Chapter 48
There wasn’t any sign of Fifestone at all when I patrolled last night. Today, Blake and I patrolled together like usual, but while we still haven’t found him, something else more peculiar caught our attention, which had been the talk of the news all day.
Lisa: “Ever since late last night, mysterious tremors have continuously occurred within Vale. The Vale council have grown concerned and are moving to have a full-scale investigation done into the source, hopefully before the tremors end up hurting someone.”
Weiss: “The way I see it, the council every right to be concerned. These tremors are far too frequent to be from natural causes. Not to mention the fact that they’ve only occurred within the city rather than any of the region beyond the city limits. Their too small to natural quakes.”
Ruby: “She’s right. Something manmade is causing them.”
Yang: “Okay. So where does that leave us?” To which I look over to Blake.
Ruby: “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Blake: “The Tinkerer. All the scientist villains are still in prison, and this whole time we keep falling short of a way to catch Tinkerer.”
Ruby: “They are quite the mystery.” It starts getting late, and now it’s Blake’s turn to patrol solo. “Think you’ll be able to handle patrol tonight? Yang and I have chores do to.”
Blake: “I’ll be fine. These tremors shouldn’t be a problem so long as I stay up high.” As we split up, we set up the comm line so our contact with Vernal only connects with Blake for tonight. Later on, as Blake patrols the city, she catches a squad of cops rushing through her area. “Hm? Could be trouble.” As she follows them, and Vernal gives a call.
Vernal: “Scarlet Spider, do you read me?”
Blake: “Sorry, but you’ve got Black Cat tonight. Is this about the units speeding down 3rd Street?”
Vernal: “Yes. We've gotten reports of a masked assailant with strange techno gauntlets robbing many stores on that street. The only other thing we have in the way of identification is that he has on record to refer to himself as the ‘Shocker’.”
Blake: “The Shocker? It just sounds like he’s trying to rip off Electro.”
Vernal: “You’d think so, but we haven’t had any electrical surges around the place like we had with Mercury, and he’s still locked up tight in the Vault.”
Blake: “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.” After she hangs up, Blake gets closer to the reported area, and then she sees Shocker crash through a shop window onto the street carrying two large bags full of Lien. He's a tall man in a red and dark grey suit covered gold and dark brown armor parts, along with a red and dark grey helmet with gold mask. The suit gauntlets have these strange drill looking devices on top. He turns to see the cops arrive but is more focused on Blake as she lands between him and them. “So, you're the Shocker, huh?”
Shocker: “The Cat, huh? Guess I gotta test on someone before killing the Spider.” The mask kind of echos his voice, but it doesn’t do much to change it, thus still making it recognizable to her.
Blake: “Wait. That voice... Fifestone?”
Shocker: “So, you’ve got some brains, huh? You're the first person to actually figure me out.” Fifestone: “But good luck trying to stop me. I’ve got some major horsepower behind me now!” A strange energy surge in the drills of the gauntlets. He puts his fists forward and the energy disperses as a beam, and she narrowly dodges, and it hits the building behind her... result in a slight tremor.
Blake: “Whoa... Guess I found out what's causing the tremors.”
Fifestone: “Shocked me the first time I used these too.”
Blake: “So what? Is that why your called the Shocker?” She says sarcastically.
Fifestone: “As much as I’d like to go into the details, I really much be going.” He charges again and pounds the ground, create a large shockwave the pushes her and the cops back from where their standing. Afterwards, he turns around, charges again and releases a pulse while his fists are pointed to the ground, thus launching him into air, as if having some kind of super jump.
Blake: “Shit!” She tries to follow after recovering. She follows as he traverses the roofs with continuous super jumps. She gets relatively close and tries to attack, but...
Fifestone: “Not gonna be that easy!” He turns quickly and fires off a quick beam. Which hits her and knocks her out of the air, and she falls as he continues across the rooftops. She’s able to save herself from hitting the ground with her grapple, but by the time she’s recovered her footing on the ground, he’s far off to follow after him again.
Blake: “Damnit. This is bad.” The next day, we all meet as usual where she revealed everything.
Weiss: “These tremors are just being caused by some weird gauntlets?”
Yang: “And what the hell is the Shocker supposed to mean?”
Ruby: “Yang. I think we need to focus the gauntlets first.”
PENNY: “Well, if I were to make a guess regarding, I’d say their using a unique combination of earth and energy Dust. This particular combination being able to simulate seismic shockwaves, which in turn cause the tremors.”
Weiss: “Aaaand I think I just figured out the Shocker thing and I hate that I did.”
Blake: “Rather than being literal with the name as if he’s able to shock being, he tries to approach the more scientific aspect of his tech and make being think about it?”
Yang: “Yeesh. This feels like dealing with someone wearing a thinker costume for Halloween but 10 times more complicated.”
Ruby: “I’m gonna go ahead and assume he didn’t make that suit himself. Vernal didn’t mention anything about him being particularly good at science.”
Blake: “Sounds like the Tinkerer's MO yet again.”
Weiss: “Then I guess we know what we need to do to figure this out.” And that’s Vernal calls again.
Ruby: “Go ahead, Captain.”
Vernal: “It’s Shocker again. He’s moved on street stores and is robbing a major bank in the city’s East end.”
Ruby: “Guess Fifestone is getting bolder. We need to hurry.”
Vernal: “My men and I are already setting up a perimeter around the bank. Thankfully all the people inside got out safe, but now everything else inside is defenseless against him.”
Ruby: “Okay. We're on our way.” And we hang up. “It’s Fifestone. We need to go now.”
Blake: “Right.” As we quickly change into our suits and get going.