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Continental Vacation (IC)


Raveled

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"Indeed." The rumbling voice from below made Jessica jump, and she was startled to see a large, muscular man with skin the same color and texture as the tower itself climb up from below the platform. "It is Henri de Luc, Secretary of the Defense, making his first -- how do you call it in America? A 'stump speech,' I believe." The color-shifting man climbed until he was perched on the railing. Jessica and Blake noticed huge, bat-like wings, folded about his body like a cape. "Oh, look. My coworker is down there." He pointed one taloned finger down to the crowd, were a woman in a green anorak was making swift work of what could only be some kind of security detail. "I guarantee you, M. de Luc will not be seeing another term."

Jessica exchanged glances with Blake and sighed, brushing her hair back. "So much for a quiet day in Paris," she said, leaning against the railing. In a moment she overbalanced and fell, but even as she flipped the energy was erupting from her bracelet and covering her in armor. Still many meters from the pavement, the thrusters ignited and Ironclad peeled off to deal with the interloper.

The steel-colored man, for his part, narrowed his eyes as he watched her transformation. "Where does she thing she's going," he rumbled, more to himself than anyone else." His wings snapped open and he prepared to leap off the railing.

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The winged man leapt off the Eiffel Tower, falling precipitously and gaining speed as he dove, until he angled his wings and swung up into a steep climb. The gargoyle's -- because that's the only thing he could be -- flight path mirrored Ironclad's almost exactly, and before long he had clamped strong arms around the armored heroine's midsection, pinning her arms to her sides. She struggled weakly but he had caught her off guard, and soon he was flapping his wings, laboring to pull her away from the crowd.

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Warlock reached his hand out, gasping as his girlfriend fell. He knew she had her armor, but it was instinct to reach out and help. In moments, she was out of freefall and flying freely. "Crap! Baby, watch out!" he said, and in a moment, she was being held by the gargoyle. He reached inside his robes, and pulled out a small and very ornate helmet. The unearthly metals of the helmet shone against the Paris sunlight, and Blake quickly fit it onto his head.

"Let's hope this works." Blake said aloud, and felt out the gargoyle's mind, his third eye already searching for him. "Now...let her go!"

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The gargoyle shook his head as Warlock's magics reached out and tired to grab his mind. It failed, but gave Ironclad enough leverage to boost the power to her servo-muscles and break his hold. She reared back and punched the creature right in its muzzle-like snout. "This was supposed to be a vacation," she shouted over the wind. "It was supposed to be relaxing and peaceful! Not work!" She emphasized each sentence with another bone-crunching blow, and when she released him the beast fell to the ground, tearing a furrow in the carefully manicured lawns.

As Ironclad zoomed overhead, the woman in the green anorak turned to track her, her own hands forming into pointed gun-shapes and her thumbs working furiously. Amazingly, bolts of eldritch energy leapt from her fingertips, impacting on the armored heroine like rain on a tin roof. Ironclad covered her body with her arms, and so didn't see the tree until she rammed into it.

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Blake was panicking, and started pulling things out of his pockets. His electricity wand didn't have such a good range, and nor did his sleeping powder. He racked his brain, and contemplated rushing something together, when a lightbulb appeared over his head. Rather, he remembered he was still wearing his Helm of Mind Controlling. He reached out, and found the mind of the woman firing arcane bolts at his girlfriend.

Blake leaned over the edge, and pointed at the mystic. "YOU THERE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"

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Ironclad shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears from the impact. She curved back around, easily finding the slim woman in the green overcoat that had very nearly blasted her from the sky. Surprsingly, the woman was just standing there, staring at the horizon. Ironclad wasn't about to stop and wonder why the mystic wasn't fighting back; she charged up a shot and released it, knocking the woman to the ground. The gargoyle looked up from the furrow he'd dug into the ground, eyes fixed on the collapsing form of the woman in the green coat. He let loose a cry of "JEANNE!" and dashed through the air faster than looked possible. The human-like monster scooped the woman up and beat his wings, making for the edge of the city.

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Although he knew he could try to establish a mind control connection with the gargoyle, he knew that the gargoyle wouldn't be able to hear him worth anything. Taking a moment to think, Blake then looked to his shoes. He clicked his heels together, and quickly dropped eight hundred feet down the Eiffel tower. The young wizard landed in the middle of a crowd, and the French citizens he disturbed looked very angry. "Sorry, okay? I can't help landing where I can't see."

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Ironclad landed near Blake, and after fussing over her boyfriend to make sure he was uninjured, she nearly collapsed against him. The armor folded away in a blaze of light (acutely uncomfortable, when it was five inches from your eye) and revealed Jessica's battered form, somewhat the worse for wear. She held onto Blake, as French police cars with flashing lights and sirens that went EEEEEooooEEEEoooEEEoooo surrounded them. "All I wanted," she muttered, "was a quiet vacation."

The gendarmes quickly surrounded and secured the park. Before long, a short, lanky woman of Asian extraction walked up to the pair of teens. She was wearing a blue and black jumpsuit with the logo of the United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network -- UNISON -- on one breast. She gave the teens a quick looking over before extending her hand. "Blake Salazar. Jessica Parker. I am Gail Simms, with UNCOT. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

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Blake held Jessica close, both arms around her waist. "Are you alright, Jessica? Here, have a bit of this." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass vial of red viscous fluid. "Drink up, babe."

The gendarmes quickly surrounded and secured the park. Before long, a short, lanky woman of Asian extraction walked up to the pair of teens. She was wearing a blue and black jumpsuit with the logo of the United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network -- UNISON -- on one breast. She gave the teens a quick looking over before extending her hand. "Blake Salazar. Jessica Parker. I am Gail Simms, with UNCOT. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

He raised his eyebrows, surprised that she knew his secret identity. "That would be just fine, ma'am. Just defending the city, and all that. Nothing unusual, right?" His hands reached up to his forehead and wiped off what felt like a pint of sweat. It was admittedly physically taxing to use his psychic abilities, even when he was Kid Cthulhu. "Could we have a glass of water, though?"

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Agent Simms turned to one of the police officers hanging around and snapped "Les deux eaux," before leading the teens to a nearby park bench. "Those two you drove off," she said, smoothing down her suit, "are known to UNISON as Enfant Terrible de Notre Dame, and the Ghost Fox Killer. They're mercenaries, lovers, and for the past two years they've been on Overthrow's payroll. We knew the organization was intending to try and assassinate Secretary de Luc today, but we never thought they'd bring in heavy hitters like that." A smile quirked on her lip. "This was actually supposed to be a quiet assignment for me. I'm normally on the Alphabet Team; taking care of Secretary du Luc's security was supposed to be a cherry job, give me time to relax." The officer reappeared with a pair of water bottles, condensation beading on the side. He handed them to the two heroes and stood at parade rest near Agent Simms.

Jessica twisted the bottle open and drank down two long swallows, waving away Blake's magic potion. "No. Those always taste like flat soda water, babe. I'll live."

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Blake capped the potion and put it back in his pocket. "Suit yourself, babe." He took a long swig as well, sighing with relief. "I'm glad we were able to help. I'm just sorry we couldn't do more." He looked down a little, a concerned expression appearing on his face. Blake realized he hadn't done very much in the fight, and his girlfriend had gotten hurt as a result. It was one thing to fight an enemy up close, but Blake barely had anything that would help with opponents far away. "Are you doing alright, Jessica?"

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Jessica shook her head but didn't reply; Agent Simms' eyes flashed between the two teens before she inclined her head to the pair. "Right. Well, I'll have one of the gendarmes take you back to your hotel, alright?" Jessica didn't argue, and the trip back to the hotel was much quicker in the back of a police cruiser.

Their room, unseen until now, looked almost like something out of a clothing commercial -- lots of stark white furniture with pure black pillows and sheets. There was a couch, really more a padded platform, in the middle of the room, and Jessica threw herself onto it before the door closed. She stayed face-down for a long minute before shuffling onto her back. "Honey," she called out, "was this the right thing to do? Should we even have bothered to leave Freedom City?"

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Blake took a moment to observe the room, then promptly plopped down on the bed beside her. He put an arm around her shoulder, and pulled her close to him. "Jessica, it's still a vacation, even though we seemed to be plagued by super-criminal activity. I think we can still make the best of it." Blake adjusted himself so he was laying on his side, and he put his arm around her waist and cuddled closer. "I know it sucks. It sucks for me, too. It's almost like being back home in Freedom City. But there's still a lot of country to see." He blinked once, and looked up at her. "Although I do have a solution for our problem. Why don't we go to somewhere out in the country, away from the big cities? I imagine the worst crimes we'll find there are bar fights and goat-stealing. What do you think?"

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Jessica rolled over on the bed and snuggled into Blake, tucking her head under his chin. For a moment, the apparent futility of having a normal vacation swept over her and she felt like sobbing, like throwing something, like pulling the covers around herself and never coming out, all at once. She took a deep, ragged breath, held it for a count of five, and let it out smoothly. When she raised her face to Blake's, there were tears in her eyes, but she blinked them back. She put her arms around his shoulders and kissed him slowly, thoroughly. When she was done she shifted her weight so that Blake was lying more on top of her than not, and she smiled up at him. "It's a good idea," she said, "but I'm not sure I want to go mucking around cow paths and buggy fields. Not on my vacation, anyway." She kissed him again and relaxed on the bed. "Besides. I promised to let you drag me through art galleries, remember? Try and inject a little culture in my machine-addled brain?"

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Blake moved around so he was on top of her, and smiled back at her. "Well." he said, moved his lips to her neck. "That is true. Europe has some fantastic art museums. I bet we could visit some science museums too." He kissed her neck again, smiling. "Either way, this whole vacation isn't shot because we run into a few super-criminals. We've got each other, haven't we?" He sat up, and removed his shirt, and quickly leaned back down again, and kissed her lips with passion. "Plus, these beds are really comfy. Great for fooling around."

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Jessica grinned, her body warming to Blake's touch, gasping as he kissed her neck. She ran her hands up his back and sides as he discarded his shirt, shivering pleasantly at his kisses. "Yes. Lots of times for muscles later. Er, museums later." She giggled against his lips, her movements becoming more frantic, and after a few more moments she didn't have any attention to spend on complicated thoughts.


Her sleep was deep, but not untroubled. In her dreams, she was on a boat in the middle of the ocean; water stretched around her as far as the eye could she. The waves rocked her little craft, but for some reason she was calm and untroubled. With the speed of dreams and unreality, the sky overhead turned from clear and blue to an expanse of bruised stormclouds. As the winds rose and the waves grew, Jessica sat in her dinghy, untroubled at the storm brewing up around her. Even when a particularly large wave overturned her craft and plunged her underwater, she didn't fight it; she fell through the water into infinite, dark space.

As she sank, massive tentacles, vivid green and sickly purple, rose from the depths and grabbed her ankles, her waist, her neck. She moved against them slowly, unconcernedly. When one enormous octopus-arm reached up, suckers bigger than her face undulating smoothly on its underside, she smiled serenely. Moving towards it in the water, being moved along by the tentacles, she embraced the limb and kissed it.


Jessica came awake with a start, bolting halfway upright in bed. For a moment her thoughts danced in terror around her head -- this wasn't her home, this wasn't her suite at the Lab, this wasn't even Blake's place. Where was she!?

Even when memory and reason came back to her and she recognized the dim hotel room (at some point they'd drawn the curtains and turned the lights off) she couldn't slow the hammering of her heart. Blake was nowhere to be seen, though the bed beside her was still warm. "Blake?" She called out his name softly, then louder and louder. "Blake! Where are you!?"

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Blake walked back into the bedroom, clad in boxer shorts with hearts on them. In his hands was a plate with a massive sandwich on it, and Blake took a big bite out of it. "What's wrong, babe? I just got the munchies." He set his plate down on the nightstand, and the covers rustled as he climbed into bed. "I'm right here, baby. I'll always be here for you." Blake sighed happily as he cuddled up next to her. "Now, what's the matter? Did you have a bad dream?"

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Jessica clung to Blake as he climbed back into bed, working to get her breathing under control again. After a few minutes she no longer felt the need to try and see in every direction at once; she no longer wanted to call up her armor and blast away at shadows in the corner. She was still pressed up against Blake, apparently unconcerned or unaware of her nakedness beneath the sheets. "I had such a nightmare," she said, sighing. "I was in a boat, and there was... a storm. And a... green octopus?" She furrowed her brow and tried to remember the details, but they were already fading. She reached over and grabbed half of the sandwich, turning it over in her hands. Her stomach growled and she gave Blake her best puppy dog eyes. "Only one sandwich?"

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Blake rolled his eyes and sighed. He took the last half of the sandwich from the plate, and placed it next to her. "I'll make myself another sandwich...wait a second. Is this role reversal?" he said, pausing for a moment. "Nevermind." he said with a grin, and went to the fridge to make himself another sandwich. After a few minutes, Blake returned to the bed, with a sandwich even larger than the one he had made before. "So, you were in a boat and got attacked by an octopus? Babe, you need to stop reading that 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea slash-fiction. It's really getting to you."

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"I could live with that," Jessica said, biting into the sandwich and swallowing. "Besides, if you're going to wear me out, it's only fair that you bring food back." At the mention of an octopus attack she shivered slightly, her flesh crawling at the idea. "No, no, no. Tentacles and squirmy things under the sea... Not for me, babe." She finished the sandwich and brushed her hands over the plate, slipping out of the bed and, with no other option available, sprinting into the bathroom. Once inside, she started up the shower and called out to Blake, "I'll be out in a bit, okay? And then we can hit the museums!"

It was about twenty minutes later that Jessica emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy black robe. She started rooting around in her luggage; when she turned around, hands full of clothes, she gestured vaguely to the open bathroom. "You. Go," she said, smiling at Blake. "Bathroom, shower -- it's all yours."

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Blake made a vague attempt to push back the covers, and sort of fell off the bed. "Mrrh. Too much sandwich. I'll get in there, though." Blake said, making a dramatic exit to the bathroom.

He was out of the shower shortly, and dressed sharply in a black polo shirt with matching slacks. "So which art museum will we be visiting, darling?" He paused for a moment, then checked his pockets. "Sorry. I wanted to be sure if by some slim chance we're attacked by a supervillain for the third day in a row, I'll at least be prepared. You know what they say though, lightning never strikes twice in the same place, unless you're just a really unlucky bastard. Something like that, yeah."

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Jessica dressed herself in a cream-colored silk blouse and a nut-brown skirt, with white pumps and a bronze band holding back her hair. She touched the titanium bracelet that was her link to her armor, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Right. On to museums. And if any bad guys get in our way, I'm going to make sure that they regret it."

Paris had one famous art gallery of course, and La Louvre was everything that it had been built up to be. There were English-language pamphlets and audiolog tours available at the front desk, so Jessica was at least spared from translating each plaque for Blake. Once they had marveled at the works there, it was on to the Musee d'Orsay and the Grand Palais. After a picnic lunch around of the Wallace fountains, they visited the Tuileries Garden, the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie, and the Museum national d'histoire naturelle. Around that time darkness was beginning to fall across the City of Lights, along with a misting rain, and the young lovers took refuge in a crowded cafe. They ordered and moved to a quiet corner, talking in low voices.

In time their food arrived and they tucked into it. Jessica had ordered a salad garnished with thin slices of duck; she tried one and then moved the rest to the side. Once her immediate hunger was quelled, she said to Blake, "I think your idea of getting out of the city was a good one. But not to the country." She smiled. "I found a reservation at a resort on the Rivera. Sand, sun, the beach, just you and me. No politicians to assassinate, no big monuments to blow up. Just miles and miles of the best vacation property in the world."

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Blake held her hand the whole way, glad to be close to his girlfriend. The Louvre was a dream come true for Blake. He had dreamed of the museum since he was a young boy, and it was everything he could have hoped for and more. They walked through the galleries, Blake managing to keep his head on as his eyes lit up with excitement. It was the perfect day for him.

They eventually ended up in a cafe at the end of the evening, and Blake ordered a small quiche. "You're probably right." Although he would admire the French countryside from an artist's perspective, he realized not everyone looks at things like he did. He sipped his coffee at the mention of the Riviera, and his eyebrows raised. "Oh wow, the Riviera? That sounds fantastic, babe. Will we go to the beach?"

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Jessica laughed softly at Blake's enthusiasm. "I'm pretty sure the Riviera is all beaches," she said, spearing a radish. She bit into it and waved it around while she talked. "Resorts and beaches and casinos and vacation houses for people that have more money then they know what to do with." She flashed a smile at Blake. "So you get to see me in a bikini, and I get to see you in a European man-thong," she added good-naturedly.

Dinner passed quietly and by the time they ventured out onto the city, the rain had stopped, leaving slick streets and a cool touch over the city. Jessica burrowed close to Blake as they walked the banks of the Seine, and if their trip back to the hotel was slower than it had to be, neither of them was going to complain. Back in their room Jessica closed and locked the door before closing with Blake and locking him into a long, slow kiss. When she pulled away her face was flushed but she was smiling. "So," she asked. "What do you think of Paris?"

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Blake coughed, and nearly choked on his quiche. "Man-thong?" he said, louder than he intended. After taking a brief look around the cafe to make sure no one else heard that, he looked back to Jessica. "Regardless, I'm sure the Rivera will be a lot of fun, babe." he said, his face red as a fire engine. He ate the rest of his quiche quietly, watching the rain.

A short while later, Blake was back at the hotel, and his girlfriend's arms around him. He kissed her back, a surprised expression on his face. "It's wonderful, babe." His arms wrapped around her waist, and he pulled her to the bed. "The food is excellent, the art museums are beautiful, and the people are surprisingly cool. Yeah, I'd say I like Paris so far."

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