I AM EMPOWERED, pt.8: The Twitter-based YEAR ONE prose dealie continues!

 <Note: You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installments with this tag.>

And now, back to Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1. In this chapter, Emp is continues a lengthy account of a incident involving superheroic rooftop-to-rooftop (or "R2R") jumping: >

I AM EMPOWERED

Chapter 3:  ABOMINABLEMENT DIFFICILE (pt.4)

<OUR STORY THUS FAR: In botched pursuit of rampaging supervills Trigger Troll and Quasarmodo, our heroine confronts the miscreants at street level, breft of most of her supersuit and all of her powers:>

Clearly, this isn't an organized supercrime in progress. Instead, I'm witnessing a day-drinking idiot supervillain's drunken mecha joyride.

Make that TWO day-drinking idiots, once the lumpy, misshapen form of Quasarmodo sways into view, also dainty-dangling a SuperHard Lemonade.

Quasarmodo's other beefy paw, howeva, grips the arm of a cute civilian girl (of Hipster stock, prejudging by her glasses and skinny jeans).

No damsel she, Hipster Chica struggles wildly and shrieks impressive profanities at him, but the deformed doofus easily drags her along.

Quasarmodo slurs drunkenly, "C'mon, civvie girl." (Time out for a very suave burp.) "Don'cha wanna hang out a li'l with some badass capes?" 

Being both mildly superstrong and nonmildly boozed-up, Quasarmodo is certain to break Hipster Chick’s arm any moment now, if not her neck. 

The fleeing civvies have successfully fled. Right now, I’m alone out here with the bad guys, hiding behind my lamppost, nerving myself up. 

Deep breath. Second deep breath. Okay, one more deep breath. Then I bite my lip and step out into the street, my knees a teensy bit wobbly. 

Hands on hips. Hair toss. One last deep breath. "Let her go, asshole," I bellow at Quasarmodo, pleased that my voice only breaks a little.

Hearing me, Trigger Troll whirls around, hops off the wrecked car with a blast of jump jets, lands—rather unsteadily—ten feet away from me.

An autocannon deploys from his exoskeleton's arm, swings out and locks on to me, red streaks of targeting laser flickering over my face.

Troll's cannon is so close—and so large—that I could easily shove my fist down its muzzle aperture—a cool move, if I still had any powers.

Garbled by alcohol and low-fi audio gear, a muddled demand blares out of his exoskeleton's speakers. "What're YOU gonna do about it, dummy?"

The laser-sight dot roams up and down my mostly supersuitless body. "VillainWiki sez y'r useless when y'r suit's all torn up like that!"

Pause for a hiccup, rendered extra-goofy by his crappy speakers. "Yeah, sez right here—at 50% surface area, y'r suit's powers crap out."

GOOD: VillainWiki's off-base, as my hypermembrane can still function while 50% intact. UNGOOD: I'm presently (much) more than halfway naked. 

On cue, the cold steel muzzle of Troll's cannon bumps my bare belly. I try—and fail, badly—not to flinch. Hands-on-hips pose: getting shaky.

"Hey, look, dummy—y’ hardly got a bikini's worth of suit left," Troll speaker-blares. An exaggeration, I muse, though not by very much.

If measured in terms of 50s-era proto-bikinis—high-waisted and quite modestly cut—then, yes, I do hardly have a bikini's worth of suit left—

—and I’m jarred out of my mind-racing bikini-reverie tangent as the 75mm autocannon’s cold, hard muzzle nudges my warm, soft belly again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Quasarmodo stumbling closer, still dragging Hipster Chick by the arm, but now eying me with interest.

I might not be even vaguely as cute as Hipster Chick, but I'm considerably closer to being naked, her painted-on skinny jeans be damned.

(Big struggle, stopping my Mental Hamster Wheel from spinning off on a tangential rant about the vicious sartorial tyranny of skinny jeans.)

“Okay, sure, my superpowers are gone,” I admit, a little shakily. “But, hey, guess what I’m still good at—what I’m notorious for, in fact?”

Silence ensues as Trigger Troll’s armored headpiece and Quasarmodo’s lumpy, pieced-together head stare at me blankly.

I sigh, jerk a thumb towards Hipster Chick. “Ditch Skinny Jeans over there. If you need a captive audience, I’m overqualified for the job.” 

Are these drunken idiots still not following me? I put my wrists together, extend my symbolically bound hands forward, gesturing emphatically.

“Jeez, guys,” I huff, shaking my head. “I’m saying, take me captive, instead of her.” Behind her hipster frames, Skinny Jeans’ eyes widen.

I glance over at her, our eyes lock—okay, her eyes behind glasses, mine behind supersuit lenses—and we share a Savvy City Girl Moment. 

We both know that being in the company of very strong, very stupid, VERY drunk guys is not always an ideal place for a girl to be. 

In theory, the Unwritten Rules of cape culture protect me more than her, but surrendering to boozing bads like this pushes theory’s limits. 

Striving to shrug off the encroaching tide of anxiety rapidly undermining my sandcastle of (Semi-)Heroic Resolve, I renew my beseechery. 

“I get captured a lot, so this is no biggie,” I insist. “Besides, you get more bad-guy cred from grabbing a superchica than some civilian.”

Again, I thrust my wrists out at one supervill, then the other. “Make up your minds, huh? This is incredibly degrading for me, understand?”

That’s no lie, either, as my skin is crawling with the sheer humiliation of having to offer myself up for captivity—a new low, even for me.

I glare pointedly at Troll, then Quasarmodo. The vills trade—I think—Meaningful Looks. Skinny Jeans Hipster Chick stares at all three of us.

Silence for a three-count, interrupted by the faint clicks and faux shutter noises of camera phones buzzing from either side of the street. 

As always, a hardy few civilians are venturing out of the smoke- and debris-choked periphery, phones upraised to capture stills and video.

Good to know that my nadir as a superheroine—okay, my NEWEST nadir as a superheroine, it would seem—is being duly recorded for posterity.

Quasarmodo releases Skinny Jeans’ bruised arm. She darts past me, trailing a fervent, muttered chain of thank-yous, and she’s gone—and safe.

Then the Hulking Hunchback—no joke, that’s his official secondary supranym—reaches out to grab my wrists, but I step back out of his reach.

Speaker-blare from Troll, growl from Quasarmodo. “You’ve got me, but on one condition,” I singsong, back-and-forth-ing an index finger. 

“I need you fellas to move this party off the streets”—I’m pointing high upwards, now—“and up to rooftop level, where the big boys play.”

I smirk, with as much insolence as my weak knees and butterflied stomach allow me to fake. “Or are you big badasses SCARED of a little R2R?”

Gesturing breezily, now. “Personally, I’m pretty fond of rooftopping, but I can understand if you guys might be a little freaked out by it.”

Moment of silence #3. The vills once again trade, I think, Meaningful Looks. “What’ll it be, boys?” I ask, oh-so-innocently.

<Next week: Emp's account of a messed-up "R2R" misadventure rolls on, as she discovers to her dismay that the only thing worse than botched R2R is being subjected to someone else's botched R2R.>

TOMORROW: No idea at the moment, to be honest. Let's find out together, shall we?