“Will only be out for a moment, love!”
And what a moment it’d be, for it was upon a uniquely clear Haven evening that the white-furred Professor Smith went for a stroll. For the all the excitement of an inline-six hammering away at 100 miles an hour, there was nothing quite so replenishing as a good long walk around the block. He fixed the brim of his flat slouch hat, snapped up his horsehead cane, and stepped out of his apartment, down the stairs, and onto those broad city streets.
In lieu of the usual gas-lamp fog, A.C.E.S. had afforded her wolves a crystal-clear view of their beloved abode, from the heights of her mirror-glass skyscrapers to the length of her endless streets. She elected to include a faint lavender aroma to the night air, one which Smith took in great, gleaming breaths as he strode along. There was only one thing that could make the evening stroll better.
“Would it kill you to change this zeffre nonsense?” he quipped idly, cane clacking along the sidewalk.
She shifted the night’s pallor between footsteps, trading the bog-standard blue for an electric violet, one which the Professor met with a deferential bow. “You’re a good lass when you want to be,” he smiled gently, though his warmth towards her didn’t last.
His mind was still wrapped around the calamity that had been occurring over the past few weeks. More muggings, more gangland scuffles; more reasons for him to don the cape, carry the sword, and spend the hours he’d prefer in research dispatching with these wanton thugs. If the Artificially Controlled Eco-System couldn’t keep her automated cops in line, and get them where she needed them, more and more chaps like him would have to take the reins.
Such wanton thugs who had escaped official justice happened to be making their way down the street. Making their right for Professor Smith.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he sighed in that sharp British tenor. The duo would be a cliché if they hadn’t a clear body count. One had a thick link of chain wrapped around his tan-furred hand, and the other was a short gray wolf with a Soviet-era peashooter. Both bore scars across their eyes and the strange, suck-in smiles most addicts had. He had met their type before; credit snatchers. Idiots who couldn’t handle Mummy’s allowance for them, so they came round snagging cards off anyone. And being a hound dressed for the aristocracies of old, the tall white Professor seemed as flush as the next guy.
The two made their approach slow at first, trying to not draw any suspicion. Smith simply paid them no mind, whistling “Rule Britannia” and casting his gaze to the synthetic trees in the street-side park. With his gaze averted, the duo made their move, sneakers shuffling along the sidewalk, drug-addled eyes thinking about their next score. The chain slid from the Indian wolf’s hand, spinning like a lasso while the gray cocked the Makarov’s hammer. They could taste the coke, the heroin, the radium on their feral lips as they went from a speed-walk into a sprint.
Right into the length of Smith’s cane.
Their heads cracked against the sidewalk, though neither split open. Standing above them, still in his ruffled white button-up, frilled cuffs, and black ensemble, was a thoroughly unamused Professor. With the hat’s brim shading his eyes, he threw on a craggy old voice, the dialect once known as Cockney, and read them the riot act. “You thought it was that easy, dincha? Thought you could mince ol’ Jack-a-boy, eh?” With a pull of the cane’s trigger, out snapped a slender, silver blade, dragged above each thug’s neck like an executioner’s pendulum.
“You ain’eva ‘eard the ol’ lad from Whitechapel, dincha? Who cut swine like you to ribbons. Well…not quite. Be glad you ain’ ladies, or else…oooooh lads, would you be in for a ride.”
The wide-eyed terror of the crooks and their chattering breath was music to the vigilante’s ears. “Tell ya what…rippa’s too good for ya. How ‘bout we let Mr. Hyde come out to play!” He raised the cane, ready to club them one, only for the crooks to vanish in a puff of dust and frantic, childish screams.
The Professor fixed his hat, the moonlight returning to his eyes, an impish smile now splitting his sharp muzzle. “Not bad for a bad-cop routine,” he chortled. “Guess this old paladin’s better than a billy club any day.”
He thumbed the brass jaw of the horsehead and continued his evening without interruption. When the Missus asked what kept him so long, he simply replied, “a bit of fancy dress m’dear.”