The Cudgel #13 Jem Into Coal

Mark woke up the next morning completely pumped. He had just lead his team to an incredible season and victory. He and his friends are working together to bring down the crime in Arrayton. And his girlfriend was going to be coming home soon. This weekend he planned to get rid of the excess Met-A scattered across Arrayton. Mark decided to actually get out of bed and draw up the plans for today.
Mark walked out of his room and into the living room. He noticed that Nate was asleep on the couch. Mark tried to tiptoe carefully through the room toward the kitchen, but he accidentally knocked the remote control off the chair. Suddenly Nate sprung and quickly grabbed a coffee mug on the table next to him. Without really looking he chucked it at Mark's head. Mark acted fast and grabbed it in midair before it landed into his face.
"Holy crap dude. Is this how you wake up every morning?" Mark said in a state of surprise.
"I keep having to buy alarm clocks," Nate said rubbing his eyes sitting up.
"You were dead asleep and almost clocked me in the head with mug?" Mark said still trying to gather what was going on.
"Yeah. Just remember. In when I'm not paying attention, I can take you down," Nate smiled as he patted Mark on the shoulder and headed to the fridge.
Mark examined the mug and the distance Nate was away from him at point of launch and how fast it was traveling across the room.
"Do you know how fast you threw this after an immediate wake up? Mark said putting the mug on the counter.
"Um, fast?" Nate said as he poured himself a bowl of cereal.
"Yeah. I guess so. They should put that on speedometers," Mark said grabbing a map of Arrayton and laying it down on the kitchen table.
Mark grabbed a red and grey marker as Nate also pulled up a seat next to him. Mark started to square off areas in certain patterns on the map. Neither of the colors every interlaced, just became exactly adjacent. He did this for a couple of minutes until the entire map was squared out and each square had a number in it. Nate watched and nodded while he ate his cereal.
"Ok. This is the plan for tonight. You are grey and I am red. We have one goal. Destroy the Met-A. We are able to cover more ground if we split up. Scour all the alleyways for drug dealers who could have Met-A on them, or any other drug for that matter. We will go off of a point based system that Wiz will keep track of. Each time you complete a section, tell Wiz and he can cross it off as a Met-A free zone," Mark said pointing to each thing as he talked about it.
"Sounds like a plan. When do we start?" Nate asked.
"Sun set. Hero'clock," Mark smiled.
"Why not start early? We can cover more ground if we start during the day. Bad people don't come out just because it's dark. They are always out," Nate said setting his bowl down.
"We will be more exposed," Mark started.
"And that's a bad thing? Aren't we here to show criminals not to mess with us?" Nate asked.
"Yes. But most the illegal crimes happen when there aren't that many witnesses. During the day, police are everywhere. And until we get the police to understand that we are not their enemies, they think we are. We need to wait till our public persona is stronger than our punches and kicks. So we just have to trust that the police can handle all the crime during the day, as long as we know we can do that with the night," Mark said.
"Fine. But Spiderman and Superman fight during the day," Nate said twirling his spoon in the bowl.
"Yeah, and they have powers to cover their asses. We need darkness as our ally. Are you going to fix your arrows by tonight?" Mark said as he stood up and grabbed an apple.
"Um fix. I don't know what you mean. My arrows are perfect," Nate said standing directly face to face with Mark.
"I'm sorry. I was under the impression that your arrows were dangerous and deadly," Mark said not budging.
"Look stick twirler. You may not see what true harm these criminals can do, like I can. If my arrow accidentally misses a non-fatal part of the body, I'm not going to feel bad," Nate said.
"What about our talk the other day? Where killing isn't necessary?" Mark sneered.
"And then not many hours later you gave me the go ahead to end someone's life. Make up your mind."
"I was only trying to stop a terrible criminal."
"Yeah? Where do you draw the line? Why do you get the final say?"
"Because I know death. Everyone I have ever cared about has been on the opposite end of the flat line."
"Look! I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, so don't you dare try to tell he how to do mine! You don't want me as an enemy Cudg."
They stood at each other, face to face, for a good minute. Neither talking. Neither blinking. Until Ray walked out. Ray looked at them and waved his hand right between their faces to get them out of their weird trance. They both shook out of it.
"What the hell is going on with you guys?" Ray said pat them both on the back of the head. "I was having a nice dream and I get woken up by you two having a yelling match over your jobs."
"Nate is saying how it is morally ok to kill the people we go after," Mark said.
"And? See you two are different sides of the same coin. You're Marvel and you're DC. You kill and you don't. Heroes intemperate their jobs differently from each other. We are a team. We may not like each others tactics, but we have to live with what each other feels is right" Ray said passively.
"It's not like I'm going to kill someone that you have already knocked out. As long as these people are awake and trying to kill us, they will try and kill us," Nate said sitting back down.
They all sat down and relaxed.
Later that night, sunset came around.  Cudgel and Arrowhead headed out while Wiz was set up back home with the map out and the news on. Cudgel was racing over rooftops. Every alleyway he crossed, he scanned for any suspicious people that could give him what he wanted, or any leads on the matter.
"A3 cleared. 7 points," Cudgel said.
"B4 cleared. 12 points," Arrowhead said moments later.
"A1 clearer. 0 points," Cudgel said soon after.
This went on for a couple hours. Cudgel felt very proud of his group. Cleaning up the streets. And he hadn't had to use much violence. He mostly just showed himself then yelled at drug dealers to give him what he wanted, and they usually did. He kept zipping around looking for more suspicious people to aid his efforts.
His cable started to shake and he lost grip of the button for his cable and he slammed down onto a rooftop. He quickly jumped up and took a battle stance with his sticks. From behind the shadows he could see a giant sword. Holding the sword was girl with blond hair that walked towards him. He could tell she also wore glasses. When she finally walked through better light, she fully saw her face, and recognized it. It was Jem, Stephanie's younger sister.
"What the hell are you doing?" he yelled at her.
"Prison rules. Take out the biggest guy, finally get recognition," she said as she swung her sword at Cudgel.
"Why?" he said dodging it.
"I'm tired of being a nobody. I'm going to be somebody. And that somebody is the one who killed Cudgel," she said spinning back to slash again.
Cudgel blocked it by slapping his stick back at it. He jumped over next swing and disarmed her.
"What about your family?" Cudgel asked as he kicked her to the ground. "How will they feel when they see you America's Most Wanted?"
"I don't care. I ran away from home. I don't need that life anymore. I just need power," Jem said as she slides across the rooftop to grab her sword again.
She lunged her sword right at Cudgel. He parried it and ran around to the other side of her. He hit her in the back of her shoulder blade. She made a fierce spin and swiped at Cudgel. The fabric on his arm tore and he started to bleed. He swung back. She ducked and rolled underneath him. He shot a dart at her. She spin her sword and cut it in midair. He jumped backwards to try and get away while she was distracted, but she grew her sword at him. The sword whizzed through the air and cut his ankle. He fell back down to the roof.
"I don't want to hurt you," Cudgel said as he stood back up.
"Doesn't look like you could even if you tried, hero," Jem snickered.
He sprang forward and she ducked as he jumped over. She knocked the flat part of her sword against his knees. He was forced to kneel down in front of her. She took her chance and raised the sword above her head and brought it down. Quickly Cudgel crossed his sticks above his head to catch the blade before it cracked his skull. They were at a tug of war stalemate as each of them pushed hard to make the other give way. Cudgel realized there would be no end to this if he didn't do something different to change the circumstances. He position his thumbs on two different button on each stick. He pressed his left thumb first and then pepper spray shot out and got in her eyes. He then quickly pressed his right thumb and the cable shot out of it sending him backwards and out of the mess. Cudgel shot himself through multiple rooftops and got away from Jem's view.
"Villain number three just made an appearance," Cudgel said into his earpiece.
"Who is this one?" Wiz asked.
"Crazy girl with a giant sword. Oh you mean the person? Jem. Stephanie's sister," Cudgel said.
"Wait what?" Wiz asked
"We'll worry about it later. Let's finish up and then I can talk to you about this back at home," Cudgel said getting back to his dangerous game of search and destroy.

Back on the other roof Jem stumbled around grasping her eyes. Her vision started to clear up a bit, but not much better. But she did notice someone sitting on the fire escape connected to her roof. All she could see was red hair.
"Nice fight tonight. Seems like you could use some upgrades," said the man with an Irish accent.
"Who are you? Is that Rohan?" Jem said waving her arms in front of her face.
"Well, I've been going by Lasair more lately," he said as he smiled and walked toward her.
"That's you?" she said starting to blush.
"Yeah I got a grudge with the stick swinger. But wow. Tonight was great. I could see your spreach," he said getting closer to her.
"My what?" she stuttered try cover herself.
"Spreach. It's Irish for spark. It seems to flow through your entire body. Nice," he said grabbing the sword.
"Um. Ok. What were saying about upgrades?" she asked still blushing.
"Oh, you'll see," he smiled at her.