Author’s Note

Hi Everybody!

            As some of you may know, I am releasing my first book soon! (Date still TBD) But Swallowing Sands, Han Vs. Carpentier, The Murmuring Shadows, and Autopsy are four recent stories I’ve published here on the blog, introducing and teasing the world and characters I have planned!

            However, while I plan to continue writing opinion pieces here or there, I don’t want to go to the same well repeatedly with my short stories. To that end, I had an idea: what if I wrote a set of stories that would be reserved exclusively for the blog? (Hence why I’ve named the dimension 8109, or “Blog”)

            That’s what I have set out to do with my new short story, Sprint and Blackthorn. The first story of a three-part miniseries! (for now!)

            Similar to What is Fiction Here is Real Elsewhere, Sprint and Blackthorn areset in a different world from my book, but they share the same multiverse. I’d like this story to serve as a foundation to help me flesh out these characters and their world in future short stories! I’m a nerd, first and foremost, and while my book primarily focuses on dark fantasy, I’d like for the world of Sprint and Blackthorn to have more of a focus on the superhero genre! I like to have my own spin on things when it comes to my writing, so while I try to mimic the literature of comic books and the origin of superhero powers, I believe I have a nice balance with my own style…with just a smidge of interconnectivity with my book.

            So, without further ado:

…Meanwhile, on Dimension 8109…

It was a cloudless, sunny afternoon across the streets of Toronto, Canada. A news chopper hovered over the skyline with a wandering eye for a developing story. Sporadic horns blared, and hundreds of varying conversations overlapped one another along the sidewalks as pedestrians went about their day with shopping bags or phones in hand. Outdoor patios were brimming with people enjoying their early afternoon meals while a bookstore window advertised ‘What is Real Here is Fiction Elsewhere: the Multiversial Parable’ by Keith McEvoy.

A small flock of birds glided past the CN Tower amid the late Spring rush of sightseers. Outside the Toronto Railway Museum in Roundhouse Park, three friends leaned up against a railing, enjoying some strawberry smoothies. They were overlooking the gravel pit of the railway turntable while a maroon locomotive sat stationary on the track in front of them. Four more green and black retired trains and an orange cupola caboose were displayed along the roundhouse, with a fifth hidden under a blue tarp.

“Did you still want to hit up O’Meara’s?” Rachael Reech asked.

“Oh yes!” Amy Howell responded enthusiastically. “We could run by that market on the other side too while we’re here, Rach.”

“Oh, what? And get that purse I was looking at?” Reech asked.

“Yeah!” Howell exclaimed.

“I don’t know, Ames,” Reech cautioned. “It was kinda expensive.”

“Pfft, I’ll buy it for you,”  Howell promised, looking over at the third friend in the group—who slurped her smoothie, preoccupied with a second news chopper approaching overhead. “Anything else you want to do today, Juno?”

“Hmm…? Oh, err, yeah, the mall sounds great!” June Fiddler nodded, shifting her attention to Wallace.

“Err, June,” Reech interjected. “She asked if there was anything else you wanted to do today?”

“Oh,” Fiddler squirmed. “…I’m up for whatever you guys want to do. Sorry, kinda zoned out for a sec.”

“What’s on your mind? If you’re worried about finals, I’m sure—” Howell started.

“It’s not about school,” Fiddler advised. “I was just wondering what the helicopters were for. One of them showed up a few minutes ago, and now there’s another one. They’re just…hovering.”

“Accident downtown, maybe?” Howell suggested, digging her phone from her purse. “Let’s find out.” After only a few moments of searching, Wallace’s eyes grew wide with concern.

“What is it?” Reech asked, noticing the expression on her friend’s face.

“That guy who killed all those people in New York broke out of prison earlier today,” Howell answered. Fiddler grew rigid with concern.

“Salem Nash?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Howell nodded. Fiddler tapped on her nearly-empty smoothie cup.

“You guys go on ahead, I’m going to hit the bathroom—something I ate isn’t sitting well with me. I’ll catch up!” She informed her friends with a grimace.

“All right,” Reech acknowledged.

“See you guys there!” Fiddler exclaimed with a wave. She hurriedly departed Roundhouse Park, dispatching her smoothie cup into a trash bin along the way. Pulling out her phone, she dialed a number as she pushed past the crowd. The device rang with a lingering anxiety. Another unnerving clangor filled Fiddler’s ear with apprehension. “For once in your life, Sprint, would you—”

“Hello?” A voice on the other end of the line finally answered.

“Where are you?” Fiddler demanded.

“Err, home,” The voice replied defensively. “Why?”

“Put the news on!” Fiddler ordered, pressing her phone into her shoulder as she subtly slipped on a pair of fingerless gloves. A few seconds passed while she quietly maneuvered her way along the sidewalk. She could hear some inaudible arguing before the line went quiet.

“…How?” The voice sputtered a few moments later. “I really thought we had him this time.”

“We’ll figure that out later!” Fiddler asserted dismissively. “I need you down here!”

Over the bustling traffic, the news choppers fluttered around Bell Trinity Square, where Toronto’s Emergency Task Force had an intersection and the front plaza of an N.A.T.O. building surrounded. Police outfitted in riot gear slowly converged on the front entrance with weapons drawn. A Nightjar completed a small arc around the area before settling down on a traffic light pole stretching over the crosswalk of the intersection. With the resolute sound of boots thumping against the ground, the riot line paused their hurried march in the plaza next to a fountain, twenty feet from the door. A prolonged wait followed as the police checked and double-checked their armaments.

            “Salem Nash!” A police chief standing beside a cruiser finally broke the relative silence with a megaphone. “We have the building surrounded! Come out with your hands laced behind your head!” Nothing was said in response. It was quiet but for the spurting water of the fountain and the excess noises of the surrounding city.

            The silence was abruptly brushed aside, replaced by car alarms and urgent screams of shock and horror as the front of the N.A.T.O. building exploded in a brilliant flash of light. Debris was launched skyward, while glass shards and stone rained down. Some police officers crumpled to the cement while others managed to block some projectiles hurtling toward them with their riot shields. As smoke billowed from the fresh pile of destruction ahead of them, the Emergency Task Force opened fire. An ocular laser erupted, cutting through the wall of smoke toward the police. One by one, the riot line was dismantled, falling to pieces in a scorched, crimson heap.

            “The name,” A voice rang out from beyond the smoke. “Is Tumultus!”

            A man with two prosthetic arms and a billowing black cape strode out from the entrance’s remains. He wore a Nijmegen Helmet and a pristine white vest over a brown jacket. Radiation softly shimmered along his fingers as he harvested the energy from nearby light sources. Tumultus slid down the rubble as he raised his arm and shot a beam of light at a nearby police cruiser—vaporizing it. Police and pedestrians frantically scrambled away as Tumultus stared them down, effortlessly slicing those in his eyesight in half with his lasers. The Nightjar watched intently as a sudden breeze blew through the plaza.

            Slammed in the chest with an extended elbow before being struck by a punch across his cheek, Tumultus’s assault was interrupted. He staggered, closing his eyes and grimacing as he lost his footing from the blow. A man wearing a gray fire suit and a matching racing helmet stood over the supervillain.

            “It’s over, Salem!” Cried the man in the grey fire suit, Trent Pruitt. “Take the vest off before more people get hurt!”

            “For a speedster, you always seem to be late!” Tumultus roared, prompting Pruitt to roll his eyes. “You and your partner’s humiliating lack of creativity has blinded you. Youcall it self-discipline; I call it cowardice! The multiverseis there for the taking, and this vest will help me fulfill my life’s purpose!” Pruitt huffed with exasperation.

            “You’re insane!” He snapped. “We don’t know a single thing about the multiverse! You don’t even know where exactly you’d end up!”

            “And that’s the beauty of it. The randomness. The uncharted waters. Thechaos. The turmoil! Why read about other worlds when I could experience them myself!?” Tumultus mused, straightening himself with a crazed smirk and a demented chuckle. “You can’t, or won’t, open your eyes, Sprint! Or should I call you The Talker? That’s all anyone really sees, you know!” Pruitt, known to the public as the superhero Sprint, bristled at the insult underneath his helmet.  

            “You had your chance, Salem!” He seethed moments before a tidal wave, manifested from shadow, swept through the sunny day and crashed into Tumultus, slapping him off his feet back toward the smoldering pile behind him.

            “Hrmm,” the supervillain grunted, looking over at his nemesis as a woman with black hair and brown eyes walked out from behind Pruitt.

            “Take the vest off,” June Fiddler warned, cracking her knuckles. “Final warning.” Along with her pair of violet fingerless gloves, she wore some tactical armor over a long-sleeve shirt and a violet domino mask. Sprawled across the front of the armor was the letter ‘B.’ Tumultus picked himself up.

            “Aren’t you the least bit curious, Blackthorn?” He questioned.

            “Not at the expense of people’s lives,” June Fiddler, otherwise known as the superhero Blackthorn, replied. “What’s that old saying? ‘The multiverse is a plague?’ You’re sick, Salem.” Tumultus clenched his teeth from beneath his helmet.

            “FOOLS!” He asserted, materializing an axe from his reservoirs of radiation and hurling it at Blackthorn’s feet. She turned to dive out of the way as Tumultus snapped his fingers, causing the axe to self-destruct in a small, dazzling explosion.

            With chunks of cement joining the raining rubble and smoke, Fiddler was thrown off her feet as Pruitt launched his own volley. With his super speed, he connected on a right hook and then an uppercut before sweeping Tumultus’s legs out from under him. Brimming with fury, the supervillain raised his outstretched palm toward a nearby traffic light, collecting the radiation it emitted. The traffic light dimmed while Tumultus accumulated its energy and repurposed it. Like a cannon, a beam of light blasted from the supervillain’s other hand. Pruitt was sent flying backward, crashing through a glass wall of a clothing store’s display window. Car alarms and sirens up and down the street continued their hollow elegy as smoke continued to rise over Toronto’s skyline.

            Fiddler clambered to her feet with streaks of red spilling down the side of her head. She raised her hands, manifesting two shadowed walls with spikes protruding outward on either side of Tumultus; clapping her hands together, the walls snapped forward, colliding into one another and pinning the supervillain between them.

            “ARGH!” Tumultus roared. Brutally contorting his head sideways, he willed his laser beams out from his eyes, forcing Fiddler into a backward flip. Retracting her wall of spikes, she held up her forearms as her enemy redirected his aim. The lasers were harmlessly absorbed into her limbs, as if they were passing through a blackhole into oblivion. For a few seconds, Tumultus maintained his stare before his lasers began to falter. Seeing an opportunity to strike, Blackthorn clenched her hand and punched the air in front of her, sending a shadow shaped like a closed fist hurtling toward her enemy.

            The punch connected with Tumultus, causing him to stagger backwards. He raised his arm, radioactive light pulsing in his palm. However, Fiddler materialized a tall humanoid shadow holding a whip in its hand. At her insistence, the shadow launched its weapon toward the supervillain. Before Tumultus had a chance to respond, the whip wrapped around his outstretched arm, allowing Fiddler’s humanoid creation to grip the end of the whip and tug it harshly. Thrown off his feet into a vicious roll toward Blackthorn, the supervillain was kicked across his face by his opponent. The humanoid shadow grabbed Tumultus by his cape and hauled him to his feet as Blackthorn continued her assault with a volley of shadowed spears propelling themselves toward him. With an elbow to the ribcage of the humanoid shadow, Tumultus deflected the spears with his radiated arms before landing two punches—one to Fiddler’s abdomen and another to her face.

            The superhero crumpled to the ground with a grimace, banging her fist against the cement and dispatching another shadowed wall into Tumultus with a ripple across the ground—knocking him off his feet as she recovered. Meanwhile, an unnerving silence gripped the clothing store. A soft gush of wind blew through the gaping hole in the window display while Pruitt lay in a bed of debris.

            “Trent, get up,” a voice called out. Pruitt coughed as he stared concussively toward the far wall. Two employees had ducked under the counter, while a shopper had sheltered behind a long row of wooden cubbies displaying a wide variety of colored shirts.

            “Wh—what?” Pruitt stuttered.

            “TRENT!” Another voice wailed. Pruitt sat up, shoving some fallen debris off of him in the process. He looked around the room he was thrown into.

            “…Oh, not again,” The speedster muttered with a hoarse voice. Tapping into the kinetic energy enveloping Pruitt, some of the shards of glass and fractured pieces of wood situated around him had been twisted—curled into something that resembled faces.

            “Get up, Trent!” a personified fragment of wood urged.

            “They’re counting on you!” A fallen mannequin with a contorted frown added. Pruitt huffed, grabbing at his shoulder and shunting it back into place with a stifled yelp.

            “And this is what happens when you live at a place that drags its feet to remove its lead pipes and asbestos,” he woefully complained. Pruitt gingerly picked himself up off the ground.

“That’s a little hyperbolic, don’t you think?” A spotlight hanging over the disaster area rhetorically asked.

“Whatever,” Pruitt mumbled, stooping down and plucking two glass shards from the dusted floor.

            “No, wait!” One of the shards screamed. “What are you doing?”

            “Improvising,” Pruitt explained.

            “No! Don’t use us!” The other shard shrieked. “We’re not weapons! We’re meant to be a display window!”

            “I’m just not…” Pruitt breathed, realizing from an outside perspective that he was talking to himself again. “Not today!” Using his super speed, he ran out from the destroyed façade of the clothing store to join his partner. Fiddler was engaged in a swordfight of sorts. She had a long, shadowy sword in her hand, swiping left and then right toward her enemy. Tumultus, with two shafts of radiated light stretching up his arms, continuously blocked his enemy’s advances. Running up from behind, Pruitt tossed the two shards of glass forward with the same velocity as a bullet train.

“NO!” The shards howled before harmlessly shattering off Tumultus’s helmet.

“What was that?” The supervillain exclaimed, hearing the glass crack against his helmet. Distracted from his fight, Pruitt’s partner materialized a large, shadowy hand. Clenching its fist, the hand struck Tumultus with the force of a tractor-trailer going full speed down a hill. Crashing into the pile of rubble with a sickening thump, the vest became crippled, sparking around the supervillain.

“Err…” He slurred, slumping his head as Tumultus lost consciousness. The sword and the hand vanished as Fiddler caught her breath.

“You ok?” She asked, turning toward Pruitt as he limped over toward her.

“Relatively speaking,” He answered, as the Nightjar ruffled its feathers, lifted its wings, and took off into the blue sky. “You?”

“No,” Blackthorn answered honestly, looking over her shoulder at the death and destruction over the plaza as more police cruisers and ambulances rounded the corner with lights and sirens. “I should go. Check to see how Salem broke out of prison.” Pruitt nodded.

“I’ll handle things here,” he agreed, gazing despondently around the carnage. Blackthorn became invisible to the naked eye and disappeared. Using his superspeed, Pruitt evacuated those he could from the N.A.T.O. building, carrying them over his shoulder to waiting paramedics. After only a minute’s work zipping back and forth, the building was cleared with no one else in danger.

“Thank you,” one of the people nodded with dust and bruises on his cheek as Sprint set him down on a stretcher. The name ‘Ted Thompson’ was inscribed on an I.D. badge hanging around his neck.

“Don’t mention it,” Pruitt advised dismissively, before walking over to Tumultus. Reality began to warp as it became exposed to the speedster’s kinetic energy.

“That hurt, by the way,” the pile of rubble complained.

“Just…stop talking,” Pruitt spat.

“Blackthorn has no regard for us, does she?” the pile of rubble sneered.

“You didn’t feel anything because you’re not real,” Pruitt insisted, kneeling beside Tumultus’s unconscious body. He closed his eyes and exhaled before speaking again: “Why was he after you?” The crippled vest adorning the supervillain stirred.

“Didn’t you just say we aren’t real?” The vest questioned. “What am I going to say that will be helpful to you?”

“Why was he after you?” Pruitt repeated himself patiently. The vest hesitated.

“The same reason why everyone else is ‘after me’,” it finally answered.“ Teleportation. Time travel. The multiverse. All of it. If I could deconstruct myself and be done with it all, I would.”

“I’m sorry,” Pruitt comforted.

“Do you know how many experiments I’ve had to endure?” The vest continued. “He’s constantly tweaking my Hydro-Tunneling Charger Displacer—which is like having open heart surgery without the anesthesia! And then he runs all these different stress tests on me!”

“That doesn’t…” Pruitt lisped, at a loss for words. “…I’m sorry that has happened to you.”

“Sprint?” A voice concernedly called out from behind Pruitt. The speedster turned to see a police officer approaching him. “You talking to yourself again?”

“Just getting information, officer,” Pruitt explained in an exasperated fashion, climbing to his feet. “How many?”

“Twenty dead, another nine wounded. That’s not even counting the folks on the inside,” the officer answered darkly, looking up at the smoke rising over the entrance to the N.A.T.O. building. “This can’t keep happening.”

“Blackthorn and I are working on a solution,” Pruitt promised. The officer’s lip curled into a glower.

“If I had my way,” he asserted, gesturing at Tumultus lying at their feet. “This psycho would have been given the death penalty after what happened in New York.”

“We can’t stoop to their level, officer,” Pruitt gently advised. “And we don’t kill.”

“He’s an international terrorist! You know how he got that mask! He stole it from the museum, Sprint! He killed five people in the process! That should have been the end of it!” The officer argued. “…Part of me wishes there were more of you to defeat monsters like that. But another part of me is glad there are so few people like you, because that means there are less people like him!” Pruitt simply nodded his head in acknowledgement and understanding.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes…” He solemnly replied, deep in self-reflection. “But we’re doing the best we can.” The officer pursed his lips.

“…Yeah, I know,” He admitted regretfully. “And we appreciate it…I’m just saying that I’m tired of throwing this guy behind bars only for him to think of new and creative ways to break out again.”

“His body converts radiation into power,” Pruitt reasoned. “Even if you put him in a room without doors or windows, he’s going to find a radioactive source eventually—whether that be light, a powerplant, or heck, parts of the Earth’s crust.”

“I’d be easier just to kill him,” the officer muttered under his breath, plucking his handcuffs from his belt. “Thanks, Sprint, we’ve got it from here.”

“You know how to contact us,” Pruitt somberly nodded, reluctantly leaving the scene of destruction at the speed of light as the first responders carried out their work.

…

Pruitt ducked down a deserted alley seven blocks away, no more than a second later. Cracked asphalt lay littered with aging paint, crumpled plastic bags, and fast-food cartons. A wooden pallet leaned up against the brick wall of the adjacent building. He crossed his arms over his chest and began pacing up and down next to the grime-stained dumpster, breathing deeply as he came to terms with the day’s events.  

“Hey, man,” the dumpster asked. “You good?”

“Fine, thank you,” Pruitt asserted.

“You don’t look ‘fine’,” noted the wooden pallet. Pruitt squeezed his fingers into a ball.

“I’m ok,” he insisted. “Please just shut up!”

“Sprint?” Blackthorn asked. She rounded the corner and entered the alley. “Everything ok?”

“…Yeah,” Pruitt exhaled. “It’s the dumpster and the wooden pallet.”

“Hey, don’t criticize us for caring,” the dumpster retorted.

“What did I just tell you!” Pruitt shouted, throwing his arms up in the air and staring daggers at the dumpster. Fiddler arched her eyebrow.

“Sprint,” she cautiously fretted. Pruitt regretfully gritted his teeth.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I get into political debates with my dishwasher every night, my bookcase loves punny jokes, and my nightstand snores!… I can’t make it stop! Every object I encounter has its own personality! And the name people have started calling me is getting to me!”

“The Talker?” Fiddler asked.

“Yes,” Pruitt confirmed. “I wear a racing helmet, I think fast, run faster—but I’m still known as the guy who talks to inanimate objects!”

“Just because you think fast, doesn’t make you smarter,” the dumpster sneered. Pruitt did his best to ignore the insult.

“They’re not ‘inanimate’ though,” Fiddler softly disputed.

“They are to everyone else,” Pruitt argued. “I had to think of a way to tell the police how I knew who committed that murder last month because I couldn’t just say the ashtray witnessed the whole thing!”

  Fiddler bit her lip, reminiscing on a nightmare she had the night prior—one that maintained similar qualities from all of the other nightmares she has had since acquiring her powers:

An old, twenty-foot statue stood in the center of a dark and barren courtyard surrounded by vague, emotionless buildings without compassion or character. Ankle-deep water covered the stone floor, and a cold wind scolded the air. Prunus spinosa snaked around the circular base of the statue, which depicted battles in Megiddo, Baghdad, Gettysburg, and Stalingrad. At the same time, the sculpture itself stood high with its yellow eyes burning with fire and smoke staring off toward the heavens. One weary bronze hand pointed at the eclipsed moon above while the second rested on the hilt of a broadsword. Inscribed on the base of the statue was more of a warning than a prayer:

“Deliver yourself unto the last plateau, safe from the Undying Fate,

Free from sin and the Followed.

Here, among the worlds, there be one gate

To the Afterlife, on the Road Less Hollowed.

-Elonche”

“It’s in your hands again, June,” A booming voice heralded from the statue’s closed mouth. “You know the consequences of failure.” Fiddler bowed her head as she stood adjacent to the statue.

“I know,” she agreed, curling her fingers as she raised her stare. Across the shrouded courtyard, a dim light swung back and forth as it approached the statue. The head of a deceased anglerfish, its eyes like a void, attached to the body of an enormous centipede, crawled across the worn bricks with dozens upon dozens of legs.

Along the edges of the anglerfish’s dangling light, silhouettes of other dream imagery stirred. Blood-splattered angels with their mouths sewn shut hovered over the ground next to giant ants, spiders, and snakes. Wailing and weeping, a ghost strolled forward, following a crooked vision of Tumultus. On their left, a robot with flamethrowers and saws for teeth delicately walked beside an enormous polar bear with matted red fur around its snarling mouth. The anglerfish reared its head back and unleashed a blood-curdling roar.

“…Ok…,” Fiddler reasoned with a sigh, lifting her fists. They were shrouded in spiked shadows with the strength of brass knuckles.

“At least you don’t have to fight your fears every night when you sleep—get up the next morning utterly exhausted,” she responded, snapping out of her memories. “I can manipulate shadows, turn invisible, and absorb anything thrown my way, but if I can’t keep that wizard’s artifact safe, the dreams will kill me…it’s a curse I was chosen for.” Pruitt slumped his shoulders in deep contemplation.

“I’m sorry,” he replied barely over a whisper.

“I didn’t tell you that so you can feel ‘sorry’ for me,” Fiddler corrected. “I just get where you’re coming from. We have powers, but they come at a cost.” Pruitt nodded slowly, as a short period of silence lulled across the alley.

“What’cha got?” Fiddler finally asked, changing the subject. Pruitt took a deep breath.

“…I talked to the vest: it’s apparently capable of teleportation and time travel,” he explained. “It was still being experimented on.”

“What was Salem going on about the multiverse for then?” Fiddler questioned.

“Because it’s capable of that too,” Pruitt answered.

“Geez,” Blackthorn muttered.

“How’d he escape prison?” Pruitt asked.

“He accumulated enough radiation from light particles in the parking lot to blow the door off his cell,” Fiddler advised. “There’s also a rumor going around that, after today, world leaders are going to pull funding for N.A.T.O.’s scientific experiments.”

“Good riddance so far as I’m concerned,” Pruitt admitted. “We already have enough on our plate with A.I.leen, and what’s his name—the guy who trained Braxton the polar bear as a mercenary.”

“Zane Wilder?” Fiddler clarified.

“Yeah, him,” Pruitt agreed, tiredly. “We don’t need ‘Tumultus’ going across the multiverse doing who the heck knows what on top of everything else.”  

“Mmmm,” Fiddler agreed with a nod, pausing for a moment as she stared down at her feet. There was a weathered, yellowing newspaper with a celebratory headline on the front page:

“Sprint & Blackthorn Save School Bus From A.I.leen’s Draw Bridge Disaster, Apprehend Zookeeper After String of Hamilton Burglaries With Braxton the Polar Bear.”

“You hear the rumor they want to give us the key to the city?” Pruitt asked.

“Uh-huh. I hate it,” Fiddler exclaimed. “That’s not why I’m doing this.”

“Yeah, same,” Pruitt replied. Neither one of the superheroes noticed the Nightjar perched above them, listening to their conversation. “…The recognition would be nice though.”

“Don’t let it get to your head,” Fiddler rebuked with a smile moments before the two-way radio tucked away on her belt crackled to life.

“All units, 10-65 in progress,” a voice warned over the radio. “Toronto First Bank on Mackenzie Avenue Southwest.”

“Shoot,” Fiddler muttered.

“Again?” Pruitt protested. “What’s that? The third time this week? This day keeps getting better and better.”

“Yeah, well, complaining about it isn’t going to do anything,” Fiddler warned, glancing at the watch around her wrist.

“I know, I know,” Pruitt advised grumpily, noticing his teammate check the time. “You have a place to be?”

“I don’t like to keep people waiting,” Fiddler reasoned. “Cut ‘em off from leaving, and I’ll do the rest.”

“Aye, aye,” Pruitt acknowledged with a mock salute. “I’ll meet you there.” Strewn pieces of trash were flung into the air as the speedster bolted from the alley. Fiddler materialized her whip from the shadows in her hand and proceeded to chuck it toward the roof above her—wrapping the weapon around the base of a small, corpulent water tower atop the building to her right. Fiddler expeditiously scaled the wall, vanishing from the naked eye as she hurtled over the ledge on her way toward Toronto First Bank.

Photo by Berkay Gumustekin on Unsplash