When she was almost at the top of the building, she’d had enough time to build up some rage. They had been about to kiss! This had been her first good date in years and then someone had to go and interrupt it? This wasn’t fair, not by a long shot. A part of her hoped that this had been an accident. Maybe another alien, crash-landing on earth, or an experiment of some sort gone wrong. Not that they wouldn’t get an earful even if it was an accident, but at least it’d dissipate her anger a bit -- and her worry. But another, and possibly larger part of her wanted this to be some asshole with no regard for other people, because she really needed to express some violence right now. The past few days had taken their toll on her mental health, and she really, desperately, wanted to just vent some frustration. 

Deep breaths, Max. You don’t know their intentions. Max did as she was asked, but she couldn’t help but feel more than a little frustrated.

“Easy for you to say,” she huffed. “I was about to be kissed!”

So was I, Penny said, and Max realized that the symbiote sounded annoyed. She just hadn’t picked up on it because she’d been so stuck in her own head. That wasn’t even the biggest item on the docket. 

“Wait, you were too.”

Duh. I experience what you experience. 

“Huh.”

Yeah.

“We’re probably going to have to talk about this at some point.”

That might not be a bad idea, Penumbra said. The conversation had relaxed her slightly. She was, at least, no longer in the mood to put someone through a wall. Not without hearing them out, anyway. She could still be persuaded to do some emergency renovating, if it came to it. Accompanied by the distant sounds of sirens, she reached the top, and crawled over the edge. She gave Penny a grateful nudge, very aware of the fact that her muscles felt, well, fine. Perfectly warmed up. She couldn’t imagine crawling on all fours up the side of an apartment building and not having to take a dirt nap, but she felt pretty great. Right up until she saw the culprit. Or, rather, culprits. Everything except a central figure glowed a light blue, so she figured that had to be the person responsible. But everything else fought to catch her attention. There was something in between an old-school chariot and a convertible, pulled by what appeared to be two extremely fluffy Maine Coons the size of horses. There were several beings that looked suspiciously like angels (even if they had, to Max, a fair few wings too many), carrying bags of things that looked very shiny. 

While the central figure wasn’t glowing, they were no less surreal. Under a white hood, they seemed to be wearing an old-school theatre mask, half-angry and half-sad. Max couldn’t make out any features because the rest of the figure was wrapped in ceremonial robes that hadn’t been around for a few millennia at least. 

“Um,” Max said to herself. The figure hadn’t spotted her yet, and seemed to be looking at the contents of the bags that the angels -- she couldn’t help but feel there was something spectacularly blasphemous about the whole situation -- were presenting to them. She cleared her throat. “Hey!”

The figure turned around and stared at her. She stared back for a moment. She realized that she would probably be more approachable if she had a face, and Penumbra obliged. The figure didn’t react. Just stood there and stared. The contents of the bags were, the more Max looked at them, obviously loot of some kind. Which meant that the person who had interrupted their date by blowing up Victoria’s window was not some misunderstood genius or a lost alien, but a common thief. 

“WE,” she yelled, “WERE ON A DATE.” It had been her intent to express frustration, but she couldn’t keep Victoria out of her head. The compromise, she felt, was maybe a little intimidating. No fury and all that. The figure seemed to disagree.

“And?” The voice from behind the mask was muffled, and it was hard to discern, but the clear tone of annoyance was unmistakable. She took another deep breath, trying not to give in to the urge to fling herself at them. 

“Is that a menorah?” she asked instead, shifting the subject now that it was clear that things weren’t going to go her way if she continued the same way. And stalling for time was probably also a good idea. Going by the sound of police sirens in the background, maybe she could keep the person here long enough. “Who the hell steals a menorah?” That seemed to take the figure aback. They looked at it like they hadn’t even seen it yet. 

“I just… told them to take whatever they could,” the figure said sheepishly, and then up at the angels, who stood there, motionless and emotionless. 

“You’re blaming this on angels? Dick move.” 

“What do -- Who even are you?” The figure seemed annoyed more than anything, which suited Max fine. Annoyed meant not doing harm, not stealing things, and not running away. Annoyed was perfect. But she did have to pause for a moment. She couldn’t just give her name, and calling herself Penumbra felt a little unfair to Penny themself. 

Are you saying you want a superhero name? And you’re going to come up with it right now? On the fly? Max realized that that was probably a terrible idea, and thought about blowing the masked person off, before Penny interrupted. You should go for it. This is going to be wonderful. Penny and Max shared a quiet chuckle, before turning their attention back to the person. 

“I am Spite,” she said, trying to sound as imposing and as menacing as possible. Penny did what they could to help out in that regard, making her voice sound slightly garbled and monstrous. “And you’re a thief.”

“Very cool and very perceptive. What do you want from me?” Maxine paused for a moment. She kind of wanted to punt them for being so dismissive of her, but beyond that… she’d worked shops. She knew what it was like to have things stolen from you. The owner would get insurance money and the person working the store would get chided or fired. 

“What are your pronouns?” she asked as she finally stood up to her full height. She could tell that the masked thief was slightly taken aback by her size, taking a small step back. But the tone in their voice didn’t change. 

“I’m obviously a man,” the figure said. Maxine disagreed, but she had a rather unique perspective when it came to ‘obvious’ masculinity. And that unique perspective, along with her working in a bookstore for some time, gave her some unique knowledge, as well.

“Those are priestesses’ robes,” she said. If her current face had been in possession of any facial features beyond the two eyes, she would have raised her eyebrows. Thieves these days clearly didn’t know their history. She was about to follow up with something snarky when the figure balled his fists and took a step forward. 

“How do -- Why do you even care?!” Max grinned behind the mask. She’d clearly gotten under his skin. She wanted to push on, but she also wanted to say a cool one-liner and she had a quick internal debate. She decided to compromise by saying a cool one-liner, because she’d never had the chance to do so. What was the point of superpowers if you didn’t get to act cool while you showed them off?

“Oh,” she said, as she slowly walked a few steps closer, tensing herself up. “I just like to make sure. That way I won’t make any mistakes. You know, when.” She noticed with satisfaction that she’d caused some more frustration. Good. 

“When what?!” the exasperation in his voice was like music to her ears, and he’d asked the exact right question she was hoping he would ask. She tensed up even more, ready to jump. 

“When I brag about how I kicked your ass,” she said, feeling a lot cooler than she actually was, and in an explosion of speed, enhanced by Penny and overconfidence, she launched herself at the figure. He barely had time to react as she barrelled towards him. ‘This is easier than I thought,’ she thought to herself, and as if to prove the dangers of irony, not knocking on wood and plain old arrogance, she was bodychecked by an angel almost twice her size. Her trajectory was drastically changed. With a loud ‘beng’ she crashed into a large air conditioning unit. She pulled her head out of the head-shaped dent she made and spun around.

“My angels are very fast, Spite,” the figure said, and he laughed with his hands on his hips like they were in a Saturday morning cartoon. She jumped at him again, this time anticipating the interruption. When it came, aided by Penny’s enhanced reflexes, she spun around in mid air and grabbed it by the wrist and… snapped it off. She skidded to a halt and awkwardly held the thing’s appendage.

“Not very sturdy though,” she said sheepishly. The hand, and the rest of the angel with it, evaporated. She looked back at the thief. “That’s it?” she asked, which was the exact wrong thing to say. Two more figures appeared. She looked at them, and then at the person (she refused to call him a Villain), and then back at the apparitions. “Greek gods?” she asked incredulously. The man just shrugged, then pointed at her. 

She barely had time to respond when the one with the small wings on his shoes shot forward, fists raised. Maxine dodged the first punch with a feeling of extreme annoyance. She refused to be beaten up by this thing, but more importantly, she refused to lose to someone who just stood there and laughed. She hoped she was as annoying to him as he was to her, and realized that the best way to do that was to keep talking. He seemed to really hate that. 

She dodged a punch, deflected another, and then knocked out the faux-godling with a single haymaker. “Do you have any idea,” she asked as she readied herself for the other one to come at her, “what you could do with a power like this? What you could achieve?” She punched straight through the other one when it came at her, and the thief groaned in frustration. Two more angels appeared, this time with swords wreathed in blue flame. 

“Why do you even care?” he said. Maxine got the feeling it was a rhetorical question, but that hadn’t stopped her before. She dodged the first swing, which came awfully close to her head and embedded itself in the rooftop concrete. The angel went down with a one-two punch and she advanced on the man. 

“Because you broke the law, but much more importantly, you broke the window of my… uh…” she paused. What was Victoria? Not her girlfriend, not yet, surely? Date? Yeah, that worked. 

Focus, Penny said, but it was too late. The angel swung its sword and the jump to the side was just a little too late. The blue blade cut through her arm. It wasn’t very deep, but it burned like, well, hell. She growled and grabbed at the sword, twisting it out of the angel’s grasp, and beat it over the head with the hilt. It too evaporated. 

“Now,” she said, “you’re going to give yourself up, and you’re going to pay for the damages.” She advanced on the guy. “You have the power to change the world and you’re using it to play dress-up and steal things.”

The thief stepped back, hands raised defensively, and she wondered why there weren’t more constructs. Maybe he’d reached his limit. Good, so had her patience. “Look, I don’t want trouble. I --” Suddenly he pointed over her shoulder. “Behind you!”

There was a very quick moment of hesitation. If she looked and there was nothing there she’d be a sucker. But if she didn’t look and there was, she’d be even more of one. She reached to grab the guy by the collar but dared a glance behind her. There, only a foot away, stood Penumbra. Only blue and glowing. 

“That’s just cheati--” she managed, before she was hit by what had felt like a truck. She bounced across the roof before she managed to dig her fingers into the ground and slid to a halt, deep grooves proof of her deceleration. She looked up just in time to see the fake Penny-and-Max slam into her and take her off the building. 

That went well, Penny said as the figure dissolved and they began to tumble down the side of a highrise for the second time that week.

Elamimax

:o Stop hitting yourself

So I've been trying to make writing my official profession, and while I'm also talking to publishers, I'm also relying on all of you through my Patreon. I want to do this for a long time, and I can only do that with your support. I also have a twitter (here).

I also want to point people at the discord server of the ever-prolific QuietValerie (right here) where you can find her wonderful stories, like Ryn of Avonside, Falling Over and The Trouble With horns, as well as other authors' works, and talk about them with fellow fans, and even the authors themselves! I heartily recommend joining it and reading their works! 

Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next one. 

<3