Heroes Rising Fiction: Mythic Chase part 5

Part 5

Chase and Gar were dropped off by a BADGE transport. She pulled out a small scanner and immediately went to work. “Let’s get this over with.”

They walked toward the broken building that still had several rescue workers digging through the rubble.

“Oh, great. People to get in our way.” She muttered as she watched the chief of police heading toward them. “You talk to the people, I’ll look around for the bow.”

“But, I...” Gar protested, but she was already gone and that chief stood in front of him.

The middle-aged woman frowned, “What in heaven's name are you?”

“Uh, I am Gargoyle from BADGE.” He fumbled around for a moment finding his ID tucked into his shorts.

The woman looked at the ID for a moment and then gave a little nod to the men already preparing their weapons, “Good. Thanks for your help earlier. Your hero saved a lot of lives.”

Gar accepted his ID back, “Yes. Strange Quark is a good hero. Tell me, did your people find a bow.”

“Bow? I don’t understand.”

“A weapon that has a string and humans launch arrows with it.”

“Oh, a bow...no, not anything like that. We’ve been focused on digging through this rubble. The building was supposed to be evacuated, but we have to be certain. How it fell still confounds us.”

“Ma’am, we have something.” A man came over with a large piece of torn fabric.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know, but the dogs were reacting strangely to it.”

“Give it to forensics, then get back to...”

Chase came over, staring at her device. Without asking, she took the fabric out of his hand. “This is something.”

“Young lady, what do you think you’re doing?”

Gar quickly said, “She is with me. She is my assistant.”

“Assistant my butt. I’m here to find that bow.”

The chief said, “Would someone care to explain!”

Chase looked at her readings, “This pretty little gadget tells me when something has unique qualities. Picked it up from MI6 during my last...visit. This fabric is strangely pegging the meter. I have never seen readings like this.”

“I don’t care if you are with BADGE, do not interfere with our investigation. We have this under control.” The chief reached over for the fabric.

Chase slapped her hand away and then held the fabric tightly. “Wait just one more moment.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment. “I see, I see. This was on his cloak, it tore when he crawled out from under the rubble. Damn, he’s strong. A building fell on him and he’s walking away with just a torn coat. I can’t tell where he’s going, but maybe if I go back further, I can see where he came from.” She focused her mind on this task and the world around her faded as this fabric traveled through its history. She was sent across America. “I see, those criminals were just thugs he hired. Why did he hire thugs to kidnap a town? Wait, I can see a lair. He is in Oklahoma. Good place to hide, who wants to go there? Wait...what’s this. He can’t be.

In her vision of the past, she saw the man look at her from under his hood, his face obscured by deep shadows. He held a hand out toward her and yelled, “GET OUT OF MY PAST!” And it threw her back to the present, even stumbling to the side.

Gar caught her, “What is the matter?”

Holding her head she groaned, “I don’t know. He was able to undo my power. I don’t see how that is even possible.”

Just then a shadowy arrow struck a cop near them and he went flying back. Everyone turned to find that cloaked man standing there, the bow in his hands.