“T’was the 343rd night before Christmas, when all round the block

A villain was stirring, and punched with a “SOCK!”

Stockings weren’t hung by the chimneys with care,

Because st Nicholas had just been there.”



Flo had taken to New York City after her mentor, who’d suggested it would be a good idea to act as a support to the city after the invasion attempt.

She’d managed to find a decent café ina slightly less built up area. Most of the buildings were less than five storeys, ie sensible heights. The café was on a corner, a smallish business, with a modern design and sleek furnishings.

She’d bought a coffee and headed back out onto the street, walking back towards Manhattan island. She’d turned the block, looking for somewhere she could disappear without anyone noticing. But that would definitely be an issue around here.

The street tself was pretty standard for this area. Most of the buildings were relatively good quality apartments, with a few metres of green space in front. The areas behind those gates presumably let to car parks judging on the tarmac on either side of them. There should have been abandoned trees in piles outside each of the buildings. There should have been bags of wrapping paper and… Whatever other stuff normal people had to throw out on Christmas.

Instead she was met by a horrible scene.

Someone had propped up all the trees using the garbage bags and presumably some great skill. The trees were swamped in lights. How they all even had power was beyond Flo. There were strings of lights all hanging across the street and reindeer and snowmen made of light and dear gods it looked like a five year old had decorated the street with all of the spare lightbulbs in New York covered them in brightly coloured tissue paper. This was…awful.

She didn’t even like Christmas much as it was, and then someone had to go all kiddy and make everything sparkly. Flo already hated them, and she pulled her sword-stick out of the ether in one fluid upwards motion of her hand.

She summoned her Lady Shade gear within a couple steps forwards, shadows wrapping tightly around her and disappearing just as fast. So what if there were barely any shadows left here? Getting rid of this abomination surely counted as heroics.

The culprit was actually pretty well camouflaged- this was mostly because while the trees were pretty gaudy, he was only slightly more gaudy. It almost hurt Flo’s eyes. Why did he have to have fairylights round his head? Flo only spotted him because he was propping up another tree from the next house, and the dancing shadows under the tree were pretty obvious against this sea of rainbows and nightmares.

”So this is the binman’s revenge this year.” Flo muttered.

She raised her voice to the level she’d expect the guy to be able to hear her at. ”I’m all up for unicorn mass-murders, but you could at least let the trees rest after Christmas. They’ve already had to endure excited kids for two weeks, you can’t expect them to deal with this.”

Oh no. He turned around. He had the sort of look of glee that Flo expected from a five year old who’s put a bucket over a door. It was amazing how consistently he made her think of a little kid.

“I’m the Lightmare Before Christmas and I’m keeping Christmas spirit around!”

Flo was actually stumped for words for a few seconds, in which she gave him a look of total disbelief mixed with “How thick is this guy?”. ”You know that it’s 340-ish days before Christmas?”

“So it’s before Christmas.”

”Kill me now.”


OoC: I love how random our ideas get.

Despite not being as tough or powerful as Ginnie or James, or most of the other heroes that could conceivably be in New York at short notice, Aileen seemed to have developed a reputation as the "weird one". Who people would go to for things that someone else would be less casually accepting of. As a result, Aileen got landed with this sort of crap a lot of the time. Of course, it usually wasn't as bad as somebody apparently laying down Christmas graffiti with supposedly hostile intent, which she still didn't get how it worked. Usually it was something like a criminal in a ridiculous costume had gotten himself stuck in a window or something. This was definitely a new low as far as crimefighting went, she was pretty sure. 

Not that Aileen had a problem with Christmas. It was pretty much her favorite time of year. She liked snow, she liked turkey dinners, she liked presents and crappy movies and spending time with people. Still, she accepted that it could only happen once a year. Apparently there was some sort of supervillain who couldn't. 

Of course, Aileen didn't actually think there was a supervillain involved. She'd been told there was, but this didn't look like some nefarious evil scheme. She didn't really know what one of those looked like, she left that sort of thing up to James, but she was pretty sure they didn't look like Christmas cheer. So she'd have a quick look around, make sure it was safe, and then call the police to come clean it up. 

She definitely didn't expect to see what looked like an armed standoff in the middle of the street. Well, at least one person looked like they were armed. It was a stick, sure, but it still looked like a weapon. And they were both in costumes. Costumes usually meant it was her jurisdiction. 

"Woah, woah," She said, stepping forward, ready to defuse the situation if she had to, her hand going to the shoulder where her bow was slung, but then she paused. Between the guy wearing Christmas lights and the girl wearing black, she was pretty sure she knew which one had done this.
"He knows it's 340 days before Christmas, right?" She asked the girl in black.

Of course, Flo would go after the low scale villains. They were the sorts of people that her image suited, like her personality. She would never take herself seriously if she was trying to make a name in taking out bank robbers. That was probably not helped by her other alter-ego falling into that category. And you couldn’t be a cynical person with darkness related powers who ran around taking down Big Bads when there were genuine heroes on that. It didn’t fit the brief.

Flo turned her head to see the person who had called and narrowed her eyes, expecting this to spiral downwards from here.

Great. The least powerful (and hottest) Avenger (although that latter one was a close competition). They couldn’t have sent either anyone more powerful or less distracting, could they? Although, it was really just a single guy who’s most heinous crime to most people would be light pollution.

Flo hated Christmas already. Drunk people, hyper kids, the freezing cold when all the clothing built for the weather was in bright colours which really didn’t suit her, carollers, commercials and much more besides seemed like good justifications for this. She didn’t need someone else coming along and trying to spread the holiday across the whole year. Normal people seemed to dislike it enough when people spread out the commercialism across several months beforehand as it was. It wasn’t so much the brightness that Flo hated but what he seemed to think was reasonable motivation for villainy. She was doing everyone a favour really, by trying to get him put in hospital (or possibly a grave). Why would Hawkeye really complain about her preparing to do a public service?

Flo noted the hand on the hero’s bow. Probably that should be taken as a cue to stand down. She lowered her sword-stick so that the base touched the ground with a faint tap, but kept herself in position to use it.

”No, he thinks Christmas is next week.” Flo huffed slightly. She sincerely hoped that the man had realised how ridiculous this was, really. He looked like he wanted to interrupt but couldn’t think up a decent defence for why he so wanted Christmas spirit eleven months early. If two different people with totally different backgrounds both had the same initial thought about how stupid this guy was, it should have been pretty clear. ”Was that literally the only niche left unchosen? When you’re so desperate for a niche you turn to this it’s sometimes okay to repeat gimmicks.” It would be better if E-list villains just quit with the stupid gimmicks entirely. 

Aileen personally had found that she tended to go after the lower-end villains herself. Sure, bank robbers and stuff were pretty big fry, but unless one of the other Avengers called for her help, that was pretty much the most she got. T'Shan had an archnemesis, for god's sake! T'Shan definitely never had to deal with cases of "villains" decorating streets in Christmas colours. Even if by this point it was more like the Nightmare After Christmas. Still, an armed stand-off in the middle of the street was probably her business. She wasn't a big fan of armed stand-offs. Still, she was pretty sure she had an ally in this one, even if it was an ally in terms of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "war makes for strange bedfellows". Man, she'd definitely become more of a nerd recently if she was quoting proverbs. 

The girl with the stick thing put it to the ground, and Aileen wondered if the situation had been defused now. Could she take the guy in, get him a couple weeks community service, and end it here? She kinda hoped so. Her job was so much easier when she didn't get into a fight in the middle of a residential area. Tended to keep the police, Ginnie, the US government, SHIELD and the other Avengers happy. 

As the girl in black replied, Aileen decided she liked her. She really hoped she hadn't committed a crime, so Aileen wouldn't have to end up escorting her to police custody as well. Still, the dark clothing, the stick, and the getting involved with crimes? It seemed kinda superheroic. Like a low-budget Nightwing or something. And Aileen had met Nightwing, she was great. But then again, Aileen had met her best friend at an accidental arrest. The arrest, followed by the "definitely not a date" to make up for it had possibly been two of the best things to happen to Aileen, considering. Would she have met Ginnie eventually? Probably, in all honesty, but not as Ginnie. Hawkeye and Iron Maiden might have ended up having a professional relationship. Maybe.

"Alright, show's over," Aileen decided. She didn't bother to draw her bow as she advanced towards the tinsel'd figure. He didn't look dangerous. She instead reached for her handcuffs. 

Flo never had a normal standard of villains. Between being one a good proportion of the time, and pretending to care enough about the average person’s general well-being the rest of the time, she was pretty fluid at that. Her choice was actually typically those who annoyed her, or she could go to without risking big players showing up. This guy was fairly typical of that brief, actually. Or would have been, had Hawkeye not somehow managed to appear on time anyway.

Anyone who knew Flo knew that if she took a disliking to someone, the situation was never really diffused. Admittedly it would rarely turn back to violence. On the other side, a guy who thought it was appropriate to decorate everyone’s front doors with gaudy lighting was probably not particularly stable, and therefore sensible in his decisions. One of them was bound to trigger something at some point soon regardless of any conclusions anyone happened to draw.

Flo had already decided she liked Aileen. It was a little annoying that she had stepped in on Flo’s fun, but she could see how that was made up for very easily. Of course, Aileen shouldn’t make her conclusions so readily. Both of Flo’s personas fit that description, just on very different sides of the law. Lady Shade was even registered with SHIELD (her decoy model was thorough).

Flo could predict what was about to happen as Aileen went for a normal arrest with this guy.

”I think that show’s aren’t going to be over for people who celebrate Christmas weeks late for a long time.” It worked as a warning. Or it should have.

It was a moment that would have been called by any pre-schooler. As soon as Aileen went for her handcuffs, the perp blasted out light from his hands in all directions, at least attempting to hit both women square in the face with blasts of light. Unfortunately he made at least one of his targets. He probably made the other, but Flo’s retinas were seared with red for the necessary time to see this.

She still didn’t draw her weapon, but the stick was back off the ground and suspended in the air.

”You didn’t honestly expect him to just turn in like a normal person, did you? He’s dressed in tinsel and fairy lights, for god’s sake.”

Aileen had really expected this to happen without a fight. Or maybe she'd hoped. But either way, she hadn't been prepared for violence as she advanced towards the creep in the Christmas outfit. Which might have been somewhat naive of her given that there was a clearly unhinged individual in front of her and an armed vigilante behind her, but what could she say? She liked to be optimistic about situations. 
"I'm sure this guy doesn't want to pick a fight," Aileen said over her shoulder to the girl in dark clothing. She definitely wouldn't mind getting to know this girl a bit more after they were done here. Maybe go for a drink or something. She liked making connections with other superheroes, especially with those superheroes were dark and mysterious girls.

Aileen looked back at the guy, within fifteen feet of him by now with the handcuffs dangled in front of her, when suddenly beams of light shot out. Oh great, he was a mutant as well. That was her last thought before a beam of light hit her in the face, and her retina shorted out for a few seconds. For the next little while, all she could see was red, and she instinctively fell forward, her hands moving to cover her eyes, dropping the handcuffs. She was on her front with her palms pressed against her eye sockets as the burning slowly started to fade, and a few seconds later she was able to open her eyes. She had to blink several times before her eyes adjusted, and everything seemed dark and tinged with red, but she could make out shapes and distances. 

She was still on her front as she looked around to find the girl, and saw her standing roughly where she'd been behind Aileen. She blinked several more times and then clambered to her feet, groaning. 
"I didn't expect to have to force him into handcuffs," Which was a point, she'd dropped them. She looked down at the ground, hoping to see a glint of silver, but her eyes were still recovering and she couldn't. She looked around until she heard a jangle and a laugh. When she looked up, she saw the guy holding her handcuffs in one hand, the other clenched into a fist. 
"Looking for these?" He asked tauntingly, and then took of running.
"Asshole," Aileen muttered as she took off, still not drawing her bow. She gestured to the girl, "You know how to use that stick?"

Most of the themed villains, or the niche-themed villains rather, were at least slightly unhinged. Whatever would possess someone to like Christmas that much? Nothing good. At least, in their situation, Flo was not so optimistic. She had a lot more experience with thinking like a villain than Aileen did, and could assess a lot more how dangerous someone was likely to be. And she was sure she couldn’t underestimate the calibre of a guy who couldn’t tell the date properly.

”Have you ever met a villain who wouldn’t pick a fight? Especially over being arrested? I just doubt it’ll be much of a fight- what’s he going to do? Strangle us with tinsel?” She was really struggling to think of how this guy could be more dangerous than annoying, partly because she couldn’t be bothered with trying to equate this joke in a suit to a proper villain.

It would take no persuasion for Hawkeye to get Flo to go with her. Flo was never going to be one for taking things slowly, and, it would be hard to deny that Hawkeye was attractive.

Flo was not going to be toppled over by too bright light. Admittedly, her hand had flown up to her eyes, and she had tried to build a barrier of darkness, with a similar idea to sunglasses in front of her eyes once the light beams had started, but the light was just far too penetrative, and the beams continued to hit her eyes anyway. Really she was staying up by using her sword stick as a leaning post, but Hawkeye didn’t need to know that- although she would probably notice it at some point.

She had only picked up her sword stick once she was sure she could cope.

The world did seem darker now, but definitely not dark by her standards.

”Again, he’s a villain with a minor deal. He doesn’t expect to get arrested, he won’t want to get arrested, so he’ll not know how to deal with it.” But Aileen’s comment still made Flo check around for where the handcuffs were, and, no they weren’t on Hawkeye. Flo hadn’t picked them up, and they weren’t on the tarmac so, shit, the Lightmare nutter had them. Flo groaned slightly. Her thoughts were confirmed, firstly by the laughing and the commentary provided by Hawkeye.

”Wow. He had actually had a plan there. I thought he was just going to run.” She huffed out just slightly, then lifted her swordstick up somewhat higher, ready to unsheathe it if further provoked.

”I wouldn’t carry it around if I didn’t. I’m no courier.” Somehow though, he still seemed too small scale to need her blade out. Yet.