Chapter 5

(In this chapter: mt/Fa, noncon, sleep molestation)

1 Chekhov

Morning was in full swing as Chekhov walked back to Bramble Ridge. The suburb grew quiet, but not as quiet as she’d expected: kids were away at school, yes, but not all the adults were away at work. Others stayed in, glued to TV screens; others sat outside, drank, and eyed the stranger in bright clothing.

Rather than the sidewalk, Chekhov walked on top of a fence, her arms out at her sides to help keep her balance. She wondered how long Planck would be.

Just like that, he caught up to her. One second she was alone; the next, Planck walked the pavement beside her. “Hey, sorry, were you waiting long?”

She jumped halfway out of her skin. It took her a few half-stumbling steps to recover her balance, but she didn’t fall from the fence. She shot him a glare while he gave an apologetic grin. “No,” she said. “Thought you’d take longer, even.” She hopped down to walk next to him. “So you’re done with that filler character?”

“She’s not filler,” Planck said. “And yes, she has a name. It’s Tsuyoi.”

Chekhov flashed him a grin. “Yeah? Then what’s her last name?” While he scowled, she kept on walking.

2 Tsuyoi

Tsuyoi felt strange by the time she left the library. Crying like that usually left her feeling tired, heavy, and dry – even a little sick. This time ... she still felt tired, yes. But there was a lightness to her, something almost giddy. It felt like she’d dropped more than tears. Like she’d let a great weight off her chest. She wondered how long it would last.

The bell rang, signalling the end of one class and the beginning of the next. That meant her class would be clearing off the track field. She ran through her mental maps, her estimations of how and when she could get back out there without bumping into Aurelia or the twins. She’d run those calculations many times before.

She took a long way around, spending more time out on the grounds rather than the more direct path of walking the halls. By the time she reached the track, her class was gone, the space taken over by the next. She didn’t even see her tormentors. She even found her bag in less than a minute: right on the hill where she’d left it.

It didn’t look like it had been tampered with, but it wasn’t like she had a digital picture of how she’d left it. More than once, she’d wished she had a digital camera to do that. She took stock, and everything was there: her notebooks, her sandwich in its zip-lock bag, her plastic water bottle.

She cracked the last one open and took a sniff. Something tickled her nose, definitely something more than the plain water which should have been in there. With a grimace, she tipped it out. She hated to waste water...

But then, it wasn’t a waste she’d personally miss. She didn’t even need to refill it so soon; she had a new, fresh water bottle, given to her by her friend Planck.

She smiled at the thought. Her friend Planck.

3 Planck

Chekhov and Planck passed old playground equipment and crossed the street into the townhouse complex. “We’re here,” Chekhov said. “It was unit 13, right?”

“Unit 7,” Planck said. He led the way through the back door and almost walked solidly into a woman dressed all in black. “Oh, sorry–” Then he saw what was happening.

Heisenberg and Mister Wizard had gathered near the entrance. Prisms had been set down, shining golden light which coalesced into the image of a woman – not actually there, but an intangible image. A blushing Planck still walked around it.

Chekhov closed the door behind herself and walked right through. The image rippled as she passed, but put itself back together. “Careful with that,” she said to Planck. “Walking without looking like that, you’ll end up with a faceful of some unsuspecting girl’s bust.”

The standing image was just short of clear, like a picture taken before the camera had completely focused. Their intruder had been a woman of average height but fit build, dressed tightly all in black. Black which, sadly, included a mask and hood.

“Huh,” Chekhov said. “Well, fuck. Our thief is a girl after all, but I can’t see anything beyond that. Does that leave us completely dry?”

“Not yet,” Heisenberg said. “Observe.” He turned one of the prisms. Its light shifted, turning a few shades paler, and the image turned blurry and colourful. The woman herself turned vivid red, while the image of the doorway behind her changed to blue.

Chekhov opened her mouth to ask what it meant.

Planck got in ahead. “She’s not from here,” he said. “That colour, what is it? Universe Crimson, universe Blood?”

“Or Rose,” Heisenberg said. “With that build, that colour, and the talent she’s shown, I have some hypotheses.” He turned the prism back around, sharpening the image. “I only hope I’m wrong.” Heisenberg was rarely wrong.

Chekhov frowned, staring at the image’s covered face. “Why? If we know who she is, we can handle her. We’re three Realmwalkers.”

Heisenberg shook his head, giving her a grave look. “You’ve had some good victories under your belt, so I’ll let it slide. But you’ve only been with us three years, and Planck is a junior member. You can’t handle her. We’ll continue investigating, and I’ll go on hoping for better news.” He clapped his hands. “You two were following her trail. Planck, report.”

Oh fuck. Why did Heisenberg pick him? Like he’d just said, he was a junior member. A junior member in need of experience and testing. Well, great.

Planck started pacing as he spoke, to give the nervous energy some direction. “We tracked her signature through a few neighbourhoods. The trail got erratic in a bad neighbourhood, Bramble Ridge. After an altercation with some locals, we found–”

“Hold,” Heisenberg said. “What kind of altercation?”

Chekhov cut in. “Standard stuff,” she said. “Found some loan sharks roughing up a girl, so we stepped in. Beat them down, saved her life, sent her on her way.”

Heisenberg’s eyes stayed narrow behind his glasses, but he nodded. “Go on. You found... ?”

Planck continued. “We found the trail again. It led us out to a more upper-class neighbourhood, Lavender Heights, and a school there called Exeter College. We found strong residue there, but before we could get more detail, the etheroscope glitched and its reading defaulted back to my own signature.”

Heisenberg’s lips pursed. It took almost a minute of silence before he responded. “I’ll examine your etheroscope, see if it can be improved. This does give us some leads to work with.”

Planck started to breathe easier. He even stopped pacing, mid-step.

“Where would you start with these leads, Planck?” Heisenberg asked.

Oh look, just like that, he was back to pacing. He looked down at his shoes while he walked. “Well–”

He didn’t even finish his filler word. His pacing bumped into an obstacle – something warm and round against his face, a curious mix of soft and firm. Some corner of his mind thought it felt nice, before he jerked back, his steps stumbling.

“Sorry!” he said. “Sorry sorry sorry!” He dragged his gaze away from his shoes to at least see the unsuspecting girl’s face.

She was tall, athletic, and busty, with long black hair, pale skin, and a black dress with panels of transparent mesh. He’d never seen her before, but she looked at him with confusion born of unexpected recognition. “Max? What are you doing here? Who are these people? What’s with that outfit? And your hair?”

“Um.” Planck had not been expecting that response. “I’m sorry, have you met me before? I may be doing things in the wrong order.”

“What?” The woman fussed over him, touching his forehead to check for fever. “Max, are you okay? I just saw you yesterday.” She looked aside. “Mister Wizard, what’s going on here?”

Their host cleared his throat. “These are the guests I invited from the Fellowship of Realmwalkers. Sorcerors of time and space, from a great many parallel worlds.” He emphasised the last words with a firm, significant look. “Heisenberg, Chekhov, Planck. This is my apprentice.”

She looked them over shrewdly. “Lady Noctis. So you’re the specialists. Where are you on identifying our thief?”

“Noctis,” Planck repeated. There was something about that name, on the tip of his tongue.

Heisenberg snapped his fingers to catch her attention, then pointed to the hologram. “We have an image of exactly how she looked when she came in the door. Unfortunately, she thought ahead far enough to mask herself from such easy identification. We do have leads.” From there, of fucking course, he pointed at Planck.

Planck had at least had some time to think. “We know she came from another world, and recently enough that her sixth-dimensional signature is still vivid. She can’t have been here for longer than one or two years. That’s tricky with modern worlds. Unless she has a doppelganger, a version of herself in this world, she wouldn’t exist in any government records. Given those circumstances, combined with how professionally she planned and pulled off this heist, there’s a good chance she connected with the local criminal underworld. Do you know much about those figures?”

Lady Noctis chewed her lower lip. “When I’m dealing with organised crime, it’s more a ‘blast first’ situation. What are the odds of a doppelganger?”

“We don’t know yet,” Planck said. “Heisenberg’s still narrowing down which world she came from. It could be a close neighbour; we can’t assume either way. Right now, it’s a lead. We can look into it while he’s refining the image and figuring out where she came from.”

Chekhov nodded. “That and the school. We can look into things while the bossman does the CSI work here.”

“The school?” Lady Noctis said. “What school?”

“Exeter College,” Planck said. “So next, we find an intersection between organised crime and an upper-class private school.”

Chekhov laughed. “That’s easy. Drugs. Lady Noctis, know any drug dealers who’d be good for a chat?”

4 Maximum

Maximum already buzzed with excitement when he woke up that morning. He was a superhero. Still in bed, he dug for his wallet and took out the bowling club card Upgrade had given him the night before. As he held it up to the light, Maximum imagined he could see the chip hidden inside.

As nice as the card was, he had more than a fancy club card. He already had a clean win under his belt. The thrill of victory lingered in his mind. He wanted to race around, to throw high-fives, to pat himself on the back. A performance like that was worth celebrating, right? Why had they all just gone home straight after the fight ended?

“Sweetheart!” called his mother from downstairs. “You need to get up, or you’ll be late for school!”

Oh yeah. That was it. Grumbling, he rolled out of bed.

Maximum had lost whatever interest he still had in school. He dragged himself through the first period, always feeling like his mind would go numb from sheer boredom. By the time it ended, he couldn’t even remember what subject the class had been. History, chemistry ... it just blurred together.

Why should he stick around through that?

As he pondered the question, he realised he couldn’t think of an answer. As far as he was concerned, he had no reason to accept going through the rest of the school day. While everyone else scurried off to their next classes, he simply walked out.

It took over two hours to reach the Beacon. He remembered where April had taken him, but he had to take buses that wouldn’t go straight there. The city didn’t keep a bus route for the secret entrance of a superhero organisation, believe it or not. His talent was no help: the best he could do was stop time and walk. The buses got him there faster in a subjective sense.

By the time he reached the underground parking garage, it was almost midday. It took him a few tries to find the right blank wall. It beeped for him as he held up his new card, and opened up to let him into the headquarters. He changed in the elevator and was in full costume before it arrived.

Nobody else was around, it seemed. The hub was in standby mode; the infirmary, interrogation room, and training rooms were empty. He didn’t find anyone until he went to the rec room.

Dynamo Dame lay sprawled out on a couch. She still wore her mask, the blue band preserving her identity ... but that was all she wore of her costume. The rest was replaced by a white bathrobe. Her hair wet and heavy, it looked like she’d passed out just after a shower.

It was a good look for her. Not least of all because the robe was less than modest: it clung to her wet skin, turning transparent enough to hint at the tan of her skin. And that was where it actually covered her. It fell open enough to show the slopes between her firm, full breasts, and the hem fell only halfway down her thighs. Those gaps invited filling.

5 Maximum (content advisory: mt/Fa, noncon, sleep molestation)

Maximum glanced around and saw nobody but Dynamo Dame, deep asleep. He strained his ears and heard only her slow breathing and his own heart, pounding louder with each beat of desire and anticipation.

Curiosity piqued in the back of his mind. For once, he’d try it without using his talent. As deep asleep as she was, she wouldn’t know anyway. That dash of wickedness and risk made his heart leap into his throat ... but the shaking of his hands came from giddiness, not fear.

He sat on the couch with her, perched at its edge. His weight next to hers didn’t make her wake up. Neither did the touch of his hand on her abdomen, light and hesitant. She felt fit, her abdomen toned and flat underneath the thin robe. His fingertips explored her. He’d grown used to taking his time.

A giggle broke the silence and almost made him leap out of his skin.

His hand froze in place, but he still felt shifting underneath it, Dynamo Dame squirming. He stared into her face ... but her eyes stayed closed. She hadn’t woken up, she hadn’t giggled from catching him. She was just ticklish.

That let him breathe easier, though his heart refused to slow. If she had a ticklish stomach, he just had to move on. He made one last check that they were alone. Still watching above, he slid his hand inside her robe, fingers spread wide to hold her breast. The first touch sent a thrill through him, her body absorbing all his focus. Even laid out on her back like that, her enhanced breasts kept a rounded shape, jutting up from her chest. That firmness felt so different from the flesh of most girls he’d touched, but ‘different’ didn’t have to mean ‘bad’. Silicone was growing on him.

As was sex outside of stopped time. Dynamo Dame’s breathing shifted towards something faster, sharing his excitement. Heat flushed through her, further warming the flesh in his grip, and he felt something new. Her nipple grew hard under his touch, poking back against his palm the next time he squeezed her. Lustful intrigue made him squeeze her again, again, kneading her breast.

Feeling it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see. His hand slid across, lifting the robe away from her. He only bared that left breast, letting the other stay hidden for contrast. Her skin had the same warm tan he’d explored before, the paler part of her breast feeling smooth and creamy as his fingertips slid across it. Her brown areola stood out from it, stretched wider by the implant within, and her nipple rose proudly, a thick crown for her breast.

He focused his touch, fingertips rubbing in circles around that peak. She groaned unconsciously, and the sound felt like wildfire burning through his veins. He wanted more. His fingers took hold of her nipple and slowly pinched, driving more force into her. Her voice rose with a low and wordless tone ... but then it rose in pitch at the end, almost like a question. She squirmed under him, and it wasn’t just shifting in her sleep.

6 Maximum

Maximum did use his talent a little after all. By the time Dynamo Dame finished stirring, he was already seated on the other couch, on the other side of the table from her. He folded his legs to cover his lap’s excitement, ready to feign innocence.

Dynamo Dame woke up groggy. She yawned, she sat up, she stretched – all before she noticed his presence. When she did, it was with a slow blink. “Oh. Hi, Max.” She smiled: neutral, friendly, and unsuspecting.

“Hi, DD.” He relaxed, though that was a double-edged sword. Without that tension, he had more trouble controlling his eyes. They found a tendency to dip.

Dynamo Dame followed his gaze, down to her chest – and found one breast bare. “Oh! Oopsie.” She giggled drowsily as she tucked her robe back over herself. “Must have fallen out while I was sleeping. Happens with this robe sometimes.” She shrugged.

Maximum stopped to process that. He, practically a stranger, had just seen her with her tit out ... and she brushed it off like it was nothing. Something about that felt hotter than any amount of surreptitious fondling.

While he stayed silent, Dynamo Dame got to her feet. “Beacon, what time is it?”

A double beep came from the walls and a synthetic voice answered, “12:14 pm.”

“Huh.” Dynamo Dame turned to him. “You’re here early. The others – Valkyrie and Adonis especially – don’t usually get here for a few hours.”

“I got out of school early,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He did get out of school early; it was just that nobody had actually given him permission to.

She giggled. “Aah, school days. I don’t miss those.”

“I’ll look forward to putting them behind me,” he said. “What about you? Often sleep in the rec room?”

“Not often,” she said. “By the time I got in this morning, I was wiped. Right after my shower, I lay down and just ... passed out. Never made it to my quarters.”

“You have quarters?” he asked.

“Lady Noctis didn’t make that part of the tour?” she asked. “There are five private suites here, but I’m the only one actually using one. Got it all set up how I like it, too.”

A thought occurred to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice it. His mouth opened, but he just couldn’t actually ask to see her bedroom. It was one thing to see her naked and have her brush it off. For some unknown, painfully frustrating reason, he wasn’t up to flirting with her that boldly.

She watched him fail to speak for a few seconds. Ultimately, she shrugged. “Want to eat? Breakfast for me, lunch for you.”

He grimaced at himself letting the moment pass. She was already gone before he could answer.

She slapped together a pair of sandwiches. On her return, she flopped back onto the couch like ... well, like she lived there.

That got him thinking. “You have your own rooms here,” he said. “You’re still wearing your mask, in the middle of the day. What about when you’re not Dynamo Dame?”

“That’s a big assumption you’re making,” she said. “Why would I want to not be Dynamo Dame? Think about how you’re feeling about school. I have put it behind me. As Dynamo Dame, I can fly. I can fight crime. And hell, I can still turn heads at the club if that’s my mood.”

He smirked. “Dynamo Dame turns heads better than... ?”

She poked him on the nose, smirking right back. “You’re not getting my real name that easy, Maximum.”

He blew her a raspberry. “Alright then, full-timer. What does Dynamo Dame usually do around this time of day?”

She stood up and stretched, robe almost falling open again. “Since I’ve already rolled out of bed, I’d say it’s time to throw on some actual clothes. Then you’re coming with me. It’ll be fun to have someone else around for the afternoon rounds. See if we can’t find some excitement for ourselves.”

7 Chekhov

The beachfront air hit Chekhov’s senses with a tickle of salt and pleasant coolness. A few smells drifted over, and she focused on the nicer ones. Once they were done, she’d have to get some fish and chips.

Later. She scanned the people on the pavement with her. It was a warm afternoon, but a weekday afternoon, thinning the crowds into something moderate. A lot of them looked at her and Planck, eyeing their costumes; others actually acted like they lived in a city with superheroes and brushed it off. “This is the place, right?”

Lady Noctis had changed into plain clothes – under the circumstances, a black bikini with a sarong skirt. “This is the street where Valkyrie saw him yesterday.”

Chekhov nodded shrewdly. “And this guy we’re looking for. Tall, skinny, wears a pinstriped hat? Big sunglasses and suitcase?”

Lady Noctis nodded.

Chekhov continued, “Bad Hawaiian shirt?”

Lady Noctis said, “He had one when I saw him before, but that’s no guarantee he’ll have the same thing today.”

“Oh, he does,” Chekhov said. “He’s right over there, couple blocks down.”

By that point, the hatted man had spotted them, too. He took one look at her and Planck in their costumes. From that distance, she couldn’t hear what he’d said, but it looked a lot like ‘oh shit’. He turned and ran.

A grin broke across Chekhov’s face. Yes. She pushed forward into a run, ducking smoothly between two tourists as she began her pursuit. Rather than a sprint, she kept a measured pace, something she could keep up for a while. This wouldn’t be decided by raw speed, but endurance; she just had to keep on his tail long enough for him to make a mistake. By the angle of his run, he was already heading for an alleyway to the left. If she cut through–

In a flash, Planck teleported in front of the dealer. Shock made the man stumble; Planck leveraged it into a full trip while one hand held the back of his collar, like a mother cat holding the scruff of a kitten’s neck. “I got him!”

Chekhov suddenly dropped from a run to a walk, almost stumbling as she bled off momentum. “Oh.”

“What–” Planck read the look on her face. “Oh. Oh, damn. You wanted a chase scene, didn’t you?”

“It’s fine,” she said.

“No,” Planck insisted. “I’m sorry. I just jumped ahead without thinking.”

“It’s fine,” she said.

“I could let him go?” Planck suggested. “Then you could chase him.”

“Yeah!” the dealer said, nodding vigorously. “He could let me go. I’d be cool with that.”

Chekhov opened her mouth to agree, but managed to say, “We’re not just letting him go, that’d be stupid.”

Lady Noctis, silent until then, broke into bewildered laughter.

Planck’s cheeks flushed crimson. “This isn’t how Realmwalkers usually act. I swear.”

8 Maximum

“Look at it this way,” Dynamo Dame said. “At least you can protect a few blocks’ radius from the Beacon.” Her tone tried to be consoling, but she couldn’t keep herself from giggling.

Maximum scowled until he felt sure the corners of his mouth had pulled down to his throat. “This might come as a surprise to you, but not everyone can fly.”

“That is pretty surprising,” Dynamo Dame said. “I mean, the local team has me, Adonis, Valkyrie. Lady Noctis has that broom. And Upgrade says his car can fly, though I don’t believe it until I see it. A superhero without a fast way to get around, that’s surprising.”

He hung back and just looked around himself. The sun shone bright, glaring off the pavement. The downtown streets were so clean. Not just hygienically, but socially: just a bunch of neatly-dressed, urban professionals power-walking to and fro. He couldn’t think of anybody present as a ‘suspicious character’.

Which meant there was no heroism to do.

He sighed aloud. “Is patrol always this boring?”

Dynamo Dame had kept walking; by then, she was halfway down the block. She beckoned to hurry him along. “Downtown isn’t exactly a contested spot. It’s home base for us, and they know that. You might get a mugger or robbery every now and then, but not in broad daylight.”

Maximum hurried to catch up. “Alright, then what are the fun routes?”

“Dark, dangerous, exciting...” Dynamo Dame flashed him a grin. “ ... and well outside your travel range.” She tousled his hair, even as he batted her hand away. “If Upgrade lets you out into those, you’ll need to partner up with someone who can do the fast-travel for both of you.”

He fixed his hair. “What about you?” he asked. “You can fly.”

“I can fly for myself,” she said. “Not the both of us. Look at my arms – do I look like I can haul a growing boy, even on the ground?”

“No,” he said, looking at her. “No, you’re pretty skinny.”

“Everywhere except where you’re actually looking.” A grin took the edge off her tease.

He still had to yank his eyes off her chest, feeling the heat of his blush flooding his cheeks. “It’s just, after yesterday...”

“Yesterday was a special case,” she said. “We don’t have a major drug bust every night.”

He paused again on the sidewalk. “And after a win like that, we’re just going back to hitting the pavement like any other day?”

“Well, some of us hit the pavement,” she said.

“Not my point.” He started tapping out a search on his phone. “How long ‘til the others usually join in?” He glanced to the screen’s corner. “It’s just about one, now.”

“Uh.” Dynamo Dame blinked. “Unless it’s a special occasion, Lady Noctis is like an outside cat. She keeps her own schedule. Upgrade, usually around nightfall. Valkyrie and Adonis ... like, two and a half hours from now? When school lets out.”

Maximum smiled. “That’s enough time. I have a better idea for what we can do.”

9 Lady Noctis

“This is bullshit,” the dealer said. He struggled as Planck pulled him into the side alley, but he didn’t have the leverage to actually slip free. “That’s two days in a row. In a row!”

Chekhov raised an eyebrow, looking over to Lady Noctis. “You grabbed this guy yesterday?”

“Not me personally,” she said.

“It was still the Vigilants!” the dealer said. “Yeah I know it’s you, Lady Noctis. Wearing less is a good look for you, but it’s not a disguise!”

She rolled her eyes. Going low-key hadn’t worked out too well anyway. She pulled her hat from her bag and put it on. Just by tweaking a concealed rune, she transformed her outfit from that black bikini into her usual costume.

“Look, that’s not the point,” the dealer said. “We had a deal!”

Chekhov bit her tongue. “I want everyone here to recognise how hard it is to bite back a Star Wars reference right now,” she said. “Look, how about a new deal? If I show you my tits, will you shut up and answer some questions?”

“What?!” Planck squealed. Though his face flushed, he tightened his grip and leverage on his prisoner. Embarrassment came naturally, but wouldn’t make him slip up that easily.

The dealer did at least stop talking while he thought it over. He soon said, “Yeah alright, if you’re offering.”

Chekhov’s word was good. She flashed herself at the alleyway: her healthily rounded breasts wobbled as they dropped free from the confines of crop top and sports bra, and settled with her rosy nipples tilted slightly towards the sky.

“Damn,” the dealer said. “Yeah, that’s worth the price of admission. What you want to know?”

Chekhov tucked herself back into modesty. “Planck, show him the picture.” She glanced past the dealer with a smirk on her face. “And yes, it’s safe to look now.”

Lady Noctis tore her gaze away and found Planck staring up into the sky, a vivid blush on his face. That got a laugh. She couldn’t imagine Maximum looking away from a sight like that.

Planck couldn’t do anything about his blush, but he let the dealer go and pushed onto the topic at hand. From his pocket he took a polaroid they’d snapped of the scene. Even so thoroughly masked, a visual reference could help. “We’re looking for someone,” he said. “A burglar, active in the Bramble Ridge area early this morning. Like, 3am kind of early.”

The dealer’s eyebrows shot up. “Shit, three in the morning and you’re already on the case? How do I get superheroes watching my neighbourhood?”

“You’ve got ‘em,” Chekhov said. “You said something about getting arrested yesterday?”

“Oh yeah.” The dealer squinted at the picture as he fixed his hat. “Skinny girl in black. Not much to go on. What makes you think I’d have an ID sitting in my ass, waiting for me to pull it out?”

“Aside from the burglary, she could be a colleague of yours,” Chekhov said. “Dealing out at Exeter for all the bored private-school kids.”

“Dealing? Hang on a sec.” He grabbed the picture from Planck to peer more closely. Eventually, he barked a laugh. “I thought those legs looked familiar! Man, if you’d had a rear view, I’d have known her in an instant.”

“So you know her?” Lady Noctis asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s not a dealer. She’s a user. Calls herself ... K-something. Kilometer, Kiss Me, something like that.”

“You know her ass but not her name?” Planck’s tone was dry enough she wanted to wash it down with a glass of water.

The dealer shrugged. “I haven’t seen her in months, not since I made some introductions. She gets her stuff right from the old man himself these days.”