Work Text:
Buh dum. Buh dum.
Buh dum buh dum buh dum, duh dum buh duuuuuuum. Duh duh duh dum duh dum.
*Sick sax solo.*
Shadow Stalker, an elite vigilante Ward, the darkest knight of Brockton Bay, and professional shadow stalking stalker, hums the pink panther theme as she tracks behind her newest prey from the rooftops. Slinking between shadows and evading notice with skills honed on the dangerous streets of crime.
Despite a few misses, she's onto Taylor Hebert. So far she lost track of her out of nowhere, or got distracted by a link to a goat video Emma sent her, and there was even a time she had to back off because she swears she was almost noticed. Almost.
No one this intent on hiding is doing nothing wrong. This only reinforces the fact that Sophia knows beyond a shadow of doubt that Taylor must be up to no good.
Why else would her trained animal instincts be telling her she needs to follow the damn girl. There could be no other reason her heart palpitates at the thought of her, or why she gets so sweaty and distracted.
She's clearly dangerous enough to alert her Sophia-Sense.
Wait no.
Her Stalker-Sense. That sounds way more kickass.
Shadow Stalker misses her next step in her distraction, her foot clipping the AC unit she attempted to step on. Her tibia slams into the sharp metal corner, making Sophia curl into a ball and muffle a scream into her balled fist. Through tear filled eyes she can make out a lip on the roof protecting her from her target’s sight line. Fuck yeah, Taylor couldn't have noticed her.
She hobbles up, determined to not lose Taylor for the fourth day in a row. She pushes through the pain to climb the roof's ledge and jumps to the next roof over.
Across from the empty business she stand on is the suburbs. But to cross she would need to take the perilous journey across an unsigned four lane intersection. An inconceivable thing to the fragile minds of things like criminals and Canadians.
She waits like a cool calm hunter as her focus crosses the street and enters the crumbling American dream. She counts the seconds before she dashes across the street, she gets to eighteen before she realizes she doesn't know what she is counting to. So she decides it's been long enough.
With months of training into being the world's fastest runner, she expertly zig zags in the empty intersection to avoid people's sightlines.
Thwack!
An enemy plastic bag caught in the wind smacks her in the face just feet away from the safety of the sidewalk. She throws herself to the grown, crawling onto the curb on all fours to maintain momentum. Sophia dives into a bush.
Shadow Stalker takes a heroic vow to kill plastic and capitalism.
It takes two houses before she finds one with fake brick she can climb, elevated is the best way to stalk someone. It's like a free thinker/stranger/blaster rating. It lets her see what no one else can from ground level, and no one ever looks up. And she can also throw things at people.
The slanted ground that The Shadow That Stalks The Night is standing on shifts. Her eyes widen. Desperately Sophia pinwheels her arms to try and keep her balance. Through her vast skill and superior balance she manages to stay firmly planted on the roof tile. Unfortunately, the roof tile is not firmly planted to anything, it continues on its path. Like the world's worst snowboarder she rides a loose shingle as it slides down the sloped roof.
A conveniently placed floor is there to catch her fall. She curses her mortal enemy. Floors.
Alright, maybe Shadow Stalker decides to not follow her via the rooftops anymore.
Conveniently she can dive into a bush just feet away to hide from getting spotted. Shadow Stalker leaves the bush, making two tactical combat rolls into the alley between the two houses. Finding comfort in the abyssal shadows from which she was forged.
Actually, school just got out not that long ago so the sun is pretty far overhead.
Shadow Stalker finds comfort in the light shade.
While she might revel in the night, she is doing this a bit early as to not lose Taylor again. She hid a spare costume in her gym locker so she could immediately stalk Taylor to wherever she goes after school. She'll catch red handed doing whatever she does. If Shadow Stalker had to put money on it, she would put it all on Taylor kicking puppies or spitting on orphans.
But Taylor's good. Real good. As elusive as a snake.
Digging through her trash has told her nothing, but peeking through her window has cemented Taylor’s evilness in her heart. She has a Alexandria poster instead of a cool as hell Shadow Stalker one. Because really, Shadow Stalker is just the cooler Alexandria. She is only the normal amount upset about this.
“Ok. What the fuck are you doing." Taylor's voice cuts through the monologue.
Shadow Stalker’s heart catches in her throat.
She immediately dives into action, crawling into the nearest means of escape, a recycling bin set out on the curb. Days of training from digging up Taylor's trash has taught her much.
Through the nearly opaque plastic Sophia can see a dark silhouette against the bright blue flooding her vision. It approach her hiding spot. “Are you supposed to be hiding?"
She heroically yells back, “You can't see me. Shut up!” Sadly, that does little but hurt her own ears.
Shoot, she's been spotted.
Knowing her expertly chosen method to evade detection has failed, Shadow Stalker climbs out of the trash can and faces the threat head on.
Like a deer in headlights, or a far cooler animal if she had time to think of one, like a moose maybe, Shadow Stalker is frozen under the gaze she receives. Taylor is looking at her.
Her breath catches in her throat, her heart explodes into lightning fast rhythm; showing that her Stalker-Sense is on high alert. She barely has enough will to move her own feet to backpedal to safety, nearly tripping over the street curb in the process.
Taylor continues, "It's not even night. Your getup makes you stand out like a sore thumb."
"Your getup makes you look- uh,” all black, cool leather jacket, she looks badass… Oh! And villainous! That too. Clearly the focus here. ”Shut up!"
Taylor starts following her down the side yard. Easily avoiding the brown bins not yet set for the street, something Sophia failed to do. Their contents now spill onto the ground.
Just steps away from salvation, Sophia gasps in shock. Shadow Stalker is under attack! There is no other explanation to her left leg being suddenly thrown out from under her. Not even that old banana peel that is flung into the air. Despite thousands of hours of practice in falling, she fails to catch herself.
Fate in sealed, death is inevitable, her badass life flashes before her eyes.
Goodbye world.
...
... Hm?
Ever so slowly, Sophia opens her clenched eyes. Instead of crashing into her mortal enemy, the floor, Sophia is caught by the beefy strong arms of Taylor. “Uhhhhhhhh.”
Taylor huffs, amused at Shadow Stalkers near death experience. The light catches her glasses in a way that made them evilly shine like a sick anime villain when she looks down at her. “Wow, you're kind of pathetic.”
“Uuuuuuhhhhhhh.” In the spinning hamster wheel that is the remainder of her brain, Sophia can hear her voice raise higher and higher. Her voice begins to squeak in a very unhunterlike manner.
With hands too sweaty to be cool, Shadow Stalker pushes Taylor in the face to escape her evil grasp, even the super strong and cool Shadow Stalker can admit she's outmatched. This a tactical retreat. She needs to live to Stalk another day. “I’ll catch you another day, you- you- villain!”
Shadow Stalker tries and fails to climb the fence, before remembering she has powers and phasing through the wood. She rests on the other side of the fence, catching her breath and listening to Taylor evilly laugh in a way that makes her heart skip a beat.
Day four of Operation: Stalk Taylor, is a failure. But she knows she'll get her tomorrow.