“You’re Penelope, right? From the counseling thing.”
“Yeah. That’s me. So you are Wes.”
Both of them stood there awkwardly, unable to broach the subject of the tear-stained elephant in the room despite it being so obvious. The crowd flowed around the two, Wes’ half-open gym bag forcing it to weave around him, while Penelope’s bulky backpack directed the flow on her side. Penelope coughed.
“Uh, also from the counseling thing.” She ad-libbed.
“Yeah.”
Around her neck, Wes noticed a chunky, old-fashioned camera that was at odds with the rest of Penelope’s somewhat grungy image - and also wasn’t there before. Penelope seemed to be studying his face - and her mouth seemed to move slightly, her jaw slackening before briefly tightening again. A frown of frustration briefly flashed across her face before it settled back into a placid, neutral, unreadable mask.
“You alright?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“I guess we can both take those as ‘no’.”
By now, about a whole minute had passed of the two taking up a little too much space and far too much attention around the sidewalk. Pedestrians were starting to have to pay conscious attention to actively navigate around the two beyond their status as just a temporary obstacle, and as a result, they began earning dirty glares from passers-by and watching-tapping from storeowners.
“Where’re you headed?” Penelope finally broke another beat of silence.
“Just home, probably. Hard to work out like this.”
“Want to grab a coffee?”
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This wasn’t really how Wes was expecting to spend his afternoon, but he supposed it wasn’t the worst way to recover from being chewed out by who he’d valued most as a father figure for much of his life. The coffee shop wasn’t just a chain - Sidestreet Coffee was tucked away in an alleyway a few streets away from GBG. Though the outside was dingy, the inside was tastefully dim. The walls were bare, smooth concrete, and the countertops were brushed steel painted white. The racks of barista machines, quiet-but-studious workers and understated blackboards of special and regular offerings gave the impression of some kind of lab rather than a coffee shop.
“Nice spot, this.
“S’ the only place that does a cappuccino right.” Penelope took a sip from a steaming cup. Of course, the crockery was also white and unmarked.
“You're a big coffee person, then?”
“By virtue of having some standards, I guess. I can’t really handle caffeine, so I’m drinking for the taste, and at that point I’d rather pay more for something better.”
“Mm.” Wes thought it might be wise not to mention that he really knew squat about coffee. “So, uh, why are we here?”
“Not a fan of the house blend?”
“I - no - it’s fine.” Wes quickly drank from his icy latte, and a dull pain shot through the roof of his mouth into the top of his head. He winced. Penelope seemed to notice, but again, not say anything. “It’s just, you know, we haven’t really said anything of note or really gotten anywhere in like the last twenty minutes? I figured you had something to talk about.”
Penelope sipped again, and this time she seemed to be taking a longer deliberately - buying time. Sunset filtered through the ground-level windows into the underground space, rendering the entire counter area and the glass-fronted fridge in deep black shadow and copper hues. From time to time, people would walk in front of the windows, and their legs would stretch across the walls in black, spindly strands.
“Shit, Wes.” Penelope leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Honestly, full disclosure? My therapist says I should be making an effort to meet people. But this stuff’s hard. You’re right. I really don’t have anything to talk about.” Somebody bumped into her with a clank, and Wes heard a muffled apology. Penelope was obscured at that moment, and Wes took the time to take a deep breath.
God, this is awkward, Wes thought. But, cards on the table, I’ve got no clue what to do either. Never been one to harp on and on about useless whatever. He thought for a moment, and decided.
“Therapist?”
“Yeah. You know. The girlfriend thing?”
“Wow.” Wes raised an eyebrow - but at himself. He laughed halfheartedly. “That was dumb.”
“It seems that when the thing that introduces you to each other is your deep personal problems, it’s a little hard to actually bring anything else up.”
Just then, they both noticed it. Penelope batted her chest, then the back of her neck. Her eyes widened in shock, then her brow furrowed and her mouth set into a thin line. She stood up abruptly, and her eyes shot towards the door. Wes did the same, and their chairs both screeched on the concrete. Wes followed her gaze, and a small shape was rushing through the crowd, bumping people aside, earning the same kinds of looks they had been getting a little bit ago.
“Camera?”
Wes’ question hung in the air as he turned around to ask, but Penelope wasn’t there anymore. Her bag still rested on her chair. Wes cursed, grabbed both hers and his own bag, and ran through the still-flapping door.
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As Wes rushed after Penelope and the thief during the increasingly heavy foot traffic of a Friday evening, he began to notice several problems with what was actually happening.
First, he wasn’t sure if the thief had short, gray hair or a long, flowing red head-covering of some kind. This was completely inexplicable - the two were radically different - and yet it was like seeing through old-school red-and-blue 3D glasses, the two images superimposed on each other.
Second, there was a persistent clanking noise, but no heavy machinery around or any construction. It sounded like metal on metal, not a jackhammer or some implement, but a genuine crash, like how one would imagine a hammer smashing into a billet on an anvil. It seemed to grow faster with the thief picking up speed, and slow down when he rounded a corner. He was faster than both Penelope and the thief, and as he drew closer, the clanking seemed to grow louder.
And third and finally, the thief was cackling. Not a laugh, not a giggle, but a full-throated, raspy cackle that carried through the air, reverberating off of the buildings and stores around them, echoing mockingly down the street. It was almost Disney-villain-esque, and if Wes closed his eyes, he could imagine some animated hag with a wart on the end of her nose. Which made it even stranger that although their chase was turning heads, it was only the people near them and not the people on the other side of the street that would certainly have been able to hear.
He braced his shoulder and charged past a small group of students, who all laughed as if it were some kind of game. His left big toe began to rub uncomfortably against his street sneaker, but he caught up with Penelope first. She was breathing hard, and beads of sweat were beginning to form on her face. She kept scrabbling at her shoulder for something, realizing nothing was there, cursing and then continuing to run.
“Hey.” Wes gasped. “Looking for this?”
Her head snapped around to Wes. “You.”
“Yeah, me.”
“Bag.” She panted out. Both of them were still at a full-out run, but the thief showed no signs of slowing. In fact, he seemed to pick up speed - the clanking noise grew louder - and Wes was beginning to feel the effects of shifting into a full sprint without warming up. “Open. Bag.”
“What-” They ran through a red light, earning angry honks from oncoming traffic and shouts of alarm from passers-by. “-do you need?”
“Slingshot.” Penelope was slowing down. Wes could tell she wasn’t cut out for roadwork, or at least, was in average shape at best. “Ball bearings.”
“What?” Wes slowed down to match her, and already, the clanking noise was growing fainter. “You couldn’t possibly, through all these damn people -”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Penelope groaned out, hunched over, one hand on a knee. Still doubled over, she stumbled towards Wes and elbowed him aside. With clumsy, frantic, half-exhausted energy, she scrabbled in the bag and produced a black metal slingshot. Metal clacked on metal inside the bag as Penelope also grabbed a handful of ball bearings, glinting in the evening light, some of which tumbled to the floor. She jammed them all into her pocket - save one - and took careful aim into the sky.
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Wes watched as for the briefest instant, something changed. The faintest impression of a large, wide-brimmed hunter’s hat, rendered in shivering violet light. It trailed three huge feathers - like flags, waving in the wind at a festival, like his eyes - as Penelope pulled the string back as far as she could. In a flash, the hat burst into ghostly flames that licked down the side of Penelope’s face, over her shoulder, onto her hand - around the ball bearing.
TWANG. The bead of purple fire shot into the sky.
It flew straight, at first, then the stream of flame began to gently correct its course to follow as the thief twisted and turned through the crowd. Wes heard it whistling, a high keen almost like a bird screaming, as it seemed to “find” the thief - and abruptly shot straight down, gaining speed, homing in on the thief -
CLANG.
“What?”
“Shit.” Penelope panted as she reloaded, pulled back, then decided against it. “Didn’t get him. He used a manhole.”
“You mean he went into the sewer?”
“Yeah.” Penelope turned to him, catching her breath. She was breathing just as hard, but slower. That’s good, Wes thought. Shallow breaths means you’re passing out. She staggered forward, as if to break into another run, and found herself unable to move. Wes caught her shoulder as she teetered on the edge of falling over, unable to extend her arms due to reflexively attempting to reload.
“So.” Wes paused to make sure he’d caught her. “You going to tell me what you just did?”
“No time.” She muttered. “Get after him.”
“You want me to follow him into the sewer?”
“Yes!” She snapped, then proceeded to be caught by a coughing fit. “You’re like me. I don’t know what you can do. Get after him and I’ll owe you big time.”
“What do you mean ‘like me?’ ”
“Everything I have is on that camera. Please.”
Wes was fully aware that he was about to dive into a sewer for someone he had met today for two hours, chasing after someone or something that clearly wasn’t normal, that today wasn’t normal anyways, that damn right Penelope owed him big for making him step into shit in his favorite street shoes.
He sighed, and took off at a breakneck sprint.
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Wes had felt badass for about half a second after diving into the sewer and tumbling to break his fall without even so much as trying to grab the ladder-handholds leading into the open manhole. After splashing through about a foot of stagnant trash-water, he immediately regretted his decision. Not only were his shoes ruined, but his clothes and his bag as well. Leaves, discarded wrappers and crumpled cans swam up to greet him. He scowled back.
He looked up from the rippling water around his ankles into the darkness of the sewer. It was bordering on night now, and the faint orange light of the coffee shop had been replaced by the neon colors blending to white of a Friday night. While the street outside was lit up like Christmas, however, the hubbub of people ensured that little if any light made it through the road gratings. In the sewer, it was relatively quiet. More importantly, Wes didn’t hear any splashing footsteps.
As he rose to his feet, Wes slowly shifted his hands and feet into his favored stance - left slightly higher than his right, shifting around the balls of his feet.
“Hey. Camera guy.”
No response. His own voice rolled through the halls and bounced back at him, all around. Wes became sure that the camera thief was lurking somewhere close by, as the echoing of the splashes would have definitely been heard. This meant two things, Wes’ fighters’ instinct told him, and both were bad - either something bigger than him had gotten to the thief first, or he had just walked into a trap.
“You’ve had us run a mile, now. I think we’re both gassed out.”
Wes tried to blink to adjust to the gloom. Failed. He suddenly felt very exposed, and very alone. He tightened his guard, uncharacteristically. He didn’t like to “shell up”, but his senses were screaming at him to go, go, get out - but he’d promised. Or rather, some part of him had committed, some part of him wanted him to break off, and the result was him getting ready to fight an untold number of small, angry thieves.
“Just give me back the camera and we can walk away. All of you and me.”
Cackling resounded through the sewer. More than one voice, but in the same cadence, same sense, that sense that he had been had and he was going to be left shanked and bleeding in this shithole.
“Fuck.”
The cackling came close to covering it, but he heard the scraping of the manhole being drawn closed behind him. He spun around, and realized - mistake, if he was already behind me he would have jumped me, he’s setting up for his man who’s -
A narrow stream of pain lashed across his side, under his left bottom-most rib. It burned like fire - cut, knife? No, too shallow, too jagged. It almost feels like - and reminded him of being scratched by a cat as a child. He hissed and whipped a back-fist around, aiming for where the body would be on a regular fighter but in this case, the jaw. Hit empty air.
Claws?
The manhole closed fully. Wes was engulfed in the dark, what few pools of murky neon more serving to glint off the surface of the midnight sewer-water than actually illuminate anything. The cackling began again. Wes breathed in deeply, then out. At least two. Claws long and sharp enough to cut. At least one behind and one in front of me, relative to where I am. Can’t see.
Wes’ eyes opened wide. I can’t see. Can they?
A splash and a cackle answered his question. Wes stood stock still, not even breathing, not making the faintest sound.
A jagged claw plunged its way into his right side.
Wes cried out and stumbled forward - you just splashed, it doesn’t even matter if they can see now, all of them know - and another set of claws raked its way down his forearm, a long, narrow cut like a whiplash. Tacky, warm blood oozed between his left knuckles. At least two, maybe three? Four? I don’t - a slash across his face. Metal in his mouth - iron and copper and gritted teeth and the reek of sewage -
“Motherfucker!”
If Coach Grayson was watching, he would have wept. Wes blindly swung a wild haymaker and hit nothing but dead air. The force of wide sweep unbalanced him, and coupled with the injuries and darkness, Wes spun around and landed in a heap, half-submerged in the stinking water. The thieves around him howled with laughter, not even attacking. Wes shook his head angrily, like a dog drying itself. He started to haul himself to his feet, and the laughter began to die down.
It was a heavy silence they faded to, the garbled background noise of the crowd reduced to a faint drone. Wes was very suddenly aware of the sounds of dripping. A pipe somewhere leaked, and here and there, a splashing footfall. He clenched his fists again, bringing them up to his face. He was on fear and anger now.
“What a terrible way to die.” His own voice, but twisted and mocking, resounded in his left ear.
“Shut up.”
“Oh, I’ll shut up soon. We both will, at this rate.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh?” The voice seemed surprised. “You admit it then? How very unlike you.”
“Yeah, I’ll probably be dead soon.”
“You don’t want to die, do you?” The voice asked gently, with a hint of bemusement. It wasn’t mocking, now - it seemed to be guiding, gently leading him towards an ineffable conclusion. The world seemed to slow down around him, the drone of the crowd getting lower and quieter in pitch - until it was just him. Wes and the voice.
“No. Not yet.”
“This is you.” It declared, victoriously. “You would give up anything to save your own skin. I know you, Wesley Kong. You gave up your sport -”
“To save my mom, you ignorant fuck.
“Really!” The voice chortled. “To ‘save’. That’s rich, Wesley. Moving her to a new facility, out of sight, out of mind, with ill-gotten gains you wouldn’t have received without cheating?”
“Y-you don’t know anything…”
“Oh yes I do. It’s never been about protecting others. It’s always been about you. You’d gladly give up anything in the name of other people, when it’s really your own skin.”
In real-time, Wes fell to one knee. Mothers without training, with the right mentality, have the strength to lift crashed cars off of their trapped children. Conversely, fear - fear to the point of despair, calling into question everything that you have and anything that you might ever have had - saps the will of any fighter. A physically fatigued fighter can keep mentally toughing it out. One without the mental strength to continue is dead on his feet. He breathed out a ragged breath.
“So tell me, Wesley. When you’ve already lost everything, what more will you give me?”
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Outside, on the surface, Penelope was desperately trying to pull aside the manhole cover. She wasn’t particularly weak by average standards, but there was a clear resisting force - something preventing her from moving the cover, pulling down from the other side.
“Mngh! Damn it!” She shouted, and passers-by swerved around her. Her nails were cracked, peeling and bloody from scrambling at the coarse metal edges of the manhole, and she angrily wiped them on her jeans, leaving long reddish-brown smears. She drew up and stomped on the manhole in a fit of frustration, booted foot clanging on the metal. In response, she swore she could hear a faint cackle from underneath the manhole. Instinctively, she pulled out a ball bearing from her pocket, and loaded it into the pocket of the slingshot.
An inarticulate scream of rage and pain ripped through the air. Penelope instinctively clapped her hands to her ears, but still they rang briefly. Pedestrians seemed not to notice entirely - in fact, they were more alarmed at Penelope decisively taking aim at a nearby storm drain. An older couple screeched in alarm and moved out of the way. Wouldn’t have hit you anyway, Penelope thought. She pulled the elastic taut, and let go.
THWIP. The bead of purple fire streaked between the couple’s legs and banked at a perfect 90-degree angle into the sewer.
Beneath Penelope, there was a satisfying crunch and a splashing of something heavy hitting shallow water. Not risking a moment, she heaved the manhole aside.
“Hang tight, Wes.” She whispered, as she clambered down into the darkness.