Ace, Punching Bag, Virginia

It should have been an easy day.

The first week of University beginning and summer was showing no sign of letting up.  Everything was hot and dry--even on the West coast.  Seagulls cried and circled overhead silhouetted by the deep blue sky, marred only by the rare cumulus clouds too far apart to be more than the memory of rain.

But all morning sirens had been going off.

This close to the hospital district, it wasn't a particularly unusual sound, but they were usually more distant, less distracting.

It wasn't until the power went out that things started to feel like maybe there was actually something going on.

The power flickered back on after a moment, and Kevin's telephone started ringing.

Cythi and Marie were off-site somewhere, but when Marcus called, he was so excited, he was almost breathless   "Turn to channel five! King Five News!"

There was yelling and too many sounds for the news cameras to pick up very much details.  There were crowds of people running all over the place.  It looked reminiscent of those end-of-the-world movies where people fled an impending tsunami or alien death-ray.

But as they watched, the camera panned down to a thing... a mountainous man-shaped thing that looked like he was made of actual living rocks... orange rocks!   It lifted a full-sized car like it was nothing and it into the air.

The camera panned to follow the arc of the VW Beetle as it narrowly missed another man, suspended in the air and wreathed in bright red flame.  It looked like the human torch just laughed, which enraged the rock thing even more!

"So far, it looks like the fight erupted out of the King County Courthouse.  These people--it looks there's just two of them--don't seem to be aware of the innocent bystanders.  We haven't seen a metahuman feud like this nearly ten years!  Neither of these two are known to us--"

But the broadcast was cut short as a gout of flame arced in the general direction of the helicopter.

The pilot deftly veered out of the way but lifted up and the camera lost it's view of the combatants.

"We're--We're pulling back to a safer distance.  Sheriff's department and Seattle PD are doing what they can to get people to safety.  A police advisory has been issued warning people to stay away from the King County Court area!"

on downtown, somewhere near the King County Courthouse--less than a dozen blocks away from the Piassa Square!
This message was last edited by the player at 04:23, Fri 25 Nov 2022.

Virginia was standing there working on mini tub of ice cream. Her spoon slowed down as she watched the news cast, a little confused.

"Hey, do we know any of those people? I don't recognize them. Is this live? Like right now??"

For the moment her mind was trying to make simple logic of what she saw. It had not dawned on her that there was a situation at hand.

Kevin was eating some leftover pizza when he was watching the news. He was so confused why the two were fighting and why they hadn’t just moved the fight somewhere remote. People were going to get hurt. He looked over at Stitches who looked back and nodded. They both ran to the armored car with Stitches’ medical bag and sped off toward the fight. Kevin was putting on his hero outfit with shiny silver pants and helmet to obscure his face. They arrived on scene and tried to take it all in.

Virginia continued to be confused. She watched Kevin and Stitches clamor out of the room and heard them fire up the armor car beginning to leave.

"Oh! Oh!" she said out loud and ran to the fridge, sticking her ice cream in the freezer. She tried to hurry but could not go with sticky fingers, that would be the worst. She took about thirty seconds to wash her hands and dry them off.

Then she put on her game face and turned fairy. Out of the base she flew at top speed!