Chance & Fate: Part 7

“Um… Actually, kind of. Izzy and Daniel are good for scouting, and that’s what I’m using them for. You’re more like artillery. You never know where we might need you. I’d say let’s wait till we know, and then I’ll send you, if needed.”

“Well that… fucking sucks.” Vaughn stared at his chair’s monitor.

Camille looked over at Vaughn and then over at me. Despite what I normally expected out of her, she wasn’t flirting at all.

“So don’t you think we ought to leave the bombs to the Defenders? They’ve been doing it longer.

I thought about it. “I think that they might be less qualified than we are. They don’t have the jet to tell them what the bombs are. Plus I probably know more than most about the tech they’re using.

She glanced over at Haley and back to me. “It was just a suggestion.”

“And not a bad one. Vaughn’s suggestion was good too. I’m going to let the Defenders know what’s up so they can object, but I really think we should destroy the devices before anyone realizes we’re here.”

Then I turned back around and opened the hatch. Cool air flowed into the jet. I didn’t know what temperature it was outside. Warmer than Michigan for sure, but not warm.

Daniel and Izzy walked toward the opening.

Izzy wore the same blue and black exercise clothes I’d seen her in last time, but with a mask that covered the upper half of her face. She’d put her black hair in a ponytail.

Giving a quick look out the hatch, she said, “You can call me Blue again for this one. I haven’t come up with a good name yet.”

Then she stepped out of the door.

Daniel followed, but before he disappeared into the predawn darkness, he contacted me telepathically. You’re doing the right thing. The place we’re going becomes more dangerous if Vaughn’s there.

Seriously?

Some, Daniel thought at me, and then he was gone.

That made me feel a little better, but only a little.

I clicked on the comm, and called the Defenders, explaining what we were doing.

Ronin said, “Do you think you can destroy the devices without risking the city?”

“Yes, but not zero risk, a low risk.”

“Do it, and don’t forget we’re ready to assist if you need us. We’d never have found this without you, and we’re grateful you’re here.”

“Thanks,” I said, but I felt a little strange about his gratitude, knowing we could still screw this up horribly.

We ended the call.

“So, ” I said, “I guess we should come up with ideas for how to destroy them as quickly as possible, and maybe a backup plan in case it goes wrong.”

Vaughn frowned. “If it goes wrong, don’t we all just die? Someone’s going to blow them all remotely, right?”

Rachel let out a breath. “I hope not.”

I shook my head (indirectly the Rocket suit’s helmet), “I don’t think so. I think they’d avoid wasting all their work if they can, have all of them fly out, and only use one.”

They wouldn’t need more than that.

Anyway, we talked about the devices’ weak points and how to take advantage of them. Vaughn participated. He even seemed to be in a better mood afterward.

A little bit, anyhow.

I sank back into my seat. If this was what leadership felt like, I didn’t like it. I was angering friends while sending them into danger.

It wasn’t fun at all.

I lowered the jet onto the factory’s parking lot, and opened the hatch again–this time for everybody. Cassie, Camille, and Sydney went toward the storage building. Once there, Cassie reached out and crushed the padlock with her hand. Then she swung the door open.

Drawing her sword, she entered, and started cutting.

It wasn’t the quickest way, but none of us could destroy them all at once.

When Sydney and Camille followed her in, it left Vaughn, Haley, Rachel, and I standing on the crumbling asphalt next to the jet. From the building came the hum of Cassie’s sword, and the crunching noises that came from whatever Camille and Sydney were doing.

It seemed to be going well.

Then Daniel called me. I clicked the palm of my glove to answer.

“Rocket, we’ve found the other danger, and it’s as bad as I worried it might be. Do you remember True Humanity? The guys who hate all supers on principle? Well, they’re here. They’ve got a training camp in an old warehouse, and they’ve got people with power juice inside.”

“Isn’t that hypocritical?”

Daniel replied, “No doubt, but Blue says they’ve got a bomb that looks strangely familiar, so we’ve got something to worry about.”

18 thoughts on “Chance & Fate: Part 7”

  1. “They guys who hate all supers on principle”, should be “The guys”, or “Those guys”?

    A bomb and power juiced bigots. Doesn’t sound like a good combo…

    The psychology of leadership – but, does he feel anyone else there would do a better job?

  2. I wonder if the superhero name “Bombshell” is taken? Could work pretty well for Izzy.

    Can even have a red, white, blue costume and make her out as some sort of patriotic superhero, just to show up her dad even more. Might be something else there with her use of the name “Blue” though, given that is the color most commonly associated with the Union forces of the Civil War. “Billie Yank,” perhaps?

    Also, glancing at your tweets over here, Jim, and Hurt was from Nine Inch Nails, not Nirvana, but even the guy who wrote it had to admit Johnny Cash did it better than he did.

    “I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. [I felt like] I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn’t mine anymore…”

    You should also check out his song “Ain’t No Grave”.

  3. Well, destroy a thousand bombs as fast as you can then run to deal with the bad guys before they detonate another bomb? Well, this is the classical situation used to give trouble to superman.
    They should have called that girl that can be in many places at the same time.

  4. Or maybe instead of Bombshell or Billie Yank, possibly Bonnie Blue, after the Bonnie Blue flag of Northwest Florida, one of the first flags associated with the Confederacy because of some attempted republic in Northwest Florida in the 1810s.

    I considered submitting to that epiguide thing, but I’m still pretty small scale. I’m in the part of the news best labeled either “Weird News” or “Who Cares?”

    Now, first off they’ll want to pound on the unpowered humans. If they’ve got people with power juice then they’re either training right at that moment, or they’re about to try something. Their best bet is to go with “about to try something” anyway and take them out.

    1. PG: I think everybody involved with Epiguide is small, so you won’t be too different there.

      As for codenames for Izzy, my challenge will be to come up with something appropriate for a relatively liberal woman with Superman-like powers who grew up Latino in Southern California and wants to distance herself her grandfather’s racist past…

      No challenge at all there…

  5. Naming can be difficult. In my case, people assume the Psycho means psychopath and the Gecko means I’m a lizard. It also makes it more difficult to not follow a theme. Things would be quite a bit easier if I could just slap on some makeup and call myself “The Clown” or something.

    That said, I’ve noticed some wrestlers don’t appear (at least to my knowledge of the language) to be a reference that matches with their appearance. La Parka, Alebrije, y Cuije come to mind, as well as the Undertaker’s stint as a biker.

    There are also the Public Domain Supers to take into account. There are some good ideas there amid the corn.

    Just don’t call her Elita the Warrior Woman or I may wind up with some perfectly manicured hands around my throat.

  6. Since Izzy wears the color blue, goes by the name “Blue” and is part Latino, you should call her the Blue Taco. If she wants to sound more “American”, call her the Blue Waffle. If you google the name, you can see that no other comic book hero has claimed it.

  7. Wasn’t here already a taco or burrito-based hero mentioned way earlier in the story?

    Plus, there are unfortunate implications to the name “Blue Taco” seeing as the women’s version of a sausage fest is called a taco stand.

  8. Perhaps we can call her… the Blue Monday! No, wait, everyone will want to invite her to an Orgy. Blue (Da ba dee da ba di) maybe? I think someone will get annoyed at her. I got it, we bring Los Angeles into this! The L.A. Blue Girl!

  9. “If this was what leadership felt like, I didn’t like it. I was angering friends while sending them into danger.

    It wasn’t fun at all.”

    Hehe loved this, though it’s suprising to see this realization after the attack on Rook’s HQ. I guess he was too stressed about Cassie to really think it through then.

  10. @PG
    Bombshell is taken, the others you suggested are not as far as I know.

    @Jim
    Being I’m still about 2 years behind reading, wish I’d found this years ago, you’ve probably already named Izzy but I would play to her Hispanic roots and choose a name for her based on that.

  11. Heh. On the downside for Izzy, I think there comes a point that you can’t really change things in the public eye… just as there’s a tendency to use “power impregnator”, not PID, I think Izzy’s going to be stuck as “Blue” to some now, no matter what she decides. Assuming she survives!

    Meanwhile, in the “being very pedantic” category, both Camille and Nick are missing closed quotes in their dialogue near the start.

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