Quebec
City, Canada // February 24th, 2008 // Shortly after
midnight
The
blue and violet figure streaked over the city skyline
with such apparent determination that no-one could
doubt that she was on a mission. Her momentum
increased with each passing moment, and it was not
long before what started as a clearly-identifiable
human female became nothing more than a
brightly-coloured blur.
My
pendant...!
Unseen
by those on the ground, the woman reached down to
grasp a small, purple and blue oval-shaped pendant
that hung around her neck. It had started to glow
almost as soon as she took to the sky, and it was
glowing more and more brightly as she headed across
the city. She knew that it was leading her somewhere,
to something, but she had no idea what.
Knowing
my luck, she thought to herself, it
will be another run-in with Airwave. I'm
still smarting from our last bout!
She
continued to rocket north, and allowed her mind to
wander back over the events that had led to that
moment. Her name - for she did indeed have one, and
it was not 'Purple Blur', 'Blue Streak' or any of the
others the people walking the streets surmised as she
flew by - was Valerie Tapeis, although for the
previous three months she had gone by the name
'Valour'.
Once,
Valerie had operated a jewellery store in Montreal,
which carried stock ranging from the finest
productions coming out of Europe to the most simple
costume jewellery, much of which she made herself. It
was in that capacity, where she scoured weekend
markets and garage sales for simple baubles she could
attach to string to produce her wares, that she found
the pendant.
It had
been sitting in a small cardboard box surrounded by
plush toys and a handful of plastic figurines. It was
roughly cut and, in its existing state, not at all
suitable for any sort of jewellery, and it was
certainly out of place in the middle of a toy box.
Still, Valerie could not help but pick it up and
examine it more closely.
The
moment she came in contact with the stone it seemed
to call to her. Not literally, of course - she did
not hear voices in her head, or experience compulsive
urges. It just seemed as though it wanted to be with
her, to be very close to her, and Valerie
enjoyed the feeling. She bought the stone for only a
few cents and, when she arrived home, smoothed its
edges and attached it to a thin silver chain to form
a pendant she could always wear.
In the
days that followed, Valerie experienced a number of
unusual occurrences. The first was discovering the
apparent ability to transport herself enormous
distances almost instantly - one morning, she stepped
out of bed, and found herself on a rooftop in the US
city of Seattle. After her initial shock, and a long
bout of panic, Valerie found that with concentration
she could will herself back to her original location.
With
practice, the process became easier, and she learned
how to adapt the ability to simulate flight, and even
how to take large objects with her. But that was not
the only change she discovered in her life -
suddenly, people were remarking on strange ideas they
were having, and senses of deja vu, which almost
always echoed what Valerie was thinking at the time.
Despite her best efforts, that was one ability she
found she had no control over.
Although
her initial panic had faded quite quickly, Valerie
often found herself wondering where her strange new
abilities had come from; much to her dismay, it was
weeks before she realised their source was the purple
and blue pendant that she never - could never -
remove.
She
tried to use her powers again and found, as she
teleported, that the pendant always began to glow
blue and shimmer, excreting a pale blue mist for a
second before she disappeared, and there was always a
moment's wait after she materialised at her new
destination for the pendant - often still glowing -
to appear around her neck.
Valerie
also discovered that the pendant would glow whenever
she experienced strong or difficult emotions and
thoughts, and that the periods during which the stone
would shine perfectly matched up with the times that
those around her seemed to share her thoughts.
She
tried many times to remove the pendant, but was never
successful. With each attempt came the sense that if
she did remove it, something extraordinarily awful
would happen. She could never tell exactly what, but
she knew it would be something she would never want
on her conscience.
It
eventually occurred to Valerie that it would not be
entirely out of the question to make a debut as what
the global press were calling a 'superhero'. Several
had emerged within the previous few years, from the
Australian 'Southern Cross' - whom she was more than
willing to admit was someone she had more than a
small crush on - to the French 'Wonder Wizard'. She
could do without the extra attention but, she told
herself, she had an obligation to use the strange
abilities lent to her by the pendant to do what was
right.
And so,
several pieces of stitched-together blue and purple
spandex later, Valour was born.
It was
on her first patrol (which basically consisted of
teleporting from one high-risk location to the next
and keeping an eye out for trouble) that Valour
encountered Airwave. Like anyone who watched
the news, Valour had already heard of the villain -
how he had allegedly used his own superhuman powers
to board a plane, rob its passengers, and blow it up
in mid-air.
Apparently,
he had also decided to try robbing banks.
As
Valour reconstituted her body on the roof of a
Montreal bank, the red-and-grey clad form of Airwave
struck her in the right arm and spun her around, the
force of the impact so great that she almost blacked
out. Airwave zoomed past, then curved, seeming to be
aiming for another hit; but instead, he landed beside
her and looked her up-and-down.
"Nice
costume," he said in what Valour thought was
a British accent. She felt, however, that it was a
little off somehow. "You here to stop
me?"
"N-no,"
Valour stammered. "I - " She paused. While
she had not specifically been seeking Airwave out,
her goal was to stop any sort of villainous
misdeed that she encountered. Admittedly, she had
been expecting the odd purse-snatcher and not one of
the world's most wanted men, but still...
"Yes.
Yes, I am."
Valour
closely scrutinised the man who she had just declared
her foe. When he had first struck her, he had been
moving too quickly for her to really see what she was
up against. He wore a dark grey, almost black,
bodysuit that hugged his body much more tightly than
her own. Most of his face was covered by a
similarly-coloured mask and a red, metal, fin-tipped
helmet, but what Valour could see of his
face identified him as dark-skinned, but not black -
Spanish? Latino? - and about the same age as herself.
Airwave's
hands, shoulders and feet were adorned with large,
flared red gloves, padding and boots, and around his
waist and right thigh were belt straps with red
buckles that firmly anchored a small pouch to his
leg, which Valour assumed contained the tools of his
trade - lockpicks, perhaps a small weapon or two.
He
seemed quite athletic, and Valour thought that under
different circumstances, she might have been inclined
to make some sort of romantic overture - but being
perched on a rooftop and having just declared her
animosity towards him probably wasn't the best way to
set things up.
Airwave
smirked. "Do you like what you see?"
"W-what...?"
Valour asked.
"You've
been staring at me for five minutes," Airwave
told her. "Are we going to do this, or
what?"
Valour
nodded slowly. "Sorry, I'm new to this."
"Don't
worry," Airwave smiled. "I'll go easy on
you. What's your name?"
"Valour,"
Valour answered. "I already know you. You're
Airwave."
"Do
you know how I got that name?"
He
raised his hands and without warning, Valour could
hear the wind whipping around her. The noise was so
great that she could not concentrate, and without the
ability to focus on her destination, the risk of
teleporting was simply too great.
"Boom."
Valour
heard the sonic boom long before she felt the waves
of concussive force strike her body with enough force
to hurl her not just off the rooftop, but across the
street. The pressure on her body was enormous, but it
did not hurt; and the further she sailed
away from the bank, the less intense the pressure
became, until she was able to control her descent and
teleport safely to the ground.
She
considered going back to try fighting Airwave a
second time but decided, as the proverb says, that
discretion was certainly the better part of Valour.
She returned home, picked up the phone, and urged the
police to check out the bank.
And for
months, she did not don her Valour costume again.
Until
tonight.
She had
covered a lot of ground since she had first arrived
in Quebec City and wondered, if she had taken the
time to learn the lay of the land a bit more
thoroughly, if she could have reached whatever
destination the pendant had selected for her a bit
more quickly by teleporting there directly. Instead,
she was stuck guessing at the meaning of the
pendant's brief bursts of light, which had already
led her approximately four hundred and fifty
kilometers across the province of Quebec.
If
it is Airwave, she thought, I guess
I don't have much to lose... Just my life.
Elsewhere
in Quebec City a man stood outside of a dark pizza
restaurant with keys in hand. He had just locked up
for the night, a little later than usual, and had
paused first to peer through the front window at the
store he had just left, then to spend a moment
looking at his own reflection in the glass.
He was
Michael Hunter and, he was proud to say, 'Marco's
Pizzeria' was all his... and that was a fact that
made him very proud. Michael was young, having just
turned twenty-five years old, and although he had
lived in Quebec City for a little less than half his
life, he was originally from the United States and
about as American as they come.
Michael
knew next to nothing about other ethnicities and
cultures, least of all French or Italian, but that
had never affected his dream to run his own pizza
store. That dream was his and it was a success -
thanks to a little 'authenticity' lent by his
half-Italian brother and south-west European-looking
fiance.
It was
to his fiance that he was about to go, but not before
checking out his tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired
reflection in the mirror.
"Yeah,
I'm hot," he muttered to himself.
He
began his long walk home, taking the same route that
he had followed every night for the five weeks since
the store opened. The journey was so familiar that
Michael often felt he could navigate it with his eyes
closed... except for the construction site a
block-and-a-half away from the start of his trip.
Every
night there were new signs suggesting the best detour
or diversion to follow to avoid the rubble strewn
across the street by the construction crews. More
often than not, Michael knew, the detours led
customers away from his store. He knew it was nothing
deliberate on the part of the construction workers,
but it did make him feel as though he had
more of a right than most to cut through the
construction site on his way home.
It was
a feeling that filled him with warm and happiness...
until he tripped and fell into a hole that turned out
to be a little deeper than he was till. In fact, it
was a lot deeper than Michael was tall.
Great,
he thought to himself, as he began to grip at
the loose dirt and try to pull himself free. The soil
slid away as he grasped at it; he was not going to be
able to climb out but, he realised, the soil would
eventually fill the hole and he could simply climb
over it.
Unless
it's looser than it seems. Then I'll just be buried
alive.
On the
other side of the construction site a tall figure,
half-hidden in shadow, rummaged through broken pipes
and shattered concrete. It was searching for
something, but having no luck finding it. Angry, it
kicked a metal barrel that was resting nearby,
sending it rolling, loudly, across the site.
"Hold
it."
The
figure heard the woman's voice and stepped fully into
the moonlight in order to see her. The figure
belonged to that of a man and the voice to that of a
purple-and-blue-garbed woman: Valour. He pendant was
glowing brightly and, the figure guessed, would have
provided enough light with which to see her even if
the moon was hidden.
Valour
was standing on a small pile of lumber and staring
down at the man, whose own appearance astonished her.
From the neck down he was wearing a form-fitting
costume but, she realised, it was not made of spandex
or lycra or any other material she might have
expected to see - instead, it seemed to be made of
some sort of metal.
It was
almost entirely jet black, the only exception being
very thin red lines that repeated in regular patterns
around what she supposed would be most accurately
called 'armour'. His head was covered by a
similarly-coloured helmet, only rather than the
fixed-shape of a motorcycle helmet - or, for that
matter, a knights' - the man's helmet seemed to match
the contours of his face and even his hair, as though
the metal from which it was constructed was clinging
to the individual cells and fibers.
His
eyes and mouth were the same red as the lines on the
rest of the suit, his nose was marked by thin,
horizontal red slits, and where his ears would have
been sat two red slightly-raised rectangular boxes.
"Who
are you?" Valour asked.
The man
smiled, and Valour could see the expression even
through his helmet.
"That
pendant..." he whispered. He took a step
forward, his hand outstretched. "Give it to
me."
Valour
touched the pendant briefly, focused, and willed her
body to fade as the blue mist flowed from it and
through her body. She disappeared and rematerialised
several feet behind the man; he did not seem
surprised, and simply turned to face her again.
"You
have the potential to control both ansuz and
raido, and that is all that you do with your
power?" he shook his head. "Give it to
me."
"No,"
Valour replied. "Besides, I couldn't even if I
wanted to. It seems to have developed an attachment
to me."
"I
could remove it for you..." the man
suggested.
"I
don't think so," Valour told him. "The
pendant led me here for a reason, and I don't think
it was you."
As
Valour finished speaking, the pendant began to glow
again, and both Valour and the man quickly glanced
around, trying to find what was triggering its
activity. They both saw the man staggering toward
them at once, holding a short red staff in one hand.
"Fehu!"
the armoured man cried. He began to run toward the
new arrival. His movement was so sudden that even
Valour, with her instantaneous transportation, could
not arrive before him. She knew that he had been
expecting it, or something similar, and there was
nothing that she could have done to respond before
him.
The
armoured man wrapped his hand around the other man's
wrist and held on tight. He pulled him forward and
twisted him around, in order to clearly see his face.
"Michael...?"
he whispered, but he did not let go.
I
never expected this... the man thought to
himself. I could have... I should have
known this would happen. That Michael would be here.
But it does not matter...
"Michael
Hunter," the man said. "I need you to give
that to me."
"What...?"
Michael asked. "Man, you need to let go of me.
Now."
The
armoured man tightened his grip.
"Give
it to me," he repeated.
"Don't
do it," Valour said. "Whatever you've got,
if he wanted it for something good - "
"Yeah,
you know what?" Michael turned his head to face
Valour, then told her. "I'm the one with the
pain shooting into my shoulder right now, okay? You
need to shut up."
The
armoured man grinned then, quickly, he pulled hard on
Michael's arm. He heard the slurping, tearing sound
of the joints in Michael's shoulder being torn apart
and the soft muscle fiber ripping apart. Michael lost
all control of his arm and as it fell to his side the
other man yanked the red staff from his hand and
shoved him toward Valour.
"Fehu!"
he said again. "With this I can more easily find
black."
"W-what
are you talking about?" Valour asked. She had
placed herself between the armoured man and Michael.
The young man's pain was too severe for him to flee,
which meant she had to defend him.
"Do
you really not understand the power you wield?"
the man asked.
"I
guess not," Valour told him, "but I am
starting to think it might be worth holding onto...
and I might take that staff, too, while I'm at
it."
She
reached forward, and the man immediately took a step
back. He raised the staff in front of him
reflexively, almost instinctively, and
muttered something under his breath. A moment later a
jagged beam of energy emerged from the tip of the
staff and struck the woman as she approached.
It
first hit the small pendant, which was glowing more
furiously than ever before, causing razor-sharp blue
pieces to hit her own body and to permeate his own
armour. He grimaced as they scratched his legs, arm
and chest. Valour's bleeding body began to be
surrounded by the familiar blue mist that accompanied
all of her attempts at teleportation, and she slowly
faded from view.
The
armoured man smiled, but it was visible only for an
instant as he realised the same effect was happening
to his body. His armour started to feel
loose about his body and his leggings and gauntlets
faded away, surrounded by the mist, then his own
half-naked form began to disappear.
"No!"
he shouted. "I was so close...!"
Events
had taken place so quickly that, as the armoured man
completely disappeared, he did not see the final
target of his crimson strike. It continued past where
Valour had been standing, carrying with it the
shattered remains of the purple portion of the
pendant. Michael Hunter raised a hand to shield
himself but even as the red, lightning-like energy
caused his heart to stop beating the thin, purple
shards embedded themselves in his skin.
They
tore at his dead flesh, leaving tiny droplets of red
and purple blood beneath him but the dripping soon
stopped as his heart no longer pumped blood around
his body. Yet Michael Hunter did not fall - he simply
turned away and began to walk, his limp, broken arm
dangling at his side.
NEXT:
The Worldwalkers!
AND
SOON, IN EXILES: Serenity!
