StarFall: Silver Arrow #5: Betrayal

[Phantasm]

StarFall Comics
A Division of Pullemouttayerhat Productions
A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of StarFall Innovations
Proudly Presents

SILVER ARROW
#5: Betrayal

Cover: Silver Arrow impaled on the blade of a polearm held by a young
Asian woman dressed in a sleeveless white miniskirted battle dress,
black elbow-length gloves, black fishnets and heels, a white domino
mask, and a flowing black sash around her waist.  Across the bottom of
the cover are the words, "White Crane Strikes to Kill!"

  Los Angeles has a lot of run-down neighborhoods, places where trash
lines the streets, the homeless beg for handouts, and gang tags
decorate the boarded up doors and windows of abandoned and condemned
three- to six-story brick buildings that look ready to fall apart in
the next minor quake.  And no one ever seems to do anything about
those buildings.
  Simple fact is, most of these buildings are owned by those who
prefer to *keep* these buildings in such a state, paying off those in
city offices to look the other way for as long as possible.  Abandoned
buildings, while providing shelter to the homeless, are the perfect
place for criminals, especially organized crime, to hide their drug
labs.
  Silver Arrow thought about all this as he observed such a building
from a rooftop across the street.  For two hours, he'd been watching
as people went in and out through a door which opened into the
alleyway behind the building.  So far, he'd identified three of Sun
Li's dealers going in, but only workers coming out.
  All this added to the tip Jade had given him.  Even if this wasn't
the secret Sizzle storehouse, it was a drug lab.
  Taking aim with his bow, he fired an arrow across the street.  The
arrow flew through the air, planting itself firmly over a second-floor
window; a cord trailing behind it stiffened as he pulled back on it,
then tied the other end to an open pipe.  Taking a deep breath and
strapping his bow across his back, he pulled out a handle from one of
his pouches and leapt. The handle caught the cord, and he flew across
the street.

  Inside the drug lab, the workers were hard at work refining the
drugs.  Cases marked with different color bars on them sat off to one
side.  Guards stood at the rear door with sub-machine guns at the
ready.  All in all, about twenty people were present.
  In through one of the windows above the crates crashed Silver
Arrow.  He let go of the handle and landed on the floor, landing in a
crouch.
  "You're all under arrest," he said as he stood up.
  Gunfire erupted from the guards, but Silver Arrow was nowhere near
where they fired.  Fortunately, the guards didn't connect with him, or
with the workers as they all dove for cover or raced to one side of
the building or the other to avoid getting shot.
  Arrow dove and rolled to the right, drawing his bow at the same
time.  He fired off a pair of arrows in rapid succession, which
knocked the guns from the thugs' hands.
  "Might as well give up," he told them.  "Police will be here in five
minutes."
  "More than enough time to kill you, hero!" came a feminine voice
from above them.  With that, White Crane dropped from the rafters and
landed between him and the guards.  She wielded a wide-bladed polearm,
which in a flurry she sliced at Arrow's bow.  She caught it in the
middle, right above his hand, slicing it in two.  With a flourish, she
ended with the blade behind her.
  "Nice naginata," he told her, dropping the pieces of the bow.
  "Pudao," she corrected him.
  "Same to you."
  "*Pudao*!" she hissed.  "It's a Chinese pudao, not a Jap knockoff!"
She brought the blade in front of her.  "And you're weaponless.
This'll be too easy."

  Fran stepped out of the bathroom of her low-rent studio apartment,
wrapping a towel around her, to answer her cell phone which sat
ringing incessantly on the kitchenette counter.
  "Doorway Deliveries," she said in greeting, rubbing her hair dry
with another towel as she talked.  "Yes, Mr. Sakamoto, you heard
right. Instant delivery within ten miles, within fifteen minutes out
to a hundred miles.  Yes, I can meet you in your office.  Tomorrow at
nine, Two California Plaza, suite 3220?  I'll be there.  Good day."
  As she sat the phone back down on the counter, she felt herself
getting slowed down.  She stumbled slightly, as the door to the
apartment seemed to fly open.
  "Hi, sis," she heard from that direction.
  "No," she muttered.  She lifted the phone, but even raising her hand
seemed to take forever.  She hit a button on the side, and started
pressing it in a rapid pattern. *beep beep beep* *beep*beep*beep*
*beep beep beep*
  "I'm afraid you're going to miss that appointment tomorrow,"
Franklin St. Claire stated, walking into the apartment, closing the
door behind him.  He seemed to be moving quickly, but Fran knew
better: he was moving normally; he'd slowed *her* down.  Moving far
quicker than she could think, he crossed the distance between them,
and lifted the phone out of her hand.  Glancing at its display, he
smiled.  "As always, sis, one step ahead. Just who I wanted to meet."

  Silver Arrow heard the buzzing of Fran's SOS in his bluetooth
headset, but couldn't respond at the moment, then frowned as it went
stopped.  At the moment, though, he had more pressing business to
attend to, as he avoided his assailant's thrusts and swings.
Fortunately for him, her pudao - a weapon better known in the West as
a Chinese Horse-Cutter - left openings every time she swung, thanks to
the oversized curved chopping blade.
  Taking advantage of a brief opening, he stepped forward grabbed it
with both hands.  For a brief moment, they fought together for control
over the pudao's pole; she proved stronger than she looked, as she
held on tight as they fought over it.
  "If we're going to fight like this, pretty lady," he asked her,
"mind telling me who you are?  I didn't think the Tong went in for
hiring our kind."
  "White Crane," she answered.  "And no, they didn't hire me.  I'm
doing this for the bounty they have on you."
  "How much am I worth?" he asked.
  "What?"  In that moment of hesitation, he tore the polearm from her
hands and backed away quickly.  Slamming it against the concrete
floor, he snapped off the blade before spinning the pole expertly.
  "How much am I worth to you?" he repeated, dropping into a defensive
crouch.  "Surely you can tell me that."
  "Twenty thousand," she told him.  "But then, I believe you already
knew that.  Didn't Hugh? ... And don't call me Shirley."
  He tensed at this.  She'd said, "didn't you," but he could have
sworn there was a bit of extra breath at the start of the first word.
Subtle, but there.
  He didn't get an opportunity to answer, as she pulled out a pair of
butterfly swords and attacked him.  He barely managed to fend off the
blows with the pole from the horse-cutter.
  'This isn't good,' he thought to himself.  'She knows who I am.  She
looks familiar.'  Then a thought occurred to him,  'Jade?  Can't be.
Can it?  She wouldn't.  Not like this.'
  White Crane smiled, looking very much like a predatory cat.  "Figure
it out, hero?  Too bad you won't live long enough to tell anyone."

  As Robert Knight entered the office, he noticed an air of tension
that had not been there before.
  "Good morning, Rob."
  "Morning, Jim."  He paused, reading his friend's face.  "What's
wrong? Everyone seems tense."
  "Tabitha's back from her vacation." came the reply as they walked
around numerous cubicles.
  "That's good news."
  "And she's . . . different."
  "Cosmetic surgery will do that," Robert admitted.
  Turning a corner, they were greeted by an attractive young woman
dressed in a business casual camisole, blazer, and skirt combination,
but the ensemble wasn't what grabbed their attention.  Large cat-like
ears sat atop her head, and she had large, almond-shaped, vertically
slitted green eyes.  A light coat of silver-gray fur covered her arms,
legs, and neck; and a long tail in the same color fur swished from
side to side from under the skirt.  To top this off, her fingers ended
in sharp, claw-like fingernails.
  "Good morning, Mr. Knight, Mr. McBride," she said in greeting.
"Coffee?"
  Robert blinked for a moment; the changes were not what he
expected .  "I would love a cup, Tabitha," he answered, "thank you.
Bring it to my office?"
  "Of course, sir."  Her voice trembled nervously as she replied to
him.

  Robyn Holworth, the Sentinel, strode into the Oval Office.  As the
Sentinel, she wore a suit made of an advanced, experimental
lightweight body armor designed to be proofed against conventional
small arms.  Although it was armor, it looked and felt a lot like
conventional synthetic stretch fabrics, but would harden upon impact,
spreading the energy of the blow away from the impact spot.  The suit
was colored blue, with red gloves, boots, and belt, with the US
warplane logo on the chest.  Originally, the suit had been a full-face
cowl, but after a recent battle she had redesigned it to be a half-
mask that let her breathe easier and her shoulder-length brown hair
flow free.
  "You wanted to see me, sir?"
  "Yes I do."  The President of the United States turned to lift the
stopper off a half-filled carafe.  "Care for some?"
  "No thanks, sir."  The President shrugged, and poured himself a
glass, then sat at his desk.
  "Have a seat," he told her, motioning her to a chair.  "Are you
aware of an organization calling itself Wild Force?"
  "Wild Force?"  Sentinel thought for a moment.  "Yes, sir.  Super-
powered eco-terrorists.  They blame the government for everything from
global warming and the hole in the ozone layer to the price of
coffee."
  He handed her a folder.  "Two of them - calling themselves Frostbite
and Venus Flytrap - were arrested in Los Angeles recently.  They're
going to be transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Nevada shortly,
and I want you in L.A. overseeing things."
  "Sir, if I may ask, why the concern?"
  "There is no real concern, Sentinel," he replied calmly.  "But as
you were briefed when you took the position, the role of the Sentinel
includes public relations.  By having you there overseeing things..."
  "You show you're being tough on super-crime," she finished.
"Understood, sir."  'I understand that you're just a politician hoping
to keep Congress on your side following the mid-term elections,' she
thought to herself.
  "And another thing."
  "Yes, sir?"
  "Don't get the local showboater out there involved."  He handed her
another folder.  "He goes by the moniker 'Silver Arrow'.  Everything
we have on him is in that file.
  "Dismissed."

  As Silver Arrow and White Crane faced off, each sizing up the other
looking for a potential opening to end the fight, the wail of sirens
approaching grabbed their attention.
  "Your five minutes are up, Crane," he told her, as he swung the pole
at her.  She easily jumped over it, but the swing burst open a bag of
white powder which hung behind her, creating a cloud of white dust.
She leapt straight up, catching herself on a slack cable and using
that to vault upwards onto a nearby beam.
  "Another time, then," she taunted, running across the beam and out
an upper window.
  As the police burst in, guns drawn, Silver Arrow sneezed from the
powder.  His eyes watered as he breathed in immediately afterwards.
"Sizzle," he read on the bag's label.
  Then all his senses kaleidescoped, and he collapsed.

NEXT: Silver Arrow is in the hospital incapacitated from getting hit
with Sizzle, Doorway is still in danger from her twin brother's
assault, and Jade has gone native in the Tong.  Things can't get
worse.  But then, someone *always* says that right before they do.