“You know, when I said that I wanted to wipe the smirks off of their faces, I wasn’t being quite this literal…” I said as I stepped back from my most recent work of glorious art. Maelstrom and I, for some reason have spent the last several hours defacing every mural, billboard, and statue depicting Justice or Radiant. By this point, I was getting a bit tired. A few hours maintaining my electrical mask isn’t a huge drain, but it is tiring.

I’m definitely no artist, but I think just about everyone can recognize the gold colored swirl that I have painted on top of golden boy’s head here as the ubiquitous poop emoji. Hey, you may not think that this is art, but if you don’t, you should seriously look up Marcel Duchamp. If drawing a mustache on a postage stamp of the Mona Lisa is art, so is painting a golden turd on top of an image of the golden turd.

Nearby, where she is doing her own work on an image of Radiant, Maelstrom giggles. “Yeah, but isn’t it fun?” She turns to me with a beaming smile, malevolent glee apparent on her cat-like features. “Besides, every time you sign your villain name on one of these it makes it more likely that the news isn’t going to make one up for you. What did you decide on anyways?”

I actually hadn’t thought about it much leading up to that point. In fact, I had actually just been ‘signing’ all of my works with a black lightning bolt. I thought that would make it pretty clear who the messages were from at least.

As I lost myself in thought, Maelstrom bounced over to look at my handiwork. Upon seeing my ‘signature’ she asked, “You haven’t seriously been signing all of these with a janky little symbol, have you?” The look on my face must have spelled out the truth for her as she continued. “Look babe, I get the symbolism, I do.” She pulls herself up to my side and speaks softly to me, “Do you really want to be known as something stupid like Black Lightning? Cuz, that’s where the news casters are going to go with this kind of thing…”

“Isn’t that kind of racist?” I turned to her and asked.

“Of course it is, and that’s the kind of thing they’ll pin on your origins without a second thought if they can.” A hint of concern was etched into her features as she looked up at me.

“Yeah, that definitely wouldn’t work… I never really thought about my cape identity growing up, even though I’ve been working with my powers for almost as long as I can remember…” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and stared at the little black symbol I had painted. “It isn’t like I can go by something much different than Black Lightning though…”

Maelstrom snuggled in a bit closer before speaking softly, “You really do need to come up with something a bit cooler though… It isn’t like I can be seen hanging around the racist asshole…”

“I don’t know… Something like Ebon Bolt?” I asked. “It still has the same basic meaning, but it’s a lot cooler and not racist.”

It’s always the way that these things seem to go, just as you are having a quiet moment to yourselves is exactly when some douchebag has to show up and ruin it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Justice who called out at that moment. It was someone worse. Much, much worse.

“Stop right there, villainous scum!” A high-pitched voice called out from behind us. I turned around to see one of the strangest vigilantes I’ve ever met: Plush. She might as well have been a suicide girl wearing a cutesy bear hoodie. The outfit was complete with a skirt, boots, and gloves cementing the whole Japanese bear-girl look. She wasn’t exactly chubby, she’s both a bit thicker and taller than the average heroine. The whole look seemed to revolve around her heart-shaped face. She was very much like a cutesy little doll or plushie. Which, I guess, is the point. Honestly, she was very distracting. Which was kind of a problem, considering the army of animated patchwork teddy bears at her beck and call.

“So, you’re the meanies that have been ruining all the precious pictures of Justice!” She called out with an obvious pout in her voice.

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Maelstrom turned her trademark smirk on the girl whining about my art. “Plush, girl, you really don’t want to be messing with Ebon Bolt and Maelstrom. We’re just a bit too big league for you, darling.” With that, a storm of debris and rocks floated up into the air. The stuffed animals all frowned before the begin to act like thugs. They all brandished weapons or little cotton-filled fists. I imagine that in the right setting that these things would actually be really off-putting, perhaps even the source of scares for a haunted house. As it was, I had a bit of trouble holding back my laughter.

Either way, it was obvious that she was a Justice fan girl. And that, I simply wasn’t going to tolerate.

“I’m a much better man than your precious Justice ever could be.” I stated with venom in my voice before leaping down from the billboard. “I’d rather not have to kick the ass of a little girl such as yourself, but I won’t hesitate to remove his name from your lips.” With that, I forced a sword and shield through my hands. Black lightning crackled in my hands threateningly.

Plush grabbed one of the larger bears standing next to her, almost hiding behind it. “You aren’t good enough to fight Justice!” she whined. “My zombie bears are more than enough to handle meanies like you!” She thrust her arm forward, commanding the bears to amble forward. Amble might not be the best word, as those little bastards are much faster than the word suggests. In fact, deluge would probably describe the wave of patchwork cotton that rushed me quite a bit better.

A hailstorm of debris and rocks punched through the heads of the oncoming horde, doing nothing to stem the tide. Even the few bears that were knocked over from the force of Maelstrom’s attacks simply crawled back to their feet and continued their rush.

I ran forward to meet the cloth toys in what I assumed would be an absolute slaughter. Sure, ripping their bodies apart, burning the cotton, and setting the sparse remains aflame might count. That is, if the horde wasn’t literally endless. As I tore each animal apart, another appeared at the side of the pouty heroine. Heck, I’m pretty sure that the damned things aren’t actually real.

While I was busy rushing forward, Maelstrom split her attention between helping me and attacking Plush. From what I could see, Maelstrom’s thrown objects were having little effect on the bouncing woman. Every time an attack came anywhere close to Plush, another bear jumped in front of the object. It really didn’t help that the girl kept one of the toughest looking ones clutched to her ample chest.

Obviously, these tactics weren’t working. It was time to change things up. With a roar, I let out a small shockwave and threw my shield forward. I rushed through the newly formed gap while forming another sword in my left hand. It was clear to me that the only way to end this was to take out Plush herself. So, I rushed forward focusing more on speed and distance more than how many of the little buggers I was cutting down. I ripped through any of the damned things that stood in my way, but otherwise ignored them.

Finally, I made it within a decent distance to Plush. She was definitely much cuter up close, but I couldn’t let myself be distracted. She pushed several of the large bears forward, forcing them between us. Shattered-button teeth gnashed at me from their fabric maws. The large patchwork bears definitely reminded me of undead abominations I had seen in many video games, but I couldn’t waste the time to tussle with the beasts. Instead, I threw my swords into their faces, hoping the distraction would give me enough time to deal with Plush.

The distraction certainly worked for a second, but I had no hope of actually taking her down before her army ripped my back apart. I had to find a way to force her hand. All I could really think about was forcing her to give in at the time. So, I grew a whip made of lightning from my hand and lashed it to her ankle. Because it is my crafted energy, I can manipulate the lightning in whatever way I see fit. This lets me do a lot of interesting things with the stuff. Interesting things like hoisting the vigilante upside down and into the air.

“Call off the animals, Plush. You don’t want my ability cutting out and dropping you on your head.” I spoke with confidence as Plush squealed and held her skirt in place. Without a second to spare, her army disappeared.

“You really are a meanie, Mr. Bolt.” She whined. “Exposing a girl isn’t fair play…” The puffy gloves she wore to make her hands look like the paws of one of her stuffed animals made it incredibly difficult for her to keep her skirt up.

“Hun, don’t wear a skirt if you are worried about such things.” Maelstrom laughed. “At least wear some spats or shorts underneath.” Then she turned to me, “Bolt, go ahead and tie her up. I think that holding the vigilante as a hostage might help our image a bit.” I went ahead and wrapped a few more bands of energy around her and laid her softly on the ground. It really looked like the day was wrapping up nicely.

“I do believe that you should set the poor girl free.” A booming, full of itself voice sounded out from behind me.

Shit. Justice decided to show up.