start of a QB Kitsune fic

[Foxboy]

[Just the start of one, posting what I have before I dash to work.]
"Lady, gimme your purse!" the Hellion shouted at his victim. His two companions laughed behind him.
"Don't hurt me!" she wailed. She really should have known better than to step into the alley, but her chewing gum had lost its flavor. Since her attackers had moved all the garbage cans, her only choice had been to step into the alley to deposit the sticky mass in a proper receptacle.
The Hellion frowned as he pulled on the purse. Why did it always take forever to snag purses in Atlas Park? Was there some sort of citizen training course in an obscure martial art to retain purses and wallets until a cape showed up?
A cloud passed over head, dimming the sunlight in the alley. The Hellion would normally have ignored it as normal, but the shadow grew deeper. Almost alive, tendrils of darkness caught at his feet.
"It's gotta be a mask!" he shouted, letting go of the purse. The victim fell on her butt and quickly scrambled away. His companions pulled out their weapons and drew a bead on the form emerging from the shadows.
The hero was short, slender, and feminine. She raised a bow and launched six arrows in one shot before he could register her costume. He was flabbergasted as he and his companions were pinned to the wall by their clothes. The harmless looking schoolgirl he could now identify as QB Kitsune strode up and began to read from a card in her hand.
"B-by the powers vested in h-heroes by the Citizen Crimefighter act of 1938, you are all under arrest," she stated. "You have the right to remain silent . . ."
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[His Lovely Wife]

Lovely!
So, what happens next?

:-) -Cindy

[Bob Schroeck]

Looks good. I hope there's more!
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Foxboy]

Azuria sat at a table outside "El Helado Super Mexicano" and watched the traffic in and out of the Eastgate hazard zone. Two sundaes sat on the table in front of her, kept at the optimal temperature by a simple spell. She glanced at her watch and noticed that QB Kitsune was late. In a city where street crime was prevalent, it was expected for Supers to occasionally be late. In fact, Azuria regularly built a fudge factor into her appointments with heroes. Granted, this was more of a social meeting than anything business related, but the poor dear needed more personal than professional support.
A crystal on her amulet began to glow, indicating trouble at MAGI headquarters. She rose, placed her chair in its place and murmured a few soft words accompanied by a gesture. The air in front of her shivered and a disc of eldritch energy appeared perpendicular to the ground. She calmly stepped through the disc and into her office.
No sooner had she gotten the extra protections on many of the dangerous artifacts in her office, the door flew off its hinges. A hulking male figure dressed in leather pants and a iron mask withdrew the enormous mallet and stepped back to allow a troupe of harlequins into the room, followed by a woman in an intricate Renaissance dress. Azuria tensed, recognizing Vanessa deVore's followers in the Carnival of Shadows from their Venetian porcelain masks.
"Good evening, Azuria, dear," the master illusionist said. She raised her hand and a harlequin tossed a psychic knife at one of the staff before he could interrrupt with a relic designed to remove the Carnival masks. The luckless clerk disappeared in a shower of teleportation sparks as he was whisked to Chiron Medical Center. "We believe that you possess an item that should rightly belong to us."
Azuria frowned. "What are you talking about?"
The illusionist cocked her head to the side in amusement. "There is no need to be coy, my dear." She mimed reaching into her bodice and produced an illusion of an oil painting depicting a Japanese porcelain fox mask. "The death-mask of Lady Nogitsune. We know you have it, since you and Sister Psyche created it." A note of regret entered her voice when Azuria snarled. "A pity, we shall have to do this the hard way."
A leather-encased arm suddenly appeared around Azuria's throat, holding her in place as its matching counterpart snapped an ampoule of knockout gas under her nose. As consciousness fled, Azuria caught the reflection of an Arachnos Night Widow holding her.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[The Hunterminator]

---

The Hellion frowned as he pulled on the purse. Why did it always take forever to snag purses in Atlas Park? Was there some sort of citizen training course in an obscure martial art to retain purses and wallets until a cape showed up?

---

For some reason, this makes me think of Neo saying "I know purse-fu."

[Foxboy]

Kyoko Yamashira adjusted the baseball cap covering the furry triangular ears that marked her as something other than a normal citizen. Her hair was styled so that on first glance no one would notice that the fox ears were real and her only pair, rather than the headband affectation so common among teenage female heroes. She smiled at the citizens mobbing around Miss Liberty's station in Atlas Park and walked at a brisk pace along the mostly cleared streets. Her long cotton skirt swirled about her knees in the backdraft of a hero speeding by. Along the way, she spotted Mrs. Johnson, the first citizen she had rescued as QB Kitsune. It was all she could do to resist waving and saying hello to the kindly old woman who had given her the number to the Circle of Thorns Victims Support Group. Secret identities made it difficult to keep social.
Kyoko arrived at el Helado Super Mexicano and began to scan the tables for Azuria. The MAGI director usually met her here on alternate Mondays for ice cream, a tradition that started when she had arrived at the office in City Hall and promptly had an anxiety attack at the scents from the various Oranbegan and Mu artifacts on display. Azuria had smiled gently and brought her here. Two sundaes later, Kyoko had calmed down enough to go on her first foray against the Hellions.
Frowning, she stepped into the ladies' room and pulled the arrowroot leaf from her forehead dispelling the S.E.P. glamour on her face and clothes, assuming her identity as QB Kitsune. She walked to the counter and spoke to the salesgirl.
"Um, excuse me?" she asked. She still had trouble talking to people she didn't know. Before the Circle of Thorns had abducted her from her dorm in Paragon University, she had merely been shy and bookish. Now, after the whole Lady Nogitsune debacle, she was timid.
"Oh, wow!" the salesgirl exclaimed. "It's QB Kitsune! You saved my father from the Clockwork in Skyway! Thank you!"
QB swallowed hard. This was awkward. Even after a few months as a registered hero, she wasn't used to fans. "Y-you're welcome." She looked at the interior booths. "H-have you seen Azuria? I w-was supposed to meet her here..."
Eyes still sparkling, the clerk gushed, "She got some sort of call and had to leave suddenly. Is it some sort of plot you'll need to stop?"
"I d-don't know," QB said, "but I intend to f-find out." She walked over to a potted plant and stepped into the shadow it cast on the wall. She emerged seconds later from the shadow of the Atlas statue in front of City Hall. Quick strides past the many heroes taking a break from busting heads brought her to the public lobby for MAGI.
She arrived to a scene of chaos. The many clerks who would normally be greeting visitors and cataloging artifacts confiscated from the various villains across the city were now picking themselves up from the ground and removing distinctive rings from around bound colleagues.
"Oh, n-no," Kyoko murmured. "N-not the Carnival of Sh-shadows!" She knew she wasn't ready to deal with them by herself. She fumbled with her communicator and punched in the East Coast Legendary's frequency. "Jessica? Th-there's a situation I could use your help with..."
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll