Moonstrike ch 2: Possible Grand Theft Boat

The rest of the workweek passed in fits and starts. After her last appointment on Thursday, Ji Min checked her app for the dozenth time just that day. No. She still hadn’t gotten contacted by the other thief. She slumped over the wheel for a while, tired and disappointed. She wanted to know what was going on. Ji Min always wanted to know what was going on.

She stewed in it for a while, feeling sorry for herself.

"You know what would make me feel better?" She asked herself, thumbs gripping the wheel. Her face was nearly resting on it. "Sparklies. I deserve something sparkly. And expensive. Something for me this time, not for resale."

She’d sold off everything from her last expedition, even the things that she’d initially planned to keep. Her job paid fine, but if she was going to cover Ari’s expenses as well, she needed cash flow.

…Maybe this would be practical, Ji Min tried to convince herself. It would be mostly for herself, but she could get a few things for resale.

She thought over it one last time, hesitating only because she knew damn well it was an unnecessary risk to commit crimes near her work area. Even if the pattern wasn't outwardly obvious, if her civilian identity got doxxed, it would probably be really easy to line up her business trips with thefts. She was gift wrapping the proof.

Ji Min knew that she really, really shouldn't.

She did it anyway.

Since her main mask was now associated with a heroic persona, she used the plain back half-mask that she kept as a last resort. It wasn’t that different from the Moonstrike one: they were both just black. It was her favorite color.

It might not have been a good idea, but she felt much better after the thrill had worn off. It took the edge off, at least. She laid on the hotel bed and took the tags off of necklaces and bracelets and earrings and rings, and then put them in her luggage. She kept out a necklace, a relatively simple chain that she could wear under her work outfits.

She went into Friday with a renewed patience for the general tedium of work and the extra irritations that came from meeting with clients who were at the worst part of their lives.

The day started off normally. She left the hotel at 9 am. She went to a client, assessed damage, input information into her tablet, called a shop, and went off to the next client.

Ji Min hung up on a call about a Mitsubishi that wasn’t going to be road-worthy ever again and took a long pull of her iced coffee through the straw. She was en route to her next job when she saw something in her peripheral vision, out by the docks. Ji Min focused on it without knowing what was wrong, slowing her car. She frowned.

Two people were arguing on a boat. That shouldnt have registered as a particular problem, but her hackles were up in a way that she didn't understand. She kept an eye on the situation and started looking for a place to stop the car.

One of them drew back and hit the other person. The victim fell into the water.

Oh, shit. Ji Min pulled over into the loading lane and slammed it into park.

She looked around with wide eyes. Pedestrians were going about their days. They didn't know anything was wrong.

Ji Min twisted around to snake her arm into the backseat and withdraw her personal bag. "Shit," she repeated, weighing her obligations and her urges. The assailant had moved away. An engine started up. The person was still in the water.

Was this a boat theft? A violent - grand theft boat?

Her natural urge was to run to trouble. She had never been able to mind her own business.

The thief in her said to stay away. Her secure mask had been doxxed as a hero identity, so she couldn't trust it for any anonymity.

Ji Min realized something that made her swear viciously.

She shouldn't have stolen anything last night. Fuck. She tangled her hands in her hair, gritting her teeth. If she got involved as Moonstrike, it would put both her personas in the same city. That was a huge risk.

She should stay out of it. No one would ever know that she'd been here. Seeing this was a freak accident.

But her heroic contract said to go. She'd agreed to intervene in crime when she saw it. And she actually sort of believed that was a binding obligation. Fuck the government, but she was a public servant, wasn't she?

Ji Min unbuckled her seatbelt and tried not to think about it. She dug out her Moonstrike mask. With a quick prayer that no one was looking, she put it on and started off to the pier at a run.

She wanted to catch the boat. She measured the distance with her eye– she could make that jump. But there was only one correct answer here, and it was to-

Huh. Someone else leapt into the water after the victim. Ji Min noted it, grinned, and made the leap she’d calculated. She landed on the deck with a shockingly loud crack that made her check it for damage. It seemed … well. It wouldn't sink, she was pretty sure. But there was a crack.

The boat bobbed violently from the force she’d put on it. Water splashed out. She went down to a knee to recover her balance- and then had to put a hand down too to compensate for the tilt as the boat took off at a shocking clip.

“I didn’t know boats were fast,” Ji Min said, offended. Boats were stupid. They weren’t supposed to do cool things like go fast.

She used a hand to brace herself and stood. She nearly went down with a wobble. Ji Min held her breath and just stood for a few seconds, hands splayed out for balance. "Cool," she said. Her voice was lost under the sounds of the engine and moving water. She blew out air and made her way forward.

A boat was just a car for the water, she reasoned. Therefore, the driver would be at the front. She saw him as soon as she leveled with the one sad little room in the middle of the boat.

"Knock it off!" Ji Min hollered.

He didn't react.

"...This thing is so loud," she muttered disapprovingly. "Asshole." She shouldered her way into the cabin.

The movement caught the thief's attention. He swiveled to look at her, wide-eyed. He shouted something.

"I can't hear you," Ji Min enunciated, waving one hand by her ear. "Turn off the boat."

He kept talking, defiance scrawled across his features.

Ji Min let out an eye roll and a wasted "ugh". She shoved him out of the way and gave the console a quick look over. It wasn't that foreign. There was a steering wheel, and what looked like a calculator full of buttons. She identified a power button and hit it.

The boat was suddenly and mercifully silent. It was quiet enough that she could hear the crack of something smashing over her head.

Lights sparked in her eyes and pain bloomed. "Fuck!" She spat, and staggered up to face the threat.

The thief raised the fire extinguisher again. She saw determination in his eyes and that his teeth were gritted.

'He's trying to kill me.'

She caught the fire extinguisher above her head with both hands. Her stomach roiled.

"Let go!" The man pulled back, grimacing with effort.

"It's mine now," Ji Min said spitefully, and wrenched the fire extinguisher away.

The thief looked confused. "It's legally required to stay on the boat," he argued, and lunged to get his hands on it again.

Ji Min twisted and threw. The fire extinguisher crashed through the glass window and sailed in a perfect arc until it plummeted down into the ocean.

There was a moment of silence.

"What is wrong with you?" He wondered. He took a step back.

…she felt offended, honestly.

"I just hate crime," Ji Min lied meanly. "You disgust me. And I'm obviously unhinged, so you should turn this boat around."

He glanced away from her, and then back at her again. He took one step to the left. She followed.

He lunged to the right, diving at a first aid kit. "You're going to need this, hero!" he spat, and threw the kit at her.

Ji Min stepped to the side. The first aid kit hit the wall. "Bro," she said mockingly. "That wasn't very good, was it?"

The man yelled and threw himself at her in a tackle. Ji Min let out an oof when his head connected with her ribcage, but she stayed standing. She tangled her fingers in his hair and wrenched his head backwards.

"That hurts!" He struggled against it, arms still locked around her waist.

"Yeah," Ji Min agreed. "Is this new to you? Don't you have sisters?" She yanked his hair again.

He let go to hit her in an undisciplined flurry of punches that didn't really hurt. He had nothing on Gene or Hammer. She grunted and kicked him away. It was easy.

His feet flew out behind him and his knees hit the ground. His head was suspended in the air, and his face was very red. Ji Min slightly lifted him. He howled and hastily put his hands on the ground to support his torso.

"Are we done?" She wondered. She had a headache and kind of wanted to wrap things up.

There were a few seconds when the only sound was heavy panting. "Yeah," he said finally. "I'm done."

She let go of his hair. "Lovely, thank you. Turn the boat around."

He eyed her warily, but struggled to his feet and did what he was told. It was a matter of minutes until they returned to the dock.

She didn't know how to park a boat, and there was a limit to how cooperative her sullen captive was going to be. So she literally put him on her shoulder and leapt off the boat onto the pier.

A grandfather walking his sweater-vested poodle on the sidewalk saw her and made a U turn.

She respected that, honestly.

There were two sopping wet people on the sidewalk. She hauled her protesting cargo over to them.

One of them looked up through drenched hair. Their eyes widened when they saw her. "Cops!" They yelled, and scrambled up.

"I'm not a fuckin cop," Ji Min said, insulted.

"Sir or Ma'am?" Said the other wet person, plaintively. Ji Min now saw they were in a full hero costume, including a full mask that modulated voice. Expensive, that.

The victim didn't stop. They sprinted away from the scene of the crime.

The person on Ji Min's shoulder laughed. It turned into a wheeze, because her shoulder was digging into his abdomen.

Ji Min considered this turn of events. "That was also a criminal," she said philosophically. "Not the boat owner."

"That is correct," wheezed the person she'd apprehended.

Oh, well. You win some and you lose some. Crucially, Ji Min won. Her criminal hadn’t gotten away.

She offloaded criminal number two onto the ground, but kept a firm grip on their wrist. "Do you wanna take them to the station, or what do you do?" She asked the local suit. She didn't know what to do, so she was happy to offload responsibility.

They looked between her and the fleeing back of the person they'd rescued a few times. Their posture slumped a little in disappointment. "I already called it in, so… I'll wait for the cops."

"I hate this for me," said the criminal, but they didn't fight it when Ji Min shoved them over to the local suit. "This isn't fair."

"It's not fair that you damaged that person's boat and got rid of their fire extinguisher," Ji Min said, because it seemed like a good idea to publicly place the blame.

The boat thief gave her a beleaguered look. She loftily ignored it.

“You did commit a crime,” the other hero said just in case the criminal forgot.

Ji Min rolled her eyes. More crucially- “Why a boat?’ She made eye contact. “And why that boat? It was ugly.”

“...That was a very good boat,” the criminal said, puzzled.

“No, he’s right,” agreed the suit. “Fast engine on that. It would be good for drug smuggling.”

The criminal was pointedly silent. Ji Min decided not to say anything else, but she wasn’t convinced. It was just a little boat?

“...I like your business casual,” said the other hero. They finally stood up straight and dripped sea water onto the sidewalk. They glanced down at the sound and then the air around them shimmered with heat. The water began to dry up rapidly.

Ji Min didn’t dignify that with a response. She knew what she looked like, in a mask, black work pants, and lavender button-up shirt. It wasn’t the kind of outfit one deliberately put together for heroism. She indicated that the other hero should take control of the criminal and let go as soon as they had a hand on his collar.

The other hero must have been on a patrol by chance. …And they had access to some serious money for equipment.

She felt another pang of loss for the hitting stick.

They cleared their throat, clearly uncomfortable with the silence. “Sorry, I should be saying thank you.” They extended their free hand for a shake. She took it. “I’m Amberland. You are?”

‘Confused what Amberland could possibly mean’, Ji Min thought. They clearly had heat related powers. And could swim? That could be a hero thing, or maybe they were like, a lifeguard. “Moonstrike.”

Belatedly, she remembered that you are not supposed to jump in the water after a drowning person under any circumstances. She grimaced.

She'd… she would have done that, huh?

Not very bright!

There was a sound of comprehension. “Oh shit, really?” Amberland gawked at her. “I thought it was just a social media thing. You know, Hammer making himself look more import-”

“I do not work with Hammer,” she interrupted tersely. She took her hand back from the shake that had gone on way too long. “Good luck.” She left in the wrong direction and waited fairly close by until the police had come and gone. No one was waiting by the scene, so she headed to the car unseen.

When she got back to the car, there was a bright yellow parking ticket on the windshield. Of fucking course there was.

The rest of the workweek passed in fits and starts. After her last appointment on Thursday, Ji Min checked her app for the dozenth time just that day. No. She still hadn’t gotten contacted by the other thief. She slumped over the wheel for a while, tired and disappointed. She wanted to know what was going on. Ji Min always wanted to know what was going on.

She stewed in it for a while, feeling sorry for herself.

"You know what would make me feel better?" She asked herself, thumbs gripping the wheel. Her face was nearly resting on it. "Sparklies. I deserve something sparkly. And expensive. Something for me this time, not for resale."

She’d sold off everything from her last expedition, even the things that she’d initially planned to keep. Her job paid fine, but if she was going to cover Ari’s expenses as well, she needed cash flow.

…Maybe this would be practical, Ji Min tried to convince herself. It would be mostly for herself, but she could get a few things for resale.

She thought over it one last time, hesitating only because she knew damn well it was an unnecessary risk to commit crimes near her work area. Even if the pattern wasn't outwardly obvious, if her civilian identity got doxxed, it would probably be really easy to line up her business trips with thefts. She was gift wrapping the proof.

Ji Min knew that she really, really shouldn't.

She did it anyway.

Since her main mask was now associated with a heroic persona, she used the plain back half-mask that she kept as a last resort. It wasn’t that different from the Moonstrike one: they were both just black. It was her favorite color.

It might not have been a good idea, but she felt much better after the thrill had worn off. It took the edge off, at least. She laid on the hotel bed and took the tags off of necklaces and bracelets and earrings and rings, and then put them in her luggage. She kept out a necklace, a relatively simple chain that she could wear under her work outfits.

She went into Friday with a renewed patience for the general tedium of work and the extra irritations that came from meeting with clients who were at the worst part of their lives.

The day started off normally. She left the hotel at 9 am. She went to a client, assessed damage, input information into her tablet, called a shop, and went off to the next client.

Ji Min hung up on a call about a Mitsubishi that wasn’t going to be road-worthy ever again and took a long pull of her iced coffee through the straw. She was en route to her next job when she saw something in her peripheral vision, out by the docks. Ji Min focused on it without knowing what was wrong, slowing her car. She frowned.

Two people were arguing on a boat. That shouldnt have registered as a particular problem, but her hackles were up in a way that she didn't understand. She kept an eye on the situation and started looking for a place to stop the car.

One of them drew back and hit the other person. They fell into the water.

Oh, shit. Ji Min pulled over into the loading lane and slammed it into park.

She looked around with wide eyes. Pedestrians were going about their days. They didn't know anything was wrong.

Ji Min twisted around to snake her arm into the backseat and withdraw her personal bag. "Shit," she repeated, weighing her obligations and her urges. The assailant had moved away. An engine started up.

Was this a boat theft? A violent - grand theft boat?

Her natural urge was to run to trouble. She had never been able to mind her own business.

The thief in her said to stay away. Her secure mask had been doxxed as a hero, so she couldn't trust it for any anonymity.

Ji Min realized something that made her swear viciously.

She shouldn't have stolen anything last night. Fuck. She tangled her hands in her hair, gritting her teeth. If she interfered, it would put both her personas in the same city. That was a huge risk.

She should stay out of it. No one would ever know that she'd been here. Seeing this was a freak accident.

But her heroic contract said to go. She'd agreed to intervene in crime when she saw it. And she actually sort of believed that was a binding obligation. Fuck the government, but she was a public servant, wasn't she?

Ji Min unbuckled her seatbelt and tried not to think about it. She dug out her Moonstrike mask. With a quick prayer that no one was looking, she put it on and started off to the pier at a run.

She wanted to catch the boat. She measured the distance with her eye– she could make that jump. But there was only one correct answer here, and it was to-

Huh. Someone else leapt into the water after the victim. Ji Min noted it, grinned, and made the leap she’d calculated. She landed on the deck with a shockingly loud crack that made her check it for damage. It seemed … well. It wouldn't sink, she was pretty sure. But there was a crack.

The boat bobbed violently from the force she’d put on it. Water splashed out. She went down to a knee to recover her balance- and then had to put a hand down too to compensate for the tilt as the boat took off at a shocking clip.

“I didn’t know boats were fast,” Ji Min said, offended. Boats were stupid. They weren’t supposed to do cool things like go fast.

Catching the thief was anticlimactic after that. They wrestled about as deftly as Ari did, without her muscle. Ji Min bullied them into turning the boat around and taking it back where they'd taken it from.

She didn't know how to park a boat, and there was a limit to how cooperative her sullen captive was going to be. So she literally put them on her shoulder and leapt off the boat onto the the pier.

A grandfather walking his sweater-vested poodle on the sidewalk saw her and made a U turn.

There were two sopping wet people on the sidewalk. She hauled her protesting cargo over to them.

One of them looked up through drenched hair. Their eyes widened when they saw her. "Cops!" They yelled, and scrambled up.

"I'm not a fuckin cop," Ji Min said, insulted.

"Sir or Ma'am?" Said the other wet person, plaintively who Ji Min now saw was in a full hero costume, including a full mask that modulated voice. Expensive, that.

The victim didn't stop. They sprinted away from the scene of the crime.

The person on Ji Min's shoulder laughed. It turned into a wheeze, because her shoulder was digging into their abdomen.

Ji Min considered this turn of events. "That was also a criminal," she said philosophically. "Not the boat owner."

"That is correct," wheezed the person she'd apprehended.

Oh, well. You win some and you lose some. Crucially, Ji Mon won. Her criminal hadn’t gotten away.

She offloaded criminal number two onto the ground, but kept a firm grip on their wrist. "Do you wanna take them to the station, or what do you do?" She asked the local suit. She didn't know what to do, so she was happy to offload responsibility.

They looked between her and the fleeing back of the person they'd rescued a few times. Their posture slumped a little in disappointment. "I already called it in, so… I'll wait for the cops."

"I hate this for me," said the criminal, but they didn't fight it when Ji Min shoved them over to the local suit. "This isn't fair."

"It's not fair that you damaged that person's boat," Ji Min said, because it seemed like a good idea to publicly place the blame.

The boat thief gave her a beleaguered look. She loftily ignored it.

“...I like your business casual,” said the other hero. They dripped sea water onto the sidewalk. They glanced down at the sound and then the air around them shimmered with heat. The water began to dry up rapidly.

Ji Min didn’t dignify that with a response. She knew what she looked like, in a mask, black work pants, and lavender button-up shirt. It wasn’t the kind of outfit one deliberately put together for heroism. She indicated that the other hero should take control of the criminal and let go as soon as they had a hand on his collar.

The other hero must have been on a patrol by chance. …And they had access to some serious money for equipment.

She felt another pang of loss for the hitting stick.

They cleared their throat, clearly uncomfortable with the silence. “Sorry, I should be saying thank you.” They extended their free hand for a shake. She took it. “I’m Amberland. You are?”

‘Confused what Amberland could possibly mean’, Ji Min thought. They clearly had heat related powers. And could swim? That could be a hero thing, or maybe they were like, a lifeguard. “Moonstrike.”

Belatedly, she remembered that you are not supposed to jump in the water after a drowning person under any circumstances. She grimaced.

She'd… she would have done that, huh?

Not very bright!

There was a sound of comprehension. “Oh shit, really?” Amberland gawked at her. “I thought it was just a social media thing. You know, Hammer making himself look more import-”

“I do not work with Hammer,” she interrupted tersely. She took her hand back from the shake that had gone on way too long. “Good luck.” She left in the wrong direction and waited fairly close by until the police had come and gone. No one was waiting by the scene, so she headed to the car unseen.