Rope Trick thought he had a handle on the West End's usual slew of issues. Over the years, criminals had become more perceptive of hidden ropes tied here and there, but even that helped the cause. Wary criminals go slow. The fewer nightly incidents, the better.
And then there were weird crimes. Nothing worthy of the "super" category (even though Superpedia did include the West End's gallery). But some underworld actors had abilities way beyond the norm. Brick was one such case. It was Rope Trick's doing that drove a wedge between the gangs and the hulk, preventing their natural convergence into a super-powered heist machine.
Arsonist was another weird case, the closest both Rope Trick and the Seed Bomber had to a nemesis. His fire was an effective countermeasure to whatever hardware arsenal Rope Trick had, and an ever-present danger to urban plants.
That night, Arsonist came up again.
“Call me Pyroclast now!” the tall, shaggy man shouted from the roof of a red-brick project overlooking the park. His hands were holding fireballs that he kept away from his clothes, sticking to short-sleeves on this October night. Then again, why would he be cold? The roof was burning behind him–the latest in a chain of burning roofs leading here. Residents spilled onto the streets, neighbors helping neighbors to get out and rescue family pets. This fire emergency wasn't their first.
“Okay,” Rope Trick cried back, using his cupped hands to amplify his voice. He suspected that the loud voice was a part of Arsonist’s power set. That guy was able to cry threats from far away with his hands free–that is, free to handle fireballs. Stalling for time, Rope Trick added: "But why?"
"Why what?" the pyromaniac took the bait.
"Why 'Pyroclast'?"
“Because I can now do this!” the villain declared and put his arms together, combining the two fireballs into a massive fire wave. It shot straight for Rope Trick at the park's iron-wrought gate.
Trick dove for the cover of the stone arch, not knowing if it would protect him from this upgraded ability. It did. But one of the sentinel trees to either side of the gate caught fire.
"Aagh!" sounded a pained cry from the Seed Bomber. She rushed to the tree to put it out. That meant she wasn't calling the fire department to put out the roofs. Not that they would come in time . . . West-enders were used to being their own emergency services.
Stalling for time wasn't working out. Rope Trick was the only one not tied up in damage control.
The only trick left was something Rope Trick had on him that was meant for another occasion.
He needed to get closer for his plan to work.
"Distract him!" he turned to the Seed Bomber. But did she even hear him while crawling the tree like an ant and slapping out the flames? In fact, did she even have a phone under that leafy coat and could she call the fire department in the first place?
Here's hoping.
"–You're ruining it!" thundered a shout from Pyroclast. He pointed an angry finger at the Seed Bomber having extinguished most flames in the record time and thrown some dry, fire-engulfed branches to the pavement.
Rope Trick noticed that Pyroclast’s fireball didn’t regenerate on his hands after the impressive fire wave attack. The villain was probably out of juice for some time. That explained why he dashed for the fire escape to get to the street level instead of shooting more flames. Though he didn’t go empty handed: Pyroclast was holding two lit torches. It was still dangerous. The pyromaniac didn’t need anything else to wreak havoc on the West End when he only started out as Arsonist.
The plan was coming together by itself, and Rope Trick unclipped a pocket on his utility belt to get the amulet–a hefty woven thing the size of an apple, with a metal core under the clay surface, from the weight of it.
The second floor’s elevation turned out adequate for Pyroclast to aim both torches at the second, unharmed sentinel tree. They flew in a precise arc and stuck to a thick branch. The bark blackened, then caught fire. Pyroclast’s face glowed with satisfaction at the work well done and his fiery design for the park starting to take shape. He lit two more torches–using his hands instead of a lighter, Rope Trick noticed from the building’s corner. He updated his mental notes on the Pyroclast’s powers and limitations.
This was it: the moment to act while the target was within range, distracted and not at full capacity.
Leaning on his high school years, Trick took aim and pitched.
. . . And knew immediately he missed. In the slow time of watching the inevitable, he saw Pyroclast turning to him, alerted by the sudden movement, high-strung enough to dodge.
Then Pyroclast momentarily looked past him. Flashes of red and blue reflected on his face. The police siren was going off. Surprised, Rope Trick turned that way too. He didn’t get to see his throw hitting the mark and collapsing Pyroclast to the metal grid floor.
***
It wasn’t clear to Rope Trick if it was the amulet’s damping properties or the force of his throw that had done it. Pyroclast, if considered without his powers, was just a scrawny, feral-looking youth who you’d expect to see in a morning vidcast, in a human story “Where are they now?” about a boy kept in a basement until he was 10. He had enough energy to parkour around the city during his villainous outings, but Rope Trick hadn’t uncovered yet where he lived and if he had a civilian identity. He strongly suspected a cult, the kind that was onto something. Hence the fireballs. Hence Rope Trick’s hope that the amulet would work.
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The city services came early, surprising everyone, including the residents who found time to call them. Firefighters were dealing with the roofs while the ambulance and the police negotiated about Pyroclast. Rope Trick glimpsed a machineperson assistant through the ambulance’s doors. Another surprise.
With the situation under control, Rope Trick turned his attention to the Seed Bomber. Against all advice, he decided to shadow her as she was leaving. This went against what White Hat, his mentor and Superpedia’s founder, taught him about never investigating fellow heroes. But Rope Trick felt strongly that the Seed Bomber needed help. She was always aloof and detached young woman, staring past everyone on the West End supers meet-ups, but lately she seemed less responsive, less human, even. So he followed.
There was nothing fancy in how the Seed Bomber traversed the city. No roof hopping, no supernatural flight, no shadow phasing, obviously no customized car. Nothing like that was seen in the West End unless the Midtown’s mess spilled over. The Seed Bomber just wandered the midnight streets, like she was sleepwalking with purpose. She passed some stragglers and sketchy-types, but they seemed to know not to disturb her.
Abruptly, the city stopped: this was the edge of development. There might have been suburbs here even in Rope Trick’s time. But the Long City’s expansion took care of it, and Harvester’s arrival a year ago finished out the rest. Now the city ended on a series of red-brick projects, like a line of dominoes, and an abandoned four-lane highway going into the desert–cracked and sunken where it dared to approach the strip mine.
Rope Trick gave it a fifty-fifty chance that the Seed Bomber would head into the desert where a lone coyote (or a wolf?) yelped. But she veered to one of the projects and climbed the fire escape into a third-floor apartment.
Her home. Once again Trick wished for nightvision as he was climbing over the windowsill into the dim-lit room. He was careful not to disturb the houseplants–which wasn’t easy for how many there were. He waited to get used to the dark. Inside, there were houseplants everywhere, even crawly ones on the walls where Rope Trick half-expected to see newspaper clippings with “The Seed Bomber strikes again!” headlines. The bombs were also there, piled in every corner. Standing in a scarce free spot, the Seed Bomber was setting up an old teakettle on a gas stove. She never took off her threadbare coat, nor turned on the light, nor acknowledged his presence.
Trick couldn’t stop thinking that maybe she needed a hospital more than she needed some supernatural artifact. He promised to take care of it, but it wouldn’t hurt to try the amulet since he already had it.
He unclipped the pocket with the amulet.
Another coyote howl rose above the desert and seemed to disturb the Seed Bomber. She froze with her hand on the stove knob. Turning her head from side to side, with her eyes unfocused in the stove’s flickering light, it was as she was peering through the walls. Rope Trick knew these movements: she was getting one of her intuitions and would run off at any moment.
Scenarios flashed through Trick’s head at lightning speed. Use a lasso? Tackle her? Throw the amulet at her? No, that was for criminals and villains. She didn’t deserve violence, didn’t deserve Trick becoming her enemy.
He stepped closer, almost tripping on a planter, and took both her hands in his. He hoped it would come across not as forceful but as firm. But both his hands were full now.
“Please don’t go,” he asked.
The Seed Bomber seemed not to notice, looking at the west wall beyond which laid the desert. But she didn’t run off yet.
He freed one hand and grabbed for the amulet. She still didn't run. He handed it to her.
Only now Rope Trick got to witness the amulet working: it lit up, and the air became magnetized. The Seed Bomber jerked, twice. Trick immediately questioned if this was the help she needed. What if the magic was what was keeping her alive, not eating her up?
A luminescent formless mass rose from the Seed Bomber's body, a brilliant cloud of smoke. Next moment, it was swept away through the wall by an east wind briefly rising out of nowhere.
Trick stared after it, trying to make sense from this encounter with a whole different domain of superpowers.
He felt his hand being squeezed.
The Seed Bomber was looking at him with clear eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, holding on to the amulet with the other hand.
“You’re welcome,” Trick replied, relieved. “Take it, I got it for you.”
“Sure,” she said, looking amused at the notion. “This is exactly what I needed.”
“How are you feeling? What do you remember?”
“Not a lot . . .” she admitted. “Trick, isn’t it? The Spirit didn’t let me out a lot. Can you believe that we called it ‘Goddess’? It's perfectly genderless, actually.”
The cult confirmed, Rope Trick filed into his mental notes. Or at least . . . a cult.
“Now that you’re free, what’s your name?”
“Diana,” she said, then made a pause. “But actually–” she cupped the amulet with both hands now “–I was Seedling before, in the Circle. We thought Goddess was wise, like Mother Nature should be. But we were wrong to personify it and listen to it. It’s just a force of nature. With this–” she raised the amulet gripped tight “–I can control it.”
Rope Trick’s sharp mind already deduced what he was about to witness . . .
“Call me Green Vengeance now.”
. . . a super villain origin.
Out there, a coyote (or a wolf?) communed with the wind.
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