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Maria, Maria

  Quintin Fortune

  Copyright 2014 Quintin Fortune

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  The young man turned around the corner, stumbling into a smaller alley than the one he was ducking out of. The sounds of the thunder drowned out the sounds of his own feet stamping onto the pavement. He started to wheeze, but pressed on. Looking back, he saw his pursuers scramble into the opening. One was a male wearing a long black trench coat and the other was a small female with flowing blond locks. The young man found her cute, and wondered how things might have been if he had met her before tonight. He slammed his shoulder into a rusted door, hoping to get inside before his pursuers could catch up. "He's getting away," the woman called out, her voice as cute as the rest of her.

  "Oh no," the man replied. "We're not going through this again."

  Just as the young man managed to open the door, the male pursuer latched onto his shoulder. "Stay away from me," he yelled, whipping around and used his electric gauntlet on him. The man flew across the small alley and slammed into the wall.

  "Ah," the woman cried out. "Deadguy? Are you okay?"

  He shook off the effects. "I'm fine. Get him." The woman quickly ran after the young man. He started wheezing more and more, feeling a panic attack coming on. This wasn't just some normal pursuit, these were The Enemies. If he could just make it to his apartment. He started running up the stairs, the woman mere steps behind him. Another pair of footsteps followed her, then surpassed her as he finally made it to his apartment. He broke the door down just as Deadguy tackled him.

  "No,” he screamed. "Let me go!"

  "You electrocuted three people to death this week," Deadguy replied. "You're coming with us."

  The young man continued to squirm. "No! You can't...you can't..." He was finding it harder to breathe while he was being pinned down. "Can't...breathe..."

  "Deadguy," the woman said. "I don't think it would help us if you crushed the life out of him."

  "Fine, get me some handcuffs or something."

  The young man heard the sound of clinking metal, then felt cold handcuffs slap onto his wrists. "You can't arrest me," he screamed. "You don't have the authority."

  "Um...Deadguy," the woman said. Her voice was filled with concern. "What's that?"

  The young man looked up at his shrine. The monument to the pale blond beauty that he madly adored. A flash of lighting outside revealed the entirety of the shrine. The pictures. The art. The newspaper clippings. All of her. Beautiful, wonderful her. He twisted his body to look up at Deadguy and the woman. She looked on in confusion, while Deadguy examined the shrine with horror. "You have got to be kidding me," he said slowly.

  "Do you...know this woman," she asked.

  His face twisted into something that said he didn't want to say out loud what was on his mind. He nodded slowly. "That's Maria Jones," he said.

  "That's Queen Maria to you," the young man screamed. "She is our queen, and she will purge The Enemies from this world with lightning."

  "Great, we've got an obsessed copycat fanboy wait did you just say 'we'," Deadguy asked.

  "She will escape, and she will come for us," the young man muttered. "and she will flood this world with electricity."

  Deadguy looked to the woman with concern. "Kiri, I think this has gotten a little worse than we expected.”

  "Boss, we've got a problem," Deadguy announced as he and Kiri walked into the Office of the Professional Heroes. Jill looked up from her computer.

  "Define problem," she asked. "Were you unable to capture our little spark plug again?"

  "No, we got him," he explained. "We also got something I really wish I didn't know. Remember Maria Jones?"

  "Unfortunately."

  "Well, apparently Sparky thinks she's a queen or a goddess or whatever and has joined and or started a cult following her."

  "Maria has a cult?"

  "Who's Maria," Kiri exclaimed.

  "Oh. Right. You weren't here.," DG said. "Here's the short version. A few months back, we had to secretly stop some psychopath that was killing student at Dendo University with electricity. That psycho was Maria Jones."

  "So, what," Kiri asked. "She had a tazer or something?"

  Our Hero halfheartedly laughed. "Oh, if it was only that. No, she could actually shoot electricity from her hands."

  "That's...that's not possible," she replied, a little confused.

  He looked at the Techie. "You work with someone who can't die, and you're saying electricity from the hands is impossible?"

  "You're not possible either," she replied.

  "You and your damn logic. Anyway, they said she's going to escape and purge 'The Enemies' from this world, whoever they are." The door chime dinged, causing the Heroes to look as Valkadaidan walked in. He was carrying a beat up briefcase. "I don't think that's what they mean by business casual," he quipped.

  Valk ignored him and dropped the briefcase onto Jill's desk. "Ah, how sweet," she cooed mockingly. "You brought me a briefcase. Is it filled with the money from you last case?"

  "Open it," he commanded.

  She clicked the briefcase open to find four gauntlets with prongs near where the wrist would go. Some were batter. One had bloodstains. "Not to sound ungrateful, but what are these," she asked, holding one up to examine it.

  Deadguy snapped his finger and pointed. "That's the gauntlet Sparky had," he announced. "Not that exact one, because the police confiscated it, but he had one of those."

  "So you already know," Valk asked.

  "About 'Queen Maria'," DG answered. "Yeah. We were just filling Jill in about it."

  "Which means we're dealing with a cult that's sprung up around Maria," Jill asked, trying to assess the situation.

  "Oh yeah. Great. That's exactly what we need," Our Hero groaned. "A cult of sparky psychos with a hard-on for a woman that could kill you if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

  "Is she that bad," Kiri asked.

  "The woman's bipolar," Deadguy answered. "She goes from 'schoolgirl with a crush' to 'full on psycho bitch mode' at the drop of a hat."

  "Your's or someone else's," Jill asked.

  "Not getting into that now," he replied.

  "In any case, we need to find out what Maria knows about this," their boss stated. "Deadguy, you go talk to Maria. I'll arrange a meeting."

  "Wait, what," he exclaimed. "Why do I have to deal with the psycho?"

  "It's either you or Valkadaidan, and he's going hunting."

  Valk nodded. "Understood. I'll see if I can find any more members of this cult."

  "What about me," Kiri asked.

  Jill held out one of the electric devices. "You get the fun job of analyzing this and finding out where it came from."

  Kiri grabbed the device and started for the break room as Valkadaidan turned and left. Jill picked up the phone as Deadguy still stood in front of her desk. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you," he asked.

  "Get going," she simply replied as she started to call the prison warden.