There is a New Villainess in Town
© 2011 by: Mr. David R. Dorrycott
Chapter Nine
Captain Fluffball, scourge of New York (at least to the cockroaches in a certain service tunnel) had spent the last four days going over all her data, setting up her base and finding a place for the now empty and carefully dismantled crates along with the folded protective plastics. That storage place had ended up being as far down the tracks as she could go, a very rough wall of wooden framing holding back the still curing concrete plug which stopped any further advance of anything. She had decided that she would take out a little trash each time that she ventured out until it was completely gone. Right now though she needed her equipment up and running.
The Committee had given her anything she had asked for, but only the things that she had asked for. Two years of planning had made sure that she had covered as many bases as she could but there was always something missing. That was just life of course, right now though she hadn’t discovered anything missing. When it came to weapons she had drawn the line at those that could only kill. It would take time, but the heros would eventually discover her biggest MO, she didn’t kill unless she had no other choice. Still, the feline lifted a slightly bulky side arm. There was a big difference between killing and very public humiliation.
Take the weapon she currently held for example, a normal person would be lucky to lift it with both hands due to its weight but the majority of that weight was a poly-plastic that was perfect for messing up any supers day. It had actually been used in an animated super-hero movie, a plastic goo that, upon being exposed to oxygen swelled up. The reaction was diabatic cooling, meaning the material came to near freezing as it expanded. Unlike most materials the plastic was most flexible at cold temperatures so it was perfect for trapping anyone once it warmed up though they would be cold for a while, the only other disadvantage was that it left a rather vivid purple stain on exposed flesh. To remove it required one of two things. Expose it to the sun and let the UV light crumble it, which would take three or four days or the one she preferred. Soak it in Ethanol, she preferred Vodka herself. It would melt away rather quickly then, taking maybe two hours to completely dissolve.
This was her favorite weapon, thus she had a large number of charge canisters for it along with a larger shoulder mounted version. Like the majority of her equipment this was either still in development or eyes only but no shotguns or pistols for Fluffball. The very thought of a stray bullet hitting someone caused her stomach to churn which might seem strange as she had a rather wide array of explosives available. Her favorite was Nitrogen triiodide which was going to send The Detector into a tizzy. It was the only known explosive that detonated when exposed to alpha particles or nuclear fission products. Of course, it had to be kept damp until used, had a short lifespan in a normal environment and was really useless for anything more that causing self styled heros to have to change their pants. Keep them busy, run them in circles Fluffball laughed. Oh tonight was she going to start.
Having decided upon her target, Speedster (he could run maxed out sixty miles an hour for up to five miles) Fluffball gathered her supplies. Speedster usually patrolled the North Riverdale to Harlem area and was one of the few black heros, though statistically there should have been more, at least as many as there were Caucasian heros in fact. It was the other races that seemed to have been given the short end of the stick in this strange DNA mutation. One that had first occurred back in the eighteen fifties when the Master Miner popped up. Still maybe they were all just hiding, trying to get through day by day without creating waves. It certainly was way out of Fluffball’s field of expertise.
Selecting the web maker, another poly-whatever sticky device she slipped out through the now bug free tunnel and made her way to the service tunnels. From there she could make it, through a few twists and turns to a near-by subway station. At one am in New York who was going to remark about a woman who looked like she was wearing a cat costume and wearing a knock-off dark green uniform that came from the Star Wars Empire. She’d basically blend in at night until people began to know who she was. By then she hoped to have discovered the older underground by-ways of New York. Not really much was know about them after all, not even The Committee had been able to search everywhere (Fluffball was pretty certain that they only had one available agent in New York and she had probably met him when she arrived.)
As she suspected it was simple to mingle with the crowds of barflys making their drunken way home. She was pretty much ignored, other than a barely legal young man who took pictures of her with his cell phone. She was certain that he wanted to come over and talk but like all geeks was simply too frightened of the female animal to even try. His loss, she would have welcomed a short conversation with a ‘normal’ person.
Captain Fluffball slipped off at her stop, making her way up the stairs to 125th street. More than one young man sent crude comments her way but over all they left her alone. Maybe it was the uniform, the way she walked, her smell or the strange looking device strapped to her left leg. Whatever it was, odds were they had better things to do at the moment. Still it was a long walk to her destination and more than once some old man, junkie or drug dealer tried to grab her. Those she left with broken arms, one she threw through a store display when he pulled out a gun. It wasn’t the way she wanted to attract Speedsters attention, yet it was exactly how she managed too. Abruptly the handsome young man was standing in front of her and even expecting it he gave her a fright.
“Mam” he said politely. “Are you lost?”
On Speedsters worst day and her best she might match him speed wise hand to hand, this was neither. “Not at all” she replied, tapping on the highly modified data-pad she held. “I am simply investigating your world for possible invasion by my race” she explained. “So far I haven’t encountered any of your race that I would consider a threat to our greenest troops.”
Speedster laughed. “Jokes are jokes Mam” he said. “But that get up is so obviously Sta...” He didn’t finish his statement as the twin darts flashed from Fluffball’s datapad. Knowing that his costume was designed to stop taser style attacks she had aimed at his face. In a purely human reaction he had swatted at them with his right hand, his unprotected right hand. Instantly the electrical shock numbed his hand and, as she predicted he stepped back to recover. Fluffball though had dropped her own left paw to the odd device at her hip. Touching a single button she activated the device, with multiple projector nozzles and Speedsters vitals programmed in the device selected a nozzle and fired a web of poly-sticky at him.
Speedster though was no amateur, he quickly backpedaled away from the feline as fast as he could but his numbed hand drifted back just a little. Poly touched skin, attached itself as though superglued on and the entire mass followed Speedster as he ran away.
“Hey. You can’t do that to Speedster” a heavy male voice announced.
Ducking as she turned Fluffball dodged the swinging arm. This was a normal human, one who lived by physical force. Fluffballs closed left fist came up, breaking four of the mans ribs as the force of her blow lifted him off of the ground. Others were coming and they had weapons of every description, one was even carrying an AK-47. Pulling a grenade like device from her waist with her right paw she triggered it, then rolled it down the sidewalk towards the approaching mob. As soon as it sensed a moving target within ten feet of it the device exploded with a thump, white smoke almost instantly billowed into a cloud that rolled down the street towards the group. As it enveloped them most covered their eyes, a rare few held their breath.
Those who held their breath were shocked to see everyone else fall to the sidewalk and street as though cold-cocked. Seconds later the drug was absorbed through their skin and they followed suit, only the first attacker remained awake.
“You killed them, you freak” He cursed even as he tried to stand.
Fluffball checked her motion sensor. Yes, Speedster had given up trying to free his right arm and was coming towards her through the alleyway. “I don’t kill” she remarked, removing the device from her belt and aiming it at a certain ally opening. A soft chuff answered her depression of the trigger and an almost invisible line of thread flew towards the gap. Speedster, at full speed could jump as high as three stories. To be certain, she sealed the entrance up to four stories then returned the device to her belt a heartbeat before Speedster, having expected a trap, slammed into the webbing not quite three stories off the ground. There he stayed, like a fly caught in a spider web.
Turning her attention to the wounded man the feline knelt beside him. “Don’t attack me, I don’t want to hurt you again” she warned as she opened a pocket of her utility belt (idea stolen directly from the Batman comics.) Taking out a tiny device with a needle attached she injected something into the frightened mans arm. “Do you have a phone?” she asked.
“Who doesn’t” the man answered.
“Call the police and an ambulance, you have at least four broken ribs and from the flecks of blood on your lips one punctured a lung. I just gave you morphine, the standard minimal dose.” She pulled a tiny foil label from the same pocket, pealing away a slick paper and sticking the label to his forehead. “Don’t take this off until the paramedics get to see it.”
“Who are you” the man asked.
“Fluffball. Captain Fluffball. I’m here to prepare your world for invasion, oh and please do tell that fast moving man that a first year cadet can take him on. Now I have to go, I really don’t want to be caught before I make my report you understand. Ta-ta.”
Watching her trot away, another white cloud appearing as another small crowd tried to attack her the power lifter coughed a bit, tasting blood. “Beaten near to death by Captain Fluffball, I’ll never live this down” he said to no one. Then the morphine started working so he turned his head to find that Speedster had managed to trap himself into a tiny ball. “Neither will he, poor guy.” Using his off hand he pulled his phone out, dialing 911. No one was going to believe this one, at least not for a few months.