“Holy Jesus, Mary mother of God…” The woman had already made the sign of the cross and was kneeling before a huge man wearing an executioner’s hood and carrying a sledgehammer.
They called him Sledgehammer, which was pretty obvious. He worked the far docks end of Westside, where even heroes didn’t dare to go.
The three Aces looked uncomfortable with the woman there, but Sledgehammer didn’t seem to mind. “Strip her,” he said. All three of them looked at each other.
“Hey, babushka, I don’t wanna be part of a rape.”
Sledgehammer tilted his head. “I meant her money, stupid.”
The woman tossed her purse at them. “It’s all in there.”
Sledgehammer didn’t get off on rapes. He got off on crushing skulls. He raised his sledgehammer to do just that to the woman when out of nowhere, something barreled into his chest like a truck, sending him flying into the wall so hard that he cracked it. He dropped the hammer and was momentarily stunned.
“Ha!” said a voice, and the three Aces already started to run into the deeper end of the docks. A young man, just a little more than a boy, dressed almost entirely in black with a silver chest plate, stood proudly behind the woman. “Thought you could steal this poor woman’s money, huh?” The young man in black walked over to the purse, and, with a flourish, handed it back to the woman. “The name is Starcrowe.”
“Thank you – look out!”
The young man turned and faced the oncoming blow of a sledgehammer to the head. The young man froze, like a deer in headlights. The hammer came right at him – and then was knocked away and back at the last second.
Starcrowe stood frozen still, as he heard the whine of missiles coming from behind him. Dum-dum bullets flashed past him, as the woman screamed and ducked. A plasma beam slashed at the sledgehammer, breaking the head in two.
Sledgehammer, the man, raised his arms up in surrender. He was covered in soot and bleeding from a hundred tiny bullets and missiles. None of the missiles were meant to do more than aggravate and make him bleed, so he wasn’t in danger of losing blood.
Starcrowe heard his name, as if from a great distance. Then he felt something heavy on his shoulders, and his eyes focused on a gold and green helmet. “Are you okay?”
Starcrowe only nodded. The green and gold armored young man then turned and helped the woman to her feet. “Why don’t you escort her safely home? I’ll take care of things here.”
“What’s your name?” the woman asked.
The man in power armor shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Starcrowe slowly started getting to a slow boil. He was supposed to be lead on this team, and now Power Shift was taking over for him. How dare he give him orders?
“I’ll stay,” said Starcrowe, trying to keep the snarl out of his voice.
Power Shift looked from Sledgehammer to the woman. “Sure,” he said, and turned to the woman. “How far away do you live?”
As Power Shift left, Starcrowe then turned with a malicious grin to Sledgehammer. “Gonna handle me?” the man asked, and then started laughing. “You fuckin’ pissed your pants, you were so scared.”
He had, in fact. Starcrowe blushed deep red and snarled, “Shut up. He probably would have done the same thing. Besides, I don’t need a teammate.”
“Surrrre.”
“Shut up, I said, or I’ll make you shut up!” Starcrowe started to advance.
“What’re you gonna do, hero? Pull my tongue out?”
“Wouldn’t that be a good start?”
Someone coughed behind him. He turned to see four policemen standing there, all of them with their arms crossed and looking disapprovingly at Starcrowe. Starcrowe bowed his head and backed away from Sledgehammer.
“Please save me from this vigilante!” said Sledgehammer, and started laughing. The four cops cuffed him and started to take him away, all without saying a word to Starcrowe.
How dare they give him dirty looks? He knew what he was doing. So what if he had a moment of weakness. It would never happen again.
“I’m going to the base to change,” he said into the comm that was the ring he wore. “I think we’re done for the day.”