655. Chapter 655

After Heroes and Villains

Episode 4.02

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I wrote this as my alter ego, Super I Don't Own Castle. Rating: K+ Time: See above.

"Heat! Get in here!" The shrill voice screamed.

Nikki Heat, ace crime reporter for the Lamestream Daily News jumped up from her desk and ran to the office of the paper's editor, Vickie "Swinging" Gates. She slid to a stop in front of her desk and genuflected. "Yes, Your Supreme Editorness?"

"Have you seen the news today?" Barked Gates.

"I read the news today, oh boy. I read our paper every day. Usually twice." Nikki said, unsure of what this was about.

"That out of town evildoer Crimson Red hijacked a shipment of drugs from our hometown evildoers, the Crossed Caduceus Motorcycle Club, and all we have is a regurgitation of the police report!" Shrieked Gates, beginning to froth at the mouth. "My paper should have photos, an interview with Crimson Red and an in depth analysis of the CCMC!" Gates looked off into space. "I see a human interest story as well. A little girl who's had her favorite teddy bear destroyed when Crimson Red ran over it with his motorcycle. We'll start a fund for little girls who've had their favorite toys destroyed by this Red Menace! We'll show everyone that we have a heart or I'll rip yours out. Understand?"

Gates narrowed her eyes. "You're my ace crime reporter, Heat. Get out there and find Crimson Red before the competition does."

"The competition, Your Supreme Editorness? You mean the police or the CCMC?"

"Neither!" Gates growled. "I mean those idiots on their computers and their bogs. In my day you had to get a journalism degree and pay your dues by writing stories about some idiot who lost her damned teddy bear and then spend hours drinking and smoking with colleagues you secretly hated." Gates smiled, something many thought foretold the apocalypse. "Those were the good old days. Now any idiot with an internet connection thinks they're Woodstein and Bernwood."

Nikki decided to take a risk and correct Gates. "Um, Your Supreme Editorness, that's Woodward and Bernstein and it's a blog, not a bog."

"Get out!" Bellowed Gates, who went back to listening to You Can't Hurry Love once Nikki was gone.

Nikki went back for her purse to go off to try to find Crimson Red.

"Where is the Wicked Witch sending you off to?" Asked ace sports columnist Miguel Ochoa.

"I have to get an interview with Crimson Red. You want to tag along?"

Ochoa shook his head. "Get an interview with criminal super villain? No thanks, besides, I'm writing a column on letting Shoeless Joe Jackson into the Baseball Hall of Fame."

"Can't he buy a ticket like everyone else?" Nikki asked, straightfaced.

"Depends. Who's on first?"

"What?" Nikki replied.

"Can you two stop that? Some of us are writing about serious things." Said Lauren Parry, ace theater critic for the paper. "I'm trying to write my review of Hamilton. They just ruined it by casting Lord Perlmutter in the lead role."

"But he's the finest Shakespearean actor of his generation." Nikki said, horrified that Lord Sydney Perlmutter would be criticized by her friend, Lauren.

"The man is no Biggie Slim." Lauren said haughtily.

"By the way, "Spoke up Sean Raley, ace restaurant critic for the Lamestream Daily News. "It's your turn to take Schlemming out for his walk. I have the plastic bag and the pooper scooper for you."

"It can't be my turn again!" Nikki groaned. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to have to take him out to….do his business?"

"We can't teach him to use the bathroom and he gets frightened when he's in the cubicle and starts crying for his mommy." Ochoa said. "Besides, he hasn't shaved or cut his hair in years."

"Or bathed, brushed his teeth or changed his clothes." Nikki said, checking out her gas mask.

"It just makes him look like some exotic pet. Exotic pets are everywhere since that problem with the Umbrella Corporation over in Raccoon City."

Feeling embarrassed that a highly trained reporter such as herself should have to walk Schlemming, Nikki quickly took him to the nearest park and tied his leash to a park bench, being certain the bench was set in concrete. "Stay here, Schlemming. I'll be back in a few months or so for you."

Not being able to reach Nikki's leg, he started to hump the leg of the park bench. Luckily, the bench was one of the few things dumber than Schlemming and allowed the liberty.

Nikki headed for the 666th precinct and the love of her life, Detective Jameson Rook, ace homicide detective for the NYPD.

"Buy a girl lunch, Rook?" She asked, walking into the bullpen.

Rook shook his head sadly. "Can't. Captain Punt, our exchange officer from Scotland Yard, has told us we have to solve this Crimson Red thing. No time off until we do." However, Rook smiled at Nikki. "I can get you lunch from the break room though."

Unlike most police break rooms, this one had mood lighting, linen tablecloths, a string quartet playing background music and an obsequious maître d'. "Detective Rook, Ms. Heat. Your usual table?"

"Of course, Henri." Rook said, slipping the man a twenty.

No one besides Nikki knew that Rook was able to provide all of this for the precinct because he moonlighted as a writer of bodice rippers under the nom de plume Lola Black. Oddly enough, Nikki also wrote bodice rippers under the pen name, Pilot Officer Percy Prune.

"There's one thing I don't understand." Rook said after sending the sommelier away to get a better vintage of Sancerre. "Crimson Red has been stealing drugs for months now from other gangs, but the flow of drugs is drying up. Why isn't he selling them?"

Nikki remembered her economics course at NYU taught by sweet old professor Cesar Calderon. "Perhaps he intends to flood the market once he has enough drugs and drive the other drug gangs out of business. The law of supply and demand. Supply goes up, price goes down. Since he doesn't pay for the drugs, he can sell for next to nothing. Then, when he has a monopoly, he jacks the prices up sky high."

Rook scratched his ruggedly handsome jaw. "You may be onto something, Nikki."

"So, shall we meet at your loft tonight? I got some more orange marmalade. You can be Paddington and I'll be the evil Millicent Clyde and you can punish me." Nikki leaned over to show a bit of cleavage.

Ignoring the steam coming out of his ears, Rook sadly declined. "I'll be working all night. I'll have to grab some shut eye on the couch in the interview room."

Sadly, Nikki left the 666th precinct to continue her quest for the elusive Crimson Red.

Later that night, in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town a figure dressed all in skin tight scarlet silently slipped from one pool of shadow to the next in search of the evildoer she knew must be nearby.

"Don't move. NYPD." Said a stern, male voice. "Now I have you Crimson Red."

Crimson Red turned to face her captor. "So, Detective Rook. We meet at last. Do you really intend to shoot me if I don't surrender?" Said a low, sultry voice.

He lowered his weapon. "No, Nikki. You know I'd never harm you."

"Nikki?" Crimson Red said in desperation. "You have me confused with some other superhero."

Rook shook his head slowly and walked to her. "No, I'd know that perfect ass anywhere, even covered in skintight crimson."

"It's scarlet, dammit!" Nikki said. "You'd think they could at least get the color right."

Rook pulled off her mask. "I brought you a change of clothing. Now change and go home. I have work to do."

"How did you figure out it was me?" Nikki asked.

"I know your back story. Your mother and drugs. That's how she died, isn't it?"

Nikki nodded slowly as a tear ran down her flawless cheek. (Not that cheek.) She remembered her mother and that horrible night. "She wanted Dad to take a daily baby aspirin for his heart, but Dad hated pills. She decided to show him how safe they were by demonstrating to him by taking a pill herself. But she forgot to take it out of the bottle and chugged the whole thing. It had been on sale at Costco for only $39.99, the super, giant economy sized bottle. Ever since I've hated any kind of drugs."

Rook held Nikki and comforted her, surreptitiously copping a feel.

"Wait!" Nikki said. "If you've caught me, why do you still have work to do? Is it the marmalade? Do you secretly hate orange marmalade? I can change, Rook. I really can."

"I love orange marmalade, as I love you. Especially when I spread it all over your magnificent and very hot body." Rook slid the zipper on the front of her costume down and undid her bra.

Just as things were getting interesting, Nikki and Rook were interrupted. How many times has that happened? Too many to count, right?

A figure dressed in scarlet walked into the abandoned warehouse and headed for a truck that was loaded with illegal drugs.

"Stop right there! NYPD!" Commanded Rook.

The scarlet figure stopped and turned around. "You're not going to shoot me are you?"

Recognizing the voice, Rook holstered his weapon and advanced on the scarlet clad stranger. "Meredith?" He gasped, pulling off her mask. "My former girlfriend in the sixth grade? The one who let me get to first base?"

"No." Said Nikki, pulling off the Meredith mask. "It's Spawn! Eric Spawn. Now we know how you got your billions, Spawn."

Rook smiled, suddenly realizing the truth. "No." He said pulling off the Spawn mask to reveal….

"Doc Boy!" Cried Nikki. "The head of the Crossed Caduceus Motorcycle Gang? Why would you steal your own drugs?"

"To cut his gang out of the profits when he sold them." Rook concluded.

"Supply and demand." Nikki said softly.

"When you have the supply, you can demand anything." Confirmed Doc Boy, laughing maniacally and twirling his cape around. Do not try laughing maniacally or cape twirling at home, boys and girls. Doc Boy is a highly trained professional villain.

And so Nikki got her interview, a photo of Doc Boy being arrested by the ruggedly handsome Detective Jameson Rook, and she even found a human interest story. A little girl had found a wonderful exotic pet in the park, chained to a bench.

However, everyone wondered the next day why Nikki smelled so strongly of oranges.

Author's note: Hi, Tamara. You know you don't have to review as a guest. And yes, some of my guest reviews are from trolls, but I have gotten some very kind reviews from guests. As for Big Kahuna, I think he honestly thinks that Beckett has just been too nasty to Rick and that he should move on. Care to comment, BK?