forum oxo i am too lazy to come up with a clever name for

Started December 11, 2022 by @menace-to-society

tune

(no worries!)

Cleo jumped at the sudden voice, absolutely certain that she had alone up until moments ago. Her eyes narrowed instinctively. An-Nur. Ugh. How on earth did he find her? This wasn't even the most popular museum in the city, and this area was usually quiet at this time of night. Her plan had been foolproof. Or at least, she thought it had. Cleo sighed before turning to face him, brows drawn into an annoyed line. At least she'd already stored the artifact away in her pocket dimension, so there was no way they could get it now. But they could certainly get her if she wasn't careful. Luckily, Cleo was very good at not being caught.

"Oh, do I now?" she responded drily, studying the newcomer with her arms crossed. "What an astute observation." She glanced around the room, marking the exits quickly. She didn't know much about this vigilante, but she did know that he could travel fast. Something to do with shadows? She wasn't entirely sure, since he was a bit mysterious. But that was so incredibly inconvenient now. Still, it would be an easy enough bid for her to use the grappling hook she kept on her person to exit through the window. It would be difficult for them to interrupt her on the way up, but he could probably follow her. Ugh. How could she completely evade them, that was the question? For now, she would stall while she thought of a concrete plan. Perhaps she could pull something out of the pocket dimension? It wasn't a bad idea, though she didn't always remember everything she stored in there.

"How did you find me, anyway?" she added pointedly, still tracking numerous ways to exit the building as she spoke. Her best option would probably be to catch them off guard, exiting quickly and pulling up the hood on her jacket to cover her hair as she hurried through the shadows. She supposed in a worst case scenario she could take shelter in her pocket dimension, though that was a little tricky, since it wasn't a portal, so she wasn't entirely sure how to exit. At any rate, her mind was working to calculate any sort of exit and escape plan she could come up with. That celebratory ice cream would have to wait.

Hebenus fell for the distraction easily, his confident demeanor shattered as he sheepishly started to rub the back of his neck.

"T-That's none of your business thief!" Wait no- He could say something cooler than that uh- They struggled to quickly come up with something and the awkward silence stretched itself outwards, before he perked up.

"I have eyes everywhere after all!" Yeah- Smooth recovery. It took him a moment to look up from his internal panic about one-liners and breaking into a museum, to finally look up at the villain. Her eyes were looking everywhere, likely scanning for exits from the room, Hebenus removed both of his gloves, dropping them to the ground. Instead of falling it dissolved after he let go of it, it wasn't real after all, the illusion breaking when it didn't have a point of contact with his body.

Ace of Hearts, a petty thief known for her RobinHood-esque crimes, stealing from the wealthy. He'd been trying to figure out her powers, at a glance it looked like teleportation, touching the treasures and they disappear? But it didn't make sense, why wouldn't she teleport herself into places then? Did she like the thrill? Were there limits? It was hard to say, why steal things to begin with? Hebenus kept any emotion from his face as he took a step towards her, seeing how she'd react. Seeing if they could panic her a little bit, that was when criminals were more liable to making mistakes after all.

Cleo watched him closely, doing her best not to react as he stepped closer, just stepping carefully backward to keep the distance between them the same. She was running out of time. Unless she could not only escape quickly, but also run off before An-Nur tracked her down, she was toast. She had to think something to distract them longer than her last question. His weird little response had almost made her laugh, which unfortunately didn't help her escape. God, he was annoying. She couldn't even appreciate their slip ups.

"You're new to the game, hmm, hero?" Cleo said, stalling for time while she tried to think of an escape. She was notoriously good at that, but the hard part here wouldn't be escaping so much as getting An-Nur off her tail. If they followed her home, well, she was a goner. But how on earth would she lose him? From what she had seen, they had some sort of power that would enable them to travel quite quickly. And while Cleo was fast, she didn't have super speed. She couldn't escape without a diversion, and him trying to get even closer to her was not helping. "Let me give you some advice–always keep your cool. Blurting out stuff like that just because of one question from me is an amateur move. You'll never get a fan club at this rate. More importantly, if the public doesn't approve of you, you're as good as a villain like me." She smirked at him, trying to rile him up despite her internal panic growing. If she could get him distracted, she could escape. Fighting was not her strong suit, and she didn't want to use her storage dimension as an escape unless she had no other options.

Hebenus stilled himself now, a slight smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. She kept talking, retreating a similar distance the more he advanced. They weren't sure if she was doing it to distract him, or she really was just the chatty type, they hadn't interacted much yet, he didn't even have a firm grasp on her power set yet.

"That's the difference between me and you, thief. I don't need the public's approval, I'm doing this because it's right." Despite how cheesy it sounded, it was genuinely how he felt. They'd been doing this vigilante gig for nearly three years now, yet he wasn't very big in the public eye. His powers weren't as flashy as some others, and they naturally lent themselves to stealth rather than a showy display.

Although one thing the villain had said did make him pause, An-Nur frowned, looking up at Ace with widened eyes. A little bit like a kicked puppy.

"Wait.. Are you implying you have a fan club?"

Cleo chuckled at that. "I mean, it's not a very big one, but it exists," she responded with a shrug. "And god, spare me the morality speech. Obviously I don't give a shit. Some of us aren't held down by such lofty ideals; makes it way easier to live, you know?" She glanced behind the vigilante, trying to figure out if there was anything that could give him pause. She could always try the old 'look at that' trick and point at something behind him while she escaped, but who knew if he would even fall for that? She had to try, at least. Luckily for her, she hadn't come all this way on foot; she had a motorcycle tucked into her storage dimension that she could pull out. But first, she would have to get outside and then continue on the bike without him tailing her. For all she knew, An-Nur had a vehicle too. And she didn't know how fast they were either, which was a real pain, because if they were fast enough, Cleo couldn't go home while they were tailing her.

She supposed she might as well try the 'look behind you' thing. Even if it didn't work, hopefully it would at least distract the vigilante for a few seconds when she could make her escape. That was the goal. If Cleo could achieve that, she could escape. Before An-Nur could add anything onto her last statement, Cleo's eyes widened as she looked behind him. She pointed at an artifact almost directly behind him and said, "Ohmygod, look out!"

Her inner dialogue was more like please turn please turn please turn. She needed to work on her escape-when-found-by-a-vigilante strategy. That was the first thing Cleo would do when she got home. She was used to slipping in and out unseen, or with little work (sometimes she had to knock out a security guard or two, but even that wasn't common). She much preferred the whole cat burglary thing to any sort of confrontation.

A stab of annoyance, sharp as a flashlight in his skin, hit Hebenus. Really? She got a fan club? Not like it was a big deal or anything- He didn't care that much, but really?? The rest of Ace's words didn't annoy him nearly as much, they were used to people sort of brushing him off when he got philosophical, he was used to it. At least she didn't start getting preachy back with him, then they'd be here all day.

They seemed to be at a standstill, both of them were too wary of each other, testing the waters. He didn't know her powers and she his. Neither of them wanted to be obliterated where they stood, so it was prudent to act with caution. They were just about to make a move anyways, when Ace moved first, eyes widening and pointing behind him.
"Ohmygod, look out!"

Hebenus wanted to laugh, she honestly thought that would work? It was the oldest trick in the book, there was no way he'd turn around to-

ohmygod was that a tanzanite gemstone? it was almost as large as his hand omg All that glitters isn't gold, sometimes its a cool rock, for a superhero that went through a mineral phase in middle school. Hebenus briefly fanboyed, marveling at the rock, when he realized he was still technically on the clock. He spun back around, eyes wide.

(sorry about the brief hiatus! i'm back now lol)

That brief moment of awe was all it took for Cleo to get moving. She took the grappling hook she had off of her belt, aiming for the window that she'd left cracked open, and threw it quickly, zipping up towards the window. She didn't have time to glance behind her; it would only slow her down. She had to get outside first, and then she could assess the situation to see if she would be able to flee safely.

As she reached the window, she turned back to look at her enemy, giving a slight chuckle as she let herself down from the window to the ground. She reached into her pocket dimension for the motorcycle, revving it up. Well, that was quite loud, so even if the vigilante was distracted for long enough to not see where she had gone, he would have heard the quiet zip of grappling hook and then the loud revving of the engine. An-Nur would probably be able to guess which direction she had gone. Hopefully she would be out of sight by then.

She zoomed forward down the dimly lit street, which was thankfully empty at this time of night, and glanced behind her briefly to see if An-Nur was on her tail. She could do this. Cleo would escape, and if she couldn't, she would test the pocket dimension as a means of teleportation. That was far from her first choice, but a seed of anxiety in her gut told her she might not be able to avoid that.

(Jesus this one completely slipped my mind-)

The rock was pretty cool honestly. It could only be found in certain areas of Tanzania, and was one of the most valuable gemstones on the market. The thought of price made him pause, why wouldn't Ace take the rock if she was after money- Oh. Right. Ace. Super Powered Villain literally right behind him.

Hebenus spun around, his coat tails spinning with him, while not a hair on his head moved. It took some people a while to get used to that particular effect, a side-process of not really having actual keratin derived hair. He caught just a glimpse of her as she zipped past, a colored blur that was out of the window faster than he could blink. He stared for a moment, looking perfectly calm, while inside he was cursing load enough that his shape began to fuzz, reacting to his anger. He couldn't get out nearly as fast, but he could try.

The young hero melted into the floor, seemingly vanishing without a trace, in the dark shadowy room he was able to sort of, ascend the wall. It wasn't climbing, as angles and planes and height got a bit fuzzy when he was formless, but he could adjust and climb up to the window, a bit like swimming, if the pool was everywhere. However when he got to the window itself, it started to pose a problem, moonlight was streaming in, so he was unable to slip out of it easily. Instead out of the shadowy blob that was currently his body, An-Nur made his arms first. They gripped onto the window, opening it further, then grabbing onto the outside, where he could then materialize the rest of his body.

He made a slight pained noise at the sudden weight on his arms, and after a moments strain, he could get through the window. …Just in time to see a motorcycle taking off down the alley. Hebenus swung his legs out of the window, letting them dangle for a moment, before dropping down into the alley way. There was no possible way he could catch up with her. Didn't know where she was going or what her plan was with the artifact. Didn't know anything.
He paced a few steps back and forth, then suddenly kicked a can into the wall of the building. Hard. The clattering metal echoed loudly in the empty street and he tried to take a few calming breaths. Not that he needed the air.

Hebenus rested his head against the rough stone of the museum, less angry and more.. Upset. He'd had one shot at this and.. He'd blown it. Like last time.

The entire way home was a blur. The tiny apartment kept dim. It was a one-bedroom one-bath place, and most of the rooms were small enough that he could reach out and touch both walls if they spread his arms out all the way. The fridge was empty of food. He didn't really need it. The cabinets were filled with all sorts of oddities though. Normally he'd go home and tinker with them under the pretense of 'organizing', but he didn't have the heart today.

Instead, Hebenus just sighed, laying back on the cheap couch he'd gotten at a discount furniture place near his parents town. It was old, but none of the springs were sticking out and he liked the dark grey color of it, so that was alright.. He rubbed his eyes, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Then snorted softly. She even has her own fan club. What do I have..? A tiny apartment? A dead houseplant?

Suddenly a lightbulb went off in his head. An idea that sparked to life and almost made him laugh at how obvious it was. She has her own fan club! Of course! Suddenly sitting up, Hebenus went and got his laptop, it was the only thing he'd actually spent money on in his home, and the keys were well worn from use. He opened it, then turned the brightness as low as it would go, wincing. Then.. He started Googling.

(all good!)

Cleo let out a sigh of relief once she was absolutely certain that she was alone, quickly darting into an alleyway to change from her current outfit into a civilian one that she had stuffed away in her pocket dimension. Now she looked like any other woman out at night, riding home from a night of clubbing or hanging out with her friends or whatever else people her age did. She did partake in those sorts of activities on occasion, though she didn't exactly have many friends to speak of. Sure, she had plenty of acquaintances, but due to her whole secret identity stuff, it was hard to have deep friendships. Ah well, that was part of being a famous supervillain. She could get over it.

Once she finally arrived home, took the artifact out of the pocket dimension to double check it wasn't a fake (unfortunately, that had happened once near the beginning of her career) and to admire it briefly before putting it away. She could work out the details later. For now, she was ready to rest. Heists really took it out of her, if she were honest. Mm, her bed was looking really nice at this moment.

She took a brief shower, getting something she always did right after her thievery, and let the warm water course over her skin. It felt nice to get clean after going out and committing crimes. She was a very hygienic person, so after she showered she did her skincare routine and brushed and flossed her teeth, shooting a grin at herself in the mirror after doing so. She did like to take meticulous care of herself. Finally, she took a brief moment to check her fan club website before heading to sleep for the night.

It looked the same as ever right now, with the background being a wallpaper covered in little red hearts that looked just like the ones on the playing cards. There were different sections, including a chat room, a blog, and a few other fun little tidbits that Cleo appreciated. It wasn't a huge website, but whoever ran it was clearly dedicated. She smiled. Cute. It was cute how people seemed to admire her. And why wouldn't they? She was a regular Robin Hood, wasn't she? She even did make anonymous charity donations on occasion, careful to space them out and not to do too much at once so as not to arouse suspicion. She couldn't hoard all of the money for herself, now could she? Those billionaires sure as hell didn't deserve it, but she couldn't be too suspicious with that sort of wealth. And of course, she had her trinkets which she had taken from various museums and galleries, a fun little display confined to her pocket dimension in case she had anyone over. Some of them were even useful. In some ways, she was like a dragon, hoarding all of her treasure somewhere no one else could reach it. It was quite lovely, if she did so say herself.

Too bad the public didn't know any of this, just that she stole money and artifacts and sometimes other trinkets, which didn't always paint her in the most flattering light, but who cared? Morality was all subjective anyway. She yawned contentedly. This had been a good day.

Still squinting at his laptop screen, despite being on the lowest brightness setting they could get it to, Hebenus ignored the first few articles about Ace. They were just filler anyways, a description of old heists, that wasn't particularly useful to the young hero. He wanted to know where she was, not where she had been.

Still scrolling he found a few threads and opened those in new tabs and started working through them. It was a slow process and frankly, some of the stuff was absolutely mind numbing. Some was admiring, some was hateful, others simply curious or indifferent. Hebenus saved the admiring ones to look through more deeply in a second.

He was starting to note familiar usernames in the admiring category, a handful of pretty devoted followers. Which made sense. Ace wasn't the most well known villain, so her fanbase wouldn't be the largest.

It only took a few minutes of stalking their pages to find what he was looking for. Hidden away in a text thread from a few months ago, there was a link to a webpage for Ace of Heart fans. An older fan had been interacting with a relatively new one, and had been excited to share their creation. Crossing his fingers and hoping the website was still there, Hebenus clicked on the link.

And was greeted by a wonderfully dated website. It looked like it was created by someone without much knowledge about how to make a website, but had done their best anyways. The background was straight out of a 2000's web blog and he couldn't help but smile. A lot of passion had clearly gone into making this. He browsed idly for a moment, it even had a loving scrapbook of all the news articles posted about her. He recognized a few of the headlines, which was encouraging, it meant this was still maintained. The blogs date was also relatively close to the days date.

Looking around a bit more, he found a mostly abandoned 'conspiracy board', a 'suggestions for heists', a fun 'cosplay' tag, and most excitingly, a chat room. A few moments later and Hebenus had an account on the Ace of OUR Hearts fan page. It was cute with the whole 'playing card' theme, you could choose your name accordingly.
They pulled up the chat room, mostly just hoping this would work.

Spades: Hi :) I'm new around here! Just glad to see other fans :D :D :D I've been really curious about Ace for a while now! Has anyone ever met her? :O

He stared at the message hard before hitting send. His pride could take this hit, right? Hebenus wasn't sure they'd used an emoji or emoticon since middle school but- The more he sounded like a teenage girl the less suspicious this all was. Or- Was that creepy? Why did he suddenly feel the need to shower?? He didn't even have a body?? His moral conundrum could wait however, as he got a response.

Jester: Idk, but I know someone here has seen her at least once. Glad to have new people!

Hebenus sighed a little bit, checking through this persons profile. They weren't the creator of the page, but that was alright. He'd have to be pretty active on this website for a while, but he'd get his answers. He was sure that Ace knew about it, and even more certain she checked it. No villain could resist the allure of a free ego-boost.

With another sigh, he got about customizing his profile.

(omg that website name is gold i love it)

Before Cleo headed to sleep for the night, she heard the little ding sound the chat room made when a new person joined (yes, she had it open because why not). Thankfully the website only showed who was online if they had an account, and Cleo did not. She had her personal computer set up with so much anti-hacking and detection code that creating an account would sort of defeat the purpose. She wanted to remain anonymous. Plus, interacting with her fans without telling them it was her would be a bit weird.

Again, she was glad the website looked so dated. Most of her fans were probably like teenage girls or something anyway, excluding the occasional creep, which she hated but couldn't bother to do much about. As angry as it made her, that sort of thing seemed to be the norm with female superheroes or villains so eliminating one weirdo wouldn't do much in the long run. At any rate, when she glanced at the chatroom, something about this new person intrigued her. She had seen Jester post before, and actually thought they seemed quite nice, if a bit eccentric at times, but that was to be expected with this sort of website. This new person, Spades, was interesting. It had been a while since anyone new had actually spoken in that chat room, since her followers were mostly just a few devoted geeks or teenagers. It was kind of sweet how tight knit her little group seemed.

The newcomer was probably another teenage girl who admired Cleo for rebelling against the system. She seemed to attract a few of those. That's how she had been as a teenager–admiring of those who went against the grain and stuck to their ideals. She had also been a huge nerd, spending most of her free time either working with computers, doing gymnastics or working out, and reading. She had read a lot about rebellion and notable people with the sort of powers she had. Cleo was too determined to make a difference to let her extraordinary gifts go to waste. At any rate, this Spades person did spark an interest with her, but they still just seemed like her usual sort of fan. She really should sleep soon if she wanted to get her eight hours. She was very big on getting the correct amount of beauty sleep and personal hygiene. Even if she had nowhere to go tomorrow.

Getting his own homepage set up was less a matter of skill and more a matter of references. Hebenus had never thought he'd be on Pinterest looking up how people used to decorate their web blogs, but here he was. They weren't sure how secure the website was though, so he turned on all of his security measures. Just enough to not be overkill or too suspicious, but still enough to throw off the trail if someone was trying to get his information. Cyber security had never really grabbed his attention like some other things, he'd glanced into it, but hadn't found that spark he had with the rest of his hobbies, so it had been dropped pretty quickly.

He briefly considered changing his shape to look like Ace as close to identical as he could get and posting it to the cosplay tag just to mess with her, but he discarded the idea for now. Maybe later. It would definitely be attention grabbing though.. He'd have to melt the disguise off with bright light, he couldn't just drop it and the thought of it made him shrink a little, his form fuzzing in his personal version of a shudder. It felt like someone was melting his entire body off with acid and he had to rebuild himself from the ground up. It was a deeply uncomfortable experience and he'd avoid it if he could.

Hebenus flipped back to the chatroom, noting that the "Jester" person was still online.

Spades: Awww :((( I was hoping I could talk with other people who'd seen her. (╥_╥) She's so cool! The whole robin-hood vibe is a-mazing!

He'd set his bait and he didn't need to wait long for it to be snapped up.

Jester: Wait, back it up buttercup. 'Other' people? You've met her?

Spades: Um. Not really? （◞‸◟）But! My older brother's said he's met her! Like, spoken to her! (๑>◡<๑) Isn't that cool! He told me allllll about it, but I'm not really supposed to tell-

Yeah- This definitely felt weird. Hebenus didn't like this at all. But he'd set this ball in motion and there was no stopping it now. He waited a moment, then posted again.

Spades: Okay it's probably fine! ✧( ु•⌄• )◞◟( •⌄• ू )✧ You seem nice. So- You didn't hear it from me, but I heard that new museum exhibit thingy has been robbed! ಠ‿ಠ And maybe, maybe, maybe, there's a playing card where the thing was. You didn't hear it from me though! Brb.

Who knew if this would actually work. He'd be slightly annoyed if he'd gone through all the effort of making an account if it didn't amount to anything. At the very least he'd found the website and could use that to keep tabs on what was happening. For now, he switched to his phone, not logging in but just keeping an eye on it. Maybe he'd go for a walk, maybe he'd actually use his shower. Hebenus hadn't used it since they'd bought the apartment, not having a physical body really was useful for stuff like that, but it might be nice to use it anyways.

Maybe pretending to be his own fake little sister online wasn't as bad as just imitating a teenage girl? No that still sounded bad. Maybe he'd go- Donate to charities or something.

Okay, maybe scratch the eight hours of sleep. This person knew that she’d robbed the museum?! How?! It wasn’t as if she posted it on social media or bragged about it anywhere. Sure, she loved attention, but she wasn’t going to ruin her own heist for it. No, this person must have some sort of intel on her. But how? That was the question. She didn’t share anything about her double life with any of her friends; she had no close inner circle to rely on. In a way, these people in the chatroom that she watched from afar were kind of like the friends she didn’t have. Oh god, how sad and pathetic was that?

At any rate, if Spades’s older brother really had met her, she had to figure who it was and how he was getting the intel to his younger sibling. She didn’t exactly interact with people one-on-one as Ace, and she certainly didn’t leak any information. Despite her love of attention and the thrill when she was caught on camera, she liked to maintain an aura of mystery. Argh! Who could have possibly gotten that information? Was Spades completely making it up? The post was kind of vague.

Still, one thing was certain. Cleo would be keeping an eye on this Spades person. They seemed like a normal fan mostly, but they also knew information no one else was privy to. Cleo supposed she would just have to be extra careful during her next heist, taking into account every single person who might be able to gleam an ounce of information from her. She was intrigued now, and she would watch this conversation play out.