Apocrypha
Planetoid
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2024
This felt all wrong.
Surveillance, stakeouts, gathering intel, lurking on shadowy rooftops and silently tailing evildoers in hopes of catching them doing evil… none of that was Invincibelle’s style. Nightraven, Shadowscourge, the Confessor… heroes with black costumes and edgy names… they did this kind of thing all the time, probably, but it just wasn’t Invincibelle’s style. Give her a gang of bank robbers in black-market power armor, or a rampaging mutant monster or killer robot, and she’d beat them down with a thousand-watt smile and not a single strand of her blonde mane out of place, while the cameras looked on adoringly. But sneaking around on rooftops like this, crouching in the shadows for hours on end and staring at a single window like some tabloid photographer or private eye… it made her feel ridiculous. Especially dressed as she was; the whole ‘patriotic cheerleader’ look might play well for the cameras, but it didn’t exactly lend itself to stealth. She didn’t even own anything in black leather, or a mask, and she’d just sound silly trying to do that growly voice that Nightraven affected.
But Nightraven hadn’t stopped Joshua Brand. None of them had, not in all the years the sleazy bastard had been preying on the city. The seductive con-man might not wear a spandex outfit or hold the city hostage with a death ray while cackling about his plans for world domination, but he’d left a trail of brazen thefts and ruined lives in his wake to match the damage done by most supervillains. Documents stolen, security systems breached, compromising secrets leaked, with the trail always leading back to some woman with access - a secretary, an IT worker, a bureaucrat - who turned out to have had some contact… intimate contact… with Joshua Brand. Somehow, this creep had to be tricking or threatening or… or seducing these women into doing things for him, things that ruined their careers or landed them in jail when they got caught… and yet, nothing ever stuck to him. As far as the cops could prove, Brand was just a very successful lady’s man, a rich gadabout filling the time between fundraising galas and yachting excursions with endless casual romances. He’d had quite a few partners who hadn’t been linked to any crimes or leaks, after all, which made it seem like the ones who had were no more than a coincidence.
Paladin, Invincibelle’s mentor, had been the first hero to take Brand’s actions seriously. His one-man crusade against the city’s crime families had led him to suspicion of Brand’s criminal connections… that his romantic escapades and the tendency of his partners to get in trouble was part of a pattern, that the known crimes committed by Brand’s conquests might be just the tip of the iceberg. But before Paladin’s investigation could turn that suspicion into solid evidence, he’d been betrayed - his own wife had ended up in Brand’s bed, and the photographic evidence of it had shown up, along with a taunting message, on Paladin’s own secure system.
The revelation had broken Paladin - not just that his identity and computer systems had been compromised, but that his own wife had been seduced into giving him up. The veteran hero had hung up his cape and slunk off into hiding somewhere, leaving Invincibelle - the powerful, promising young heroine he’d been training - suddenly without a mentor’s guidance in her own superheroic career. Worst of all had been the innuendos that had made their way into the tabloids - without a bit of evidence - that Paladin had been carrying on with his young protege, and it was that illicit affair that had brought down his career.
That stain on her own squeaky-clean image, as much as her debt to her disgraced mentor, made this personal for Invincibelle, as no other battle in her young superheroic career had been. She was going to find out how Brand was manipulating these women, secure the evidence that Paladin had never been able to find and go public with it, take the scumbag down along with whoever he was working with. And if that meant feeling silly about prowling around on rooftops dressed in a star-spangled halter top, mini-skirt, and thigh-highs, then that was a price she was just going to have to pay.
There. Finally, after hours stuck up on this stupid roof… movement down below. Brand’s distinctive silver sports car pulling up in front of the ritzy high-rise ; Brand himself emerging, a gorgeous woman in a slinky black evening dress on one arm, tossing the keys to the valet as he strode inside. Home from the high-society soiree to which she’d tailed him this evening, headed back to his penthouse suite now, with the prey he’d picked up at the party. Invincibelle didn’t recognize the woman or know what Brand wanted with her… beyond the obvious… but if she stayed on him long enough, the creep would have to give himself away sooner or later.
Rising to her feet, Invincibelle took a deep breath and leapt, rocketing into the air and gliding straight up along the side of the high-rise, her golden hair fluttering in the wind, making for the roof. She’d reach the high-rise before Brand and his quarry could ride the elevator up, find a good spot from which to spy on what went on inside. The thought of spying on… that… should have made the naive young superheroine blush… but at the moment, all she could think was that soon she’d have Joshua Brand right where she wanted him.
So why did this all feel so wrong?
Surveillance, stakeouts, gathering intel, lurking on shadowy rooftops and silently tailing evildoers in hopes of catching them doing evil… none of that was Invincibelle’s style. Nightraven, Shadowscourge, the Confessor… heroes with black costumes and edgy names… they did this kind of thing all the time, probably, but it just wasn’t Invincibelle’s style. Give her a gang of bank robbers in black-market power armor, or a rampaging mutant monster or killer robot, and she’d beat them down with a thousand-watt smile and not a single strand of her blonde mane out of place, while the cameras looked on adoringly. But sneaking around on rooftops like this, crouching in the shadows for hours on end and staring at a single window like some tabloid photographer or private eye… it made her feel ridiculous. Especially dressed as she was; the whole ‘patriotic cheerleader’ look might play well for the cameras, but it didn’t exactly lend itself to stealth. She didn’t even own anything in black leather, or a mask, and she’d just sound silly trying to do that growly voice that Nightraven affected.
But Nightraven hadn’t stopped Joshua Brand. None of them had, not in all the years the sleazy bastard had been preying on the city. The seductive con-man might not wear a spandex outfit or hold the city hostage with a death ray while cackling about his plans for world domination, but he’d left a trail of brazen thefts and ruined lives in his wake to match the damage done by most supervillains. Documents stolen, security systems breached, compromising secrets leaked, with the trail always leading back to some woman with access - a secretary, an IT worker, a bureaucrat - who turned out to have had some contact… intimate contact… with Joshua Brand. Somehow, this creep had to be tricking or threatening or… or seducing these women into doing things for him, things that ruined their careers or landed them in jail when they got caught… and yet, nothing ever stuck to him. As far as the cops could prove, Brand was just a very successful lady’s man, a rich gadabout filling the time between fundraising galas and yachting excursions with endless casual romances. He’d had quite a few partners who hadn’t been linked to any crimes or leaks, after all, which made it seem like the ones who had were no more than a coincidence.
Paladin, Invincibelle’s mentor, had been the first hero to take Brand’s actions seriously. His one-man crusade against the city’s crime families had led him to suspicion of Brand’s criminal connections… that his romantic escapades and the tendency of his partners to get in trouble was part of a pattern, that the known crimes committed by Brand’s conquests might be just the tip of the iceberg. But before Paladin’s investigation could turn that suspicion into solid evidence, he’d been betrayed - his own wife had ended up in Brand’s bed, and the photographic evidence of it had shown up, along with a taunting message, on Paladin’s own secure system.
The revelation had broken Paladin - not just that his identity and computer systems had been compromised, but that his own wife had been seduced into giving him up. The veteran hero had hung up his cape and slunk off into hiding somewhere, leaving Invincibelle - the powerful, promising young heroine he’d been training - suddenly without a mentor’s guidance in her own superheroic career. Worst of all had been the innuendos that had made their way into the tabloids - without a bit of evidence - that Paladin had been carrying on with his young protege, and it was that illicit affair that had brought down his career.
That stain on her own squeaky-clean image, as much as her debt to her disgraced mentor, made this personal for Invincibelle, as no other battle in her young superheroic career had been. She was going to find out how Brand was manipulating these women, secure the evidence that Paladin had never been able to find and go public with it, take the scumbag down along with whoever he was working with. And if that meant feeling silly about prowling around on rooftops dressed in a star-spangled halter top, mini-skirt, and thigh-highs, then that was a price she was just going to have to pay.
There. Finally, after hours stuck up on this stupid roof… movement down below. Brand’s distinctive silver sports car pulling up in front of the ritzy high-rise ; Brand himself emerging, a gorgeous woman in a slinky black evening dress on one arm, tossing the keys to the valet as he strode inside. Home from the high-society soiree to which she’d tailed him this evening, headed back to his penthouse suite now, with the prey he’d picked up at the party. Invincibelle didn’t recognize the woman or know what Brand wanted with her… beyond the obvious… but if she stayed on him long enough, the creep would have to give himself away sooner or later.
Rising to her feet, Invincibelle took a deep breath and leapt, rocketing into the air and gliding straight up along the side of the high-rise, her golden hair fluttering in the wind, making for the roof. She’d reach the high-rise before Brand and his quarry could ride the elevator up, find a good spot from which to spy on what went on inside. The thought of spying on… that… should have made the naive young superheroine blush… but at the moment, all she could think was that soon she’d have Joshua Brand right where she wanted him.
So why did this all feel so wrong?
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