Fifteen Years Ago…
Monday, March 20, 2006
“Hey, Foxfire!” My ears perked up and tail started to wag as I heard my favorite restaurant hostess in all of Chicago’s Chinatown call my na. “Out of costu again, huh!?”
“It’s just Naomi! I’m on my day off!” I yelled across the street, then blinked over and walked down the alley behind my favorite Chinese restaurant so I didn’t have to keep yelling. “C’mon, ii, you know I don’t like being called Foxfire when I’m out of costu!” I blinked, then glanced at one of the newspaper boxes along the street. “Wait, are you still on spring break?”
“Wish I wasn’t,” the college-aged girl groused, tearing open a box and glancing between the contents and a sheet of paper in her other hand. “Everyone else got to go down to Miami for spring break, and I’m stuck working back at the restaurant for another week. Hey, mind getting that box there open for ?”
“Huh? Oh, sure.” I turned around to grab the box ii’d pointed out to , hefted it up onto the little folding picnic table she had by the restaurant’s back door, and slit open the tape holding it shut with a sharp nail. “Delivery day?”
“You know it,” she grumbled, flicking her ponytail back over her shoulder. “Ma and Pa said we’d been missing a few things from the last shipnts, but their English is no good and Zhao’s out of town for track and field, so I gotta check all this before signing off on things.”
ii Liu was the part-ti hostess of Sichuan Inn, the best Chinese hole in the wall I’d found during my tour of duty with the Chicago NMR. It wasn’t exactly a well-known spot, especially since it served unapologetically authentic Sichuan cuisine and ii’s parents used a bit too heavy a hand on the spice level for most people, but it was absolutely delicious. I’d actually learned about the place from a rather lengthy daisy chain of people: I heard of it from Gorou, who heard of it from Japanese consulate staff, who heard of it from Japanese international students at U Chicago, who — okay fine you get the picture.
The first ti I went to check out Sichuan Inn was about three months after my arrival in Chicago, which also coincided with a big convention of nerddom… nerdiness… uh… look, I don’t know the right word, but the city was full of all manners of nerd, geek, etcetera. So it was that when I walked in, dressed in full costu with my ears and tail on display, I just got a bored-looking ii telling to take off the props because there wasn’t enough space in there for everyone to be wearing wings, tails, scabbards, and what have you. Obviously, I refused, which made a badly overworked and harried ii angry, so she stomped around the hostess station and went to tug off the tail prop I was clearly wearing. And, just as obviously, that didn’t work. Also, it hurt! A lot!
Suffice to say that the sudden realization that it wasn't a prop and ii had just assaulted — or molested, depending on how you viewed it — Chicago’s newest superhero caused a bit of a ruckus. But thankfully, it was all smoothed over by an incredible bowl of mapo tofu, a comped bill that I still paid in full, and a burgeoning friendship with the girl who’d pulled my tail.
Now I didn’t quite have the star power to send a bunch of business towards her parents’ restaurant, unfortunately, so it stayed relatively low-key. But that didn’t an I couldn’t try to use my superhero status to help out a bit, no matter how involuntary that position was.
“Would it help if I stuck around and waved the superhero flag for a bit?” I offered, grabbing the next couple of boxes closer while ii worked. “Might help ‘remind’ the delivery guys of sothing they ‘forgot’ in the truck. I know it’s not much, but I may as well do sothing good for soone as part of this stupid hero gig.”
“Nah, pretty sure you’ve done enough just by showing up.”
“Huh?” I asked. ii gestured off to the side, towards where the back of the alley turned into a parking lot, and towards a pair of nervous-looking n in brown coveralls who were anxiously wheeling over a pair of boxes on a dolly. “Oh. Huh. I didn’t even notice them.”
“They were taking a smoke break in the parking lot while I checked the manifest,” ii said, rolling her eyes as they approached. “And it shouldn’t have taken yelling for the nearby superhero for these lǎokōu to not try and steal from the restaurant again!”
She yelled these last bits loud enough that I had to fold my ears flat atop my head and cover them with my hands, but given how quickly the delivery n handed over the two boxes before beating a hasty retreat, it had the desired effect.
“How often has this been happening?” I asked, grabbing the first of the two boxes for ii and getting it up on the table for her.
“Too damn often,” she griped, checking off everything from her current box on the manifest and pulling over the one she’d had open initially. “I’ve got Monday morning classes this sester, so they probably noticed it’s been Ma and Pa taking deliveries again and decided to try sothing.”
“What the — have you told soone?” I asked, ears pinning back and tail lashing in sudden anger. What the fuck!?
“Who? Got no proof, nobody’s gonna believe the ‘chinks’ over a pair of good old boys,” ii muttered bitterly. “Five years of deliveries, and for what? This? And to think my parents used to give them breakfast, too! These fucking, they, I just — bah! Wànggēnfùyì, jīgǒubùrú!”
Ooh dear, ii was getting creative with the Mandarin curses now, that was never a good sign… okay, she’d have said sothing if she wanted help, so it was ti to let the matter drop!
ii continued muttering under her breath in Mandarin as I got the two remaining boxes prepped for her, and flinched away from another storm of expletives when she looked inside one of the boxes. I peeked in there after she turned back to the other one and saw a bunch of whole chicken carcasses, giblets and all, which had getting angry again… and also a bit hungry, damn it.
“So what brought you down to Chinatown?” ii asked, grabbing the last box from after a few more monts. “And no mapo tofu for you right now, sorry, bit too early for that.”
“Eh, if I’m still here in two hours I’ll co back and grab a bowl,” I said with a shrug, a cheeky grin, and a little ear wiggle. “Actually, you don’t happen to know who’s got the most convincing knockoff purses down here, do ya?”
“… well I do, but…” she trailed off, giving a knowing grin,
“Fine, fine,” I rolled my eyes. “I’m set to head back to Japan for Golden Week and so change, and I’ve complained about how most of us Japanese are with luxury goods before, yeah?”
“Well that depends,” ii deadpanned back at . “Was this the twenty-minute rant on watches, or the thirty-minute rant on leather goods?” One big point in ii’s favor? She never tried to make explain or justify being Japanese while looking white.
It was nice. And painfully uncommon.
“I said I was sorry,” I grumbled. “Anyway, I figured it would be a fun prank to pull on everyone to bring the newest Louis Vuitton purses only to reveal they’re fakes a few days later.”
“Oh, that’s evil; I love it!” ii brightened up, all the gloom and blah of earlier sliding off her in an instant. “Okay, you know who you need? Lǎo Kāng. Three blocks down thataway,” ii pointed out of the alley and to the left, “head into the shopping center, hang a right at the tiger pelt rug, then he’s the one on the left just after all the incense.”
“Okay, three blocks, inside, right at the tiger, after the incense, got it! Thanks, ii!”
“See ya next ti, foxy!”
And of course she got the last word. I rolled my eyes, then waved goodbye and walked out of the alley to arrive back on the street. Then, because the shopping center was on the other side of the street, I jaywalked across like a normal person. While I’d used my powers to get across to ii’s side of the street earlier, that was more to avoid undue attention than to save ti. Yes, I could just skip across the Chicago skyline to get wherever I wanted in minutes, but where was the fun in that? I couldn’t et new and interesting people if I never spent ti on street level!
Honestly, that was kind of the one saving grace of my ti as a superhero: because my ability to get around the city was sowhat dependent on knowing where I was relative to both my destination and the best spots from which to get there, I had to spend plenty of ti getting the lay of the land. And since most incidents that called for Moonshot happened at street level… that ant walking around, seeing the sights, and eting people!
Now, I had a lot of opinions about Chicagoans — particularly about that horrible, hideous casserole that dared sully the good na of pizza — and aside from my raw incredulity at how so many of them could just ignore winter, most of them were positive! For the most part, the city was full of friendly, decently-inford, and welcoming people. And sure, they weren’t as unflappable as New Yorkers where weird stuff was concerned, but the general public did manage to stop sending weird and incredulous stares after only a couple of months.
Admittedly, so of that was due to the kind of stuff I got up to as a superhero. Pyrokinesis wasn’t exactly the easiest power to use for stopping petty cri, and absolutely nobody wanted near a disaster zone, given just how flammable everything there tended to be. But teleportation? Oh, people loved that one, both my commanding officer in the NMR and Chicago PD. Suspect fleeing the scene? Yeah, no, nobody outran .
Where I saw the most use, though? General public outreach. It turned out that being cute, fuzzy, and warr than a space heater made a favorite for community service, especially during the winter. Any ti the power went out sowhere, I got sent to the biggest outage to help relief efforts. Senior living facility getting cold enough to risk hypothermia? Just get so foxfire floating around and make everyone all nice and toasty! People trapped in their hos due to absurd snowfall? A little bit of foxfire and they’re out! Animal shelter getting too cold for the poor pups in their kennels? Well… actually no, that one was bad for ; cold and hungry dogs that catch a whiff of ‘fox’ from tend to get a little too aggressive for comfort.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to for the genuine story.
Honestly, part of the reason I didn’t get put in harm’s way that often was probably the Japanese Consulate breathing down the NMR’s neck. Which… I appreciated it, really! But it could also get dreadfully boring. Like, yes, I understood being important enough that nobody wanted to risk it. And yeah, getting hurt sucked, but it wasn’t like I stayed hurt anymore, plus I had Gorou looking out for whenever I actually felt worried.
Eh. At least most of the other Moonshot were decent people. Though HQ hadn’t been the sa since Naiad finished her tour of duty. I an sure, it was almost annoying how often she dragged off to be her personal heater, but she was also the only one I could get to watch old movies with ! Wonder how she was doing with the Peace Corps; where did they send her again? Was it Indonesia or Malaysia? Regardless, it wasn’t like I was gonna have much luck sending her an email. Odds were she couldn’t even check it… ah, well. She was off in rural Asia, doing what she wanted to do.
And here I was, stuck in Chicago, and while it had its downsides I was at least afforded enough autonomy to just go explore the city on a whim, or—
“Wait, honey, look! Is that — it is! Excuse us, Foxfire! Miss Foxfire!”
My right ear swiveled towards the voices as I approached the crosswalk, and when the rest of turned to look, it took all of my self-control not to just leave. Tourists. Tourists. How could I tell? Well, Texan accent plus Longhorns gear equals out-of-towners.
Yeah, what I said about wanting to spend ti on street level? Forget it. Those rooftops were looking mighty attractive right about now… but, no. I’d made my bed, it was ti to lie in it.
“Oh, um, hi?” I greeted the tourists, a pair of couples and—
Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness.
“Ooooh my goodness look at you!” I cooed, kneeling down to look at the positively adorable baby in a stroller pushed around by one of the two couples — and which was, again, festooned in Longhorns logos. “Oh you are so cute! Lookit your little beanie and onesie and oh, those hair clips!” The baby in the stroller burbled and giggled, and reached up to the top of my head with eager little fingers.
“Careful there, she’s gonna try and take those ears off ya!” one of the n said, likely the baby girl’s father.
“Mm, no she won’t!” I lowered my head a little further and tilted one ear towards the baby girl, letting her clumsy little fingers brush along the brown fur atop them, though I flicked it out of the way every ti she tried to actually grab. “See?”
“Oh my God, they are real—”
“Frankie!” the girl’s mother hissed at who I could only assu was her father. “Sorry about that, miss; my husband didn’t an anything by it.”
“Eh, it’s fine; trust , I’ve heard worse,” I reassured them, then pulled back from the baby to look at her parents and their friends… though I did give the sweetie a finger to grab when she let out a disappointed little burble. “Sorry about that; anyway, yes, I’m Foxfire, though I prefer Naomi when I’m not in costu. Anyway, what brings you all the way from Texas?”
“March Madness!” the Hispanic man from the other couple answered.
“And figured we could all make a vacation out of it,” the Hispanic woman, who I assud to be his girlfriend or wife, added. “Sorry about all of them; Frankie and Ernesto here have been overeager since undergrad.”
“Well, him I understand,” I pointed at the Hispanic man, Ernesto, “but him? Being a dad didn’t llow him out at all?” I asked, lowering one ear as I pointed to the baby girl’s father.
“Well, it’s made him a big help with little Lea here…”
“Why I never, Evangeline!” the girl’s father, Frankie, gasped in mock outrage. I found myself chuckling at their antics in spite of myself, especially when the baby, little Lea, let out a happy little giggle of her own. “Anyways, real sorry to bother you, miss; it’s just that we don’t get none too many of y’all superheroes just walking around down in Austin, and were wondering if’n you wouldn’t mind a quick autograph.”
“Oh! Actually I can do you one better, one second… where did I…” I pulled my purse around to my front and went rummaging around in it, groping blindly for what I was looking for. Honestly, how did sothing that large and decently bulky manage to — aha! “There we go!”
I retrieved a little leather carry case, about the size of three of those Kodak disposable caras stacked atop one another, and undid the clasp before pulling out a sowhat bulky plastic brick. Another mont or two was all it took to unfold that ‘brick’ into my Polaroid cara, and a quick check showed that yes, I did still have so pictures ready.
“Here we go!” I turned the Polaroid on and handed it over to Frankie, then squatted down next to little Lea’s stroller. “Just wait a few more seconds, then line up your shot and take a photo!”
“Oh — well, that’s mighty neat of ya, right there!” The man’s Texas accent was particularly strong on that one, and that got giggling, which had little baby Lea giggling to match. “Alright, three, two, one—!”
I offered the cara a toothy smile and a peace sign as the countdown finished. The Polaroid flashed, and spat a little photo out the front, which I hopped to grab before it could fall to the ground.
“Alright, how about a couple of group shots now?” I offered, waving the Polaroid photo around as it started developing. “Hand the cara over to Ernesto there—”
“Ohohoho no, no giving anything to butterfingers Ernie over here!” Frankie broke in, waving over the Hispanic woman instead. “Can you handle this one, Guadalupe?”
“On it!” The Hispanic woman, Guadalupe, marched over and grabbed the cara, then demonstrated that she was absolutely the best person for this job when she subtly adjusted her posture and height to get a better angle. “Foxfire can stay right there, Eva, you kneel next to the other side of the stroller, and stand behind her, Frankie, yeah?”
“Why not have the ladies on one side ‘n on the other?” Frankie protested. “It gon’ be all lopsided like this!”
I tuned out the good-natured bickering between friends and let myself get jostled around a little bit, and even laughed as Guadalupe pulled out a flip phone with a cara on it to check things. Honestly, the concerns about lopsidedness made wish Gorou was here, and — actually, let just give the old man a nudge…
Multitasker that I was, I listened to Guadalupe’s directions while also reaching down into the kernel of foxfire at my soul, then through my connection with Gorou to nudge the old man with my feelings of amusent and elation.
“Okay, fine! Good enough!” Guadalupe called. “Look at the cara and say cheese on three!”
I felt a stirring from Gorou’s end of our connection, paired with sleepiness, confusion, curiosity—
“—three!”
—PAIN!?
“Ah!” I stumbled and fell, ears ringing and spots in my vision; no, not my vision, it was—
Gorou!? Gorou!
“Whoa! Her eyes are — Miss? Foxfire?”
What was —
A flicker of blue and our sensorium was restored, but all that resolved was shapes in the darkness, moving — shapes? Moving? Moving — and yelling, at each other!
Gorou what was — no that one’s raising a gun, Gorou you have to get out of there, Gorou—!
A soft thwip, two sharp pinpricks in a shoulder mine-not-mine, and—
PAIN. White-hot pain, his mine ours, oh God it hurts I can’t move I can’t—
“Foxfire!? Shit; she’s seizing!”
“Locking down asset.”
What was—
“Gah!”
Agony lanced up my arm Gorou’s leg him us, a white feather with half of its length buried in his leg, it was cold, so horribly cold—
A baby was crying, loud and terrified.
“Asset secure. Exfil.”
They were taking him, they were taking Gorou no don’t take him from Gorou please you need to leave—
He couldn’t; the feather froze his form, he couldn’t fall apart into fla, he tried and it was crushing squeezing suffocating his foxfire soul, he I we couldn’t leave. Gorou, Gorou please, please they can’t—
Hands on his my our neck, shoulders, back, stomach, so many hands grabbing and lifting and no, no no no no can’t let them don’t let them get away get away get away GET AWAY!!!!
I Gorou we BURNED—
Burned, burned, burned! Get them off, get away from him from from us, get away, get awayGET AWAY!
Heat and fla and azure and athyst and screams and then quiet!
Gorou saw, I saw — ash. Our apartnt was… it was destroyed. Slagged tal and burning plastic atop bones, not even slling cooked but just ash. What had that… what had…
I felt Gorou’s panic dim and concern grow—
And then I was back in my own head, my own eyes and ears and scent and taste and skin, and why was it so hot we were barely even hitting spring…?
Wait. It was quiet. Why was it quiet? Why was—
No. Oh, no.
No, no no no, please, please don’t—
Bones — man, woman, infant. Scorched and mangled plastic, the ruined remains of my Polaroid clutched in half-incinerated phalanges.
Bubbling concrete and asphalt, fire alarms, sprinklers, sirens? And the sll… the sll—! I…
I…
“I don’t—”
The words wouldn’t co. Couldn’t breathe, throat felt too tight, I… I can’t—!
I… they… but they were just… what did — how — why did… what had I done?
What had I done!?
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