Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 152
Boyd glanced over at his little inventor and found her staring at him, her big hazel eyes filled with adoration. He felt much the same across their Bond.
A weight lifted off his shoulders. The big demon wouldn’t have played along if he’d thought it was a serious violation of trust. But there’d still been a little guilt and he sometimes worried that his involvement might one day feel like a betrayal to her. It was so much better if it was a game they were both playing.
Pushing those thoughts to the side, he spoke in the clear voice he used when addressing non-sentient computer systems, “System, pull it up.”
“Oh, come on,” Daisy huffed, “the food will get cold.” She leveled a glare at him.
Boyd arched an eyebrow then shifted his gaze to Laura with deliberate slowness. The former nurse had already spun around in her seat to watch the screen mounted on the wall behind them.
Shifting his gaze back to Daisy, he mouthed, ‘Big moment… be supportive.’
All his annunciation training must have paid off, because she was able to pick up his silent words. Their fairy cook blanched and her eyes dipped to the table before rising back up. She mouthed a ‘thank you’ and then put a big smile on her face before turning to face the screen with everyone else. Just in time to watch the end of a commercial for diapers that offered S-Ranked leak protection.
A moment later, the News2 logo popped up before fading to Jill, Phil, and Kayla sitting at the news desk. It had been a while since there’d been a representative of the fundamentalist viewpoint behind that desk. Fundamentalist opinions weren’t well received by the public in Glorith City—not after Boyd had revealed the depravity of the Ascended Coalition to the world at the Gala.
“Welcome back to News2.” Jill beamed at the camera. “As promised, we will be talking about the newest member of The Devoted. To do so, we’ve brought in our two best experts on Glorith’s premiere Hero Team. Please welcome Phil, News2’s Hero analyst, and Kayla, our beloved field correspondent and a personal friend of The Devoted.”
The anchor turned to the others at the desk. “Thank you both for being here.”
Phil and Kayla each gave the cameras their best grins, although the blonde with the easy smile did a much better job of it. “Always happy to spend some time in the office,” she beamed. Then she added with a wink, “if only just a little.”
“It’s a pleasure as always, Jill,” Phil added. “As you said, we’re here to talk about the Devil’s Trainee, who recently joined The Devoted to complete her probationary field training. More specifically, I’m here to provide what analysis I can, given the relatively limited information released by the Authority and the few clips we have access to at this time. We’ll jump right in with some clips taken throughout the Trainee’s first patrol.”
The trio sitting behind the desk shrank down to one corner of the screen while clips played of Laura smiling and performing tricks with her Power for the entertainment of children, their parents, and some college-aged young adults.
“She spent much of today doing what is called PR patrolling. Pretty much hitting the streets, interacting with citizens, and getting them comfortable with her. She seems to have a real knack for it. During these interactions, she told several people that she can create and control liquids, which she didn’t mind demonstrating.”
“While that certainly sounds like a useful Power, what is its utility for a Hero?” Jill prompted.
“That will depend on the limitations of her Power,” Phil replied smoothly. “But, from what she showed today, I’m willing to guess that her utility will be wide-reaching. She can obviously create a diverse range of liquids to produce all sorts of effects.”
As he spoke, images of different reactions Laura had produced flashed across the screen, from pretty, colored liquid shapes to self-contained balls of fire.
“She also demonstrated her professionalism, speed, strength, and practical utility of her Power in her first arrest,” Phil stated.
The screen cut to a security camera that showed the interior of a stylish coffee shop. It probably had room for forty customers, though only ten people occupied the various seats. On one side, a young blonde man dressed in pants, shirt, and a rather dashing sports coat sat on a stool at a long counter. He had his nose in his hand-held and a cooling coffee sitting before him.
Even to the casual observer, it was obvious he was waiting for someone or just killing a few minutes in solitude.
A young blonde woman approached him, sashaying in from the side and clearly trying to catch his eye as she strutted past. She was on the tall side with an athletic build and rather pretty. She glanced back over her shoulder after she’d passed by, only to discover that his head hadn’t turned in the slightest.
Most civilians wouldn’t spot it, but Boyd noted her reaction—the way her shoulders set in indignation. She had a problem with his not reacting to her. It was understandable, most people would react poorly after such a rejection. They’d likely be irritated for a moment or two, sigh, and then get on with their lives.
Whether she was having a bad day or simply felt she was entitled to his attention, the woman decided to make her problem the young man’s problem. Spinning around, she marched back over to him. Her spine was rigid, and her fists clenched, but she’d plastered a big smile on her face.
“Can you imagine getting pissed off because your walk-by didn’t work?” Raev asked, voice laced with her velvet chuckle.
“I’m pretty sure you would skin me if I ignored your walk-by,” Boyd deadpanned, still watching the screen.
The camera didn’t have audio, but it caught the young blonde’s lips moving and it wasn’t hard to read her lips as she demanded the young man put down his handheld tablet.
“That’s different.” Raev didn’t bother trying to deny it would upset her. “We’re together. And besides, I wouldn’t skin you… I’d rip your shorts off and jump your bones. Much more efficient and to the point.”
“Ugggghh… just… hush.” Daisy, still smarting from the reminder that she needed to be there for her friend and because she just didn’t want to hear about ‘sex stuff,’ shushed their by-play.
Meanwhile, the young man had glanced up and said something short that could only have been a refusal to interreact, before returning his eyes to his screen while the woman stood over him.
The young woman’s bad day or general sense of entitlement must have led her to decide that the slight she’d suffered was bad enough to become a criminal over. It was the only explanation for why she did what she did. Instead of walking away, she reached out and casually crushed his screen with her bare hand. Most pocket-sized viewscreens were made out of materials much tougher than concrete or bones, so the sudden splintering glass and what must have been a loud noise drew a lot of eyes.
The young man yelled and fell off his stool, flailing his arms as he backed away from the woman. Whatever he said drew even more eyes. The young woman grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and lifted him off the ground with one arm, confirming to everyone that she was Powered.
“Right about now is when the first emergency call about the disturbance was made,” Phil said from their corner of the screen as the woman continued to hold the young man aloft while talking to him with a wide smile on her face.
Without audio, Boyd couldn’t hear her words, but her body language and expression said she was trying to flirt with the terrified young man. This continued for a moment before Phil added, “And now is when Devil pulled the call from the NPOs and sent it to his Trainee, who was at a park only a few blocks away.”
The young woman eventually set the young man down, but kept a firm grasp on his jacket. She used this grip to pull him into her lap as she took the stool beside where he’d been. His expression wasn’t clear in the camera footage, but it wasn’t hard for Boyd to imagine the look on his face reflected the fact that he felt like he was sitting in the lap of a Bolt-Tiger instead of an attractive woman roughly his own age.
“NPOs were being deployed?” Jill asked.
“Yes, as would be typical for a situation like this one,” Phil replied.
The clip paused, shrinking down to one corner as the analyst’s image filled the rest of the screen. “This wasn’t a Powered Criminal, just a Powered on an ego trip that needed to be de-escalated. NPO’s are trained for that and equipped to safely handle most lower Ranked Powereds if their attempts at de-escalation go wrong. Although, I’m certain they were grateful that a Hero took this particular call.”
Jill spoke up. “We’ll be switching to a recording gathered by one of our interns, who happened to be at the scene. And it should be mentioned that this next clip contains language and material that some viewers may find disturbing,” the ever-cheery anchor added this last with a smile that yet again demonstrated that her expressions didn’t always match the situation.
When the next clip began, it was slightly shaky, but clearly showed the terrified young man in the young woman’s lap.
“Oh, come on now, sweetie,” the young woman crooned, still holding the lapel of the man’s jacket in a vice-like grip. “You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to have fun with you… some good times.”
“Hey!” The camera panned around to settle on a woman with a caramel complexion and dark hair. She wore high waisted jeans and a trendy jacket. “Let him go!”
“Nope. I don’t think I will,” the first woman replied as she reached over to the stool beside her, lifting it in the air. She casually tossed it at the other woman, obviously intending for her to be able to dodge it with how slow the throw was.
The woman did dodge it, but she did so fast enough that her movements were hard to follow. Then, she ran forward, punched the woman in the face, pried her grip off the young man’s coat, and pulled him out of her lap.
What made this really impressive, was that she did all this in about a second and a half. She wasn’t nearly as fast as Silvie, but she was pretty quick on her feet.
The larger blonde stood and stepped toward the speedster brunette, seething. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she shouted.
“I’m his girlfriend,” the brunette declared, “now back off, Bitch.”
“We’ll see if he still wants you after I kick your ass,” the blonde growled and charged forward.
The speedster pushed her boyfriend to the side then dashed to the counter, grabbed a coffee pot from one end, and dashed back to break it over the blonde’s head. She grinned triumphantly until the blonde snarled, “Bitch!” and caught her with a surprise strike—though calling it a strike was being generous, she just swung her arm at her.
It was still enough to send the speedster flying through the coffee shop’s counter and into the second one where the fancier coffee machines were housed. The customers, who had already started edging towards the door, made a break for it. Two of them, another couple from the looks of it, grabbed the young man and dragged him out of the coffee shop.
Boyd felt for him as he struggled to get back to his girlfriend. He was familiar with the feeling of powerlessness one felt when the one you loved was in danger. He’d experienced it for Silver and Raev with Omega Ray, and for Hopewing with the Last Dragon. He hoped never to experience it again.
The man’s speedster girlfriend didn’t need his help, jumping up from the wreckage of the counter and coffee machine and sprinting in a blur at the blonde. She delivered a leaping kick driven by her momentum that sent the blonde crashing back into the wall. The speedster jumped back a few paces to build up her momentum again before dashing back at the blonde.
It was at that moment that Laura entered the shop to find two Powereds engaged in a fight instead of one causing a disturbance. She scanned the scene, quickly noting the civilian who had stayed to record the footage, and the sparks that erupted from a shattered coffee machine into a small but very smoky fire.
“You two!” Laura shouted as the speedster drove another high-speed flying kick into the blonde—who could apparently take a beating. “Stop at once, get on your knees, and interlace your fingers behind your head!”
Both women stopped and turned looked at Laura, confusion joining the anger on their faces. “Who the hell are you?” the blonde demanded.
“I am a Hero of the Authority. Comply with my order or be treated like a hostile Powered Criminal and be subdued,” Laura checked off every requirement to use force outside situations where lives were at stake.
As if to prove her claim, a sphere of water appeared over the small fire and began to pour over it, quickly extinguishing it. It still gave off a thick column of steam and smoke that pooled below the ceiling.
“I’m not getting arrested over some himbo,” the blonde snarled, threw another stool at Laura, then tried to charge past her.
As the camera followed the stool past Laura, who smoothly dodged it, Boyd saw Kitsune standing just inside the door, watching carefully. The redhead nodded as Laura stepped into the charging Powered’s path, got ahold of her wrist, and flipped her over her shoulder. The blonde landed on her back, but Laura spun her over, with the arm she had ahold of bent behind her back. Laura pressed her knee into the small of the blonde’s back. There was a solid thud as the tiles around them cracked, displaying her new D-Ranked Strength in action.
“If you continue to resist, you will be sedated,” Laura declared.
“Get the fuck off me,” the blonde squirmed, not done resisting yet.
“Have it your way,” Laura said with a sigh.
A pale green cloud appeared around the struggling blonde’s head and a second later she fell limp. They’d discussed having Laura make the gas visible the next time she used it to sedate someone. This was both to give the civilians some idea of what she was doing, while throwing Powered Criminals off the true extent of her Powers.
Boyd looked forward to the day Laura easily circumvented the gasmasks of some over-confident Powered Criminal.
Laura extracted a couple of restraining bands from a pouch on her hip and quickly bound the wrists and ancles of the incapacitated Powered. Boyd was pleased to note that she kept an eye on the speedster the whole time.
The brunette was looking uncertain, inching towards the door.
Laura stood and turned toward her. “Miss, please get on your knees and interlace your fingers behind your head.”
“I was just trying to protect my boyfriend!” The young woman’s eyes had gone wide; she was obviously not expecting to be arrested.
“Great. I do hope he is okay; we’ll find out soon enough.” Laura gave her a reassuring smile while settling into a defensive stance.
A sheen started to spread across the tiled floor between the open door and the speedster. The tiles by the door turned white.
“Unfortunately,” Laura continued, “I’ll need to restrain you until we get to the bottom of all this. If we get a few witness statements or any camera footage that you were acting in defense of another, I’m sure we can avoid filing any charges against you.”
Boyd winced, she really shouldn’t be promising something like that without more facts. He was also glad she didn’t see him wince during this happy moment. He decided coaching her on it could wait until tomorrow… which would be a perfect task for her Field Trainer.
‘Kuh-he!’ the Mindy in his head giggled, then added affectionately, ‘Little shit.’
“Um, I think I need to find my boyfriend.” The brunette frowned. “He’s going to be a lawyer. I’ll be right back,” the speedster promised then dashed for the door.
Or… she tried to.
Her first two steps were solid, then she hit the sheen that had spread over the floor and both her feet slid out from under her as she fell in a heap. The young woman slid across the floor for a few feet, then came to an abrupt stop. Her arms and legs were stuck at odd angles, frozen in place.
“Nice catch,” Boyd rumbled proudly. He was perfectly content to play the good cop for the rest of her training.
“Thanks!” Laura gave him a quick smile over her shoulder before whipping her head back around to watch the screen just in time for the speedster to start screaming bloody murder.
“Ahhhh!” she screamed. “I’m stuck! I can’t move! It hurts!”
Laura raced over, dropping to her knees beside her. “You’re glued down, stop struggling or I’ll have to sedate you too.”
‘Oh, that’s not going to piss Raev off or anything.’ Mindy laughed in his head. ‘Don’t go overboard. Laura likes that you respect her enough to give her your honest opinion. And she respects you enough that she won’t be offended when you call her out on her mistakes.’
Boyd made a mental note to seek a balance.
‘Good,’ Mindy added with a satisfied tone.
The young woman looked up at Laura, the panic on her face quickly fading in a too-calm-response Boyd recognized as Tranquil-Bloom driven.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked. Despite the languid sound of her question, it was clear she was on the verge of tears.
“You’ll only be in trouble if you were lying about trying to protect someone,” Laura reassured her. She glanced over to Kitsune who’d remained near the door, likely in case the speedster had made it past Laura. “I believe that it only counts as evading arrest if you have committed a crime.”
Raev waggled her hand back and forth in response, her ears rising and falling in a mimicry of the non-verbal expression of doubt. “It’s circumstantial, but I see a camera—and not just the one this young lady still has going. We’ll take a look and decide from there.”
“Speaking of which,” Laura said, looking directly at the camera that had stalwartly followed all the action. “It’s time to stop recording, young lady.”
She glanced up to the ceiling, likely catching sight of the smoke that had gathered there at the edge of her vision. She held up a hand and a sphere of a clear liquid formed that dissipated almost instantly. After repeating the process twice more, the smoke that had gathered began to flow in an orderly manner out the door.
