Full Hand

Jessica Bailey bounced on her heels, grinning as if she knew the punchline to the greatest joke in the world.

Maybe she did, at that.

When other girls reached their sixteenth birthday, they got a driver's license.

She had gotten a superheroine costume.

Over the past four months, she had swooped down to stop three gang members from shooting up their neighborhood, capture two seperate bank robbers, and halt one purse-snatcher.

Of course, she had on three seperate occasions rescued people from burning buildings, and had saved that Cub Scout who got lost on the mountain - which, she had to admit, she enjoyed much more than taking down criminals.

Her mother had said that there was more to being a heroine than fighting crooks.

But tonight, she'd settle for fighting crooks.

She peered over the edge of the edge of the roof, giddy with excitement. It was just as her tipster had said.

Four stories below, on a darkened side street, five gang members gathered, each costumed in black trimmed with a thin gold bolt down the right side. They wore masks which concealed their entire face, with gold skull designs - at least, the top part of the skull - printed on the front.

Kind of cool, Jessica thought.

Though it seemed a little overkill for breaking into a coin shop.

The sign on the building pronounced that the store dealt in rare gold and silver coins, and the bars on the windows and door emphasized the point.

Still... it was such a tiny old store... there had to be a dozen places within a mile that would provide a better return...

Add to that, they sent five crooks?

They were after something specific, something unusual or valuable.

She'd ask them when they woke up in jail, she smiled tightly, and leapt off the roof.

"Hello, fellas, I'm - "

"Maelstrom!" two of them shouted.

They know me?, Maelstrom thought as watery whirlwinds manifested around her hands.

Kaikias, all right.

With her brow knit in concentration, Maelstrom aimed her winds at the black-clad gang, picking them up and whipping them around in tight circles.

"Yaaiiiiiiieeeeoooowwww!"

Those that weren't knocked unconscious by the whirlpool were quickly kayoed when they hit the sidewalk.

Maelstrom smiled with approval.

There, she thought. That wasn't so -

POW!

The young black woman moaned as something hard hit the back of her head, and slowly sank to the ground.

"Beeaitch!" snarled a man dressed like his compadres, as he kicked her hard in the side. "Think yore tough, little girl?"

"'Little?'" chortled a seventh man beneath his skull mask, lifting her up under her arms. "I don't think she's so 'little', you - "

A bright light suddenly shone upon the two crooks and the heroine dangling in their arms.

"Put her down!" barked a voice from behind the headlight's glare.

"Izzat Steelhawk? Crap!"

"Put. Her. Down."

One of the criminals hurriedly switched his grip, wrapping his arm around her neck and using his other to pull out a wicked-looking knife.

"Nothin' doin', a$$hole! This beeaitch is our ticket outta here! Now you gonna stand aside and - "

Whooooommmm!

The two skull-hooded crooks screamed as they were caught in a terrifying wave of wildly-whipping wind! Their cries lasted only a second or two before dying out as they were slammed into the iron bars covering the coin store's windows!

Maelstrom caught movement behind her - and turned just as a skull-face was raising a very big gun.

"No-o-o-!" Steelhawk cried, knowing full well as he accelerated that he'd need a miracle to stop -

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Maelstrom's head flew backwards, followed by the rest of her body in a high arc.

Steelhawk's blade sliced through the man's gun, even as his fist slammed into his jaw!

He slammed his fist into the man's stomach.

Damn damn damn!

As he fell, he quickly glanced at the unmoving young woman -

Then turned his attention back to the skull-face charging him.

You.

Stinking.

Murdering - !

He stopped himself, and let the now-bloodied man fall to the street.

He stood there for a moment, catching his breath.

Oh, my God. Oh my -

"Th-thanks," Maelstrom said, sitting up.

Steelhawk turned and stared.

How the heck - ?

Maelstrom rubbed her aching forehead. "What?

"Oh!" she said, smiling slightly. "Wind field. Bullets didn't get through, but the impact kinda put my lights out."

"Must not have recovered yet," she muttered.

"'Wind field'?" Steehawk said, walking over to her.

"Yep. Guess i just... let it down too soon, and they slugged me."

Please, don't let my mom hear about that.

"Anyway. You're Steelhawk, right?"

He nodded as he extended a hand to help her to her feet.

"Yep. Maelstrom, I presume."

Her eyes shone - he recognized her! How cool was that?!

Steelhawk looked around at the mass of fallen gangsters.

"Wow," he breathed, clearly impressed. "You did all this?"

Maelstrom nodded sheepishly.

"Well, if you hadn't come along..."

"Yeah. About that..."

Malestrom's face fell.

Oh, here was another one, saying she was too young, or too inexperienced, or too weak, or too -

"I've been looking to meet you since you stopped those guys robbing First Federal."

She blinked.

"You have?"

"I've run into the eight-against-one bit myself," he said with a smile. "I'm thinking... well, what if we worked together on occasion? Could call each other if we needed help? You know - "

He shrugged and made little quotation marks with his fingers.

"'Team up'?"

Maelstrom's face lit up.

"S-sure! The two of us could work together... "

"Actually," Steelhawk smiled, "I was thinking, three."

"Hey, Hawk!" came a cry from down the darkened street. "Missing someone?"

"Well, speak of the devil," he said under his breath.

"Caught this guy down there - looks like he's one of yours."

Golden Man dropped the black-clad crook at Steelhawk's feet.

"Good to see you, GM.

"Golden Man, meet Maelstrom. Maelstrom, Golden Man."

"A pleasure," he said, taking Maelstrom's hand in his golden grip. "I'd been wondering when we'd meet.

"City's not all that big," he offered helpfully.

"Plenty big enough to attract costumes," Hawk said, gesturing to the fallen gang. "Certainly seems an odd way to run a vice operation."

Maelstrom started. "Vice operation? They were casing that coin shop - likely for something very specific."

"You know these guys?"

Maelstrom nodded. "They're agents of Kaikias."

"Kai-whatsis?"

"Kaikias. Greek god of the northwest wind," Maelstrom replied, folding her arms. "Comes from the Greek 'kakia' - 'badness' or 'evil'."

"And we're in the Northwest," Golden Man mused.

Maelstrom's eyes widened a bit. She had to admit she had never made that connection.

Jeez.

"Hmmm. 'Kakia'. Thought that was head of the vice op."

"Could be," Maelstrom said quietly. "Kakia also is the name of a Greek spirit. Of vice."

"Sounds like we are after the same guys after all," Hawk said, as police sirens grew louder. "Finding them's gonna be a problem. These guys probably won't talk."

"That's okay," Golden Man smiled.

"One already did."

"The Bagdad Theater?"

Steelhawk looked down the street at the Mediterranean building looming on the corner. The building was a remnant of Hollywood's Golden Age, with oddly-shaped cupolas and a marquee that wrapped around the corner. The sign, it's neon long extinguished, ran up the side of the building, and similar letters followed the marquee.

The building's sheer size dominated the Hawthorne District, streets filled with old 1940s era shops that somehow had hung on. The area wasn't dead yet - a number of the old buildings were being reconstructed or replaced.

"Heard him talking to 'Bagdad' on his radio, reporting on you guys," Golden Man said. "Mentioned the word Hawthorne - and I put two and two together."

Maelstrom nodded. She would have to get around more - she had never even been to Southeast Portland.

Modern Portland had been formed by the merger of three cities. It took until 'the Great Renumbering" of 1931 to finally standardize street numbering while dividing the city into five sections: Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, North, and Northeast. Pretty much split east and west by the Willamette River, north and south by Burnside Street. The river does curve to the west north of Burnside, leaving the North section between it and Williams Avenue.

"Can I ask...how that was phrased?" Hawk asked hesitantly.

"Come again?"

"Wel-l-l," the cyclist said, "I had a thought. When you're... talking with someone, why would you mention something that both parties must know? I don't say, 'Golden Man, here on Hawhtorne Street' when we both know you're here on Hawthorne...

"I'm not criticizing or questioning what you heard - "

"No. No, that's... okay... " the Golden Guardian mused. "You think... maybe they wanted me to 'overhear' that?"

"Yeah. Possibility, at least.

"What do you think, Maelstrom?"

She paused for a moment... then slowly her face darkened.

The crook that had started all this - it was no accident she had seen him. Hadn't she wondered why he wasn't being more discreet? He had practically dared her to capture him.

And when he had given up the info on the coin shop robbery - he wasn't afraid of her! He fed her that information... and she lapped it up!

She could see it all now. Hadn't she questioned why five people would rob a tiny store? Hadn't there been some more crooks in hiding, to ambush her? Why the heck else would they be there, except to fight her?

"Guys... we're being played."

Maelstorm exhaled, blowing the hair off of her forehead.

How could she be so stupid?

"It doesn't take nine guys to rob a coin shop."

She kicked a stone across the sidewalk.

"Damn. I walked right into that one."

"Hey, easy there. It was me who brought us here... "

Steelhawk looked at Maelstrom.

"This... Kaikias," he said quietly. "Northwest wind? Any relation?"

"Wh-what? No!"

"Because he's either trying to capture you... or kill you."

"For a moment, no one said anything.

"All of us," Golden Man corrected. "I think the plan is to take out all of us. One at a time, ideally."

He shrugged. "You know. Eliminate us before we catch on to them... before we get together ourselves."

A smile appeared on Steelhawk's face.

"Maelstrom and I were just talking about banding together, at least on occasion."

"This happen to be one of those occasions?"

"Yeah. I was even thinking of group names. Only thing I could come up with that wasn't lame was the Three Aces."

Golden Man paused.

"That's not so bad."

"Kind of jaunty," Maelstrom said. "But what are we gonna do about... them? They've got to be expecting us."

Steelhawk glanced at the clock on his bike. "Maybe not. News isn't on 'til eleven. If GM took out the guy who was supposed to report on us, then... "

"They haven't heard from him in an hour. I'll bet they're waiting for us."

"Sounds right to me," GM admitted.

"Okay," Steelhawk mused. "The theater's right on a well-travelled corner. Logically, they'd expect that we'd sneak in the back - it's dark, off the street. That's where they'd be waiting for us, not out front."

More silence.

Golden Man grinned.

"We're gonna make a mess, aren't we?"

Citizens of Portland could be forgiven for slamming on their brakes, for pointing in wonder.

It was a sight that few had witnessed before, certainly never within a hundred miles of Portland.

Steelhawk raced his motorcycle down Hawthorne Street, alongside Maelstrom carrying Golden Man in her winds.

Three superheroes - in Portland.

"Maelstrom?" Steelhawk said nonchalantly - even though his insides were churning.

The young woman concentrated and held out her left arm - please, oh please, don't screw up in front of them - and a second later a tremendous burst of wind and water smashed the front doors - and a good portion of the walls - to splinters.

Steelhawk drove his motorbike through the shattered doors and into the main auditorium, with Maelstrom and Golden Man hot on his heels.

The Three Aces halted.

While the lobby, partly visible from the street through elaborate glazed windows, looked just like what one would expect a ninety-year-old lobby to look like, the auditorium was a different story.

The three-story screen was still there above the stage, but the rest of the huge room had been gutted. Some of the old seats were piled in a corner, and an old popcorn wagon sat forlornly near the stage, but the room was pretty much empty save for the occasional metal rods those seats had once been perched upon.

And, it was dark.

There were no windows, no lights - it had been a movie theater. About the only light coming into the room was from where they had broken in.

"Crap," said Steelhawk. "Nobody here."

Then the doors near the stage burst open and costumed goons spilled into the auditorium!

"Aces attack!" Steelhawk shouted, riding his bike forward.

"'Aces... attack'?" Golden Man said, backhanding the first crook he came to.

"Work in progress," Steelhawk muttered.

Maelstrom whipped whirlwinds left and right, being extra careful not to let her wind field drop like last time. She flung gang members crashing against the theater seats, trying her level best not to kill anyone.

Steelhawk raced his bike right through the massed agents, swinging with his armored fists. He whirled his bike around, careful not to run over anyone, and blasted past two more, adding the speed of the cycle to the speed of his punch.

Golden Man simply waded through the mass of black-clad humanity and punched away at his pleasure. He had learned not to hit normal people too hard, lest he hurt them badly, and if these fellows had armor it wasn't much use against him.

He turned to paste the next do-badder...

But there was no one left to hit.

"Did we - ?" Steelhawk said.

"Wipe out twenty guys in less than a minute?" Golden Man grinned. "Yes, we did."

"Holy cow," Maelstrom breathed, landing next to her compatriots. "We are good."

Steelhawk warily looked around in the darkness.

"We got the small fry, all right... "

"Oh!" Maelstrom floated off the floor. "But the leader - "

"Isn't here," Steelhawk finished crossly. "Figures."

Suddenly a brilliant beam lit up the movie screen, and the picture of a curly-bearded man appeared, glowering down at them. He had a shield slung across one arm, and it appeared to be covered in... hailstones?

"Then let me save you the trouble," his voice boomed, "of looking for me."

"Kaikias," muttered Maelstrom.

Steelhawk drew his sword and pointed it at the screen. "You may have escaped this time, Kaikias - but the Three Aces will bring you down!"

Kaikias puased, then smiled.

"Ohh, will you?

Four explosions ripped through the ceiling, sending concrete and steel careening down onto the startled heroes!

For long seconds the crashing of the ceiling, the beams, the clouds of dust, were the Aces' world.

Then... silence.

Kaikias walked into the auditorium's remains, now open to the sky, stepping carefully over the hunks of concrete. In his arms he carried a very large, silvered gun, its barrel pulsing neon blue.

"Are they dead?" a severe woman asked, her dark hair cut short along her angled skull. She wore a jet-black, high-necked leather leotard and matching hip boots; both were covered in buckles and straps.

"Evidently not, sister," he said as Golden Man moaned and moved slightly.

"Yet."

He walked over to where Steelhawk was starting to stir, pinned beneath an iron crossbeam, and pointed his gun at the trapped hero's head.

"'The Three Aces'. Too bad I hold the winning hand."

"One problem, mister," came a voice beside him.

He turned - right into a punch!

From Ghost Girl.

"There are four."

Kaikias grunted as he took another punch and he dropped the gun onto the cement! Then he took another!

The black-clad woman quickly crept behind the white-clad wonder, and raised a stiletto over her head -

Only to be blasted across the room by wind, water and a whole lot of dust!

Maelstrom grunted - trapped under concrete, she was still weak...

"Kakia!" shouted Kaikias.

He turned and belted Ghost Girl's jaw with his shield!

Ghost Girl tumbled backwards onto a pile of rubble.

Kaikias grabbed his shield in both hands, raising it above the stunned heroine.

"Woman! You shall die!"

"Sure, just not today," Golden Man said, leaping in front of the shield. He grimaced as the shield struck his chest -

Then he yanked the shield away.

Kakia got to her knees and reared back with another knife, aiming for Golden Man's back.

Then she disappeared in a cloud of dust as a tornado threw her across the auditorium!

"Stay down," Maelstrom said.

Then, she concentrated, and the very air responded, lifting the huge slabs of concrete off of her body.

She quickly patted herself over - she wasn't hurt! Well, she had been knocked unconscious temporarily, and that hurt, but there were no cuts, no broken bones! Her wind shield had held!

Wow.

Golden Man and Ghost Girl traded blows with Kaikias - while Maelstrom's winds dislodged the iron beam from Steelhawk's chest.

Hawk scrambled to his feet and clocked Kaikias, sending him stumbling backward.

"Thanks, Maelstrom," he said, panting. "That was getting... uncomfortable."

Kaikias looked from Maelstrom, to Steelhawk, to Golden Man, to Ghost Girl.

This... was not how he had planned.

They were supposed to be dead!

Except her - Aeolus had insisted they try to capture her.

"The Keeper of Winds," he muttered, "is a fool."

Suddenly he leapt to his left, scooping up the gun he had lost earlier in the fight!

"Goodbye, Maelstr - !"

Ghost Girl appeared to his side and ripped the rifle from his hands.

"Give me that."

She casually crushed the barrel of the gun, then tossed it over her shoulder.

Where it promptly exploded, taking out a large portion of the stage.

"Geez!"

Steelhawk opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. She had to know she had to be a bit more careful.

Kaikias took two steps back - then a smile spread across his face.

"Very good, 'Aces'. But I still have a card to play."

Suddenly, he rose into the air and headed for the open skies!

"I can fly! Ha ha!"

He looked down at the receding heroes.

"Beware the return of Kaikias, fools, for I shall -

"Eh?"

Maelstrom soared above him, gentle whirlwinds carressing her outstretched arms.

She smiled tightly.

"Didn't know I could fly, too?"

"Not really, no... " he mumbled.

"You tried to kill me," Maelstrom said simply, as the whirlwinds erupted from her hands.

The wind roared in a tight funnel around Kaikias, whipping him around faster and faster!

"On the ground you're pretty tough."

Waves of water were added to the howling winds, slamming into Kaikias again and again!

"But the air... belongs to me."

She stood in midair, her arms outstretched, the winds gaining in strength.

She wanted... she didn't want to kill him, no.. but she wanted to hurt him. To.. hurt him...

N-no!

Her arms started shaking, then her knees trembled. The winds died, and she slowly lowered the unconscious Kaikias to the floor.

"Ohh... oh my... " she said, breathing heavily and with her hands on her knees. "I... I wanted to... "

"You all right?" Steelhawk put a hand on her shoulder.

"Y-yeah... just... takes a lot out of me. Not... used to it."

"Impressive, though," Ghost Girl said.

No doubt about it - she was the most dangerous. Have to take her out first if they ever -

"Say," Steelhawk said. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Uuh, guys?"

Golden Man's smile faded.

"They're under there. The ones we beat up?"

The scene was controlled chaos.

Police cars and fire trucks from across the city stood in the darkness, their flashing lights mixing with those of the seventeen ambulances called in to take the fallen agents to the hospital.

In some cases, the ambulances drove slowly away, sans sirens. There was no need to hurry, now.

Dozens of police officers, firemen, reporters and just ordinary folks milled around the streets outside - it was far too dangerous to enter the theater.

Kaikias and Kakia were turned over to the National Guard; a special government response team was still an hour away.

"Look at all the people," Maelstrom said.

Part of her just wanted to... fly away. And she was certain that Ghost Girl wanted no part of this, but Steelhawk had convinced them both - the city had to know who was protecting them.

To a point.

So out they strode, side by side - except for Ghost Girl, who leapt up and crouched on one of the theater's still-standing walls.

"Golden Man! Over - "

"Is that Windstorm?"

"Steelhawk! A word - "

Hawk held up his hand for quiet as reporters from all three networks and two cable stations shoved microphones into his face - and he simply didn't say anything until the reporters calmed down.

"I'll be happy to tell you about the battle that leveled this theater," Steelhawk began. "But there's a bigger story happening here tonight.

"Tonight, four of Portland's heroes have come together, to protect the people of this fair city - "

"And kick evil's ass," Ghost Girl whispered.

"Some of us you may know, others are new to the public.

"May I present Golden Man, Ghost Girl, Maelstrom, and Steelhawk.

"The Four Aces!"