CHASER 2: Stegosaurus: Write about a character who's deceit or intent to harm ends positively for the recipient/s, (word) ancient, (dialogue) "Aww, does somebody need a hug?", (colour) light grey.
Also for Hogwarts´Seasonal Challenges - Days of the Year: June 12 2018, Superhero Day - Write a Superhero!AU, Summer Prompts - (word) stifling, Color Prompts - Cream, Birthstones - Moonstone: (dialogue) "I don't dress like this to impress men. I dress like this because I want to.", Flowers - Foxglove: (word) heart, Shay's Musical Challenge: Kinky Boots - write about someone teaming up to save something, Gryffindor Themed prompts: (trait) heroic, (color) gold, Summer Astronomy Prompts: August 12 2018 - (word) rescue, Fire Element: (word) dry.
Also for the Writing Club: Character Appreciation - (object) apple, Disney Challenge: (dialogue) "This is awkward. Not you're awkward, but cause we're… I'm awkward. You're gorgeous. Wait, what?", Book Club - Aiko: (occupation) journalist, (object) notebook, (word) sparkle, Showtime: Charlie's Solilquy - (object) shoes, Amber's Attic: Dysfunctional - Write about someone lashing out, Count Your Buttons: (object) sword, (word) fancy, Lyric Alley: Of having hope in this insanity, Ami's Audio Aspirations: 1 to 218 - Write about a group of two or more growing stronger together, Em's Emporium: Ginny/Pansy - write about powerful women, Lo's Lowdown: (genre) adventure, Eagle Day: Lisa Turpin - (object) scarf, (dialogue) "It must be boring to be you.", Debate Club: Muggle!AU - (dialogue) "It's never been black and white.", Who's Your Daddy?: Barty Crouch Sr - (dialogue) "Not now.", Faerie Day: Air Fairy - wind, freedom, clouds, flying, soaring, air, gentle, breeze, Film Festival: (food) apple, (word) freedom, World Cup Event: Australia vs Peru - (dialogue) "I believe in things. Like anarchy and the power of a queen.", Hot Air Balloon Day: (color) yellow.
Also for the Gardening Assignment: Task 1: Plastic Flamingos - Write about someone showing at least one of the following characteristics/traits: beauty, balance, grace, femininity, innocence, confidence, flirty.
Word count: 3023
About this verse: superpowers are known to happen and superheroes are a thing. This is set in the same verse as We Could Be Heroes (Just For One Day) where John, Amelia and Kingsley take down Voldemort's drug operation and 'and here's the frozen proof' where Fabian accidentally becomes a supervillain who keeps abducting Edgar to get to Justice (aka Amelia). And they fall in love.
You don't have to have read either to understand this though.
Edgar Bones is Amelia Bones' brother. He was part of the Order but died before the war ended along with his wife and kids. Dorcas was also part of the Order and died before the war ended.
(Em, I hope you enjoy this :p)
thunder and lightning (shake up my world)
Dorcas nearly screamed when, upon turning on the light, she spotted Edgar sitting on the sofa, staring right at her with a raised eyebrow.
"And what time do you call this, young lady?" he asked, lips twitching up into a smirk.
Not even bothering to hide her exasperation and willing her heart to stop racing, Dorcas rolled her eyes at him as she kicked off her shoes. The bright lacquered crimson heels hit the floor loudly but she breathed a sigh of relief for their loss, wiggling her bare toes as she savored her freedom.
"Were you seriously lying in wait for me? In the dark?" She stepped toward their kitchen where she poured herself a glass of water and grabbed an apple, taking a huge bite of it as she started padding back to the living-room. She plopped down next to Edgar on the sofa, putting her feet up on their bare coffee table. "Your boyfriend's been a terrible influence on you. I approve."
Edgar's cheeks turned as red as his hair. He looked away. "Fabian's not my boyfriend."
Dorcas snorted. "Funny how you instantly knew I was talking about him then."
Edgar shot her a glare but he didn't seem to have an answer, choosing instead to scowl at his lap. "He's a villain," he said. "He's only interested in me because of my connection to Justice."
"I see we're still pretending I don't know she's actually your sister, or that 'Justice' still intervenes when he 'kidnaps' you," Dorcas replied dryly, not even acknowledging Edgar's answering shrug. "And besides, we both know that it's never been that black and white. 'Iceman' —" she made sure he could hear the apostrophes in her voice "— is barely a villain these days. We literally published a paper that showed him rescuing some poor girl from her burning house last week."
Edgar's smile turned sappy and Dorcas looked away in mock-disgust, even though she was happy for her friend, coworker and flatmate.
… No, they weren't codependent at all.
"Yes, well…" He cleared his throat. "We weren't talking about me — we were talking about you, and the reason why you're coming back this late dressed this fancy," Edgar said, gesturing at her cream silk dress and at her discarded heels. "Trying to impress your man?"
"I don't dress like this to impress men. I dress like this because I want to," Dorcas replied, rolling her eyes at him over the rim of her glass. It wasn't quite true, however — she certainly wouldn't dress like this for any man… Now, a woman would be an entirely different thing.
"And," she added, "because I had a story to chase. Some of us —" she sent him a pointed glare "— actually have to work to get a scoop instead of having it handed out to us when we get kidnapped by a villain."
"It must be boring to be you," Edgar retorted haughtily, though his tone was betrayed by the mirth shining in his eyes.
Surprised, Dorcas laughed. "Wow, Fabian really is a terrible influence on you. You never used to be this cheeky before."
Edgar arched an eyebrow at her. "Maybe you simply weren't paying enough attention. But again, we aren't talking about me. What was the scoop about?"
At the reminder, Dorcas groaned. "Nothing. It didn't pan out — I got a tip something might go down at the Museum of Science, during the Gala, but all I noticed were rich people smooching and stuffing canapes into their pockets." She took another sullen bite out of her apple.
"Aww, does somebody need a hug?" Edgar half-joked, half-sneered, his body shifting on the sofa until he held out his open arms to her. His frown, however, betrayed his concern, and Dorcas shut him down with a glare.
"Shut up," she mumbled.
Edgar laughed. "Sorry, sorry. But seriously, how did it go? Did you really get nothing workable?"
Dorcas felt a surge of affection for him at his obvious concern. She sighed. "Well, Valkyrie was there."
Both of Edgar's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Valkyrie? Really? Isn't she usually more of an action type hero?"
Dorcas shrugged and took another bite of her apple, washing it down with water as she thought. The memory of the chestnut-haired, sword-wielding woman rose in her mind, sharp and vibrant. "The museum hired her for security, I think. You can't say it's a bad idea — I pity anyone who'd try anything with her around."
Edgar snorted in agreement, no doubt remembering, just like she was, the last criminals Valkyrie had apprehended. They had been among the firsts on the scene, trying to get a comment from the heroine, and the thieves she had apprehended had still been smoking.
Lightning did that to people's clothing, apparently, but at least she hadn't used her sword on them and so they were still in one piece.
"That, or she too heard that something might be going down at the museum. Did you —"
"Happen to ask her a few questions?" Dorcas finished, smirking as she bent back over the sofa to dig through her purse until she could pull out her notebook. "You know I did."
Edgar grinned back as Dorcas flipped through the pages. Truth be told, Valkyrie hadn't been willing to part with much information, but what she had said had been more than enough to surmise that Dorcas wasn't the only one who had gotten that tip about 'something going down at the museum'.
Even if nothing had happened while they were there.
Edgar hummed thoughtfully as she narrated this. "Well, maybe you got the wrong day?" he suggested, though he didn't sound convinced.
Dorcas shook her head. "This was a one-night-only type of event."
"Well, then maybe the tip was fraudulent."
Dorcas nodded uneasily. "Yeah, maybe."
She had thought about this theory as she rode a cab back to the apartment, and she hated how much sense it did. The fact that Edgar had thought about it too only worsened her worries, a heavy kind of certainty pooling low in her stomach.
"Let's hope not, though," she said at last.
Edgar nodded, his face grim. "Let's hope not."
.
The last thing Dorcas expected the next morning while she was walking up to her favorite coffee shop before she could get to work was to get abducted.
Maybe she should have — after all, Edgar got abducted all the time, though to be fair it was part of his weird courting ritual with Fabian. Dorcas was a journalist too, one who specialized in reporting about heroes and villains. It only made sense that at some point, someone would try to go after her.
There was a slight breeze in the air, and heavy clouds in the sky, so Dorcas had chosen to wear a light grey scarf around her neck, and the instant she stepped into the deserted street she used as a shortcut to get to the coffee shop, two hands grabbed it and pulled it tight around her neck until she couldn't breathe.
She flailed and tried to kick at her assailant before the self-defense classes she had taken kicked in, but those few seconds cost her, for she felt a small pinprick in her neck before her world faded to black.
She woke up tied to a chair, her wrists pulled painfully behind her back. She had a pounding headache, but she forced herself to open her eyes anyway, stifling a groan as she did so.
"Oh hell no!" she said as soon as she did.
The place was ancient. An old, abandoned warehouse, probably — though why there were still any of these when everyone knew villains used them for their evil lairs was a wonder — complete with leaky pipes and a rusted metal roof.
And a villain. Who was currently ranting about his evil masterplan, which would have been great had Dorcas not been tied to a chair and unable to take notes or record anything.
"Ah, I see our guest has awoken at last!" the villain said, his voice booming across the room and causing Dorcas to wince. He was wearing a yellow and black costume, stripped like the ones prisoners wore in the comic books her mother had loved to read with her. It looked as ridiculous on him as it had on those fictional people.
"Maybe don't drug me next time if you want me awake." She didn't voice the you idiot that was on the tip of her tongue at first, but then she remembered he was a villain who had just abducted her, so she could probably insult him. "You idiot," she added, and tried not to smile too smugly when the man's eyebrow twitched.
"Quite, quite," he mumbled, a creepy grin etched on his face. "I'm afraid my little workers got a little too… eager when it came to you. My apologies."
Dorcas glared at him, unimpressed. "I don't suppose you could let me go, then?"
In his defense, he did look slightly apologetic, though it was hard to say for sure with all the blinding yellow he was wearing.
"I'm afraid I can't. But don't worry, you'll be perfectly safe here." His grin widened into something crazed. "Unless you try to escape, of course."
Dorcas' stomach tightened painfully and she faked bravado. "What happens if I do?"
"Well, then I'm afraid your little hero here will have to suffer for it. But don't worry, you wouldn't live very long to regret it anyway."
"My what?" Dorcas frowned in confusion.
The man's eyebrows rose over his mask — still yellow and black, because apparently, this villain was one of those who had a theme. "Your hero," he repeated, still grinning. He spun her chair around, and Dorcas' heart stopped.
There, tied to another chair, was Valkyrie, her chestnut hair hanging messily around her face. She was glaring at the villain over the tape that he had put over her mouth. Her brown eyes flickered over Dorcas' form quickly, shining with concern that made her feel warm.
The resemblances between their situations ended there, however. For one, the hero's chair was metallic, as were the chains that tied her to it — unlike the soft material Dorcas could feel around her wrists. For another, that chair was in the middle of a pool of water, and Valkyrie was also drenched in it.
It made her costume, a tasteful mixture of light greys and blues, stick to her skin in a way that Dorcas struggled not to find distracting.
"So you see," the villain continued to monologue, "with both hero and sidekick at my mercy, there is nothing stopping me from getting into the Science Museum, where I will be able to gather the last elements I need for my machine! Soon, the whole world will know my name, and that they should fear the Queen Bee!"
Dorcas blinked, the absurdity of that statement breaking through the fog of panic that had settled over her mind.
"You… Your name is Queen Bee? But you're a man."
"Yes." He crossed his arms. "And I'll have you know that's very sexist of you — men can be queens too, if they want. I believe that —"
Dorcas tuned him out until he reached what seemed to be the conclusion of his monologue, though she took mental notes on his masterplan. There were a few interesting tidbits about the way he felt wronged by the system and how that had driven him to lash out, and Dorcas made a note to remember those, but all in all, it was a fairly typical backstory, the type she had written articles on dozens of times already.
"I believe in things! Like anarchy, and the power of a queen! For I am a queen — Queen Bee!" he spread out his arms theatrically and Dorcas craned her neck, almost expecting something to happen. Explosions in the background, maybe? But no, nothing did. It was sort of disappointing, honestly.
Valkyrie seemed as confused as she was, at least.
"... Right," Dorcas said. "So you want to build a machine to mind control people into behaving as your hive, is that it?"
Queen Bee's eyes narrowed. "While I would love to stand and chat some more, I'm afraid I really have to go now." His grin sharpened. "But don't forget, no trying to escape. Or…" As if on cue, Dorcas heard a low hum, and she had to watch, powerless, as Valkyrie arched her back against her chair, muscles bulging as she tried to escape the electricity now cursing through her chains. Sparkles rained down on the pooled water like little stars, and she didn't realize that she too had been screaming, begging for it to stop until it did.
"Well," Queen Bee said smugly, "I think you get the picture."
Dorcas glared at him hatefully and spat at his feet. "Go to hell." She didn't flinch at the slap that followed, though she inwardly flinched as she tasted blood from where she had bitten into her cheek.
She glared at him until he left, and then she glared at the door some more, just for good measure.
Valkyrie's muffled voice brought her back to the present situation, and Dorcas started to look around for anything useful. She couldn't see any cameras or recording devices, but that Bee guy had to have some way of keeping an eye on them. there were no guards though, and so she started to twist her wrists the way Edgar had taught her until she managed to slip free from her binds.
She grinned triumphantly as she freed her other hand and then bent down to free her ankles.
Curious, she brought back the tissue that had been used to tie up her hands, and she sneered in disgust. "That bastard! He used my scarf!"
Valkyrie's urgent mumbles once again brought her mind to focus, and Dorcas stepped out of her chair. She almost stumbled, her limbs still heavy from whatever drug she had been given, but with every step forward she became more steady.
"This is a rescue, this is a rescue," she kept muttering to herself, gathering courage. Luckily, no more electricity surged through the room and Valkyrie's bounds.
Ripping out the tape over the heroine's mouth was easy, though Dorcas' heart still twinged from how painful it must have been — Valkyrie's lips looked very sore and very red — but she had no idea how to tackle the heavy chains.
"I don't suppose you could summon your sword and cut yourself free?" she suggested with half a grin.
Valkyrie rolled her eyes at her. "Yes, because summoning more lightning here and now is such a great idea." She flinched at the mere thought and shook her head. She bit her lips and stared at Dorcas. "Sorry, I shouldn't have taken my temper out on you. And I'm sorry you got dragged into this — I have no idea how that idiot came to believe you were my sidekick, or whatever," she added in a lower voice Dorcas was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to hear.
"He probably saw us talking at the Gala and assumed." She shrugged. When Valkyrie only stared back at her, nodding slowly, Dorcas ducked her head down to hide her blush and busied herself with looking over the chains.
She trailed her hands over the cool links, searching for a locking mechanism. She kept brushing over Valkyrie's uniform, which was still wet and felt so thin it might as well not be there. Her cheeks were burning. "This is awkward. Not you're awkward, but cause we're… I'm awkward. You're gorgeous. Wait, what?" Dorcas moaned, hanging her hand in embarrassment. "God, I'm sorry about this, Valkyrie, I'm usually much better at staying professional."
Valkyrie chuckled, her brown eyes borrowing into Dorcas' like they could see into her soul. "I don't mind. And… You can call me Marlene."
Dorcas' heart skipped a beat at the confession. "R-Right." She looked down at the chains and forced her hands to move again. Moments later, she finally found the lock and let out a shout of triumph.
It was at the back of her chair, so the heroine had to twist her head to look at Dorcas. "Good news?" she asked, her voice strained.
Dorcas hummed, casting her eyes about the room. "Kinda," she replied absently. "I just need to find something to pick the lock and you'll be home free."
"You know how to pick a lock?!"
"My flatmate taught me. He says it's an 'invaluable skill when you're getting abducted by villains'," she quoted with a smile.
"... I see," Valky — Marlene replied, though Dorcas was pretty sure that she, in fact, did not see.
She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't happen to have a pin or something I could borrow?" When Marlene shook her head, Dorcas sighed. Luckily, she found a few nails lying on the floor, and after collecting two, she got to work on the lock.
"It's how he flirts with his boyfriend," she explained, and Marlene made a noise of understanding. Finally, the lock clicked open and the chains fell free.
The return of the hum was the only warning they got, but it was enough. One moment she was kneeling on cold ground, the next she was flying, soaring through the air, her chest pressed against Marlene's.
"Where are we going?" she shouted over the wind whipping at her hair.
"The museum!" Marlene shouted back. "I have to stop him — I can drop you off wherever, though!"
"No way! I'm coming too." She raised her head to glare at Marlene. "You're not going out there alone. Not now!"
Marlene's lips quirked up into a small grin and she gave Dorcas another deep look. She sighed. "Fine. Hang on then!"
Heart hammering in her chest, Dorcas gladly did so, feeling like the luckiest woman on Earth.
Maybe, she thought, after Queen Bee was dealt with she could get Marlene to go out on a date with her.