Chapter Text
While many would choose an attribute to exemplify their talent, worth, or personality in such a case, the word Timothy Avalon would use to describe himself was unassuming. It might not have been the best choice of words, but it was certainly a true enough descriptor. He didn’t stand out of a crowd, he didn’t go out of his way to make himself known, and at the ripe old age of 22, he had decided that his talents were best served in the personality security business.
He had been financially independent for nearly five years now; having graduated a year early from his high school and not had the funds, resources, or drive to do much else than seek a career. This wasn’t to say he was miserable with his hand in life. After all, not many were able to understand the mechanisms; the circuits and inner workings; the cogs and gears if you will, of most electronic devices.
His station in life was an electronics technician and repairman in a city called Kirkos. A hub when looked up in realty manuals for testimonial was described as metropolitan, advanced, expansive, and high class. The city itself was presented as a pavilion of opportunity; a chrome home for the intellectual, the modern working man and his family. This was what American civilization was building towards since the boom of machination.
However once the shining veneer of the posters and advertisements were chipped enough away, its true face smoldered dark and debauched with the stranglehold of The Empress’ reign. A mayor, a council, and a judiciary resided within white, marble walls; yet there was a queen of crime that drove the city to its highest potential. The word ‘city’ in said descriptor was really more of a formality given that the terms ‘shithole’ and ‘cesspool’ were oft muttered under breaths or screamed from the throats of youths in search of what they deemed better. What they believed they deserved.
It was a spring night teetering on the edge between frost and dew, fog heavy as a curtain draped about the city streets. The moon couldn’t hope to let its glow penetrate the haze; any scurrying pedestrians could only be guided by the streetlamps and any still buzzing neon signs in the shop windows. Timothy was one such pedestrian, becoming accustomed to the chill of nightfall and the maze-like structure of the city streets.
He’d heard that many alleyways served as walkways for those who sought to escape the cold, but only at their own risk. He often heeded the warnings of Kirkos’ dark underbelly and as a result, had avoided any danger in the way of theft, injury, or worse. That was to say that up until that night, Timothy had never had a run-in with the undesirable.
A clatter was heard from a block away; Timothy spun light on his feet in the direction of the noise. His heart plummeted. The complete silence that followed in the wake of the noise was unsettling. On guard, he continued his walk home. It was nearly 3 blocks later that shadows appeared at the edges of his vision; never a welcome sight.
He sped up his pace, pretending as though it was the cold he was escaping and not what he believed to be potential scavengers for the scant goods in his pockets. Soon enough, as he expected, a shadowed figure appeared at the end of the block before his apartment building. Clad in blue and black, he was a follower of a notorious villainess of these streets; Mindfang. He had heard of her exploits; the legions of people who had vanished off the streets by her hand. As expected, when he turned around, there were three more men who had been tracking him.
His blood ran cold. If they had had access to the same resources that she did, he couldn’t hope to leave with his free will intact. As the men began to close in on him, he withdrew a couple of silver-colored marbles from his pocket and threw them behind him, as expected; the simple-minded minions were distracted momentarily as a few red sparks jumped out from the point of impact on the ground.
Timothy flew deftly between the break in their formation and down the street, just trying to get back to his place safely at this point. They had been anticipating an attack, some sort of offense from their prey, but for the moment, the most he could do was run. Soon enough he could hear the footsteps of his assailants pursuing him.
Fuck! He hoped that he was far enough ahead to get inside his apartment.
Thankfully as it turned out he was.
He had yanked out his keys, unlocked the door, and held it shut as he locked it from the inside. He leaned against the door and caught his breath. Was it possible that his second life was seeping over into his primary? It was very possible. This was the first night he had been accosted in civilian garb.
He walked up two flights of stairs in order to reach his apartment. Upon entering, he went straight into his bedroom into the back of his closet. He disrobed from his jade jumpsuit from work and zipped himself into a tight, black uniform. He laced up his worn, but comfortable combat boots and put on a pair of heavy-duty gloves; one red and one blue, thickly insulated, but covered in a conductive membrane.
He pulled on a pair of goggles, red and blue as well, which served to amplify his vision in the dark. On went his white labcoat. While Timothy Avalon hadn’t ever dealt with the likes of Mindfang, The Psionic had.
He locked each of his doors and slid out onto his fire escape, the sound of a whip cracking nearby. Strange. He hadn’t heard a sound like that before. He climbed up further to the roof of the building and peered down into the street in front of his building. To his surprise, the men who had pursued him were lying unconscious at his doorstep. He ran, jumping to the next building, and then to the next, before speeding down the fire escape, off to hunt down the ringleader.
At the bottom of the fire escape, he ran, ducking through back alleys and poorly-lit streets, looking for some sign of Mindfang’s lackeys. With any luck, he would stumble upon some of her men performing a robbery or some such criminal endeavor, and they could in turn lead him to her. Worst-case scenario, he could stop some crimes.
Eventually he ended up in the Electronics district, all but abandoned at this hour. Here he made a wrong turn.
A very wrong turn.
The Psionic found himself face-to-face with eight shifty characters ransacking a shop. A quick appraisal told the Psionic all he needed to know; a bloodied body lay sprawled against a stock shelf, one man was emptying a cash register, another seemed to be looting a safe, and six more were loading top-end hardware into a van.
His blood boiled at the sight before him. If he wanted to find where the Queen Spider laid in wait, he would have to allow himself to be captured. He took a breath and kicked a nearby garbage caan as loudly as he could.
Each of the felons whipped their heads to them. Four of those loading the van dropped their loads and advanced, menacingly. One coughed loudly, causing a distraction, and two others bum-rushed the Psionic.
Ignoring the distraction, The Psionic ducked back and socked the man on his right with all his strength. He wasted no time in turning and delivering another punch to the second man. Only momentarily stunned, the men staggered back.
The other two rushed forward, ready for blood, and the other four dropped their work and rushed to join them.
The Psionic inhaled sharply, throwing punches as accurately as he could manage, but becoming quickly overpowered by the mob.
The largest of them delivered a sharp slam to the back of the Psionic's head, stunning him briefly. He was loaded into the van and held down by two of the goons, as the stolen goods and injured thugs and injured thugs were dragged on board. "Back to hideout," said one to the driver, as another muttered, "I think I seen dis guy before. Dis the hero shit they been talkin' about on the news? Psionic or some shit? Mindfang'll be happy when she gets her hands on dis mug."
The Psionic made a show of struggling against the other men, but was secretly thrilled that he wasn't as injured as he could have been. And they were bringing him exactly where he needed to go.
---
An arm was in the grip of two different minions who forced him to walk through the darkened streets until they reached their destination. The docks were the natural locale if one wanted to hide in plain sight. Carbon-copy buildings in rows slowly rusting in the dirty, brine-soaked air. If one were considered still the most silver of these buildings, it might be the one that The Psionic was currently situated before.
As the doors parted, what was a low rumble became a rolling roar of voices and sound from within. Dozens, perhaps even a hundred people, all clad in blue were chattering and roaming the floors of the warehouse. Luxurious fabrics of navy and cerulean swaddled the walls, white lights buzzed in corners, but only snapped to full brightness when the hero was escorted inside and dropped before the mistress of this syndicate.
Spinneret Mindfang, the Marquise of Crime herself, sat upon her throne, attended by a dozen willing goons and scores of mind-controlled slaves. Her laughter pealed through the cavernous warehouse, bell-clear and bawdy, "Hahaha! What have we here, a little fly has fallen into my web?"
She was a vision of blue and black, long boots and silk, only serving to accentuate the pale patches of thigh and neck and breast that lay bare. Her hair tumbled as a river, sleek and wild and as black as her soul, as she leaned forward, chin in he hand, to regard the captured hero. "What brings this tasty little fly before an army of spiders, then?"
The man behind The Psionic grumbled, "This fucker was off and causing trouble in our ranks in the Electronics district." The Psionic remained prone, staring up at the sharp-tongued woman speechlessly.
Mindfang waved her informant forward with an idle turn of her hand, "Trouble? This little shit?" She eyed the Psionic, lean and trapped and surrounded by her minions. He hardly looked like he could cause any kinks in her plans.
The young man rose an eyebrow as a spotlight popped on above him, casting shadows from his hair, the edges of his goggles, and the ridges of his coat. A chuckle rose from the hero, "Funny how you assume anything caught in your web is prey, Mindfang!"
"No? What, you just came to sign up, then? So much the better; you just got drafted! Hahahahahahahaha!" Mindfang raised her hands to her temples, focusing on the Psionic, sending the tendrils of her control into his mind.
Before the control could reach him, he let loose a burst of electricity from his hands, red and blue streaking from each glove respectively, jolting and knocking back each man who had held him still.
The men released him, stumbling backwards. One blinked and shook his head, looking around as if he had no understanding of where he was nor how he got there. He ran for the door, followed shortly by the other.
The Marquise was incensed, "How dare you? How? No matter, I'll get you this time!" She once more set to work, bending him to her will.
The Psionic looked back briefly at the men as they escaped, before his eyes were set upon her once again, "Over my dead body!" He lifted an arm and red lightning broke apart the spotlight above his head, leaving him in the dark as he ducked away from her sight, hiding in the shadows.
Mindfang screeched, "Find him! Get him! Make him pay!"
The horde began to shuffle, turning and looking around, as a handful of her willing goons ducked about and began to search the building properly.
The Psionic smirked in the shadows and jerked his right hand forward, her throne crumbling to pieces beneath her as she sat.
Mindfang fell atop the uncomfortable pile of rubble, "That little shit! Find him! Bring him to me and I'll grind his bones to dust and make cats' cradles of his intestines! And if he's very, very lucky I'll kill him first!"
The Psionic laughed at her rage, broken down from prideful and arrogant to a screaming child in a matter of minutes. It occurred to him that he had made those two other men flee with his psionic lightning; if he managed to shock everyone in here, would her army dissipate? How could he possibly shock everyone at once?
He then looked back at the screaming Mindfang. What if he just shocked her? He took a risk and slinked through the edges of the shadows until he was close enough to the stage upon which she was seated.
Mindfang raged, managing finally to extract herself from the rubble pile of her once beautiful throne. She was on her hands and knees, great tentacles of hair trailing on the floor behind her, blue-painted lips contorted as she cursed and ranted at her mind-locked minions.
Mindfang turned and spotted the Psionic. Her lips quirked up in a grin as she reached out with her mind, taking control of him.
His breath caught suddenly, a cold claw working its way up the back of his skull, numbing the inside of his head, causing his hands to shake and twitch uncontrollably. What-what was happening to him? He panted, glaring contemptuously up at the raven-haired witch as the life began to fade from his eyes.
Mindfang cackled, "Ha! Take that! Now, what will I do with you? Walk you off a building and watch you splatter across the pavement? Keep you as my personal slave? Find everyone else whose day you shat on and sell you to the highest bidder? Or maybe just make you fry out your own eyeballs...oh, decisions, decisions..."
As a last ditch effort, he lifted his twitching left hand up at her as he placed his right hand to the back of his neck and with a choked grunt, shocked himself as well as shot blue lightning straight at her exposed chest.
The air was no longer stale or thick in his lungs as he panted, sight coming back clear as he coughed.
Mindfang was knocked back by the blast, hitting her head on a chunk of her throne, and suddenly the room was filled with confused exclamations and drowsy-headed civilians.
Mindfang's control had been broken by the blast, and a mob of former slaves made for the doors.
The Psionic made his way to his feet groggily, sight rendered askew by his free will suddenly returning to him at once, "Your army has sufficiently dwindled, hasn't it, spider queen?"
Mindfang rubbed the back of her head, and spat, "This isn't over, piece-of-shit lighting bug!" She drew a smoke flare from her pocket and broke it in two. Thick blue smoke billowed out, obscuring all.
The Psionic carelessly ran into the smoke in the hopes that he could catch her before she could escape, but found it was too late. By the time he had even gotten on the stage proper, the Marquise was gone. He was left standing alone on the upraised platform with not a sound in his ears but his own panting breath. He supposed this could qualify as a victory, if only for the fact that he had liberated what was probably a few dozen people from her mind control.
With his left hand, he shot out a bolt of blue lightning, watching the pieces of the spotlight he had shattered reassemble before his eyes for his own amusement. He jumped back onto the floor and made his way to the entrance once more, out into the dark night.
If he had any word in it, heroics weren't dead.