The Dancer and the Demon

London. What a shit hole. The capital city of the UK, a boiling pot of people and cultures from around the world and no matter what anyone did it always smelled like the drains had gone. Stood atop the roof of the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith district of the city, The Aerialist watched the murky Brown waters of the Thames as it flowed under Hammersmith Bridge with an expression of grim dissatisfaction on her face.

Gemma Darwin, A.K.A The Aerialist was an agent of G.O.O.N, the secret agency established with the sole purpose of defending The Commonwealth from all threats, and potential threats, that could threaten it. To do this they had found a diverse roster of super powered or specially gifted people to recruit into the organisation where they would then be dispatched to deal with threats as they came to light. Gem was one of those heroes, The Aerialist! Her powers were primarily the incredible strength she had in her legs, allowing her to leap to incredible heights with ease as well as kick with enough devastating power that she could put a hole in a challenger tank if given the space to move. This came with the ability to control gravity on herself, she couldn’t fly or even hover with this power but when falling following a leap she could control her momentum and lower herself down. These powers together made her unbelievably athletic to the point she could win fights without ever being touched and had been known to dodge bullets in the past.

And as impressive as all this sounded… it made her one of the lower ranked heroes of G.O.O.N. When compared to other like Brightblast, the crown jewel of G.O.O.N who could use the power of light from the sun and the moon to create energy blasts capable of melting through any material known to man and could put up impenetrable light screens to protect him from any attack, the ability to leap tall buildings and kick very hard seemed somewhat superfluous. Gem was what was referred to as “Street Level.” She was tasked with keeping the streets clean of common criminals and investigations into bigger crimes ready for the Golden Goons to step in and take all the glory.

Tonight, as was always the case recently, Gemma had been assigned Hammersmith as her patrol area. A small district next to Kensington and probably only not absorbed into that district because the people in Kensington didn’t want to be associated with the dirty streets and dirtier people. The only thing Hammersmith was known for was a bench which commemorated two comedians from the early 90’s who had filmed a show there which had basically been an excuse for them to hit each other weekly until one of them drunk himself to ****. Hammersmith was a hive of scum and villainy for sure with seldom a time when there was no crime to be stopped. But tonight was one of those nights. Gemma huffed and her breath rose in front of her face. It was winter, Christmas was coming, the leaves on the trees had turned brown and fallen off and the weather forecast was an endless diatribe of fear mongering about how much snow could come but never really did. Most the criminals didn’t want to be out in this weather.

Gemma looked down at her outfit and sighed again. It had not been her choice. It was brilliant white and completely form fitting, accentuating her athletic and toned figure with a bright red belt around her slender waist and a red arrow like emblem adorned the front of the outfit across her large bust. Her long sleeves came down to her wrists and were covered by her long red gloves. The top half of her face was covered with a crimson mask that covered her identity and also drew attention to her strong jawline, defined cheekbones and soft lips. Her hair was a long ponytail of golden blonde which fluttered behind her in the wind alongside the crimson cape. The cape had been an issue with The Aerialist in the beginning, she had argued with those at G.O.O.N headquarters about how it would get in the way when she was fighting, how it was a weakness but she had grown to accept it when she had seen the full outfit all together and realised that the high legs of the outfit just about covered her muscular backside and that when fighting there was far too great of a chance of her revealing a lot more arse than she was comfortable with. At least the cape covered that slightly. Finally the red boots, knee high which revealed a lot of leg between where they ended and the rest of her outfit began. The boots were reinforced with steel to protect her when kicking but the extra weight did nothing to limit her abilities. Darwin just wished they had at least kept to her original colour scheme.

As she stood examining the outfit and wondering if being a G.O.O.N hero was really worth it after the small radio headset in her ear chirped to life. G.O.O.N were calling.