[Kathy Howard]

Write a story of a hero!

Kathy Howard straightened up from her hunched position over the bonnet of the car, wiping a hand across her forehead and leaving a dark stain on the otherwise clear skin. "I'm afraid you're gonna need some new brake pads. How long's it been since you had this looked at?" The response left her aghast. "Christ Matt, you're supposed to get it checked regularly. This baby can't look after herself you know!"

She gave him a punch on the arm, glaring reprovingly up at her friend. "Honestly, I should charge you extra for that. Hell, I'm gonna need to give her a full look over now. God only knows what's happened to her, what with you at the wheel n'all."

"I still get the best friend discount right?" Matt asked, scratching at the back of his head sheepishly.

Kathy snorted and shoved him. "You're lucky I'm so damn soft idiot. Now go on, get on out of here. I'll give you a call when I'm done with her."

One would not be out of place if they questioned why a highly successful, professional hero - one who earned more than enough to live comfortably off in her neighbourhood - was fixing cars for her dumb friend. The answer was quite simple really; Kathy liked fixing things, always had. Whether they be vehicles, people, or relationships, she'd do her best to fix 'em all. It was fun, and just because she was a hero now didn't mean she couldn't spend her downtime on her old job.

She gave Matt's car a look over, then ordered some new brake pads for the BMW. They'd arrive in a day or so, then she could call him back over and he could drive off into the sunset. Where he'd probably break something again, honestly.

***

The call came in half an hour later, just before Kathy could start preparing her lunch. Something about a package that needed to be delivered to San Francisco. She dropped everything she was doing, dashing to her room to put on her costume. She was strapping on the greaves when she noticed the grime she was leaving on the gleaming metal. She'd forgotten to have a shower after working on the car, so she was still filthy.

She heaved a great, put upon sigh, before shaking her fist at the ceiling as if it was its fault that she was a little scatterbrained sometimes. Off came the armour, she needed a shower.

***

Celerity appeared suddenly in the Hero Program building, looking like some mythical hero in her shining silver armour. The image was rather ruined by her still damp hair which looked rather bedraggled by comparison, as if she'd hurriedly stuck it under the water and ran a brush through it maybe once (which was in fact the case, not that she'd ever admit it). The first person she saw must've been new around, because the woman gasped and dropped the box she was carrying.

Well, Celerity was a knight in shining armour. She couldn't stand by and let someone be embarassed like that.

She swept in and caught the box before it hit the floor, handing it to the intern with a broad smile and a cheerful "m'lady."

The poor girl turned crimson in the time it took to blink, stammered her thanks, and fled.

Kathy giggled quietly. She loved acting the gallant knight, it was an endless source of amusement - especially since a lot of people frequently seemed unable to tell how they should react to some good old-fashioned courtly manners. It certainly seemed to confuse some of her fellow heroes, considering that she was fulfilling the role typically held by a male figure.

"Hey Cel, did the boss call for you?" The speaker was one of Kathy's many friends in the department, a pencil pusher with a penchant for gossiping like an old woman and swearing like a sailor.

Kathy threw an arm around his shoulders in a sort of half-hug, grinning like a loon. "Hey Andy, long time no see." It had only been a day. She could tell he was going to make a comment to that effect, so she cut him off at the pass. "Yeah, I got a call earlier. Something about a package he needs delivered to San Francisco."

She finished with the small talk and made her way to the boss' office. She entered the room at high speed, her armoured feet skidding on the wooden floor. "Hey boss, you called for me?"

She had been there scarcely a moment when her boss, likely too tired to deal with her when she was in this kind of mood, threw the parcel she was supposed to be delivering at her. "Drop that off and be right back Celerity, you hear me? We might need you, and we can't have you just hanging around the San Francisco heroes for hours on end again. You're supposed to check in here before going off duty, not stay in another city until midnight then check in next day."

Kathy hid her grin behind a hand and then, once she'd managed to adopt a somewhat more serious expression, snapped off a sloppy salute. "Yes sir captain major sir."

Before the man could lose his patience entirely and throw a stapler at her she vanished with a faint rush of displaced air.

***

Another person might've chafed at being treated like a glorified postman, but to Kathy it was more of an opportunity than an unwelcome burden. She'd always enjoyed travelling, and with her new power even a journey of 3000 miles was as easy as breathing and took less time. Besides, it'd been a while since she'd seen Paladin or any of the other Bay heroes, at least by her current standards - to most people it wouldn't be odd not to see friends on the other side of the country for months at a time, but for Kathy? It started feeling like a long time after a week.

That was why, when she appeared in San Francisco's hero program building, she opened by shouting a greeting. "Special delivery service, courtesy of the one and only Celerity. Take a look while you can folks, I'll be off in a jiffy."

In one of the comic books she loved so much, this would've been the moment where some exasperated straightman slapped a hand to their forehead and muttered something disparaging about her intelligence. As it was, there was only a moment's pause before everything was back in motion.

Kathy overheard words like 'Paladin', 'situation', and 'backup', before she decided she was bored of standing around and dropped the package on the floor. She snatched a passing man by the sleeve and asked what was going on.

Apparently Paladin was in a bit of a dangerous situation, and people weren't certain she'd come out of it okay on her own.

Kathy struck a pose, commanding the attention of the entire room once more. "Do not fear for your champion kind people. Why? Because Celerity is here to save the day!"

Then she was running.

aeron at thq

Tag Alice Morrow

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

Paladin had been mulling over the idea of an official Hero team for San Francisco. It made sense, she was powerful, but she couldn't deal with every threat. Even when working with other Heroes teaming up didn't always work out, they weren't accustomed to that kind of teamwork usually. Training as a team would help with taking down dangerous metahumans or metahuman groups and minimise casualties. It would also have been super helpful in this situation. She held up a hand and the car stopped dead as it touched her palm, dropping heavily back to the ground and bouncing slightly on its suspension. There was a metahuman who appeared to be firing them at her, simply running from car to car, and whenever she slapped her hand onto one of them they took off at what felt like a hundred miles an hour, judging by the amount of kinetic energy Paladin was absorbing every time it flew towards her. She ducked behind a truck that had been unloading, glad for a moment of breathing room. A laser blast tore through the cab, and she swore. The car-catapulting maniac she could have dealt with, the laserblaster she could have dealt with, but both of them at the same time had her on the back foot, and there was another one with them who hadn't yet revealed their powers. This was why they needed teams, if criminals could get off their butts and work together like this, then Heroes would have to. She took a deep breath, time to take the fight to them. She stepped out from behind the truck. The next car that came flying at her exploded as it touched her, receiving a sudden jolt of kinetic energy that it's structure simply couldn't resist. A panel dropped in front of her and she kicked it, unloading another blast of kinetic energy. It flew towards the blaster who yelped and dived out of the way. Obviously he needed some time to charge each blast. It must be why he'd partnered up with the girl firing cars. Her power wouldn't be able to hurt Paladin, but his could, if he could get a clean shot. She'd just have to make sure he didn't.

© seadra of gs

[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

Kathy hadn't stuck around to hear what was actually happening with Paladin, so she was actually the tiniest bit relieved when a voice suddenly sounded through her earpiece. "Damn it Cel, you're supposed to let me know before you go running off into a fight." It was her liasion, Hannah Washington; when they'd first met Hannah had been aloof and a little cold, but it hadn't taken Kathy long to drag her out of her professional shell, and at this point it wouldn't be inaccurate to call them great friends. Don't tell anyone, but Kathy had actually managed to drag Hannah out to a bar a couple of times - very hush hush of course, they weren't really supposed to be doing that kind of thing. Very unprofessional, apparently.

"You know me Hannah," Kathy laughed. "What sort of knight would I be if I didn't leap to the aid of a fellow hero, hmm?"

Hannah gave a snort, before snapping back to professionalism. They were on a timetable after all. "Paladin is currently engaging three metahumans. The reports say there's one who can fire lasers, one who's been flinging cars just by touching them, and a third who hasn't displayed any abilities yet. The second isn't much of a problem for Paladin, so priority targets are the laser blaster and the unknown."

Kathy was on the street by now, and she skidded to a halt for a few moments. "I need directions Hannah."

The other woman rattled off a list of street names that meant little to her, and Kathy took off at a run. It was a pity it was such a busy time of day, if the streets had been empty Kathy could've just skipped around with her shield but that wasn't the kind of thing that was very safe - the edges of the shield were blunted of course but it was still essentially a large metal frisby, not the kind of thing you should be throwing when there were bystanders around.

She arrived just in time to see Paladin redirect a thrown car at one of the villains. Just like Hannah had said, there were three of them. Two men and a woman - the woman had been the one to originally fling the car, so that must mean one of the men was the laser guy and the other was the one who still hadn't revealed their power.

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath and properly take in the scene, and took the opportunity to open one of the pouches at her waist and place a mark on a few small pieces of metal. The crescent gleamed brightly in her presence.

Okay. Show time.

Celerity threw her shield towards the ongoing fight like a discus, sending it high into the air. She landed on the roof of the truck with a thud of metal on metal, throwing the marks in the direction of the criminals as she did so. With that done, she drew the sword from her waist and brandished it above her head so that it caught the light, shining like a second sun.

"Halt there evil-doers. The three of you together were no match for my comrade on her own, you have no hope now that I, Celerity, have arrived. Surrender now and we shall spare you the humiliation of defeat." She was grinning like a kid on Christmas day, daring the three to make a move.

It was perhaps a bit much, the kind of thing you'd expect to find in a silver age comic book, not coming out of the mouth of a professional hero. What could she say, she was a sucker for the classics.

Everything had paused for a moment, but suddenly people started moving again, the car thrower sending a Prius flying in Celerity's direction. It crashed into the truck, buckling the already ruined metal and tipping the whole thing over. The impact alone would've sent her flying, maybe even killed her, but Celerity wasn't one of the most successful heroes in the US for nothing. She'd already vanished, reappearing beside Paladin and slapping a mark on her shoulder.

"Hey Paladin, long time no see. Whaddya say we deal with these idiots and catch up on lost time?" It had been perhaps two weeks since they last met, but never let it be said that the life of a hero was a boring one. Hey, maybe the younger woman had even gotten a boyfriend?

aeron at thq

Tag Alice Morrow

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

Even Paladin was distracted by the sudden arrival of another Hero, one she recognised. Celerity had clearly taken some inspiration from Paladin; her suit was clearly modelled after that of a medieval knight, albeit she had gone a few steps further. She carried a shield and a baton to supplement her abilities, which was sensible as her abilities didn't lend her any increased toughness or strength. Paladin was pretty glad to see her. They just clicked, Celerity was as into being a Hero as Paladin was, although her one liners were a little cheesier. Pretty good though, Paladin was sure she'd read that last one in an old DC comic. Even knowing Celerity's habits Paladin came very close to blasting her apart when she appeared from thin air behind her. They still didn't know what the last member of the team did, and teleportation, while relatively rare, was not off the table. Fortunately she was controlled enough to not obliterate her ally. She grinned, "Good to see you Celerity, drinks on me once we knock these guys out." Then she turned serious again, "I still don't know what the third one can do, they've been keeping their power, if they have one, under wraps. Keep an eye on them, but we need to deal with the other two first. Blaster seems to be able to blast apart pretty much anything, but he needs a long break between each shot. The other one seems to be able to accelerate whatever she touches. She's easy for me to deal with, but the blaster keeps getting off a shot whenever I get close." Without waiting for a response she sprang up, easily leaping the thirteen feet to the roof of the truck, before starting to run dead on at the car flinging woman. She had faith in her companion.

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[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

Celerity grinned at Paladin. "That's all? Hah. They must not have done their research if they thought they could beat you."

She was exaggerating a little; Paladin was an unquestionably powerful hero, being the strongest brick on record (even New York's Tank didn't come close), but the caveats to her ability left her vulnerable to a blaster like the one they were up against. On his own the charge time would've let her smash him anyway, but even if the car thrower couldn't hurt Paladin she could still keep the hero away long enough to give the blaster time to attack. It was a bit of a scary matchup, but then, it wasn't like she was alone anymore.

Celerity may not have had Paladin's stardom, or even that of Surge before his retirement, but she was still one of the most popular heroes in the states, and she had the power to back it up. Nothing could touch her, not if she didn't want it to. If Paladin was the strongest, Celerity was the fastest.

The blaster who was such a threat to Paladin, capable of ignoring her defences, meant nothing against Celerity. If he had been capable of firing his blasts instantly then maybe, but the charge time meant he'd never land a hit. The car thrower would be more of an issue for her on her own, but Paladin made her utterly irrelevant.

Against either one of them, their opponents would've stood a chance. Against the two of them? Not so much.

Paladin's charge had the attention of both opponents focused on her almost instantly. It wasn't every day someone jumped thirteen feet as easily as most would jump two. More common now than it had once been, perhaps, but powers had only been around a year.

Celerity had been waiting for them to focus on her fellow hero, and swiftly took advantage of their distraction. She vanished from her place behind the truck, reappearing halfway across the road and hurling her shield high into the air. The blaster, whose attention had been drawn by Paladin, jerked his head to the side to glare at Celerity, a burst of red light shining from his eyes.

The beam seared across the street, vaporising a whole in a bin. Had it hit, it probably would've vaporised a hole in Celerity as well, but she had already vanished, reappearing twenty foot in the air to snatch her shield, spinning like a ballet dancer and laughing like a school girl. She vanished again, off to the side of where she had been originally and she wagged a finger. "You could've hit me with that, and then what would you do hmm?"

She felt confident - very confident. She was getting the impression that their opponents were rather less dangerous than they'd appeared before. They were a good matchup for Paladin, sure, but both Celerity and Paladin had dealt with more dangerous opponents before.

Celerity made to take a step forward, her first of the fight. Her leg didn't move.

She vanished immediately, not waiting around for whatever had stopped her to do some actual damage. Reappearing back at the other side of the street, she quickly appraised the situation. The asphalt at her original position had risen up from the ground around where her legs had been. That must've been what got in the way, but who had..? The third meta, of course.

"Asphalt manipulator Paladin, watch out." They really had come prepared for the other hero. Paladin could smash her way out of anything so long as she had enough power stored, but if the car thrower and asphalt manipulator could manage to slow her down enough for the blaster to draw a bead on her she'd go down like anyone else. No more playing around, this was serious.

She dropped her sword and palmed the last mark that was in her pouch, the one she always left behind as a safety, before teleporting as close to the blaster as she could and throwing the little piece of metal straight at him.

It struck him high in the chest with all the force of a small child's punch. He didn't have time to be smug, however, as in an instant she was there, slapping a mark on his chest before smashing him in the face with her shield. He staggered back, dazed but still concious, but she had to vanish again immediately to avoid reprisal from the asphalt manipulator. It didn't really matter though. With a mark on his chest, the blaster could never escape her now. He was done.

aeron at thq

Tag Alice Morrow

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

Celerity's warning came just in time, Paladin didn't even pause in her headlong charge as the road about her attempted to slow her down. Instead her feet simply kicked through the hot black material as if it was so much sand. She barely paused as a car came flying towards her, stopping the heavy vehicle with a single touch, then rolling over the bonnet as it clattered heavily to the ground. The accelerating metahuman was potent, Alice would have had to dedicate a lot of energy to throwing a car at the kind of speed this girl was managing. Unfortunately, she was precisely the wrong metahuman to bring to a fight with the pre-eminent Hero of the Program. Every flying car or piece of rubble simply provided her with more energy, more ammunition to discharge against her opponents. They had managed to keep her at bay only with their unusual combination of powers. As it was she would have eventually collected enough energy from the accelerator to render it a moot point. She blasted through the asphalt that had once again attempt to form around her legs, trusting in Celerity to distract the blaster. No energy beam seemed to be forthcoming, and she continued her inexorable, and now accelerating advance towards the other two. Juicing every step with additional kinetic energy, Paladin was running at a pace no normal human could ever hope to match, the asphalt reaching up at her legs too slow to catch her speeding form. She backhanded the next car to fly towards her, sending it back the way it had come to crumple against the sudden wave of asphalt that the manipulator had raised. She leapt, soaring into the air with a blast of kinetic energy, leaving the seeking, grabbing tentacles of asphalt far behind. A car came flying towards her, but she didn't even bother to respond to it as it flew past nearly ten feet away. Clearly this metahuman was not as good a shot on a 3D plane. Unfortunately the asphalt manipulator was smart enough to catch her in flight, and long spikes of the black material, shining in the sun, sprung up at her from the ground. She shattered the first one with a blast, twisting her body awkwardly to avoid the second, the third one wasn't so easy. Focusing all of her concentration on absorbing her kinetic energy, she clapped her hands around the end of the cone, stopping dead through sheer force of will, clinging to the spike like a chimp clings to a tree. The accelerator was running towards a new source of ammunition, another car, but at this point Paladin was tired of dodging flying vehicles. She slammed her palm into the spike two feet below its crown, unleashing a controlled blast that cracked the slim asphalt clean off. Leaping down from the black forest she hurled the spike, helping it on its way with a burst of kinetic energy. The spike struck the road six feet in front of the accelerator, shattering into dozens of pieces and forcing her to dive for cover while Paladin turned to face the asphalt manipulator. Unfortunately she hadn't noticed the blaster readying himself for another attack.

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[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

Celerity reappeared on a road torn to bits by the exertions of the asphalt manipulator, and the man must've noticed her appearance because the ground beneath her rippled and sent her stumbling, distracting her for a few crucial moments. She vanished once more, reappearing back on the other side of the street from her opponents and surveying the battlefield.

The blaster was dumber than Celerity had thought. At the very least, he hadn't done his research. Back in New York, the people knew that once Celerity had you marked you needed to focus on her and her alone. You couldn't afford to get distracted and give her even the smallest opening. Apparently this guy hadn't gotten the memo.

Sure, this was San Francisco. But only an idiot didn't look into their potential opponents, and Celerity had never been particularly hesitant about showing off her ability to jump across the whole of the country in the time it took to blink.

He had turned away from her to focus on Paladin. Honestly, it kinda made sense. Would've been the best course of action in any other scenario, against any other hero. After all, he was the only one of their three opponents with any hope of bringing her down. The asphalt manipulator could slow her down, maybe even trap her, and the car thrower could distract her. But neither had any hope of actually stopping her. Only the blaster, with his lasers, could do that.

In any other scenario, he would've been right to change his focus. In this one? He couldn't have made a bigger mistake.

With no fear that he might see her coming, Celerity knew this might as well already be over. She couldn't afford to waste time however. The blaster's charge time made it easy to avoid his attacks if you saw him first, but Paladin was very much distracted by his fellows and would probably take the hit.

Celerity launched herself forward in a football tackle, aimed at nothing but empty air. Not that it mattered; after all, she had him marked now.

She vanished and reappeared right next to her target, colliding with his midsection at high speed and sending him sprawling. She was almost too late, for as he fell the blast was unleashed from his eyes. It left a ragged hole in the wall of the building on the other side of the street, his aim thrown off by the sudden impact of a fully armoured hero.

He hadn't even hit the ground before she vanished again, reappearing a metre off the ground and slamming back down into his midsection, elbow first. The breath was driven out of his lungs, and she clapped him around the head for good measure. Perhaps not the most family-friendly attack, but he was a serious threat. He needed to be dealt with, so she'd dealt with him.

Celerity reappeared in the middle of the road, looking over at what Paladin had gotten done while she was distracted.

aeron at thq

Tag Alice Morrow

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

The blast missed Paladin by less than two feet, any normal projectile might have been nearly unnoticed, but she felt the beads of sweat pop. The thing was pure concentrated heat, and it seared the air itself. The asphalt beneath her feet was warm and sticky. She glanced in the direction it had come from, seeing Celerity had launched a flying tackle into the man. It was a mistake. The asphalt she was stood on showed no sign of being inconvenienced, surging up her legs and across her torso, it began to harden almost instantly as more and more of the stuff began to pile on, locking her into and uncomfortable upright position, movements now basically impossible. The metahuman responsible looked triumphant, striding forward as more and more of the material surged across the ground to add to Paladin's prison. "Ha! Punch through that!" Paladin's stores of kinetic energy weren't unlimited. She was like a battery, and like a battery she couldn't recharge herself, she was dependent entirely on outside sources. She'd absorbed a lot of energy during this fight, but she's also released a lot. She could feel the energy she had dancing in her skin, filling her with an exhilaration and an energy of her own. The asphalt ruptured, and while Paladin wasn't completely released from the cocoon her arm shot out, grabbing the unfortunate asphalt manipulator by the collar and pulling him in close. His forehead struck the jagged edge of the broken material, and he went down hard, blood spilling from the rough gash on his face. Paladin stepped out of the now crumbling construct, shaking her limbs out and rolling her head on her neck as though she was just warming up. Then she turned to the last metahuman on their feet. "Does this have to go on? We both know that all you can do now is waste my time. And I don't want to hurt anyone else." The woman looked at the cars around her, at her two friends, sprawled unconscious on the floor, and meekly knelt down and put her hands on the back of her head. Paladin let out a breath, not that the woman would have posed any sort of challenge, given that her abilities seemed to be kinetic in nature, but because she now didn't need to beat anyone else into submission. It wasn't as fun as it had always looked in the comics. She glanced over towards Celerity, tapping her earpiece as she did. "Three Villain's apprehended, two unconscious, one surrendered, need a pick up. Asphalt manipulator, and two Blasters, but one of them just makes stuff she touched go really fast." There was a murmur of an affirmative in her ear, and Paladin stepped over to the surrendered woman, producing a zip tie from her belt and gently fastening her hands behind her back. She did the same with the manipulator, propping him up against the wall of a building, on the sidewalk. Who knew if he needed to actually touch asphalt or not, but it was a sensible precaution to get him away from it until a clean-up crew arrived. Her next words were to Celerity. "Thanks for showing up, not sure how I would have dealt with these three without you. I owe you one."

© seadra of gs

[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

In hindsight the fight with the three metas was nothing really. None of them were particularly dangerous to either of the two heroes, only becoming a threat to them individually as a group. The collateral damage wasn't even that bad by the standards of some of the big shots who'd shown up in New York: a few slagged or crumpled cars, and some damage to the asphalt. At the time however, the ending of it left Celerity feeling a little buzzed from the adrenaline.

She grinned broadly at Paladin, even as she zip tied the blaster's hands behind his back and tied a blindfold around his face - they'd been standard issue in New York only for the last month or so after a spate of blaster attacks, since a blaster who couldn't see would normally be hesitant to start firing off their abilities in a random direction.

She echoed Paladin's words to her own liasion to Hannah (this wasn't technically her jurisdiction, but the Program wanted to keep track of what Celerity was involved in as much as possible). With that done she was free to do what she'd honestly wanted to do since turning up in San Francisco. Namely, gossip.

"Oh tosh, you don't owe me anything Paladin. You know me, I'm always up for helping a friend in need." Kathy laughed, a clear, almost musical sound. "I suppose you could come back me up sometime, but no more than that. Now come on, we haven't seen each other in a while. You must have some gossip, so spill. How's the roommate? Taken anyone to meet the parents yet?"

aeron at thq

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

"Tosh? I know you're only like, twenty-five but you sound like you were born a hundred years ago." Paladin shrugged, "I'd love to back you up, but unless you're giving me a ride it might take me a while to get there. Give me a call next time and I'll start running." She grinned, Celerity didn't know that Paladin was an orphan, but she had long got past the point where people making that mistake offended her. "Well there is one guy, we've been dating for a few months, I've met parents and everything, so I think it's pretty serious." She leant back against the wall, "Roomies good, she's just really good company you know? Although her career is really taking off right now, so she's not around much. Not that I am… You know how it is…" Hero work was not a career that leant itself to large amounts of spare time. Official shifts tended to run all day and a lot of Heroes worked outside of that official time. Most publicity-based appearances happened outside of scheduled shifts, and on top of that there was always a chance that you might get called out for an emergency. It didn't help that Paladin was one of the more well-known Heroes, and therefore tended to get tapped for a lot more than was strictly necessary, even when the Heroes already there could have dealt with the problem. The issue was that she could never really say no. It would look awful for a start, but worse, what if the one time she didn't go someone died. In that situation, where she could have done something and chose not to, it would have been her fault. "How are things with you anyway? I haven't heard any big stories out of New York recently, you guys been keeping extra quiet over there?"

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[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

Celerity giggled a little, before gasping in fake shock. "You've discovered my secret, I'm actually a medieval knight who time travelled to the future to bring the glory of chivalry to the modern era." Her attempt at seriousness lasted all of a few seconds before collapsing into another fit of giggles. She always got a little hyper after a fight, at least until she'd worked the adrenaline out of her system.

She nudged Paladin with an elbow. "A boyfriend eh?" She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, not that there was anyone there who could hear them anyway. "Anyone I'd know? At least tell me he's cute."

She felt a little more solemn at Paladin's next words. She did know how it was, though her schedule was undoubtedly different from Alice's since she could go to and from work in the blink of an eye. At the same time however, she was permanently on call as NYC's premier rapid response unit, and had frequently been woken up at god-forsaken hours and left exhausted the next day. It had definitely played havoc with her social life. "I know what you mean. I love this job, I'm doing good things, inspiring people and giving them hope, but there's definitely a personal cost."

Not that she'd ever give it up. She meant what she'd said, she loved her job. Celerity wouldn't give up being a hero for anything in the world. She'd be doing this till the day she dropped dead.

"The city's been quiet enough. We had some trouble a few months back, but at the minute there's nothing really going on. Well, there's one thing." Celerity leaned in towards Paladin, whispering. "I'm pretty sure Tank and Glacia are sleeping together, they went missing for a couple of days and they've been spending a lot of time together since."

aeron at thq

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

"Y'know, having met you, I could believe that. Paladin giggled in response to Celerity's own humour. It was hard not to, the other girl was infectious, and they both had a good deal of adrenaline surging through them. It was strange, Paladin would never claim to enjoy fighting, but the strange heady surge of energy that ran through her always gave the illusion of excitement. Particularly in the aftermath, when there was nothing left to vent that energy on. Paladin looked away for a moment to indicate that there was someone speaking in her earpiece. Her liaison, informing her of the ETA of the imminent arrival of the detention vehicles. True to form, it was only a matter of minutes before the heavy, adapted vehicles hove into view around the corner. They were adapted from normal police vehicles, though one of the new, purpose built detention vans was with them. Each was equipped with a variety of specialist equipment, from super heavy, super dense manacles for enhanced strength, to heat retardant suits for pyrokines. For those that would be too difficult to contain with the vans normal equipment there was a drip filled with a powerful sedative. It wasn't ideal, but some metahumans were simply too difficult to easily contain in such a small environment. Turning back to the other Hero, Paladin's face took on a look of amused surprise. "Oh my god really?" She didn't know Tank and Glacia all that well, but two Heroes sleeping together was like any other workplace romance, not exactly forbidden, but a source of scandal and rumour when it did happen. She shrugged and waggled her eyebrows lasciviously, "Not that I can blame her. Have you seen him?"

© seadra of gs

[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

The removal of the dastardly villains from the scene happened quickly and efficiently; Celerity envied San Francisco the experience of its cleanup crew - the New York branch of the Hero Program had recently taken on a bunch of new hires and many of them were still at the gawking stage, spending more time staring at the scene than doing their jobs. Speaking of cleanup, she had some of her own to do - the little metal tags she carried were invaluable, letting her use her power in a fight without the need to set up the area, but damn if they weren't awkward to go around and collect afterwards. Sure, she knew exactly where they were at all times (even if her power didn't come with an inbuilt compass, her proximity to them made them light up like lightbulbs), but they were small and numerous enough to be irritating anyway.

But, well, one didn't get to be a premier hero by complaining about the busywork.

"Yup," she said, grinning. "I'd put a serious amount of money on it, if anyone in the branch would take the wager. No one has though, everyone's calling it a sucker's bet."

"I don't suppose I can blame her either. The stubble doesn't really do much for me, but the rest of him..." Celerity winked at Paladin.

The street had begun steadily filling with the inevitable follow-on to any hero-villain fight, the fans. After all, the heroes were victorious, the villains had been taken away, and all that was left now was the wreckage of the fight, which really just made what had been a fairly simple open-shut affair for Paladin and Celerity seem like a big battle from a superhero movie.

Another hero might have been annoyed by the arrival of civilians but this was one of Celerity's favourite parts of the job, so instead of groaning at the sudden influx she instead grinned, saying one last thing to Paladin before she'd have to address the crowd. "We'll talk later, after this is done?"

aeron at thq

[Alice Morrow]

Paladin Am I more than you bargained for yet? + Kathy Howard + wearing

”Yeah I don’t blame them. Or Tank and Glacia, this job is not good for a social life. I’m surprised there’s not more Heroes sleeping with each other. Or maybe we just haven’t heard about it yet.” Paladin sighed as she turned back to the street, seeing the onrush of fans and reporters that naturally accompanied the aftermath of most of these situations. She had nothing against her fans, even loved them. But for her this was the hardest part of the job. Maintaining the image, going on talk shows, it was all exhausting. She wasn’t an actress like Nova, she didn’t like the attention. But like it or not, she was the face of the Program, which meant that wherever she went she could see herself plastered on billboards. She’d even seen adverts from herself on TV, endorsing various products. She just followed Dom’s advice. She wasn’t complaining, she enjoyed a much more comfortable life now than she had as a vigilante. But she wished there was a way she could do the same thing without all of the attention. ”Yeah, you sure you don’t need to rush back?” She started walking towards the crowd that was being kept back by uniformed Officers and a hastily erected string of tape. It hadn’t taken long for the Police to realise that this was vital. Some foolish fans had tried to take selfies with an unconscious metahuman and the media backlash had been enormous. More than that, the potential risk they had run ensured that sites of metahuman conflict were sealed off as quickly as possible. Ducking under the tape, Paladin felt the grin return to her face. It was hard to hate the fame in this situation, with all of the positive energy flowing out of these people you couldn’t help but be caught up in it. ”Don’t worry everyone, just three people who made a bad decision, fortunately Celerity was visiting from New York and was on hand to help me out.” She gestured towards the other Hero and saw a few of the more determined Hero Spotters, faces she recognised, immediately beetle towards the ‘Knight in Shining Armour’. Celerity was a big Hero, even here on the West Coast where Paladin’s popularity held sway. Then Paladin was into signing autographs and posing for selfies. It would only take a few minutes fortunately.

© seadra of gs

[Kathy Howard]

WRITE A STORY OF A HERO!

Paladin had a point, there was no way Glacia and Tank were the only Heroes sleeping with their colleagues - the topic of workplace romances was as complicated as ever, but considering that Heroes spent their day throwing themselves into dangerous situations it would be far more surprising if there weren't relationships between Heroes than if there were. If anything, Kathy was probably odd in that she hadn't yet met any Heroes she was particularly attracted too, especially with her open mind and eagerness to interact with people.

The sudden arrival of the fans, and the paparazzi with them, was no surprise to Kathy; despite being more than capable of avoiding them, Kathy enjoyed interacting with the public enough that she often didn't bother attempting an escape and instead was happy to get involved.

Kathy smiled at Paladin and tapped her earpiece. "If they need me all they need to do is call and I'll be right there. I might have to abandon you in the middle of a conversation, but it's not like I need to rush to get back now."

She followed her colleague towards the waiting crowd, deliberately keeping a few steps behind. This was Paladin's town after all, and while Celerity could match her popularity in certain states (especially her hometown of New York, but also in several others) Paladin was still the face of the Hero Program, the heroine that had started it all. Celerity doubted anyone would ever match her in San Francisco now - Surge probably could have, for he was by far the slicker operator with far more talent in playing a crowd, but his early resignation from Hero work had left Paladin as the star Hero.

Celerity laughed when Paladin diverted some attention to her, bowing flamboyantly. "It was a pleasure to be of service to the fine people of San Francisco."

Then came the most strenuous, painful part of hero work. The part that always left Kathy cradling her wrist and thinking wistfully of a hot shower. The autograph signing. Posing for selfies was much more fun, but Kathy had despised writing since she first got her hands on a keyboard. Give her a fight against a dozen villains any day.

***

With the fight done and the dreaded autograph signing out of the way, as well as the very much enjoyed interaction with all the wonderful people of San Francisco who had come to meet them Paladin and Celerity had become Alice and Kathy once again, both casually dressed as they left the San Francisco Hero building through a back exit. Kathy had needed to jump home to grab some stuff, but with her power it was as easy as breathing to cross the two and a half thousand miles needed.

Kathy grinned at her friend. "So where are we going? This is your home town after all, you've gotta know some nice places."

aeron at thq