Where fall the gods ... - Part 4

City morgue, Downtown.

Police Chief Jim Watson stared at the report in his hands, smoothing down the moustache that made him look older than he was. He flipped over the page and scowled at the harsh lighting before rummaging in his pocket for his spectacles. The glare only added to the stress migraines that came thick and fast in this job. He never thought he would see this day, but here it was. He sighed as his phone rang.

"Watson." He had heard all the jokes, asking him where the consulting detective was, but he didn't mind too much. The worst shifts given out usually put paid to that. "What? No, it can't be ... I know it can't be, because I'm looking at the body right now."

He stared through the glass into the morgue as the ME performed her grisly work. He couldn't say that he knew the body on the table was Black Staff because he had met the man many times. Over the years, they had forged a tense relationship, but Watson had closed more cases with the vigilante's help than he could count. That relationship had to remain a secret. One that Black Staff would now take to the grave.

"No. The same rules apply. If you can catch the guy, you do." He looked at his watch. All this had made him late for dinner with Misha, his daughter. His only child. "Whoever this is, it's not Black Staff, but they're still a vigilante. We do not condone vigilantes in this city. Keep me appraised."

Another sigh escaped his lips and he hitched up the spectacles to rub his eyes. It was going to be a long night and that dinner with Misha would have to wait. He flicked through his contacts to his daughter's name and started the call. Black Staff or not, this new vigilante looked like they were going to only add to his migraines.

-+-

Caitlyn tried not to look down as she tapped on the window in the soot blackened apartment building wall. The staff had faded away, but she still had more than enough problems to deal with and she only had one person she could talk to. A light came from inside and Alaina's face appeared at the window. Without a second thought, she tugged the window up, sticking her head out and looking down.

"You're flying! Oh, my god! You're actually flying!" With a wave of the hand, Alaina urged Caitlyn into her room. "I can't believe you're Black Staff! My best friend!"

"I'm not Black Staff. And I'm not flying. It's, sorta, fast floating." It took a little effort, but Caitlyn managed to squeeze through the gap. "I can't get this off. It's stuck to me. I need your help, Alaina. You're my only hope."

"Reference! I got it!" Alaina laughed, stepping back, eyes wide as Caitlyn hovered before her. "So cool. Literally the coolest thing ever. Cooler than that. What is it made of? Rubber? Kink to max!"

Alaina prodded Caitlyn's arm and then, for good measure, prodded it again, making a jump and giggling. Beyond the door to Alaina's room, the sound of uproarious applause came from a too-loud tv. A game show played, Alaina's mom and dad shouting out the wrong answers to questions that even Caitlyn heard. In fact, she seemed to hear everything as clear as though she stood next to the tv itself.

"This isn't funny!" She grabbed the material of the thing that covered her, tugging and scratching at it. "I can't go home like this! Scissors, a box cutter knife. Something. Please, Alaina, I need to go home. Aunt Mary'll be having kittens."

"Oh, it'll be fine. I told her you've become a superhero and she was cool with it. Said you should try not to get hurt." The serious look upon Alaina's face broke down almost immediately and she curled over with laughter. "Nah. I said you were fine and that I was scared and that you'd agreed to stay here tonight. To comfort me. Because I was 'scared'. She bought it."

As she talked, Alaina rummaged through her drawers, tossing all kinds of things over her shoulder onto her already messy bed. Hair ties, strings of beads, sanitary towels, weird plush toys that Caitlyn wondered why Alaina had stuffed them into drawers. After a few more drawers, underwear arcing over her shoulder to land on the bed, Alaina made a 'aha' and brandished an enormous hunting knife.

"I'm not even going to ask." She floated backward, away from the blade that she didn't entirely trust in Alaina's hand, wishing she could actually stop floating and stand on the floor like a normal person. "Just ... just be careful."

Alaina rolled her eyes, tugged a good grip of the material away from Caitlyn's arm and thrust the tip of the knife against it. The knife failed to even catch a thread, but that didn't stop Alaina. Tongue poking from the side of her mouth, a look of intense concentration passed over her features and she tried several more ways to cut into the material. None worked. When Alaina began sawing at the material with the serrated top edge, Caitlyn pushed the knife away.

"Well, that's it, then. You're stuck like that forever. How will you eat through that mask? How can you see through it? Is it like a two-way mirror on all those cop shows? Does it smell? I bet it smells." She wrinkled her nose at the thought before brandishing the knife again, nonchalantly. "Have you tried, you know, thinking it away? That's a superhero thing, right? Principle's powers work by thinking. I read it somewhere. Hold on."

Returning to her bed, Alaina began to dig into all the things she had only moments ago tossed on to it, along with everything else she had there in the first place. Caitlyn loved Alaina, but she was a hot mess. After several 'grrs' and sighs, Alaina pulled out her tablet, taking the weirdly stiff sock from the surface and dropping it back on the bed.

She sat down, her fingers moving like lightning across the face of the tablet. Several times, she paused, making 'ooh' sounds as she turned the tablet to show Caitlyn footage of her fight with the Professor, before frowning as she began to read the sites she had searched for. Several head scratches later, she shrugged, tossing the tablet back on the bed and looking up at Caitlyn as though she expected her to say something.

"Well?" Caitlyn bobbed up and down. In the room outside, she heard the news on the tv, talking about the return from death of Black Staff. "Anything?"

"Oh, yeah. Lots. I mean, lots!" She rolled her eyes, leaning back on her arms and studying Caitlyn. How she could remain so calm, Caitlyn didn't know. Then again, it was Alaina. "Too much, really. Let me see. When monster dude was going to hit you, you made a shield thingy. What were you thinking when you did that?"

"'Please, god, don't let me die'?" Another roll of the eyes from Alaina and Caitlyn started to understand why parents and guardians hated it. "I thought about being protected because a big-ass fist was coming to smash my brains in, okay? I just thought ... oh."

She had. She had thought about being protected and, when the Professor had hit her in the back, she had, in the back of her mind, wished for something that could stop her getting hurt. That was when this thing, this 'suit' had appeared from nowhere. Just like the staff had appeared from nowhere when she scrambled to find something to hit the Professor with. Every time, it had taken a thought. A specific thought. Up to now, Caitlyn had only wondered how to rid herself of this stuff.

Alaina kicked her legs as she sat on her, frankly disgusting, bed, as though sat on a swing, watching as Caitlyn worked through everything in her mind that fought for her attention. Worry about Aunt Mary, about Professor Halstrom, about her new internship, that she totally had to tell Alaina about, and a million, billion other things that raced through her mind. She had to tune it all out and make some very specific thoughts.

As she had stood outside the apartments, she had looked up to Alaina's window, wishing she could get up there without anyone seeing her. That was how she had started floating and, now, she wanted to stop that. That was all it took. A single thought and she lowered to the floor and almost fell to her knees to kiss it. After seeing Alaina's bed, however, she wasn't putting her lips anywhere near that carpet, not even through the mask of the suit.

That was the next thing. A thought. A single thought. Clear. Unmistakeable. She wanted to take off the suit. As soon as she thought it, her view changed. She hadn't realised how different things looked through that mask. It hadn't blinded her, but it had looked different, sharper. Likewise, the noises from the tv became a little more muffled. She looked down at her arms and legs and saw her own clothing. Reached up to her hair and found the mask hadn't made a complete mess of it.

"Aww. With how tight it was, I kinda expected you to be naked underneath." Alaina's lip curled in disappointment, her head tilting as she took a closer look at Caitlyn's chest. "It squashed your boobs, too. You were flat and now you're bouncy and perky again. Yay boobs!"

Alaina threw her hands in the air as though carrying cheerleader pompoms and then fell back on the bed. After all the worry, Alaina's more simple way of looking at things had helped after all, proving Caitlyn was right to come here. After all, where else could she have gone? Who else could she have confided in? Aunt Mary? Certainly not! If anyone deserved to be free of that kind of worry, it was Aunt Mary.

And that only made Caitlyn desperate to get home and hold Aunt Mary in her arms. No matter what Alaina had said, Caitlyn knew that Aunt Mary would do nothing but worry until Caitlyn returned home. And, if Caitlyn were forced to admit it, she had no intention of sleeping in that bed with Alaina. Even the thought made a shiver run up her spine, thinking it a cockroach from that mess of a bed.

She had to go home and, when she got there, she had to think about this crazy suit, or whatever, that appeared to have attached itself to her. How to get rid of it, for a start, and how to keep it a secret until she did. The news was already saying Black Staff was alive and Black Staff had a lot of enemies. Enemies that would think nothing of killing Aunt Mary, should they believe that Caitlyn was Black Staff.