"This is one awesome car!", Night Owl said. "It reminds me of the cockpit of a plane." The car had controls almost everywhere. Clearly, it was not a standard model just driven off the lot!
"Thanks," the Huntress responded as she eased the vehicle into a tight turn. "But I can't take the credit for it. My father did all of this." The Huntress drove at a speedy pace, but was not reckless in her driving. Of course, the car could make easy maneuvers out of seemingly difficult ones.
"Must be nice to have a whole plethora of gadgets and gear already designed and waiting for you. Makes you more than just another new heroine on the scene."
"I suppose it does provide some advantages." The Huntress was beginning to take a liking to her companion. She was a bit younger, but full of life and energy. Not as serious or dour as the Huntress herself was at times. "But unlike you I have famous footsteps to fill."
"I guess I can see your point."
"So what brings you into this racket?"
"Having super powers is a blast! It's really a lot of fun. Besides, I figure I'll be more famous and wealthy as a hero. I really don't want to hurt or rob anyone. I guess you can say that I'm in it for the fame." Night Owl had received her powers as an accident, but now that she had them, she was going to utilize them to their fullest capabilities. "At least night is beginning to fall. I'll be at full strength."
"I take it then that you have some powers in daylight?" The Huntress was curious about the nature of her friend's powers.
"Yes, but not nearly as impressive at night. I can, for instance, pick up a Mack truck at night without breaking a sweat. During the day, it's an effort just to lift a compact car." Increased physical strength wasn't the only thing that changed in Night Owl. She was faster and physically tougher at night. Her pattern of behavior was more subdued in the day. At night she was not so restrained. She even became more attractive at night!
"That's impressive. Must be nice to be so strong." The Huntress categorized herself as being near the uppermost level of physical development that any normal human could hope to achieve. Perhaps even breaking into the low super human level. It was a heritage that she had received from her father.
"Works for me!" Night Owl preferred to not theorize too much about it all. Instead, she just enjoyed herself.
"That also explains why you were bound with chains instead of ropes." That particular question the Huntress had been pondering since she first laid eyes on Night Owl while both were captives of VIPER.
"Don't remind me. That was horrible!"
"I can see that you gals are just about there." This new voice belonged to the Scarlet Sabre, the third member in this particular endeavor. Unlike her two companions, Scarlet was an established super-heroine and was currently a member of the Freedom League. Scarlet was surveying the scene high overhead in her personal mini-jet, the Sky Sabre.
"How does it look?" The Huntress responded over the car's communication system. The trio had learned that a second rate appliance dealer was trafficking illegal weapons. In this particular case, the weapon was an automatic laser blaster called a Retaliator. Unfortunately, it had a tendency to explode when fired too much.
"Clear from up here," the Scarlet Sabre reported. She had buzzed Crazy Teddy's Slightly Used Bargains a couple of times now. The place had just closed for the night. "There's an alley in the back that's ideal for our uses. I'll meet you there."
"Roger that. Out." The Huntress replaced the microphone in its holder on the dash. She guided her car to an out of the way parking space about a block and a half from the store.
Apart from some stares from two passersby, Night Owl and the Huntress made their way to the rear of the store. It was dark enough that the shadows in the alley mostly concealed them. The Scarlet Sabre was waiting for them at the rear receiving door.
"I'd estimate maybe half a dozen people left inside," Scarlet said as the others drew nearer.
"So how do we play this?", Night Owl asked. "Want me to break the door down?" By now, she was raring to go.
"It's not that simple," Scarlet explained. "We need proof of Crazy Teddy's involvement before we can do anything."
"Then let's get some," the Huntress said.
"I trust you can do the honors?" The Scarlet Sabre gestured towards the locked door.
"Not a problem." The Huntress produced a ring of lock picks from her gadget belt and set to work.
"Uhm, not to be a party pooper or anything," Night Owl started, "how can we legally get information? Isn't breaking in illegal?"
"Yes and no", the Huntress explained. As a lawyer herself, she was well versed in legal matters. "The Fourth Amendment guarantees the freedom from illegal searches. The police, or anyone with police powers, simply can't break in, find incriminating evidence, and build a case on it. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is permissible to use evidence gained by non-police even if it was gained by illegal methods."
"In short, we get the goods on Crazy Teddy and the DA can put him away." The Scarlet Sabre summed up what the Huntress was explaining in simpler terms, upon seeing the confusion on Night Owl's face.
"Exactly. Of course Crazy Teddy could try and charge us with breaking and entering," the Huntress continued as she worked the lock.
"The door was open when I got here officer," Scarlet said nodding to Night Owl. "Thinking a robbery was in progress, I investigated and found all these illegal guns. Who would have imagined it?"
"Uhm, yeah. Me too!", Night Owl chimed in. She didn't quite get it all, but that didn't matter to her.
"Got it!" The Huntress turned the handle and opened the door a fraction. No doubt the alarm system on the door was another of Crazy Teddy's less than wonderful bargains. Seeing the warehouse deserted, the trio entered.
Crazy Teddy's business resided in a large, one story building. Most of it was sales floor, with a good sized warehouse in the rear. A jitney sat near the loading dock, along with several hand trucks. Large boxes and crates lined the outer walls, while rows of high storage racks consumed most of the area. It was dark, as roughly only every fourth overhead light was on.
"Split up and search for evidence," the Scarlet Sabre whispered as she moved towards the receiving desk. "I'll check the receiving logs."
"I'll stick to the shadows," Night Owl added. "I can see normally in the dark anyway."
The Huntress nodded and moved off in another direction.
About five minutes later, the Huntress came out of the shadows near the Scarlet Sabre.
"Any luck, Scarlet?"
"Not really. You?"
"Found what appears to be a test firing range. There was a target mounted on a three inch piece of steel. The steel looked like Swiss cheese."
"Sounds like we've come to the right place?"
"That's my guess," Night Owl added stepping into the light. She had a small laser rifle in one hand. "I take it this is the cause of all the fuss?"
"Bingo," Scarlet said eyeing the weapon. "A genuine Retaliator."
"Now, ladies, if I had known you were interested in my wares, we could have scheduled you an appointment." This new voice was male and all three heroines spun towards the speaker. He was an older man, slightly balding, and portly, standing just inside a lighted area some fifty feet away. His polyester suit screamed cheap and the tie was even worse.
"Crazy Teddy," Scarlet muttered.
"Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement?" Crazy Teddy said rubbing his hands together. "Giving bargains and making deals are my business!" This whole arrangement had seemed like a good idea at the time. Crazy Teddy learned a long time ago that he wasn't going to get rich by selling "slightly used" goods. It started out small-- a few illegal goods here, some there. As the bills mounted, Crazy Teddy became more desperate for capital. Illegal guns eventually came into the picture.
Crazy Teddy had always been small time until that one fateful day a few months back. The man claimed to be a VIPER operative and he carried a most impressive weapon. VIPER wanted to flood the streets with a dangerous new weapon, to plunge the city into chaos. The weapons, known as a Retaliator, were offered to Crazy Teddy at a bargain price; a mere two thousand dollars per weapon. Crazy Teddy, always the shrewd dealer, knew that he could sell them at as much as five times the buying price!
A deal was struck and Crazy Teddy got the cash from the local loan shark. Crazy Teddy sold a couple of the weapons cheap and then waited. Let the scum see just how good these guns really were! Create a demand for them, then he'd make his cash when every hood between here and Yonkers wanted one.
It was the perfect set up. Crazy Teddy would make money hand over fist and he'd have a good relationship with VIPER. Then the first Retaliator exploded. The guns seemed to work perfectly, but they kept exploding! Crazy Teddy laid low for a while, selling a couple of Retaliators over a period of months. He wasn't about to let some super cape shut him down!
Crazy Teddy was becoming desperate. His loan was coming due and he had no desire for Marcelli's boys to remove his kneecaps. Crazy Teddy dropped the price on the Retaliators for cash. He just might break even on this deal if he could liquidate his inventory before he got caught.
"Not today, slimeball," the Huntress responded. "You're going down for this!"
"Pity. You make me sad." After a dramatic pause, Teddy added, "Skrag'm, boys!" Crazy Teddy wasn't stupid. He had hired muscle for protection and armed them.
Laser fire erupted towards the heroines from multiple directions! The Huntress dove off to her left, tumbled, and come up behind a storage rack. A trail of laser fire had burned holes in the floor behind her.
The Scarlet Sabre had her energy sword up and working in a flash. Using it, she deflected the blasts away from herself and sent two of them back towards her attacker! A woman screamed somewhere off in the distance, but Scarlet could not see her.
The thug firing at Night Owl didn't even come close to hitting the nimble heroine. "Hey! That's like rude!" Vision was not a problem for Night Owl in the darkened warehouse. She spotted the man who fired on her easily. Reaching down, she picked up a microwave box and threw it! Her attacker never saw it coming. He did see stars for a split second and then everything went black.
"Night Owl!", the Scarlet Sabre shouted, "grab Crazy Teddy!"
Night Owl turned to find the cheap appliance dealer making a beeline to the exit. "Gotcha," Night Owl said, as she took off in pursuit. She was upon Crazy Teddy in a flash.
"You won't take me in, super cape!" Crazy Teddy tried to draw his own Retaliator from underneath his coat, but Night Owl would have none of that. She grabbed the weapon before he could even aim it, ripped it out of his hands, and tossed it aside.
"Like, dream on bozo." Night Owl gave Crazy Teddy a love tap and the deranged retailer went down.
Behind Night Owl, the Scarlet Sabre pushed a button on the hilt of her energy sabre, altering its properties once more. She pointed the weapon straight up. An energy line projected out of the hilt and locked on to the steel supports overhead. Adjusting the control, the energy line began to contract, drawing the Scarlet Sabre up into the rafters.
From this vantagepoint, Scarlet could see most of the warehouse. She located the woman she heard scream earlier. The woman had positioned herself on top of a stack of boxes and was armed with a Retaliator. Worst of all she was drawing a bead on Scarlet!
"Come'm get it!", the armed woman screamed.
Scarlet adjusted her energy line and projected it to another ceiling support about half way between her and the woman. The swashbuckling heroine released her grip on the rafters and used the energy line to swing towards the woman with the Retaliator! The woman fired as Scarlet swung towards her, but she was unable to hit the fast moving heroine.
The Scarlet Sabre was a bit short in her swing, and was not going to reach the woman. Instead she swung into the pile of boxes hard and feet first. The pyramid of boxes began to collapse, pummeling the woman in their avalanche!
The woman screamed as she fell. A second later there was a minor explosion as her Retaliator had overheated! The weapon exploded in the woman's hand, blowing it to pieces in the process.
The sight sickened Scarlet who had come to perch high up in the rafters once more. This was one foe who's fighting days were done.
Elsewhere, the Huntress was engaged in a cat and mouse game with the last thug. After taking cover, she had moved silently among the storage racks, drawing ever nearer to her attacker. Her heart was pounding. She fed off the excitement of the situation. Finding her attacker drawing near, the Huntress curled up on the middle shelf of a storage rack, obscured by large boxes.
Waiting until the proper moment, the Huntress lunged forward with blinding speed as the man came up the aisle. Using the side support of the rack like a bar, the Huntress swung on it and kicked the man's weapon away! The gun bounced noisily away.
"Let's see how tough you are without your little toy!" The Huntress advanced on the man. They had entered a lighted area and she was surprised to find that she recognized her attacker! "Elmo Jenkins?"
"How'd ya know that?" The large man, with a flattened noise and cauliflower ears was momentarily startled.
The Huntress had heard of Elmo Jenkins before. Years ago he was a small time boxer, but now he was all washed up and hiring himself as cheap muscle to make a buck. Helena Kirby had seen him at least a dozen times in the ring on outings with her father.
"Boss says I gotta put you down!" Elmo assumed a boxing stance and advanced on the Huntress.
"Have it your way", the Huntress said with a smile, as she also adopted a boxing stance. "But if anyone is going down, it's you Elmo."
"No one knocks down Elmo!" The washed up boxer screamed as he launched a right handed jab at the Huntress' face. She easily avoided it by ducking to her left. Moving far faster then any opponent the boxer had ever faced, the Huntress sent a powerful upper cut that landed squarely on Elmo's jaw! Elmo collapsed to the floor like a tree that had just been cut. He hit the concrete and didn't budge.
"I see you still have that glass jaw, Elmo," the Huntress mused. "You might have been a contender if not for that. I wonder how I would have done as a professional boxer..."
Seeing that her foe was not going anywhere anytime soon, the Huntress returned to find that everything was now under control. Crazy Teddy was sleeping it off, as was his other hired thug. The woman who fired on Scarlet was in a bad way.
"I've got the authorities and an ambulance on the way," Scarlet explained. "All in all, I'd say that pretty much wraps up this case."
"Alright!", Night Owl exclaimed.
"I guess it does," the Huntress said. "This hunt has reached its end."
Suddenly, a powerful explosion erupted from the other side of the warehouse! The startled heroines turned in time to see a ball of fire consume the far side of the building!
"What the hell was that!?!"
The storage racks were blown forward, toppling into each other much like a row of dominos. A rack full of large boxes and crates began to fall on the heroines...
