Justice for my Nemesis

St. Petersburg wasn't in Russia, it was actually in Florida, and certainly it wasn't the least bit snowy.

Claude Williams, also known as the hero Speedblitz, was a native, who had lived his entire two decades of life there, and he had become a bit of a local legend in his neighborhood. The city certainly wasn't what it had once been. Why, a scant few years ago, it wasn't even much of a city at all, and in just Claude's own lifetime, it went from a coastal town to two hundred thousand people and a thriving economy.

Of course, when things started looking up economically and the city grew at a rapid pace that far outpaced the slow growth through most of its history, a problem arose, and that was crime. Organized crime, in fact. The Elite saw the potential of the city, and they had a pretty firm presence.

There was no big protectorate base, there was a permanent presence of both Protectorate and PRT, but it wasn't enough. In a city with twenty five capes, only three were Protectorate, six were rogues and fourteen were villains.

And what about the other two?

Well, one was the only independent hero in the city, Claude himself, and the other, was his biggest regret.

For you see, Claude wasn't exactly a regular cape. No, he was different, he was an unnatural, artificial cape, one who had gained his powers by spending quite a lot of money and signing away some of his free will, agreeing to perform favors for a shadow cabal of incredibly powerful individuals.

And in return, he had gotten a power of great potency, bursts of incredible speed with the accompanying physical endurance. He had originally thought to name himself after time, pretending that his power was to stop time while he could still move, but he had been cautioned against it.

Why had he done it?

Simple really. He really, really wanted to be able to do something about the rampant crime going on in his city. Sure, it wasn't the worst place on Earth, but just because Miami was just short of officially under the control of the Elite didn't mean that St. Petersburg needed to follow suit.

But then he made a mistake, they offered him the Nemesis program and, eager to prove himself quickly, Claude took it, and unthinkingly, condemned a young woman to the life of a villain.

"This is my fault," he mused as he perched on the ledge of a roof terrace. Heroes, of course, had the privilege of looking cool by perching on any raised surface like a gargoyle, and from his perch, he could observe what was going down below.

His Nemesis, someone he refused to label a villain, on account of the fact, she didn't really get a choice, because he took it away from her. He pursed his lips underneath his mask. Speedblitz wasn't a jokester of a hero, he was a stoic man, wearing a sleek costume with minimalistic armor, mostly just the boots and vambraces, decorated with fins, and a simple ballistic plate on his chest as well as his white and black armored helmet.

The blue tint of the visor blocked the glare of the street lights and thus he could easily look down where crime was ongoing.

Her name was long since forgotten, she had lost everything but knowledge of her power. She went by Blazestep, and she was formerly a young woman turned into a monster cape. While she had gotten off lighter than most, she had grown to a staggering height, her feet had been replaced by hooves, she had thick golden-brown fur coating her limbs and big ears sticking out from the top of her head.

Every step she took left a burning hoofprint behind, and she had a power similar to his, except hers worked exclusively when she charged forward, wreathing herself in flame and becoming essentially invulnerable while doing it.

She was powerful, for sure, but she was also naive and she was alone. She had nothing or no one. And Claude wasn't allowed to save her.

Those were the rules. He had to keep them. Lest both he and her have a bad time. He couldn't really help her, and he would have to be the one to face her and take her down. Her powers made her unmanageable for the Protectorate heroes, by design no less, and the villains didn't care.

She wasn't hostile, usually, but she defended the small ranch on the outskirts of the city she had claimed as her territory with all she had. And that usually involved retaliatory attacks that caused heavy damage.

Which was what Speedblitz was looking at. A small time gang, all normal people, had pissed her off by invading her territory to transport drugs through, and she had followed them back to the apartment they used as a base and was tearing the building apart.

Claude frowned. She wore only a loincloth and tribalwear-like wrappings around her chest, and her breasts were nearly spilling out, she had tits nearly as big as his head and it was hard to concentrate because of it. On top of that, she wore no underwear and didn't seem to care that everything was being exposed.

Taking a deep breath, he waited until she was ready to activate her charge, watching her hop back, leaving hoofprints in a line, and when she planted her feet to kick off, Claude receded and Speedblitz took over, as he submerged himself in his heroic personality.

His kickoff from the ledge was far more potent than hers, just enough to reach her before she launched, knocking her down to the ground with a spinning kick. While she only became totally invulnerable during a charge, she also had a Brute rating nearly as high as his with his powers active, as a baseline.

So his spinning kick that would've taken the head off of anyone else only knocked her back and sent her spinning, bloodying her nose a bit as he landed, the momentum of his kick carrying him as he performed a super hero landing, coming off it into a fighting stance.

"Speedblitz!"

"Fear not, citizens, for I am here to defend you!" Speedblitz called to the civilians. "Take this opportunity to retreat, run and hide!" he said, "while I do battle with Blazestep!"

There were criminals among the civilians, of course, but Speedblitz was of the opinion that saving the innocents took precedence over punishing the criminals... and before Blazestep had ruined his stakeout, he was already well on the way to busting the small gang's entire operation. He could do it again if need be.

His nemesis then stood on her feet. "You!!" she screamed. "I'll knock you down!!"

She was enraged at him. She didn't even know why she hated him, but she did, and he couldn't blame her, because he knew. She charged forward, wreathed in flames, and Speedblitz had to activate his power, already feeling the strain of not letting the cooldown period finish.

That was the only real issue of his power, if he used it too frequently or multiple times in quick succession, or even if he stretched the burst of speed, his body would have to pay the toll. Just having to activate it to redirect her charge, using both speed and strength to turn her so she ran down the street instead of right into a building, was causing his vision to blur.

Deactivating his power he turned to her, seeing her stop her charge and quickly turn around, running at regular speed to throw hands with him, he joined her in a frenetic melee. He had to take it slow, everything hurt and it was hard to concentrate, but he could actually fight, even if kickboxing didn't always relate to real fights, and she could only throw her hands at him or try to headbutt him, the white hair that was like a horse's mane whipping about as she became enraged at her inability to land a hit.

"You should surrender and accept defeat, Blazestep!" Speedblitz shouted. "It is not too late for you-"

He had to hit the deck as she swung her arm with a powerful backhand that caused a whoosh of wind so loud he actually trembled a little, bringing her other arm forward to link her hands together, and then bringing them down like a hammer, forcing him to roll out of the way.

But his mind cleared and his body stopped hurting, so he activated his power and then he stepped into her guard, using her huge size against her, landing just a couple punches and then a low kick that knocked her to the ground.

However, this only enraged her, and she became wreathed in flames and launched at him, only the fact that his power was still active saving him as she knocked him through a wall.

A load bearing wall, which caused the floor on top to collapse into both of them even as she speared him into the building that the drug dealers had just been in moments before.

Being bigger, she took the brunt of it, and she was knocked out by the weight of the debris on top of her. Rolling off and noticing, he couldn't help but panic. Speedblitz moved swiftly, using his power far more than he should, provoking a nosebleed from the strain, tasting blood and with blurring vision, managing to get the debris off of the knocked out Blazestep and carrying her out of the building, before passing out from the strain, just barely noticing that instead of fleeing, the bystanders had actually approached...

He was only out for minutes and the security strap on his helmet hadn't been violated, so his identity was safe, but by the time he woke up, Blazestep was gone, and people were congratulating him and calling him a hero, for saving the civilians and even helping the very girl who had knocked him into the collapsed building in the first place.

Guilt struck at Speedblitz as he was passed a bottle of water.

"You're the real hero of St. Petersburg," a young boy who shouldn't have been out that late at night called, sparkles in his eyes. "Not like those losers that only show up when the work's already done!"

Taking a sip from the water, he closed his eyes. "No, Citizen, the Protectorate does what they can with the constraints they have. Though I've chosen to be unbound by their rules to do the most good that I can in the ways that I can, they too are heroes to be respected!" the hero intoned.

"But those guys keep trying to put Blazestep in jail and they don't care if she gets hurt!" the boy said.

"Yeah! They wanna screw with her, they don't even get her!"

He was reminded by the agreement of the crowd around him that Blazestep was quite popular despite being ostensibly a villain. Sure, she caused property damage, but for the most part, she didn't screw with people who didn't screw with her, and thanks to the Nemesis program, almost every fight she was in, was with him.

"They are bound by their rules, and I am not," he said, clenching his hand. "The system may have given up, but I will not!" he declared, raising his hand to the sky, opening it. "I'll reach to the stars and do the impossible, as long as it takes, I will keep reaching my hand out!" he said.

Even though he knew that she wouldn't, couldn't, take it. It devoured him, the guilt, like a ravenous worm, as the praises began to rain from around him. He disgusted himself, thinking himself a far worse monster than his nemesis. That was just about the least he could do really- to reach out his hand, to act in her favor, where he could.

"Don't forget, it is not a crime to be lonely and afraid," he said, his voice falling almost to a low whisper. "Sometimes it doesn't take a hero, but a helping hand," he said, bringing up the bottle of water he'd been handed, and putting it back in the hands of the boy who had helped him, taking a deep breath and exclaiming, "each and every one of you can be an everyday hero!"

"Really?" the boy who received the bottle asked.

"Of course!" he responded. "It will not be my powers that save Blazestep, but the kindness of her fellow man," Speedblitz called, raising his hands.

"Yeah!"

With his best heroic smirk, he scanned his gaze across them, and decided he had to leave pronto.

"We shall meet again, citizens! When the night is dark and danger is near, I shall be there to assuage your fear! But until then, farewell!!"

He activated his powers, and leaped away, already thinking of how much of a charade it all was.

Blazestep wasn't allowed to defeat him. She was forced to lose to him. Even when she could have him dead to rights, she would make a slip up, she would retreat, she would find some sort of justification not to win a fight.

The only thing he could do for her was to support her like that. To turn public opinion in her favor. Make sure that people who felt sorry for her, who thought she needed support, would see her in a positive light.

She was a good person. She didn't hurt others unless she was attacked first, and she picked fights exclusively with criminals. She didn't deserve what he had done to her. She didn't deserve for him to be seen as a glorious, shiny hero for battling her.

He had damned her to that existence.

In that regard, he considered the guilt and regret he experienced... that suffering, he considered it justice for his nemesis.

Some day he'd save her too. He'd find a way. There had to be a way.

"Justice for my nemesis," he spoke to himself, his voice low, closing his eyes as he landed on a roof, once again perching himself like a gargoyle, old statues meant to protect homes and scare away evil spirits. "Until that day..."

He'd need to rest a bit before he could reactivate his powers and complete his patrol. It left him lots of time to think, as the salty breeze cleared his thoughts and let him think, wonder and ponder.