Fighting Snakes in a Courtroom

Over the last few weeks, my time has been dedicated almost entirely to the XPlore plane stored at the old Flatrock Metals Plant. The more time I spent with the plane, the more I understood it. Like my knowledge of the Oqthcalian planetary system and their now exploded sun, Sol, I just “know” about these things. It is like new memories are coming back to me every day...
 
One night while I was working inside the plane, a janitor came into the warehouse where the plane is stored. As has been the case lately, the plane was glowing bright blue and shimmering with gold lines. But, instinctively, I willed the plane into invisibility. The janitor didn’t come too far inside, but he spent several minutes on the far side of the room, cleaning the desks and the workshop area...but he didn’t seem to notice the plane. Astonishing!
 
The plane has also continued to repair itself. There are now so few noticeable imperfections remaining...the plane must be able to fly again. And considering that the plane was once a heap of twisted metal and wires after the accident, this transformation is remarkable.
 
Almost as soon as the janitor left the room, the voice of Wildthing and Maximum Resistance again came over the DarkR Web Comms — they’d been monitoring radio frequencies and reported earlier that were able to interrupt an attempted kidnapping.
 
According to their reports, a shapeshifter had mimicked the body of a police officer in the local precinct and attempted to kidnap Judge William Osborne’s daughter, Patricia. They had thwarted the kidnapping, but the ‘officer’ returned to the station and — for some reason — began attacking the Captain and most of the police force onsite. Wildthing and Max were able to subdue the villainous threats at the Police Station, also aided by Cypher and an unidentified metahuman.
 
News reports confirmed it all later that evening: several explosions had rocked the police station and two snake-like metahumans had been arrested along with several ‘crooked’ officers who had been aiding them — only for them to escape moments later during the explosions.
 
Luckily, Wildthing was able to interrogate one of the crooked officers before the explosions happened. Among other interesting information she acquired, Wildthing relayed that the same group intended to attack the courthouse next, targeting Judge Osborne directly.
 
So the next morning, I joined Maximum Resistance at the courthouse while Wildthing was away attending to other matters. Max was outside the building while I went into the courtroom and sat in the back, waiting for ‘my turn’ to handle some business matters in the court. But soon after I sat down, the window near the front of the courtroom shattered and armed agents burst into the courtroom alongside a monstrosity of a woman who traveled like a snake, having a tail instead of legs.
 
I screamed for the civilians to run for the exits — I ran as well because I couldn’t risk revealing my identity. But as soon as I could find a bathroom, I ripped off my business-suit and transformed into “Runeforce”. From memory, I portaled back to the place where I had stood moments ago... Now, everyone was gone, except for an officer of the court who had been pummeled into the floor — he was bleeding profusely.
 
I caught a glimpse of Judge Osborne running into his private chambers, attempting to escape from the snake-like monstrosity. I shouted for him to continue running and then I captured the snake-woman with cosmic energy. But she was too strong for the swirling cords. She burst out of the cosmic energy with a single pause. All the while, agents were firing their blasters at me — but the runes in my skin were glowing as they absorbed the blasts.
 
My primary goal was to protect Judge Osborne, but I didn’t want to risk failing to incapacitate the snake-like monstrosity in the room...so I again shouted for Osborne to keep running. This time, I established a barrier of cosmic-energy around the snake-woman and between the door toward Osborne’s private chamber... She rammed into the barrier several times, unable to quickly breach it.
 
But she was too strong for it, even. As she pierced through the barrier, she turned her attention toward me, instead of her pursuit of the Judge. Her eyes were flashing like a snake and she had a devilish split-tongue. More agents were crashing into the building and an explosion began to tear into the room. Without a moment of thought, I lunged in front of the blast, covering the wounded officer on the ground.
 
I could hear the hissing of the snake-woman, as she began to slither toward me. But she stopped. I looked up to see a muscular woman with red hair fighting the snake-woman. She fought brutally with her bare fists. But the tail on which the snake-woman slithered swung around furiously and bashed the red-haired woman against the wall. She looked shaken, but was clearly able to sustain the hit.
 
Max arrived in the courtroom soon and we were able to subdue the snake-woman — but the agents fled. Still, I couldn’t risk moving the wounded police officer. I looked out the shattered window and saw several black SUVs arrive on the street outside the building. As people began stepping out of the car, they didn’t appear to be working with the armed agents who had just fled. They came over and said something ‘official’ like “We can handle it from here...” and then one of them asked me, “Who are you?”
 
I couldn’t answer. I wouldn’t answer. There was just too much risk involved in being ‘known’. With help onsite and more people beginning to ask question, I started to fly away.
 
One of the agents yelled, “At least take our business card. We need to talk soon!”