=========================
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
=========================

“Who is Shadowbolt?

That’s the question I kept asking myself.”

Not ten minutes out of bed, Mica limped through the dim lights of the lab where she crafted and improved the tools of her night job.

“His speech pattern let slip of a man of intelligence, what that means is unclear, but his speculation on the composition of my outfit leads me to think his education is in some kind of engineering or research.”

Settling down stiffly into her black leather high-backed chair, Mica Hackett groaned uncomfortably as the aches and pains cried foul throughout her body. Having just risen from bed and still dressed in a slightly oversized sweater and sweatpants, her hair constrained into a long ribbon for the sake of ease, and her utility belt draped across her lap.

“Ow. That phrase has become the bulk of my vocabulary after the fight with Shadowbolt last night.”

The toll the fight had taken out of her shown on her face, and her normally passive, calm demeanor was now marred as much by misery as her body was the keloid scars.

“I’d been banged-up before. Pummeled by Saddle Ranger, hit by cars, one particularly bad episode of loss of self-control. So having to wheeze my way though another day wasn’t the biggest crisis. Just another pain in my ass, of which there were currently a few.”

The spacious quarters of her multi-functional secret lab were half-illuminated, her workspace around the 60-inch monitor a hodge-podge of equipment she designed and built herself. Among them, a microscope that resembled an ophthalmologist construct, hand-crafted to specifications so precise she could catch a paramecium and skin it like wild game. It was designed not just to be a few leagues above any commercially available microscope, it was designed to work for her double irises.

A few feet away, was a machine she had actually grafted together from disparate bits of equipment, sort of an all-in-one DNA analyzer.
“Fortunately, despite our differences, I had managed to procure a parting gift from my new acquaintance.”

Extracting from one small compartment of the belt the bloodied pad she’d collected last night at the train station, she smeared a bit of the crimson liquid on a slide, and sandwiched it with another. Fixing them into the stage clips, she used both hands and a few tendrils of hair to manipulate the viewing apparatus, each of them adjusting one of several dials and switches. Without looking, she opened a drawer on the DNA machine, deposited the rest of the blood into a small pool of liquid surrounded by blue lights, and shut the compartment.

She pressed a lone button above the sample drawer, and the machine hummed to life, multiple analytical tools going to work on the biological material. Never having taken her gaze out of the microscope, she observed what was left of the viable material.

“Bright red blood… arterial bleeding… wait, what’s that?”

Magnifying the image of the specimen for a much closer look, she noticed something was off about the blood cells, they had a curious shine to them. Mica’s eyebrow arched, and one of the switches on the side was slowly levered downwards. Across the concave surface of the cells, there was a shimmering texture, like it was crawling with a billion even tinier moving bits.

“What on Earth am I seeing?” She asked herself. Her fingers found the light adjustment dial, and increased the backlight to get a better view. As soon as she did so however, the cells immediately became dull and inert.

“Well that’s different…”

“Something for your bruises, Ma‘am?” Approaching from behind, a polished man, bespoke in a spotless black tuxedo over a blue silk shirt and coal-grey tie, carried a silver tray with a porcelain teacup and matching pot. He was older, with grey hair trimmed to perfection and kindly eyes.

“I thought some chamomile would help sooth your wounded pride.”

Removing her face from the device, she gave her old friend Charles an unamused glower.

“My pride is just fine. It’s my jaw that keeps bothering me.” She said, moving her mandible from side to side. Mica accepted the cup with both hands, and gave it a light blow before taking a sip.

“I’m not a tea connoisseur or anything, but a good cup does help me unwind the tension of a bad night. Charles knows my moods pretty well.”

She set the cup down on the counter and flexed her fist open and closed a few times, feeling the small kinks left behind from the fight.

“Shadowbolt’s a good fighter, fast, but I’ve got far better training. He sure was smart though, the longer we fought the more he figured me out.”

Charles set the tray down beside the microscope, trading it for her utility belt, and looping it around his arm.

“And he let slip no clue as to who he was?”

“No. not directly anyways…” Turning her attention to the computer screen, she called out to it.

“Computer, search for: Cornet Labs.”

“Searching for, Cornet Labs.” The artificial voice repeated. In half a second, the screen was filled with references and several pictures. What Mica saw among the links only increased the mystery.

“Massive accident destroys lab.” Mica read off the screen. Some of the accompanying pictures showed the building before the accident, “Experimental energy program backfires, causes explosion, claims the lives of project scientists.”

“Good lord.” Charles gasped.

“Seeing the news articles again brought me back a few years, during my… previous life. Back when I wouldn’t have looked too deep into things like this. I remembered Cornet labs used to be on the northwest outskirts of the city, out in the rural lands. It occurred to me that if I had just remembered this little detail when I had finally met up with Shadowbolt, perhaps I could have started a real dialog. Though in my defense I suppose I was a little preoccupied.”

The next collage of pictures showed the rubble and devastation left in the wake of the explosion, the façade of the building standing in front of a crater. Debris scattered for a mile in every direction, even a report of a middle-aged woman who had been struck in the back by a bit of metal shrapnel. Mica continued to click into one of the articles.

“It says the accident occurred in the middle of the night, when it was just the three project staff and two security guards in the building.”

“By the grace of God, the security men were having a smoke break outside.” Charles observed from the text. “Got thrown fifty yards and suffered internal bleeding, concussions, fractured vertebrae, but alive.”

“The scientists weren’t so lucky.” Navigating through more links, Mica found more of the information she was looking for. “The three of them were working on some new energy technology for space vehicles.”
“The specifics were omitted… interesting.”

“Something went wrong, and there was an explosion. They think whatever it was obliterated the bodies, no remains were found.”

Her mind’s eye flashed back to the box she found in the subway room.
“If the lab was blown to hell, then where did that box come from? And why was it at the end of a trail of blood?”

Scrolling along, she came across a black and white picture of the team provided to the newspapers by a family member. It showed the group in their white lab coats, posed behind a long counter topped with various bits of machinery that looked like they belonged in a science-fiction movie.
“The black and white photo had their names and positions under it: Gary Straub, aerospace engineer, Stacey Meriwether, particle physicist, and Thomas Jacobs, theoretical physicist.

Staring at the screen, Mica wondered what any of this could have to do with Shadowbolt, if there was any connection at all
“The box could be a complete coincidence, maybe he’d had it from long before, maybe he found it in the garbage. But then what are the odds of having that box, from that lab? It was too damn much of a coincidence.”

A chime from the DNA alerted Mica to the results. “Error. Cannot complete analysis. Unknown elements are present.”

“Unknown elements?” She repeated, as if saying it aloud herself would untangle her confusion. Thinking quickly, she gave a new command.

“Computer, isolate contaminants.”

“No contaminants found. All elements are genetically coupled.”

“It didn’t make any sense…”

“Perhaps Mr. Bolt is a Martian of some kind.” Charles suggested with a measure of dry humor.

“Wouldn’t that be interesting.” Spinning back around to the blood she had between the slats, Mica focused back in on the tiny cells. They remained as dreary as she had left them. Adjusting the backlight, she noticed the strange fur-like texture coating the cells rippled in response.
“Well that can’t be an accident.”

The more she turned the light down, the more active the cells became. She dimmed the light as much as she could while still being able to see them, following the reaction.”

“What the hell are you?”

“Is this him?” Holding up a sketch pad Mica had hastily drawn on when she got back, Charles examined the rough outline of Shadowbolt.

“Frightening fellow.”

“You should meet him in person.” Mica got up from her seat and headed for the changing pod, a noticeable stiffness in her back. “Great sense of humor.”

“I do hope The Mane-iac isn’t planning on a night of acrobatics and daring-do.” The butler said, replacing the tea cup onto the platter with a disappointed sigh. “She may find it a bit more, challenging than usual.”

“Well…” She bent her back and touched the floor to stretch out her spine. With a long exhale she unfurled herself to an erect posture and mentally prepared herself. “If it were easy Charles, everyone would do it.”

Mica climbed into the pod, allowing the doors to slid shut around her. After a moment’s notice and a whirl of machinery, the glowing chamber popped back open and the fully costumed Mane-iac sat up with a grunt of determination

“Besides, I’m just going to visit an old friend.”

==========================

LATER
==========================

“Motoring.”

Detective Stephen Langoud flipped through the keys on the ring as he approached his personal vehicle in the underground parking garage of the precinct. With a paper bag of day-old doughnuts and half a sandwich in hand, he rounded the bumper, using the cuff of his sleeve to wipe off the corner of his mouth.

“What’s your price for flight? In finding mister right?”

He had the tune stuck in his head all day after hearing a snippet of it on the radio, and at the end of his shift found himself absent-mindedly muttering the melody. “And something that rhymes with ‘light’.”

Langoud shot a glance to the backseat of his car, making sure the old break room coffee maker was still there. He may not have been given explicit permission to take it, but since the new one was up and running, no-one seemed to object.

He found the proper key and opened his driver’s side door, slipping into the seat of his 1990 Coltler Manehattan. Tossing the bag to the passenger seat, he stuck the key in the ignition.

“MOTORING!” He yelled out within the protective confines of his car.

“Please stop.”

“BAH!” He yelped, banging his thighs against the bottom of the steering wheel as he jumped in surprise. He twisted in his seat to find Mane-iac staring back at him from under the brim of her hat.

“You really can’t sing Steve.”

Taking a deep breath to calm down, he mustered his bravado. “Oh thank god.” He chuckled nervously. “It’s just you. For a second I thought my ex-wife had found me.”

“Sorry to scare you. But I decided it best to stay incognito.” Checking the entryway to the garage, she made sure to keep her face hidden.

“Good thing.” He agreed. “Word is that when the commissioner found out about the damage you two caused last night, he hit the roof. Put out the order to arrest either one of you on sight.”

This did not come as a surprise, but as least it wasn’t the command to hunt her down. “So are you gonna take me in?” She asked.

“Pfft, as if I could.”

“In that case I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“While there was plenty I could learn off the internet, there were some things that just couldn’t be found online.”

“I’m digging into Shadowbolt, and I need you to get me anything the police might have on file regarding the explosion at Cornet labs three years ago. I think there might be a connection.”

“Oh yeaaaahhh, I remember that.” Putting a hand across his mouth, Langoud tried to think of where something like that might be kept. “Not sure how much of anything we’d have, it was an accident, not a crime.”

“Could you just check? Please?” She knew he was risking his career just by talking to her. It wasn’t easy for her to admit it to herself, let alone anyone else, but when the pressures of what she did really weighed on her, it was good to know there were people she could count on.

He thought for a moment longer. “Alright, let me go take a look.” Getting back out of the car, the detective headed back inside. Mane-iac hunkered down in the seat to lower her profile.

Ten minutes later, he returned, going straight to the door of the back seat.
“Gonna need this.” He said, taking the coffee maker in hand before closing the door and heading back to the offices.

Ten more minutes later, Langoud sat back down in his driver’s seat and handed a file over his shoulder.

“It wasn’t much, about half an inch worth of contents. But it was better than nothing.”

“Now I didn’t look in it, for my own sakes.” Steve ran a hand through his hair. “But I hope it does you some good. Turns out the parent company took ownership of most of the stuff that wasn’t blown to bits, and most of the stuff we had was junked years ago.”

“Thanks again Detective.” Mane-iac got out of the back seat, and started to slink away when another thought caught her.

“Stephen, what was with the coffee maker?”

“Oh that.” He grumbled. “Had to make a deal with the guy working the evidence lock-up. He drove a hard bargain.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She apologized, feeling genuinely regretful for what approximated as a friend. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Really? ‘Cause I could-” Stunned by her proposition, he put his arm around the headrest to face the backseat, only to find it empty and with no trace of the lady.

“She’s just playing hard to get.” He told himself.

Dropping into the alley a block from the precinct where she had parked Black Beauty, Mane-iac opened the door with a tendril of hair and slumped into her seat. She turned on the heat before the door was even closed, the winter chill starting to work its way through her outfit.
“Let’s see what the vultures left me.”

The file contained a loose assortment of post-incident reports, written by police investigators on site and a few follow-ups dated throughout the next three weeks after.

“There wasn’t much in the way of anything helpful, it was mostly the facts of the accident scene, witness and survivor statements. One curious thing however, was a report of Government agents arriving to conduct their own investigation. They identified themselves as working for the Aeronautics Administration, but nothing more than that. Cordoned off the site for a day as they examined the debris, bringing in their own forensic teams and taking various samples of material. A picture stapled to the report showed a trio of people covered head-to-toe in protective suits extracting soil from the center of the crater.

I had to wonder just what exactly I was digging into, and if any of this actually had any authentic connection to Shadowbolt. Still, it was pretty interesting.”

Part of the alley was illuminated for a few seconds by the headlights of a passing car. Glancing back to see if they warranted any more investigation, Mane-iac decided to take her late-night reading somewhere else.

The Black Beauty pulled out of the alley on the other end, and turned south.
“Plenty of places in the city to duck away for a little bit.”

She raised the volume on her police scanner, “No excuse to ignore the rest of the crime in the city on account of one guy.”

Passing under a bridge, her fingers tapped the steering wheel in deliberation.

“Motoring…” She muttered melodically under her breath.

A streetlight shining into her cab as the car took a right turn swept over the uncovered items from the file, the momentum of the turn yanking one picture from where it was lodged between sheets and onto the floor. The light allowed her to catch sight of its fall, and not wanting to lose any part of it to a casual accident, a couple strands of hair reached down and plucked it back up.

When she saw the photo, she slammed on the breaks and came to a skidding, rubber-smoking halt in the middle of the street. Grabbing the picture in her hand and clicking on the overhead light, she stared at it in disbelief. There, standing in the picture, were the same three project scientists she’d seen in the online article, Straub, Meriwether, and Jacobs. Only this shot was taken while they had been at work, with Straub overlooking a design of some fuselage, Meriwether working out equations on a chalkboard, and Jacobs operating on some large metal chamber. And around Jacobs’ neck, were a pair of protective goggles.

The same goggles Shadowbolt wore.

Even more to her luck this photo was in color, and Mane-iac could see that his hair, while cut in a short, conservative style, was the same indigo blue.

“Thomas Jacobs… How the hell did you survive?” The whispered question came out in a huff of vapor. For another minute she sat in place, trying to think through all the possible explanations as to how a man could survive an explosion that decimated a building. Not only that, but come back with superpowers. An approaching car in her rearview snapped her back to the present, and she put her foot back on the accelerator. Snapping off her overhead lamp and she drove, she peeled back the mask from over her right eye, and held it up to the mirror. After a soft chime, a small panel slid out from the center console, a miniature version of her computer in the lab.

“Computer, information on Thomas Jacobs, Cornet Labs, deceased.”

“Thomas Jacobs.” The small window buffered the search results, cobbled together from multiple databases, and displayed them in chronological order.

“Jacobs was quite an achiever from what I could tell. Honor Society in high school, joined the Army Corps of Engineers, retired after 10 years with a medical discharge due to a knee injury, but not before utilizing his benefits to go to college. That’s where he got into physics, ultimately getting a Master’s degree. 43 at the time of the accident.

Intelligent, determined, resourceful, sounds like Shadowbolt alright. Aside from that, the information got curiously Spartan: No children, parents deceased, unmarried, employed by the Aeronautics Administration until four years ago.

Hmm… if he was out of the Government, then why were their agents on the scene faster than kids to an ice cream truck?”

“ALL UNITS, ALL UNITS.” The police scanner barked. “Report of a break-in at M&T Shampoo factory, suspects said to be armed and dangerous, please respond.”

“Break in on the east side. I could use a little warm-up before my rematch.”

The Black Beauty was thrown into the next gear, and sped off.

Nestled in the industrial district of Maretropolis’ east end, the Mane & Tail Shampoo factory loomed silently among the other buildings. Sticking out from the top two floors, was the flashing neon sign that animated a lady dumping their brand of hair product onto her long locks. She’d beaten the police to the scene, and parked her car in a dim alley, throwing a black tarp over it for good measure.

Guarding the inside of the doorway, a very nervous, very sweaty overweight man in a grey turtle neck and ski-mask glanced back to where his two accomplices were busy relieving the supply room of some chemicals.

“Hurry up you guys!” He cursed.

In the room, two other burley men in masks were working together to roll a metal barrel onto a pallet where three others waited.

“Boss said to make sure not to shake these up too much.” One of them grunted, hefting the container onto the wood.

“Something to do with molecules or something.”

“What do you think he’s using this all for?” His partner asked. “Gonna make his own knock off brand?”

“Will you guys just load the stuff on the truck already?” Door Guard brushed the mask against his forehead to soak up the sweat beginning to drip into his eyes. “I don’t wanna be here when the cops show up, or worse that Shadowbolt psycho.”

The others, having put the last barrel in place, stretched their backs out before one of them headed off.

Turning back to his post, Door Guard shivered and stuck his head out to check around the corner.

A python of purple hair coiled around the lower part of his face and lifted him off his feet. He raised his gun but more strands stuffed themselves behind the trigger as his finger squeezed on it, and pinned his hands behind his back.

“What? I don’t even get a mention?” Mane-iac stared him down as she dragged him outside, in her voice was no hint of comedy.

“How many?” She asked. “Not including yourself.”

The man mumbled behind the rope, his brow furrowed in confusion. Not that he could see, Mica rolled her eyes.

“Just… blink.”

Door Guard blinked twice in rapid succession.

His feet kicked a bit as her strands wrapped around his neck, applying pressure to the carotid arteries. Eventually they went limp.

Leaning his back against the barrels, the man who had stayed behind was twiddling a knife between his fingers when a number of tendrils wrapped themselves around his limbs and pulled him up and over the tops. He tried to scream and struggle, but found he was strapped to the containers.

Reaching down, Mane-iac removed the mask, surprised to see who was under it.
“It was one of the same guys from the subway tunnel last night, one of the two who got away.”

“This the second night in a row I run into you guys. Who are you working for?”

“Dunno.” He said, albeit strained under the grip of the hair around his jaw. “Never gave us a name.”

“What does he look like?” She pressed.

“Dunno that neither, never seen him in person. Always talks to us from a TV, keeps himself all shrouded, you know, like one of ‘dem, anonymous whistleblower types.”

“So what do you know?” Lifting him off the barrels, she suspended him upside-down, his long coat slipping down to overreach his hands and head. “What does he want with Shadowbolt?”

A panic began to overtake him as she began to swing him up and down, hoping the vertigo would shake a clear answer loose. “I dunno what he wants with that freak! Swear to god!”

“Swear to me!” Mane-iac barked.

She was about to ratchet-up her powers of persuasion to tumble dry, when she heard the rumble of an engine coming their way. The headlights flashed on at the last second, the forklift about to collide into them.

In a single heartbeat, she flipped her captive out of harm’s way into a stack of plastic tubs and jumped straight up, the ends of the fork bars stabbing right through where she had been. Landing on the roof, she used her tendrils to secure herself, staring straight down at the driver whose startled eyes met hers.
“It was the guy I had cornered in the room, the one I saved from Shadowbolt. I could see the same fear in his eyes.”

He swerved left and right to shake her off, but she clung on despite being pitched like a boat in a storm. Like a spider she crawled over the side and tried to pull him out of the seat.

“Hey! Let go!” The man cried, taking both hands off the steering wheel to fend her off. His attention diverted, no one would blame him for not seeing where the floor dropped four feet at the loading dock.

The prowess of her enhanced vision catching sight of the hazard ahead of time, Mane-iac braced her body to the overhead guard. Driving over the edge, the forks jammed into the concrete, providing the fulcrum as the vehicle continued to somersault. Columns of her hair shot out, creating a series of spokes that supported the forklift and enabled it to roll forward until it landed back down on its wheels.

Crashing into the opposite wall, the driver was flung into his side of the loading backrest. He stumbled out of the cab with a hand on his head, trying to make a break for freedom.

Mane-iac came flying after him with a dropkick, striking him in the back where he sprawled to the floor.

“Whoever your boss is, needs to hire better goons.”

Extracting a pair of handcuffs from the back of her utility belt, she got one wrist secured when something heavy tackled her. They rolled in a heap, white boots reflexively lashing out to kick and catching a big shoulder.

Separating, she realized it was the man she’d tossed into the empty containers, and he was swinging for the fences. Big, meaty fists came at her, but she weaved and countered, landing a blow of her own on his mouth.

While some criminals had a glass jaw, others she had discovered, had jaws of iron. He was one of the latter. The man’s head moved slightly to the side, then snapped back without any noticeable effect. Like a bear he charged and seized her with both hands to the side of her face, trying to crush her skull like a coconut. Her suit could only do so much to deflect the pressure in such a small spot.

Both of her hands dung into the sides of her belt, sliding the fingers into a set of knuckle dusters and unlocking them from their mechanism. She struck upwards, hitting the tip of his left elbow and eliciting a cry of pain, but not dislodging the grip. Again she struck, two more times, and finally he pulled his arm back.

Mane-iac slung her left arm around his right, pinning it into her armpit, and proceeded to land a punch into his breadbasket. His only reaction was to huff, and reach back out to grab her wrist. A normal person would easily be rag-dolled by such a brute, and she could feel the hundred-or-so pounds of muscle straining to control her. But Mane-iac had been through the chemical baptism, increasing her strength to just above peak. Still, it was like wrestling a gorilla.

Amidst a trading of grunts and snarls, she waiting until he tried to press over her, and when he did, she dropped her weight and swiveled her hips into a hasty aikido toss. With him on his back, she transitioned into a mount over his chest, and drove a shot into his left temple to disabuse any violent retaliation, and finished with a short left jab between his eyes to put him out.

Once sedated, she slid off a chest that could span a bed.
“Jeez, was this guy’s father an ox or something?”

The clink of metal bracelets brought her vision up, where she looked directly into the muzzle of what she realized was a forty-caliber pistol. In slow motion she heard the hammer being cocked back and the firing pin preparing to strike the primer.

In a flash a tendril of hair was stuffed down the barrel, the round going off inside the chamber. With nowhere for the bullet to go, the gas was forced elsewhere, and caused the gun to explode, the slide and frame separating violently.

“AAAAHHHHH!” Forklift screeched as the parts went flying, his hand a bloody, misshapen thing. Dropping to his knees and clutching the wrist, he wept. It lasted for all of two seconds before a booted foot cracked his jaw and knocked him out.

Standing over her work, Mane-iac let her heart rate calm back down.

“THERE SHE IS!”

“FREEZE!”

Mica twirled in place to see two policemen leveling their own weapons on her from the doorway to the rest of the factory.

“Shit.” She said to herself as her eye patches widened.

Sprinting out of the supply room the way she had entered, bullets pinging off the walls and two frustratingly fit patrolmen on her tail, Mane-iac dashed around the corner, leaped over the body of Door Guard, and slung herself off the street.

The two policemen, nearly stumbling over the unconscious thug, thought better of their plan and stopped to secure the actual criminals.

Coming down off a low roof and into the alley where she had parked, she came to a stop next to her disguised car. Putting aside the newly acquired aches and pains on top of the old ones, she noticed that something was off about how the tarp looked.

When she removed it, she could have alerted the entire city’s police force with her cursing had she not contained herself.

The Black Beauty, was upside-down.

======================
SATURDAY NIGHT
======================

“Hot as I was after spending every waking hour today restoring Black Beauty to her proper lust and shine, I had to come at things tonight with a cool head.

Not only did I expect there to be a lot of muscle around the mob meeting, I sure as hell expected Shadowbolt to be stalking around somewhere. And there was no way I was going to let him get away from me a second time.”

In the south end of Maretropolis, where the industrial district bled into harbor freight and port shipping facilities, Mane-iac perched her elbows along the guard wall of the dormant parking structure. Spired five-floors off the ground, it provided an ideal place for her to conduct a little recon. The freshly buffed Black Beauty parked behind her, she leaned forward, using her elbows to support the telescope.

“This part of the city was notorious for being a haven for the seedier elements of society. Various labor unions controlled what went on here, in daylight and at night, and being that they were interested in profit and influence over everything else, their turf was often used as neutral territory for the mafia. Not only was tonight one giant mea culpa for the shooting at the restaurant, but it was also serving as a war planning summit. A war on Shadowbolt.”

Below her, the fish cannery had become the center of late-night activity. She scanned the property through the green filter of the night vision, taking mental note of guards, vehicles, access and egress routes.

“A bevy of cars easily as expensive as the Black Beauty were parked around the building, a dozen on my side, more on the opposite. Parked around the area on side streets, were cars of… lesser value. No doubt the hired help and some of the lower ranking crew.”

Several men, dressed in long winter coats over their casual suits and carrying submachine guns hung from slings over their shoulders kept watch from their positions.

“Two men posted at each door, two on the roof with NVG’s, another two guarding the cars that I can see. Probably another two-dozen guns inside to guard the meeting. They’re smart, but they’re underestimating Shadowbolt.”

Ducking behind the wall, Mane-iac folded the scope in half, replacing it in the back of her utility belt.

“And they’re underestimating me.”

One of the guards watching over the vehicles leaned his rump against the wooden guardrail buffering the side of the building, letting the drum magazine of his Thompson rest on his thigh. His lean build shivering slightly under the layers of warm clothing, he adjusted the wool cap.

“Shadowbolt ain’t stupid enough to come here.” He grumbled, his pencil thin mustache contorted in a miserable scowl. “Freezin’ my ass off for nothing.”

The dart stuck into his neck without a sound, the thin grey body with the little poof of red fur on the end injecting the medium dose of sedative into his bloodstream. He raised a hand to feel for the spot, but consciousness left him before the fingers reached.

As his body began to slump, purple tentacles held him up, fixing him into a sitting position on the wooden bar, and propping the weapon across his lap. The shadow of the spot would hide him long enough.

Moving past the sleeping guard, Man-iac pressed her body to the stucco, the hundreds of individual hair ends finding holds to dig themselves into. Crawling up the side of the building, Mane-iac’s hair shimmered in waves like a house centipede, continuously moving upwards with thousands of tiny grips.

The top of her hat, then her eyes popped over the roof, hesitating just long enough to see the two roof guards staring off in different directions. She took the window of opportunity, slinking over the edge and finding the roof access door unlocked. The blow dart pipe raised to her mouth, she watched every move they made as she slowly opened the door, and stepped inside.

“Thank you all for coming gentlemen.” Two long rectangular tables had been pushed together, around them were seated the top Mafioso in Maretropolis. Most of them captains, but sitting at the head, were the three heads of the city’s mob families.

Antonio Ponezetti the godfather of the south end, Ricardo Flankastro, godfather of the north end, and Dominick Stallionato godfather of the west end and most powerful of the three. Together, these men divided the city into three parts, and until recently had maintained a cordial truce of respect and deference.

“I’m glad you all could make it.” Addressing them, was an intermediary, not connected to any of the families, in a grey suit and medium length blond hair, grey eyes peered keenly through his glasses.

Antonio, who had to breathe through a mask attached to an oxygen tank hooked to the back of his wheelchair, glared at the younger man with ire in his black eyes. Ricardo, white hair trimmed with class stewed under his black velvet coat, his bejowled chin a compliment to the prodigious girth of his belly. Dominick, the oldest, silently appraised the speaker. Tiny translucent hairs carpeting his otherwise bald head. He was a wiry old man, years of outwitting his rivals having left him the disposition of an experienced predator, calm and observant.

Smiling, the speaker opened his posture to make himself as non-threatening as possible. “My name is Lukas, my benefactor would like to thank you for taking the time out of your night to-”

“We are old.” Stallionato interrupted with a raised hand and a gentle voice. “Your benefactor is taking what little time we have left, please get to the point.”

Slightly taken off script by the composed yet authoritative directive, the speaker got over his stumbling block and continued with a bowed head of regard.

“Absolutely Don Stallionato. My benefactor understands that you are experiencing a growing problem with this Shadowbolt character. He would like to offer his services in getting rid of him for you.”

“And just who the hell is your benefactor, huh?” Flankastro spat, his personal grudge against the new vigilante shining through.

“He has not authorized me to reveal that information at this time.” The man apologized. “But, he is willing to meet with you all in person once a deal is reached.”

“And what is his price?” Dominick asked, narrowing his gaze.

“Merely some logistical assistance in a minor personal affair that he understands you are well capable of providing.”

Ricardo turned to face his senior. “He wants a favor.”

“Essentially yes.” Lukas admitted. “But one that you can easily afford.”

Stallionato leaned forward in his seat. “What kind of, favor, are we talking about?”

A crack of nervousness broke across Lukas’ face, “Sorry but, again, I am not authorized to reveal that information at this time.”

“Then what are you authorized to do?” An angry Flankastro slammed his fist on the table. “You have one sentence left to stop jerking us around, before we throw you in the Damsire!”

“The Damsire? In this cold?” Mane-iac thought to herself, watching the events below from her spot in the rafters. “That river must be half-frozen over on a night like this.”

Finally stuck for words, the young man was saved by the ringing of the cell phone on the table. Glancing down, he saw the number and snatched it immediately.

“Yes Sir?… You what?… O-okay I-… Alright.”

“Was that him? Yanking on your leash?” Ricardo scoffed.

“Indeed it was.” Lukas said with a tone of disappointment. “He wants to address you himself.”

“He’s here?” The elder Don asked, glancing around the room.

“Not quite.” Bending down, Lukas was grabbing his briefcase when no less than six of the other men at the table got to their feet, reaching inside their jacket breasts.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Putting his free hand in the air for them all to see, he slowly placed the case on the table, and unlocked the latch. “It’s just a tablet.”

Warily, the men eased back into their seats. Lukas took out a white tablet device, and configured the protective case into a triangular support to enable the 10-inch screen to face the paterfamilias. He pressed the power button, and the screen morphed to display the shape of a man in silhouette.

“Hello gentlemen.” The modified voice purred.

“The man on the screen. The one those goons were working for.” Crawling heel-toe across the steel beam, Mane-iac positioned herself to get a better view of the image.

“My associate is not quite used to dealing with such commanding men.” The figure moved little, but had the shape of a man from the waist up sitting at a table. “My deal, is that in exchange for your help, I will deliver Shadowbolt to you within 24-hours.”

Taken aback, the Mafioso looked among each other. Stallionato leaned is face towards the screen and gave the mysterious figure a hard examination.

“You can guarantee this?” He asked.

“Most precisely. The only question is, do you want him dead or alive?”

With strained breathing, Ponezetti removed his breathing mask, hand trembling and face stone cold. His voice was gravely and weak, but still carried a venomous hatred.

“Alive.”

Outside, one of the vehicle guards caught sight of his partner asleep against the wall. Shaking his head, he walked over.

“Wake the hell up Johnny!” A slap on the shoulder brought no response, it only moved the gun to slip limply between the man’s legs.

“What?” Taking a flashlight out of his pocket, the guard shined the light in his partner’s face, seeing now that he was out cold. Closer inspection revealed the dart still embedded in the neck.

“HEY! SOMEBODY’S HERE!”

Word caught on fast and soon the yelling reached the inside, startling the assembled table into a flurry of action. Bodyguards swooped in on their respective leaders and hurried them away and towards the cars.

Lukas, thoroughly terrified, snapped up his tablet, shoved it in the briefcase, and was turning to make his own escape.

He would have made it, if not for the woman in a gold costume and mask who dropped down in front of him.

“I need to talk to your boss.”

Mane-iac seized him by the lapels of his jacket and threw him onto the table. Her hair tendrils secured his wrists and ankles to the surface as she took the briefcase in hand, slamming it down on his abdomen.

“Please no!” He cried, squirming like a cat that didn’t want to be held. “Nobody’s supposed to use that but me!”

“I’ll tell him you’re indisposed.” Opening the briefcase, she grabbed the tablet and turned it on, coming face-to-digital face with the man in black.

At the vehicles, Ricardo Flankastro was huffing his way towards his car, stopping for a moment to brace himself on the hood.

“You two!” He told his men, “Stay here and cover our escape. I’ll send a car for you.”

Unenthused, they nonetheless obeyed and posted themselves to handle anything that came their way.

Flankastro turned and knocked on the driver’s window, where his man was waiting behind the wheel to evacuate him at a moment’s notice. The knock however garnered no response.

Confused and increasingly agitated, Ricardo bent down to start yelling at his driver to unlock the doors, but saw to his fright that he was slumped over in the seat, a rivulet of blood trickling down from a gash in his scalp.

All he could manage was a gasp before something grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face through the glass.

“Mane-iac, it’s so very good to meet you at last.” Mica could hear the smarm in his voice carry through the audio masking. “They always say ladies are much prettier in person.”

“How about we get together then?” She jabbed back. “You tell me all about your plans, and I’ll leave you conscious enough to greet the police.”

“That does sound marvelous, but you simply must bring your little playmate Shadowbolt with you.”

“What do you want with him?” Her tone dropped. “What’s his story?”

“A very terrible one I’m afraid. Though… not as terrible as it will become.”

Dictating that he take a less direct, and therefore predictable escape route, Antonio Ponezetti was being wheeled out of a side door, instead of the more accessible handicap ramp. However, this plan forced them to go through a somewhat narrow hallway. A menacingly dark hallway in the late hour. Two of his men running point rounded a corner, weapons up just to make sure all ahead was clear. The soldier pushing the chair paused, waiting for the signal to progress.

After a few tense seconds, the wave of the arm came, and with a methodical haste, the wheelchair was moving.

They came around the corner, and before they could stop, the chair ran into the downed body of one of the men. Momentum thrusting them onward however, Antonio was pitched out of his seat and atop his fallen guard.

“Christ!” His remaining man yelped, rushing to help his pater back into the chair. With some hurried action, the wheezing Ponezetti was belted into the seat to avoid another spill, and they continued towards the exit, which lay in the form of a glass door not ten meters away.

Half the distance left, Antonio felt the chair jerk backwards, and then the sensation of his man’s hold on the handlebars come away, letting the chair roll on a few more feet. The hallway was too dark to see much of anything around him, except where the ambient light of the outside gleamed off the door.

A hand, a terrifyingly strong hand came around his face and pinned the mask over his mouth and nose. Antonio tried to shake himself loose, but the belt held him in place, and sheer panic confounded his efforts to unbuckle it and claw at the arm at the same time. The presence behind him made no sound, said nothing, offered no final taunt, but there was the sound of the knob of his oxygen tank being turned.

He felt the gas pressure increase instantly, until he couldn’t exhale.

All he could do was watch his reflection in the door writhe, seeing his own horrified eyes staring back at him as he tried to breathe.

“Who are you?” Mane-iac demanded, ready to twist the tablet in half. “What do you want?”

“What I want! Mane-iac…” The surge of anger was stifled just as quickly as it flared. “Ironically enough, is a little recognition.”

Somewhere, up in the top right corner of the screen, a series of flashing lights passed by the corner of a window.

“Now, do be a dear and bring me Shadowbolt before he kills the last of the men capable of helping me.”

Mane-iac’s bewilderment was betrayed by the scrunch of her mask.

“He’s there Mane-iac!” The dark figure exclaimed. “He’s at the facility with you!”

“How do you-” Her question was cut off when the screen went black. Outside, a grown man screamed.

“Shadowbolt’s here? Oh God!” Lukas whined, trying to pull away from her strands.

“Oh be quiet!” Yanking him upright, she laid a forearm across his face, knocking him out.
“He may be a few circuits short of a neural processor, but at least Shadowbolt’s no coward. Hmm... I’ll have to thank Gigan for that phrase.”

Shots rang out, bullets swallowed up by the shadows as Dominick Stallionato’s men encircled him, escorting their patriarch to safety. The men were nervous, reacting to every phantom of movement they perceived.

His time in the army had served him well, given him a tactical mind. Now, his men treated him like one of the VIP’s he’d protected in his youth, providing three-hundred and sixty degree security while moving through hostile territory.

More importantly, it instilled in him a mind that was cool under pressure, didn’t flinch in the face of death, wasn’t afraid of what lurked in the dark.

Police sirens could already be seen coming down the streets, and if they arrived, he knew the chances of Shadowbolt daring to attack would be reduced greatly.

In a few moments they were all loaded into black SUV, doors locked, windows up, and ready to roll.

The vehicle started with a whiplash, not wasting a second in accelerating. They were just about to pull onto the street when Dominick caught a flash of motion outside.

The SUV was struck on its right side, above the rear tire, causing the vehicle to spin so violently, every neck inside snapped to the shoulder. Left side tires found purchase, forcing the momentum to transfer sideways, and send the vehicle onto its flank.

Stallionato watched from a daze as one of his best men, the one who had been on his right, recovered his wits, pulled out his handgun, and stood up to open the door that was now above them. After some muscle and grunting, he managed to force the warped frames apart, and began climbing out to point his weapon at any oncoming threat.

Instead, the rear window was kicked in, not in a shower of bits but as a single pane. An arm reached in, grabbed the man by his shin, and pulled him out kicking and screaming. The screaming only lasted a second longer.

For Dominick, the worst part was always the waiting.

The glass pane was drawn out, and next he felt hands on his shoulders before being dragged back into the frosty night air. But even an old Stallionato still has some fight left in him.

He curled his knees into his chest and kicked out, hitting what his instincts told him was a human jawbone. Unlike the cordite-scented sands of a beach 40 years ago however, these hands didn’t let go. Dragged to his feet, he found himself shoved against the underside of the SUV, returning a hard glare of his own to the one who held him.

“Dominick Stallionato.” Shadowbolt growled, his mouth quivering in rage. “You tried to kill me.”

Author's Notes:

Thanks for coming around for part 3!

Yes, Detective Stephen Langoud is a name reference to the another part of the Amalgam'verse: the Langoud team from: "Humanity's Stand" by BlazingPhoenix17 & Corona_Blaze. I just realized I've been inserting an 'L' in the name, now I've gotta go back and fix it. [le sigh]

NEXT TIME: Part 4, the thrilling conclusion!
Shadowbolt's stunning origin!
Who is the Man on the Screen?
Can Mane-iac withstand the fury of Shadowbolt a 2nd time?
Will Detective Langoud ever get that song out of his head?

Thanks to Tarbtano for his continued allowance of this project and his supervision, making sure I treat his girl right. Make sure to like the story, comment, and check out my main pony project, "The Unforgiven" saga.