The Empire of Apartment
10th morning of the Eighth Month of the eternal rule of the Empress Spot, hallow-ed be her claws, may her name resonate through the ages.
Spot the Merciless, Empress of the Empire of Apartment, surveyed her vast domain from her perch on the mighty Refrigerator Throne. The object of her current desires, the culmination of all of the meticulous planning she'd spent long minutes devising, lay sprawled on the concrete platform in the borderlands known as the dreaded Outside.
The fat beast lounged contentedly, unaware of the certain doom that was fast approaching. One of her minions, the ever loyal Jess, had left the almond butter out of the cupboard before leaving for the morning, and Spot was able to strategically distract her with pets and leg rubs until she failed to put it away. Spot was particularly proud of that little piece of planning.
Now, the beast was near catatonic, sprawled out on the distant balcony, stuffed full of the awful paste.
But best of all, the foresight Spot took pride in the most… the lazy beast had failed to renew its defenses. The hated invisible barrier that had long thwarted Spot in the past, forcing her to stare at the despised foe for hours on end with no hope of ever ending the damned beast's infernal chittering…
Yet now the barrier lay open. And Spot’s empire lay bare, her servants off on pointless errands of their own. Only the agreeable male minion, Gregory, lay anywhere near her current position.
Spot looked over, noting that her faithful minion sat at his normal position, drinking that disgusting black liquid while staring at that interesting paper thing that Spot often enjoyed crinkling. Those delectable sheets were one of Spot's favorite tributes, making pleasing noises as she…
No, not today. Today Spot would not be distracted, no matter how fresh and exciting the latest paper sounded as her minion tantalizingly ruffled the pages. Today, Spot would finally achieve her goal, the eradication of her most despised foe.
Her minion was busy. He would take minutes to respond to her attack, and by that time it would be too late…Mwahahahahaha!
Spot could already taste her victory. Perhaps she would present her minion with the carcass afterwards, as a reward for his long months of service.
Spot leapt from her perch and took cover behind the Hills of Couch, and crept around to the Carpet Plains. She inched forward, keeping a low silhouette, using the instinctual assassination skills of her tribe. Her claws flexed in anticipation as she crept forward, inch by grueling inch, waiting for the perfect moment.
The perfect moment to strike.
Muscles clenched as she readied herself, trained by hours of chasing her hated enemy—the red laser dot—and prepared just for this exact moment.
Spot felt a massive claw strike at her neck, and her body went limp.
No, her only weakness! How did the beast know? Spot lamented her inability to move as the massive claw of her enemy's protector… the foul beast Doreen… pulled Spot up from the Carpet Plains, only inches away from her prize.
Doreen, Spot's true nemesis… hated even more than the slobbering, ravenous monster Jeff.
“Hey, there little one,” the beast gloated, mocking Spot with its cutesy tone. The creature pulled her ever closer to that disgusting face to stare in Spot's eyes. Its other filthy paw cradled Spot's body. No doubt the beast was planning to torture Spot with the dreaded belly rubs. “You're not supposed to be on the balcony!”
The massive beast looked to its ally, the fat rodent in the fabled outside, reveling in its victory.
“Tippy, did you leave the door open this morning?”
“Squeak!”
“Well, you should apologize to Greg, Tippy. What if the little one had gotten hurt?
“Squeak.”
“Good morning Doreen,” Spot's minion called out, in a futile attempt to distract the beast, “I haven't seen you since yesterday. Having fun with Gwen?”
Success! The beast released Spot's neck, freeing her from her paralysis. Oh, faithful minion, your sacrifice will not be forgotten. Spot wasted none of the opportunity she was given, twisting free from the beast's clutches.
Spot fled to the only sanctuary left in her kingdom… the Bathroom Valley. There she could hide between the Wall Cliffs and the Porcelain Monument… safe at last. Free, so she could mourn her faithful servant, and possibly plan to avenge him.
Servant, your sacrifice will not be forgotten. This Empress will grace you with hours on your lap if you survive this ordeal. If not… you will be remembered as a fallen hero of the empire.
“Wow, the little one is feisty today,” Doreen giggled, “And hanging out with Gwen has been great, we've just been hanging out in my apartment, catching up. Are you by yourself today?”
“Sure am,” Greg nodded, “Jess is visiting her old foster family, and Jean is meeting Bobbi at the coffee shop to help her with the Essex Clinic investigation. She doesn't want me sticking my nose in it, so she's doing all of her adventuring outside of the apartment. Honestly, it's adorable.
“Oh, and Elsa is sleeping in the loft bed. She woke Jean and me up at 4 am when she climbed into our bed stinking like a barrel of scotch and passed out. We didn't go back to sleep after that. The bed is large enough for company, but she snores surprisingly loudly when she’s drunk.”
“Well that sounds amazing,” Doreen giggled, “So, Gwen wanted me to ask if she could borrow one of the empty apartments. She's not going to sleep there, she's good being my roomie, but she made sure I knew to tell you that she wasn't going to summon any demons and most likely wouldn't blow the building up.”
“Why did you emphasize the word summon like that?” Greg paused. He looked up from his newspaper, sighed, and tossed Doreen two of the spare keys. “The building is insured, I suppose. Make sure no innocent people are killed please? Tell Gwen that the apartment is hers now, even if she rooms with you most nights… maybe she’ll be less likely to destroy it if she feels a sense of ownership.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Doreen giggled as she caught the keys.
Starbucks on 5th Avenue Near the Park
Same time
Bobbi entered the Starbucks, heading to the comfortable bucket seats near the back. She was here to meet Jean Grey… her friend, and the girlfriend of her current observation target. Jean was someone that Bobbi considered one of two sane individuals in that entire madhouse known as the Seere household.
Jean also happened to be a powerful mutant telepath, and the host to a cosmic force so powerful that mortals couldn't come close to comprehending it. She was also sitting in the back of the room, wearing oversized Jackie-O shades, beside a woman that was reportedly her clone.
The second sane individual was a deeply traumatized teenage girl that spent six months trapped in a hell where she was subjected to things no woman should have ever endured.
Maybe Bobbi's bar for Sanity had dropped a bit since she'd started this case.
“Here is everything SHIELD has on the Essex Clinic,” Bobbi said as she sat down across from her friend, “That file is highly classified, concerns a SHIELD asset, and may be connected to signs of corruption I've been seeing in the agency for the last five years.
“If anyone finds out you have it, I will deny giving it to you.”
“Wow Bobbi,” Jean winked, “Great to see you too. This is Maddy, by the way. The clone I told you about.”
“Hi Bobbi,” Maddy said shyly, “Jean told me all about you yesterday.”
“You'll have to forgive my new little Sister,” Jean said as she flipped through the file, “She's a little shy on account of only being 6 months old. Lets see here, illegal cloning experiments. Brainwashing. A target for a crackdown that was mysteriously turned into an asset, with the authorization pages somehow missing signatures. This sounds exactly like what I was looking for. It also has a lead on three active labs in the area.
“Bobbi, this is perfect. I don't know what to say.”
“Don't sweat it Red. Friends don't count favors… but…”
“Go ahead Bobbi,” Jean says, “I owe you for this, what do you need?”
“Alright,” Bobbi sighed, “But we can’t talk about this here.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Jean waved her hand dismissively, “I’ve already set up my SEP field, we’re totally safe talking about this.”
“Your what?”
“My ‘Someone Else’s Problem’ field, it’s based on something I read about a while ago, using my base psionic abilities with a Devil magic twist. It projects a field that taps into a human’s natural desire to ignore things that don’t fit into their world view. Anything odd becomes ‘someone else’s problem’, and it encourages people to actively ignore it and remove all records of it.
“It’s not foolproof,” Jean continues, “anyone that is naturally heroic and willing to intervene in events, as long as the event is significant, or anyone who would already consider any hidden event to normally be ‘their problem’ will notice.
“For a couple of girls chatting over coffee in a 5th avenue Starbucks… it might as well be perfect invisibility and soundproofing. Even someone specifically spying on us would probably dismiss the conversation as being inconsequential, and anyone that is specifically recording us would probably delete the sound file because it's 'irrelevant'."
“Seriously?” Bobbi said, impressed by the revelation, “This magic shit seems pretty damn useful. I was happy with what my modified serum did for me, I can’t imagine how much magic would elevate my spy game.”
“Oh,” Jean said smugly, “Are you reevaluating my offer?”
“Maybe,” Bobbi sighed, “At first I was worried about the conflict of interest… but with all I’ve been seeing at SHIELD lately… lets just say my loyalty to the organization has been seriously tested. I’m pretty sure Hill and Fury aren’t compromised, but those are the only two that I’m completely sure of.”
“Well, if you change your mind,” Jean said, switching her tone from smug to supportive, “I have a knight piece picked out for you already. I would love to have you in my peerage.”
“Wait, isn’t it…”
“I said,” Jean said firmly, interrupting her, “I would love to have you in my peerage.”
“Fine,” Bobbi chuckled and paused. She continued after a few moments of contemplation, “This is connected to a lot of shady shit that I’ve been seeing in my time at SHIELD. I want in.”
The Empire of… Er, Greg’s Apartment
Later that afternoon.
Greg ducked below the lip of the loft mattress as the blade of a jagged tactical knife whistled past his skull, missing by millimeters. His assailant, a snoring woman with a spectacular case of orange bed-head, whined adorably and turned her back to him.
“What bloody time is it?” the woman groans, giving Greg exactly the motivation needed to leave the vicinity of the loft and start preparing coffee.
“It’s four pm, you were out for quite a bit,” Greg said as he shifted back down from the loft, dodging the shotgun harness hanging off of it and the battleaxe propped on the side, and headed to his apartment kitchen. Spot had taken up her normal place on the refrigerator, and a quadrupedal land shark was staring at her from his place below the door, “I would have let you wake naturally, but I just received a call from our mutual acquaintance Mr. Brooks.
“There is a pot of Earl Grey already made, and I’ve put together a hearty breakfast of sausage, hash, and fried eggs. I can make coffee if you prefer.”
The muffled words “Bloody brilliant” could be heard from the loft, followed by the sound of a body striking the ground after a rapid fall of approximately eight feet, the clatter of falling metal, and the words, “Ow… It’s fine, it will heal. The thumb didn’t come completely off.”
“Hello Jeff,” Greg ignored everything happening in the other room as he bent down to pet the diminutive Carcharodon that was wagging his tail and staring at the cat.
“Gurowlg,” says Jeff.
“Sorry, I don’t speak ‘adorable’,” Greg answered while scratching behind the beast’s endolymphatic pores, “Are you here to say hello to Spot, taking a break from Gwen and Doreen’s madness, or are you here for another purpose?”
“Murglarg,” said Jeff, and nudged the refrigerator with his snout.
“Food it is,” Greg nodded. He pulled out a large paper wrapped bundle from the fridge and a crinkling bag of chips from the cupboard, “I’ve got a few pounds of raw tuna. I was saving it to surprise Jean with homemade sushi… but I can always buy more… the only other thing I have in the apartment is a half eaten bag of potato chips… which do you want?”
“Grgogle!” Jeff wagged his tail excitedly.
“Both it is,” Greg nodded, and pulled two pounds of expensive sushi grade tuna from the fridge, dumped it in a pet bowl, and poured a half full bag of potato chips on top. He set the bowl on the ground (away from the cat, to give the little empress some space), and returned to the kitchen to address the tangled mess of orange hair that was currently grumbling and stuffing sausages into its mouth.
Jeff didn’t answer. He was too busy burying his face in a dog bowl and wagging his finned tail.
“Your Aunt Fi is a menace,” Elsa complained around bites of greasy breakfast links, “She dragged us to six pubs last night. I thought I’d gotten free when the pubs closed at 1 am, but she dragged us to an after hours jazz place that was BYOB… I don’t know where she was storin’ the Jameson, but at least four more bottles were drunk before the night ended in a blur.”
“Rwol,” said Jeff, looking up longingly from his now empty bowl at Elsa’s mostly full breakfast plate.
“I’m not feeding you, muppet,” Elsa growled at the land shark, and then turned back to Greg, “How did I end up in yer flat?”
“No idea,” answered Greg honestly, “But it was probably a prank by my wayward godmother. Auntie Sera loves putting me in compromising positions with women.”
Greg's voice jumped an octave into a high, overly cute pitch as he poorly imitated his fiance, “How am I supposed to have lots of nieces and nephews running around if you refuse to have more than one mistress!”
Greg shook his head and his voice returned to normal.
“It’s a cultural thing,” Greg explained with red creeping up his cheeks, “I’m trying to break her of it… but Jean has been encouraging her more than I would like.”
“Bollocks!” Elsa dropped the fork she had been using to stuff her mouth full of fried eggs and hash, “We didn’t…”
“Of course not,” Greg responded, almost indignantly, “What kind of man do you take me for?”
“It ain’t you I’m worried about, love.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” Greg said as his face returned to an apologetic expression, “Jean was tempted, but you smelled like a distillery when you arrived, so it didn’t take much convincing to leave you to sleep.
“Besides, I think my argument that you should be awake and responsive for your first time together if she was determined to seduce you was mostly successful.”
“Growgle,” agreed Jeff.
Elsa reluctantly held a sausage under the table for the little monster.
A Warehouse in an Undisclosed Location.
Around Dusk.
A gorgeous African American woman dashed out from between stacked crates, keeping her body low to avoid detection. She passed between aisles of generic machine parts in the unfamiliar building, eyes darting around to find an exit to the strange room she woke up in.
The last thing Karen remembered… being bit by a french fried corpse, being chased by… that creature, rescued by a handsome man in tactical gear… she didn’t know where she was now. But she wasn’t going to wait for a muscular man in kevlar to rescue her this time.
Someone spotted her. An unfamiliar man popped out from behind an aisle, looking directly at her. He was older, his bushy beard and long hair were fully infiltrated by grey. He wore an open leather waistcoat over a tank top that perfectly showcased the bulge of his beer belly, and tight jeans belted at his waist.
Karen didn’t think, she just fled. The old man looked exactly like the kind of man that caused women to fear waking up in unfamiliar places, and Karen wasn’t about to become another statistic if she had anything to say about it.
She darted through the aisles, rushing blindly from her position to the far side of the warehouse, hoping to find an open exit there. The man didn’t follow, he shoved a large shelving unit aside, using the momentum to swing himself into another corridor.
The reason for this became apparent immediately, as Karen slammed into a dead end, a chain link gate secured with a padlock and chain. She rattled the fence a bit, but the lock was solid. When she turned to find another exit, her pursuer was waiting with his arms raised, showing his palms.
A reddish light flashed from between one of the aisles off to the side, though this by itself was not notable; many of the machine parts Karen had seen glowed in various colors
“Wander off the beaten path, Doctor?” the man said with a gruff tone.
“Who are you people,” Karen answered, ready to sell her life dearly if she needed to.
“My name is Abraham Whistler,” the man answered and nodded to the space behind Karen, “You’ve met Blade.”
Karen turned, seeing the large and handsome man that had rescued her, without the kevlar and slightly unfashionable sunglasses.
“And my name is Gregory,” A genteel and slightly posh voice interrupted from the aisle. A young man with features almost too attractive to be real walked around a corner. A tall orange-haired woman… bright orange, not red… followed him, and the young man nodded in her direction, “And this is Elsa. Did we miss anything?”