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Title: In Which Helena is a Hero
Series: Helena and Shelby
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1139
Summary: Shelby has been kidnapped. Helena is not pleased.
Notes: Prompt was to give somebody superpowers; was working on a page limit, so it ends kind of abruptly. While trying to come up with a street address, I Googled something along the lines of 'menacing words beginning with h'.
There's a killer on the loose and Shelby's gone missing. I don't suppose it's excruciatingly difficult to connect the dots on this one. I don't suppose anyone would be stupid enough to ask if I've checked the bathroom or tried her on her cell. I don't suppose there's a person in the world who's enough of an idiot to suggest that this might some big honking coincidence. And, if there were, I would say, yeah, I have, and no, it isn't and then maybe kick them in the head. It's pretty much a given at this point that the reason Shelby's gone missing while we were on the trail of a murderous psychopath is that said psychopath decided it would be a swell idea to just abduct her.
Well, he's wrong, and I am not happy.
Brian is our tech guy who moonlights as our hippie scifi guy. Brian suggests that the best way to go about finding Shelby would be to seek out her aura and draw it to me. I suggest that Brian is incorrect. Brian suggests that if I'm not going to use my superpower I should give it to someone else. I suggest that it's not a superpower, it doesn't work like that, and he should give me something real to work with before I superpower his ass into next week. Brian suggests I hang on a minute and he'll see what he can come up with.
And so I hang out in Brian's living room, with the cat hair and the coffee stains, while he mutters his way into the bedroom and I consider prompting the cat to pee on something important. But fuck if I can tell what's important in his mess of an apartment and, anyway, it would be kind of ridiculously petty to risk death-by-cat-scratch for the momentary satisfaction of tormenting Brian. Though it is pretty tempting.
I'm reminded of why I haven't kicked his face in yet when Brian gets me something real; the location of the basement where Psycho Killer's prone to keeping his prey and, logically, where he's got Shelby. 0600 Hadeharia Hollow. 'Hadeharia', for those lucky bastards who don't hang out with people who do crossword puzzles, meaning 'constant use of the word 'hell''. Great.
I'm kind of curious as to why, if this information's so easily attainable, he didn't give it to us ten hours ago, before Shelby got grabbed, but not curious enough to ask. It's kind of the order of the universe at this point; if one of hasn't been imperiled, it's not over. Last week it was me tied up in a room with a guillotine and a neo-Nazi, before that it was Shelby and her little adventure with the plague. This shit would be hysterical if it weren't happening to me.
By the time I get to the house on Hadeharia Hollow, there's a nice, atmospheric fog rolling in. Don't you just love it when your life conforms to cliches? And get this – 0600 Hadeharia Lane is a big, rambling farm house, half caved in in the back and covered in thorny, creepy-ass vines. You couldn't make this shit up, except you could only make this shit up. It doesn't happen in real life, unless you happen to be cursed.
I head in, feeling more pissed off than creeped out, and the exaggerated creaking of the door doesn't do much for my mood. It's times like this I wish I carried a gun. (Why don't I carry a gun? Shelby carries a gun. Oh, that's right; I'm not the one who likes shooting stuff. And they call her the nice one.)
I kick the first flunky to come at me in the face and the second one in the balls. The third one makes a run for it and I let her go. With any luck she'll take a lesson from this. Whether it's 'committing crimes is bad' or 'committing crimes within three hundred miles of Helena and Shelby is unwise' doesn't matter much. If she doesn't, I'll get another chance to kick her face in sooner or later. Maybe she'll do something cool, like try to wreak a great and terrible vengeance on us for defeating her master. Those are always fun.
I get down to the basement without any more trouble and stand at the bottom of the steps, ready to face off with the Big Bad of the week. He's got Shelby, who looks tired and irritated and filthy, chained to a wall, and faces me in jeans and a plaid shit. Pity. I was pulling for dramatic black robes and Shelby in a Leia-esque gold bikini. Got the baldness right, though. Guy's trying to look like he shaved it, but there's hasn't been growth up there in years, poor bastard.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me?” I ask.
He pulls a pretty wicked knife out of his belt and brandishes it at Shelby, who just scowls, and starts in on his spiel. She's mine, you'll never stop me, you fool, you're too late, blah, blah blah. I've heard it all before, nothing new here, so I don't even bother tuning in. I just reach out and – ha, ha, right in one – I push. He stutters and I push harder. Turns red, and, yeah, I got it, just a little more and – down for the count. He's bright red, crying a little, pain, anger, and humiliation mingling in his face. I've got Shelby out of the chains and him into them in two minutes, tops.
As we're leaving, she asks, “What did you do?” and I suggest we call him Napoleon. She cringes.
“Helena de Soto,” she says, “did you just inflame that poor man's hemorrhoids?”
I grin at her. “With my mind.”
She shakes her head and slips her arm through mine as we step out into the suddenly fogless night air. “You could have done anything,” she says. “Knocked him out, seized his muscles, made him too weak to stand. And yet you go for the hemorrhoids.”
“Well, it worked, didn't it?” She shoves me, a little, and I add, “Come on, Koko, where's the fun in controlling bodily functions if you don't – control bodily functions?”
She shakes her head, again. “You're like a child.”
“A child who saved your life,” I tell her. “Now you're buying dinner.”
“Need I remind you I've been in the clutches of a crazed murderer for the past – ” She checked her watch. “Five hours?”
“Need I remind you that I just rescued you from the clutches of the crazed murderer who's been holding you for the past four hours thirty-nine minutes?”
Then she laughed, and hit me, and that was pretty much that. I win.
Series: Helena and Shelby
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1139
Summary: Shelby has been kidnapped. Helena is not pleased.
Notes: Prompt was to give somebody superpowers; was working on a page limit, so it ends kind of abruptly. While trying to come up with a street address, I Googled something along the lines of 'menacing words beginning with h'.
There's a killer on the loose and Shelby's gone missing. I don't suppose it's excruciatingly difficult to connect the dots on this one. I don't suppose anyone would be stupid enough to ask if I've checked the bathroom or tried her on her cell. I don't suppose there's a person in the world who's enough of an idiot to suggest that this might some big honking coincidence. And, if there were, I would say, yeah, I have, and no, it isn't and then maybe kick them in the head. It's pretty much a given at this point that the reason Shelby's gone missing while we were on the trail of a murderous psychopath is that said psychopath decided it would be a swell idea to just abduct her.
Well, he's wrong, and I am not happy.
Brian is our tech guy who moonlights as our hippie scifi guy. Brian suggests that the best way to go about finding Shelby would be to seek out her aura and draw it to me. I suggest that Brian is incorrect. Brian suggests that if I'm not going to use my superpower I should give it to someone else. I suggest that it's not a superpower, it doesn't work like that, and he should give me something real to work with before I superpower his ass into next week. Brian suggests I hang on a minute and he'll see what he can come up with.
And so I hang out in Brian's living room, with the cat hair and the coffee stains, while he mutters his way into the bedroom and I consider prompting the cat to pee on something important. But fuck if I can tell what's important in his mess of an apartment and, anyway, it would be kind of ridiculously petty to risk death-by-cat-scratch for the momentary satisfaction of tormenting Brian. Though it is pretty tempting.
I'm reminded of why I haven't kicked his face in yet when Brian gets me something real; the location of the basement where Psycho Killer's prone to keeping his prey and, logically, where he's got Shelby. 0600 Hadeharia Hollow. 'Hadeharia', for those lucky bastards who don't hang out with people who do crossword puzzles, meaning 'constant use of the word 'hell''. Great.
I'm kind of curious as to why, if this information's so easily attainable, he didn't give it to us ten hours ago, before Shelby got grabbed, but not curious enough to ask. It's kind of the order of the universe at this point; if one of hasn't been imperiled, it's not over. Last week it was me tied up in a room with a guillotine and a neo-Nazi, before that it was Shelby and her little adventure with the plague. This shit would be hysterical if it weren't happening to me.
By the time I get to the house on Hadeharia Hollow, there's a nice, atmospheric fog rolling in. Don't you just love it when your life conforms to cliches? And get this – 0600 Hadeharia Lane is a big, rambling farm house, half caved in in the back and covered in thorny, creepy-ass vines. You couldn't make this shit up, except you could only make this shit up. It doesn't happen in real life, unless you happen to be cursed.
I head in, feeling more pissed off than creeped out, and the exaggerated creaking of the door doesn't do much for my mood. It's times like this I wish I carried a gun. (Why don't I carry a gun? Shelby carries a gun. Oh, that's right; I'm not the one who likes shooting stuff. And they call her the nice one.)
I kick the first flunky to come at me in the face and the second one in the balls. The third one makes a run for it and I let her go. With any luck she'll take a lesson from this. Whether it's 'committing crimes is bad' or 'committing crimes within three hundred miles of Helena and Shelby is unwise' doesn't matter much. If she doesn't, I'll get another chance to kick her face in sooner or later. Maybe she'll do something cool, like try to wreak a great and terrible vengeance on us for defeating her master. Those are always fun.
I get down to the basement without any more trouble and stand at the bottom of the steps, ready to face off with the Big Bad of the week. He's got Shelby, who looks tired and irritated and filthy, chained to a wall, and faces me in jeans and a plaid shit. Pity. I was pulling for dramatic black robes and Shelby in a Leia-esque gold bikini. Got the baldness right, though. Guy's trying to look like he shaved it, but there's hasn't been growth up there in years, poor bastard.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me?” I ask.
He pulls a pretty wicked knife out of his belt and brandishes it at Shelby, who just scowls, and starts in on his spiel. She's mine, you'll never stop me, you fool, you're too late, blah, blah blah. I've heard it all before, nothing new here, so I don't even bother tuning in. I just reach out and – ha, ha, right in one – I push. He stutters and I push harder. Turns red, and, yeah, I got it, just a little more and – down for the count. He's bright red, crying a little, pain, anger, and humiliation mingling in his face. I've got Shelby out of the chains and him into them in two minutes, tops.
As we're leaving, she asks, “What did you do?” and I suggest we call him Napoleon. She cringes.
“Helena de Soto,” she says, “did you just inflame that poor man's hemorrhoids?”
I grin at her. “With my mind.”
She shakes her head and slips her arm through mine as we step out into the suddenly fogless night air. “You could have done anything,” she says. “Knocked him out, seized his muscles, made him too weak to stand. And yet you go for the hemorrhoids.”
“Well, it worked, didn't it?” She shoves me, a little, and I add, “Come on, Koko, where's the fun in controlling bodily functions if you don't – control bodily functions?”
She shakes her head, again. “You're like a child.”
“A child who saved your life,” I tell her. “Now you're buying dinner.”
“Need I remind you I've been in the clutches of a crazed murderer for the past – ” She checked her watch. “Five hours?”
“Need I remind you that I just rescued you from the clutches of the crazed murderer who's been holding you for the past four hours thirty-nine minutes?”
Then she laughed, and hit me, and that was pretty much that. I win.