City of Heroes

Bad Blood

Levi is hovering.

Figuratively and literally. The former because he won't leave me alone and the latter because his feet aren't touching the ground. He's laying horizontally right over my desk, his head hung back and his arms dangling down by his sides as if he were reclining on a pool float.

I push him away like you might a stray balloon. "Do you mind?" I ask, "You don't have to hang out in my air space you know."

Levi grins as he sits up and touches back to the ground. "What are you even working on?" He quickly zooms over and I have to reorganize all the rustled papers.

"I'm doing some detective work," I tell him, "I don't trust the Olympians. I don't think they're the heroes they pretend to be."

I explain to Levi the research I've been working on ever since Circe first attacked me in the parking garage. I know they have some sort of alternative motive and after the fire I know they have some "boss" telling them what to do. That probably means they have a home base as well. I've looked into all their appearances in these last few months and have been able to narrow it down to to a two block radius in downtown Vertigo.

"So you think you know where their headquarters is?" Levi asks, looking interested, "That's a pretty bold guess. What if you're wrong?"

"I'm rarely wrong."

Levi glances at the papers again, "So what now?"

That's a good question. Sure I might have an idea where to find their headquarters but we're still out fire powered.

"I say we go pay them a visit," Levi smiles mischievously.

"You want us to go infiltrate their headquarters? Us two against all of them?"

"It'd be more like me against all of them," Levi corrects, "But still, if we can't beat them in a straight up fight that means playing dirty. What better than convert sneak attack?"

"I don't know..."

"Come on! Do something risky for once in your life. Don't think. Don't over plan. Just do."

"That's terrible advice," I tell him. But he has a point. Waiting around isn't doing us any good. We're in a stalemate, waiting for the Olympians to make a move. Maybe we should take the offensive, "Ok. Let's do it."

One change of clothes later and Levi and I are both waiting, masks and all, on top of one the buildings downtown. If my prediction is correct the Olympian Headquarters should be somewhere around here.

I'm armed with the usual arsenal: earpiece communicators, GPS trackers I can look up on my phone, the anti-super whistle, and three copies of the cure. I did a little online shopping and found a fancy dart gun. After a little work I rigged it so I can use it to shoot copies of the Cure.

"I'm not seeing anything," Levi says skeptically after he scoured out the area, "Is the great Mackenzie Reyes finally going to admit she's wrong?"

"Not likely," I say as I look through the area. My eyes spot a manhole cover down below and I get an idea. I have Levi fly us down and remove the cover before climbing down below.

Levi drops in next to me. "Do usually spend your time in sewer tunnels? Because I might need to reconsider the whole following you around thing."

It's dark and moist and smells worse than the boys locker room at school. The tunnel is circular and narrow enough that if I stretch out my arms I can almost touch both sides. There's a thin stream of water running down the center and a few dim lights along the sides.

"Darn it," Levi grumbles, "You might be right after all. I think I hear something."

"What kind of something?"