Riona Is A Professional

Tapping her pink glossed fingernails on the tabletop in a staccato rhythm, Riona waited impatiently for her newest client to arrive.

Her “office”, such as it was, was just a backroom in a sketchy downtown bar. The owner had given her a pretty good deal on it, taking a flat payout for her use of the space so long as he didn’t have to deal with any Cape action in house, as it were, and it gave her an anonymous meeting point with potential business that also had the right kind of ambience.

Indeed, it wasn’t the nicest kind of bar in town. It was the kind of bar where a young, attractive and unattended girl could POSSIBLY go alone and not be harassed or more, but it really would depend on the crowd that night and it definitely wasn’t the kind of wager you’d want to put any kind of real money on. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this had been a factor in Riona choosing this particular location.

Fortunately (?) for her, she hadn’t found any real trouble here, a fact that could be squarely assigned to the stoic faced maid that was a constant presence, always close enough to intervene if anyone tried anything more than catcalling. The one hapless soul that had tried getting physical with Mia’s charge had his arm broken before he could react, and was then soundly laughed out of the bar by the other patrons as a follow up. Even the catcalling had died off honestly, as some of the more perceptive barflies had noticed the incremental shifts in Mia’s expression when she felt they had crossed a line and decided to not push their luck.

Riona was peripherally aware of this and had mixed feelings on the matter, but to be honest Riona had mixed feelings about a lot of things in this line of work. Mixed feelings of a somewhat more salacious nature than any moral ambiguity about whether she should be using her abilities for some kind of Greater Good, mind you.

In any case, the tap-tap-tapping of her nails came to abrupt halt as the door opened, heralding the entrance of her late arriving client for the day.

He was actually fairly good looking, in a not-yet-broken-down salaryman kind of way. Early twenties, cheap suit and shirt but a nice tie. No cufflinks. Some bags under the eyes, five o’clock shadow and mid-range cologne. And behind it all the air of someone trapped in a boring, nine to five, straight and narrow prison cell, someone who just needed some excitement in their life.

Riona could totally relate.

As the man took a seat, Mia subtly shifted position to where she could reach him or shield her charge in less than a heartbeat. Neither of them noticed.

Clearly a shade uncomfortable, the man offered the two women a polite nod. “Ah, hey, thanks for meeting with me today. I’m… wait, should I introduce myself as my, you know, Cape Name?” He spoke those last words as though they were a foreign tongue. “I haven’t actually gone public or anything but I have practiced in front of a mirror.”

Riona giggled. “I’ll bet. Okay, what is your ‘Cape Name’, then?”

The man nodded, newfound gleam of passion in his eye. “Call me… Captain Silver.”

Riona stared at him. “… what, like a pirate?”

“No!” the man shook his head emphatically, “It’s Captain as in, you know, the Cape kind of Captain and Silver because my powers are silver-“

Riona cut him off. “Okay, no dude, vetoed. That is a terrible name and I am telling you this as a professional,” the teenage girl (who’s current career plans were worryingly tinged by her personal predilections) told him firmly. “But it’s fine, we can figure out something better for you. Do you have a costume or anything yet?”

‘Captain-Silver-pending-new-name’ nodded. He fished his smartphone out of his pocket, tapped a few times and held it out to her. She took it from her, face twisting into a mix of confusion and dismay. The subject of her disdain was a picture of the man seated across from her taking a picture of himself in a mirror, wearing an ill-fitting silver bodysuit (possibly stitched together by hand) with a crude S made of white cloth emblazoned on his chest (definitely stitched together by hand), wearing a masquerade mask in a poor attempt to conceal his identity.

A quiet titter came from the direction Mia was standing. Neither of them noticed.

Riona was at a loss. Technically her business was more about putting on a show and fighting for hire, mind you, and she’d never had any problems losing to anyone before, but this… this was just too much. Even if her copies looked like someone else entirely, SHE would know she’d had to lose to… a guy dressed like that, named like a pirate and that was entirely the WRONG kind of humiliation, okay? And he was moderately cute but not nearly enough to make it worth her while.

But he’d paid in advance. And she was a professional. She could salvage it. Figure out a new name together, direct him towards one of the local costume maker types like Hoard, get him looking cool(er). After all this was to make him look good, right? She was just doing her job.

She sighed and handed the phone back to him. “Okay. There is… a lot of work to be done here. But I’m sure we can make it look good.” Desperate for some kind of silver (ha!) lining, she looked him up and down again. He had to have SOMETHING she could work with. “So what are your powers, anyway?”

“Oh, right. Let me just…” The man stood up, oblivious to Mia slightly shifting her weight and pivoting towards him as he did. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, then closed his eyes, concentrating as Riona watched.

Ethereal chains formed of some silvery substance coiled out of his open palms, snaking through the air in graceful loops. They formed a web of links in the air, ready to snap tight and constrict. With a gesture from the man they wrapped around an unattended chair and held it aloft seemingly effortlessly, squeezing tight around the wood until it groaned in protest.

He dropped the chair in surprise as Riona practically vaulted over the table to get in his face, clasping his still chain-making hands in hers, her alarmingly bright and wide eyes and flushed cheeks way too close to his own.

“OhgodIloveitIcanalreadyimagine-“ she cut off as Mia gently coughed. “I mean, yeah, I can work with that. I have some ideas.”

Riona smiled dreamily.

“I have LOTS of ideas.”