Superhero Dragonborn - Scene 1 (TEXT)

"It ain't an easy job, I tell you. Especially 'round here. You ever tried to persuade a dragon to pay taxes? Course you haven't. Still got all your arms and legs. And eyebrows. Nothing more possessive than a gods-damned dragon." — Sir Antony Mathews - Royal Tax Collector for the Kingdom of Ursul - 578 AOS(LD) - Plane No. 7787. 

The sounds of a dozen mismatched sirens blared through the dark streets of Sinsolence City. Past the financial district with its skyscrapers that failed to touch the heavens, the sirens raced. They raced past the homeless shelters and museums. They barrelled over the chipped and potholed suspension bridge crossing the River Glory and banked hard on the brand new and massively over-budget ring road that collared the city like a diamond choker on a two-dollar whore. The sirens came from all over the metropolis that had once styled itself as post-modern, and now was even more so, and all converged on a high-rise building wreathed in flames.

The sirens weren't the only ones.

Even as the crews of newly arrived firetrucks hooked up hoses to the local water supply and ambulance workers loaded asphyxiated or burned victims onto stretchers, up in the sky, figures in a variety of outfits, often featuring copious quantities of spandex, zipped around the inferno like suicidal and strikingly good-looking moths.

One of those figures belonged to a beautiful young woman floating some fifty meters above the ground. Long blond hair whipped in the wind around a face that the internet had voted 'most adorable' some six months earlier while the summer dress she wore whipped around a bottom that the internet couldn’t vote on, because no one had yet gotten a good shot of it. 

She also wore a recurve bow strapped to her back and a quiver of arrows at her hip.

In the many buildings that surrounded the blazing highrise, dozens of enthusiastic young men, and even the occasional woman, were setting up ridiculously expensive telephoto lenses on tripods attached to camera bodies capable of photographing a match being struck on the moon. They were all going to go home disappointed. Again.

The young woman hooked one loose strand of hair around her ear and scowled, though whether at the photographers below her or the fire before her wasn't immediately clear. "Is everyone in the building accounted for yet?" she yelled out to another of the flying figures over the roar of the inferno.

"Not sure," yelled the other figure back. She was also female and dressed in a spandex leotard that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. In fact, every single figure flying around the burning building consisted of what other worlds would sometimes call 'the fairer sex'. "HQ says all residents are out, but we don't know if there were guests and we won't know until the equipment gets here!"

"Why isn't it here already?!"

"Needs class B approval. Expensive and dangerous."

"Crap!" The first super with the bow and the dress turned back towards the inferno, her fists clenched. "I'm going in!"

"Wait!" The second zipped forward and grabbed her arm.

"Let me go!"

"Paragon, listen to me! You can't survive in there long! You won't have time to search it all. Let's wait for the equipment to get here. Then we can go straight to them. Okay? Damn it, Para, listen to me!"

Down below the two struggling supers, another figure, this one very definitely male, lurked in an alley half a block away from the burning high-rise. Tall, dark-ish, and at least moderately handsome, in a rugged kind of way, he was dressed in inexpensive clothes that looked specifically picked to get ruined.

Cursing, Cadmus Smith urgently rummaged around in his backpack, looking for the fireproof case for his phone. He was already behind on time, and if he didn’t move fast, tonight’s opportunity would be lost. Opportunities that met his very specific requirements didn’t come up all that often.

There! Finding the kevlar casing, he quickly stashed his phone inside before shoving it in the front pocket of his stretchy tracksuit bottoms. Hopefully this time his phone would survive long enough for his purposes. The last time he'd run into a burning building, his phone had melted long before reaching the target.

Cadmus glanced up at the flittering superheroines above before returning his attention to the street just visible through a crack in a nearby fence. The police had set up a barricade all around the burning tower. He'd need to get through that, preferably without being seen. Being seen could be annoying, if only temporarily. It had happened before. Leaning down, he shoved the backpack under a nearby garbage skip.

He heard the footsteps before the voice and thanks to the draft caused by the nearby blaze, smelled them as well.

"Well, looky here," said the voice some distance behind him. "That is a cute piece of ass."

Cadmus growled, deep and guttural. He really didn't have time for this. 

Turning around, he found two women wearing parfum de trash compactor, advancing on him down the alley with smirks on their faces. They carried no weapons, but that only meant they were almost certainly supers. 

"Wallet, right now, cute ass," the one on the right said. She had piercings on her lower lip and greasy, pink hair styled in a mohawk. The one on the left was a lot shorter and bald. Both were covered in tattoos.

They walked with the confidence of bullies who believed there was no possible way their victim would be able to fight back. Despite himself, Cadmus felt a little smirk cross his face. Under most circumstances, they'd be right. There was a reason that not a single muscle-bound superman was flying up with the girls around the burning tower. There was a reason that Super HQ in the city centre featured not a single urinal. Everyone knew that only women could be supers. Everyone knew that men had no powers. That they couldn't even use super tech. It was a fact accepted as readily as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West.

Which was why the two women advancing on him were in for quite a shock.

"No," Cadmus said, simply.

Clearly, this was not the answer Pinky had been expecting. She immediately lost her cool. "No!? Listen here, you little shit. You're going to hand over your wallet before I rip your prostate out of your ass and feed it to—"

That was as far as she got before Cadmus launched himself forward far faster than any normal human should be able to and smacked her right across the face. The force of the blow was powerful enough to send her smashing through the nearby wall, producing a cloud of dust that enveloped the alley. Cadmus snorted at the hole he’d made. The woman’s body had not splashed on impact which was good. He'd done his best to calibrate, based on his instinct for how strong she was, but it was impossible to always get it right based on just a look. It looked like this time, he'd been right on the money of how much force was needed. She’d live. Probably.

"What the fuck?!" shouted baldy, stepping backwards, her eyes going wide. "You're not a man!"

Cadmus didn't bother to argue. Instead, he simply leapt forward and bitch-smacked the second woman like he'd done the first. Baldy disappeared into the wreckage with another crash, following her pink-haired friend and leaving Cadmus alone in the alley. Again, he put in just enough power to knock her out without painting the alleyway in blood and viscera.

Behind him, the fire continued to roar as it gorged itself on the tower. Sirens wailed. People in the distance shouted and screamed.

Some would no doubt worry that leaving the supers alive would be a bad idea. That they'd seek him out for vengeance, perhaps report him to some super-powered crime boss, or even out him to the government to get dissected on a table by some shady agency. Not Cadmus. Before the two thugs woke up, they'd have forgotten he even existed. It was one of his many blessings and one of his worse curses.

Turning around, Cadmus ran. No more delays. It was time to do what he'd come here for.

Slowing as he came out of the alley, he took stock of the police blockade stopping people from approaching the fire. He winced. No chance of not being spotted. Annoying. He'd just have to make do. Trying to be as nonchalant as possible, he chose his angle of attack and wandered over, hugging the side of the street next to a coffee shop.

"Sir! You can't––!" one of the policewomen began loudly as he crossed over the cordon. Not waiting to hear any more, he dashed forward. A large air conditioning duct hung down to the street at the gadget shop on the corner before him. He hurled himself around it, blocking the policewoman’s line of sight, then launched himself up into the air. Cadmus felt a thrill as warm wind rushed past his face, just like he did every time he took flight.

“Sir!” The woman skidded around the corner. "What the—?! Where did he go?!"

Cadmus landed on the top of the building and immediately rolled behind the air-conditioning unit he'd been following. It wouldn't do to let the supers ahead spot him. He observed the flying formations of beautiful women for a full minute. Then, he took his shot. Spotting his opportunity, Cadmus sprinted for the edge and dove clean off, soaring down right into the building through a second-story window, shattering glass and crashing through furniture. 

He was in.