock into a conversation and try to figure out what exactly it was that he was hiding.
It could be disconcerting.
It wasn’t even like he truly minded it, though; in a way, it seemed that Sam was taking an interest in him, and he couldn’t truly hate that aspect of her.
“Yeah, I suppose, but that’s mostly for work, ya know,” James grinned a half smile at the girl, shading the truth with a little bit of a lie.
“Mmm,” hummed Sam, seemingly rolling his response over in his head, “That’s fair enough, I suppose, can’t fault a guy working his way through college.”
James imagined Sam would have a slightly different opinion if she found out what his actual work entailed, but for now, he figured he would take the credit even though he didn’t feel as if he really deserved it.
Still… “I’m glad you approve,” James remarked, an amused grin making its way onto his face.
“Huh, so there is some snark behind the pretty face? I thought you were just a shy nerd.” Sam remarked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Sam!” Ana said, her voice higher pitched in annoyance, and giving her friend a glare, “Has anyone told you that you’re a little rude sometimes?”
“Occasionally,” Sam drawled out, leaning back into the bus seat and stretching, making her chest undulate in a way that made James have to avert his eyes.
Ana sighed, shaking her head, but seemed to drop the topic with her next words, “What do you think we should eat?” she turned to James.
James shrugged, “I’m good with whatever, I’ll find something to my taste easily enough.”
“I have a suggestion!” Sam perked up, smiling cheerfully, “There’s a great Italian place a little south of here, we’d just have to take the tram.”
“Oh, let’s do it then!” Ana smiled at Sam.
Italian… James did consciously try to avoid that kind of food since Franky, but he didn’t necessarily feel it was his place to put that kind of food out of contention.
“Sure,” James shrugged his shoulders.
-
He should have said something.
Angelo’s friendly sign, red halogens glaring through the night air, stared down at him with little consideration for what feelings it might evoke.
He had thought that they were getting awfully close to the restaurant, but it was only as Sam led them down the street that he realized he should have made more of a fuss. Suggested something… anything not to be here again.
They walked into the bustling restaurant and were greeted by a server who seemed to thankfully not recognize James.
They were seated in a corner of the restaurant and were given their menus. James flipped through his for appearances' sake, even though inwardly, as he sat in his seat, he wished for nothing more than not to be here.
Ana was looking at her own menu with great interest while James noted that Sam’s eyes were focused on him with a startling intensity.
“Something on my face?” James raised an eyebrow at the girl.
Sam shrugged her shoulders, her air completely uncaring, “No, you just seem a little uncomfortable, something wrong?”
James resisted the urge to frown; he didn’t think he had let anything slip on his face, so what was Sam picking up on?
“I’m fine,” James gave Sam a half smile, “It’s nice of you to be concerned, though, I wouldn’t peg you for the type.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam frowned at him, her lips twisting down further than usual.
James tapped a finger to his mouth thoughtfully, “How do I phrase this?” he mused, “You’re kind of cold most of the time, you know?” he looked at Sam easily preventing amusement from entering onto his face as he saw Sam’s green eyes widen slightly surprise crossing onto her features.
Sam’s lips curled into a deeper frown as she locked eyes with James, glaring at him, “What’s that supposed to mean?” she repeated herself, a note of something dark and angry in her voice.
James was about to respond, trying to think how to phrase his words better this time, only to be interrupted by the third party at the table, “Hey!” Ana exclaimed, her voice remarkably stern, “Don’t fight with each other.”
James hadn’t thought they were really fighting, but decided to drop the topic anyway, “Right, sorry Ana,” he looked the other girl directly in her gleaming emerald eyes, “I’m sorry Sam, I wasn’t trying to offend.”
Sam bit her lip, the movement seemingly unconscious, and she looked away from James’s gaze, “I’m sorry as well, I think I took that too personally.”
It was strange, James thought, for Sam to say that because from his interactions with her so far, he thought she would be the last person to take things personally.
Laid back. Lackadaisical. Apathetic. Those were the words he would use to describe her.
Yet his words seemed to have touched a nerve he was unaware of. Enough to almost tempt him to reach for his abilities, but he immediately stopped that thought.
He wasn’t going to be invading anyone’s privacy for something as simple as curiosity.
A server walked up to their table and asked a question that James himself had asked many times in this restaurant, “What can I get everyone?” The man smiled passively.
Ana frowned for a moment, glancing at the menu, “Pasta Carbonara,” she said.
“Lasagna,” Sam said with a shrug.
“Pasta Alfredo,” James said.
All simple and to the point, and with their orders taken, the man walked away, and the group was once again left to their prior talks.
“So we don’t know a lot about each other,” Ana clapped her hands together, “So I was thinking we would tell each other more about our backgrounds to get to know each other better.”
James didn’t need to be able to read minds to tell the girl was searching for something, not entirely what her words said she was. Yet he was unsure of what exactly she was looking for.
“You and Sam seem to know each other pretty well?” James remarked, unable to keep the question entirely out of his voice.
“I mean, sure,” Ana shrugged a somewhat awkward smile on her face, “But we still don’t really know you all that well, and Sam and I could always get to know each other better.”
“Right,” James said, keeping his doubt out of his tone.
“So,” Ana said, “You said you're from Devil’s Rest, and we are too, but what area exactly are you from here, where does your family live?”
And right onto a conversational landmine that James had been avoiding for quite a while.
How to best deal with this? The truth, obviously, but perhaps shaded in such a way to make it the least awkward it could be.
“I don’t really have one,” James shrugged, pasting a smile onto his face, “My parents kind of gave me up at birth.”
There, light and simple
Ana’s eyes widened slightly, and she looked horrified, though it was evident to Jamie that it wasn’t so much his words as her own casual way of exhuming what she was no doubt thinking of as a tragic past.
“I’m sorry,” she stuttered out, “I didn’t mean-“
“Easy,” James held up his hands open-palmed, “It’s not a big deal,”
“Strange choice of words,” Sam remarked, her lips twitching slightly, though James could not tell whether it was to prevent a smile or a frown.
“I mean,” James shrugged, hiding the uneasy feeling that she gave him with ease, “It’s just a fact that I deal with, it’s always been this way for me.”
Sam cocked her head slightly seemingly considering the words, “I suppose that’s fair, I’m sorry we didn’t mean to offend.”
Ana seemed to reformulate herself enough to speak again without the frantic panic from before, “I understand that growing up without parents is difficult, I am sorry as well.”
James refrained from the amused smile that wanted to spread onto his face as he looked at Ana, her somewhat dimmer blue eyes gazing at him solemnly.
“That’s a kind of strange way to phrase it,” because she had phrased it as if she did not understand the concepts of parents, “But I appreciate it nonetheless, it’s really not a big deal. It’s made me self-sufficient, ya know.”
“That’s one way to view it,” Sam’s lips finally formed into a smile, “Surprisingly upbeat for a guy like you.”
James snorted, giving Sam a small glare, though he attempted to make the expression playful, “I’m not that depressing, am I?”
“No,” remarked Sam instantly, “You’re just kind of flaky, ya know.”
“Is that it?” James shook his head. He didn’t think he had enough relationships before to be called flaky. He still didn’t, but his extracurricular activities had started to edge into his time, so maybe the title was deserved.
“It is,” Sam smirked at him, her red lips curling into a smirk.
James considered retorting, but Ana had wanted them to stop fighting, so he decided to let it go.
The conversation dissolved into a discussion about the upcoming school semester for a lack of better topics.
James contributed with his own questions even as he kept a wary eye around him, making sure that Franky’s parents wouldn’t be showing up.
Their food arrived, and they consumed it, and James noted the rapidity at which Ana ate, somehow being neat but still consuming her food at a rate others might consider unusual.
He didn’t comment for obvious reasons, along with the fact that it didn’t really matter, but a thought began to percolate in his head.
Wasn’t Ana kind of strange?
It wasn’t anything in particular, but there was just a feeling when he was around Ana, that she wasn’t just a cheerful girl. That maybe she was trying too hard to be the image she portrayed herself as.
Which of course didn’t make sense in the slightest.
James shook the thoughts away, biting into the noodles of his pasta, piercing into the slightly firm doom, and tasting the peppery cream of the pasta, gliding into his mouth.
It was a nostalgic flavor, perhaps too nostalgic, honestly.
Dinner wound down with nothing untoward happening, and without spotting Franky's parents.
With their meal complete and the check received, James tossed down some cash enough to cover the meal and a nice tip, even as Sam paid with a card for her and Ana.
They walked to the door, and James felt a small degree of relief as they exited the restaurant, as he was able to put the Angelo’s in the past once again.
The streets were relatively empty, with only a small amount of foot traffic along with a couple of cars as they turned to head to the subway station.
As he was turning to look at the rest of his dinner companions, he caught a small, gleaming flash out of the corner of his eye and a glimpse of a mind staring down the scope of a rifle at Ana.
James’s body moved without his own input, as if his limbs were seized control of by a puppet.
He leapt forward, grabbing Ana and pulling her down in a roll, cushioning her landing with his arms even as he stayed atop her body.
James heard the shot even as he did so, a crack in the night which blew a hole in the wall right where Ana’s head had been seconds beforehand. Screams echoed out into the night as the people out and about scattered at the sound of the shot.
Rapidly, James considered his options even as he stared into Ana’s surprised blue eyes.
He didn’t calculate fast enough, though, because in the next moments, Sam was moving. “We need to move!” she shouted, her voice cutting through the uproar about them deadly serious, a far cry from her usual tone, though, given the situation, that was to be expected.
James shot to his feet, keeping his body directly in the path of any bullets, trusting that he would be able to take them, at least better than a normal human.
He grabbed Ana’s arm, his bare hand sealing around warm, soft skin, easily pulling her with him toward the subway station, half carrying her as Sam ran with them, her face a mask of concentration.
They covered the distance in seconds, taking the stairs rapidly down into the metro area and out of the night air.
Sam directed them to a stop in front of the turnstiles that led to the actual subway, her head turning and eyes rapidly searching about, and James was unable to shake just how easy and experienced her motions were.
Sam’s eyes focused on Ana, “Are you okay? Did the bullet hit you?” she said succinctly.
Ana shook her head, seemingly pulling herself together, “No, I’m fine, that wouldn’t-“
Her eyes glanced at me, and her mouth sealed shut instantly.
There was a moment of incredulous silence, and James stared at the two girls nonplussed.
“Are we really talking while someone just tried to shoot Ana?” he asked, unable to keep the disbelief from leaking into his voice.
Sam blinked, seemingly processing his words, before she sighed and turned back to Ana, “I’ll call the police, and then we need to get you home,” she said finally.
“Is that safe?” James couldn’t help but question, “Someone just tried to shoot Ana, is back at the dorms any safer?”
And it wasn’t that he trusted the police that much more, given his own interactions with them.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Ana said, though James noted that she sounded remarkably unbothered now, “I can’t imagine why someone would have shot at me, but they’re not here now. I can just go home by myself.”
James' neck muscles practically tore as he spun to look at Ana, “Ana,” he said slowly, “This is serious, someone just tried to shoot you.”
“I mean yeah,” Ana nodded her head, her face relaxed and not looking the slightest bit concerned, “But they didn’t, so it’s fine, right?”
Sam’s throat made a choked sound as she looked at Ana, “Ana, this is serious, you could have died.”
“Oh,” Ana blinked seemingly confused before something seemed to occur to her and she startled, “Oh right, um yeah, let’s call the police. That shook me up a lot.”
Her face morphed into a strained look that James thought could have been fear, though it wasn’t super clear.
James looked between the two friends; something wasn’t adding up here.
James then shook the thoughts away. He was shaken himself. Ana had almost died.
If he had moved any slower.
His hand clenched unconsciously as he glanced back up the stairs.
He was coming back tonight.
-
Both of the girls were back in their dormitories, though it had taken longer to call the police and give statements than he would have liked. The police had been overwhelmed with calls thought so it had been the most perfunctory of conversations.
As soon as he had entered back into his room, claiming exhaustion, he had slipped on his outfit and headed back out into the night, leaping over the rooftops in bursts of power.
He put as much speed as he reasonably could into his legs as he ran, unable to turn his thoughts away from how Ana had died.
He had almost lost another friend in almost exactly the same way.
Something angry burned in his gut as he sprinted faster across the rooftops.
James leapt the rooftops in a blur, of displaced air, his camouflage seemingly struggling with his disoriented mind.
Jump. Leap. Jump. Leap.
Within ten minutes, he had made it back to Angelo’s, and he found himself looking around, peering into the night, a frown deeply set on his face.
He looked about the somewhat squat buildings before he leaped to the ledge where he had seen the rifle.
The area was entirely empty, and James scowled in frustration. There had to be something he could do.
But it wasn’t within his present skill set, he realized. This wasn’t something he had trained or gotten knowledge to do, much less having the equipment to do so.
“Something interesting catch your eye?” James turned at the familiar voice, spotting Falcon of all people standing lazily to the side.
“I-“ James hesitated, not sure how to say this, “I heard there was a commotion this way. Figured I’d check it out, but I don’t see anything.”
“There was,” Falcon affirmed, a low current of something fierce in her tone before it vanished with her next words, “That’s why I’m out here. I think I have a better chance of finding something than you, though no offense, I don’t think you have quite my tech.”
James glanced at Falcon, before looking down, he didn’t particularly want to rely on anyone for this but it wasn’t exactly like he had another choice, “By all means,” he said quietly already resolving himself that he was going to need to figure out something else to bridge this gap in his arsenal.
Falcon stepped forward and glanced about the area for all the world not looking like she was doing something, but at the same time, James was sure she definitely was. The motion was too precise, too focused to just be a mere glance.
“Someone was set up on this roof with a rifle, probably 50 caliber,” she said, “The rifle was a custom model and the ammunition was similarly custom, the ammunition itself was of non earth origin.”
“I’m sorry, what?” James said, not meaning the words to come out of his mouth, but unable to contain himself, “Are you saying that the bullet was made of, what, some kind of space material?”
“Yes,” Falcon shrugged her shoulders as she continued to look about, taking a few steps over to the ledge and glancing over it, “My probabilistic models indicate it was likely a compound of alien metals typically used by aliens who we call Valkyries.”
James blinked nonplussed, “What’s a Valkyrie?” he sighed, realizing that Falcon wasn’t going to elaborate anymore.
“Not really important,” Falcon said, shrugging her shoulders, though James had the impression that there was something she very purposely wasn’t telling him. “What is important is that bullets like that are rare and incredibly expensive.”
James nodded his head slowly, “When you say expensive…” he had a bad feeling about this.
“I mean buy a couple of super yachts or buy this expensive,” Falcon said flatly, “This isn’t a run of the mill criminal, and this wasn’t just someone taking a shot. It was targeted. Do you know who was shot at?”
James was caught off guard by the sudden directed question, but instantly seized control of his mind, slipping into a persona separate from that of James King, “No clue, why you know something?”
Falcon turned away, looking back at the area, and paced a couple of steps before she turned to look at James, “I do, but I can’t tell you without compromising an identity, suffice to say I think there was a good reason for this but that means and this persons identity has already been somehow leaked.”
James looked off to the side keeping his body language completely expressionless and his face remaining still under the mask.
An identity leak?
That couldn’t mean.
Ana?
James rapidly considered the possibility. Ana was strange, no doubt about that, but did it really mean something…
The coffee shop, how had she appeared at the coffee shop nigh instantaneously? She could have just been in the area. It was a likely explanation.
But was it more likely than somehow Ana having an alter ego that jumped around rooftops in tights?
He could answer that question right now. A single glance at Falcon, and he was sure he would have an answer.
James consciously kept his head turned away from Falcon, “It’s not something I need to know,” he said the words simply, with little passion. “She was targeted, though, was it by ‘the Boss?’
Falcon didn’t respond for a long moment, and James didn’t turn her way, unable to completely trust himself.
“Possibly,” Falcon said, “He’s one of the people with the resources to do so, as far as a motive, though…” she trailed off, “That’s unclear to me, it could have been an actual attempt, it could have been a warning.”
They stood apart from each other on the roof, but strangely, James appreciated the silence; it gave him time to think.
He was a part-time villain. This wasn’t his bull shit to get mixed up in.
Ana’s bright smile flashed through his mind. The warmth of her presence.
The care when she looked at him.
Tonight, he had almost lost the closest person he had to being a friend.
Falcon finally spoke into the warm, muggy air that surrounded them, “You said you weren’t interested in good ideas, right?”
James blinked, taken off guard, before he glanced at the girl. He recalled the conversation he had with her, “Yeah,” he said, waiting for her to lead the conversation.
“I think I just had a really bad idea,” Falcon said. “You in?” she asked questioningly.
James was taken aback. When Falcon had approached him previously, she had been pretty direct about telling him that he should give up his current aspirations and methods, though admittedly that was when she thought he was being a Hero, which he had not dissuaded her from.
Now she was asking him to join her in something Hero related.
A small smirk edged its way onto James’s face, though he knew Falcon wouldn’t be able to see it behind his half mask.
“Why not? It’s not a bad night for it,” James shrugged his shoulders
“Great!” Falcon remarked casually, “You got a name yet?”
James shifted, glancing back at Falcon with a raised eyebrow that she couldn't see even if she couldn’t focus on his face, “Is that the most important thing to focus on right now?” he asked dryly.
“Just something to think about then,” Falcon said, “You’re going to want to be quick though because this is going to step on enough toes that if you don’t pick one, you’re going to get one real quick.”
-
It was an hour later that James found himself killing time on a rooftop gazing at what was essentially a regular office building. The building had the typical glass and steel, and nothing about it flagged its importance in one way or another.
His jury-rigged algorithm had never even identified this building as a possible suspect to look into.
Which was a little humbling. He had thought he had a small idea that he knew what he was doing, but as he gazed at this monolith, he was now sure he was on the shallow end of the pool.
“It doesn’t look like much, does it?” Falcon remarked next to him.
James looked at the building, attempting to see what could be so special about this building, but was left nonplussed, “I got nothing, so what’s the deal here?”
“This here is a hive of scum and villainy my unnamed friend,” Falcon said, “Here something called the Red Network operates, it’s pretty much an entirely closed system and it has to be because this is where most of the folks who call themselves Villains can get access to the manpower and resources they need. You can’t access it externally, so you have to have it in or show up in person.”
“That’s rather upfront,” James snorted even as he began to realize what exactly this place represented, “So why don’t heroes normally break in and take what they’re looking for?”
“Ah, you begin to see the issue, the information is encrypted, but beyond that, the records of the transactions get encrypted into a ledger every 24 hours. You have to know that something’s here and it’s going to be here within a short period of time. Not to mention, even then, it’s like searching in the ocean for one specific rock because of how the files themselves are encrypted.”
“Why even keep the files?” James questioned.
“Insurance,” Falcons shrugged her shoulders, “Villains can’t trust each other, and a contract won’t matter without leverage. This is the closest they can come to a compromise, and even then, a number of Villains don’t even engage.”
“So what makes you think our information is here?” James asked.
“The material that the bullet was made out of is too special to have been obtained by anyone on a small scale. It had to have been purchased, and here is the most likely place it could have been purchased from.”
“But wouldn’t they know someone might come looking here?” James couldn’t help but ask.
“Sure,” Falcon replied, “But they care more about getting paid than it being discovered that they sold the metal. If they erase the record too soon, then they can’t be sure about the transaction history adding up. Furthermore, I know that the bullet had to have been purchased recently because there’s no way that material could stay in town for so long and it not be found out beforehand. It’s just that rare. Someone would have talked, or the material would have gotten stolen by an entrepreneur, even if the ability to sell it after would have been extremely suspect.”
“Right,” James said, not sure where to interject into that stream of speculation but taking for now granted the fact that at least Falcon believed it to be true, “So how are we getting in?”
“We’re not, even if we somehow got in without being detected, there’s pretty much an almost certainty we don’t get access to that data without our attempted crack on the system showing up.”
James was starting to realize Falcon really enjoyed talking, more so she seemed to love demonstrating just how much more she knew than him.
“We’re wasting moonlight, so if you can just get to the point?” James sighed.
“Right,” Falcon seemed to sober up slightly, though her amusement had only been a faint warmth in her voice, “The flaw is that a computer system can only do so much. Someone had to have transported the physical materials, and given that the metal that was used gives off a very unique radiation, unique even to that bullet itself, given the stage of its decay it was in. I just need to track the radiation to the actual shooter. Back at the rooftop and on the sidewalk, the bullet had not been there for a significant amount of time, so trying to get the signature there is no good. I was able to pick up traces of the radioactive trail back here and nowhere else. That tells me the bullet was kept here for a long time, long enough that the area it was in should have a strong enough signature to lock onto. With that signature, we can trace the bullet back to the rifle that fired it.”
James nodded his head for lack of anything better to do. The idea seemed reasonable enough.
“And if they’re expecting us?” he asked.
Falcon sighed, rolling her shoulders in smooth movements as she loosened up, “I have a plan for that, too.”
“Which is?” James asked.
“Electronic security has been looped, they won’t be making any calls outside the building,” Falcon said, “You encounter anyone, knock 'em out.”
She turned and leapt forward into the air, grappling across the open air to land on top of the building, her figure becoming indistinct from the rest of her surroundings, a mere shadow, just like Night Walker.
James sighed before he triggered his own invisibility and leapt through space, landing on a ledge next to a window which he pressed his palm against, pulling the glass up smoothly, even as he disengaged the lock behind it.
James ducked underneath the window sill, dropping to the ground with barely a noise as he took in a well-appointed office.
It was only that there would be no one around him to hear his complaints that he held his tongue.
He took off in a jog even as he realized what exactly he was in these circumstances.
A diversion.
He didn’t have the equipment or the knowledge to find what Falcon was looking for. What he did have was another warm body that, if the guards were alerted to another intruder, would be another person to find before they found Falcon.
Of course, Falcon hadn’t said as much, which James guessed he somewhat appreciated. Even if he was bait, it was probably better to give the impression that he was here for something useful rather than just bait.
Still as he turned around a corner and spotted two guards walking side by side that didn’t stop him from sprinting down the hallway and putting the first guard into the ground with a deceptively light tap of his fist before knocking the other one down with a kick sending him to the floor in a heap before he was also sent to the land of dreams with another punch.
James leapt up from his crouch, continuing to sprint down the hallway at a pace that would have put an Olympic sprinter to shame.
James locked into a focused mental state as he turned and sprinted down another corridor, thinking of how best to be the diversion that he needed to be.
Given that Falcon was stealing something, perhaps he should also steal something, potentially something that was valuable enough to draw the guards his way rather than Falcon’s.
But what could the office building hold?
James turned a corner and then jumped and flipped landing behind the guard who had just been about to turn his way and who was entirely unprepared for the backhand to the back of his head.
This place hosted something called the Red Network, which meant that besides having items of great value inside, it also had servers that very much needed to be kept intact and without interference.
With that thought in mind, James began running again, looking for another guard whom he encountered within minutes and with only the smallest of suggestions into the man’s mind, determined that the server room was several floors below him, located in the center of the building, behind the highest of security.
That was before he sent the man to unconsciousness with a deceptively light tap to the man’s stomach, doubling him over in the middle of the hall before he launched an elbow to the back of the man’s head.
Security, which for the most part Falcon had disabled seemingly with the ease with which someone might flick a light switch.
James opened the door of a stairway and leaped over the railing, letting himself fall, only slowing his fall with his mind as his mental count of the levels reached eight.
He grabbed the railing he had just passed with one hand and flipped his body over, marveling slightly at how easy the motion was.
He landed on the stairwell and opened the door in front of him with a strong push, the door flying open, bouncing against the wall with a thud as he began to run down the new hallway he found himself in.
With a focused thought, his form disappeared, bending the light around him to the point of invisibility.
Running like this was the very odd sensation of being a metaphorical bull in a china shop, James decided.
Around the corner, two guards came with their steps nervous and their countenance trepid as they had their handguns drawn, something approaching a smile tore across James' face as he increased his pace.
They heard his steps evidently as they looked around frantically as the sound grew louder but they were unready for him to appear directly in front of them hooking a punch into one of their stomach’s even as he spun into a high kick was all Knight Walker sending the other flying into a wall as James connected with his head.
With the slightest push of his thoughts, James confirmed their unconsciousness as he landed awkwardly on the ground, unused to using that much force with so little notice and from unstable footing.
James cornered around the next term and found the doorway he had seen in the man’s mind, and he ran at the door, placing both palms forward for maximum contact with the steel construct.
His mind ran over the door in a second before he twisted the internal mechanism into place and the door clicked open.
James stepped inside to get his with a face full of cold air and the beeping and whirring of countless machines arrayed in massive server towers.
James was dumbstruck for a moment, and a new part of him wondered how much exactly all of this was worth.
Though it wasn’t exactly like he could sell it.
Actually, now that he thought about it, he was really limited to taking cash right now. Places like this were the kind of places where he could expect to sell more tangible items if he took them.
James hesitated as he stopped in front of one of the servers. If he took out this tower, he would be making an enemy of unknown size, an enemy who he might need as a friend either for his lifestyle choice or even potentially dealing with ‘the Boss.’
“Maybe I didn’t think this one through,” he murmured to himself.
James heard slow, decisive steps and turned to see a man built like a mountain in form, fitting smooth metallic black armor with a black helmet, walking into the room.
James took note of the handguns strapped to the man’s legs, massive barreled things and a small amount of weariness seeped into James’s stance as he looked at the man.
“A kid?” the man murmured, “You’re the one causing all this havoc?”
James shrugged, “I really haven’t done much yet,” he said.
The man cocked his head to the side like he was analyzing a puzzle, “So you’re some new hero then, you’re not Knight Walker’s brat, you’re not one of the Grim Pack, but you’re a little too capable to be a brand new independent young as you are.”
The words were musing, and it was almost as if the man was not really talking to him but merely thinking aloud.
James let his mind relax, as he looked at the man, while he was a little interested in the man’s thoughts, that wasn’t what he needed, instincts that felt like Knight Walker’s were telling him to take this man as seriously as he could.
It was those instincts that caused him to twitch right even as the man drew one of his pistols and fired in the span of a moment, the bullet blew right past him, punching into a wall in an instant, in a cloud of dust.
“Some reflexes,” the man murmured, his gun already sheathed as he continued to examine James, “You saw it coming, though,” he continued on, “Maybe I’m off my game though two misses within a day.”
Something twisted in James’s gut as he looked at the man, “You tried to shoot someone earlier?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the man shrugged his shoulders, “Somehow I was spotted by a civilian at that, I didn’t expect them to dive on top of my target either. Bad luck that, always next time I suppose, especially given that I’m the only one who knows Aegis' identity, there’ll be no one taking this bounty from me.”
Aegis. One of the pinnacle superheroes. Even James knew her.
Like a shift of cold water, it finally clicked into place. Ana was Aegis?
But how did he not know?
How did everyone not know?
It wasn’t like Aegis wore a mask, you’d think you’d realize it instantly.
Unless she had something like James, which prevented people from making the connection, not so obvious as blurring a perception of a face, but it was said she was an alien, right?
There could definitely be something inhibiting people’s perception, only for that to fall away when the idea was presented to someone with hard evidence.
James guessed the mechanics were unimportant.
Reflexively, James tried to push further into the man’s mind to find the source of the information, only to bounce off like he had hit a metal wall.
James shifted on his feet as several realizations came to him.
This man knew Ana’s secret identity.
This man had the keys to figuring out his own identity. How long would it be before the man figured out that the ‘civilian’ was him?
“There’s a bounty on Aegis?” James asked.
The man snorted, “Of course there is, she’s a Sentinel, isn’t she? Cause enough problems for enough people, there you have it. The only issue, of course, is finding out the civilian identity; she’s a careful one, and her technology is something else in keeping her identity hidden. Of course, I was hired by the best and given the best access to resources, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t pried the secret from one of those robots of hers. Imagine leaving that kind of secret in an AI’s databank because you weren’t willing to wipe it.
“You talk a lot,” James couldn’t help but say.
“Talking keeps the mind active,” Centurion rolled his shoulders, evidently loosening up, “And I figure it doesn’t matter what I say because you aren’t leaving this room. That and that just gave me the time necessary to do this.”
Centurion tapped a panel on his arm, and suddenly, the several holes on the ceiling opened up and massive turrets descended, motors whirring loudly.
“I’m far too big league for you, kid, so be honored when I say I’m making sure you’re not leaving this room alive.”
James was already spinning through the air, disappearing behind a cluster of computers, disrupting the aim of the guns pointed at him.
James sprinted across the ground even as he vanished entirely, coming around the corner and sprinting directly at the man, leaping into the air to drive a knee towards the man’s face.
James had already given up on titrating his strength in that moment, not that he could while also invisible. He wasn’t going to be holding anything back against this man.
The man had spun, drawing his own pistols to point at where James should be coming around, he stood completely motionless as close to a statue as James had seen before.
James’s knee made the smallest of contacts with the man’s head, before, in less than a second, a bullet fired, blasting into James’s stomach, launching him to the side from the sheer force.
James’s invisibility faltered as he lost focus and rolled across the ground, coming to his feet on sheer reflex as he stared at the man in astonishment.
“You’re not the first invisible fuck I’ve killed,” the man observed, “But it was clever to hide your turning invisible but all I had to do was measure your pace and figure out exactly when you should be coming around for an attack.”
James winced as he felt the noticeable strain on his mind from the hit; those bullets packed way more of a punch than he had expected.
“Come on kid, show some fight,” the man encouraged, “A bullet isn’t enough to take you down.”
“Whose side are you on exactly?” James couldn’t help but retort in confusion.
“I do assassinations to pay the bills, but despite how I look, I’m a soldier of honor,” the man retorted.
James vanished, and this time, he let the obelisk he had created take full control of his mind.
Bending his knees, he leaped forward, coming at the man with a massive leap that indented the floor.
The man was already aiming for where he would be, but James hadn’t used all his tricks yet.
He reached out a hand, pulling his body to the right mid-leap, slipping around where the man was firing, but still on course enough to land a solid kick to the man’s helmet. It was the kind of kick that would have shattered and blown out a concrete wall.
The man was sent toppling right, his body sent flying to embed into a server with a crunch, stopping his flight even as his helmet cracked around James’s foot, shattering half of the mask, revealing an Asian man with closely shaved black hair and dark eyes, he looked dazed from the hit as he lay in the dent James had put in.
“What the hell kind of hit was that?” he slurred, his hands already raising his weapons to fire at James.
James took several rapid steps forward, blurring across the ground as he kicked the man’s guns away. James noted that the turrets that the man had positioned about the room were holding their fire now, probably a friendly fire protocol, he decided.
James bent down to the man’s level, looking him head-on, and locked eyes with him.
He had no practice with what he was doing, but James knew he had to improvise.
“What do you know about Aegis?” he asked lowly.
“Wha-“ the man’s mind was strictly regimented, but for the smallest of moments, James saw the man’s thoughts on Aegis, the contract on Aegis’s head, and her identity as one Anastasia Wright, the information just as he said only in his head as he had kept this all too himself to not get caught out with poor security.
James focused, ignoring the sick feeling in his gut as he meticulously scrubbed the information from the man’s head along with all the details from the last several hours. The equivalent of burning down a library to prevent someone from reading a book, but he couldn’t think of any other option.
James’s hand unconsciously settled upon the man’s neck.
It would be easy, incredibly so, to finish this.
Make it so this man would never hurt anyone again.
A low whistle echoed through the room, and James turned to see Falcon walking in, looking around as she surveyed the damage he had done.
“Damn dude,” she said, “You kicked some serious but in here,” before she looked down at where James was standing and her face immediately grew far more serious, “Centurion,” she hissed, “I didn’t know they were going to pull a guy like him in.”
“Big deal?” James asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
Falcon wobbled one of her hands back and forth, “Small to mid league, he’s got the tech, some skills, but he’s also dumb as a brick. Focused on this whole honor thing.”
“I heard,” James said dryly, looking down at the man again.
“I got the information, though,” Falcon shrugged her shoulders, “Just need to plug it into a tracking program.”
James looked back at Centurion, “Actually, I have it on good authority that this was the guy who did it.”
“He said that?” Falcon asked, surprised, before something hot and angry entered her voice, “Figures it’d be a guy like him. Did you find out how he knew the identity?”
“He did some research and somehow figured out your friend’s identity.”
A long moment of silence passed as Falcon turned to look at James, giving him a hard stare even through her mask. “Did he say who they were?”
He was in too deep to lie, “Aegis, but he didn’t say her civilian identity.”
“Fuck,” Falcon looked down at the man, “How’d a guy like him figure it out?”
What was left unsaid was what she would do now.
James didn’t want to say his next words, but he needed to tell Falcon that there was no longer a risk, “He pried it out of one of her ‘robots,’ whatever that means; either way, Aegis is in the clear. I scrubbed his memory.”
He said the words easily, even as he knew how sickening they sounded.
It was the best of several bad options; he had to say he had eliminated the breach, even if it meant revealing a power he was starting to be ashamed of having.
Falcon shifted slightly, and James could see the uneasiness his words gave her.
“Scrubbed, what do you mean?”
“I have limited telepathy,” James admitted, “I try to keep it locked down, but I didn’t see another way.”
Falcon looked at him and he could now definitely see he had made her uneasy, “You haven’t mind freaked me, have you?” she said the words lightly.
“No,” James shook his head, “I don’t think I could even if I tried, I don’t practice the ability much for obvious reasons, I could only do this while he was unconscious, and I could only erase the information, I can’t modify anything.”
A lie, a damming one at that. He had changed George’s mind on something vital while he was very much conscious, though he was unsure if he could repeat the feat on demand, but the fact remained that he could still do it.
He wouldn’t, though, and this was the farthest he was willing to go. He would never modify someone’s thoughts again.
He could still feel the uncertainty coming off Falcon as she looked at him, “You’re serious, right?” she asked.
James turned to look at her, “Yeah, I told you because you had to know, don’t you think if I was willing to use that ability whenever I wanted, I would have used it on you to prevent you from finding out?”
That rationalization seemed to calm down Falcon somewhat as she nodded her head slowly, “Fair enough,” she said, before she shrugged her shoulders loosely, “Also, I’m totally not nervous, my mentor has taught me some techniques to deal with telepathy.”
James was unsure if that was just bravado, but he let Falcon have it; he already felt bad enough about the usage of the ability.
Falcon continued, “Unfortunately, given where we are, there’s no chance of him being arrested.”
“Right,” James sighed, looking down at the man, a grimace on his face.
“So,” Falcon began slowly, “We should probably get out of here-“
James shook himself and then nodded, “Yeah, let's.”
