Chapter 1: A Hero’s Bad Day

The headlight of a passing car briefly lit the mouth of the alley like a strobe, forcing the two heroes to press themselves a little deeper into the shadows. After it passed, Reflector peeked around the dumpster and caught a glimpse of four figures at the legal clinic’s back door. Hellcat yanked him back out of sight.

“Naughty boy,” she purred. “You’ll scare away the bad guys before we can beat them up for committing a crime.”

Reflector hmphed. The beautiful Hellcat wasn’t actually bloodthirsty, but she loved taunting him with how as an unregistered hero—a true vigilante—she could be fast and loose with the law. Of course, the fact that she’d invited him, a federalized hero, to legitimize the bust took the wind out of her bravado.

“There’s four of them,” he whispered. “Gooon and Buzzkill. Not sure about the other two.”

“Buzzkill? Shit,” she said. With the alley’s semi-darkness and Hellcat’s mocha-colored skin he couldn’t make out her expression, but he could easily picture her chewing on her bottom lip in thought. “Our radios will be useless.”

Reflector nodded. “But so are theirs.”

“So either they aren’t planning on needing them or ... damn!” Hellcat muttered. “I’ll bet Bishop sent a telepath to babysit them. Either Brainwave or the Rodent.”

Reflector blanched. “Aw man. That little dude creeps me out.”

Hellcat snickered. “What do you have to be creeped out about? Anyway, I think he’s cute.”

“He’s an evil lab rat!”

“Yeah, but a cute, evil lab rat,” Hellcat replied. “By the way, are you charged up?”

Reflector shrugged. “Some. Enough for these—”

THWACK! THWACK! THWACK-THWACK! Hellcat’s steel batons snapped against Reflector’s skull and ribs.

He shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t like me,” he said.

“Aww, poor baby,” Hellcat purred. Her lips smacked loudly against his exposed cheek.

“Damnit Hellcat,” Reflector grumbled, rubbing at his cheek with his sleeve. “You’d better not have left lipstick! My wife would not find that funny right now.”

Hellcat chuckled, so just to piss her off Reflector risked another quick peek around the corner. This time only three people loitered near the door, but a puddle blemished the area immediately in front of the office’s doorway.

“They’re on the move,” he announced in his hero voice. Time to get professional. “It’s your bust. How do you want to play this?”

Hellcat paused a moment in thought. “You go in loud here in the back. While everyone’s distracted I’ll check the street for a telepath and cover the front.”

“Got it,” Reflector said. “I can do loud.”

He stepped out from behind dumpster and triggered the smart threads in his uniform. The suit changed from urban camouflage to the widely recognized red two-tone design he wore when he wanted attack focused on him.

At the door halfway down the alley, the last of Bishop’s thugs were just entering the office. Presumably Buzzkill dampened the electronic alarms and Gooon had flowed under the door before reforming to unlock it from the inside. That probably meant the other two were hitters.

A sign affixed to the door read “Free Legal Clinic. Hablas Español.” Making no effort to be stealthy, Reflector opened the door and was immediately hit with a shotgun blast to the chest. Without missing a beat he walked into the office, his power having absorbed the kinetic energy and his uniform visor shielding against the blast’s sudden dazzle in the darkened hallway.

“Federal hero! Stop and get on the floor. You are under arrest for breaking and entering.”

The thugs responded with a chorus of “Oh shits” and “Who is it?” Buzzkill dropped a lit, hissing road flare into a wastebasket and dashed toward the front entrance.

Reflector noticed a slight pressure around his head. Before he could even Reflect it back, the pressure abruptly stopped. Hellcat must have found the telepath.

Rather than the remaining criminals surrendering, another shotgun blast peppered him. Reflector lunged forward, grabbed the shotgun’s barrel, and pinched it shut with a hard squeeze. He always wanted to do one of those cool “bend the barrel into a right angle” moves but invariably the bad guy let go well before the metal could bend. He had to settle for flicking the ruined weapon behind him with a snap of his wrist.

Between Hellcat’s “attack” and the kinetic energy he’d absorbed from the shotgun blasts, he had plenty of energy to Reflect back into his own strength and speed. The would-be shootist held up his hands and the hero swiftly snapped cuffs on his wrists. Two to go.

Reflector heard as much as felt the blow to the back of his head. He snapped around and brought his arm up to block the second swing of a steel bar. Meanwhile flames shot from the top of the trash can and black smoke already covered the ceiling. He needed to end this quickly.

On the third swing, Reflector caught the heavy bar in the palm of his hand. With his left, he Reflected the force into a jab. The guy must have been low-level Powered because the energy he Reflected was enough to send the mook flying backward head-first into a metal filing cabinet. Before the dazed brute could recover Reflector cuffed him like the other.

That just left Gooon, who licked his lips and eyed Reflector nervously. “Look here, Reflector. Let’s just call this a draw, eh? I can’t hurt you, but those cuffs ain’t gonna hold me. If you waste your time trying to catch me you’d have to explain why you let handcuffed suspects burn to death and a building collapse around your ears. Probably get your license pulled. Whatdaya say?”

Jake did his best not to grimace as he tilted his head toward the front entrance. Gooon’s face split into a grin and he hustled out of the office, leaving his cohorts without a backward glance.

Reflector turned his attention back to the trash can. A few more seconds and the desk beside it would catch. The two handcuffed thugs coughed in the thick smoke. Shotgun guy helped the hitter to his feet and followed Gooon out the front. Reflector let them go.

He dropped to his knees, took a deep breath of relatively clean air, and stuck his arm into the flaming trash can. After fishing around for a moment he felt the tube shape of the road flare and retrieved it. For a moment he was at a loss as what to do next, then stuck the lit end of the road flare under his armpit, flipped the trash can upside down and slammed it onto the tile floor. Hopefully the trash fire would starve for oxygen long enough for him to find a fire extinguisher. The hissing flare trapped in his armpit tickled and probably wasn’t doing good things to his uniform.

After he had the trash fire under control, he strolled through the front door and met Hellcat, who had the Bishop’s four enforcers lined up on the sidewalk. Gooon was splayed out, unconscious and ... oozing ... around the edges. Hellcat’s stun gauntlets packed a wallop.