Problem Child 13: set in an empty department store

There was definitely someone in the building. Aiko barely breathed, trying to orient with her ears in the dark. Marvel was floating slightly to avoid the sound of footsteps. She even knew what he was doing but it registered as unnatural in a way that put the hair up at the back of her neck. The store itself smelled like hundreds of people, yet it was deserted and dark. The air conditioning units were off and the lack of ambient humming was subtly wrong. 

It all came together and created an extremely eerie atmosphere. She would prefer to not be here. Aiko gritted her teeth and went through some quick hand agility exercises to keep from stiffening up before a fight. It wasn’t fidgeting, it was merely practical.  

“I think he’s a floor down.” Marvel whispered. "I hear something faint."

She nodded to confirm that she heard him. The service staircase had ended, so they had to cross racks of clothing and open tiled space to use the stopped escalator. Aiko stayed near his heels, genuinely a bit stressed that Marvel’s bulk was blocking her visibility. Should she back off, walk on the ceiling? He was clearly doing this for her benefit, since he could fly. Why? What was his reasoning? Would he have made a different call if he knew that she didn’t need to use the escalator to get down?

‘I should have talked tactics for these situations before,’ Aiko realized miserably. She couldn’t go so far off script mid interaction. It was a safety issue. She might accidentally undermine Marvel’s tactics. So she endured, escaping to the side as soon as they cleared the escalator. There was no enemy immediately there hidden by his bulk. Her nervous system backed down a bit.

He turned a circle. Aiko’s heart rate went down and she took a deep inhalation. She knew the floor was empty of life before Marvel told her: “One more floor down.”

She nodded grimly. They started down the next escalator.

It turned on with a jerk. Marvel bumped into her. Aiko fell backwards to sit awkwardly on the escalator, which was- going upwards. They were on the wrong escalator.

“Cops!” shouted someone, who definitely was not Herkimer. Oh, hell, were they here for no reason? “Beat it!”

“Guess again!” shouted Marvel, and blasted off into flight. Aiko was left sitting on the stairs alone, slowly traveling upwards. And backwards. Back-upwards?

For a moment, she considered letting it deposit her back on the 5th floor and waiting for Marvel to clear out whoever was scrambling down below.

But she was a hero or whatever, so Aiko glumly got up and threw herself over the side of the escalator. Marvel yelled— but of course she landed well and sprang to her feet, observing the attack. No one paid any attention to her.

“They’re from the MSoE!” Marvel shouted to her. He caught a punch from a weird-looking guy and slapped him silly. 

“Is that a school uniform?” Aiko asked, delighted. “Are you beating up a transformed child? That’s messed up.” She squinted at them in the dark. That really looked like a school uniform, a posh one.

“No!” Marvel yelled back, immediately defensive. He threw his opponent through a rack of sweaters. “I think he’s a monkey guy!”

“Tremble at the might of Beast-Ruler!” screamed a scruggly-looking man as he ran into sight. He threw his hands up. “Face my serpentine wrath!” 

“What's a serpentahhh!” Marvel screamed as he discovered that serpents were snakes, and that they were being flung at him by the Beast-Ruler. 

Aiko shrieked out a laugh and then darted forward to land a solid kick on the outer quadrant of Beast-Ruler’s knee joint. It should have cracked painfully. It should have moved inwards.

It did nothing. He showed pointy teeth and dirty gums when he smiled at her.

“Oh, fuck,” she said, as he grabbed her ankle and flung her upwards with truly shocking strength. She ragdolled through the air and had just enough time to regret her actions before she smacked into the ceiling tiles. A disgusting white dust burst into the air, cutting off her vision. She didn’t know what it was made of, but she did know that she was falling at a fast clip. She pried her eyes open in time to orient her feet down—

And got swept up to safety by Marvel in a disorienting rush of cape and fast air. He set her down just as quickly and rushed the Beast guy. They collided with a strange and terrible clang.

That fight, she decided philosophically, was none of her business. She needed someone who was in her weight class. She looked around. Where was the monkey person? Where was the person who had yelled about the cops coming?

Aiko scanned the dark store, trying to pick out who else was there. The monkey person in a school uniform was gone. Someone was making a scraping noise in the distance. Cardboard, maybe, against the floor.

“Don’t go too far!” 

She snapped off a salute to Marvel and then followed her ears towards what turned out to be the fire escape stairs. 

“It’s you!” Aiko said, delighted, and spat a generous spout of suiton to his face as a hello. A bipedal crocodile in a suit was a fantastic villain. It was like a cartoon. She was basically Sailor Moon. Star power!

“Ahhhh!” Herkimer gargled and fell over, tail thrashing through the stack of boxes he was dragging to the stairwell. They fell down the stairs with a massive clatter. Aiko dodged one that went wild and flipped over it to stand on top and grin nastily at her new playmate. 

“Release the herpetologist, or I’ll kick your teeth in!” Aiko demanded, knowing full well that Dr. Fraggier was nowhere nearby. The demand was merely a pretext for violence. Marvel would eat this shit up.

Herkimer flipped to his feet in a surprisingly agile movement, claws up and jagged teeth bared at her. “You’re free to try!” 

Neat. She flung herself at him, neatly dodging his midair grab, and landed on his snout. She aimed a mean rapid series of kicks at his eyes. Herkimer howled and jerked his head down so badly that she was dislodged into the air. Aiko caught herself by gripping his nostrils. 

“Ahhhhhh!” 

He screamed shrilly and tried to bat her away. 

She followed through on her promise by kicking his teeth. Bone smashed under her left foot. She didn’t have time to feel smug about it: her foot slipped wrong and went far too deeply into his crocodilian maw. Her shin caught on unbroken fangs further back in his jaw. It burnt in the distant way that could mean a scrape or a relatively deep injury.

Whoops.

Did that break skin, or just damage her protective equipment? She yanked her boots out of his mouth and let go of him entirely to jump back for distance. She landed with one knee on the ground and took a quick glance down. There was no blood, at least. That was all the assessment she had time for.

While Herkimer was still reeling from the novel sensation of shattered teeth landing on his tongue, Aiko ran through the same hand signs she had been teaching Robin. She was going to keep distance from now, if she could. She didn’t want to have to explain crocodile holes in her boots to Batman. He definitely wouldn’t let her hang out with Robin if he thought she was a danger.

“Fireball!” Aiko whooped as it blasted through the air. It was just a little one, but it lit up the department store beautifully. Herkimer managed to dodge it, showcasing his athleticism in the face of mortal peril. 

Probably for the best. 

“I don’t like you very much!” Herkimer howled. He sprinted for the stairs.

Aiko frowned. “I like you,” she said. Captain Marvel’s C tier villains were hilarious. She thought that his catch and release philosophy actually did a lot of good for the criminal ecosystem. 

He didn’t listen. He was running away, abandoning his stacks of… Aiko squinted in the dark. Space heaters. He was trying to steal space heaters. 

She bounced on her heels and considered following him. It was tempting. But Marvel had given a specific order, so she scuffed her heel against the floor and turned back to see how his fight was progressing. 

He was done, panting. Marvel shook hair out of his face as he turned to her. Beast-Ruler was unconscious. “I don’t know who this guy is,” he said, indicating the villain with a thumb. He seemed kinda unhappy about it.

“He’s Beast-Ruler,” Aiko said helpfully. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pretended that nothing had happened. She wanted to check it.

Marvel frowned. “Yeah, no, I mean like, he’s never been a thing before. He seems like a Sivana experiment. Maybe that’s why Dr. Sivana has been so quiet lately.” He fixed his hair and then crossed his arms. “What did you do?”

“Yeah, maybe it’s Sivana’s fault,” said Aiko, because she was too practical to let a perfectly good alibi that implied he was alive go to waste. But this was time sensitive, so- “I had to let Herkimer get away,” Aiko added. “He’s probably still running down the stairs. Catch him?”

Marvel was off like a shot. 

Aiko crossed her arms.

The wind blew her hair across her face when he flew back, said, “Sorry!” and picked her up before going after Herkimer again.