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"Oh please don't tell me we are doing this cliché," Doctor Defacer mumbles to himself as the combat begins. Fortunately, it has them all, even Blue Bombshell (he really needed to talk to her about that horrible name) distracted, so he can escape. Or rather, attempt to. These knot are really well-tied. He'd have to review his drone footage later to see how it was done. In the mean time, he'd just have to hop his chair toward the exit door. It opened out, so a good lean would work and his drones could get in, grab him, and maybe take out a few of his attackers. Hmmm... OK, he'd let BB go this time, since she was there to help him.

"Hey, he's getting away!" The tall thug in the gorilla mask shouted just before BB kicked him in the throat. Dang, she never skips leg day, does she?, the doctor thought. No, stop that. Don't give in to the clichés. Gonna get yourself killed.

Unfortunately, clichés or no, his kidnappers were now moving the fight his direction faster than he was hopping. Still, he could make it, he could make it, just a few more BAM

The eagle-masked attacker slammed into him, knocking over the chair. If his arms were loose, they could push the door, but then, if they were loose, he'd already be gone. And his mind quickly went elsewhere as the eagle started crushing his windpipe. Or perhaps he could kill two bird with one... bird. No, he was glad he didn't make that quip out loud. BB would have mocked him endlessly.

He gave a good jerk of his legs, popping the chair and sending the eagle flying (better, not great) through the door. One drone swooped in and was cutting the rope, but none of the rest got in.

Just he was loose, he felt weight straddle his chest. An unfortunately familiar weight, 135 lbs, slender yet muscular. So much cliché. If BB was here, she must have finished off the rest of the crowd. He had the drone tase her. Simple enough.

He shoved her now unconscious body off his, trying not to think anything about how soft her skin felt, and walked out the door, holding it so his drone could follow, then turned to the rest of them.

"Alright boys, let's head... One second."

He grabbed a pen and paper, wrote a quick note, and hurriedly stuffed it in BB's unconscious hand. Then he was ready to go.

When she came to a couple minutes later, the Blue Bombshell notice the note and read it once her vision cleared.

Your name sucks. You should be ashamed.

"I'll get you next time, Doc."

Across town, he cringed, feeling some cliché had just been met.

Stupid. I had been so..completely…utterly….ridiculously…..stupid.

A group of five dark figures surrounded where I had been tied to a chair. They wore basic red devil masks that they had probably found at their local Halloween store. Probably 50% off considering how long ago Halloween was. I was in the center of a room positioned under the only source of light, a flickering industrial-looking fluorescent bar that was hanging above me. The masked presences did little to concern me, although they were trying their best with intimating stances and weaponry such as a crowbar. What damage could they really do though, as I was already beating myself up more then they were about to.

I mean, truly, what kind of hero turns their back to an unobstructed fire escape just to freaking eat lunch. ‘Death by bologna sandwich’ was not going to look good on my gravestone.

Just as I was about to accept my impending doom at the hands of a bunch of Darth Maul-looking motherfuckers, a savior appeared! Barreling through the door behind the group, another masked figure slammed into the closest Darth Maul who was reeled back to strike me with his barbed wire-wrapped bat. Hoorah! A brawl began in front of me, and I was finally able to catch a glimpse of the person that had saved me and my eyeball from death at the hands of a Negan-wannabe. Black cape…black boots…shiny purple shirt- wait. That was no savior. That was my nemesis, who had by now defeated all my kidnappers, leaving them in a bloody heap on the ground. A black mask turned to look at me, and I could have sworn that it upturned to a hint of a smile.

“What? You didn’t seriously think I would let anyone but myself be the one to kill you, did you?”

It was then I realized that I had not, in fact, escaped death today.

I hear the sounds of my stomach gargling, hunger pains override my senses. I've been chained to this chair, and unconscious for what must have been a few days. a Blind fold is pressing against my head, and I see nothing but the darkness, after what feels like a long while I hear approaching foot steps of what must be three people.

They remove my blindfold, and I'm greeted by three hideous tall men, one is bald with a nose and lip piercing, and big scars that look like they came from a blade across his ugly brutish face.

Another, has a eye patch, and long grey hair, a soulless look in his one remaining eye, and a small grin plastered across his ugly complexion.

The third I recognize as no other then the person I've been searching for, the leader of their whole organization. He is young, mid thirties, with brown short hair.

right next to them, is a rack with torture utensils, as I glance my eyes towards that the leader smirks, and says. "You didn't think I would just kill you right? You've caused me to much grievance for that."

While this is going on, I'm attempting to dislocate my thumb to get out of the handcuffs, suddenly an alarm bell rings, and another goon enters the room.

"Boss, someone has breached the perimeter, they've been on a rampage killing all our men, we need to evacuate you at once!" As he says that sentence, a throwing knife enters his skull and out his eye as he falls to the floor lifeless.

a women appears, I recognize her to be no other then, Aura.. of all the people who would come for me it was her? The one person who I would imagine would want me dead the most.

The three men draw their swords from their holsters, as Aura says. “You didn’t seriously think I would let anyone but myself be the one to kill you did you?” with a confident smile plastered upon her beautiful complexion.

"Who said that I needed saving?" I retort, a sly smirk on my face.

"ever think that maybe I let them capture me.." I continue, my hands and feet now completely freed from the chains, as the leader turns around a shocked expression on his face, and attempts to slice at me with his sword, and I effortlessly dodge it, and head butt him back in response.

Aura smiles, and starts to fight the two big goons, she dodges a sword attack from one, as she quickly slices the others neck with her short sword.

The leader, now recovered attempts to attack me again. "I'm going to make sure you at least die before I do.." he says as he charges foward at me. I do a back flip behind the chair I was chained too, and make my way over to the torture utensils and grab a knife.

This time the big goon instead of attacking with his sword, uses his size advantage to attempt to bear hug and grapple Aura. Aura, being distracted after slicing the other ones neck gets grappled by him. I see her having the disadvantage, but I'm to distracted fighting the leader.

The goon bear hugs her, and brings her to the ground, I hear a cracking sound and a groan, she had some bones broken from that, but she manages to bite down hard on his neck, and rip a huge chuck of flesh off, blood starts gushing from the big goons neck as he lets go, and Aura steps back discombulated from the attack.

The leader lunges at me again, as I just barley dodge away. I quickly lunge at him with the knife, and manage to stab him through his left shoulder, blood gushes out as he backs up in a panic.

Aura looks like one of her arms are broken, and shes in a lot of pain and on the ground. The goon was heavily injured by the bite, and lost a good amount of blood, but he gets back up again, and grabs a hammer off the tray and gets ready to finish the job.

Mean while, the leader is backing away from me, he drops his weapon and starts to run trying to retreat, a quick choice must be made by, save my enemy, that decided to save me for whatever reason, or finish off the person I came here to kill. The person I let myself get beat up and kidnapped to find.

I sigh to myself, and let the leader run off, as I come behind the goon in the nick of time to stab him through the head before he can kill Aura.

"next time, don't try saving me, I'm not one that needs to be saved." I say, with a disappointed voice.

Aura stands back up on her feet. "I only wanted to save you, so I could kill you myself, after what you did to my sister and all it's only right that I get the honors."

"how many times have I told you.." I retort, "I wasn't the one who killed your sister.."

"Yes, but you were there, you could have saved her, and you didn't.. the one who really killed her is long dead, and I lost the chance to stop them, but you're still here." she replies.

tears fill my eyes, as I reply. "I loved her, you know. I would have given my life for hers in a heart beat."

tears begin to fill Aura's eyes as well. "she wouldn't want you to be so full of hate because of her, I know this isn't who you actually are."

I begin to walk out the entrance, "hey wait! Aren't you going to fight me?" Aura yells out.

"fight you? You're in no condition to fight now, if you still want the pleasure of killing me, come back when you're healed." I reply, as I continue to walk away.

As I walk away, I hear her pull a throwing knife out of her belt, she gets ready to throw it, as I get ready to dodge it. Instead she changes her mind and puts it back in her belt.

Cool.

Quietly, you activate the artificial tooth by biting down on it. This will slow down your metabolism to the point that you will pass for dead.

As you wait for it to take effect, you ask one question. "Will you allow me the dignity of an open casket? I want our children to see me in the casket at my funeral."

"You are accepting your fate?" Chen Xu Liu replies as she studies your face. Xu Liu is a master at face reading but has not used her skills on me, her stoic husband before.

You begin to see worry move across her face as you start to get tunnel vision and fade into oblivion.

The next thing you see is a ceiling of a van or ambulance. It is dark, and you hear voices outside in a parking garage. They are speaking Korean. You know the exact part of Seoul they are from by their dialect.

You slowly start to regain control of your body, but each minute feels like an hour. You can move your hands now, but they feel like they are restrained. Or just really heavy like you're made of stone.

Julian said the effect took 1 hour after i gained consciousness before before I had complete motor control.

I close my eyes and pretend to be dead.

[removed]

The TV in the conor is playing some sort of superhero movie. As she sits bloodied in the chair, the women can hear the movie. However it's distorted like a beat up DVD that has scratches on it skipping and pausing and making it distorted. “You didn’t seriously…” followed by a skipping sound “…think I would let anyone but myself…” another pause and something like white noise “...be the one to kill you did you?”

As she slowly moves her eyes from the floor up to the TV, a woman sits there eating popcorn as if it's a perfectly normal movie night. “This is the best part!” she says then slapping the girl tied up to the chair bound and bleeding as if they are best friends. “The kidnappers are about to get their ass kicked. Never fuck with a women with a bad streak.” she sounded like a witch as she laughed.

“Please let me go.” softly escapes her lips, tasting the blood that is entering her mouth and spitting it out. Only to be followed by the sickening sensation of her face being licked from her chin all the way to what must be the wound.

“I would never spit any part of you out.” Smiling mouth covered in blood and kissing the girl. Forcing her to taste her own blood once more. Before the shock makes her pass out.

“I just love these superhero movies.” She says to herself continuing to watch the movie. Acting as if her other party member is awake. About 30 minutes later the movie ends. “Ah! Classic. The villain and the hero falling in love gets me every time.” sniffling and blowing her nose into a tissue. “What should we do next, Christine?”

Christine was barely coming back too when she heard her say this. Dizzy, holding on to hope that someone would come for her. Her eyes try to grasp her surroundings but everything feels as if it's not real. The wooden panel walls, the shag carpet, the barely working DVD player and TV, it felt like she was on the set of a horror movie. Void of anything that would make a house a home. The carpet had burn marks and stains and it clumped in weird places from the lack of care. It was the only thing Christine could look at anymore, her head too heavy to lift.

“Oh shucks. I’m all out of booze. I’ll be back!” The cheer in this stranger's voice hurt more than the wound on her head. The jingling of keys echoed in her brain. This is my only chance she thought as she heard the door close. With all her might she tried to free her hands and feet bound by tape. But the harder she struggled the more it felt like nothing was happening. The tears started rolling down her face, hopelessness was setting in. There was no telling how long she would be gone. She eventually stopped struggling, it's not like she could knock over a bolted down chair. Too weak from the blood loss she sat there awaiting the return of her kidnapper.

Will my arch nemesis come for me too? Who even is that? Were her last thoughts before everything went dark.

“You didn’t seriously think I would let anyone but myself be the one to kill you, did you?”

Gabriel couldn’t help but sigh as Hemlock strode into the warehouse lights. With a gas mask and hood covering all but her citrine eyes, her sprayed-green Enhancement braces tightened with each step. Gabriel watched her carefully; even though Hemlock had reformed under Lionheart and his avocation, she still referred to him as her “enemy”. It still puzzled him that after months of probation and teamwork, she spoke about him like that. Maybe he would get to it after this fight…

As she moved forward, the collection of wolf-masked goons that surrounded Gabriel readied before him. Some raised guns while others raised fists, with a few raising eyebrows. The ringleader, a man with a neon pink-accented mask pointed a finger at the young woman.

“Oi, Vile! This is our Lionheart to hold. You take another step and my boys will ruin your get-up!”

Hemlock stopped and leaned on her hips, a gloved hand raised casually as she paid a quick scan on the group in front of her. “I won’t need another step to take out you, mi dulce niño. And he’s not even a Lionheart for god’s sake!”

“Wait, you all thought I was with Lionheart?”, Gabriel lied, “I am most definitely not associated with those clowns”. Gabriel attempted to raise his hands in protest, but the ion-induction bonds around his wrists prevented such an action.

“But we saw you running along with that hero days ago!”, one of the goons yelled, his gun swiveling past his friends with no respect to safety.

“Yeah, that Fae chick!”, another added, his fists dropping as he turned toward Gabriel.

“Uh, that’s private association, not corporate”, Gabriel, his eyes set slightly panicked behind his mask. “Besides, I’m literally marked as Vigilante under Cali government. Do you guys not do research on the people you kidnap?”

A slow muttering broke out between the group, with Gabriel noticing one goon slap another upside the head. With a frustrated yell, the ringleader clapped his hands together thrice.

“Would you shut it, team?! We have here the greatest hero in California and we are here arguing on his official statuses? He will bring a grand ransom, whether he’s dead or alive.”

“I prefer you don’t do the former?”

The ringleader growled and turned back toward Hemlock, raising his own gun toward her from a hostler in his belt. “Well, Vile, do you have any last words to mutter?”

Hemlock laughed, her head far back from amusement. As she looked back toward the group, her eyes glowed gleefully as she raised a spread hand. Even Gabriel felt a twinge of old fear as gears moved in the Enhancement brace on her shoulder.

“I do, dear wolf. Seraph is my foe, and you will never be that for me”.

(Part 2)

Gabriel bent to the floor as a cloud of yellow smoke flushed from Hemlock’s hand, enveloping the front line of goons. As some began firing blindly, Hemlock leapt from her position and bounded toward the ringleader with a laugh. With a drop to the ground, the ringleader’s mask lit from pink to a deep red, a visor of light materializing from the eyes. As shots rang out, Gabriel watched as the warehouse lights swung from side to side from the chaos below. As he tracked the light, he teleported to the illuminated ground behind a group of goons. Still not free from his bonds, he took one of the wolf-gangsters’ hands and threw them over his shoulder. As panicked shots rang out around him, he teleported again and caught another goon with a clothesline. As he began to teleport from gang member to member, he took note of Hemlock taking another group on her own. Enhancement braces firing with every punch, she sent a goon flying into a crate-filled shelf. As she continued to fight, the ringleader sent shot after shot toward her, his visor focused intently on the bands of Hemlock’s suit. Gabriel could only process the fight for a second before another goon sent a balled fist at his face. Gabriel weaved easily and slammed both fists into the goon’s stomach, teleporting behind another as a shot rang out. Gabriel barely focused on his whizz of the bullet before sending a side kick into the goon, slamming him onto the ground with a groan. A gang member swung a large knife downward at Gabriel as another shot toward him rang out. With another teleport, he caught the swing mid-air whilst pulling the bullet away from the armed goon. As he pulled the goon to the ground, he pulled hard toward the blunt edge of the blade. The bonds snapping, Gabriel looked toward the man with the gun and jumped toward it. His fist around the weapon in an instant, he crushed the barrel and hooked the goon to the ground cold.

Gabriel looked back toward Hemlock and saw her fighting the ringleader far-range. One Brace laid strewn on the floor, broken from bullet holes riddled at the bend. The ringleader’s visor still glowed, the red deep as he aimed his gun toward Hemlock. She sent out a wave of gas, disrupting the visor with a static noise. As he cursed with a snack toward his ear, Hemlock leapt toward him, the other Brace tight with power straight toward his side of his skull. Gabriel teleported with a readied fist, instantly moving to catch Hemlock’s brace with a grunt. The metal crunched as pressure moved down his arm, Gabriel straining to stop the fist. As the ringleader raised his gun once again, Gabriel sent a elbow into the man’s mask, cracking both the visor and mask eyes. The ringleader fell to the ground, a silent groan emerging from his mouth. Gabriel stood straight toward Hemlock and teleported to and fro her. In his left hand, he held her other Brace and tossed it to the side. Hemlock growled and pulled off her hood and mask, revealing curly brown hair tangled down to the side and a thin scar from the side of her mouth. She crossed her hands as Gabriel strode toward her, fists clenched to his sides.

“Get it over with, Seraph. Just another arrest for me, hmm?”

“I told you a thousand times, Hem. We’re done with the villainy, we do not aim to kill with any punch! You’re on probation so you could become a hero, not so that you go back to being a Vile! And what is with you saying that ‘only I can kill you’?”

“It was Lionheart orders, to distract the goons. Scripted and all. Maybe they want to show the Vile part of me so they could say I never changed after all so when I do go back to before-“

“You are not going back to the way you were before. No when, no if’s. You just charged your Braces to the point of severe injury, and sent some goons flying into metal, and…”

Hemlock crossed her arms and looked down, her hair sending shadows down her face. Gabriel looked at her and sighed. Removing his cowl, Gabriel crouched and looked at her face from below. Her eyes remained unfocused, her forehead wrinkled with regret.

“Hey, Melissa. It’s okay, alright? You’re not a bad person, no one who doesn’t want to be will be. You will make mistakes in this line of work.

“When do they stop, Gabe?”

Gabriel opened his mouth, shut it, and spoke.

“They never do, Melissa. They never stopped after I began 5 years ago. They never stopped after our first fight three years ago. They never stopped after any other fight of mine. I’ve grown up with this job, and I never stopped making mistakes. And you…you’ve been working as a gang enforcer for the entirety of your teenager years. You will make more mistakes than me, Melissa. And that’s okay”.

Melissa looked at Gabriel, her eyes teary from thought. With a breath, she looked toward the roof of the warehouse. Gabriel stood with her, his hands loose to his sides. He stood silently, a patient gaze on Melissa as she took breath after breath, second after second. After a while, she looked back at Gabriel. With a strained smile, she opened her mouth, shut it, and spoke.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay”.

“You are okay. I’m proud, Hem”.

Melissa’s smile grew wider as she wrapped her mask back on her face. Flipping back on her hood, she examined the area around her.

“What time will law enforcement arrive?”

“10-stat. ¿Tú ayudas limpiar?”

“Por supuesto, Seraph. I made a mistake last time though, with the bond-ties?”

“Don’t worry, I still make mistakes with those too”

Gabriel and Melissa laughed, and went back to their job of heroes once more.