Fluff Chapter Fifty-Eight - Juggling

Chapter Fifty-Eight - Juggling

"Did you ever try juggling?"

Jezebelle looked up at the question. She had been on break. When she first signed her contract of heroism with the HRF she had found the section about mandatory breaks and pauses a little strange. Sure, it was nice that she was guaranteed the occasional half-hour pause, but it was strange that the HRF had to carve that into the contract officially.

Now she understood it better. The last couple of days had been a lot. At first it was just the ambush, trying to catch the villains that had the Orbject unaware. That had only been possible thanks to the hints the Endga gave them, but the entire thing had been fumbled pretty hard.

The results had, miraculously, led to no fatalities. Plenty of casualties, however. Several troopers were injured and three vehicles were totalled, and two heroes were out of commission.

Things should have gotten more serious from that point on, but she felt like that just wasn't the case. The HRF had, instead, retreated a lot more than she felt like they needed to.

"Juggling?" she asked as she shifted and looked up. She was sitting next to a mobile-ho turned into a mobile-base. One of many the HRF had and were using to help scout the city. They had little kitchens within, and fold out benches.

Obscure was there, in the entrance to the vehicle, shoulder leaning against the doorway. "Yeah, juggling," she said. "You know, grab a ball or sothing, toss it up, catch it? Add in a few more to make it a bit harder?"

"I know what juggling is," Jezebelle replied, maybe a little sharply. "And yeah, sure, I guess I can juggle a little? I did cheerleading in highschool. There were a few routines with batons. You don't need to know how to juggle, but it helped?"

Obscure nodded, then reached up and adjusted the half-mask covering the upper part of her face. "That's nice."

"Why did you ask that?" Jezebelle asked.

"I guess it's on my mind. I feel like I've been juggling a lot, lately."

"We've mostly been running after shadows," Jezebelle said.

The day after the ambush, they had scoured part of the city, looking for the sa group of villains. A group of villains she was quite certain she knew. She hadn't said anything, and now she was starting to worry that if she did say anything, she'd be reproached for having taken so long.

Yesterday, two days after the ambush, had them running across a good part of the city, chasing after trails left by the villains.

The clues had been extrely obvious. A fire here, a few lights left on within a building there.

Traps.

She hadn't been caught in any of them herself, fortunately, but a few others had. The traps weren't lethal. In fact, they were more... comical, than anything else? Soone getting smacked with a very-expired pie to the face wasn't going to take them out of the fight.

There had been more than just dropped pies. One building had signs of habitation on the second floor, but when a group of troopers and a hero made it there, a bunch of marbles were dropped from the ceiling and the stairs were covered in caltrops, and that was just before the lights went out.

It was silly, almost, but more importantly, it had wasted a lot of ti, and a lot of effort, and had started to make things expensive.

They had almost caught one of the villains, a young girl had run out of an alley and had been spotted, but she had ti to slice at every tire on the left side of an entire convoy before she was caught by a speedster. Then she was teleported away while screaming obscenities.

Jezebelle had heard a few other stories. The villains were extrely fond of piercing tires and blocking roads and leading them on rry chases across the more maze-like parts of the city.

No lethalities, but plenty of casualties. Sothing like a dozen troopers had sprained ankles or tripped down stairs or had been caught by surprise with their own non-lethal grenades went off on their belt.

"Have they been putting you to work a lot?" Jezebelle asked Obscure. She hadn't seen the woman too much in the last couple of days.

"No, it's almost like they forgot all about ," Obscure said with a smug little grin. "I'm joking. Yeah. I've been working harder than most."

"Trying to catch the villains?" Jezebelle asked.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Yeah. I've mostly been helping our communication's team, actually," Obscure said.

Jezebelle would verify that. She... didn't know what it was, because there was just this constant sense that sothing was slightly off these last few days.

Obviously, she couldn't point fingers, but... well, it was nagging at her. So of the things the villains had done didn't make much sense. There had been so sabotage of equipnt that had been securely stored at their headquarters.

She believed that they had been running around, laying traps, and basically wasting the HRF's ti and patience for most of the day, but to penetrate all the way into their base to mislabel so ammo crates or send out a supply run with nothing in it? That felt just a little bit beyond what they were capable of.

It was stranger than that. There had been things missing, orders given out that didn't make sense...

"Why haven't we gotten any reinforcents?" Jezebelle asked. "You'd think, with the Endga stretching out this long, we'd have more people here by now."

"Who knows?" Obscure said, then she paused. "Actually, I know, a little. The HRF might look all glitz and glamorous on the outside, but you need to rember how it's run."

"Like a company?" she asked.

"No, worse. Like a governnt agency. The HRF breaks everything down into numbers. Stuff it can track and keep tallied. It's not about how strong the villains you catch are, it's about how many you capture. It's not about how many people you've inspired with your heroism, it's about how many people tag you on Witter, or talk about you on Acebook. Everything that can be used as a tric is."

"That's cynical," Jezebelle said.

"It's how this kind of thing always works out," Obscure said. She glanced at her wrist, then away. "There's less than a day left, I think."

"A day?" she asked.

"Until this is all over," Obscure replied. "That's how it works, right? The villains need to hold the Object for a certain amount of ti, then they win."

"I guess? I don't rember if any of our etings covered that," Jezebelle said.

"Sure you do," Obscure said with a tired smile. "Ah, but whatever. Did you want to co?"

Jezebelle blinked. "Co where? Uh, my break isn't over for another... ten minutes or so. That's not a lot of ti if you wanted to grab a bite."

"No, no, it's sothing else," Obscure said. "I've been working pretty closely with a few people, in the communications team. And I think I've narrowed down where the villains are, beyond even the hints the Endga gives."

"Oh? Wait, are we going to launch another attempt?" Jezebelle asked. She looked around. The troopers and such that had taken over this area--a little park not too far from their main base--weren't moving with any alacrity. They looked calm, bored, even.

"In a manner of speaking," Obscure replied. "Rember that little raid, the other night, with Iron Chains?"

"Iron... you an Duty Bound," Jezebelle said. "Iron Chains was his na when he was... not a mber of the HRF yet."

"Right, sorry. I forgot," Obscure said, then she snorted. "Ironically. You know, the less fun part about juggling is how hard it becos once you have enough balls airborne."

Jezebelle stood. She did rember that raid, the one into the basent of so warehouse or sothing. It was... vague. Maybe she'd been working too much, but that felt like it had been a month or two ago, not just a few days past. "We're doing sothing like that again?" she asked. "Was that even official?"

"Yeah, don't worry," Obscure said. "It was logged and all, don't you recall?"

"I... guess?" Jezebelle said. "What are we doing, exactly? Why do you need ?"

"We're going to head out and have a little conversation with the villains, and if it doesn't go well, then I think I'm going to need your help. It's always more fun to converse from a position of power, isn't it?"

"I guess," Jezebelle said.

Sothing was very wrong, but for the life of her she couldn't put her finger on what.

Obscure smiled, then with a hand on her shoulder, guided her across the park. "Co on! This is all proper an official. Like, for real. Logged the papers and everything."

"Yeah, okay," Jezebelle replied.

She shook her head. She supposed that it was always going to end up like this. The villain... no, Emily, had to be put in her place.

***