Paulette & Chaffin: The War on Wishes #3: The Last Wish

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Edited By cbishop

RANKED 2nd BY VOTERS IN CHARACTER CREATION CONTEST #75!

DatePaulette & Chaffin: The War on Wishes #3:ViewRead the...
08/05/18The Last Wish(Blog) (Forum)Disclaimer
RatingRating ExplanationLast Issue:
TDrug dealing discussed (fictitious drugs). Mild cursing.What do you wish for?
The West Liberty Street Underpass of the Liberteens
The West Liberty Street Underpass of the Liberteens

Norfolk, Virginia - Three Days Later - The West Liberty Street Underpass of the Liberteens

Agent Salt and Scarlet Fist stood back-to-back, taking swings at Flipside as he teleported around them. They had landed a few punches, but mostly they were missing.

Stay focused.
Stay focused.

"This is getting us nowhere!" Crystal shouted in frustration.

"Stay focused," huffed Fist. "We'll get him eventually."

Just then, a wild swing by Salt clipped the teleporter. Flipside fell back into one of his own portals, tumbling out in front of Scarlet Fist, who decked him with another blow.

"Finally," said Fist as he dropped to his knees.

"Amen, brother," sighed Salt as she sank to a sitting position, and leaned against his back. "Where the hell is Corsair? We haven't seen him yet."

***

Heironymous was busy with Solid- a hulking juggernaut with a smooth, stone exterior, and super strength. They had been trading blows that were shattering car windows all over the lot, knocking each other on their butts, and destroying cars when they landed on them.

"I can do this all day, grandpa!" taunted Solid.

Having tossed his trench coat and suit coat aside early on, Heironymous began rolling up a sleeve of his shirt. "Son, I'm about to show you your limits."

Taking a deep breath, the humanoid dragon let out a stream of fire that caught the rock-bodied teen full in the chest. Solid kept advancing on Heironymous, his torso starting to glow a fiery orange. He slowed some, and as he got within arm's reach, the agent punched him full force in the solar plexus. It sent Solid tumbling, and bits of rock flying off of his body. His body landed hard in the dirt and dug a trench for several yards before he came to a rest, unconscious.

Heironymous picked up his coats and snapped them in the air once to shake off the dirt. Grunting, he said, "Damn. That boy's tough."

***

Specter Zero
Specter Zero

Detective Paulette was mostly getting tagged by the invisible woman they called Fade. Specter Zero was using all the illusions at his disposal to try to trick her into showing herself.

"Your tricks are useless against me," came a voice that seemed to float on the air.

"Are they?" asked Specter Zero as he dropped some smoke pellets.

In the smoke, the outline of Fade's body appeared. Mary smiled as she moved in. "Now we're on an even playing field."

***

Hot Sistah began glowing red hot, and started to advance on Detective Chaffin. "I'm gonna burn you, pig."

Gragg gritted his teeth. Realizing that his baton was only going to melt against Hot Sistah's heat, Gragg dropped it, pulled his gun, and shot Hot Sistah four times in the chest. She dropped unconscious, scorching the grass around her, and immediately started to cool to normal. Chaffin could see that her fiery exterior had been hiding a bulletproof vest. "Lucky girl. I see this isn't your first firefight." Shaking his head, he holstered his gun, and pulled out his handcuffs. "I'm getting really sick of this," he said as he locked her wrists together.

***

Soundstorm gave off a sonic scream; the sound wave crashing into C-Note's slightly more powerful scream. The sound bounced around them, shattering windows out on the street, and causing small cracks in the support columns of the overpass. Soundstorm stopped screaming when C-Note suddenly grunted and fell to the ground. She saw Detective Paulette slapping her baton in her open palm, smiling mischievously.

"Thanks," she said in a small voice.

"You're welcome," Mary said brightly. "Good job."

***

Jetwave was chasing Coolbreeze all over the lot, the two speedsters ducking and dodging various projectiles being thrown by the other. Rocks, old window handles, a rear view mirror, broken bottles, and even a car door.

Even a race car can't beat me!
Even a race car can't beat me!

"Even a race car can't beat me!" called Jetwave. "I'm going to catch you!"

"We'll see about that, brat!" shouted Coolbreeze, just before he was clotheslined by Super Duper.

"Cool your heels, 'Breeze," said Super Duper, a grin spreading across his face. "God, I love this!" he called out, high fiving Jetwave as he ran by.

***

Rebel Angel and Dark Geist were in a full-on hand-to-hand battle with Throwdown and Freestyle- a ninja and a pulp hero trading blows with a brawler and an acrobat. In the end, it was no contest. Throwdown and Freestyle lay defeated. Rebel Angel pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and Dark Geist produced a long ziptie. Securing their opponents, they shook each other's hand, and dragged the teens over to the pile of Liberteens being made by the group of officers and heroes.

***

"That wasn't fun at all," Gragg muttered aloud.

"Speak for yourself," said Super Duper, clapping him on the back.

"How did you two get powers?" Heironymous asked Soundstorm and Jetwave.

Soundstorm looked at the ground for a second, then looked up and winced. "We're really not supposed to tell," she said.

"Yeah, it's our secret origin!" chimed Jetwave.

Mary half-grinned, but then groused, "What I want to know is where the heck is Corsair? We haven't seen him the entire time we've been here!"

"And where's Smackdown?" asked Salt. "He's the only one that seems to be missing."

A voice that seemed to come from everywhere answered, "The answer to both of your questions is above you."

The group looked up, then quickly stepped back from the piled gang as the unconscious body of Smackdown fell from the shadows of the underpass. Attached to a climbing cable, he decelerated safely to just a few inches short of the pile before the cable snapped off his belt and dropped him onto the heap. Then Corsair appeared from the same shadows, sliding gracefully down the cable, and making the small jump from the top of the pile to the ground.

"I was busy rounding him up," he said to Salt, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Dylan Smack.

"'Bout time you showed up," Heironymous said gruffly.

Not hard at all. I wish...
Not hard at all. I wish...

"I was complying with a wish," said the black-clad hero. "I was busting a Liberteen drug deal, and that Freestyle kid popped a pill and wished for me to disappear. So I dropped smoke pellets and did just that. I granted his wish, but wasn't able to reveal myself again until one of you knocked him unconscious."

Mary nodded at the hero's explanation. "Great, so we got them all. Now what?"

Heironymous sighed. "Now comes the hard part- rounding up the Wish supply, and taking out the other networks that are springing up. Unfortunately, the Liberteens aren't the only supply of this anymore."

"Not hard at all," came the voice of Corsair.

The group looked around, and the hero was gone. Looking up, they saw a pale blue light shining in the shadows, barely illuminating the dull metal mask, and almost lighting up the stylized skull and crossbones on his chest. "I wish," he started as they all gasped, "that the pill I just took was the last pill of any supply of the drug called Wish, and that no more could ever be made."

***

Norfolk, Virginia - the Warehouse of the Wishing Demon

There was a bright blue flash as the barrels of Wish that the Wishing Demon had conjured all evaporated into nothing. Realizing what had happened he stood silent. His rage built, and he shook until he let out a guttural, "Nooooo!" flailing his fists at the sky.

He fumed over his loss as he cast his gaze around the empty warehouse. Then he sighed, which turned into a light laugh. "Oh, well," he said with a wave of his hand, "it was good while it lasted. Back to doing it the old fashioned way." With that, he disappeared. And then so did the warehouse, leaving only a windblown lot.

Please let me know what you think, and thanks! -cbOriginally Presented In: CCC #75.

Story and characters owned by Chris Bishop, copyright 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

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#1  Edited By cbishop
OC Names:

Characters:

  • Chaffin, Detective Gragg
  • C-Note
  • Coolbreeze
  • Corsair
  • Dark Geist
  • Fade
  • Flipside
  • Freestyle
  • Heironymous, Agent
  • Hot Sistah
  • Jetwave
  • Paulette, Detective Mary
  • Rebel Angel
  • Salt, Agent Crystal Salt
  • The Scarlet Fist
  • Smack, Dylan (Smackdown)
  • Solid
  • Soundstorm
  • Specter Zero
  • Super Duper
  • Throwdown
  • Wishing Demon, The*

Objects:

  • Wish

Teams:

  • Liberteens, The (Slang Gang, The)
*The Wishing Demon created by Elouise Clayton (aka ImpurestCheese), now owned by Chris Bishop (aka cbishop).
Comic Characters used in this fic:
CompanyConceptsLocationsTeams
Non-Fiction:
Public Domain:
  • -
  • -
CompanyCharacters/People:

Real Life Super Hero Project:

  • These names have all been replaced with OC names.
**Note: Jetstorm saying, "Even a race car can't beat me!" is taken directly from his profile on the Real Life Super Hero website. No infringement is intended- it was just too cool not to use it. -cb
Picture credits:
Picture:Source:
West Liberty Street Underpass:Found via Google Maps. Cropped and edited in MS Paint.
  • "Stay focused."
  • Phantom Zero
  • "Even a race car can't beat me!"
Found on either the Real Life Super Hero Project website, or their wiki page. They belong to either the RLSH or the photographer(s) that took the pictures.
  • "Not hard at all. I wish..."
Also from RLSHP or their wiki, but I futzed with it a little in MS Paint- adding the blue for the glow from the Wish pill, and the black spraypaint effect over the pic to make it look like he was shrouded in darkness.
CCC #75 comments for The War on Wishes:

A big vote for cbishop‘s glorious tale

batkevin74

batkevin: lol "Glorious tale" huh?

cbishop

cbishop: well I liked it

batkevin74

batkevin74: Glad to know it. ;)

cbishop
.Fic-O-Pedia: cbishop. (My library of fics)Fic #229

Thanks for stopping in! :^D

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#2  Edited By cbishop

The Origins Behind the Origins (or how some of these characters got their names):

Coolbreeze:

"Cool breeze" was a short-lived slang term in the Eighties that was basically the same as calling someone "holmes" or "homie." I thought about giving him wind powers, but I've never thought of wind powers as very cool. So I went with speedster instead, thinking of the cool breeze that someone might feel as he runs by.

Fade:

"Fade" was slang for "leave" or "get out." Here, she has the power of invisibility.

Flipside:

"Flipside" is from "see ya on the flipside" which means "see ya later." I used it as a nod to a cartoon I liked, but it turns out that I had the wrong cartoon. The one I liked was The Fonz & The Happy Days Gang, and it was about The HDG and a time-travelling girl named Cupcake. Now the way I remembered it was that Cupcake was from a dimension called The Flipside. Well, uh... no.

It turns out that The Flipside was from another cartoon called Kidd Video. I honestly don't recall watching the Kidd Video cartoon, but I remember that I liked The Flipside and watching the show that it was in. So apparently, I did watch KV at some point.

All that aside, my Flipside is a teleporter as a sort of nod to The Flipside being another dimension. I didn't really show it in the story, but I also tend to think of Flipside as a martial artist- someone who would "flip" as they fight. It's a goofy connection, I know.

Freestyle:

"Freestyle" as in "doing it freestyle" or "freestyle rap." I also kind of think of it like free form fighting, which is why Freestyle is a martial artist.

Hot Sistah:

Honestly, I'm not as happy with this name as the others. Sixties-ish slang tends to turn me off for some reason, but I couldn't get away from the image of Hot Sistah being flame/ magma powered. I didn't really have any use for her beyond sticking her in The Slang Gang though.

I'd have actually killed her off in this story, but I had some problems with that:

  1. In the contest version, Mary shoots Hot Sistah, and there's no mention of whether she's alive or dead. No one else dies in this story though. To kill off one character just didn't seem right here.
  2. Detective Mary Paulette is named after my aunt, and I just couldn't see her doing that. I have no doubt that she would have if she'd had to as that was her training, but to my knowledge she never had to in real life. So I'm not a fan of having her do it here, even though Hot Sistah represents a high level of danger, and shooting to kill would be a warranted response when she attacks.
  3. For this post, I changed things around, having Mary fight Fade, and Gragg fight and shoot Hot Sistah. Gragg Chaffin is named after a real life family member too though, and I didn't really want him to kill in this story either.

I couldn't think of another way to bring Hot Sistah down though, so I stuck with the shooting. I thought of saying that her heat aura melted the bullets, keeping the impact from being lethal, but a) I really needed her to be at least unconscious, and b) that just sounds stupid. Still, not wanting her to be the story's only casualty, I came up with the bulletproof vest. It had the unintentional benefit of adding a tiny bit of depth to her character which is always nice.

Solid:

"Solid," as in "that's solid" or "you did me a solid." This guy is basically a rock-bodied juggernaut with super strength. He started out as just Solid, but not long after Image Comics came out, I added a secondary identity of Solid Bedrock.

I hated that Hannah-Barbera forced Rob Liefeld to change "Bedrock's" name simply because "Bedrock" is the hometown of the Flintstones. The two are obviously different, but I guess they owned all rights or something. So I came up with calling my character Solid Bedrock as a way to get around that and simultaneously thumb my nose at H-B. I dream of being able to do these types of things if I ever got into comics. But okay, Solid Bedrock isn't a great name, and Rob flipped them off better by renaming his character Badrock. Score one for Mister Liefeld. The name stays on my list, because "never throw away an idea," but I'll probably never use it in a story.

Incidentally, I also thought of renaming him Budrock, and characterizing him as a little more "country hick." I probably won't go there either, but again, "never throw away an idea. Wringing all the mileage out of it that I could, I thought of Bodrock too, as a play on "make your body rock," but that eventually got assigned to another character. It's possible that Budrock will emerge as a separate character one day as well.

What I did eventually do is give him the real name of "Chris Solid." No, it's not me being meta. It's wordplay on "chrysalid." It has the advantage of making his super-name make sense beyond it being based on slang.

Throwdown:

As in "let's throw down," Throwdown is a fighter. I always want to say "martial artist," but I kind of picture him as more of a brawler than Freestyle, so I'll probably stick with my gut on that.

The Heroes:

Part of the challenge for CCC 75 was to use at least one of the Real Life Super Hero Project in the story. I used several. Wanting to make this story all original, I've just changed the RLSH names to something close. They're basically throwaway names- I probably won't revisit these characters, but never say never. So, the changes are these:

RLSH Name:OC Name:
  1. .Crimson Fist.
  2. .Death's Head Moth.
  3. .Geist. & .Dark Ghost.
  4. .Jetstorm.
  5. .Mutinous Angel.
  6. .Phantom Zero.
  7. .Soundwave.
  8. .Super Hero.
  1. Scarlet Fist
  2. Corsair
  3. Dark Geist
  4. Jetwave
  5. Rebel Angel
  6. Specter Zero
  7. Soundstorm
  8. Super Duper
  • In real life, Jetstorm & Soundwave are siblings, so I just flipped their names to make the OC names Jetwave & Soundstorm. They are not in the RLSH wiki anymore- maybe because they're kids. There are random articles out there that talk about them though. I just thought that it was cool as could be that a couple of kids were doing the RLSH thing, because I would have loved to have been able to dress like a superhero as a kid. Had to put them in the story... I mean, uh, model OC's after them in the story. lol
  • Geist & Dark Ghost/ Dark Geist - this replacement was a problem. I used Geist in the CCC 75 story. I was just going to replace the name with Ghost, but it turns out that's an RLSH name too. Unable to find a suitable replacement name, I decided to just replace Geist with someone else altogether. So, I went to the RLSH wiki, and wound up finding Dark Ghost. He looks suitably "Forties pulp hero" as I had described Geist, so I wound up just saying, "Duh, I can just make it Dark Geist." I made that way too hard! lol
  • Super Hero/Super Duper was just me shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Whatever, here: new name." Note: The real Super Hero killed himself. I was sad to read this, because I'd seen some videos he was in, and I truly liked his personality. May he rest in peace.
  • Crimson/Scarlet, Mutinous/Rebel, and Phantom/Specter were just synonym replacements. Scarlet Fist might show up again- it's an okay name. Might be a different character though.
  • Death's Head Moth/Corsair is just okay. I like DHM's look. Corsair could reappear- I could play off that pirate angle a bit. It's not high on my priority list though.

Thanks for reading. :^D

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3/10

too many words

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editing bump - trying to see if activity will clear a problem.