2013.03.13 - Just Like Santa

Evening finds Jeremy outside his usual haunts, and walking through Soho. It's nearing sunset, and a lot of the shops are closing...and the young street kid appears to have been at one of the shops, surprisingly enough. If you know him, anyway. He's carrying a bag with the label of one of the smaller artsy stores from the area, and as he walks along, he's doing a bit of window shopping.

But the peaceful atmosphere isn't to last, unfortunately, as a small group of lowlifes has invaded the area and set about hitting on and generally menacing a couple high school girls who've clearly been on quite a shopping day, judging from the bags.

"Come on, sweet thing, let me carry your bags and we'll go someplace nice," one of the guys says, resting a hand on the wall next to one girl's head after he's gotten her backed up against it.

"I don't...I need to be going..." the girl tries, with a nervous smile.

"Oh, don't worry, babe--I'll show you a nice time and be a perfect gentleman, promise." He leans closer, smiling.

"Hey!" The shout makes the whole group of lowlifes turn, and Jeremy cringes a bit at the sight of all of them. "Sh-She said no, so leave her alone!"

"Or?" the lead thug says, walking over to the kid.

"Or?" Jeremy repeats, looking nervous...he swallows hard, sets the bag down carefully, and takes a fighting stance. Karate. "Or...or I'll stop you! Okay? S-So let them go!"

A gust of wind whooshes past, a trail of bits of litter and such skittering about. Then, a second later, it blasts by again. Finally, a third time, the blur stops still in its tracks, revealing Impulse standing there with a milkshake in hand, sucking idly on the straw. With a slight "pop," he takes the straw from his mouth, saying, "Hey. What's going on? Don't tell me these guys are more purse snatchers!"

The group of thugs clearly loses a little confidence when one of the costumed set appears...especially in such a flashy way. Jeremy jumps a little at the appearance as well, looking towards Impulse nervously. "Um, um, no...they're, um...they're botherin' these girls..." "I'm asking her for a date, kid. That's all." The lead thug looks over at Impulse, smiling and holding up his hands. "We ain't causing any trouble, buddy. This kid's just getting all worked up over nothing." He looks over at the girls. "Ain't that right, babes?"

The girls tremble a little, and hesitate to answer, looking between all the other people. Sure, the superhero guy is really fast, but there's more of the thugs, and they're all bigger. Fear doesn't make it easy to think clearly.

Zwip! And Impulse is suddenly standing beside the punk who was talking, poking him in the chest idly with the straw from his milkshake. "I don't think she likes you very much. She looks SCARED. Girls don't like to be scared on dates. Unless it's a horror movie. But you just seem like a JERK."

"Shut it and back off," the punk says, reaching out to try to push Impulse back. "None of your business. Don't you have, I don't know, bank robbers to stop? It's just a bit of fun."

"It is not!" Jeremy says, marching up to try to stand by Impulse, only for one of the other thugs to step in his path. "Get out of my way, mister," he says, looking up at the much bigger man, then trying to lean around him to see Impulse. "They were going to do something bad, I'm sure! I..." And then he's lifted off his feet as the thug in front of him grabs him by the shirt and pulls him up. The two other hench-thugs walk up behind Impulse, and the leader smiles at him. "Okay, how about this...you let us have our fun or my buddy there pounds the kid's face in."

Frowning now, Impulse points his straw at the leader's face and declares, "First you're bugging some girls, and now you're threatening a little kid? B-I-I-I-G mistake, bro." With a sudden motion, he begins to spin his arm in a tight circle, pointed at the thug, designed to splatter the milkshake right in his face. Without even breaking motion, Impulse drops the cup, turning in place and flipping forward in a summersault right between the two thugs who were advancing on him. All in less time than it takes to blink, he comes up in a crouch and reaches out to punch the thug holding Jeremy, aiming to strike the punk in the gut.

"Ack!" The leader gets a milkshake right in the face. At least it probably tastes good? While he's wiping milkshake out of his eyes, Impulse nails the thug holding Jeremy hard in the gut, and the guy gives an "oof" as he stumbles back, dropping Jeremy--who manages to land on his feet and avoid another embarrassing fall on his butt. The other two thugs are disoriented momentarily, but nevertheless react quickly...though not by Impulse's standards...and turn and charge Impulse, aiming to try to team-tackle him. As the thug Impulse punched starts to round on him too, Jeremy hops forward, aiming a strong sidekick for his chest. "Don't you turn away!"

Impulse leaps up to his feet, turning in a clockwise spin as he reaches his feet and becoming a tight, localized, but rather high-intensity whirlwind of disorientation. He aims right for the two thugs charging him, intending to knock them off-balance without having to actually hurt them.

The two thugs let out surprisingly wimpy wails as they encounter Impulse's whirlwind, both driven off-balance. One trips over his own feet and lands hard on the ground. The other stumbles sideways, running into a bench and actually managing to fall over it. Jeremy's kick hits the thug he's chosen to fight, but...doesn't do a whole lot. The man rounds on him, swinging a fist for his face, but a strange blue light appears...much more stably and obviously than the previous time Impulse saved him...and holds strong for the blow, which stops dead when it hits the boy.

Jeremy looks as surprised as the thug for a moment, and then bursts out laughing. "Hey, it worked!"

"Hold it!" the leader says, seeing the general butt-kicking Impulse is handing out. He has one of the girls by the arm, and is in the process of pulling a knife out of his pocket. "You let us go now or..."

Impulse is just coming out of his spin in time to notice Jeremy's power manifest, and he flashes a grin, recognizing a "super ability" when he sees it. "Hey, neat, you can--?" he starts to ask, but then the leader cops an attitude again, and Impulse sighs, rolling his eyes. Abruptly, he's once again standing in front of the leader, holding out one hand, palm up. "Okay, last chance. Give up now, and you don't have to get your butt kicked, too. Otherwise, you'll be VERY sorry."

The leader freezes in place, staring at Impulse, and hesitates.

Meanwhile, the thug fighting Jeremy tries again, landing another blow on the kid, who actually just stands there and takes it without even a reaction. Jeremy smiles, feeling a little better about this now. "It's workin'...like I thought..." he says to himself, and then grins at the thug. "Hey, mister, it feels weird, right? Like you're not hittin' anything but you're stoppin' anyway? That's...that's what I think it's supposed to feel like." He looks over and spots the girl in trouble, though, and hesistates. Impulse looks like he's got it, but...what if he doesn't? The confidence drains from Jeremy's face again, and he looks back at the thug he's fighting. "L-Look...I don't think I can beat you, and...and I don't think you can beat me, s-so why don't we just, um, call it a draw?"

The leader looks at his two fallen men, at the man making no progress against a 13-year-old, and at the costumed hero in front of him...and drops the knife back in his pocket. He can't move fast enough, and he knows it. "Fine." He lets go of the girl's arm, and she backs off fast, joining her friend a few steps away.

Impulse folds his arms across his chest, staring down the leader as though their size disparity were reversed. "Now, you're going to give me your information so these nice girls can file a police report! Or, if you wanna resist, I'm willing to kick your butt until you get the right idea." The grin that plays across Imp's face is just slightly manic, suggesting that he doesn't mind the idea.

"Wh-what?" The leader asks, looking shocked. "Oh, come on! It didn't go anywhere, I..." A long pause, and he sighs. Punishment'll be lighter if he surrenders...that's what's clearly going through his head. He digs out a driver's license and hands it over.

"You too," Jeremy says, looking up at the thug he's been fighting.

"Huh? But we had a draw!" the thug protests.

Jeremy shakes his head. "Um, yeah...with me." He points at Impulse. "He'd run you down and beat you up good, though, so I think you'd better do what he says, okay?" As that thug digs out a license and offers it to Impulse, Jeremy walks over to the other two dazed and confused thugs and goes through their pockets himself, producing another couple licenses and offering them to Impulse. "Here you go, mister Impulse. Um...thanks for helping again."

Impulse collects the licenses from Jeremy and then pops over to the two girls, offering them the cards. "Here! Go to the police and tell them them that these guys were bothering you. Maybe then they'll learn their lesson about harassing innocent people!"

The two girls just stand there for a few moments, still not at all certain how to react to all this, but finally nod and take the licenses, then turn and run off.

Jeremy, still glowing, points at the leader of the thugs. "Now, I don't ever want to hear about you doin' things like this again! If I do, I'll, um...um..." He stops glowing, and tucks his hands in his pockets, looking over at Impulse. "Um...call him."

"Kid...I'm surrendering. Doesn't mean I'm scared of him...or of you," the leader says, leaning closer as Jeremy backs up a bit, nervously. "Go home to mommy and daddy and don't stick your nose in a man's business again."

Zwip! And Impulse is there to hop up and aim a swift smack at the leader's head. "Hey, dummy! You got off EASY here. Don't screw it up. And if you're not afraid of ME, well, I'll go find Superman or Batman, and THEY can tell you." He turns to Jeremy with a visible measure of pride, adding, "Family ties rock, by the way. They're lucky gramps wasn't here."

"Ah! Okay, okay!" the leader holds up his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine, I'm terrified! Happy?"

Jeremy blinks a bit, and looks a little more comfortable again. "Um...I guess...they probably do. Thanks, mister Impulse." He looks over in the direction the girls ran off, and that nervous look starts to come back. "Um...but I-I think I'd better go, 'cause, um...I'd better go. The cops can take these guys fine, r-right?" And with that, he starts to run off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction...accidentally leaving the shopping bag he had been carrying. He ducks into an alley a short distance away.

Noticing the abandoned bag, Impulse picks it up. Then he points at the punks and says, "Just remember! We're ALWAYS watching. Like Santa." And, without a trace of irony, he vanishes, speedily retracing Jeremy's steps so he can return the forgotten bag.

The leader stands there for a few more moments, and then slumps against the wall, hanging his head. "Man...how did I get beat by someone so lame?"

Impulse being a heck of a lot faster than Jeremy...frankly, even if he wasn't a speedster...it doesn't take him long to find the kid still running through the alleys to try to put some distance between himself and impending cop arrival. As he hears the noise of Impulse's approach, Jeremy yelps and tries to run faster...not that it's going to do any good.

Impulse falls into step beside Jeremy, holding out the bag he left behind. "Hey! I don't think you have to worry too much. The police aren't going to come looking for you now. Anyway, we can keep running if you want, but you forgot your bag!"

"P-please let me..." Jeremy starts, and then blinks as Impulse holds out the bag. He slows down, then stops, going red. "O-oh. Um, um...thanks..." He reaches out, taking hold of the bag, and looks down at it, keeping his gaze solidly locked on the bag. "Um...sorry...to make you do that...I forgot."

Laughing, Impulse stops as well, giving a shrug. "Oh, it's cool! I don't mind helping. Plus, we've teamed up twice now! So do you have a codename yet? I saw you've got powers. You should get a costume and stuff so you don't have to run away." He gives a knowing wink, then raises his hands in a "no offense" kind of way, "I totally get it! You're protecting your secret identity. It's cool."

Jeremy blinks a few times, and looks back up at Impulse. "Oh...oh, no it's not like that. I'm not a superhero anym...I mean, I'm not a superhero." He looks over at the alley exit. "I-I just saw those people in trouble and I-I didn't want to let that happen, so...I'm really glad you stopped by again, though, 'cause I d-don't think I could've beaten all those guys before they hurt somebody." He stares down at the bag again. "I just...didn't want to be found by the cops 'cause...um, 'cause...I didn't."

Impulse nods along with this, looking puzzled, and then just shrugs. "Uh, okay. Well, whatever! Anyway, I think it's cool you were helping people, so I'm glad to help you, too!"

Jeremy looks a little relieved as Impulse just lets it go, and looks back up at him. "Oh...oh, right. I forgot." He digs in a pocket, and pulls out a ten, offering it to Impulse. "Um, um...the lady from last time gave me a reward, but...but you did a lot of the work, so I thought...I'd better split it with you, mister Impulse."

Impulse blinks a little, but then he laughs and shakes his head. "Oh, no! I can't accept a reward. That's nice of you, but you should keep it. It's against the rules for me." He grins and reaches over to lightly bump his fist against Jeremy's shoulder. "You're a pretty cool kid, you know?"

Jeremy frowns a little. "I-I tried sayin' that too, but she made me take it...a-and mister Gabriel said..." He gives a questioning look to the knock on his arm, and smiles a little, but still looks nervous. "Thanks, but...please. It'll make me feel lots better if you take it. Y-you can donate it somewhere or something, but...I need you to take it."

Impulse looks thoughtful, then he spreads his arms, gesturing up and down his outfit. "No pockets, um--why don't you use it to do something nice for someone, and then I'll feel like I got my share?" Grinning, Bart finds himself feeling quite proud of that idea.

Jeremy looks...disappointed, but slowly nods, tucking the bill back in his pocket. "Then...I will...and...a-and I'll tell you what I did, okay? That way...it's more like it was yours." A little pause, and he looks at Impulse with some worry. "Th-there's nothing else, right? You just came to return my bag, right?"

Impulse nods in agreement to Jeremy, and then he offers his hand, "Well, that and I just wanted to say 'hi!' and make friends. I'm Impulse, and I think you're pretty cool. I don't think I ever heard your name, though."

Jeremy looks relieved again. "Um, I'm okay being friends...then...I'm Jeremy. I, um, I think you're pretty cool too." He takes Impulse's hand, shaking it. "Um, but don't tell anyone about me, okay, mister Impulse? Please. I-I really don't want people to hear about me."

Impulse grins again, laughing as they shake hands. "I get it! Secret identity. It's cool. It's easier with a mask, but hey, everyone does things their own way!"

Jeremy shakes his head. "Um, like I said, it's not...like that." He looks off to the side, nervousness coming back. "Um, I don't k...can't tell you much, but...something bad kind of happened, and...if people heard about me...somebody might turn me in and then I'd be in foster care or something and...it'd be really bad. I think." He looks back at Impulse again. "Just...don't tell, okay?"

"I won't tell," Impulse says, still smiling in a (clearly misinformed) knowing way. "It's the CODE of the hero!" He laughs a little and then pops over to swing from a fire escape and then lands on a dumpster, turning a cartwheel. "Like I said, I get it. I'll keep your secrets!"

Jeremy smiles, breathing a sigh of relief. "Good...thanks, mister Impulse. I'm sorry for gettin' all...um..." He shakes his head. "I j-just get a little nervous around people that might know the cops and stuff, 'cause some of them might feel kind of...obligated, you know? Um, I promise if there's things you don't want other people to know about, I won't tell either, okay? Um, as long as it's not something like 'Jeremy, I'm gonna wipe out the city with a huge robot army' or something."

Impulse stares at Jeremy for a long moment, and then he throws his head back, collapsing against the alley wall with peals of laughter. As he tries to collect himself, he chokes out, "Wipe out the city? Wow! If I had a robot army, I'd have a LOT more fun than THAT!"

Jeremy blinks, and laughs a little as well at Impulse's uncontrollable reaction. "Um, so would I, I think, and I'd want to help people, not hurt them. Maybe...have them build some homes, or...or run errands for old people, or just keep bad people from hurting people...um, plus I'd probably have them fly me around or something, 'cause that'd be neat." He looks from side to side. "Um, but...I think I'd probably better get back to the shelter, 'cause people might get worried if it gets dark and I'm not back yet, okay?"

Getting a hold of himself, Impulse says, "Ah-hah, right, right. Anyway, I think I'd make them do stuff like that, too. And probably have battles." He straightens up, shaking himself off, and says, "Anyway, cool meeting you--guess I'll see you later! Bye!" And then, in the blink of an eye, he vanishes away again.

Jeremy stands there for a few moments afterwards, blinking a few times, and stares off in the direction Impulse dashed. "Um...bye, mister Impulse..." he says, quietly, and then shakes his head, turning to start walking back to the shelter. "I really really hope I never get on his bad side..." he says to himself with a sigh.