Arcade

1:07. On a Monday. New York City, NY.

(C’mon, just a few steps closer- alright- yeah, almost there… that’s it, just a few more steps- no- wait- oh come ON. IT’S RIGHT THERE you IDIOT. I’M AS OBLIVIOUS AS I CAN POSSIBLY BE RIGHT NOW. IT WOULD BE SO. ABSURDLY. EASY.)

My face is currently locked on the Bloomingdale display window, trying my damnedest to look like I would ever consider buying any of the frilly princesswear that’s been placed on the mannequins. I shift my gaze over to the left as far as it’ll go without being noticeable, keeping a subtle tab on my “stalker”. Yup, still there. Willy the Wallet Wrangler is stopped about 10 paces behind me and he just WON’T. STEAL. MY. WALLET.

I just don’t get what’s wrong with the guy to be honest. It’s at the hour right after most people’s lunch break so the streets are fairly empty, there’s a thin covering of fog, and this airheaded dumbass with some ridiculous hair is just standing there, leaning forward with her ass in the air and a thick stack of credit cards and cash jutting out of the back pocket of her jean shorts as she browses the storefronts for her next ~adorable~ outfit. It’s any pickpocket’s wet dream, really.

Oh, and for the record, that dumbass I’m talking about is me.

I… uhh… don’t really know if you caught that.

Don’t want to give you the wrong impression.

Anyways- as for what's going on right now- Willy over there had struck once already earlier today; I saw him slip his slimy hands down some other chick’s pocket just by chance as I was heading out for lunch. Jumping at the opportunity, I decided to shuffle my schedule and make busting this guy’s head the new number one on my to-do list. Unfortunately, the boys in the NYPD have been getting all rustled up as of late about my general lack- or rather- my complete absence of obtaining proof before I go and jump these clowns, so step one in the master plan is to bait him into making a repeat performance of his prior pilfering- just to be sure. Pretty basic stuff, right?

Then WHY is it taking so long?

Clearly, this guy needs a little less subtlety. I wait until he looks away for a moment.

Time to work some magic.

I go and shift the muscles around my hips; I can’t do too much fine-detail work with that particular area of the body, but if I just push a few inches right here… There we go…

Half of the wallet’s clamshell design gets tipped out of the top of my pocket, the whole thing barely staying in my shorts as it dangles over the pavement.

Perfect.

Willy, who had returned his gaze to where I stood, finally seemed to get the picture as he took note of the precariously perched purse. He waddles over, looking all the world like an overweight naked mole rat, drawing his grimy gloves out of his pockets as he starts to pass behind me. The moment he does, he reaches out, keeping his eyes dead forward and making a fluid movement with his hand towards the prize. Huh… this is surprisingly well executed. Had I not been actively waiting for this to happen, there is a good chance he could have actually pulled it off. At the very least, this dolt seems to be competent at what he does.

Not that he’s going to be doing it for much longer.

I focus, waiting for the exact moment I feel the pressure of him making the grab…aaaand… there it is. Gotcha.

I collapse my left leg, zipping it inwards until it is barely a foot long, my shoe almost brushing up against the rim of my shorts. This, of course, tips my balance as I fall forward, face careening towards the concrete. As I dip towards more extreme angles, I shoot my right leg out behind me, foot skidding across the sidewalk as the limb rushes between his legs. I wait until I feel the curb behind him and hook onto it with my foot. With my sneaker firmly anchored, I whisk my right leg back in, reeling my whole body backwards, face flying inches from the pavement as I rapidly pull the bulk of my body directly underneath him. With a flex of my ankle, I crank myself upright, push out my left leg to its normal positions, and strike a grounded stance.

He was behind me, now I’m behind him. Probably took less than a second to do.

Yeah, I’m pretty good at this.

The man stumbles backwards, not yet processing where I had vanished off to.

“What in the goddamn-“

I take a step forward from my stance, twisting at the waist for maximum torque as I cast my arm outwards towards the criminal, quickly tensing it the moment it passes over his shoulder in order to set it looping around his torso and neck. Noticing his ensnarement several seconds too slowly, he tries to make a break for it, but his feet soon find themselves scrabbling uselessly in the air as I hoist him up one-handed on my now lengthily outstretched arm. I give the limb a twist, letting the squirming man get a look at me face-to-face.

“Alright buddy, I’m going to need a name to tell the cops. Spit it out.”

“I- I don’t have to tell you nothin’!” he spat out.

Dang- this guy has some SERIOUS guts talking to me like that. Kind of impressive, really. By this point, these guys tend to either:

A. Not recognize me and get freaked out about the noodle arms

Or

B. DO recognize me and know better than to give me any lip.

Oh well. Not like a little resistance has stopped me before. I let my arm continue snaking outwards, lengthening as it slithers further around his neck.

“Sure, sure, I respect that- I’m just kind of… concerned- that’s all.” I say in my most nonchalant tone.

I’m met with silence.

“Concerned for what?” I wait for him to say.

He instead responds with a bit more silence.

OH. MAN. This guy is really making my blood boil! Not answering my passive-aggressive threats? Who the hell does he think he is? I wait just a little longer to see if he bites.

He doesn’t.

I guess I need to do all the work myself.

“Now look here pal. My arm is currently stretched out around- I dunno- 18 feet?”

“Yeah, so?”

“~Soooo~ When this thing hits about 20 feet, it’ll reach max length, and you will find yourself being held by something a little less ~soft and squishy~ and a little more… NECK-BREAKY”

I give my arm a little twitch just to jolt him, breaking through his efforts toward pulling an unfazed glare. I can see his eyes twitch. He’s cracking.

“Y- you wouldn’t dare…”

… Well, yeah. He has a point. I actually wouldn’t. Won’t stop me from scaring the shit out of him though. Hope he doesn’t call my bluff, but I’m fairly confident I got a pretty solid poker face for this kind of thing.

He keeps a straight face, but I can start to see a few drops of sweat begin to build on his chrome-dome. I give my head a shake, letting some of my bangs fall across my eyes; really trying to sell the nice "unhinged vigilante" look- probably a bit grittier than the situation calls for, I know, but c’mon, let me have my fun. I let my arm stretch out just a touch longer.

“Nine. Teen. Feet.”

His composure snaps, his eyes lighting up with sudden fear.

“H- hey hold on n-now ma’am! I’ll talk! I’ll talk! My name’s William! William Robinson!”

…Holy shit, this guy is actually named Willy.

I purse my lips, trying to hold back my laughter as I whip my arm back into shape, causing Willy (fuckin’ WILLY!)  to tumble to the pavement. He lays there, gasping for air. I give him a brief moment to catch his breath, then step closer, giving myself an extra inch or two of height to really pop the intimidation factor as I loom over his sprawled-out self. My shadow smothers atop him, the fog having started to clear out as the sun peeks through behind me. Hell yeah. This couldn’t have turned out better if I tried.

“So, Cue Ball- you gonna hand over that other woman’s wallet? Or am I going to have to find it myself?” I pound a fist into a cupped hand. Ever since I learned the hard way that I can’t really pull off a good old knuckle cracking anymore for…obvious reasons, it’s been my go-to gesture for this type of thing. I just love the *smack!* it makes.

“Other… wallet? Ma’am I don’t-” I cut him off with a sharp glare.

“Now, now… what has holding back information done for you so far, hmm?” I stretch an arm down, pressing it down hard upon his chest. “I’d really prefer if you just cut the garbage so I don’t have to give you another hoisting, ‘k?”

I’m gifted with a blank stare.

“1st and 59th. Just as you were crossing the street. This ringing any bells, Melonhead? Or am I to assume that there just happens to be another pickpocket roaming around wearing a brown leather coat, gloves, grey jeans, and sporting a crew…”

“…cut…”

Shit.

HOW DID I FORGET THE FIRST GUY HAD HAIR?

The man continues to lay there, his breathing having stabilized as he looks at me in confusion.

Ugh. I caught a pickpocket, but not the pickpocket. Seriously, what are the odds that they happened to be wearing the same exact thing? I suppose it serves me right for trying to do this before lunch.

With a pivot on my heels, I turn away as I start making my way towards my deli of choice, leaving the poor sap on the ground utterly baffled to what had just happened. With no real crime committed, I don’t really have a leg to stand on with turning him in, and the original guy got away. I guess the bad guys win this time- oh well. Pretty sure I would chalk this up as a failure, but I think I pulled off those moves well enough to give myself a pass. That “between-the-legs” trick? Nailed it- score one for Arcade.

Oh, right. That’s my name. Guess I kind of left you stranded on that one. I’m still a couple blocks from the deli, so I might as well get you up to speed.

So yeah- “Arcade”. Not my real name obviously- my parents were thankfully not cruel enough to legally name their only kid after a game parlor. Rather, the name kind of stuck when some other kids when I was in middle school thought they were some real class-act comedians and started making fun of my generally high level of energy. Really wasn’t quite sure how that was supposed to be an insult though- I suppose it's kind of like calling someone a “spaz”? While honestly a pretty bad insult, I did end up thinking that the name sounded pretty fucking dope and I’ve decided to keep calling myself that ever since.

Anyways, my real name is Arcadia Makris, and before you ask- yes, the irony of my family name is not lost on me. You aren’t clever, and you aren’t the first person to bring it up.

Surprised your friendly neighborhood rubbergal is just giving away her secret identity at the drop of a hat like that?

Well the thing is, I’m not REALLY a superhero. You’d need actual villains or something to qualify me as something like that. The only reason I go after criminals is because it gives me the chance to do stuff like- well- what you just saw. And the only reason I do things like what you just saw is because it gives me something to do. And the only reason I need something to do is…
Hang on, lemme start over. I think I started in the wrong place.

I suppose I oughta go all the way back; might as well, anyways. At least back to the stuff that matters.

Lets see… Pops had alway been a big sports nut, so he handed little baby Arcadia a softball bat at the age of five and signed me up for a season of little league. He then promptly took the bat away from me once he realized that the fact that I was born missing my left pinky finger kept me from getting a solid grip on the thing, but not before seeing how much I enjoyed running the bases. I started accompanying him on his jogs, and managed to keep up as well as my stubby little toddler legs would allow. Soon enough, I was hooked on the act of competition, and seemingly had a bit of innate talent. As soon as I had the height for it, I started leaving Pops in the dust and began joining track groups one after another once I started meeting the age minimum for them.

School was a bit of wreck, and really not much is worth mentioning from that time. I ran. That’s about it. Classes and shit came later, and bothering to make friends lagged behind in third. Pops was a bit concerned about my grades, but I got enough trophies with enough titles on them to convince him I was on at least some sort of the right track. Those titles only got better as I climbed the grades: city, states, nationals- I was starting to make a few waves.

Got into college afterwards; not even worth mentioning where though- I’ll just leave it by saying that it was the best place my dumpster-tier grades would get me into. But really, none of that mattered much either; I could compete at the Uni level, and that was that.

Met Aubrey though, so I suppose that’s cool. She’s who I’m meeting up with for lunch, so I guess you’ll meet her soon enough.

Probably getting bored with this, aren’t you? You want to know how Ms. Runner Chick got into roping up robbers with the rubber arms, right? Don’t blame you- that’s certainly the way more interesting thing going on, for sure.

Anyways, I got through Uni just as the “big one” started opening up: Olympic Qualifiers. Tough race- didn’t come in first, but I placed high enough in events to get me a slot on Team USA for the 2016 games in Rio. I was finally there- I could very well win a race against the BEST IN THE WORLD.
My parents were understandably proud. They called up family and friends, rented out a boat, took her out on the Hudson, and threw a pretty nice party. Good times were had by all- at least until the grill we bought onboard got knocked over and the boat caught fire. Things went pretty badly after that.

Gas tank burst- big fireball, whole ship ended up at the bottom of the bay. Nobody got killed, thank god, and rescue boats were able to get everyone to shore pretty quickly, but one shard of shrapnel cut its way into my left shoulder, slicing up my…

My…

Goddammit.

I’m certain I knew what it was called at some point. I took a sports health class at Uni and they teach you the names of pretty much all the major muscles; pretty useful stuff for knowing how to keep recoup times down to a minimum. Guess my current flagrant disregard for anatomy has let me get a bit lazy with the medical terms. Bottom line was this: shoulder injury meant that I can’t move the arm, not moving the arm made my running movements suboptimal, and when it comes to the World’s Stage, “suboptimal” means you might as well be running in lead heels.

I didn’t take it well. Face it, you usually don’t get more than one shot at this type of deal in your life and I was NOT about to let one stupid injury keep me from grabbing my spot on the top of the world.

So, what I did was turn to the internet. Real shady shit- I had to talk to some sketchy folks IRL before I even knew where to look. I had only a month to go before the games started and I needed to find SOME way, legality be damned, to get my shoulder operational again. Ended up getting stuff shipped over from all over the world, and I tried them all on the slim chance I could accelerate the healing process: weird homeopathic remedies from wack-jobs living in the middle of nowhere, numerous off-the-market pharmaceuticals, even some kind of pollen solution from Japan. Was it risky? Was it dumb? Yeah, certainly. But during that time, I was just NOT in the best frame of mind, at ALL.

Thing is, I wasn’t too afraid of the risk of subjecting myself to this stuff because the thought of missing the Games was WAY worse in my eyes. I just didn’t see any another way to look at it.

But nevertheless, I just kept on trying solution after solution, not even waiting for proper results from one before starting the next, all the way until one week before my scheduled flight down to Rio, when it suddenly happened. Somehow, the stars/my genetics/will of the gods/fate lined up, and I woke up in my parent’s basement (shut up, I was trying to save money) with both a healed shoulder, and the elastic abilities you see before you today.

Actually, funny story. Took me WAAAY longer than it should have to actually notice the stretchy shit. Looking back on it, I’m PRETTY sure the change happened overnight, but I only really noticed the healed shoulder at first. Wasn’t until I was feeding my parent’s pet cat around noon that I noticed when it bit at my finger… and proceeded to stretch it nearly across the entire room I was in. Was a bit of a shock, I can assure you.

Anyways, we’ve pretty much gotten to the parts you’d have probably heard about in the news. I fucked around with my powers for the rest of the week, figuring out what I could do, and I made the BRILLIANT decision to keep running in the games. Which, of course went as well as you’d expect. I think my times were 7.10 and 13.36 for the 100m and 200m, respectively? In case you didn’t realize, those times CRUSHED world records, and it was pretty evident as soon as they looked at the slow-mo that my legs were doing shit that NO vertebrate had any place doing. I got called out, questioned, and was soon forced to reveal my powers to the public.

I wasn’t even TRYING to cheat, for the record. I just didn’t realize that my springiness would pick up so much speed. I’ve actually quartered those times since then as I figured out how to get the right amount of launch out of each step, and I’m pretty sure I can shave at least a few more milliseconds off if I put the effort in, but what’s the point really?

I won.

Like, at everything. There’s no real competition anymore. Unless I go into fucking chess or something, my powers have pretty much killed any sporting chance of giving people a sporting chance.

In spite of being essentially the first and only superhuman the world has ever seen, hype died down surprisingly quickly. I got barred from entering pretty much every league in every sport ever, ending my career pretty much instantaneously.

As a result, what I want to do at the moment is pretty up-in-the air. It's what, mid-November now? 15 months since the games ended? Because other than moving to a new apartment with Aubrey, I haven’t really done anything. What’s there for me to do?

Sponsorships? Nah, that stuff is stupid. It was bad enough when I had to wear certain brands to events- now I’d have to do adverts and shit since I don’t compete. Screw that.

Modeling? Fuck off. Like look, I know there are some dudes out there who probably like the whole stretchy thing I got going on- not sure what’s wrong with them to be honest. But no, not doing that. Not now, not ever. I actually still get a few creepy messages every now and then through my various accounts, but funnily enough I think I actually got more back before this whole incident- I suppose athletic minor celeb beats out literal superpowers.

Office job?

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… yeah. No. I’d get kicked out in a week.

The worst thing is, I don’t even need the money, so why bother? Given my monopoly on possessing physics-defying super-elasticity, I was able to get the scientific community to pay through the NOSE with compensation money in order to study me for a bit. Add that to the interviews I get roped into every once and a while, and I’m set for LIFE- provided I don’t blow everything in one place. Nothing resulted out of that study, by the way; blood-sampling was pretty much impossible with the whole unpierceable-skin factor and after a few months, the only official scientific explanation for my powers was a frustrated “fuck it, it’s magic or something”. Pretty big waste of time, all things considered. Didn’t even get some kind of snazzy supersuit out of it- not that I’d want to wear one.

So yeah, other than just running around, whacking baddies, and the occasional rescue from a burning building, I got nothing to do. That in itself isn’t necessarily BAD per se- doing it keeps me active and does some good for the community- but the thing is, most of the time it’s STILL just way too easy.

Oh, THAT got your attention. What- you don’t believe me? Think that’s just posturing?

Alright listen. Dude- dudette- whoever you are. I don’t think you properly appreciate how utterly BULLSHIT elasticity is. Like I get it: you’re probably going all “big deal she has really long reach” or something and that’s cool and all- but in actuality, being all stretchy is totally just a HUUUGE slippery slope that leads to me being able to do all kinds of wacky shit.

I guess I’ve already kind of covered the increased ground speed, but go back a little bit- remember how I lifted our good friend Mr. William with one arm? Yeah- I can just do that now, and he was NOT a light lad either. Turns out the body is willing to exert itself WAY more when it's not concerned about little things like muscle strain and damage. Add that to the fact that I was already pretty fit to begin with (cough), and I can pull of some impressive feats of strength. That's not to say that I’m going to be throwing any cars overhead anytime soon, but I once decided to try running some events alongside a World's Strongest Man competition with some stuff I found in a junkyard.

I would have won had I entered- not by a ridiculous margin, but still a pretty clear-cut victory.

Then you get to all sorts of other weird facets- I’m pretty much indestructible, for one. I still try to dodge and stuff, gunfire can ricochet like crazy off of me and I’d rather not get the people firing at me shot- got a big personal “no killing” rule for myself and all that. I’d rather keep my slate clean given that I’m essentially doing this for shits and giggles.

The list just goes on from there: pretty much boundless flexibility, squeezing through any crack larger than an inch or so, and oh yeah, and there’s the whole ricochet thing I can do. That one’s pretty cool. I’ll have to show that off one day. No way I’d do that to your common crook like Willy though- I want to leave them shaken, not shattered.

But to of cut it off before I go on for too long- yeah, I’m pretty much unstoppable, and I wouldn’t even be mad if proven otherwise. So if Willy back there wants to plot his revenge and start building some Arcadebuster power armor, I say bring it the fuck on, I’d love the challenge.

I’ve… been rambling for a while.

I actually got to the deli and ordered like one or two tangents ago- got a hoagie with a HUGE stack of pastrami on it. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss any exciting adventures or anything on the way here.

Now I’m just waiting for Aubrey.

The fact that she isn’t here is kinda odd though. Her timeliness usually borders on obsessive, and this is WITH the fact that I detoured to catch a criminal on the way. I shot her a text a minute ago, but she hasn’t responded. I’m giving her five minutes, and if she isn’t here by then, I’m leaving.

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This sandwich is pretty good.