Go City Friday Fight
At the same time Julia went to visit the Possibles, her mother stepped off the train at Go City.
On a whim she had decided to go visit Hego unannounced. A surprise date. It was about as adventuresome as she could allow herself to be and besides she had come up with a plan on the train ride. Old habits die hard and she had yet to arrive at the headquarters of Team Go without at least one ace up her sleeve. It wasn't an evil plan but a plan nonetheless.
She decided to walk because the spring sun was warm and on her current level of income, Electronique didn't feel like spending money on a taxi ride anyway. Besides it was unlikely that any cabbie would want to give one of Go City's very own and worst super villains a ride, even if she was on parole. It had been a while since she had walked through the city. Some things had changed but not much.
Even though she considered herself 'Villain Number One' of Go City she also considered the city her home. Go City was her city, this was home. It didn't take long for someone to recognize her and a few minutes later a CGPD black-and-white was tailing her.
"My very own welcoming committee." She was amused. "I hope they don't call Hego and spoil the surprise."
Her ego was flattered whenever someone recognized her and shied away from her. Electronique was so wrapped up in her own sense of self-importance that she didn't pay attention to the fact that people seemed to hurry past her, away from the square up ahead.
In the patrol car behind her, officers Levitt and Wright had done their best to keep their distance.
"So, tell me again, why are we following blue chicks these days?" Wright asked his older colleague. "Nice though the view is."
"That 'blue chick' is Electronique. Even to an out-of-towner like you that should ring a few bells."
"Yeah it sure does. I've read up on the files but she looks a lot different than in the mug shots. So why don't we go and arrest her?"
"Three reasons. One: She hasn't done anything illegal. Two: I don't like to get electrocuted. Three: We just got a call from Dispatch and as you can see she's heading straight for Market Square."
"What of it?"
"Captain Coconut is on the loose again and I want to see what that moron is going to do when he meets an old school villainess."
Levitt chuckled with barely restrained glee.
Electronique had stopped and bought a milkshake. The sun shone and the breeze made her dress flutter around her shapely, blue legs. It was a lovely spring day and without any immediate cares in the world she rounded the corner into Market Square.
She noticed there were not all that many people in the square despite the stalls and vending booths. In fact there were no shoppers or shopkeepers in sight at all. There was a pile of forcibly opened cash boxes in the middle of the square however. Something was obviously wrong.
Electronique found out exactly how wrong things were when something large and round with robotic legs and arms stepped out from between two stalls.
"Hey, Lady! Give me your bag!"
It was none other than moderately infamous Captain Coconut.
Electronique blinked behind her goggles. She looked up and down the powered suit of armour. It looked like the offspring between a huge coconut and a cheap 'Transformer' knock-off. A small vision slit at the front allowed the pilot some limited vision.
From what she saw of the electronic patterns it was quite an invention. Efficient power actuators made it reasonably fast and probably very strong. She had spotted one or two flaws in the design when her scrutiny was interrupted.
"Hey! Didn't you hear me? Give me your handbag!"
Electronique nodded slowly as if pondering a reply.
Somehow Electronique found this Captain Coconut-character and his behaviour offensive. Although certainly a criminal, he simply lacked that certain audacious, grandiose spark a true villain should have. Aviarius, Drakken, Dementor even that Lucre-guy she had read about, had that spark to some extent.
Captain Coconut came across as a petty robber and nothing more. There was no way she would surrender her handbag to someone like that.
"How about... No."
Electronique cocked her hip and shifted her weight to be able to dodge better as she waited for Captain Coconut's response.
"You dare defy Captain Coconut?"
"Do you know who I am?" Electronique asked in return. She was becoming increasingly irritated. Her reply and the faintly threatening tone seemed to confuse her armoured opponent.
"Who you are? I don't care. You're...uh...some, blue old lady giving me attitude! Now give me that!" He lunged for her with a mechanized arm.
"Old lady?" That did it. There was no way Electronique would let Captain Coconut get away with that.
The mechanical claw moved with enough speed to catch any normal person.
Electronique, however, was far from normal. She had spent years fighting super powered heroes, dodging shanks in prison and she even had held her ground for several minutes against a certain sidekick under the evil influence known as Zorpox the Conqueror.
She jumped backwards and sideways to avoid the robotic claw and ended outside Captain Coconut's field of vision, just as planned. When her opponent turned around to find her she simply stepped sideways a bit faster eventually ending up right behind Captain Coconut.
"Hey! Come back and fight like a man...uh...I mean, fight like a woman!" The outraged Captain shouted.
Electronique had no intention whatsoever do to that. She had a plan, handily served on a silver platter by Captain Coconut's very own design flaw.
He was obviously an engineer of some kind and he had built his battle suit to be easy to service and repair. All the fuses were mounted behind a small hatch at the back of the armour. Hidden underneath the faux coconut fuzz it was difficult to spot, but for someone able to see electric currents it was a lot easier.
Electronique flipped the hatch open and yanked out the entire fuse array, shutting down the entire Coconut-suit.
"I've got you n...what did you do?"
The surprised and disappointed cry was followed a satisfying crash as Captain Coconut toppled over and ended up on his back.
"That's cheating! Just you wait until I get my...uh...Hello? Are you still there?"
"Here I am."
Electronique jumped up and sat on the 'chest' of the coconut armour.
"Oh...well, as I was saying, just you wait until glrugh! Glargh!"
Electronique was not interested in hearing more. She had held on to her milkshake throughout the brief scuffle and now emptied the remaining contents down the small vision port.
"Listen very closely, you silly little man." She snarled over the coughs and splutters from inside the suit. "I have three things to tell you."
"Wh...what?"
"One: I am thirty seven."
"But..?"
"Thirty seven is not old. Yes?"
"Yes ma'am." All the bluster had gone out of Captain Coconut by now.
"I hope he doesn't start to cry. That would be too embarrassing." Electronique thought before she went on.
"Two: You are not a proper villain. You are dirt under my shoe and I just scraped you off."
She jumped down from the suit and leaned closer to whisper into the vision port. She spoke slowly and distinctly, extremely menacing.
"Three, and you'd better remember this: I. Am. Electronique."
With an arrogant toss of her head she walked away from the prone Captain Coconut.
She had walked less than a dozen yards before she noticed people coming into the square from all directions. CGPD were the first to reach Captain Coconut. They had even brought a handy cart to pull the armoured coconut suit on.
Electronique heard one of them say:
"That's another citizen's milkshake you've got all over your face, son. That makes it theft."
It wasn't until she heard what people were saying about her and until she saw the looks on their faces that Electronique began to lose her nerve.
"That showed him!"
"Didn't even break a sweat!"
"See? That's our Electronique!"
"Look, dad! She's a proper villain isn't she?"
"Yes honey. Electronique is one of Go City's worst and most dangerous. She belongs here as much as Team Go or the Go City Rangers."
"Girl power!"
Even the cops were grinning and didn't look hostile at all.
"They...they're treating me as a hero!" Electronique was horrified, insulted and disgusted at the same time.
"This isn't right! I'm a villain! This is so sick and wrong on so many levels!"
Electronique did the only thing she could think of. She locked her features in a sneer and stalked off with as much fake indifference as she could muster.
Once she was out of sight from the crowd Electronique picked up her pace and hurried towards the marina.
The cheers of the crowd had hurt more than any punch from an opponent could. It was a direct attack on her sense of self and what made up a major part of her identity. What was even worse was that it reminded her of what it had been like when she had been under the influence of the Attitudinator.
Back at the time Electronique had felt like she watched herself be all good and obedient and benevolent. It had been like being locked up inside her own skull and her body being controlled by someone else in some sort of perverse nightmare.
It made her feel sick. And now the adoration of the crowd had made her feel like that again. Like she had the perceived view of herself dictated by outside forces beyond her control.
When she reached the marina her legs were so shaky that she had to sit down on a bench.
"Those...people! How dare they!" Electronique was outraged. At first she contemplated throwing all caution to the winds and violate her parole just to get back at the people of Go City.
Then another thought struck her. Like all villains, Electronique was essentially self-centred with very few exceptions. Up until now Julia had been Electronique's sole exception. But over the last months she had started to care for someone else as well. Electronique forced herself to admit that she had fallen in love with Hego, her enemy. For the first time ever, she felt bad for what she had done to someone else, other than Julia.
"I made him evil. And his brothers. He cares a lot about family. If it was as bad for him to be evil as it was for me to be good..."
Electronique shook her head, trying to rid her mind of all the worst-case scenarios.
It took her a long time to make up her mind about what to do.
The tourist season hadn't started and the little ferry that carried tourists out to the islet where Go Tower was located didn't run regular tours yet.
When the captain saw the blue-skinned woman with the goggles coming straight for him he knew right away who she was.
"E..e...Electronique!"
"The same. How much for a ticket?"
"The ferry doesn't...wait? You want to pay the fare?"
Electronique waved a bill in front of the man as a reply.
"Let me get this straight. You, Electronique, wants to pay for the fare so that I can ship you over to the headquarters of Team Go?"
"Yes! Is it so hard to understand? Take the money!"
The man was more unnerved by Electronique's weird and unusual behaviour than he would have been if she had simply threatened him or hijacked the ferry.
"Uh...ah...Yes, yes of course."
Electronique stepped ashore on Go Island. Behind her the ferry set out back to sea again. There would be no turning back now.
"I fought an armoured moron less than an hour ago and it barely raised my pulse." Electronique was getting annoyed with her nervousness. "Get a grip! You're acting like a frightened schoolgirl, not like the world-class villainess you're supposed to be! You're just going to apologize to him. There is nothing to it!" She scolded herself.
Except, of course, there was something to it. If there is one thing villains loathe it is to apologize. It is not in the nature of the villainous mind to beg forgiveness. Blame others, make up excuses and dodge the long arm of the Law, were, but not apologizing for old wrongs.
Yet here she was, about to do just that.
As she walked up the path to Go Tower she stopped several times. Only her ego and the fact that the ferry was gone made her overcome her own hesitation.
"What if I remind him of what I did by apologizing? He never mentioned it before, perhaps he forgot? Maybe he doesn't forgive me? What do I do then?"
Electronique had reached the big, reinforced doors to Go Tower. There was a small box by the side of the door which she knew served as an identifier of the members of Team Go and it also served as a lock.
On an impulse she picked up her pocket toolkit from her handbag.
"It's electronic. I could easily run a bypass."
With a sigh she returned the toolkit to the bag.
"And that would be 'Breaking and Entering' at the very least and I'd be on my way back to the Bitch Bin within the hour."
She took a deep breath to bolster her courage.
"Let's do this, Electronique."
She rang the doorbell.