SUNDAY NIGHT, 0100 hrs.

“They say there’s no rest for the wicked. I never quite understood how to interpret that phrase. Does it mean that evil never sleeps, and that we should be on constant guard against it? Or does it mean that the wicked are the ones who have to be on their toes all the time? Is their nature such that constant pressure to evade justice and retribution requires a leaner and crueler type of existence? Perhaps it means both, that the nefarious and the virtuous are in a perpetual game of chess to get the upper hand on the other.”

The Black Beauty sped through the streets of Maretropolis, the gleam of the streetlights reflecting off the lustrous sable exterior. A man lurking in the dark doorway of an apartment building couldn’t help but watch it pass him by, the engine roaring into the night.

“In any case I suppose, it meant that I would be having a lot of long nights until I caught Shadowbolt.”

Mane-iac, one hand on the wheel, the other on the stick-shift, felt the warmth soak through her leather seats and into her body. Of all the modifications she had installed in the vehicle, something like heated seats seemed like a small enough luxury. Especially for the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation. This year’s winter had brought with it a number of bitter cold nights, such that the Black Beauty’s heating system was doing all it could to ward off the chill at the moment.

“Usually I’m glad for such cold nights, as it means that most of the criminal element will decide to keep themselves warm rather than make trouble. Tonight however, I was hoping I could trawl the local street denizens for information. If Shadowbolt was as active as my police contacts told me, then somebody must know something.”

EARLIER, 2145 hrs.

Donning a puffy grey winter coat as he exited the roof exit of the 46th Maretropolis police precinct, the blonde man in his mid-thirties let the cigarette dangle in his mouth as he patted his pockets. A puff of frozen breath came out on either side of his Maverick.

“The hell is my lighter?”

The spark of flame appeared in the darkness to his left, drawing his attention with a gasp.

“Need a light?”

The boxy metal lighter was suspended by a tendril of purple hair, beyond that, leaning cross-armed against the side of a utility box was a trim figure under a wide hat. Though hidden by the shadows, he knew who it was.

“Oh. Hey you.” Caught in his beige slacks, old white dress shirt, and red tie, Detective Stephen Langould usually liked to be a little more presentable for female company, but there were certain exceptions. Tilting forward, he lit his smoke on the offered fire.

“What’s a matter?” He asked, the words slightly mumbled through the careful clench of his lips. “You so bored for work you come slumming to me for tips?”

“Yes and no." Sparing him a slight smile as she stepped forward, Mane-iac recovered the lighter into its place on her utility belt.

“Detective Langould is a nice enough guy, competent at his job, and doesn’t mind sharing a few details. The fact that he finds me attractive is… tolerable, in that it helps when I need to get some information from time to time. His favorite place to step out for a smoke just so happened to be on the lonely roof of the precinct. Away from prying eyes.”

“Normally a quiet night like this means I get to go to bed.” She tucked her scarf a little closer around her neck with both hands, never minding his leer. “But I guess somebody is trying to put me out of a job.”

“That Shadowbolt guy, yeah.” Langould removed his smoke, holding it at his side as he checked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. “He’s been making a lot of people’s lives hard the past two weeks.”

“Anything you can tell me about him? Like, why I haven‘t heard about him before?”

His hands spread out at his sides as he shrugged. “Not a whole hell of a lot. Guy’s like a friggin’ poltergeist; mauls his target, gets ‘em to talk, then vanishes like a puff of smoke. I never seen anything like it. For a while we weren‘t sure he was even a real guy, some underworld boogieman mobsters scare their kids with at night.”

“I suspected as much. Everything I’d been able to learn about the assault on the restaurant last night told me he was a creature of precision violence. Dismantling a dozen armed men in the middle of a fire fight, putting the fear of god into Jimmy Flankastro and those two staff workers. He went in there knowing exactly what he wanted.”

“Targets? You think last night was part of a larger pattern?” Mane-iac shifted weight onto her right leg, dipping her head to hide her eyes behind the hat’s brim. The wind howling across the skyline.

“As best we can piece together, he’s been putting the hurt on the north end for weeks. Mostly Flankastro, but targets of opportunity as well, the odd mugger and street dealer.”

“So he’s moving through the ranks.” “He’s looking for someone, but why? For information? For revenge? And why the others? If he’s got some vendetta with the mob, why waste time with perps any beat cop could collar? And why haven’t I picked up on this?”

Langould nodded, “I’m not on the case myself, but everybody downstairs is talking about it.” He took a drag and turned his face away from the wind. “He’s doing a better job cleaning up the north end than the Drug and Organized Crime units have in the past ten years. You sure you masks ain’t starting a club or something?”

She winced, “Even if I agreed with his aims, his methods go too far. If I catch up to him, he’s going down.”

“Yeah you better hope so, doll.” After another long drag, he stared down at the tiny orange ring of burning carcinogens. “Captain says this vigilante stuff is getting out’a hand. We’re grateful for your help with the Malice Mares, don’t get me wrong. But a duly trained and appointed officer of the law, you are not. This guy keeps up, the order is gonna come down to put the kai-bosh to your extralegal activities.”

“Damn. That was a point I hadn’t considered. Shadowbolt’s path of rage was going to generate a lot of heat on both sides of the law. Maybe I‘ve gotten too used to acting with a free hand.”

“Have your colleagues been able to piece anything together? Any kind of profile?”

“Besides Jimmy Flanks and the two he stuck under the table, two other civilians got a glance at him, just barely. We think he’s about 6’2, built like a gym nut, wears a full body suit from his toes to his eyes. Always strikes from the shadows, favors the ambush for a quick take down.”

The flapping brim of her hat disguised a small grimace, mental gears turning to put together a plan.

“I’ll have to anticipate his movements. If he’s as deft in the darkness as he sounds, my best chance will be to sight him at a distance, and hope to close the gap as quick as I can.”

“You think he’s still hunting in the north end?”

Flicking his Maverick away, Detective Langould flexed his fingers to ward off the chill before shoving it into a jacket pocket. “If he’s still aiming for the Flankastro, that’ll be where he is.”

“Thanks for the talk Steve.” Mane-iac said, casting her gaze northerly. “Even if you do end up coming for me one day, it’s good to know I’ve got at least one friend on the inside”

“Hey you know me.” Langould opened the roof access door, sparing a look down the stairs. “Always happy to help a pretty-”

Scanning the rest of the rooftop, he realized that he was alone.

“…Damn fool like me.”

0110 hrs.

Drifting to a stop in a discreet alley, the Black Beauty went dark. Mane-iac leaned back in the seat, listening to the police scanner for a few moments.

A minute later she was perched on the ledge of a 7-story apartment building, in the heart of Maretropolis’ north end, the urban vista spread out before her.
“And now we play the waiting game.”

MONDAY NIGHT
2349 hrs.

On another building, on another block, Mane-iac watched carefully for any sign of trouble on the streets, the chatter of the police scanner squawking through the embedded ear-piece.

“Ok… So he took last night off.” She rubbed her gloved hands together, blowing a hot breath between them. “No problem.”

TUESDAY NIGHT
2135 hrs

“God, this winter’s only getting colder the longer it goes on. I’m not spending another night waiting around for him.”

Like an acrobat on a tight-rope, Mane-iac stepped toe-to-heel along the ledge of a hotel roof. With another stride as casual as if she were on a beach, her next footfall swung downwards into the open space and she tilted over the side of the building. Head-long she plummeted to the asphalt, until her hair formed a cone which absorbed the momentum when she reached the ground. It compressed like a spring, and bounced her onto her feet in seamless motion that allowed her to pick-up her pace as if nothing had happened.

“Let’s go shake some trees.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A disheveled man, 30 lbs overweight, four-day old stubble clinging to his face, and shuddering inside an old beige trench coat, gave a passing car a suspicious glance as he walked briskly along the avenue. He brushed back a bang of his greasy looking brown hair under the black watch cap clutched to his head. Some instinct of self-preservation tickled its way up his spine, a fear of every shadowed corner and crevice making his heart beat just a little faster

With a grunt he faced forward and continued on his way, a redoubled sense of urgency. Turning onto the block a few dozen yards ahead of him, he spied a single individual, obscured at a distance by a broken street light. The man in the cap stopped in his tracks, eyes twitching as he appraised the approaching situation, the tingling in his spine becoming claws. Before the figure could get any closer, he ducked into a side street, pressing his body to the bricks.

For almost a minute he kept himself there, breathing through his teeth and clenched lips to keep as quiet as possible. His fingers closed into a fist in preparation for a fight, knuckles scraping against the porous mortar. The stranger walked by the opening of the alley without pause, the faint sound of music drifting out from underneath his raised hood. When the man had gone, he let out an exhale in the shape of a cloud of vapor, and ran a hand over his face, feeling the sweat of his palm wipe off.

He took a step out, but found that his rear foot was pinned in place.

“Wha-”

Faster than he could finish the word, he was yanked off his feet and dragged back into the darkness of the alley. Suspended upside-down by something he couldn’t see, his first impulse was to shriek like a banshee, thinking he was about to be subject to a terrible beating. The scream was quarantined but a rope of purple hair that wrapped around his mouth, he pried at it, the strength of the fibrous band like that of a python.

“Don’t wake the neighborhood Eddie, it’s impolite.”

Striding out of the back of the alley, Mane-iac had to put a hand over her mouth to hide her barely constrained laughter, the sight of the supposed tough guy squirming like a child threatening to break her composure. He calmed down visibly once he saw who it was who held him, a tendril of her famous hair arching upwards from her head to dangle him like a figure on a child’s mobile.

“Eddie Kauffmann.” She purred. “Flankastro errand boy, and one of the few guys savvy to names and locations that Shadowbolt hasn’t gotten his hands on yet.”

She peeled enough strands away from his for him to suck in a few desperate gasps of air.

“Mane-iac! You ain’t working with that psycho are ya?”

“If I were working with him, do you think I’d just be dangling you around like this?”

To emphasize her point, she wiggled him like a dinner bell, much to his discomfort. “Matter of fact, I’m looking for him.”

He splayed his arms in a mock show of candidness. “Well I don’t know where he is, honest. I’m just trying to keep myself outta trouble.”

“I know you don’t know where he is Eddie.” Rubbing the space between her eyebrows, she had to sigh. “But you do know the people he’s after. So if I were an important Flankastro goombah, where would you find me?”

“Come on lady!” He complained. “I can’t give up my contacts!”

“Here’s the deal Eddie.” Mane-iac let him drop a few feet to elicit a yelp of panic before jerking him back up. “Either you tell me, so that I can prevent him from filling the emergency ward with any more of your associates. Or you can wait until Shadowbolt finds you, and when you talk, because we both know you will, he’ll break your legs anyway.”

Drawing him close enough for her to reach out and grab a fistful of his hair, she let her displeasure be seen in a toothy snarl. “Putting aside the fact that I’m having to do the mob a favor by protecting them from punishment they probably deserve, if you make me wring this information out of you, I’m gonna get really mad. And if you’re scared of what Shadowbolt is going to do to you, I get a little unhinged when I’m angry, and let me assure you, I can get very creative when I‘m unhinged.”

A tendril of hair poised in front of Kauffmann’s face like a cobra, the individual strands spiraling apart in smaller groups to create dozens of thinner, sharper spikes. Eddie’s eyes widened in terror, watching them waver in different directions. One writhed closer and closer towards his ear until they tickled the inner lobes.

“Alright! Alright!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------

WEDNESDAY MORNING
0527 hrs

“What Kauffmann lacked in courage, he made up for in intel.”

Entering her mansion via the hidden entrance behind the large mirror, Mica Hackett removed her hat and scarf, tucking them both under her arm as she detached the base of her mask and peeled it off. The morning sky was still dark, but the demands of her day job required a few hours rest after a long night out.

“Eddie explained that after the massacre at the restaurant, the families had decided to close ranks and suspend normal operations. Until Shadowbolt could be dealt with, none of them wanted to hurt their organization by being tortured into giving up information. I was lucky to find Kauffmann when I did.

I was just disappointed that after three nights, I hadn’t caught a single damn lead on Shadowbolt. Fortunately, there was going to be a meeting of family heads Saturday night to sort out some course of action. I intended to eavesdrop, make sure they didn’t plan to turn the streets of Maretropolis into a warzone. Plus, it would be a magnet for tall, dark, and violent. When hunting a predator, find his prey.

I like to slip back in before my butler and long-time friend Charles woke up. No reason to get him up early for no good reason, I’ll be in bed soon enough.”

The secret entrance was located in her bedroom, providing not just an extra layer of security, but the convenience of being not ten steps to her bed where she sometimes collapsed. Pressing her hand against a panel that was blended into the wall beside her closet, a compartment opened, revealing a place for her to stow her costume. Hooks for her hat and scarf, a hanger for her suit, even a molded set of imprints for her boots where puddled a layer of liquid solution that dissolved any material that may have clung to the tread. On a shelf at the top, she tossed her utility belt and earpiece.

She was just starting to slip off the body suit when she heard the spark of chatter from the earpiece. Curious, she grabbed it and held it up to listen.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Sometime during the night, a Ponezetti captain and three of his men had been leaving a club when their vehicle was attacked, t-boned and flipped on its side. No sign of a second vehicle. The doors had been ripped off, the men dragged out and beaten to a pulp.

Police on site were reporting that the bodyguards, or friends, or whatever they were had been brutally incapacitated and stuffed in a dumpster. The captain, apparently the main target, had his face repeatedly smashed into the windshield, leaving bits and pieces of his flesh embedded in the glass. He had attempted to pull a gun on his assailant, only to have his hand crushed.

All were unconscious, and in ghastly condition. There was no evidence of it being a hit from a rival family, no evidence at all pointing to who had been responsible. Worst of all, the police were estimating that the attack occurred two hours ago. While I was still on patrol.

Shadowbolt had struck again with impunity, and I hadn’t even known about it.”

WEDNESDAY NIGHT
0023 hrs.

“So he must have been watching, waiting to catch one of them. A panther crouched in the bush.”

The engine of the Black Beauty roared, barreling through the downtown intersection. Mane-iac gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her knuckles white under the gloves, her face pursed in resolve.

“Shadowbolt’s attack on the Ponezetti captain had taken place in the south end, altering his M.O. Now it wasn’t just the north end, it was the whole city I had to worry about. And if any criminal on the streets of Maretropolis was a potential victim, then finding him before Saturday would be pure luck.”

The body crashed into the hood of the car with a sudden impact that nearly caused Mane-iac to jump back in her seat. She slammed on the breaks and screeched to a sideways halt, the momentum carrying the body forward and flopping across the pavement.

Staring wide-eyed and mouth agape through the windshield, it took her a few seconds to process exactly what had just happened. When her brain finally snapped back into the present moment, she tilted her head down to peer up through the windshield, up to where the man must have fallen from.

“There he was, it had to be him. A black silhouette against the sky, standing at the edge of the building, staring right back down at me. I suppose it was a little like seeing a mythological creature for the first time; the image of him, strong and silent froze in my mind’s eye.”

“Shadowbolt.” A lash of her hair struck out and yanked the lever that sprung her ejector seat. The same mechanism triggered the roof, blowing it out of the way just in time for her to rocket upwards. A flag pole sticking out under a fourth floor window provided the means for her to sling-shot the rest of the way to the top.

leaping over the ledge and coming down ready for a fight, Mane-iac scanned the tops of the block for him, but found nothing. No tiny bit of surprise came to her.

“What? Where did he go?”

“How fast was this guy? I’d expect a disappearing act like this out of Filliesecond, but it hadn’t been two heartbeats since I saw him.”

With no trace of Shadowbolt, not even a sound, she became wary that he could be lurking somewhere close by. A paranoia born of the night that transformed her into the super powered woman she was now, throbbed into the forefront of her mind. Her lips curled back to expose her teeth, senses heightened by the perception of an unseen danger that was about to pounce.

“Ooooohhhh…”

The pained groan from down on the street was the only thing to trip her suspicion.

“The body!” She realized.

Acting like shock absorbers, her hair took the brunt of the force as Mane-iac hit the street and rushed over to where the body of the man still lay in an ugly crumple, his breathing ragged, and a crimson pool growing under his head. He wore a long black winter coat over a bloodied white dress shirt and grey pants, a tangle of unkempt black hair was soaked through. Despite his crashing into the car, she could tell most of his injuries had been caused before he went off the roof, broken orbital sockets, teeth that looked like a Tetris game, and a dislocated shoulder.

“I can only imagine what injuries I’m not seeing at first glance. I’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

Her hair enwrapped his shattered form, careful not to let his neck be unsupported, and lifted him off the ground, another tendril opening Black Beauty’s back door behind the driver’s seat. As she moved him something fell out from inside his coat, a yellow packet, the edges of several photographs peeking out. When he was laid securely across the backseat, Mane-iac bent down to retrieve the pictures, and she held them for a moment, deciding whether or not to take a look at them.

Glancing back to the man, curiosity got the better of her.

“Just a quick look.” Was her internal compromise. “At first I was confused, they were just random pictures of people. But as I flipped through, I realized these were candid pictures taken without the subjects knowledge. They were shots of all kinds of people, of all ages, men, women, children; pictures of them in their homes, in their bedrooms and bathrooms.”

Her hands trembling, Mane-iac let the collection drop to the ground. This hadn’t been some mob crony Shadowbolt wanted information from, this was a sick pervert that’d been caught in the act. She looked over to where he lay, with much less pity than before.
“If he really had been caught in the act…”

Hair tendrils slithered their way into his jacket pockets, one of them coming out with a digital camera. She pressed the power button, hoping the hard-drive hadn’t been too damaged in the fall. Apparently the man had bought a quality device, and the display turned on without a hitch. There was another button to access the stored pictures, and pressing it, found what she wanted.

The last picture the man took, was Shadowbolt’s face. Staring past the camera, he had been reaching out when the shot was taken, his mouth open in a roar of anger.

THURSDAY NIGHT
0157 hrs.

“I would have wanted to get a copy of the picture for myself, but I just didn’t have the time. After getting the creep to the hospital, I made an anonymous tip to a certain police detective about where they might find a peeping Tom. I had to put the package of pictures and camera back in his jacket, else there’d be no evidence of his crimes. But nonetheless, the picture of Shadowbolt stayed with my mind.”

Running across the rooftops of downtown Maretropolis, Mane-iac leaped the gap between apartment buildings.

“It occurred to me that his mask was a lot like mine, at least with the open mouth. He wore goggles over his eyes, whereas I had the one-way opaque mesh. Are the goggles teched-out to see in the dark? Is that how he moves in the shadows so efficiently?

What skin did show around the mouth, was a dull grey, and the dark blue hair coming down matched the description from the Saturday night attack.”

Nose-diving off of a fifth-story, she somersaulted in the air to plant both her feet on the brick side of the adjacent building, and push off.

“I admit I was curious to find out who was under the mask. An odd thought, considering I had passed on uncovering Masked Matter-Horn after all she had done to me. I wonder how she might feel if she knew I was more interested in unmasking somebody else. Would she be jealous? The thought amused me.”

Hair tentacles lashed around a streetlamp, swinging her over a pair of cars on the road, and landing her just in front of a subway entrance. She hastily made her way down the steps.

“During the day, I had taken the time to mark out every known location of a Shadowbolt incident on a map of the city. His sudden appearance in the south of the had thrown me off at first, until I realized that all his attacks were occurring close to subway stops. It took a few hours of staring at the chart to discern the pattern, but it was there. At least, that’s what I convinced myself of.”

The station was deserted, with nothing but the dark tunnels on either side. She had ventured into several other stations since sundown, looking for any clue that he might be using it as passageway.

“Trying to track him had been more frustrating than a bad hair day, which for me can literally be destructive. After dealing with the voyeur I went back to the rooftop, but just like his other scenes, he left no forensics at all. If I could get just a stray hair or footprint, something to give me a lead then I wouldn’t have to waste hours scouring…”

Approaching the edge of the platform she paused, spotting something out of place up by the left end. She went over and knelt down beside it, a splotch of blood, still wet. Reaching into one of the compartments on her belt, she took out a sterile pad and dabbed the blood with it, before putting it in a small Ziploc bag, and tucking it away in another pouch.

“If this wasn’t him, then somebody was bleeding. Worth checking out.”

Mane-iac hopped down onto the tracks, conscious of the third-rail in the middle. Extracting a small but powerful rectangular flashlight from her belt, she shone it on the ground in a sweeping motion.

Another drop of blood, a few feet ahead on the rail.

She followed the trail for another hundred yards into the tunnel, where she came across a utility access door that had been forced open.

“By the look of how the lock and handle mechanism are contorted, someone used raw power to push it open. Wonder who that could have been.”

Pushing the door open with a length of hair, she illuminated as much of the small room beyond as she could before taking any steps forward. There wasn’t much inside, just an electrical junction box, a small desk and swivel chair, and a book-sized cardboard box.

“With a spot of blood on it…”

Crouching down to examine the box on the desk without touching it, she noted the sticker logo on one of the open flaps.

“Property of Cornet Labs. Hmm..”

She might have investigated the room a bit more, but at the sound of scuffling shoes coming down the tunnel she turned and shut her light off.

“The boss said we should check down here.” Two bulky men in heavy jackets stalked along the tracks, each of them with a flashlight. “He said Shadowbolt could be hiding out in one of these tunnels.”

“Here!” The other one called out, pointing his beam to the room. “The door’s busted open.”

Squeezing through a doorway barley wide enough to accommodate them, the men crammed into the small room with as much grace as water buffalo. The first one picked-up the box and looked it over.

“He was here alright.”

“The boss huh?” Suspending herself against the ceiling above the doorway by pressing her hair to the walls, Mane-iac watched them search the rest of the room.

“Just don’t look up here, and I can follow you guys back to whoever sent you. They make it sound like their boss might know something about Shadowbolt I don’t.”

“Come on, there ain’t nothing else in here.” Standing directly under her, the second man had his back to the entrance, scratching his neck as he spoke. “I don’t wanna be around when he gets back.”

“Too late.”

“He’s here!”

A pair of hands seized the man by his shoulders and pulled him out of the room faster than he could finish screaming. The first man whipped around to cast his light on the door, the beam shaking.

“You’re gonna need more than a flashlight, big guy.” The female voice drew his attention upwards, where his light revealed Mane-iac propped against the ceiling.

“YOU TOO!” He cried, dropping his flashlight.

She dropped down between him and the doorway, her hair grabbing the table and jamming it in the entrance. The goon backed-up against the wall, where she took fistfuls of his shirt.

“Tell me who your boss is and I’ll get you out of here!”

The stunned hesitation in his answer would cost them both, as the table was battered aside. They both turned to see the dark figure in the doorway, a tiny amount of reflected light gleaming off his goggles.

“This doesn’t concern you Mane-iac, this isn’t your fight.”

“When you start torturing people and throwing them off roofs, I make it my concern.” Mane-iac brought her hands up in a defensive posture, hoping the man behind her didn’t do something stupid. “I think you and me should have a talk.”

“I think the time for talking is over.”

“Man he was fast. Not as fast as Filliesecond, but still, when he rushed at me, it was like in one of those dreams when you try to run, only to feel like you’re in trapped in tar.”

Before she could stop him, Shadowbolt was in her face. He gripped her by the sides and heaved her to the ceiling, her hair reflexively closing in to protect her. Reaching through the strands and taking hold of the terrified
guy she had been shielding, he made to dash out of the room quickly.

But Mane-iac was not going to be stalled by shock again this night. Shadowbolt had already turned away when a vine of purple hair coiled around his neck, his momentum causing his legs to go flying out from under him.

“It wasn’t a suggestion!”

Shadowbolt turned with a snarl and a flash of anger in his lenses, seizing the stretch of hair with both hands.
“He can’t seriously think he’s-”

The concrete frame of the doorway was blown apart in a cloud of debris and dust as the two tumbled onto the train tracks. Mane-iac rolled across the ground, her face stopping just inches away from the third rail. Coming eye-to-eye with peril again, a memory flashed in her mind of the moment she gazed up at the ceiling before the warmth of the chemical vat enveloped her. A small gasp escaped, briefly coating the metal with a spot of vapor.

Pushing himself off the crushed stone, Shadowbolt saw that Mane-iac was still not on her feet, and took the opportunity to sprint down the rest of the tunnel.

“HEY!” She scrambled to chase after him, pausing for a quick second to see the two goons beat a hasty escape back in the direction of the station.

“Eh, you lousy bastich!”

“Ugh, Gigan was really starting to rub off on me.”

Pursuing him further into the tunnel, she might have lost him totally if she hadn’t felt a slight draft on her lips coming from the left. She stopped and turned to see a metal exit door swinging open.

“Access hatches, built in case people were trapped in a collapsed tunnel, they could only be opened from below. One door in the tunnel, up a set of stairs, and out another door to the surface.”

The outside door was still open when Mane-iac rushed through it. The exit was located in a small lot adjacent to Baltimare Avenue, for the ease of any emergency vehicle that might have to respond. Her own superior sight in the darkness a gift of her double iris, she spotted a figure leap onto a parked tractor-trailer and from there onto the roof of a diner.
“I not losing you again!”

And so the chase was on. The combined efforts of her own enhanced physicality and the grappling power of her prehensile locks allowing her to gain on him as they ran like hunter and quarry through the city. Though it was not entirely her own effort; every so often Shadowbolt would look back to gauge her, giving up precious bits of distance each time.

“Good thing I run every evening! The way this guy moves it’s like he never gets winded.”

Mane-iac had closed the gap to within 30 yards of him on the top level of a parking garage when he went off the side and out of her view. Throwing her legs into a dead sprint, she launched herself off in kind.

Perched on a ledge on the side of the building, Shadowbolt waited until she passed before he reached out and grabbed the ends of her hair and brought her to a flailing bungee cord stop.

“AHH!” “What?!” “-GAK!” She cried out internally and externally, feeling her neck and legs demand to keep the momentum going.

With an audible exertion, he pulled upwards on her hair, and when she came back up to his level, he propelled himself directly into her. Driving his shoulder into her midsection, he speared her through the window of the adjacent office building, crashing them both in a shower of glass into the wall of a cubicle.

Mane-iac’s retaliation was swift, and before Shadowbolt could break contact, her purple tendrils wrapped around his shins. Up she sent him, through the ceiling tiles, back down into a row of cubicles, and right through every one between back to her. She jumped off the floor when he came sailing back, unlashing her hair to grapple him with a judo hip toss that broke the desk he landed on in half.

Chests heaving for breath and teeth bared, Mane-iac and Shadowbolt got their bearings as he rose to his feet.

“Now about that talk.” She grunted, legs poised and fists raised. She could see him much clearer now, the ambient light pollution of the city illuminating enough of him to make out his whole body. He wore a skin-tight body suit, dark lavender with charcoal extremities, separated by bolts of yellow that ringed each limb. Another jagged ring came down from either shoulder to meet at a ‘V’ on his chest.

“Shadowbolt.”

“I said this doesn’t concern you!” He barked, standing opposite her, fists to his sides. “This is a personal vendetta. I’m not out to rob or hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it. There’s plenty of criminals in Maretropolis for the both of us.”

“Let’s just say I take issue with your methods.” Realizing however that he was currently choosing to talk, she kept her guard up, knowing how fast he could be in close quarters. “Smack ‘em around some, sure, even perverts like that guy you dented my hood with. But you nearly killed him, you go too far.”

“Too far?” Scowling, he glared at her. “If you knew what the men I get my hands on do to innocent people, you’d know it’s not far enough. My sins are a drop in the bucket compared theirs. I would think you’d understand that. Unless the real reason you have a problem with me, is you just don’t want any competition in the vigilante market.”

“Believe me, I’d love to have a few nights a week off, but you stacking up bodies in the emergency ward doesn’t help me, this city, or the justice system.”

“Justice system!” He spat, anger spiking. “You want to help this city, Mane-iac? I’ll tell you want doesn’t help; those Ponezetti and Flankastro running the streets like their own personal fiefdoms, pushing their poisons, extortion rackets, corrupting the justice system at every level.”

Taking a measured step closer, Shadowbolt tapped a finger to his chest. “I live down there, in the dark and hidden places, I see this city from the bottom up. I see drugs sold to children, cops being bought, judges and politicians getting in the back seat with mobsters. Thanks and all for locking up the Malice Mares, but other than that, I can’t see what the hell you’ve been doing for this city.”

The accusation stung, and for a moment, she considered that perhaps she had spent too many days in expensive comfort. In any case, this track wasn’t going make things any better.

“There are problems with the system, everybody knows that, but the alternative, street justice doled out without due process, is worse. Now, you said this was personal, maybe there’s something I could help you with. You know, so you don’t have to go around kickin’ everybody’s ass.”

“That’s where you’re wrong Mane-iac.” Shadowbolt gave her a savage grin, lowering his posture. “Kicking their ass is the best part.”

He charged at her, striking out with one fist after another. But unlike in the subway office she was ready for him, blocking and countering in a flurry of movement. He was fast, he was strong, but her superior training and technique allowed her to deftly outmaneuver the furious assault. A right cross countered into a back-fist, blocked into an arm bar attempt, rolled through into a knee thrust. Shadowbolt stumbled back a step, giving Mane-iac the opening for a snapping back spin-kick to his stomach.

He was knocked against a copy machine, and as he reeled, she followed through by turning her hair into a battering ram and crushing him against it, sending both into a heap.
“Throw me through a goddamn wall will ya…”

An office chair came hurtling at her across the space, she bashed it aside only to see a section of cubical wall following right behind it. She grabbed it with her strands as it flipped to face her broadly, but Shadowbolt’s boots bursting through it came too fast and they struck her in the side of the head as she turned away defensively. Mane-iac was knocked on her backside, but caught him as he tried to leap atop her, ropes of hair lashing out to suspend him just out of arm’s reach.

“The tensile strength of your hair is impressive.” Shadowbolt grunted, straining against the pull of several directions. “It must be over two tons.”

“Couldn’t say for sure.” Struggling herself to keep him contained, she grit her teeth. “Ask Saddle Ranger, she’d be a good judge.”

“Nonetheless, it must be *grunt* an accumulative effort.” Shadowbolt reached out in a flash, down to her utility belt.

Just as fast, she raised him even higher, but it was too late when his fist crushed the smoke bomb he’d snatched and plunged the two into a cloud of noxious fume. Mane-iac coughed and covered her mouth, the momentary faltering in her hair control allowed him to wrestle free on the opposite side of the haze.
“I’m glad the Malice Mares don’t fight this smart, or I’d-”

Her thought was interrupted by movement in the smoke. Eyes protected well enough by the mask, they darted between the shapes in the darkness. To defend against a surprise attack, she spread her hair in something of a sphere around herself. Wherever his attack would come from she’d sense it coming.

What she didn’t count on however, was the small office rug she was standing on literally being pulled out from underneath her. Thrown off her feet, Mane-iac steadied herself on a file cabinet turned on its side. He came in heavy, palming the back of her head to slam her face-first into the metal. She retaliated with an elbow uppercut that she felt connect with his chin, but he ate the blow well enough to hit a boot to the breadbasket that rocked her back into the cabinet.

One punch struck against her cheek, compressing her head into the side of the file cabinet with a thunderous bang, then another that caused the side sheet to come away from the seams. Despite the pain and funny lights in her vision, she anticipated the cadence of his blows, and dodged the third by moving her head to the side, and striking out with a punch to his left floating rib.

Shadowbolt buckled over, and taking the cabinet in her hair, Mane-iac smashed it into his face with such force she hesitated, thinking she had just shattered his skull. He took the blow better than she’s hoped however, projected back to stagger against a support column, his head lolling. Capitalizing on the advantage, Mane-iac got to her feet and rushed in to finish the fight.

The adrenaline fueled battle lust mixed with a rising urge to loose her unrestrained fury pushed her to beat her victory out of him with her hands. It served only to compromise her discipline and blind her guard. Just as she was about to reach him, he deflected her arms with his own and kneed her in the gut. Out of the corner of her eye, Mane-iac saw him coming on, only reacting in time to stave off another barrage from Shadowbolt that moved her back step by step.

He came down with a hammer fist to her clavicle, but she swiveled her shoulder aside and countered by raising her right palm and drilling it into his jaw. Shadowbolt swung his left arm over, trapping her forearm against his chest, and though she drove a knee into his side, he struck back with a wild cross. Not thrown with visual precision or accounting for Mane-iac’s own movement, the fist collided into her left breast.

Both combatants knew instantly what had occurred, recoiling in synchronicity. For once, Shadowbolt was stunned, his intimidating front giving way to awkward modesty.

“That… was unintentional.”

Laying a hand on where she felt the tenderness gestating, she was as much taken aback by his reaction as by the incident itself.

“What? You think I‘ve never been punched in the boob before?” She barked in indignant offense.

“Still doesn‘t seem appropriate.” He grumbled, displeased by the situation.

“This guy is unbelievable!” Reaching to her utility belt, Mane-iac drew out her collapsible baton, extending it with a flick of her wrist.

With an overhand strike the fight was resumed, Mane-iac’s charge retaking the momentum. Shadowbolt tried to block a roundhouse kick to his liver, and managed to dodge the following back right heel kick, but caught the brunt of her baton across the mouth when it came whirling around. She pressed the assault, using her hair to grab onto one of the exposed ceiling cross-bars above to life herself up and drive both feet into his chest.

As he rolled across the floor, Mane-iac scrambled atop him, sitting over his shoulders and smashing down on his skull with the pommel of her cudgel, once, twice, three times. He staggered, and she brought it down for a finishing fourth, but he got a hand on the bottom of the baton. Dropping forward quickly, Shadowbolt held her secure as he planted her face into the floor.

Falling away from each other, groans of headaches were all they traded in the brief respite. A drabble of blood coming from the corner of Mane-iac’s mouth was matched by a trickle seeping through Shadowbolt’s hair.

“Ow.” She complained, a hand on the side of her head. “If Gigan were here, I’m sure he’d make some comment about me eating carpet. Ugh, get out of my head!”

Shadowbolt, settled himself on his knees, peering at her sidelong. “Judging by the.. *pant…pant*.. Amount of damage you’ve taken, either you have enhanced durability or healing, or your outfit is helping to compensate. What is it? Multi-layer Kevlar micro weave? Custom fabrication?”

“Found it on Amazon.” Mane-iac swung her hair out to clothesline him, but he ducked and lurched forward. She tossed her baton in her left hand and swung, only for him to grab her wrist, force it down, and slam the top of his forehead between her eyebrows.

When her head snapped back, he reached out and yanked her hat down across her face for a quick distraction. In the time it took her to adjust it out of her way, Shadowbolt was on his feet and seized a rope-sized stretch of her hair.

“HHRRRAAAWWW!” He swung Mane-iac in a wide arc around to his left, towards the shattered windows. Two more tendrils however, latched onto his wrists, and pulled him off his feet. The result, was that just as she was flying into the open air, he too was drawn outside, where they both tumbled in a free-fall to the street below.

Putting a hand on to keep her hat from fluttering off, Mane-iac knew she could handle a plunge from this height with a construct of her hair. Her opponent however, she had no idea.
“I just might live to regret this…”

For his part, Shadowbolt was diving headlong, visibly nervous but not panicked. A tentacle of purple coiled around his mid-section, pulling him close to Mane-iac.

“Hang-on!” She yelled above the roar of the wind.

Shaping her hair into a bowl, she made sure they hit the ground at an angle, the kinetic energy of the impact transferring along the curve to whip them at a sharp but safely parallel course to the street. Ejected by the momentum, Mane-iac and Shadowbolt rolled across the asphalt, tired and beat-up. The will to fight sapped out of them, they painfully sat up, choosing to mind their aches than throw another punch.

“Thanks… I suppose.” Shadowbolt grumbled, holding his arm and regarding her coolly.

“Could you have survived that fall?” She asked, genuinely curious, winching as she felt the inside of her mouth with her tongue.

He gave the question a few moments of thought before answering. “I don’t know… probably.”

Coming around the corner of the block, police sirens rose in intensity, the flashing red and blue lights stretching up the walls of the neighborhood ahead of them.

“I don’t suppose you plan on sticking around to answer a few questions?” Pressing her hands to the street to push herself up, Mane-iac let her hair hang limply like a giant squid perched on her skull.

After a long sigh, and a roll to a single knee on the way up, Shadowbolt ran a finger across a crack in his goggle’s right lens. “Sorry, I’ve still got work to do.”

“Yeah, me neither.” The pair stared at one another, waiting to see which one would break away first.

“I know you want to help.” He said. “But I‘m doing this my way. For your own good, stay out of it. You can have all the super powered freaks you want, leave this scum to me.”

The police lights were closing in, and she narrowed her eyes. “How do you know the people you terrorize are even telling you the truth? How do you know they‘re not just telling you what you want to hear?”

“I‘ve always been a very trusting person.” At that moment, a frozen breeze chose to sweep through the streets, an auspicious sign. “And I don’t think they want me coming back for more questions.”

“Why fight me Shadowbolt? Why make an enemy out of me?” The tone of her plea carried both disappointment and threat.

“Because I am not under the impression that you can stop me.” Backing away, Shadowbolt nodded. “By the way, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Mane-iac stiffened, “For what?”

“I stole another one of your smoke bombs.”

“WHAT?!”

The small orb he had palmed when she pulled him close was thrown to the ground, where it bust into a hissing cloud. Tucking one of her scarf limbs over her face, she lost track of him as he disappeared in the smoke.

The police cruisers pulled up, the air cast off by their arrival dispelling the greater portion of the cloud. Stepping out of their vehicles, hands on the butts of their guns, the officers warily examined the scene.

“Mark, you see anybody?” One of them asked, wearing a thick police winter jacket and fur-lined hat on his head. He went as far as his car’s front bumper but dared no further.

Up atop an adjacent building, one of the oldest in the city, Mane-iac sat on the ledge looking down at the officers. Next to her was a snarling stone gargoyle, a muscular feline beast with reptilian wings that she leaned her shoulder on.

With a long sigh, she pressed a button on one of the smaller devices around her utility belt, summoning the Black Beauty to her location.

“Why do I end up punching every guy I meet?” She mumbled.

Author's Notes:

Thanks for coming back for more!

Next, in part 3:

Crime in the city is about to evolve, but the fight between Mane-iac and Shadowbolt is just starting!