Atalanta part 14
Apr. 29th, 2011 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlightThat night, Charlotte left Natalie a long note as the other girl slept, locked all of the doors and windows extra tight, short of sprinkling them with holy water. She slid from the fire escape in her costume, determined to get to the bottom of whatever call was sent out that had people thinking she was recruiting a new collective of superheroes. Of course, she had no idea where exactly to start looking. She had to believe that if another superhero did send the letter he or she would have the decency to patrol the city like she and Strike did.
Atalanta bit her lip, wondering if her super strong teeth could bit through her invulnerable skin. Strike was a whole other problem figuring in to the conundrum before her. Could he have been the one who sent out the call to the news stations and papers (and after careful watching and examining of online sources, there was definitely more than one person reporting on the strange letters that had appeared in their headquarters)? Or was she overreacting to think so? Had she been overreacting to kick him out of their apartment?
“We really need some way to contact each other,” she muttered as she stalked down the streets. Well, if it were a super person who was descent enough to patrol the streets, maybe she would find him or her patrolling as she did. And if this person were not a superhero…she would walk that bridge when she came to it.
Suddenly, something rushed past her, like a huge, isolated gust of wind that nearly made her spin in place. Atalanta turned around in a circle searching for something in the shadow, but could see nothing in the dark night.
“You won’t find me,” a voice said from the shadows. Something raced by her again, sliding a cool, pointed object across her arm. Atalanta turned around and around again but could not find the shape which kept rushing her. Faster and faster, it began to come from all sides, until finally, Charlotte closed her eyes and listen to the sound of the person rushing by her. She reached out and clasped her hand around muscle clothed in a rich fabric. The person gasped, but Atalanta opened her eyes soon enough to see it was a woman in an old style kimono, a katana in her hand.
“Another one?” Atalanta thought as she asked, “What are you doing this for?”
“Why do you question me?” the woman asked, relaxing back into a stance.
“Well, no offense, but a lot of the people I’ve met lately who attack me with katanas haven’t exactly been my friends,” Atalanta retorted, moving into her own fighting stance.
“You do know how to fight,” the woman remarked. “I was beginning to think you just stood there in your skin tight costume.” The woman began slicing at her with a furious speed, Atalanta barely dodging each time, sometimes, even unable to see the metal of the blade as it cut through the air. “Or perhaps you only know how to dodge!” The woman brought the sword up into the air, and Atalanta’s eyes followed it up into the air and raised her hands to catch the blade between them as it came down. “That only works in the movies! I just sliced your hands in two!” The woman sounded half horrified at her actions, half amazed at Atalanta’s apparently stupid move. But Atalanta only smiled,
“I don’t slice easily.” She pushed the woman away and moved to strike, but the woman saw her and dodged away. When Atalanta blinked, she already stood almost three yards away.
“You are the superwoman,” the samurai woman observed.
“Yeah, and you are?” Atalanta inquired. The other woman chuckled and sheathed her katana.
“I am the Samurai Knight,” she said. “I’m sure you can tell why I chose my code name.”
“The super speed was a surprise,” Atalanta replied. Samurai smiled.
“Is the fight over then?” Both looked up to a blonde girl wrapped in a green cloak standing atop a building. “IT seemed rather short.” Next to her appeared a tall black man, crouched down near the roof top.
“I suppose from the ground it must have seemed much longer.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that!” the blonde woman shouted.
“And you both are?” Atalanta asked. A thud turned her attention to a man who now stood at the ally’s end. He was tall and well-muscled and wore fiery red hair against icy blue eyes. Somewhere deep in her memory, Atalanta thought she might have seen this man before.
“The man is Wormhole, and the women Hexe,” he told her, as Wormhole grabbed Hexe by the arm, and transported them both to the ground. “And I am Einherjar.”
“Einherjar, as in the fallen warriors of battle in Norse Mythology?” Atalanta asked.
“I see you are versed not only in your classics,” he said. “Yes, I come looking for Freya, as you are looking for Alcaeus.”
“Not exclusively,” she replied.
“I think we lost the last two,” said Wormhole. Before Atalanta could express her shock, a man with wings glided down into the alleyway holding a woman in his arms.
“Thank you, Gabriel,” she said.
“De nada, Medicine Woman,” the man replied.
“We all found each other as we made our way into the city,” Einherjar explained, “and decided to find you together.”
“We all heard you call, from one place or another, and many of us were close by,” Gabriel rambled. “Wormhole actually found most of us. Einherjar and Samurai staid to the shadows until we could coax them out.”
“Speaking of which,” Atalanta muttered before calling out, “Strike come out of the shadows, I can here you breathing.”
“Sorry if I wasn’t invited to the meeting,” Strike hissed into her ear as he stepped forward.
“I didn’t call a meeting, Strike,” she hissed back.
“But you did!” Hexe protested. “With the letters to the news! You did so before to send them a message.”
“Look, don’t take this the wrong way, because it doesn’t mean that I’m not looking for the Superhero Collective, but I didn’t send those letters,” Atalanta said.
“And how do we know you’re telling the truth?” Strike asked. “I mean I only met you like, what, a week and a half ago, and we’ve spent a lot of time apart.”
“Because I was taking care of my frost bitten friend you ass!” Atalanta retorted.
“The girl who was kidnapped on the news?” Medicine Woman asked. “She is one of us?”
“Sort of, she’s like Strike, and doesn’t have any superpowers, but she’s our…hacker I guess you could say or our IT person.”
“This IT, she is all right?” Einherjar asked.
“Yes, she’s almost made a full recovery,” Atalanta reported. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t call all of you here. But I will help you find out who did.”
“That will not be necessary,” said another voice in the shadows. “Because I called you all here.” When the woman stepped free from the shadows, Atalanta could not help but say,
“Professor Hakim?” The woman smiled, her mouth gleaming in the darkness, and replied,
“Yes, but perhaps you should call me Ameretat for the time being, Atalanta. Now I believe the detective has a suitable place where we can discuss why I have brought you all here tonight.” Strike grumbled, and Atalanta resisted the urge to elbow him between the ribs.
“Yeah, I have a place,” he said, “but it would take a while for all of us to get there.”
“I can take us there!” Wormhole exclaimed. “In a mere instant, all you need to do is show me the location in your head.” Strike hesitated, but Wormhole reached forward, and pressed his fingertips into Strike’s temples, while he bowed his head and closed his eyes. After just a few moments, he pulled away and smiled. “Yes, I know where we are going now. Each of you must grab tightly to a part of me as we go though, or I will not be able to take you.”
Each of them grabbed part of one of his arms, except for Hexe who chose to wrap an arm around his waist. Atalanta felt like she was weightless for a single instant and then felt every molecule of her mass slam together as one again. All of them jolted against Wormhole, almost causing the whole group to fall into a pile.
“Now do you see why I do not like that?” Hexe asked, pulling away.
“You get used to it,” Wormhole replied with a grin. Atalanta looked around her, but there were only low level lights, barely illuminating the space they were in. She heard the moving of a large switch, and electricity buzzed over her head into lights and computers all around a large circular room, with two levels.
“Welcome to headquarters,” Strike said, taking his hand off of the switch. “I just finished it this week.”
“What is it the headquarters for?” Einherjar asked.
“Us, I suppose,” Strike said. “And any others who join us.”
“Yes, but do we have a name?” the tall man asked.
“We haven’t had a group until tonight,” Strike retorted, turning back to where Ameretat stood. “You had something you wanted to tell us, professor?” Ameretat smiled, and began to descend a set of steps into the lower area of the room.
“It is obvious to most of us that the Superhero Collective did not just take a leave of absence, nor will they return of their own free will. They will require assistance. I sent out a call for all those with gifts an abilities so that I could gather them together in a group which could help each other find and rescue the Collective, and perhaps stay on to continue the quest for peace and justice.” Many of the others began following after Ameretat, and seated themselves in the various parts of the lower room.
“What made you decide to do it now?” Gabriel asked. “After all, the Collective has been missing for some time now.”
“When Atalanta I thought perhaps I had found at least one who would stand up for right,” Ameretat said. “With her completion of her last mission, and the appearance of our detective here, I knew that there would be others who would answer the call.” Strike snorted, causing Atalanta to glare at him.
“Strike, can I talk to you alone please?” she asked.
“I’m fairly sure you’ve used up your speaking card with me, for tonight,” Strike retorted. Atalanta grabbed him, and began dragging him towards a set of doors. He resisted at first, but soon it did not matter as she pulled him further and further until she could shut the doors behind them.
“I get it,” she said. “I made you angry by not trusting you and making you leave. But you have got to understand how I felt in that situation, like you didn’t trust me to share that information with you Strike.”
“Were you going to?” Strike asked.
“Yes!” Atalanta retorted. “You helped me keep a calm head when saving my best friend and got her out of the line of fire for me. I trusted you after that mission, but when I felt like you couldn’t trust me after that and well…it made me angry, and I reacted.”
“We could have talked about it then and there instead of drawing out this until now.”
“I think I would have said some pretty hurtful things,” Atalanta told him. “And that’s why I asked you to leave.” Strike looked away and Atalanta crossed her arms across her chest, the silence draping over them. “Look, I know it’s hard, like you said, we haven’t known each other that long, but if we are going to be a part of a team, we will need to trust each other. Mutually.”
“A sort of I will if you will?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Can you agree to that, and forgive me for, getting mad at you?”
“And ganging up on my with IT,” he added. Atalanta raised an eyebrow, but sighed,
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“And about the computer,” Strike added. “I will trust you, Atalanta. Not just about that, but we all came together in extremely strange circumstances. This might be hard for me, at least for a little while.”
“I can accept that,” she replied. “For at least.”
Atalanta bit her lip, wondering if her super strong teeth could bit through her invulnerable skin. Strike was a whole other problem figuring in to the conundrum before her. Could he have been the one who sent out the call to the news stations and papers (and after careful watching and examining of online sources, there was definitely more than one person reporting on the strange letters that had appeared in their headquarters)? Or was she overreacting to think so? Had she been overreacting to kick him out of their apartment?
“We really need some way to contact each other,” she muttered as she stalked down the streets. Well, if it were a super person who was descent enough to patrol the streets, maybe she would find him or her patrolling as she did. And if this person were not a superhero…she would walk that bridge when she came to it.
Suddenly, something rushed past her, like a huge, isolated gust of wind that nearly made her spin in place. Atalanta turned around in a circle searching for something in the shadow, but could see nothing in the dark night.
“You won’t find me,” a voice said from the shadows. Something raced by her again, sliding a cool, pointed object across her arm. Atalanta turned around and around again but could not find the shape which kept rushing her. Faster and faster, it began to come from all sides, until finally, Charlotte closed her eyes and listen to the sound of the person rushing by her. She reached out and clasped her hand around muscle clothed in a rich fabric. The person gasped, but Atalanta opened her eyes soon enough to see it was a woman in an old style kimono, a katana in her hand.
“Another one?” Atalanta thought as she asked, “What are you doing this for?”
“Why do you question me?” the woman asked, relaxing back into a stance.
“Well, no offense, but a lot of the people I’ve met lately who attack me with katanas haven’t exactly been my friends,” Atalanta retorted, moving into her own fighting stance.
“You do know how to fight,” the woman remarked. “I was beginning to think you just stood there in your skin tight costume.” The woman began slicing at her with a furious speed, Atalanta barely dodging each time, sometimes, even unable to see the metal of the blade as it cut through the air. “Or perhaps you only know how to dodge!” The woman brought the sword up into the air, and Atalanta’s eyes followed it up into the air and raised her hands to catch the blade between them as it came down. “That only works in the movies! I just sliced your hands in two!” The woman sounded half horrified at her actions, half amazed at Atalanta’s apparently stupid move. But Atalanta only smiled,
“I don’t slice easily.” She pushed the woman away and moved to strike, but the woman saw her and dodged away. When Atalanta blinked, she already stood almost three yards away.
“You are the superwoman,” the samurai woman observed.
“Yeah, and you are?” Atalanta inquired. The other woman chuckled and sheathed her katana.
“I am the Samurai Knight,” she said. “I’m sure you can tell why I chose my code name.”
“The super speed was a surprise,” Atalanta replied. Samurai smiled.
“Is the fight over then?” Both looked up to a blonde girl wrapped in a green cloak standing atop a building. “IT seemed rather short.” Next to her appeared a tall black man, crouched down near the roof top.
“I suppose from the ground it must have seemed much longer.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that!” the blonde woman shouted.
“And you both are?” Atalanta asked. A thud turned her attention to a man who now stood at the ally’s end. He was tall and well-muscled and wore fiery red hair against icy blue eyes. Somewhere deep in her memory, Atalanta thought she might have seen this man before.
“The man is Wormhole, and the women Hexe,” he told her, as Wormhole grabbed Hexe by the arm, and transported them both to the ground. “And I am Einherjar.”
“Einherjar, as in the fallen warriors of battle in Norse Mythology?” Atalanta asked.
“I see you are versed not only in your classics,” he said. “Yes, I come looking for Freya, as you are looking for Alcaeus.”
“Not exclusively,” she replied.
“I think we lost the last two,” said Wormhole. Before Atalanta could express her shock, a man with wings glided down into the alleyway holding a woman in his arms.
“Thank you, Gabriel,” she said.
“De nada, Medicine Woman,” the man replied.
“We all found each other as we made our way into the city,” Einherjar explained, “and decided to find you together.”
“We all heard you call, from one place or another, and many of us were close by,” Gabriel rambled. “Wormhole actually found most of us. Einherjar and Samurai staid to the shadows until we could coax them out.”
“Speaking of which,” Atalanta muttered before calling out, “Strike come out of the shadows, I can here you breathing.”
“Sorry if I wasn’t invited to the meeting,” Strike hissed into her ear as he stepped forward.
“I didn’t call a meeting, Strike,” she hissed back.
“But you did!” Hexe protested. “With the letters to the news! You did so before to send them a message.”
“Look, don’t take this the wrong way, because it doesn’t mean that I’m not looking for the Superhero Collective, but I didn’t send those letters,” Atalanta said.
“And how do we know you’re telling the truth?” Strike asked. “I mean I only met you like, what, a week and a half ago, and we’ve spent a lot of time apart.”
“Because I was taking care of my frost bitten friend you ass!” Atalanta retorted.
“The girl who was kidnapped on the news?” Medicine Woman asked. “She is one of us?”
“Sort of, she’s like Strike, and doesn’t have any superpowers, but she’s our…hacker I guess you could say or our IT person.”
“This IT, she is all right?” Einherjar asked.
“Yes, she’s almost made a full recovery,” Atalanta reported. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t call all of you here. But I will help you find out who did.”
“That will not be necessary,” said another voice in the shadows. “Because I called you all here.” When the woman stepped free from the shadows, Atalanta could not help but say,
“Professor Hakim?” The woman smiled, her mouth gleaming in the darkness, and replied,
“Yes, but perhaps you should call me Ameretat for the time being, Atalanta. Now I believe the detective has a suitable place where we can discuss why I have brought you all here tonight.” Strike grumbled, and Atalanta resisted the urge to elbow him between the ribs.
“Yeah, I have a place,” he said, “but it would take a while for all of us to get there.”
“I can take us there!” Wormhole exclaimed. “In a mere instant, all you need to do is show me the location in your head.” Strike hesitated, but Wormhole reached forward, and pressed his fingertips into Strike’s temples, while he bowed his head and closed his eyes. After just a few moments, he pulled away and smiled. “Yes, I know where we are going now. Each of you must grab tightly to a part of me as we go though, or I will not be able to take you.”
Each of them grabbed part of one of his arms, except for Hexe who chose to wrap an arm around his waist. Atalanta felt like she was weightless for a single instant and then felt every molecule of her mass slam together as one again. All of them jolted against Wormhole, almost causing the whole group to fall into a pile.
“Now do you see why I do not like that?” Hexe asked, pulling away.
“You get used to it,” Wormhole replied with a grin. Atalanta looked around her, but there were only low level lights, barely illuminating the space they were in. She heard the moving of a large switch, and electricity buzzed over her head into lights and computers all around a large circular room, with two levels.
“Welcome to headquarters,” Strike said, taking his hand off of the switch. “I just finished it this week.”
“What is it the headquarters for?” Einherjar asked.
“Us, I suppose,” Strike said. “And any others who join us.”
“Yes, but do we have a name?” the tall man asked.
“We haven’t had a group until tonight,” Strike retorted, turning back to where Ameretat stood. “You had something you wanted to tell us, professor?” Ameretat smiled, and began to descend a set of steps into the lower area of the room.
“It is obvious to most of us that the Superhero Collective did not just take a leave of absence, nor will they return of their own free will. They will require assistance. I sent out a call for all those with gifts an abilities so that I could gather them together in a group which could help each other find and rescue the Collective, and perhaps stay on to continue the quest for peace and justice.” Many of the others began following after Ameretat, and seated themselves in the various parts of the lower room.
“What made you decide to do it now?” Gabriel asked. “After all, the Collective has been missing for some time now.”
“When Atalanta I thought perhaps I had found at least one who would stand up for right,” Ameretat said. “With her completion of her last mission, and the appearance of our detective here, I knew that there would be others who would answer the call.” Strike snorted, causing Atalanta to glare at him.
“Strike, can I talk to you alone please?” she asked.
“I’m fairly sure you’ve used up your speaking card with me, for tonight,” Strike retorted. Atalanta grabbed him, and began dragging him towards a set of doors. He resisted at first, but soon it did not matter as she pulled him further and further until she could shut the doors behind them.
“I get it,” she said. “I made you angry by not trusting you and making you leave. But you have got to understand how I felt in that situation, like you didn’t trust me to share that information with you Strike.”
“Were you going to?” Strike asked.
“Yes!” Atalanta retorted. “You helped me keep a calm head when saving my best friend and got her out of the line of fire for me. I trusted you after that mission, but when I felt like you couldn’t trust me after that and well…it made me angry, and I reacted.”
“We could have talked about it then and there instead of drawing out this until now.”
“I think I would have said some pretty hurtful things,” Atalanta told him. “And that’s why I asked you to leave.” Strike looked away and Atalanta crossed her arms across her chest, the silence draping over them. “Look, I know it’s hard, like you said, we haven’t known each other that long, but if we are going to be a part of a team, we will need to trust each other. Mutually.”
“A sort of I will if you will?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Can you agree to that, and forgive me for, getting mad at you?”
“And ganging up on my with IT,” he added. Atalanta raised an eyebrow, but sighed,
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“And about the computer,” Strike added. “I will trust you, Atalanta. Not just about that, but we all came together in extremely strange circumstances. This might be hard for me, at least for a little while.”
“I can accept that,” she replied. “For at least.”
