2013.05.12 - Are You In Good Hands?

Who'd have ever thought cheerleading was important to Courtney Whitmore? Just two years ago, Barbara Whitmore wouldn't have. But as she sits in the stands of the University of New York's football arena, she was watching the evidence live. Cheer tryouts were being held for the 2013/14 year. Unlike high school cheer tryouts in Blue Valley, Nebraska, where just showing up garaunteed you a spot on at least the B-squad, here Courtney had to compete against dozens of A-squad girls from all over the country who were attending university here.

Or rather, they had to compete against HER, Courtney reminds herself. Even without her Cosmic Converter Belt, she was still far more agile and deft than the average gymnast. She just had to make sure she didn't forget to ~SMILE~, which wasn't all that hard considering it was probably the thing she was known most for even as a superhero: that winning smile. Every headshot that made the papers or people wanted her to sign had her big, bright, grinning mug on it.

And so it was that Courtney Whitmore was out cavorting cartwheels and somersaults to show all her competition up as she strove to make the team, being judged by the senior cheerleaders and a couple of school faculty. She'd asked her two favorite people in the whole world, her mother and Cassandra Sansmark, aka Wonder Girl, to be there for moral support. When Barbara had come to visit her daughter to see how she was settling in with her new roomie, Courtney had taken the opportunity to introduce them and the nature of her relationship to the other blonde.

Stunned at first, Barbara was quick to cope and cover whatever discomfort or shock she might feel, sitting up in the stands with a few other boyfriends and friends of the competitors who'd come to cheer their loved ones on, chatting animatedly to the younger girl about what Courtney was like as a younger girl in between calling down encouragement. At least she didn't have her baby photo albums with her.

Such a bright, bright, shiny day, Courtney reflects as she comes out of a triple-flip with her arms spread up and overhead, bouncing up on her toes and shooting a quick glance-and-grin at her mother and Cassie. "-and FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!"

Cassie likes Courtney's smile too! Those braces are adorable! Hearing about Courtney as a baby is also adorable in a different way, and so she pays enough attention to both show she is interested and to not be rude, while also paying attention to Courtney herself. Cheerleading, huh? It looks kind of fun, but she'd be more likely to be on one of the sports teams. As she claps for the other blonde, smiling broadly, Cassie nearly giggles at the mental image of her just kicking open the door to the boys' locker rooms and demanding they let her sign up to play football. Basically, any excuse to get physical and smash stuff is welcome. She relishes the challenge of using her abilities to the fullest! ...Which she probably shouldn't be doing in college football, since that would likely kill people. But maybe they have, like, javelin throwing, or rock throwing, or some other kind of throwing.--Oh, Courtney just finished a complicated-looking uber-leap! Cassie cheers for her loudly, as though the slightly-older blonde had just defeated Darkseid or something. Possibly loud enough to make people look at her weird. BUT OH WELL THEY CAN JUST SUCK IT. "Good job, Court!" Cassie calls out before finally settling down. Then she turns to Barbara and asks, "How long has she had the braces? They're just so cute, don't you think!?"

Courtney gives Cassandra a huge wave as she straightens out her jogging bra and yoga tights, resuming her position in the line of candidates, that bright smile still beaming so large it kind of looks like it might hurt to keep it up. But pep was part of the job. As the judges confer amongst themselves, most of them seem to be pleased and nodding.

"Oh, she got them when she was fifteen. She hated the very thought, but her incisors were slightly cross-set and one of her bottom canines was slipping and pushing against her bicuspid." Barbara explains. "And while I and Pat, and all of Courtney's super-friends seem to agree that they're 'adorable', she's been aching for the day she can get them off. I think it's in a couple of months, come to think of it. I'll have to check my calender, but," She smiles at the younger blonde. "You should go with her. I know she'll probably want you to be the first person to see her without them."

The next girl in line is trying out, so Barbara turns towards Cassie, her attention leaving the field since her daughter now had to wait for her next routine. She starts to say something, looking a little hesitant, but whatever she'd been about to say never leaves her mouth.

There's an ungodly screech that fills the air, like something right out of a horror movie, seeming to reverberate around the open-air arena from all directions. Something like a ferocious animal writhing in pain mixed with a... hunger, was the only way to describe it. And that's when Barbara Whitmore ceased to be seated next to her daughter's college room mate.

Inhumanly-strong raptorous claws snag her by the shoulders, and she's very quickly finds herself hurling upwards, away from the ground and all of the shocked onlookers. The thing carting Courtney's mother off like a meal to be devoured (quite possibly its actual intention) was some sort of grotesque crossing between man and bird, like a harpy gone horribly, horribly wrong. A wingspan of almost eighteen feet, a mostly-bald, pale-skinned mockery of a human head with no nose and straggly, oily hair and a mouth full of needled teeth. It arms and legs were covered in dark crimson feathers that shone almost black in the sun, but its hairless body was that of a lean, sinewy male.

"MOOOOOM!" This inhumanly-anguished screech was coming from Courtney.

"Aw." The braces coming off? Oh, well. If it makes Courtney happy, then Cassie is in full support of it. She picks up on the slight hesitance as Court's mom starts to say or ask something, but when some gazebo of a man comes swooping down and snatches her up, Cassie stands up immediately and looks around frantically as she tries to figure out what is going on exactly. "What the fuck!? Who the fuck!? Where the fuck!?" She lets out as she stares incredulously up at the amazing, Flying Scab or whoever this is. Hearing Courtney's yell, however, immediately focuses the psuedo-olympian. She has her stuff in her backpack for heroing, but she doesn't know if she has time to switch into it! Captain Nosehair looks like he might be intending to eat that poor woman! So Cassie runs up the bleachers as though they are no more than stairs, using her athletic ability to reach the top one in record time and LEAP into the air, attempting to tackle or at least grab hold of the jerk! She lets out a ferocious battle cry of, "RAR!" in the process. Maybe she can at least distract him enough for Court to grab her Cosmic Rod and come back. Or maybe Cassie will just fall and break both her legs. It could really go either way, but if she manages to get any sort of hold on BIIIIIRDMAN, he will likely discover this added burden is significantly stronger than she appears and she is difficult to get rid of! No one steals her girlfriend's mom while SHE'S around!

Secret identity? What secret identity!? Courtney immediately runs for the bleachers, her eyes wide and her heart pounding with fear. She wanted to change into Stargirl here and now, secret identity be damned. She wanted to leap into the air and fly after Harvey Birdman, to smite him with a blast and save her mom with a glowing energy disc. But she didn't have time to run all the way back to the locker room to get her staff out of her gymbag. She somersaults over the railing and into the bleachers, running full out.

When Cassandra takes a flying leap at the abductor, she manages to latch onto him about the waist, which immediately begins to send all three of them back towards the earth, their combined weight too much for him to carry! He drops his prey, Barbara, and does his best to try to shake off Cassie. But her Olympian grip is hard to shake!

Courtney runs, seeing her mom fall, the onlookers gasping and crying out in fear and sympathy. The blonde dives, her arms outstretched. She manages to intercept her mother's fall with barely feet to go, and they're both slammed into the bleachers, Barbara Whitmore landing on top of her currently-unpowered daughter. The fall had hurt, but the catch had hurt worse! And Courtney was now sure she had bruised ribs and would probably never breathe regularly again.

"M-mom!?" She manages to get out in a hoarse voice.

While Barbara is trying to make sure she hadn't just broken her daughter, Birdman squawks indignantly and begins kicking and scratching with his raptor talons at his hanger-on, trying to beat her with his wings as they circle less than fifty feet overhead in a large loop around the arena, the condor-person unable to gain altitude while trying to fight off this sudden predator that had latched onto him.

Cassie struggles mightily! She may be 50 feet up, but she is still stubborn as hell and even if a fall from this height would be bad (as far as she knows), she keeps trying to wrassle this dang ol' flying turkey into defeat! Then he drops Courtney's mom. "Shit!" she swears. When she takes her eyes off Winged Rat Man, the mascot of New York City, or whomever this jerk is, she spots Barbara below, seemingly safe, with Courtney somewhere under her. Good enough for now. Cassie then screeches out as bestially as her foe as she is clawed, dragging bleeding lines down her skin as she tries to work her way up towards his head. She stops a few times along the way, however, to soften up the bird. "Polly want a cracker!?" PUNCH! "TOO BAD, ALL I'VE GOT ON ME IS THESE FISTS!" PUNCH PUNCH TO THE RIBS! And then cliiiiimb towards the head! Maybe she can punch his beak in! Does he have a beak? Maybe that's just his nose. It's kind of hard to tell, to be honest. Oh, well. It'll all look the same when she's done. "I'mma' redecorate your face in black and blue and red all over!" PUNCH! "Why did you go after her, anyway!? Seriously, do you just have a thing for moms or something!?" PUNCH PUNCH! She's not using her full strength, because she doesn't even know she can do that, but she has those gauntlets in her backpack which is, currently on her back. So she's hitting at significantly above average-teenager force, because she is too pissed to do otherwise. Eventually, however, if she can't wrangle 'Iago' here back down to the ground she is probably going to be dislodged and dumped some distance back to earth herself. Maybe there will be some sharp rocks to break her fall or something if that's what it comes to. A real hero would probably have let go by now to find out if the abductee was injured and do some research on what this feather-toad could have been after. You know, like Batman. Detective work. Instead Cassie's thoughts are basically, .oO(If he doesn't get away, I can just punch him into spilling everything and thus bypass the need for detectiving.) It kind of makes sense. In a way.

BAM! SQUAWK! BAM! SCREECH! Each blow to the body causes the bird-thing to swoop lower and lower, doubling over in pain and anguish. By the time Cassie is clocking it in the face, it's on a collision course with the ground. It hits the football field, digging a trench into the grass and dirt with it's body as Wonder Girl rides it to the ground like a sled, punching all the way. By the time they skid to a stop, the vulture-thing has stopped moving, its wings bent at unnatural angles, and its body twitching. Judging from the rapid, rattling gasps for oxygen, it's still alive, though unconscious.

Like most avians, its bones were hollow, and therefore lightweight, so Cassie had broken quite a few of them.

The girls who hadn't rushed to Courtney and her mom, as well as the other onlookers, all rushed around the victorious blonde, cheering and telling her how amazing that was and asking how she did that and offering to take her to the nurse's clinic on campus to get a look at those claw marks.

Campus security arrives shortly, followed by the police, and then the paramedics! They cart Birdman away on a stretcher, and offer to take Cassie, as well, making her sign a waiver if she refuses. Barbara forces Courtney into the back of an ambulance with the power of mom-guilt, where she frets and worries for her daughter until she can get a moment alone with Wonder Girl.

At which point Cassandra is subjected to a crushing hug and profuse thanks, as well as a warm motherly smile. "I'm glad my daughter is in good hands."