184 Interlude: Riley & Mouse Protector But It's Mostly Mouse Protector.
Columbus, Ohio, January 16th, 20:30.
"Bye bye Miss Cranial!"
Riley's words receive only a friendly wave in return before the woman in question fiddles with a device on her belt, and the next moment, she simply disappears, a minor fluctuation of space the only evidence of her teleportation.
Cranial was an unexpected guest for Riley, but a pleasant one nonetheless. The only forewarning they got was when her mommy called them a few minutes before Cranial's arrival, telling them that she got them a late New Year's present.
And it was wonderful! Riley hadn't had this much fun since- in ages!! And she loved every second of it! Truly, her mommy gets the best gifts!
They spent all day talking about brains and how they work, and Cranial even taught her how the hippocampus maps out memories and how to copy them onto a digital record to be implanted later!
Of course, her technology can't do it as efficiently as her fellow Tinker's but it was still fun! And that's not all they did! They made a device that can cause or fix anterograde amnesia permanently as well as a helmet that can emit just the right frequency needed to put whoever wears it to sleep!
The only thing that would have made the day better was if her mommy was here too, but Riley watches the news sometimes, and she saw that her mommy got in a fight with the Blasphemies the other day, beating them handily, as expected of her mommy.
So Riley isn't too sad that her mommy's not here, because she knows that she is having fun, and like her mommy says, enjoying your life is all that really matters.
Besides, they talk over the phone almost every day, so it's they're completely separated, and now that she's seen the news, Riley knows why she didn't call yesterday, so she's looking forward to her next call so that she can talk all about what she got up to with Cranial!
She knows her mommy doesn't always understand what she says when she talks about her interests, but it means the world to Riley that she tries anyway, actually listening and taking an interest in Riley's own interests.
She's a good mommy.
=======
Boston, Massachusetts, January 18th, 16:02.
Inside of a somewhat less well travelled area of the city, there lies a building with smashed windows boarded up with planks of wood and flaky, dried up paint covering it's walls, showing a shell of what it used to be, a gardening store, selling flowers, seeds, fertiliser and anything else one might need to decorate one's garden.
Unfortunately, the owners overextended and this is the result. Another derelict building on a street full of derelict buildings. just another number to prove the decline.
But that was not the end of the story for this little garden shop, for it was found by a group of rapscallions, of ne'er-do-wells who found that it's size, larger than a house but smaller than a warehouse, was perfect for their own needs.
And so, The Teeth moved in, honouring the garden store's memory by using it to hold and store plants and chemicals of a different nature.
Except, today this old store has another visitor, one who doesn't serve The Butcher, or anyone else for that matter, an independent known as Mouse Protector.
However, unlike the Mouse Protector of three months ago, she does not simply bust their door down, proudly proclaiming that the time Herve come for them to give up their Crema-nal ways.
Though she does still fully plan on doing that. But first she is going to do as her asshole of a teacher taught her and do a little sneaky beforehand.
She has no idea where he learnt what he did, and she doesn't believe his tale bout growing up in a family of ninjas, the world might be crazy, but it's not that crazy. And this is coming from the same guy who claimed to be Eidolon's alter-ego anyway, so she doubts pretty much everything that comes out of his mouth that isn't related to her training.
Though, she would like it if he was a little less harsh. She has no idea who taught him, but they surely didn't get any kind of teaching licence because his methods are certifiably cruel.
If not for her own stubbornness, she likely would have quit and gave up his training after the first week... though the fact that he trains with her, allowing her to get a nice clear view of his chiselled abs, all drenched in sweat...
What was she doing? Oh right, sneaking into a drug den.
The fact that someone with such a horrible personality got to be so unfairly hot is just... well. Unfair.
But seriously though, you could grate cheese on those abs, and that's not even a pun this time!
Giving herself a light slap on the cheek, Mouse Protector shakes the incredibly distracting thoughts from her head and focuses ahead, throwing a needle-thing, senbon, her mind provides, at the roof of the store.
Memories of her teacher's exasperated face as his deep, husky voice reminds her of the proper terminology again, forcing her hand into the proper grip with is own rough, calloused hands that are surprisingly gentle despite his strength...
She's getting distracted again.
But it's not her fault!
It's not exactly fair!
"God! Why is he so damn hot!!" She yells out in frustration, only to pause immediately after, realising with a start what she just did.
Straining her ears, she makes use of the device her teacher got her to enhance her hearing to parahuman levels and focuses on the previously quite store, becoming aware of the sound of rapid movement from a dozen or so people.
"Schiz." Well, there goes being sneaky then. Loud and proud it is.
Whatever, it's more fun this way anyway, she thinks to herself as she briefly checks her watch for the time. 16:03:14.
With a flick of her wrist, another senbon flies off the roof, but before it can reach the ground, Mouse Protector appears besides it, catching it in the same instant that her feet touch down on the poorly maintained weeds surrounding the building.
Not wasting any time, she throws another senbon at a gap between two wooden boards, watching it pierce through the black cloth replacing the window's glass and in a blink she is gone, holding that same senbon between her fingers inside the building.
A quick glance around shows that there is only one other person in the room with her and that he's reaching into a supply closet, seemingly rummaging for something.
Sneaking up behind him with a smirk on her face, Mouse Protector opens her mouth even as she prepares her arms. "Have you found it yet?" She asks, casual but quiet.
"No. I swear that fucktard James put the fucking twelve in here, but I can't- wait who the fu-!" He never gets to finish his surprised exclamation as the moment he turned to face her, Mouse Protector moved faster than he could react to, superhuman agility showing it's use as she twists him into a submission hold.
She pauses for a second, kneeling on his back with his arms crossed over and locked in place by her leg and a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet as she listens for any signs that someone heard her subduing him.
But the moment passes, and she figures she's in the clear for now, even if she's still on a timer, so with a smile on her face, she smacks the man over his ears to disorient him for a moment and uses the time to flip him over until she is sitting on his stomach with his hands held down by her feet and a hand back over his mouth.
"I need some information, but I get the feeling you're not Gouda give it, right?" She asks, and the man below her rolls his eyes at the pun.
"How many of you are here? Four?" The man doesn't react, "Five? Six? Seven? Eight? Nine? Ten? Ele- ten?" He looks away for a second under her inquisitive stare and she feels a cheshire grin grow on her face when he looks back up at her.
She'll admit, this psycho wizard shit that her teacher taught her is totally awesome. Almost as cool as being able to kick ass. Almost.
"Cool, thanks for letting me know.~ How many of them are capes? One? Two? Three? No, two? Cool, thanks again. Gouda night.~" She punctuates her words by smacking the guy once more, just hard enough to knock him unconscious without doing any damage.
Psycho wizard shit for the win!~
She's pretty confident The Butcher isn't here, else he'd have been a lot more smug, and she's not really worried about any of the other capes. She is Mouse Protector, Hero extraordinaire, after all.
And so, after tying his hands and feet together with special, extra durable and Heroic zip ties, she walks out of the side room, casual as can be.
What she walks into is a large open room filled with harsh, artificial light and a lot of hustle and bustle as people peak through blinders and check over various bags, most of them holding weapons of some kind, except for a pair who are instead wielding masks.
She recognises them at the same time that they notice her presence and she quickly compartmentalises what she knows of them, just as her teacher taught her.
Slasher. Sword arms. Keep from immediate front.
Spike. Human hedgehog. Don't allow contact.
"Heya! You are all under arrest!~ So you Feta not resist!~"
The moment she finishes speaking, six guns are levelled at her and she wastes no time throwing her senbon to the side, disappearing right as a hail of bullets tear through where she was.
The moment her mind finishes processing her change in location, she is already throwing the senbon again, at the gangsters this time, and she disappears again when their guns level at her, reappearing on the roof and waiting half a second for the senbon to fly before disappearing again, this time reappearing in the middle of the group.
Her intense training shows its worth as she reacts before any of them are even done registering her appearance.
First she grabs her senbon, an action that might as well be instinctual at this point, and she flicks it over her head behind her like one would a coin before dashing forward, landing a quick kidney punch on the gunman in front of her.
As he collapses in pain, Mouse Protector disappears and reappears three feet behind herself, right behind another gunman who she Sparta-kicks into a third gunman after catching her senbon which she then sends flying at the farthest gunman who has his back to the wall.
But since her opponents turn to the senbon when she disappears, they are unprepared when she instead appears above the two downed gangsters that she kicked, spinning to land a solid right hook on another nearby gunman and dropping down to punch both of the guys on the ground hard enough to knock them out too.
A bullet rockets through her position, but she is gone right before it can hit, appearing on the other side of the room, to the side of the door she walked in from.
Every step she takes, the fight grows more in her favour.
"Missed me!~" She yells out, striking a pose and thrusting her hand out in a 'v' for victory.
Right before any of them can respond, she disappears again, reappearing in the middle were she first teleported, only this time she acts upon one of her teacher's lessons and doesn't even wait for her brain to register the change of location before teleporting again, leaving them only with an image of her in the middle of them all even as she appears by the side of the farthest.
Like always, the first thing she does is grab her senbon, ripping it out of the wall in the same motion that she punches the gunman in the back of the neck, counting five down and throwing the needle where the final two are standing, appearing above them upside-down and doing a half flip so that she drops to the ground with her feet on each of their backs, knocking the wind out of them.
Pausing for a moment, Mouse Protector takes a breath as she spins her senbon between her fingers, eyeing the final two men standing, both of them capes. "Phew! You guys Brie-ly need to work on your team coordination.~ Fontina-tly you'll have plenty of time to work on it in prison.~ So what's it Gouda Brie? Will you Feta? Or will you Mozzar-render?~"
Mozzarrender. Not her finest work, but it doesn't matter anyway since they evidently decided to fight anyway. She would be confused on why they thought they had a chance, but her teachers says that it's less about thinking they could win and more just about 'a man refusing to go down without a fight.'
Slasher rushes her, with Spike right behind him, and she throws her senbon between them just before they reach her, teleporting to it and throwing a punch to the back of Slasher's head with one hand, while the other grabs her senbon.
Only to disappear again before it connects, reappearing between them both and grabbing hold of slasher's bicep, the rest of his arm being a blade, and twisting with her full body to use slam him into Spike.
Before their bodies even collide, she disappears again, reappearing on the other side of the room, grabbing hold of a spare cloth and reappearing beside them both with the cloth held in front of her right before they collide, protecting Slasher somewhat from the spikes.
With a crash they both collapse to the ground and Mouse Protector throws her senbon in the air, disappearing and reappearing seven miles away in a room where she keeps her containment foam grenades, grabbing one and reappearing in time to catch her senbon, dropping the grenade on the writing two with a careless shrug.
Finally left as the only one standing, Mouse Protector takes a deep, heavy breath, not physically exhausted, but still somewhat drained. However, as she glances around the room of incapacitated men, she can only confirm her earlier thoughts that psycho wizard shit can ever match the feeling of being such a badass.
Before she calls in for a pickup, she remembers to do one last thing and checks her watch. 16:04:06.
Less than a minute. Nice.
=================
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
All with a single senbon.
Dang, once again this was supposed to be a more inclusive interlude, but I got carried away with making Mouse Protector a badass. You may have noticed with both my Mcs, but I have something of a metaphorical hard-on for regeneration type powers, but I also love no cooldown teleportation.
Now time for a life update that isn't as fun as superpowers.
After 6 months of daily uploads, I think I'm finally starting to burn out :P. I was looking for some music to listen to after spending an hour staring blankly at an empty page and put on some Boy With Uke and legit got so fucking... idk if depressed or sad is the right word, more melancholic I guess, that I had to go outside to try and walk it off.
Didn't work, and I'm kinda just generally feeling like ass.
It's not to the level of when I was finishing my last fic, but you might have noticed me trashing my own chaps in the A/Ns. I think I'm at the start of the decline.
But y'know what's kept be going? Other than my autistic need to keep my clean record of never breaking my word in regards to my writing.
It's y'all's comments. Seriously, I don't think I can properly explain how much your feedback, tftc's or just the jokes and gifs you post mean for me, from the regulars like my favourite Jar to people who have never commented before such as MrTimn, who commented for the first time yesterday (as of writing this) when I was mentioning how bad I felt 'bout the Greenland chaps.
I appreciate it all, so thanks. I love you all. (❁´◡`❁) (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)
Edit: might have just been a mood, it's the next day and I feel fine :)
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