Chapter Text
It had taken five minutes for Ayda to get to the police station from the council building, even counting the time for her to change into costume. If this was a kidnapping, that could be five minutes too long. The Hammer couldn’t let anyone be trapped in the hands of a villain even a moment longer than necessary. When Ayda had created her alter ego and chosen to devote herself to heroics, she’d sworn that she’d never let anyone innocent be hurt by the actions of a villain.
“Troublemaker’s kidnapped a child,” Chief Indah said, nearly the moment she touched down. “Amena Mensah, daughter of Dr. Mensah, the city councilmember. They reportedly grabbed her after lunch and took off north.”
Ayda let out her breath, making it sound like a hiss. “Troublemaker. This is not the first time they’ve targeted the Mensah family. Do we have any leads on that?”
“Dr. Mensah is a noted proponent of laws that regulate superpower use,” Indah said. “Troublemaker has been very loudly against the same laws.”
Oh, Ayda was well aware of what laws she wanted passed in her council position. She was also well aware that the Hammer wasn’t supposed to know the Mensah family. “I’ll handle it, chief. If they took her north, there’s very few places they can hide. No need to call in the team.”
At least she’d been the first to respond. Amena was a good kid, but she didn’t want to leave Amena to whichever of her teammates got there first, not after last time. No, Ayda knew exactly where to go.
She flew north, seeking Troublemaker and Amena. A few minutes after she took off, she was there; Amena’s tracker pinged as being in an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the city.
She touched down silently and flexed her biceps to make sure she was ready. Then she punched the warehouse door in and stepped through the resulting hole. (Thank you, super strength.)
Amena was tied up in a chair in the middle of the floor, reading a book. Troublemaker stood next to her, making the usual set of stereotypical supervillain comments.
Ayda cleared her throat.
In the blink of an eye, there were three people in the villain’s distinct costume (a green and yellow jester’s outfit with bells on the cap) standing there around Amena. They all turned towards Ayda.
“Let her go, Tano,” Ayda sighed.
“Hi, Second Mom,” Amena said. Ayda considered — Amena didn’t sound the least bit repentant. Well, she could handle that later.
Tano smiled extremely sheepishly and reformed into a single person. “Hello, love. I apologize for making you leave work early for this.”
“I’m not amused, no,” Ayda said. “Doesn’t she have class?”
“I have a chem test, why do you think I– Parent kidnapped me?” Amena looked up. “Wait, no, pretend–”
Aha. Guilty as charged.
“I very much did hear your slip, Amena,” Ayda warned. “And don’t think this behavior can stand.”
“She really can’t stand her teacher, you know this,” Tano said.
“I do, love,” Ayda said. “Yet despite our agreement, school is–”
“I know, Ayda love. That chemistry teacher, however…”
Tano had a point. Amena’s chemistry teacher wasn’t particularly kind to any student, but especially not to Amena, who seemed to be his particular target for the year. As concerned parents, they’d all complained to the school. But nothing had changed, including the fact that there was only one AP chemistry teacher and Amena was determined to take chemistry.
“Yes, but now Amena has to make up her test alone with him. I hope you planned for that?”
“We did, actually. Madame Magic attacked the park just a few minutes ago and, completely accidentally, hit a power line with vines. The whole school is closing for the day.”
Ayda sighed. So Farai was in on this too.
“Mom,” Amena said, sounding worried, “this was spur of the moment, I promise. I asked Parent to pick me up early and they got First Mom to help cause she was home. I swear, it wasn’t–”
Ayda cut her off. “Amena, dearest, I see what you were doing, and I don’t disapprove.” At Amena’s smile, she held up a hand and continued. “I don’t approve, either. I think there were other ways to deal with it that didn’t involve distracting anyone from their workday. That’s my objection. If you wanted out, take a different tactic next time.”
Amena sighed. “Sorry, Mom.”
From experience, Ayda knew that was the best she was going to get. She helped Amena out of the chair and hugged Tano, whispering as she did, “Is the chemistry situation getting worse?”
They nodded. “I think so. She mentioned on the way that she just couldn’t stand it any more.”
“There’s only a month or so until her AP exam. Should we go talk to the school again?”
“Nothing’s changed since the last time we did. I even submitted her recordings to the last one — oh, don’t worry like that, Ayda, it was just the audio portion. It sounded like it was from her phone.”
(Amena had ended up with a different power set from her parents; she had always had a good memory, but that went along with the power to play back audio and visual recordings of anything she’d experienced as well as the power to mimic the voices and faces of people she’d met. With powers like that, it was no wonder that she’d choose to call herself Mimic, though she was still debating how she felt about the law.)
Ayda smiled into Tano’s shoulder. “Fine enough, then.”
“We really ought to do something else about it soon, it’s becoming unmanageable,” Tano said.
“Oh, very well. We can talk about that tonight?”
Tano nodded and broke the hug. “How long until you’re expected back?”
“I made it very clear I was leaving because my daughter was kidnapped, again, mind you, and I needed to be home when she was rescued. So I think I have the rest of the day as soon as I let Indah and the team know Amena’s safe.”
“I’ll take her home if you want to make your call-in now. And tonight I think Troublemaker should make a visit to her teacher. Tell him that if a supervillain can tell what he’s doing to these children’s self esteem is wrong, something needs to change or he’ll find himself the next target — not like I’d do anything unprovoked, obviously! Just scaring him.”
That sounded like a good plan. Ayda turned her team communicator on. “The hostage is safe, repeat, the hostage is safe. Troublemaker escaped at the last moment, but I had the girl safely away before then. I’ll take her home.” Chief Indah was her next call, with exactly the same information.
Then Ayda shut off the communicator and headed home with her family.