Chapter 20
"Good morning everyone, my name is Robert Robertson and I'll be your—"
Laughter in the shared channel. A collective test of limits, probing the new dispatcher's boundaries. The poor man was in for a rough couple of hours — a pack of ex-criminals was going to throw every variety of joke at him.
This wasn't new or surprising. Robert Robertson was, at first impression, thoroughly unremarkable — at least in voice and manner. The only thing that set him apart from his predecessors was that Chase and Blond Blazer had specifically asked us to be civil, which, given how many dispatchers Team Z had burned through in two months, meant essentially nothing as a distinguishing feature.
"Ah, I'd appreciate if everyone could settle—"
He was staying polite, and he'd maintained that dynamic for twenty minutes of genuinely stupid provocations, which was already an improvement over most.
"Listen up, you garbage people — shut your mouths right now!" Chase cut through the channel with his characteristic old-man warmth. "Unless you'd all like a boot in the backside back to your cells, you'll button up and get to work. Move!"
"All right everyone, let's get started."
After the customary send-off and blessing rolled into one, the team dispersed into the break room, waiting for assignments. Robert was still talking, but the only people genuinely engaging were a select few, and — amusingly — the most active participant was Invidiva, who had apparently gotten an eyeful of the new dispatcher while he was changing and was now sharing a detailed review in the shared channel.
"He's covered in scars. I love that."
"Does he have abs?"
"No, but that's not the main attraction—"
"God," I said, massaging my face, trying to tune out the conversation happening between Prizm and Invidiva on either side of me. "Can you take this to a private channel or something?"
"That makes us sound like OnlyFans girls or cheap strippers," Invidiva shot back immediately, to team-wide laughter. "Didn't know that was your thing, Ginger!"
"It's not—"
"Debatable. You were very lively at the Red Sparrow," Sonar contributed without looking up, attempting with considerable effort to crack a desiccated cracker with his bat-grade jaw. The cracker was winning. "Sharen was asking why you haven't come back."
"Please kill me."
"Ha-ha-ha — I knew the rumors were true." Malevola did her runway walk between the couches, dropped beside me, and distributed beers. "Any girl would get slippery around little Herman—"
"What rumors? What are you all talking about?"
"Nothing. Just rumors. Very accurate rumors." Both women answered simultaneously, deadpan, which produced an audible groan from me.
"All right, enough fun — time to work." Robert's voice came through, sending addresses to our communicators. "Today's going to be a long one. And even without our aquatic friend, you'll all be sweating through your clothes."
"Ugh, Mr. Robertson, I didn't know you were that kind of person," Prizm called back, giving us a little wave, then slipped out the door with Flambé waiting for her.
The day moved at its own pace after that. People went out on assignments, came back. Teams rotated; occasionally someone worked solo. Though today the SDS clientele seemed to have collectively lost their minds.
I mean — does a superhero who can generate fire and fly need to be dispatched to retrieve a balloon? That was among the more innocent requests. Sometimes people just called because they could.
*Trim the trees urgently. Cat on the roof. Missing hamster.*
In the middle of all this mundane nonsense you'd almost forget you were a super and not a neighborhood handyman — until suddenly you weren't, and things became very real very fast.
That's exactly what happened to us. A busy, repetitive, basically easy day turned without warning into a fight for survival against a horde of arachnids. Well — large spiders, but that doesn't have the same ring.
When we arrived at the scene, we couldn't immediately tell what was happening. Abandoned warehouse in South Central — classic. Pair of naked, very high homeless individuals missing from their usual spot by the dumpster — not classic.
We stepped inside and it became clear. The smell hit first — viscera, waste, unwashed everything. My eyes started watering immediately, and not only mine. Even Malevola reacted, which said something.
"What a penetrating fragrance," she said, pinching her nose and walking forward in her usual manner while I covered her from behind. I had no objections to being in the rear position in our little two-person formation. Especially given how she sometimes bent, or moved, or—
I kept catching her glancing back at me with that knowing look, which made my heart do things it had no business doing.
"I don't think we'll find our client," I said, stopping in the middle of the warehouse. I'd looked up because something warm and viscous had just landed on my forehead.
"Hm? Why?" Malevola followed my gaze upward, pulled a face that would have been at home in a cartoon, and said exactly what came to mind. "Oh. *Hell.*"
"Yeah." I checked the navigation one more time to be sure, which confirmed that our SDS client was currently hanging above us — most of him, anyway, the rest having clearly been someone's meal. "Base, this is Waterboy. Client is deceased. Found the body, partially consumed. Requesting guidance."
The channel delivered the expected static. I tried several more times under Malevola's watchful eye and shook my head. She had gone tense, hand on the hilt of the sword across her back, moving in a slow circle to keep her flanks in my field of view.
"I don't like this." Something rustled in a corner of the warehouse. Both of us snapped toward it, catching only a moving shadow. "Outside. We'll get a signal out there."
"I don't think you'll be going anywhere."
"ARAGOG, IS THAT YOU?" The moment eight enormous legs and an eight-eyed face emerged from the shadow, my partner lit up. She was pointing at the spider and looking back at me, tail swinging with visible excitement. "Have you read the second part yet?"
"Yes — there are so many differences from the film, you were right—"
"I know! I never expected that she would—"
"Am I interrupting?"
The spider — who turned out to have a female voice — had apparently gotten tired of being ignored. To everyone's collective bewilderment, a human torso rose from her back.
"Good grief."
"The agenda really does reach everywhere," Malevola said, covering her eyes with one hand. The spider-centaur — I genuinely didn't know the correct term for this — had a very human upper half, which was bare, and was currently deploying that fact as an intimidation tactic alongside a villain's laugh. "Life has really taken you in unexpected directions, Aragog."
"I told you, I'm NOT Aragog!" The spider-woman's mood was swinging hard. She clenched small human fists and glared. "My name is—"
Nobody was listening. We were both lost in our own thoughts.
I looked at the eight legs and gave myself a mental tap on the head.
*What bikini? It's a spider-centaur.*
"I wonder — is it the legs that make clothes impractical, or do you just prefer the look?" Malevola mused aloud, which confirmed once again that great minds run in parallel. "Though finding a bra for a chest like that would be its own challenge. Herm, what do you think? Hey — don't tell me you got shy?"
"No, I'm just observing basic decorum—"
"Oh please," she said, hooking an arm around my neck in her standard way and pulling my face in. "I know your tastes, heh heh. You little pervert. Remember what you confessed to me at the drinking session—"
"Th-that wasn't—"
"ENOUGH IGNORING ME!" The spider-woman's emotional restraint finally broke. Throughout our conversation, Malevola and I had been slowly drifting toward the warehouse doors — almost close enough. Almost. "You came into my lair! And I won't hold my children back any longer—"
Then it started. Following their mother's telepathic command, the spiders came from everywhere. Technically they were ordinary spiders — in the same way that anything the minimum size of a German Shepherd is ordinary.
*If they ever make a superhero trilogy about us, I thought, this scene will hospitalize arachnophobics in the theater.*
The thought barely cleared before I had to move. Malevola had already cut through a dozen of them, leaving damaged bodies and trails of greenish fluid. I extended both arms and started firing water rounds at high pressure — small spheres, fist-sized, ideal for the numerous fragile targets, letting my demonic partner handle the larger specimens while I dealt with crowd control.
We broke out of the building, covering each other with the practiced ease of two months of working together, and the moment we cleared the warehouse doors the channel came back.
"Waterboy, Malevola! Can you read me?"
"Clear." One hand to my earpiece, I switched from the rapid small shots to a single thin high-pressure stream through the partly open doors — cutting through the first cluster, shoving the ones behind them, buying a few seconds. "Some backup would be appreciated."
Robert turned out to be quick and sharp. He tapped into local cameras without asking unnecessary questions, assessed the situation, and dispatched the most useful person available.
"Flambé is close. Two minutes." Rapid typing, audible through the earpiece. "Can you hold?"
"Easily! Ha!" Malevola's smile showed slightly enlarged canines. She launched herself back into the fight with her sword, carving through the spiders in wide arcs, leaving scorch patterns on the asphalt. Demonic energy consumed everything in her path while her tail wagged cheerfully.
"Y-yeah, we can hold." I got briefly distracted admiring her and nearly caught a large spider in the face for it. She was watching.
"DOWN!"
Her tail hooked my ankle and yanked, accelerating my drop, while she swung the sword in a full horizontal arc in front of her — releasing a wave of dense violet-crimson energy. It bisected several dumpsters. And the wall behind them. And most of the building beyond.
Grinning, she hauled me upright with one hand, and with the other opened a portal directly in the path of the spider that had jumped for me — the blade going through the portal and meeting it on the other side.
Aragog — I was using the name regardless — had finally extracted herself from the warehouse and was producing an unpleasant shriek as she watched her children fall.
My almost-killer shuddered, the demonic energy burning through it, and then flipped to its back with legs drawn in and went still. Something green soaked the pavement.
But for every one that fell, three or four took its place — the swarm not registering losses, just pressing from every angle.
"We could genuinely use Flambé, where is he—"
No answer. Malevola was covering my flanks, giving me the angles I needed for the larger, slower techniques.
Then the cavalry arrived. Angrier than usual — considerably angrier — Flambé hit the swarm like a weather event. Spider after spider reduced to silhouettes on the asphalt. One wave of fire and Aragog ceased to be, not even ash remaining. After that, Malevola and I spent as much effort stopping the secondary fires as we did on the remaining spiders, but—
The job was done. Flambé left without a word, incandescent in every sense.
"What's wrong with him?"
"No idea — help me, would you?" At my word, Malevola opened portals above the rooflines, and I started directing water through them to kill the fire in the warehouse and two trees that had caught. "Maybe he was watching Bridget Jones again when Robert called."
---
*A few minutes earlier.*
"So what do you think, sweetheart? I believe we both arrived at the same place, didn't we? I can't stay long today, lots to do — I just wanted to spend some time with you." Flambé slid closer to his companion and received no response. "Hey. What happened? Did you not like the chocolate lava cake?"
"No, the cake was fine," she said, her voice slightly absent, staring out the window. "It's the rest of it. Chaz, sometimes I feel like—"
"What is it, babe?" Projecting his full devoted attention, the superhero squeezed a small amount of face cream onto his fingers and began applying it. His companion's expression became complicated. "What? You have no idea how much all that flame dries out your skin—"
"That's actually what I wanted to talk about." She moved closer and took his hands gently in hers. "I think we should break up."
"What? Why?" The fire almost surfaced — he pushed it down, which would have startled anyone who knew him, showing her something almost no one ever saw. The sharp, self-assured former villain was gone; this was someone actually trying to understand. "Did I do something to hurt you?"
"You could say that."
"Look, just say it simply. No mystery." He leaned forward — traces of unblended face cream still on his cheek. "We can work through it. And after, we'll go for massages — Juan-Juan will give us the couple's discount. Thirty minutes under those strong hands and nothing will seem like a problem anymore—"
"That's exactly what I mean!" She was on her feet, pulling her hands back. "I didn't want to believe it — I was blinded by my feelings. But my friends told me what to look for!" She began collecting her things. "Chocolate lava cake. Little scented soaps in the bathroom. And God, you wear more cologne than I do."
"It's *Indestructible* by Khloé and Lamar!" This was the only coherent defense Flambé managed. "And for the record, it's unisex—"
"Right." She was already in the hallway, coat on, biting her lip. "Finish this: 'Like no one loved him—'"
"*Blue Moon!* That means nothing—"
"It means that on the one night we spent together, you made me put on a full Mecha Man costume, and you ended up in the wrong place. Twice." She delivered this final point and slammed the door, leaving Flambé alone.
At which exact moment his new dispatcher called, demanding his fire and his presence.
He snarled at the room, recognized an excellent outlet for everything that had just accumulated, and went through the window as a human torch.
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