Nightingale

With Ben’s gym guarded by her new allies, Nightingale prowled the other rooftops in town. The Peacekeepers wouldn't need to search very hard to find a superhuman business to target, assuming it was them. They usually stayed away from haven towns because they were afraid to chance retaliation.

Of course, the Peacekeepers could have been scapegoats and the attacks motivated by something different. It seemed like a bit too much effort for that to be the case.

She found two suspicious individuals watching the glass on Juliet Emery’s shop. They were both bigger than her, though one was the same height, and spiked bats with intent to break something. She perched above them, watching.

Think I found something. The range on her telepathy wasn’t much, but if Diamond was searching for her, that might make the distance. It depended on how powerful Diamond was.

One of the vandals hit the window, shattering it. That seemed like a cue.

“Didn’t your mothers teach you better than this?” she asked as she jumped down in front of them.

The shorter one swung at her immediately, but she ducked under the shot, sliding between them so they were aimed at the street instead of the building. She might have been better off in the more enclosed space, but they would be far worse if they grabbed anything in Juliet’s shop.

I’d gladly take backup right about now, she admitted.

The bigger one aimed for her legs. She jumped. The smaller one smacked her while she was in the air, knocking her all the way to the ground.

“She’s one of them,” he growled.

“One of what?” she asked.

She didn’t get an answer as she had to roll away from a hit that would’ve gotten her head. She kicked the bigger one in the shin, which brought him to one knee.

She took the distraction to stand and pull her staff out, aiming for his temple.

The smaller one parried with his bat, reminding her of the price of a lighter weight weapon. She made good use of it when he aimed for her head, though it left the middle of it dented.

“What are you doing here?” she asked through gritted teeth.

He kept forcing the bat down, too much pressure for her to pull away. The bigger one took a shot for her side. She crumbled a bit as she felt what would definitely be a bruise tomorrow.

If she stayed in one place, this was going to be a bad time, but if she put any less focus on her staff, the bat was going to smack her in the face, hard. She had to time this right.

The big one was aiming for her arm this time. She gave a mental countdown before ducking into a ball so the weapons hit each other, sending their wielders off balance.

She collapsed her staff, putting all her force into the smaller one’s gut. He collapsed.

Now she just had one opponent.

The big one swung before she was ready, scraping her arm enough to bleed. She steeled herself to stop the next hit, tangling her collapsed staff into the nails of the bat, letting her toss it away.

“Do I have to kick your ass, or are you gonna turn yourself in.”

He entered a defensive stance. She wasn’t going to attack a prepped opponent, not when they were that much bigger than her.

She was grabbed from behind, and suddenly she couldn’t do anything. Every fighting part of her brain stopped as her memories moved too fast for her to keep up.

She got knocked to the ground as he let go, then hit again before she could get up. She didn’t want to get up.

“Stay where you are,” Diamond threatened, Nightingale felt her hovering above her, though not quite right, “We’re coming to get you.”

The damage was mostly superficial. All Nightingale’s bones were intact, and a few bruises were all that marked the damage to her pride.The damage was mostly superficial. All Nightingale’s bones were intact, a few scrapes and bruises all that marked the damage to her pride.

“I almost had them.”

Diamond tightened the bandage around her arm.

“No, they almost had you. You could’ve been killed. The only reason you weren’t killed is because I freaked them out too much to finish the job.”

“Who knows what might have happened if you hadn’t held your own for that long?” Stranger added.

“Thank you for the save,” Nightingale admitted, “And for patching me up, without taking me to a hospital.”

“You’ll probably still want a tetanus shot,” Diamond admitted.

“Yes, nurse.”

“Doctor,” Diamond corrected before shaking her head, “Not doctor.”

“Purge?” Mandie asked. Only about a year ago, someone had leaked every file on psychics any xenology lab had, along with any related identities. Mandie hadn’t been hit too hard, but anyone with higher education had their degree revoked. She’d met a few people looking for alternative employment.

“Take her home,” Diamond answered, “This discussion is over.”

“Shouldn’t we share information?” Nightingale asked.

“There’s two of them,” Diamond said, “They attacked Emery’s magic shop until they kicked your ass. What else is there?”

“One of them identified me as one of them.”

“You’re in a haven town and can sneak up on people at night wearing all white. I knew you were superhuman before I had him grab the camera.”

“Why did you attack me, then?”

“We didn’t,” Stranger said, “All we did was take your camera and threaten its existence if you didn’t come down. We just wanted to talk.”

“Next time you want to talk, don’t start with threats.”

“Snippy.”

She leveled a glare at Stranger.

“Recover,” Diamond ordered, “Get your look together, maybe something less flashy, and we can meet up tomorrow night. I doubt they’ll do much in the light of day.”

Mandie didn’t like the idea of doing nothing.

“I’ll take you home,” Stranger offered, “Or at least drop you off where you want me to.”

“I don’t get in Strangers’ cars.” She could still walk. She knew the way back to her apartment.

“Good thing we won’t be driving,” Stranger said.

Between the wind against her, Stranger’s tight hold to keep her from falling, and the intense focus not to look down, Mandie didn’t say much on the way home. She’d never flown like this before, or been carried this long by someone who could fly. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to again.

They landed, eventually, on the balcony of her apartment, and Stranger set her down so her brain could work again. She pulled her arms away about as fast.

“Mind if I take a minute before heading back out?” Stranger asked, “I’ve done a lot today.”

“Come on in,” Mandie said, “I’ve got some leftovers if you think you need to eat.”

“That would be incredible.”

She grabbed a plate from the cabinet and another from her fridge with onigiri stacked on it.

“What are these?” Stranger asked.

“Rice balls. I went to Japan once as a teenager, and my host taught me.”

While also probing her for information on his ex-wife, and teaching her some better fighting techniques.

“Are they any good?”

“God awful.”

Stranger chuckled as he grabbed one.

“Liar,” he said after swallowing the first bite.

Mandie shrugged, trying to occupy herself from the sound of his chewing.

“You weren’t wrong,” Stranger admitted, “About the purge. Diamond doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“But you’re fine.”

“I haven’t told you what I did, have I?”

Fair enough.

“So you’re exclusively telekinetic,” she asked, “While she’s full telepath?”

He nodded.

“And yourself?” he asked.

She shouldn’t have asked if she wasn’t willing to exchange.

“A bit of both,” she admitted, “Mostly sensitive though.”

He nodded with a look of concern.

“What kind of sensitive?”

“Let a woman keep her secrets.”

“Guess you’ve already seen everything,” he muttered. She didn’t argue.

“Ben seemed to imply you’re a good fighter,” Stranger continued, “Why didn’t he hire you?”

“Personal.”

“Have anything to do with why you weren’t able to take those guys out?”

“Same reason,” she admitted.

“I don’t want to turn down the help, but if you can’t fight, I’m not sure you should—”

“I can fight,” Mandie insisted, “And I wasn’t planning to confront them until I realized I could probably stop them, and I’d say I prevented a decent amount of damage.”

“Sure,” Moses said, “But you took a decent amount too.”

She just needed better protection, better coverage, make sure her arms were covered at least.

“That can be rectified.”

Stranger sighed.

“Did you fight in that costume before.”

A nod. She didn’t like his questions.

“Does it do more than emphasize your figure?” he asked, blatantly looking her up and down. She tossed a napkin at his face, which he stopped before it made landfall.

“That’s not a yes,” he noted.

“The fabric is rare, difficult to make, the technique is rarely shared with outsiders.”

“You make it sound like you wove it yourself.”

She didn’t answer. He didn’t need to know.

“The point is it’s dense and tough, gives enough padding to keep me mostly uninjured.”

“Mostly.”

“I managed to avoid any broken bones, not for lack of trying on our friends’ part.” Not that there was any guarantee for next time. She couldn’t let her guard down.

“I’ve been giving you all the attention here. Have anything you want to ask me?”

“I can barely lift a person, how the fuck do you manage two.”

“Well in this instance,” he pointed at the balcony, “I just carried myself, and hoped you weren’t too heavy for me to hold you, though even if you were, my arms were kind of stuck. I try not to grab people with it if I can help it. It’s not hands, but it still feels invasive sometimes.”

That wasn’t exactly how she’d learned it. Telekinesis was a tool like any other, it just happened to be more versatile. Stranger seemed to treat it like an extra limb. Catherine would probably consider his view on it more accurate.

“Who taught you?”

“Self-taught,” he admitted, “Part of why I got along with Ben growing up, we both would cause disasters growing up.”

If Ben would talk to him about failed tryouts, it made sense they’d be childhood friends.

“Like Carrie,” she said.

“With less pig blood and murderous rage, also with more superhumans in the same school, so we didn’t attract quite as much attention.”

“So you grew up around here.”

“Affirmative, even got my bachelors at MK West before transferring to XW, go Wolverines!”

Mandie tried to put those acronyms together. She’d passed on college, and considering that she probably had official records as a psychic somewhere, she wasn’t sure she could go now.

“Not a college sports fan?” Stranger asked.

She shook her head.

“I’m not either. Technically the Wolverines weren’t an official team either, no power schools in official leagues, but they considered it a great show of school spirit to do things with sports.”

“School Spirit?”

“Yeah, you’d think you could escape that in college, but no. MKW doesn’t care, but XW wanted everyone to be excited to be there, which meant I spent way too much of my early twenties waving around a flag to support my unofficial team as they went against the made up team from XNY.”

“And now you don’t even have a degree to show for it,” Mandie commiserated, still unsure of half the things he was saying.

“Nope.”

He’d long since finished eating, and now was taking the plate she’d handed him to the sink. She could sense some of the fatigue coming off of him, and considering how little she got from him before, that probably meant he had to be tired.

“You can stay the night if you don’t want to go all the way out, I’ll have to offer you the couch since I’m nursing a few more injuries though.”

Stranger shook his head.

“Sorry, Songbird, I don’t do things halfway.”

What was that supposed to mean?

He took her hand while she was too confused to pull it way, kissed it, then ran back toward the balcony, jumping off. Mandie ran after him, catching him wave goodbye.

“Nightingale,” she finally corrected, “Not Songbird, Nightingale.”