Exhibition 25-07 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

I was trying very hard not to think about the fact that I was leaving Izzy, Amber, and the others behind to fight a bunch of bad guys who were boosted by Banneret. They could handle it, right? I wasn’t going to come back later and find out that–

Fuck, stop it. Stop thinking about that. There was nothing else that we could do. The other bad guys were still after Inessa for whatever reason (and boy was I going to ask questions about that as soon as the opportunity presented itself). We couldn’t just leave her high and dry, so we’d had to split up. It was the best–only choice we’d had. 

And yet, none of those thoughts stopped me from worrying while gripping the handle on the marble-board tightly. Peyton was sending it as fast as she could across the park, toward the west exit. On the way, I did my best to distract myself by giving the others a quick rundown about what Fogwalker and Theory/Praxis’s deals were. Obviously, on the latter all I could do was say ‘try to stop them when Theory is out,’ which wasn’t much. I just felt repeated waves of confusion and trepidation about this whole thing. Why were they so intent on grabbing Inessa? This wasn’t just an ordinary kidnapping of a celebrity, was it? There were much better targets than her. As much as she might’ve been my hero, I knew she was relatively minor as far as that went. And this wasn’t just a small operation. They had at least five Touched here along with all these Prev troops. It would’ve been completely insane for all of this to just be for kidnapping one minor-to-moderate celebrity. So what the hell was actually going on? I still had no idea.

None of the others were any closer to an answer either. At least not in the brief time we had while soaring just above the trees, our eyes frantically scanning for any sign of our quarry. We were just going to have to deal with this first before finding out why it was happening. And seriously, where the hell were these guys?! They had been just ahead of us before. But obviously, Praxis was back out with another transportation power. Did that mean we were too late? Did they already have–fuck, no. That wasn’t helpful either. Just keep looking, they had to be somewhere around–

“There!” It was Calvin, the boy shifting his weight a bit as he continued gripping the handle with one hand so he could point off to the left side with the other. “Over by the tennis courts!” 

He was right. Even as my gaze snapped that way, I could see another group of those Prev thugs swarming over the courts, which were set next to one of the large restrooms. The full brick and mortar building type in this case, rather than the line of port-a-potties that had been over by the skating area. There was a sidewalk leading out of the restrooms and over to the courts, before it split off to head back deeper into the park or over the lot where several cars were parked. 

For a second, I didn’t see Theory, Praxis, or Fogwalker. Or any sign of the latter’s power. Then there was a loud bang, just as we flew far enough to see the front of the restroom. Praxis was there, having just ripped one of the apparently locked metal doors off. It crumpled in her grip before she tossed it over her shoulder and barged inside, shouting something I couldn’t make out. Fuck, fuck, was Inessa in there? Were they about to take her? 

Not on my watch. Without wasting another second, I blurted for the others to follow while hitting them with a quick spray of orange just in case. Then I dove over the side of the board, using a bit of blue at the last second to launch myself out and forward. I could see my target ahead, a skylight in the top of the building. There were two, one for each restroom. I was aiming for the one on the side Praxis had just gone into. And I wasn’t satisfied with my normal falling speed. Instead, I shot two bits of red to either side of the skylight and activated those along with red spots on my boots. Just as I started being yanked that way, I also activated a pair of long green lightning bolts along most of my legs. Between the green boost, the red yanking me that way, and my normal falling speed, I rocketed toward that building. At the last second, I canceled the red pull and tucked my arms against my chest while using an orange dumbbell symbol across my chest and a matching one taking up most of my back to make sure I didn’t go splat.

Please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die! 

Was I talking to myself or Inessa? I had no idea, but the advice was probably good for both of us.

An instant later, I hit the window and the glass shattered underneath the impact. If I hadn’t been protected by the orange paint, I would’ve been cut to ribbons. Not that it would’ve mattered, because if I didn’t have the orange paint, I would’ve died about a nanosecond later once I hit the floor of the restroom. It was cement, which cracked a bit under the force of my landing. 

I didn’t consciously take the time to look around and actively take in anything about the environment other than ‘inside a restroom with a cement floor.’ And yet, I instinctively knew the doorway was six feet ahead of me and one foot to the right, there were four stalls to my left, and a couple urinals to the right, with two sinks to the left of the doorway against the same wall as the stalls. I knew all of that without thinking about it. The information was just there in my head. 

Even as I hit the ground in a crouch (feeling a wave of pain run through my legs despite the paint), I could already see my target ahead of me. Praxis was slower than me for the moment, her gaze still raised as she had reflexively looked up at the sound of the glass shattering. She was starting to lower her head to bring me into her vision, but I was faster. A shot of red paint hit her front, while I sent another one behind me toward the wall. In the next second, she saw me, and raised her hand. But I was already diving forward and down into a roll while activating that red paint. Instantly, the woman was yanked off her feet and went flying over my body as I rolled under her. She slammed into the far wall, cursing up a storm. 

For a brief, happy moment, I thought I had a good ten seconds where the paint would hold her. But no sooner was I back on my feet, than the woman slammed both fists into that wall, punching two holes into it. She was going to rip that part of the wall apart within a couple seconds, and then it wouldn’t be able to hold her. 

Or she would have. To slow that down, I shot the woman with a blotch of yellow paint across her back. She couldn’t move as quickly, so she couldn’t punch as hard. Then I hit the wall itself with orange to protect it. There, that should hold her for–

She wasn’t there anymore. Theory was. But he wasn’t stuck to the wall, because his body hadn’t been hit with paint. Nor was he slowed down, which he demonstrated by immediately spinning toward me with a gun raised, and my green speed boost had worn off right then. Fortunately, I still had another second or two of orange time left for protection. But the thing didn’t fire bullets. Instead, I was hit by a concussive blast that sent me flying through the open doorway. In mid-flight, just as I reached the outside, I managed to activate a yellow parachute design across most of my torso and down my legs. It slowed me down enough that I could flip over in the air, sending red shots toward either side of the doorway, and yank myself back that way. As soon as I was going back the right direction, I canceled the yellow paint to get my speed back. 

Theory had turned back toward the bathroom stalls as I rocketed back into the restroom. I saw him spin back toward me, raising that gun again. But before he could do anything with it, Poise appeared, standing right on the edge of that now-shattered skylight I had gone through. She saw me, saw the man with the gun raised, then dropped down onto him, taking him to the ground under the weight of the impact. A second later, I landed on one knee next to them. 

That should have been the end of it, by all rights. Unfortunately, the second Paige brought the asshole to the floor, he vanished. Praxis was back, but she wasn’t underneath the other girl. Instead, she had reappeared about two feet back, in a standing position. Before Paige or I could react to that, the woman caught hold of both of us, one with each hand, and hurled us forward into what remained of the same wall I had red painted her to a few seconds earlier. We both hit the wall together, and I was really glad I had my helmet. Even then, I was going to be heavily bruised after all this. 

There was a loud clanging sound behind us, and I twisted my head back just in time to see Praxis rip one of the stall doors off. She glanced inside, apparently saw nothing, then pivoted to swing the whole door at the two of us. But Paige had recovered by then too, and both of us dropped to the floor, letting the thing slam into the wall just above our heads. 

By that point, Style had arrived as well. I didn’t know where the others were, but she came through the open doorway behind Praxis while she was still in mid-swing with that door and launched herself into a kick at the woman’s back. It didn’t actually do much. Strong as my doppelganger was in her biolem body, Praxis was currently an order of magnitude stronger. It did, however, draw her attention. The woman spun that way, throwing a punch that was actually quick enough to catch Sierra across the face (or rather, the visor part of the military-style tactical helmet she was wearing). Fortunately for Sierra, the other woman’s super strength had apparently worn off somewhere between the time that Sierra kicked her and when that punch landed. Because her hand just bounced off, and Praxis blurted a sharp, pained curse. 

Paige and I were both back on our feet and turned that way by then, while Sierra went to grab the woman’s arm. But even without active powers, Praxis wasn’t helpless. Her uninjured hand extended, and I caught a glimpse of some sort of silver bracelet on her wrist, just before it sent out a blast of concussive force similar to the one Theory’s gun had hit me with. But Sierra was quick enough to pivot out of the way, so the blast went over her head and took out a chunk of the door frame behind her.

Paige and I both moved to grab the woman’s arms, even as Sierra continued her pivot and came back around to kick her in the stomach. But all of us missed. Primarily because the woman wasn’t there anymore. She was gone and Theory was back. Like before, he didn’t appear in the same spot Praxis had been in, which I hadn’t even known was an option until a few moments earlier, and still felt like cheating. Either way, the man popped into view a bit to Sierra’s left, and already had his gun raised that way. But before he could pull the trigger, Paige had already recovered from missing her attempt to catch Praxis’s arm and instead lashed out with a kick. Her foot hit his wrist, sending his aim off to pulverize one of the other stalls. 

And then I saw her. Inessa was there, crouched in a corner of that now-demolished stall. She had barely avoided having her head taken off by that blast. Theory saw her too and started to turn that way, but both Sierra and Paige jumped over and got to him before he could do anything. Both of their fists collided with his head, dazing the man briefly and hopefully preventing him from switching places for the moment. Together, they caught his arms and shove-threw him out the doorway as hard as they could. 

“Get her out of here!” Paige blurted at me, just as she and Sierra went through the doorway after Theory. 

Wait, yeah, good idea. Pivoting back to where my idol was, I shoved all questions and confusion out of my head (along with the urge to giggle stupidly when I saw her), and just reached out to grab her arms. “Sorry, Miss Sidorov,” I blurted, “but we’ve gotta go!” Before she could respond, I activated purple hammers along both of my arms to help her get up. Then I wrapped my arms around her (stop thinking about that, Cassidy) and planted a blue puddle under our feet. But not just any blue puddle. First I made an empty circle of green, like I had done with the empty circle of yellow earlier. Then I filled it in with blue and allowed the former to feed into the latter. 

Yeah, when I activated that thing, we were rocketed out of the restroom and through the broken skylight. It was a good thing the glass was all gone by that point (crunched into tiny shards under our feet throughout the room below) because we went up through the hole like we had been shot out of a cannon. 

And this time, I wasn’t the only one giving a loud whoop of delight. Inessa’s rang through my ears as we soared high up, reaching a spot maybe ten or twelve feet above the roof of the restroom. Then I activated a yellow parachute ship I had put on both my back and Inessa’s as my arms were wrapped around her. That slowed our fall just enough that I could look around quickly. And I finally saw what was keeping the others busy. Alloy, Calvin, and Hobbes were dealing with those guys we had seen on the tennis courts. Or keeping them occupied, at the very least. Which explained why they hadn’t come rushing to their boss’s aid. 

After taking that in, I used red and orange paint to get Inessa and myself to the ground as far from the courts and restrooms as I could manage. We landed safely in the grass about seventy feet away, both of us dropping into rolls to deal with the momentum before popping back to our feet. She was slightly quicker about it than I was, which really said a lot about how amazing she–

Later, Cassidy. 

Right, we knew where the Prev troops were, and Paige and Sierra were keeping Theory and Praxis busy for the moment. Hopefully they wouldn’t give Theory the time he needed to set up a new power. I still wasn’t sure exactly how she’d kept the super strength for a few more seconds after switching with him that one time, but maybe it gave her a little more time if she ended early or–whatever, there wasn’t time to think about it. Right now, I just had to figure out how to get Inessa out of–

Darkness enveloped me, cutting off my vision almost entirely. I could barely see a few inches in front of my face. And it wasn’t just darkness. It felt like being underwater without actually being wet. The air was literally thick. This cloud that had appeared slowed my motions, slowed everything. It felt like my thoughts were slowed down. 

Oh, right, this would be Fogwalker. I had forgotten about him for just a second. And now the two of us were caught in his power. I grabbed Inessa’s arm, looking around quickly. Not that it helped. I could still sense every object around us. I knew where the trees and bushes were within the vicinity, and even knew exactly where the edge of the restroom building and tennis courts were in the distance. Unfortunately, that didn’t really help me know where the Touched lynx was. And to be honest, the idea of one of those things prowling through this fog toward me really–yeah it wasn’t fun. 

Thinking quickly, I released Inessa, stepping in front of her while covering my upper torso and helmet with a mix of pink and blue paints. The former fed into the latter as I activated them. Then prayed that Fogwalker would make his move soon enough. And asked myself just what sort of insane person hoped that a basically-invisible superpowered lynx would jump at them within the next ten seconds. Why would I do that?

Because it was better than the fucking thing doing it in eleven seconds, that’s why. 

The lynx was so quiet, I didn’t hear it approach until the very last second. A slight rustling on the grass was my only warning. Then the full weight of that oversized cat crashed into me, knocking me backwards and down. And yet, under that impact, my entire pink-blue-painted torso sort of collapsed in on itself. It felt really weird, the way my whole chest seemed to turn into an accordion. And no sooner had Fogwalker hit me, than my torso snapped immediately back to the way it was supposed to be, catapulting Fogwalker away from me. I heard his panicked and confused yowl as the big cat went flying away from me with several times more force than he’d actually hit me with in the first place. In the distance, I could hear him crash into the dirt with another yelp. 

Quickly canceling the paint, I grabbed Inessa’s hand again and started running. Well, as close to running as we could get in this stupid fog. “Come on!” I shouted her way. “Trust me!” 

Thankfully, she didn’t argue, and the two of us were soon ‘sprinting’ (if you could call it that) together through pitch black fog. I directed her around bushes, avoided a few random statues, pulled her away from a tree, and overall just kept running as fast as we could in the fog. We just had to reach the edge of Fogwalker’s power, and then–

We hit open air and sunlight just in time for an invisible force to pick me up and throw me up against the nearest tree. My back hit it hard enough to make me flinch. 

Praxis, of course. She was there, panting heavily while clearly glaring at me. Her hand was extended, using what was obviously a telekinesis power to keep me pinned against the tree. “No… more…” she managed through hard breaths. “She’s coming with us.” 

My eyes were scanning the area around us in a panic, but there was no one else in sight. No one here to help out. Everyone was busy, or hurt, or… or…

“You don’t have to be such a bitch about this. I mean, come on, your brother made a lot of fun toys,” Praxis was saying, her gaze laser-focused on Inessa. “And now all of it’s just sitting there, all sad and alone while he’s stuck on Breakwater.” 

Wait… wait…

What?!

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Exhibition 25-06 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

It would’ve been nice if I could have called a time-out for a few minutes so I could explain everything that was going on, including the new power tricks I had figured out, to my newly-arrived friends. But something told me the bad guys here weren’t exactly likely to accept something like that. Especially not with the Minority people still in the middle of fighting those other two. To say nothing of how many random mooks they had helping them. Thanks to the flurry of chaotic motion, water, random bits of flying glass, and flailing energy coils, I couldn’t see how Fragile, Whamline, Wobble, Raindrop, and That-A-Way’s fight against Banneret and the goons helping her was going. And it was completely impossible to have any idea of what was going on with Carousel and Syndicate with Fogwalker. 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t check on them any more than we could call a time-out. Poise, Style, Calvin, Hobbes, Alloy, and I had our own immediate problem, in the form of Theory and Praxis, and their own thugs. I’d taken several of them down, and Alloy knocked down more with her arrival. But more were showing up, and they did not look happy. 

That wind blast from Praxis had knocked all of us flying, scattering our group across the grass. And even as I scrambled back to my feet, my eyes caught sight of the woman holding one hand out toward where Poise, Hobbes, and I were, while the other was pointed more toward the other three. My mouth opened to blurt a warning, just before twin blasts of wind tore into us. I tried to brace myself, but it didn’t help. Once again, we were picked up and thrown, tumbling end over end under the sustained barrage of wind. On the way, while I was crashing and rolling along the grass, I tried to shoot a bit of red paint toward the woman. Honestly, the mere fact that I could aim at her in the midst of that was pretty crazy. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. My paint was caught by her wind and tossed aside, scattering into useless droplets across the grass behind me. 

Okay, so I couldn’t shoot her with paint. But I could use it on myself. While the wind continued to throw me, I focused on making red paint appear on my hands and knees, then put more of it directly under me on the ground and activated all of it. The paint yanked me down and held me in place against the force of that rushing hurricane-like air. Thanks to the visor of my helmet, I was able to look that way without the wind tearing into my eyes. I could see Praxis focusing even more of her power on me, trying to force me to go flying again. But my paint held firm. To one side, I could see Alloy shielding herself, Calvin, and Style with a low wall made out of a couple of her marbles. Poise and Hobbes, meanwhile, were crouched behind a heavy tree. Even that was bowing sideways against the force of the wind. Most of the leaves were gone, and even a few branches had snapped off to fly away along the grass. I was afraid the whole thing was going to be torn out of the ground any second. 

Fortunately, Praxis’s power didn’t last forever. After those thirty seconds (which honestly seemed like a hell of a lot longer than that in the heat of the moment), the wind died down. She immediately shifted back to Theory, with his lab coat and goggles. Which we would’ve taken advantage of, but the instant that happened, a handful of those armed thugs took up position in front of him and opened fire with an assortment of guns. It happened so smoothly that I was pretty sure they had training and practice with jumping in to cover their boss while he took the time to set up new plans and powers for his partner. Which made sense. Of course they would’ve compensated for that sort of weakness. 

Seeing those goons jumping into position with their weapons raised, I quickly triggered an orange bullseye symbol across my chest, just before those first few bullets hit my arm and shoulder. It stung a bit, but I ignored that and scrambled to my feet. The others were protected by Alloy’s wall and that tree. But we still had to move quickly. Any second now, Theory was going to finish making his ‘plan’ and bring Praxis back out with a new power. The wind had been bad enough, I really didn’t want to think about what other dangerous shit she might come out with now that they were even more pissed off and had seen how we could defend against that wind. I had a feeling that whatever they came out with next would be even more dangerous, and very different.

To stop that, I planted blue under my feet and launched myself forward and up while shouting, “Rebound!” toward Alloy. 

Thanks to all the talks we’d had, she immediately knew what to do, positioning one of her marbles in a flat, wall-like shape in the air above me. It was angled just a bit toward the group of bad guys. Just before hitting it, I sent a new shot of blue that way while inverting myself in the air. My feet hit that spot, and the blue circle launched me off it like I was a ping-pong ball, sending me straight toward the gathered group. They were still trying to adjust to my rapid movements, most of their shots flying past me. 

The plan was for me to crash into Theory and take him down before he could bring out Praxis with new powers. Unfortunately, just before I would’ve hit the man with that flying tackle after rebounding off the marble wall, one of his minions threw himself in the way. I collided with that guy instead, and we went tumbling head over heels. I could hear him yelp and curse in pain. 

Seriously, these guys were both trained enough to immediately cover their bosses weakness, and loyal enough to throw some selves into the path of my flying body? How much were they being paid? Would it seem weird if I asked this guy if I could top it? 

While those thoughts were flying through my mind, I activated a purple unicorn shape on my arm before slamming my elbow into this guy’s face. His head snapped down into the ground, leaving him dazed for the moment. 

Meanwhile, from the corner of one eye, I could see Style driving her foot into the back of one guy‘s knee from behind while he was focused on me. Her hand caught the back of his neck as he started to stumble, and slammed his head forward into another guy’s temple as that one spun to see what was going on. Beside her, Calvin quickly dropped down next to the two fallen figures and snapped a pair of handcuffs on each of them to keep their hands trapped behind their backs. 

By that point, I managed to roll backwards off of the guy who had thrown himself between Theory and me. My foot lashed out to catch his chin as he started to blearily lift his head, putting him back down for the moment. 

Now that I was up and facing the other way, I could see Poise step smoothly between two guys while catching their extended arms as they aimed their weapons my way. Before they could react, she swung their captured arms around so the pistols in their hands slammed into one another’s faces hard enough to make them stagger backward. The guns fell, and Poise caught them in mid-drop, pivoting while firing one shot from each into the two men’s feet. In the exact same motion, as she continued pivoting, her foot came up to kick each of them in the face, one after the other, while they started to collapse from being shot in the foot. 

In the span of about two seconds, these guys had both gone from pointing their weapons at me, to having their arms grabbed, guns slammed into each other’s face, shot in the feet, and then kicked in the face in the exact same spot their own guns had hit. Needless to say, they both hit the ground and didn’t seem that interested in getting back up. 

Alloy and Hobbes were also doing something, but I didn’t have the chance to see what it was. After all, I was still standing in the middle of a large group of bad guys, who were reacting to my arrival by taking quick aim. They weren’t quite aware of what was going on to the guys on the outskirts, and it would take another couple seconds for the others to reach me. Seconds I wouldn’t have before these guys opened fire. 

Luckily, I had a plan for that. I just hoped it would actually work. Even as I was taking in what Paige was doing, I had been painting a new symbol across my chest, of a sword stretching from my waist up to my neck. At the same time, my hands snapped out to send a thin spray of paint at the semi-circle of thugs in front of me. They all recoiled reflexively, likely expecting to be yanked together or sent flying. But this time, it wasn’t red or blue. Each of them was hit, much to their probable confusion, by a tiny bit of the orange paint. It wasn’t much at all, just a thin line across each of them. They were clearly confused, yet didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. Instead, they opened fire. 

And that was their big mistake, because by that point, I had activated the paint I had put on my torso in that sword shape. The blade itself was orange, while the handle was pink. Praying that this would actually work, I had fed the pink power into the orange before immediately canceling it.

Normally, when I canceled the pink paint early, it made the spot that it was affecting very bouncy. Unfortunately, it only affected the actual spot it was touching, unlike the rest of my paints, which affected a larger area. Like, in this case, the orange paint, which would protect my entire body. But if I could use my newfound ability to combine my paint into new effects…

It worked. The temporary bounciness from the early-canceled pink paint fed into the protection from the orange. As these guys opened fire, their bullets rebounded off me much faster than they would’ve with just the orange protection. They went flying back the way they’d come. And since these guys were directly in their path, they ended up basically shooting themselves. 

That, of course, was why I had hit them with orange paint, so I wouldn’t turn into a killer. I didn’t give them enough to completely protect them, just enough that the bullets wouldn’t slaughter them. It was still obviously like being hit by dozens of baseballs or whatever. Enough that the assembled group in front of me hit the ground, cursing and groaning in pain. They had no idea what had just happened, only that they started to shoot me, and had suddenly been hit by a bunch of stinging pellets that would leave pretty solid bruises and possibly even a few broken bones. But hey, at least I didn’t let them actually take the full damage from being shot?  

I didn’t have time to think too much about that. I was already pivoting to catch sight of Theory so I could take him down. Unfortunately, just as my eyes fell on him, his form shifted again. Now he was gone and Praxis was back, with that same dark blue bodysuit and mask with white chestplate, boots, and eye lenses. Her powers, however, were obviously very different. A fact that was made rather obvious as she extended her arm, with electricity coiling around her finger. She sent it flying toward me, while I flinched reflexively. Thankfully, while the bouncy part of the canceled pink paint had gone away, the actual orange was still active. So I wasn’t completely destroyed by that shot of lightning. It still shocked me a bit, yet I was able to throw myself that way through the crackling line of electricity. 

“Hey!” I blurted while catching her extended wrist. I’d already activated a couple purple dagger shapes along my legs for added strength so I could yank her off balance. “Didn’t you know I already fought an electricity guy a few minutes ago?! You’re supposed to vary things up so the audience doesn’t get bored!” 

She was still trying to shock me, even as I kept hold of her arm. I could feel the electricity pouring into me, making my body spasm and jerk a bit out of my control. But, through sheer force of will, I kept my hands on her while rearing back to kick the woman in the stomach. I just had to hit her hard enough to make her stop trying to electrocute me before my protection wore off. 

Unfortunately, her new powers apparently weren’t limited only to shooting electricity. Just as my foot passed through the spot she had been in, the woman vanished with a burst of lightning and clap of thunder. I stumbled off balance, hearing another burst of thunder a short distance away, somewhere behind me. 

Pivoting quickly, I saw her appear behind Alloy, hitting the girl with a quick shot of electricity that knocked her to the ground, twitching and crying out. 

Poise was right there, already taking aim with one of the pistols she had stripped from those guys. Before she could fire, another burst of electricity shot from the other woman’s finger. Thankfully, Paige managed to throw herself into a sideways roll, letting it go right over her head. Belatedly, I realized that she had been acting as a distraction, giving Style a chance to hit the woman from the side. But just as she would have crashed into her, another lightning bolt appeared and Praxis was gone, leaving Sierra to crash into the ground where she had been an instant earlier. 

That time, she reappeared near Hobbes and tried to grab her, hands crackling with power. But Hobbes reacted faster, hand already extended toward Calvin as she snapped her fingers and activated the suit’s teleportation power. It was Praxis’s turn to have her plans foiled by someone vanishing right in front of her. 

Before anyone else could move, a voice shouted over the sound of fighting, “Praxis!” It was… Fogwalker, who was, as promised, a lynx. A gray-furred lynx with black spots, with some sort of metal collar around its neck. The animal was perched just on the very edge of the cloud of fog he had created. Fog that Carousel and Syndicate were apparently still trapped in. 

“Time to go!” the lynx TONI called toward Praxis. When he spoke again, the voice was clearly coming from the collar itself. Apparently he wasn’t one of those that could speak normally. It always seemed weird that some ended up with the power to talk and others didn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to wonder about that too much, as Fogwalker added, “Target’s near the west exit!” 

Without a word of question or protest, Praxis vanished in another burst of lightning. A couple more followed as she appeared next to Fogwalker before disappearing with him. Then she did the same with Banneret, who was still fighting the others. Her time with that power had to be about to run out, but it didn’t happen before all three of them were gone.

The fog vanished almost immediately, and I could see all four Syndicates alongside Carousel, staggering suddenly as they could finally see where they were. Meanwhile, Whamline, Wobble, Raindrop, and That-A-Way were spinning around to look for where their own opponent had gone. They were also moving slowly and clumsily, practically falling over as though they were very thoroughly drunk. That was obviously thanks to the assortment of those small, flag-like marks over their bodies, courtesy of Banneret. The weapons she had taken over with more of her markings had all hit the ground together the instant she disappeared.

“Hey, what the fuck?!” That was Whamline, almost falling over as the marking slowing him down vanished and he went back to normal speed. “Where’d that bitch go?!” Belatedly, he glanced toward Raindrop and Fragile before sheepishly amending, “Sorry, I mean, what happened?” 

One of the Syndicates managed to orient himself and look back and forth between our group and the rest of their team. “Everybody okay?” 

Alloy, picking herself up from the ground after being hit by that electrical blast, grunted, “Fine, just peachy. Wait, is it over?” 

My head shook quickly. “No!” I shouted despite myself. “They’re still after Inessa Sidorov! And they found her by the west exit!” I was already trying to orient myself that way to start running, even though I wasn’t sure what good it would do. Not with that group being able to teleport. Yet even as that thought filled my mind, I saw the other group. Or rather, Fogwalker and Theory. The two of them were running past a nearby basketball court. They hadn’t teleported all the way to their target after all. Apparently Praxis’s teleportation had been strictly line of sight, and now it would take time for Theory to give his partner another transportation power. Time that we could hopefully take advantage of. Where Banneret was, I had no idea. But there wasn’t time to think about that. Not when Theory could finish charging up new powers for Praxis any moment. 

“There!” I was pointing while starting to move. “We’ve gotta stop them before they can teleport again!” 

The others were already moving to follow me, our combined teams starting to chase after the departing trio. But, of course, there were still the remaining Prev goons, who had pulled themselves together and were moving to intercept us. Worse, now we knew where Banneret was. Namely, right there in the middle of the assorted thugs, several of whom she had already applied boosting powers to. 

“We don’t have time for this!” one of the Syndicates blurted, before looking at me. “Take your team and go, stop those two! We’ll handle these guys.” 

So, we split up. Alloy created another board for our team to hop on top of, before it flew open over the heads of Banneret and her minions. They tried to aim up at us, but the Minority hit them from below, taking their attention and giving us the chance to fly after the other two. 

“Why the hell are they so obsessed with going after this skater chick anyway?!” Murphy shouted from her crouched position as she clung to the handle Peyton had created for us. 

My head shook quickly. “Dude, I’ve got no idea!

“But something tells me we really don’t want it to happen!”

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Winging It 19-06 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

A/N – You can find the newest Summus Proelium non-canon, released over the past weekend, available for ALL readers right here.

Well, so much for an easy training day with my bird-dad. First I had joined up with him and Carousel to stop what was supposed to be a simple bank robbery, only for that to turn out to be far more complicated than it appeared when we had to follow more of the bad guys down a super-efficiently built tunnel underground. And because it obviously wasn’t enough that they would just be a few ambitious thugs with a tunnel-digging gun or something, it turned out that they (or the one who had escaped) had led us straight to Sandon and more of the Ninety-Niners. Who were now completely surrounding the three of us with their weapons raised and ready, because of course they were. This whole situation was just going truly swimmingly.

Even while we were absorbing all that and taking in the situation, one of the men sputtered about how we’d chased them all the way through the tunnel, how he barely escaped, and so on. He kept urging the rest of his gang to shoot us. My eyes centered on him, only to find a figure in brown pants, boots, a long brown jacket over a black shirt, and a brown helmet that left his lower face exposed while thick goggles covered his eyes. Oh yeah, and his hands were encased in heavy gauntlets with long metal claws on them, sort of like badger paws. He kept pointing those claws at us while stammering about how they all needed to do something. 

Yeah, I was getting the sneakiest suspicion that the men had not been using Touched-Tech to dig that tunnel. I had never seen or heard of this guy before, so he was clearly a new player. Or maybe he had come over from somewhere else. Either way, he was Touched himself in some way. Though whether digging was his power, or if he was Tech-Touched and the gauntlets were his invention, I wasn’t sure. There was too much we didn’t know. Which wasn’t great, since everything I had read and seen said going up against Touched whose powers you knew nothing about was a bad idea. 

“Undermine, shut up for a minute,” Sandon snapped, silencing the man instantly without even looking at him. Her gaze was locked on the rest of us as we stood there (well, Carousel and I stood there, while Lucent perched on my helmet). She seemed to be considering for a moment, even as the rest of her men kept their weapons pointed at us. They were clearly just waiting for the order to start firing. But wouldn’t do so without their boss’s direct orders. Lucky us. 

Even more lucky for us, one of the other men to one side tossed some kind of silver ball into the hole behind us. My gaze snapped that way just in time to see the ball give a popping sound before expanding into a concrete plug that completely sealed up the hole, blocking it.

Well, that was just great. So much for any plan involving jumping right back into the tunnel. Damn bad guys and their ability to look ahead and anticipate the most patently obvious things. 

My eyes drifted back from the digger guy (Undermine, apparently, which seemed like an odd name to give a subordinate) to Sandon herself. She looked the same as the last time I had been around her, back during the big fight for the vials. She had a modernized, sort of science fiction-ish suit of armor with a lion’s pelt attached to the back. There was no actual real head connected to it. Instead, Sandon’s helmet/mask was lion-shaped to function as the head of the pelt, with the open mouth surrounding a black-tinted visor. The visor itself even had metal teeth along the edges, to really sell the effect. Beyond that, I couldn’t see any details about what she looked like. I certainly couldn’t see the bones that were attached to the inside of her armor, built into it. Every bone she touched gave her the strength of the person that bone belonged to. And since she made a point of getting pieces of bone from every person with enhanced strength that she could find… yeah. Sandon was literally one of the strongest Touched in… well, the state for sure. And she was pretty up there in the national rankings. 

“You’re very annoying, you know that?” the woman informed us with a flat voice. While speaking, she rubbed at the visor where her forehead would be. “This was supposed to be a simple in-and-out. Make it look like a normal bank robbery on the outside while our new friend Undermine here takes a few men in to grab everything we need out of the vault. Wars are expensive, especially a war against people like Blackjack with his damn near unlimited funding. My people have mouths to feed. Wouldn’t even have hurt anyone, really. But then you three had to go charging in and complicate the whole fucking business.” 

“Ahem, language, please,” Lucent put in, his voice slightly chiding. “Just because we happen to be on opposite sides of this issue is no excuse for creating such a hostile verbal environment for the youth. We should, after all, strive to show them a better example than that.” 

I couldn’t see her expression through the black visor, but from the way Sandon stared in silence at him for a moment, I had the feeling she was trying to decide if he had completely lost his mind. Which was fair, considering I had the same thought. I truly had no idea what he was thinking, or why he thought chastising the woman for her language was a good idea. Then I realized he wasn’t actually that crazy. He was stalling, buying time. Not to mention distracting Sandon and throwing her off. 

“Yeah,” the woman finally muttered darkly while giving a look toward her crew, “I’ll be sure to watch my language while we decide exactly how fu–pardon, screwed the three of you are.”  That, of course, prompted a round of the derisive chuckles from the men, who were still pointing weapons at us, clearly itching to start this fight. They were watching for the moment either their boss gave the signal, or one of us made a move. I had the feeling that if I were to so much as lift my hand, they would instantly start shooting before I could give a thumbs up. 

“Are we though?” That was Carousel, her voice piping up into the silence that had followed those chuckles. She made a point of looking around, like she was searching for the bags that had been left in the tunnel beneath us. “Where’s your dough? This has been quite the show, but your funds are still low.” With an exaggerated shrug, she finished, “Perhaps there is mining equipment you can borrow. Like a dozer, trencher, or backhoe.” 

Before Sandon could respond to that, the Undermine guy blurted, “Fuck your rhymes, the second we’re done with you, I’ll open up the hole again and go right back down there to get the bags and my buddies. You got nothing we can’t deal with.” 

“Undermine,” Sandon half-snarled, “I told you to shut your mouth. Don’t make me say it a third time.” Her gaze snapped that way, the implication clear. She waited until the man gave a short, contrite nod before turning back to us. “Never let it be said that I can’t be reasoned with. I will give the three of you this one chance to walk away. Leave, and allow us to collect our spoils.” 

That prompted a low round of grumbling from the men who were pointing their weapons at us and clearly wanted a fight, but the woman that silenced that with a sharp look. Her words were flat. “Let’s just say I have bigger fish to fry than you. So take the offer. Turn around and walk away. Or fly, whatever you choose. Take the mulligan and try this whole fighting thing another time. Believe me, there will be plenty of chances for it.” Her chin rose as she focused on Lucent. “You know it’s a good offer, bird. You’ve got two kids here with you and I have you surrounded. We have weapons, I’m stronger than any of you, and you don’t know what Undermine is capable of. Walking away and fighting another day is the best offer you’re going to get.” 

Yeah, I couldn’t say that she was exactly wrong about that. I had been spending these tense moments painting the inside of my costume as much as I could. Between that and the paint that had already been there, if a fight started, I would be at least mostly protected for a bit. And Carousel still had some paint I could activate if it came down to it. We weren’t nearly as flat-footed as it might have appeared, even if this wasn’t the best circumstance. If a fight started, we wouldn’t be instantly taken apart. And yet, Sandon made some good points. She was stronger than any of us. My purple paint at its best probably couldn’t do much against her. And she had Undermine, who could–well, who knew what he could do besides dig a tunnel. Which by itself could be pretty nasty, if he could use that to, like, put the holes directly under us while we were standing there or something. Again, we had no idea what he was capable of. Which was all before you even brought in all the extra armed troops she had with her. Troops who were just waiting to open fire. Yeah, this whole situation was pretty… dangerous was a good word. It was pretty dangerous, preparation be damned. We might win a fight, but it wasn’t guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination. 

And yet, if we walked away, we’d just be leaving them to take off with everything they’d taken out of that vault, and the other members of their gang we had left down there. It felt wrong to just let them win like that. Walking away without even trying to stop them? Yeah, the thought made my stomach roll a bit. But then, so did the idea of starting a fight right now. There were no good options, and it was clear that Sandon knew that. She wasn’t directing her men to attack or anything. She was waiting, giving the three of us a few seconds to really consider everything. Which itself made me wonder. Was she just as hesitant about being able to easily win a fight too? Or was she really just trying to save effort and resources by giving us a chance to walk away? She was, after all, in the middle of a war against two different Fell-Gangs. And probably had to pay my family for the privilege of conducting it. No wonder she needed more funds. 

Finally, I managed to find my voice. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to be the ones who walked away from this and let us take those stolen things back where they belong?” Looking back and forth between the troops and their leader, I offered a shrug. “No? Just checking.”  

Sandon took a step closer to me. I felt Lucent ready himself on my helmet, a sound of what I interpreted as a warning to the woman escaping him. She stopped, holding up both hands placatingly. “Easy, bird. No one’s starting anything. Not yet, anyway.” She focused on me then, voice lowering a bit dangerously. “You’ve had some success over the past couple of months, kid. Don’t let it go to your head. Hell, you helping expose Pencil and Cup? That’s some good stuff. They’re fu–pardon, freaking psychopaths. No one likes those two, or their sycophants. I enjoyed you pulling the rug out from under them. That’s one of the reasons I’m willing to let you walk away. But don’t push your luck.” Her gaze moved over all three of us as she very pointedly added, “All of you, turn around and walk, before I change my mind. You don’t want to see what happens if I decide you’re being too annoying.”

Carousel’s voice immediately filled the air on the heels of Sandon’s words. “They say the better part of valor is discretion. Leaving may cause some depression. But it is my greatest impression our soundest move is egression.” 

“Sure,” Sandon agreed with a small, humorless chuckle. “However the poet girl wants to put it. But any minute now one of your do-gooder friends is going to show up. Then everything gets complicated again. So let’s say you have ten–five seconds to make up your minds. Four, three-” 

“Ahem,” Lucent put in, “Your point is made. Come, little ones, we shall find our way out of this place and leave our friends here to… conduct their business. There will be other moments, other confrontations.” He was clearly staring at Sandon, who gave him a simple nod. I wondered how much history there was between them, because it seemed like there was at least something. Especially given the tone she used whenever she called him ‘bird.’ She clearly didn’t like him. And yet, she was still willing to let him, and the rest of us, walk away from this. 

That was exactly what we did. We left, walking backward to keep the troops in sight for as long as possible, just in case one of them decided to try something after all. But though it was clear that they were pretty unhappy about it, none of them made a move. Not with Sandon right there. They were obviously far too afraid of her to risk doing something stupid right then. 

As for the three of us, we didn’t say anything until we had stepped backward into an alley on the far side of the parking lot, getting out of their sight. Immediately, I pivoted toward Carousel, while Lucent flew off my head and toward the nearby roof. Reaching out, I took the other girl’s hand and launched us upward with a mix of blue and red paint. We reached the top of the building, and I released Carousel while blurting, “Are you sure we can’t take them? They’re right there, we can still–” 

“Easy, lad,” Lucent cautioned while landing on a nearby bit of machinery sticking out of the roof. “There is nothing embarrassing about walking away to fight another day. There will be other moments, better moments. You need more training before you’re ready to go up against someone like Sandon in a straight fight. As it is, she would demolish you in such a confrontation. Don’t forget, she is capable of holding her own in a fight against Cuélebre, and your success against that man hinged on running away from him.” 

Remembering what it had been like to catch just a portion of the lightning bolt he had summoned, and how terrifying it had been to run away from him to begin with, I gave a reluctant nod. “Yeah, I know. But… but they’re over there and they’re going to get that money back. Or whatever they stole from the vault. They’ll get the people we left down there, all of it. We might as well not have even been there if they just get away with all of it.” It was probably childish, but still. I didn’t like the idea of just letting them walk away with everything they stole. 

“Perhaps this is the best lesson you could have learned today,” Lucent considered, his gaze on me. “Oft times it is better to take the hit to your pride or sense of justice, if it means avoiding needless conflict that can only result in more problems. Twas nothing to be truly gained by engaging with Sandon and her people right then. What they have stolen may be recovered in other ways, at other times. And if it is not, all that has been lost is material goods. But if we were to fight that woman directly and lose… such could be disastrous in many ways.” 

Exhaling, I gave a slow, reluctant nod. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. But still, we could stop them if we had more help. Where is everybody? What’s taking them so long to show up? I mean, you told them what was going on, right? You’ve got that tracker thing on you, so they should’ve made it here by now.” I wasn’t trying to be judgy or anything, but seriously, we should’ve had help back there. We’d kept Sandon talking long enough for other members of the Seraphs or Minority/Conservators to show up. But there had been nothing. What was up with that? 

“Unfortunately,” Lucent replied, “It seems that all active patrols from various teams were too far away from the situation to step in. And they were… otherwise engaged in their own problems at the time. A case of poor luck and timing. Or generous luck, on the Ninety-Niners’ parts, one may suppose.” 

Right, generous luck called, ‘they probably paid off my parents to keep anyone who could stop them away.’ Because that was a thing the Ministry did. It was one of the main reasons they existed. Criminals paid them extra fees to push patrols away from what they were targeting. I knew that from that bit I’d overheard between my brother and that guy just outside the mall base. Obviously that was what had actually happened here. Not that I could explain it to the other two. Even if the idea of just blurting out the whole thing did jump into my head. 

While I was pushing that thought out of my head, Carousel spoke up. “I’ve sent a message of my own. Though she may show up alone, Way will be among us soon. Best she not come to high noon.” 

Right, yeah, Amber was on her way and it was probably a good thing that she wouldn’t be walking into a full-on duel. Especially if she was by herself. My mouth opened to agree with that, only to stop as I hesitated and blinked at the other girl. “Come to think of it, if there wasn’t any patrols nearby, how did you happen to show up?” I knew that wasn’t the sort of oversight my family would have made. If they had been paid to move patrols away from the bank, Carousel really shouldn’t have been anywhere near the place. At least, not officially. 

Sure enough, she shrugged. “I was not on any sort of patrol. In truth, I was out for a stroll. I saw you passing overhead, and though it could have been misread, it seemed you needed aid. Thus from my path, I strayed.” 

“Someday,” I retorted while pointing at her, “I’m going to find a way to make you say something that doesn’t rhyme. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but your poetry reckoning is coming.” 

I could feel the smile on her face as she casually replied, “You are not the first to make such a claim. Truly, I enjoy that sort of game. Yet I must disclaim, lest annoyance grow aflame, that it is not truly a fair fight. After all, with words I am quite erudite.” 

Opening and shutting my mouth a couple times, I leaned closer to Lucent and murmured, “I think I’m in over my head.” 

The exchange prompted a chuckle from the raven TONI, before he cleared his throat. “In any case, neither of you should feel poorly about what transpired. As I said, it is always better to walk away and find a better avenue for attack, than to let stubbornness force you into an uneven conflict. We walked into that without knowing who was on the other end of the tunnel. Facing one as powerful and dangerous as Sandon without any plan, while surrounded by her people and with an unknown Touched in play on her side? There was no shame in backing out of that conflict. That is what you should truly take away from this. Never be afraid to admit you are not prepared for something. Better to leave and try again another time, from a better direction, than insist on fighting right at the moment.”

He definitely had a point, as much as it has made my stomach twist itself to just walk away from that after everything we had done to try to stop them from getting away. Which made another thought come to me, as I looked at Carousel. “What about those cuffs? Are you gonna get in trouble for uhh, losing them?” I had no doubt that Sandon had a way to break them. Even if it only amounted to literally doing so. Those particular cuffs weren’t the ones rated for that level of enhanced strength. They would keep a certain amount down, but she was far beyond that. 

“When I present the whole story,” the other girl informed me, “of how they left my inventory, I’m sure they’ll understand why I have fewer cuffs on hand.” 

I was about to say something to that, when there was a whistle from nearby. The three of us turned, in time to see That-A-Way on the opposite roof. She was clearly warning us before just showing up, just in case we were still a bit tense (which was fair). As soon as we looked that way, she vanished from that roof and appeared next to us. 

“So,” the girl started while looking around. 

“What’d I miss?” 

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Winging It 19-05 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Two things happened right after I said the thing about the rotten egg. First, Lucent totally snaked any chance I had of beating him by simply dropping straight through the hole, wings tucked tight to his sides as he dove before catching himself in the air within the vault itself, calling up that the coast was clear. And second, I looked at the girl next to me and realized, “Oh yeah, you’d probably like some help getting down there, huh?” 

“Thanks so much, but no,” came her melodic reply, “I’ll see you below.” With that, three nearby desk chairs came flying over to her, shrinking down before entering a tight orbit around the girl in miniature form. Then she simply hopped down through the hole, shooting one chair at a time downward, allowing it to grow to its normal size just long enough to step on before bringing it back into her orbit in mini-form. She slowed her fall repeatedly that way. The chair would be falling downward, but when she used her power to pull it back up into her orbit, there was a brief instant where it was still full-sized and traveling upward. That gave Carousel a chance to repeatedly land on chairs that were coming upward rather than falling downward, slowing her fall enough to drop through the hole in the vault ceiling and land smoothly within. 

“Okily dokily,” I managed, shaking my head before painting my legs orange as I dropped through the hole. “I guess I’m the rotten egg then.” 

I fell through the hole into the vault, and caught myself right on the edge of the hole at the bottom, which led deeper underground. Perched there and looking down, I could see the way it immediately curved into a tunnel leading out from the bank. The tunnel was tall and wide enough, once it went down and leveled out, for a full grown man of slightly over average size to walk through it. 

Meanwhile, a quick glance around showed that the vault had been ransacked. There were dozens of metal doors leading to separate boxes within the vault. Most of them had been broken open. Whatever contents had been inside them was gone. 

Carousel spoke up, voice curious. “Those responsible here were quite creative, though I doubt their friends are appreciative.” 

I nodded, already moving to peer down into the tunnel. “Yeah, I’m gonna guess they used those guys as a distraction. Probably hired them or something.” Looking up then, I added, “So, are we going after them, or what?” Even as I said that, my hand moved up to activate the lights on the side of my helmet. Yeah, I had literal headlights thanks to Wren’s forethought. I needed to thank that kid, yet again. 

The answer, of course, was that we were going after them. Especially since I had demonstrated that I had light. The three of us dropped into the hole. Lucent perched on top of my helmet so he wouldn’t have to keep trying to fly in the narrow, enclosed tunnel. 

I was in the lead ahead of Carousel, thanks to those headlights. Together, with my bird-dad on my helmet, we trotted down the tunnel. I wanted to run faster, but Lucent insisted we be more careful. We didn’t know what was going to be ahead of us, so we took it one step at a time. 

“Won’t they know they have to hurry?” Carousel pressed in a whisper. “With that hole, they’d need to worry.”

“They won’t know that it has been found so soon,” Lucent informed us, his voice equally quiet. “Before he was rendered unconscious, one of the uncouth men back there said something about covering the hole. I believe they intended to seal up the tunnel behind them in some way. Thus, I believe once they are a short distance away, the gentlemen will slow their retreat.”

I nodded before adding, “Besides, they’re carrying all the crap they got out of the vault back there. That’s got to slow them down a bit, right?”

We all silently hoped I was correct about that while picking up the pace a little bit. Not outright running, but still moving faster. I dimmed the lights on my helmet down to just barely enough to see where we were going, not wanting to give the guys ahead of us too much warning. 

I had to say this much, whatever (or whoever) these guys were using to carve out their tunnel, it was really effective. This place was solid, and really long. I had been expecting it to take us barely outside of the bank property, but the tunnel just kept going. We had to have traveled at least a couple city blocks by this point. Was it just their attempt to get out of range of any police search above ground? 

At least we had oxygen. Every once in awhile, we would find a narrow hole leading upward at an angle. They were just wide enough to allow air into the tunnel, and probably looked like snake holes or something from the surface. So apparently these guys didn’t want to suffocate either.  

Either way, we kept going. I was getting to the point of wondering if they were going to go all the way out of town or something, when we all abruptly heard voices ahead. Instantly, I turned off the headlights entirely, as we stopped to listen intently. It sounded like they were arguing about which way to go. A couple of the voices were saying that it was time to turn right, going by some sort of device they were using. They insisted that the thing, whatever it was, wanted them to make the turn. Meanwhile, several other voices argued that the thing was wrong and they still needed to go another hundred yards or so. The argument was getting pretty heated. Knowing how narrow the tunnel was, I could picture the five (or more) men in a line somewhere ahead of us. This was going to be complicated. After all, they probably had guns. And, come to think of it, they had something that could casually dig out hundreds of feet of dirt and rock. I didn’t want to think about what something like that could do to a person it was turned onto. And I wasn’t sure if my paint would protect against that. Not to mention, there wasn’t much down here for Carousel to work with, beyond the three desk chairs she’d pulled with us and whatever the men themselves had. 

Lucent’s voice was a barely audible whisper, hopefully not carrying far enough for the arguing group further down the tunnel to hear anything. “Allow me to proceed first and set several of my stationery companions in the place. While I am gone, Paintball, you should prepare yourself and Carousel with as many applications of paint enhancements as you can. If you have anything you may use to prepare flash effects with your white paint, that would be advisable as well.” 

He paused very briefly then before adding, “I understand that this likely feels unnecessary, given we are almost certainly only facing a handful of what you would call Prevs, men without powers. But I assure you, even the most mundane of people can get a lucky shot with a gun, particularly when potential Touched-Tech is added into the equation. It is always best to proceed with more care and planning rather than less. Prepare for a fight and force your opponents to operate on your terms, not theirs. Better to be too ready rather than not ready enough.” 

With that, he hopped off my helmet and glided ahead. At least, I assumed he did. With the light off, I couldn’t actually see, well, anything. It was completely pitch-black down here. Which was another reason I was pretty sure we weren’t close enough for the arguing men to hear us, considering we couldn’t see any light source they were using. They were just talking really loud. And why not? As far as they knew, they had no reason to be quiet. Which was a mistake we were hopefully going to make them choke on. 

Before I could wonder how I was going to paint Carousel when I couldn’t see her, the girl put a hand on my shoulder. Apparently she had had the same thought and already solved it. And, judging from the sensation of something spinning past above my head, she’d raised the orbit of the miniaturized chairs so they wouldn’t crash into me. 

I spent the next few moments carefully painting orange, purple, and green spots over both of our costumes, covering every bit of space that I could. All of which went fine except for when I got to her jester’s mask. When I went to touch that, she caught my wrist. Her grip wasn’t painful, but it was firm. Dark as it was, I imagined I could almost actually see the mask itself as she stared at me. Then, with a grunt, she released my wrist and quietly murmured, “Sorry, I guess I dislike being grabbed. Though it’s not as bad as being stabbed.”

I had a weird feeling there was more to it than that, but I couldn’t exactly ask her right then. Hell, I didn’t know how I would ever actually ask. But for the moment at least, we had to focus. 

So, I set that bit of strangeness aside and went back to putting on the paint. The whole time, I kept my ears open just in case the guys out there noticed Lucent setting up his statues. But their arguing continued unabated. Apparently a few of them didn’t exactly believe the device they were using was infallible, while the other two trusted it implicitly. I wondered why they weren’t just outvoted, but apparently this group didn’t work off democracy rules. Or maybe there was someone else on their side we weren’t hearing? Hell, maybe they were just better-armed. Whatever the reason, the arguing went on. Which was fine, because it gave us time to set things up. I finished putting the paint on both of us before Carousel made each chair grow and set it in front of me so I could add a bit of white to them. They could be our flash bombs.

By that point, the arguing seemed to have finally come to a conclusion. They were going to turn right. Apparently those two had been more persuasive. Or just more stubborn. Whatever the reason, they were already starting to work on that. We could both hear a faint humming sound, accompanied by what sort of sounded like steam hissing. It was clearly whatever they had been using to make this tunnel, because the sound gradually started to get further away. They were moving on.

The next thing we knew, Lucent was giving a very soft throat-clearing to announce himself before flap-hopping up to land on my helmet once more. His voice was quiet. “Now is the time, I believe. Carousel, draw them into following you by stealing what they have stolen. There is a short tunnel beyond their new turn, where they began to move on before coming back to that spot. Paintball and I shall move there and prepare to engage them from behind when they reenter this part of the tunnel. Draw them into a chase, then Paintball should use the blinding bombs he has hopefully created?”

I nodded. “She’s got the chairs painted with it.” To Carousel, I added, “As soon as you’re ready to toss them once the guys are in the main tunnel, just shout something about bats. As soon as I hear that, I’ll activate the paint and everyone should close their eyes for a second.” Even while saying that, I kept listening to the sound of the men and their humming-hissing tunneling device. They were moving pretty quickly, as far as tunneling went. Still close enough to hear, but we had to do this right now. 

Still not wanting to give away our presence with a light, I reached out to grab the other girl by the hand, whispering for her to come with me. Then I began to move completely blindly down the tunnel. It kept winding seemingly randomly back and forth, like whoever had made the tunnel had been drunk or something. But I moved just as quickly through the pitch-black tunnel as I had through the forest the other day. Soon, I was practically outright sprinting after activating a bit of black paint I had already put on both my feet and Carousel’s so the men ahead of us wouldn’t hear anything. For her part, the other girl seemed briefly surprised as I immediately began to move so quickly through the pitch-black tunnel while pulling her by the hand. But she didn’t resist, and soon the two of us were catching up to where the men were, our approach completely silent. 

They certainly weren’t being silent, though. With each step, the sound of the thieves bitching at each other (or just friendly ribbing, it was hard to tell) got louder, and soon we could see their lights in the distance. The glow illuminated where they had turned, playing off the corner of that new tunnel. Between their own voices and that of whatever they were using to tunnel, they probably would have had a hard time hearing me moving closer to begin with. Add in the black paint silencing our footsteps and they didn’t have the slightest chance. 

Stopping on one side of the second tunnel entrance, I listened briefly before peeking. They were about sixty feet down. I could see all five men huddled up close in a narrow, single-file line. It was impossible to see what they were using to make the actual tunnel, but it looked like the person at the head of the line was holding something up, which was sending off… vibrations or something. That was the source of the humming sound. The dirt and rock ahead of him was gradually disintegrating. That was the source of the steam-like hissing sound. The other four men were carrying very large duffle bags over their shoulders and clearly full backpacks. The spoils of their vault-heist, clearly. 

The main point was that none of them were looking this way. So I turned back to Carousel, squeezing her hand before leaning in very close to whisper, “I’ll make my headlights flash very dimly as soon as we’re in position. That’s when you go. As soon as I see you move, I’ll give you some orange protection and green speed, just in case.” 

Even with the very dim light from the nearby men, I couldn’t really see her face very well. Not that I would’ve been able to see it anyway, given the mask (and that still somehow creeped me out a little bit). But she squeezed my hand in what I assumed was agreement. So I released her, renewed the black paint on myself, and gave one last peek to make sure no one was looking back toward the tunnel entrance before dashing silently across it to the other side. There was no cry of alarm, or reaction at all, so they hadn’t noticed. 

Lucent was right, of course. There was a short tunnel continuing onward this way that went back maybe fifteen feet. Just enough for me to get fully out of sight. Apparently the men had started to continue on before the two who wanted to turn had gone back a bit. 

“You are very good at operating in darkness,” Lucent whispered to me from his perch on my head. “Does your helmet afford you special vision?” He was probably confused as to why I would have both visible lights and some form of dark vision in my helmet. 

Hesitating slightly, I shook my head. Now wasn’t the right time to get into talking about my weird, secondary navigation power. It was more subtle here than in the forest, since there weren’t a bunch of trees and boulders to run into. But I had still felt its influence helping me avoid tripping while dashing through the tunnel. Not to mention somehow knowing where every curve in the winding tunnel was. Maybe I should ask him sometime, given how much he probably knew about testing powers and such. Later though, we were kind of occupied at the moment. 

Crouching down here, I felt something by my foot. My hand reached out and I found one of Lucent’s statues. Clearly, he had made it over here before and set up his little friends already.  I wasn’t sure where the rest were, but I had no doubt they were lined up perfectly to hit these guys once they were in position. 

Here went nothing. Reaching up, I turned the lights on my helmet up just barely enough to be visible, an incredibly faint glow that hopefully wouldn’t give the men in the other tunnel any warning. Then I turned it back off after a brief second and scrunched myself even tighter into the rear wall of the tunnel, willing myself to be as invisible as possible. 

Just as I was self-consciously wondering if I should use the light again just in case the other girl had not seen it, Carousel made her move. I caught a glimpse of her form moving before she entered the other tunnel. In that moment, I activated two spots of orange stars I had left on her shoulders. 

Abruptly, the girl’s sing-song voice called out loudly. “I don’t think you should have those! Stealing is wrong, as every kid knows.” 

Her words were accompanied by several gasps and curses. Those same curses returned even louder as several of the bags the men had been carrying went flying back to where Carousel was, just before she dashed back into the other tunnel, out of their sight. 

“Fucking–what’re you waiting for, get her!” One of the men shouted. “Get that shit back, god damn it!” That was accompanied by confused words from the others about how she had followed them, whether there were others, and so on. But they didn’t take the time to really think about that, being too intent on getting their stolen stuff back. Instead, they fell for the trap, running right out to chase after Carousel without even glancing in the direction of where Lucent and I were. Oh, and they definitely had guns, already raising them up as they came into view. 

Just as they entered the tunnel and turned, Carousel shouted, “A hearty congrats, you’re blind as bats!” 

In the illumination from the men’s lights (they had them attached to their heads), I could see two different white-painted chairs go flying at them. Immediately, I activated the paint, sending out a blinding flash that made the men stagger backward while crying out in surprise. They fired off a few shots, but Carousel was still protected by the last couple seconds of the orange paint, even if they had gotten lucky enough to hit her. And the guns were mostly-silenced, so none of us were deafened in this narrow tunnel. Which was definitely a plus. 

With the men staggering and half-blind, Lucent made all of his statues (there were a half-dozen of them) spread throughout this section of tunnel open up with concussive blasts. Then I activated the purple, green, and orange paint on both myself and Carousel before the two of us really went to work. 

These guys? Yeah, they really didn’t stand a chance. Hit from both sides, blinded, struck repeatedly by concussive blasts from little bird statues they couldn’t even see, and so on? They collapsed like one of those cheap tents I had seen in the movies. 

Within what seemed like seconds, we had all the men on their stomachs, their weapons taken away while their wrists were either secured by a couple more stay-down cuffs that Carousel had left, or simply tied with strips torn from the straps of the backpacks and duffle bags they themselves had carried. They weren’t going anywhere. 

Unfortunately, that was when the three of us collectively realized that we didn’t have all of them.  There had been five men in that tunnel. But we only had four of them. With my headlights on, I looked toward Lucent and Carousel, all of us clearly having the same thought. Then we spun and raced to that side tunnel. It wasn’t any deeper, and for a second I was afraid the man had somehow gotten around us and disappeared back the way we came. Then Carousel pointed upward, and I saw the hole in the corner of the ceiling. The guy didn’t go further in, he went up with the tunneling machine, making a shaft upward. Which raised the question of how he actually climbed it, but we were going to ask him once we caught up. 

“What do we do about those guys?” I asked, quickly looking back toward where we had left the other four trussed up. The two with stay-down cuffs wouldn’t be going anywhere, of course. But the other two were simply tied at the wrists and ankles with straps. 

“We shall return for them,” Lucent declared. “For the time being, best to see where our remaining quarry has gone.” Belatedly, he added, “I shall leave two of my statues present, to… warn them should they attempt to flee. And should all else fail, the tracker I carry will bring allies to this place.” 

Okay, yeah, that worked. Looking toward Carousel, I quickly announced, “I’ll get up there, then yank you up with me as soon as I’m high enough. Here, raise your arms, hands upward, palms out.” As she did that, I painted both her hands red. “Be ready to be yanked,” I warned.  

With that, I painted blue under my feet and activated it to send myself flying upward into the chimney-like shaft. The gravity-boots kicked, sticking me against the wall of the shaft before I started crawling upward, staring ahead. In the distance, I could see what looked like sunlight, and crawled faster. Just a bit more, just a little bit further…

There. The end of the shaft was right in view. Focusing downward, I slapped red paint against the wall just under my feet, before triggering both that and the paint I had left on Carousel’s hands. Instantly, she was yanked upward, flying up the tunnel before catching herself against the walls of the shaft. Lucent was perched on her shoulder, curled in close to avoid being squished. 

“Okay guys,” I murmured, “here goes nothing.” 

With that, I flung myself up out of the shaft, activating a bit of orange paint once more, just in case. Carousel and Lucent were right behind me, as we landed in…  the middle of a parking lot? 

Oh yeah, and there was both good news and bad news. The good news was that we’d found the guy we were after. 

The bad news was that he wasn’t alone, and we were surrounded by what appeared to be over a dozen armed troops, all pointing their weapons at us. 

“Well now,” a voice announced as a figure came to the head of the group. It was Sandon, leader of the Ninety-Niners. And these were her people. 

“Ain’t this a kick in the pants.” 

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Winging It 19-04 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Right, so there was some sort of bank robbery going on, and I was supposed to help stop it alongside Lucent and Carousel. Talk about an eclectic group, huh? One independent Star-Touched alongside one of the Minority, and a TONI from the Seraphs. The three of us were going to go in there and stop this bank robbery. It sounded like the setup for a weird joke. 

I said as much to the other two while we were quickly planning what to do, and Carousel immediately replied, “As we give them a poke, they’ll think it’s a joke. But they’ll see their mistake, when in jail they awake. I don’t have my team, but this…” She gestured around in a circle to indicate the three of us. “Helps my esteem.”

“I could not have said it better myself,” Lucent announced. “At least, not without a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary. Bravo, my dear. But for now, I believe our best way forward is to carefully prepare the field out here. Paintball, would you mind quietly laying several spots of your wonderful yellow paint onto the vehicle down there without alerting anyone within? In case they flee, it would be good to be able to slow them down. Meanwhile, I shall fly closer and get a look at what is happening within, before preparing to hasten their retreat. Carousel, position yourself there, on the narrow section of roof just above the exit where they are sure to pass under you. Be ready to remove their weapons as they come within range, to prevent any unfortunate incidents as they endeavor to make their escape. And perhaps a… bouncy section of sorts on the way to the car?” He looked at me then. “As well as anything else you can think of to slow them down or disrupt their escape. Once everything is in place, I shall see about driving them out toward the two of you, safely away from any civilians within the bank.”

“A sign of when to commence,” Carousel noted, “would make a good sort of sense.” 

“Yeah, what she said,” I agreed. “Should we give you a signal or something when we’re ready?” 

Lucent gave a short, sharp nod, before looking at the spot of the roof next to me. A moment later, a statue copy of the raven appeared there, perched right on the edge. “I shall watch through my friend here,” the TONI announced. “Once you are both prepared for the men inside to be driven toward you, raise both hands in the, ahh, I believe it is referred to as the touchdown position. But be sure you are ready.”

“Right, prepping the battlefield,” I agreed. “Or, you know, hopefully not an actual battle. A small, simple skirmishfield.” Squinting then, I turned to Lucent before remembering that he couldn’t see my expression. So I painted a squinting emoticon-face across my helmet. “Just answer me one thing. Is this bank owned by La Casa? Because the last time someone robbed a La Casa bank, it set something off, and I’d really rather not go through that again.”

I could hear the faint amusement in the bird’s voice as he replied, “I assure you, as far as I am aware, the bank is not owned or operated by any Fell-Touched.” 

“The other sort of knaves,” Carousel murmured, “who turn poor to slaves from birth to graves.” 

“Someday,” I informed her, “I’m going to figure out why you do that.” It obviously wasn’t a priority right that second with the actual bank robbery going on, but seriously. I had no idea how she pulled out those rhymes so easily and quickly. Or why she did so in the first place. She stuck to it very firmly. I didn’t recall ever hearing the girl talk without rhyming. In most cases, I’d say that would be a detriment for team communication, but it didn’t seem to slow her down at all. 

Carousel, in turn, simply stared at me with that broadly smiling jester’s mask. I had no idea if the girl behind it was actually smiling or not, but I had the feeling she was. 

“A mystery to be pondered another time, I fear,” Lucent reminded us. “Be swift in your preparations, I shall endeavor to drive the foes your way once you raise the sign.” With that, he took off, flying around to the front of the building. 

Okay, yeah, time to focus. We needed to get down there and set things up before those guys came out on their own. Trying to play catch-up with them already outside would be a huge pain.

Looking over to the Minority girl, I offered, “Want a lift? It’ll probably be a bit quicker and more subtle. Not that your way isn’t super cool, believe me.” She had been making the bench and other things revolve around her in miniature form (they were about the size of matchbooks) the whole time we were standing there. Which I supposed meant she didn’t have to focus on them at all once they were in place. Again, pretty cool. But I had a feeling the guys waiting in the car below might notice her unique way of getting across the gap to the other building. This whole plan of ours wouldn’t work nearly as well if they had advance warning. It could devolve into a real clusterfuck pretty quick if we weren’t careful. The best advantage we had here (well, besides our powers) was the element of surprise. It’d be pretty dumb to throw that away before the fight even started. 

She agreed, so I painted my arm purple and put it around her. She held onto me a bit awkwardly given our height discrepancy, and I silently hoped she didn’t notice anything she shouldn’t. Not that I had much for her to notice, but still. After checking to see what her orbiting items did (they expanded their revolution to encircle both of us), I used a blue puddle to launch high into the air to get above the field of view for the guys below, then red painted us over to the other roof. On the way down, I shot a black owl symbol at the bricks and tiles just before we landed there, our arrival completely silent. There was even a pigeon perched nearby that didn’t react to our landing. Though it did happen to turn its head a second later and launch itself into the air as soon as it saw us so close. I think we gave the poor thing a little pigeon heart attack.

From this position, on the narrow section of roof just above the door, we could see the car a bit better. Sure enough, there were two guys sitting in it. The driver had one hand on the wheel while his other was resting out the open window with a cigarette in it. The other guy was in the front passenger seat, tapping a pistol against the roof rhythmically with the music they were listening to. They both had ski masks on, but other than that they seemed pretty casual about the whole thing. Well, beyond the fact that they were looking around a lot. They just weren’t looking up. Which seemed like a pretty big oversight in a city like this. Or really any city, these days. Not that I was going to complain about their mistake.  

Either way, the point was, they weren’t paying enough attention to notice our arrival. Carousel and I took a moment to make sure of that, peeking over the edge and watching them carefully until it was clear they had no clue we were there. Then the two of us exchanged nods before I got to work. With Carousel watching my back, I leaned out and pointed, sending a shot of paint toward the car. But it wasn’t yellow. Not that first shot. Instead, I hit the car with a bit of black. I figured it would be better to make only one audible shot, activate the silencing effect, and then hit the car with as many spots of yellow as I could. Not that my paint was exactly loud to begin with, especially considering the music they were listening to. But still, better safe than sorry. 

I lined the roof of the car with yellow circles and triangles, as well as a bit on the tires. Then I rethought things a little and put some red on the tires as well, before adding a couple matching spots against the wall nearby. Finally, I put down the blue bit on the sidewalk right below the exit door, painting that whole square. It was a toss-up whether they’d even notice in what would probably be a rush to get out, but at that point it wouldn’t really matter. 

“If you had to,” I whispered, “could you pick up that car?” 

“Not with it occupied,” she whispered right back. “It’s something I’ve tried. But when it comes to something alive, my gift just does not thrive.” 

“Right, can’t use your power on the car when they’re inside it, but if they get out, you could take it away from them.” Keeping that in mind, I gave the area one more quick once-over before looking to her. “I think we’re ready.” When she gave me a thumbs up, I focused on the bird statue I could see staring down at us, raising both arms in the touch-down sign. After a moment of that, the bird turned its head to focus on the car. Which I supposed meant he’d seen me. 

Sure enough, within a few seconds, we started hearing sounds from within the bank. It started with a surprised shouted curse, then a single gunshot. As soon as I heard it, my heart jumped into my throat. But I trusted Lucent to know what he was doing, particularly in a situation like this. After all, he’d been doing the whole Star-Touched thing a lot longer than me. And longer than Carousel, come to think of it. Still, the two of us exchanged glances, and while I couldn’t see the other girl’s face through that jaunty, garishly painted jester’s mask, I had the feeling that she was worried too. But we stayed put, just as planned. 

Meanwhile, the guys in the car were cursing as well. I heard one of them ask what ‘those dumbasses’ were doing, and that they weren’t supposed to use the guns. That prompted a brief argument about whether one of them should go inside to check, but neither wanted to be the one to get out of the car, just in case the other took off without them. From that brief exchange, I had the feeling these guys neither knew nor trusted each other very much. Which begged the question of why they were robbing a bank together, unless they were hired by a third party?  There wasn’t time to think much about that. Nor was there time for the guys in the car to stop arguing, before the door directly below Carousel and me burst open, and three guys came running out. The one in the lead was shouting something about ‘that fucking bird’ in between screaming for the driver to get them out of there. Meanwhile, the two behind were pivoting to shoot back into the bank with their own guns. All three carried large black garbage sacks that had been stuffed full with what seemed to be cash. 

Immediately, Carousel and I went to work. I activated the blue paint, launching the three men into the air with a collection of screams. On their way up, the girl beside me used her own power, yanking the bags of money and guns out of their hands before bringing them, miniaturized, into her orbit alongside the bench, chair, and trash can. The air around her was getting a bit crowded. 

Just as I had that thought, it became slightly less crowded as she sent the trash can flying into one of the men in midair, nailing him while he was falling. He landed on the ground with a groan, lying under the can before shoving it off. 

Meanwhile, the other two had sprawled out on the ground. Both scrambled up to run for the car, but it was already starting to take off. With a squeal of tires, the driver started to peel out. Which, of course, was when I activated several spots of the yellow paint, slowing the thing down. The timing worked out just right so that the guys outside, scrambling in a rush to jump at the car, ended up bouncing right off it as its speed abruptly and unexpectedly halved. They both collided with the trunk and rolled off it to either side with a pair of curse-yelps. 

Taking a quick step forward, I launched myself with a bit of blue on my shoes. Flipping over in the air, I landed in front of the car and waved before scolding, “Now did you walk out of there without even listening to the spiel about special interest rates for one of their credit cards? You know how hard they work on those things.” 

The driver and his companion looked at each other, then floored the gas once more. Which might’ve been bad, considering even slowed by half, being hit by a car would’ve hurt. But at that exact same instant, I activated the red paint I’d put on the front left and rear left wheels, sending the whole vehicle sliding sideways to slam against the wall of the bank. 

By that point, the three guys on the ground had picked themselves up. But one of them immediately went down again as a concussive energy blast from one of the bird statue’s eyes slammed into him from way up on the other roof. The other two whirled toward me while yanking what looked like knives (really?) from their belts, only to be hit from the side by a full-sized park bench shot at them by Carousel. They all went down hard, groaning in pain as the bench tumbled away to land on its side. At the same time, the knives they had pulled were yanked away, shrinking to join the spinning objects surrounding the girl as she advanced toward them. 

Meanwhile, I caught a glimpse of the guy in the passenger side of the wrecked car shoving his way out with his own gun raised. Instantly, I activated blue paint I had reapplied to my shoes and sent myself up and backwards, flipping over in the air before landing on the roof of the vehicle. “Hey!” I blurted, falling onto my side and lashing out with one foot while activating an intricately detailed purple fist across my left shoulder. “This is a no-items brawl!” The kick collided with the gun, knocking it out of the man’s hand and sending it flying away. “Tournament rules! Three stock, no items, stage hazards and smash meter off!” 

The man shouted an emphatic curse that also included the words ‘shoot him’, so I flipped up and over once more, landing in front of him in time to see the other guy (in the driver’s seat) pointing his gun upward where I had just been. “Okay,” I acquiesced, “maybe one Smash.” With that, still empowered by the purple paint for another second or two, I slammed both palms into the passenger’s chest to knock him back into the car and against the other guy. As he rocked forward once more, I reared back and kicked the door to slam it shut on him. “Or two!” 

Then I dropped and rolled under the car, as both men bellowed in rage before shoving the door open once more and throwing themselves out after me, very intent on making me pay. They turned and looked down to see my head sticking out from under the car, staring up at them. I painted a broad smiling face on my helmet. “That thing I said about no stage hazards? I might’ve lied about that too.” The smiley face turned into a red arrow, pointing behind them. They reflexively turned their heads to look, just before Carousel’s trash can slammed into them, knocking both men forward against the car with a pair of screamed curses. Potty mouths, honestly.  

By then, I had pushed myself out from under the car, pivoting on one foot to shoot a bit of pink paint against the side of the vehicle from either hand before the two men could push themselves away from it. Then I reached out, shoved both hands into the pink paint, and used that to tear the metal outward, bending it over from both sides to wrap around the men. By the time they started to push away from the car, the men were thoroughly trapped, with half the passenger side of the car wrapped around them. 

With that done, I spun back toward the rest of the scene. But it was already over. Carousel had finished up with cuffing the last of those guys, with a little help from the Lucent statue to keep them from fighting back too much. She straightened up from them and brushed her glove hands off before looking toward me. “The foes are detained, their bounty regained.” As she said that last part, the girl indicated the trash bags sitting nearby, full of cash. “But where is our mentor? Still through that door.” Her gaze was clearly on the rear entrance of the bank. 

“Hey, that’s right, he never came out.” Frowning, I looked briefly toward the bird statue in the distance. I really had my doubts that he would have simply left us to wrap things up here with only a little help from that thing if he’d had any choice. And the fact that he had only meant one thing. 

“There’s something going on inside,” I blurted, before abruptly rushing that way. The guys out here could wait. The two at the car were securely trapped against it by the metal of the vehicle itself, and the rest of them were held by those stay-down cuffs. They weren’t going anywhere. 

Carousel was right behind me after giving her own brief look around, as though to assure herself the bad guys were contained. The two of us paused right at the open exit door rather than barging straight in. I was really tempted to keep rushing through, but that would have been stupid. Worried as I was about Lucent at that moment, getting ourselves in trouble by bursting into a potentially bad situation wasn’t going to help anything. 

So, we stopped on either side of the doorway, peering in. There was a short, very utilitarian-looking hallway beyond. This obviously wasn’t in the customer area of the bank. The floor was simple linoleum that had been very thoroughly scrubbed with lemon-scented cleaner, with wooden doors along the right side of the corridor with names and positions stenciled onto black bars across the middle, interrupted by two doors labeled for male and female restrooms. Straight ahead at the end of the hall was another door that had ‘Customer Zone – Remember Our P’s And Q’s – Polite, Personable, Quiet, Qourteous’ written on a sign. Which was–wow. 

Shaking off my reaction to that, I gave the other girl a thumbs up before heading in. The two of us moved quickly, but quietly.  Whatever had stopped Lucent from joining us, we didn’t want it to know we were coming. 

In the end, however, all our precautions turned out to be pointless. We peeked through with the door there to find Lucent simply perched on top of a desk in the middle of the main lobby, staring at something. His head turned as we stepped in, and he called out, “Ah, there you are. Apologies, there were a few more in the lobby here that had to be dealt with, and by then you were finished with those who fled. My kingdom for duplicates that could actually move closer to you. Alas, tis not to be.” He heaved a sigh before turning back to stare at something behind the desk. “Come, look here.” 

Carousel and I exchanged brief, silent looks before heading that way. We walked around the big desk to see what he was looking at. On the way, I noticed a couple more unconscious figures with the same ski masks, still lying where Lucent had obviously hit them. 

“It’s a hole,” Carousel announced once we saw what was behind the desk, “but the men took a stroll.”  

Sure enough, there was a wide hole right there in the middle of the tile floor. It cut straight down into what turned out to be a vault room in the basement (including going through the thick walls surrounding that), then even further through the floor in that. 

“Indeed,” Lucent confirmed. “Though what the men you captured took seems to be a paltry sum compared to what was contained within that vault. I believe what we are witnessing is two robberies in one. The first, those men, were a distraction, allowing our tunnelers time to bore straight through, take what they wanted and escape.” 

“Do you think they’ve already gotten away?” I asked. 

“Only one way to find out,” he informed me, head cocking to the side briefly before turning back to focus on the hole. “Their hostages are in the conference room down that hall. With the authorities on their way, they should be safe. 

“Which leaves us to pursue our quarry,” Carousel noted, “and discover the truth of this story.”   

“Well what are we waiting for?” I quickly put in. 

“Last one in the hole’s a rotten egg.” 

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Winging It 19-03 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

A/N – Apologies for the mix-up and technically doubling up on chapters here. I did post a commissioned interlude over the weekend for Heretical Edge (which can be found right here), and in doing so managed to confuse myself about which story needed the regular update, so this chapter was sent to early patrons yesterday. To make up for that and ensure everything stays fair and even, this chapter will be out today, and then there will be a Heretical Edge chapter on Wednesday and Friday. I do hope you all enjoy this regardless.

So, I left Lion with Wren and the others so the Tech-Touched could compare notes, or whatever they were going to do. Part of me wished that I could stay there and hear all the things they were going to talk about, but I was sure most of it, if not all, would fly right over my head. Touched-Tech was fun, but man was it complicated. I had no idea how Wren kept herself focused long enough to do that stuff. Better if I sated my curiosity by asking for a summary later.

Besides, it wasn’t as though I was going to be bored. I had my own incredibly cool thing to do today. Namely, spend more time with Lucent. Which, jokes about my parentage aside, I really did think he was awesome. Seriously, the guy was a talking raven superhero. Silversmith might’ve been my favorite Star-Touched before I knew the truth about my dad, but Lucent had always been pretty high up on the list as well. He was just really cool, and offering to give me pointers and just generally being willing to spend time with me was… yeah, it meant a lot. Enough that I kept ignoring the repeated insistent whispering warnings in the back of my head about how wary I should be and that I should stay away from people like that. Yes, it was very unlikely that he was secretly linked to my parents, but still. It wasn’t impossible, and they could be using him to poke at ‘Paintball’ and get information. I had to be very careful about all this. 

All of that was fresh in my mind, having a duel with the part of me that just thought this whole thing was awesome, as I landed lightly on the roof of the grocery store where we had arranged to meet. Looking around, I didn’t see him, but figured he would be around shortly since I had already sent a text message that I was on my way. Being a bird, of course, he couldn’t carry a phone around with him. But I had been assured that any messages sent to that number would be relayed to him, and messages sent back were at the very least dictated by him. 

Sitting with my back to the nearby air conditioning unit, I took out my phone to see a few messages. The first was from Lucent himself, letting me know that he would be there soon. Meanwhile, the other two were from Peyton and Amber. First, my new partner said she had to help her mother with some stuff at the store and other errands before heading over to Wren’s. And also that if I let Lion leave before she could meet her, she would punch me very hard. 

The message from Amber (well technically from That-A-Way since she sent it from her Touched phone to mine), on the other hand, was all about how she had something she wanted to talk to me about. Apparently that wasn’t an emergency or anything, but she thought it was important to share whenever I had a chance. With an added bit about how she was supposed to go on patrol with Syndicate this evening, and she’d let me know how that went. I had the sneakiest suspicion that it was really hard for her to hold in talking about all the stuff that had been dumped on her. She needed someone to talk to about it, someone to unload on. 

“Jae! Jae, come on!”  

Speaking of people that Amber should have been able to talk to, the voice calling from below snapped me out of my drifting thoughts by calling that name. Carefully, I slid over and peeked down below. A woman was standing in front of the store entrance, looking back impatiently into the shop. “We don’t have all day for this, not if we want to welcome your father back properly.” 

It had to be a different Jae, right? That wasn’t–but no, even as I had that thought, the girl in question emerged into view. It was her. She was wearing a light raincoat with the hood up, and what I was pretty sure were sunglasses from the very slight bit I managed to see. All to protect herself from the bright, glaring rays of the warm sun. Oh, and she was carrying several heavy grocery bags full of what sort of looked like party supplies and treats. 

It was hard to hear her response from here, given how quietly the other girl spoke. But it must have been an apology, because the woman beside her (a very artificially bleached-blonde woman with what seemed like more plastic surgeries than sense) smiled and squeezed her shoulder (her own arms, I noticed, were almost empty aside from a couple bags in her other hand). “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’m just overly-excited about your father coming home. We have to make it special for him, you know? He goes to so many exotic places, we have to make him enjoy being home too. You don’t want him to find more excuses to stay away, do you?”

I had always known that Jae was adopted. Her and all her siblings had been taken in from different families and situations, by a semi-famous television actress and a successful director-producer. But eventually, the woman who had actually taken Jae and the others in had passed away, and their father had remarried. To this lady, apparently. Plus, I was pretty sure her adopted siblings had all moved out by now. Did that mean that Jae spent most of her time living alone in that house with only this woman? Eesh, no wonder she spent time with Amber. 

Speaking of which, too bad the person Amber talked to about all her feelings couldn’t be Jae. They seemed like pretty good friends when we were at school. Then again, I knew a fair bit about having school friends without letting them actually get close to me. Hell, I wasn’t even sure the other girl actually knew about Amber being Touched in the first place, let alone all this extra stuff. That was one of those personal questions I didn’t feel comfortable asking about. No matter how curious I was, it just wasn’t fair to put Amber in that position.

In any case, Jae’s stepmother (adopted stepmother?) didn’t seem like the best person to spend time with. Especially considering she seemed to be treating the girl more like a pack mule than a daughter. She was barely carrying any bags, while Jae was loaded down with them. And she wondered why the other girl was moving slower. It wasn’t actually wicked stepmother vibes, but more like… thoughtless. That was the impression I got while watching the two interact below me. She wasn’t actively, intentionally bad. She was just… she wasn’t a mother, that was for sure. As I watched the two head out toward a car, it felt more like the woman saw Jae and herself as peers, as if they were both students and she was the rich, popular girl who could get the unpopular, smart girl Jae to do her work for her by being ‘nice.’ I wasn’t sure why that was the analogy that jumped into my head, but once I had the thought, it solidified pretty quickly. 

I was about to turn back to watch for Lucent, when something at the corner of my eye caught my attention. A car was coming around the corner of the parking lot aisle close to where Jae and her stepmother were walking, turning in their direction. The driver and passenger were turned around in their seats, focusing on something in the back of the car while coming smoothly around the corner without even looking. The car wasn’t exactly speeding, but it was still going too fast for the two down there to get out of the way in time. In a second, they would both be hit by it. Unless…

Activating two purple stars that I had already put on my ankles, I launched myself outward, twisting in the air while pointing down to shoot yellow paint at the car from one hand and red paint at Jae and her stepmother with the other. The yellow paint I activated immediately, slowing it down. The two women were just reacting to being hit by the red paint, as I twisted slightly more in mid-leap, sending another shot of red to hit a parked car nearby. Instantly, I activated both red bits, yanking the two of them off their feet and sending them flying over several yards before they hit the parked car, stumbling against it just as the yellow-slowed vehicle went through the spot where they had just been walking. The car slowed (this time naturally rather than from paint), the driver seeming to realize belatedly what had almost happened, then suddenly accelerated as he panicked and took off. 

Landing on the top of a nearby light pole by that point, I stared after the car briefly before focusing on the people below me as I called down, “Boy, Sunday drivers, huh? You guys okay?” 

“Oh my God, oh my God.” The woman was patting herself down, looking at Jae. “Are you okay? Did it hit you, are you–” She was still checking herself over with one hand while reaching out to pat the other girl down as well. Which, for all I could say about her not treating Jae like a daughter, at least she expressed concern for her after something like that.

Jae had been staring at me, but shook it off and quietly informed the woman that she was fine. Then she turned to look at the pavement behind them, where their bags of groceries had been dropped, scattered, and run over. 

Seeing that, I grimaced and hopped down, landing smoothly nearby. “Sorry about that, I couldn’t really figure out how to get you and the bags out of the way easily.” 

“Sorry?” the woman shook her head. “Don’t you apologize young man. You saved our lives!” Her voice squeaked a bit, the shock still clearly high in her system. “That–that–if you hadn’t–thank you. We can buy more stuff, we can buy more of it. But you–if you weren’t here… may I hug you?” She was trembling a little. 

“Uhh…” That was as much as I managed to get out before she did just that, embracing me tightly while repeatedly stammering her gratitude. Behind her, Jae stood awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot while giving me a hesitant nod. 

“Oh! Oh, how stupid of me.” Quickly releasing me from the embrace, the woman stepped back. “Ahem, I’m Kella Song. Yes, that Kella Song, from Seven’s Company. I can sign anything you like. And this is Jae Baek, my ahhh… stepdaughter.” Clearly, the word daughter had stuck in her throat. She could barely get it out, sounding like she was saying a dirty word. Not because she had anything against the girl herself, I realized. But because she was still clinging to the one bit of success she’d had in her career while acting. Yeah, I remembered Seven’s Company. Not that I’d seen more than a couple episodes, but I did know enough to realize the woman in front of me had been in her mid-teens at the time, and had barely been out of high school when it went off the air. That was her big claim to success, a show that had been done with for what had to be fifteen or sixteen years by now. She desperately wanted to hold on to what she had been back then, and acknowledging the fact that she was taking care of a daughter, even a stepdaughter, who was the same age she had been back when her career had seemed ready to skyrocket… yeah, that had to be hard, especially for someone like her.  

All those realizations had flashed through my mind while Jae awkwardly thanked me for being there. My mouth opened to tell both of them that it was no big deal, when we were interrupted by the sound of a voice calling out from the doorway. “My God, are you alright?!”

It was the manager of the store. He came rushing out, apologizing repeatedly for what had happened in his parking lot despite the fact that it definitely wasn’t his fault. The man was tall and stocky, with salt and pepper hair and a ruddy complexion. He introduced himself as Carl, thanking me over and over for being there, and offering to call the cops for Jae and Kella. 

Maybe it was bad, but I sort of expected Jae’s stepmother to lambaste the man or try to take advantage of the situation in some way. Instead, she told him they were fine and that he shouldn’t worry about it. Still, the man insisted on replacing the groceries that had been broken and scattered when the bags fell everywhere. He and Kella started inside to deal with that, apparently having forgotten that Jae was still standing there amidst the mess. 

“Uh, here, I’ll help you pick those up,” I announced, starting to collect the stuff out of the street. A few of the things had already been completely smashed from cars pulling through, though most of the vehicles pulled around. 

“Oh, you… don’t have to…” Trailing off, Jae hesitated before stooping to pick the stuff up too. One of the cart collector employees jogged over, and soon we’d picked up everything that had fallen. Most of it went in a nearby trash can, while a few things were able to be taken back inside. As the guy thanked us for the help and headed in with that, I looked to the girl beside me. Belatedly, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t supposed to know her, and cleared my throat. “Ahh, you okay then… Miss?” 

Her head bobbed quickly, voice soft. “Thank you.” Visibly hesitating, she finally added, even more quietly, “What were you doing here? Is… there a bad guy around?”

“Huh? Oh, no.” I shook my head while wondering yet again how much she knew about Amber. If she knew that her friend was That-A-Way, did she think that the other girl might be around here somewhere? “I was just, uh, you know, hanging out. You uhh…” I hesitated, stuck on thinking about what she might know already. 

“It’s okay,” she interrupted my musing to gently inform me, “you can ask.” 

Wait, what? Did she know what I was thinking somehow? Could she–how did… “Ask?” I blankly echoed, just to have actually said something while she was staring at me. 

“I’m albino,” came the response as she gestured to her own pale complexion and very light hair. “Albino Asian. I know it’s weird.” Her voice was a flat mutter, making it clear that she was just repeating what she heard all the time. I knew she heard it all the time, because I had been there many of those times. 

Oh. Oh crap, while I was trying to decide if she knew about Amber, she thought I was staring at her because of the–oh. Damn it. Quickly, I shook my head. “No, no, I mean, that’s not what I was–I mean I wasn’t–that’s not–it’s not weird. It’s different. It’s not–it’s no big deal.” Great, Cassidy, fantastic. Totally and completely smooth. You’re not biffing this interaction at all. 

The other girl raised an eyebrow, her dubious expression clear, though she seemed grateful that I wasn’t being completely hostile. Probably just figured I was more accidentally rude rather than outright antagonistic. 

Before either of us could say anything else, however, a crowd of people started to approach. They had been gradually gathering by the doors of the store, apparently trying to figure out if I was the real thing or just some normal person cosplaying. Which, for the record, was an option that still blew my mind. There were much better people than me to dress up as. 

Either way, they approached and started to ask for autographs, when a dark shadow flew down out of the sky and landed on the nearby metal bar along the side of the shopping cart corral. It was Lucent, and his presence only made people gather around us faster. They might have thought I was cool, but he was on a completely different level. Which was fair, considering he was a talking raven with superpowers. I couldn’t really compete with that. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t there for a social call. Or even just to see what I was doing rather than waiting for him on the roof. Instead, the bird looked straight to me. “Pardon the interruption, fine people! Paintball, might I request your assistance? The car that narrowly avoided such a terrible calamity moments ago appears to be part of a… situation down the street.” 

“A situ–yeah. Sorry, guys, we’ll see you another time!” Waving to the crowd before looking at Jae, I added, “I’m glad you’re okay. And hey, good luck at your dad’s welcome home party.” With that, I used blue paint to launch myself upward, Lucent flying after me. The crowd called out an assortment of things, holding up their phones to take pictures and video. But I was mostly focused on my new companion. “What’s going on?” I managed while landing on the roof of the store with my wheels out to glide along it, not wanting to give up any momentum. 

“There is a bank at the end of the street,” Lucent informed me while gliding just overhead. “I had intended to give the driver of that vehicle a good scolding. But it appears they are waiting in the back for companions within who are engaged in, shall we say, an illicit withdrawal. Others have been alerted, yet are too far away or occupied with other situations. Tis not exactly the training I had intended for today, yet if you are amenable to a… I believe the correct term is ‘team-up?’” 

Well, that was a surprise. The car that had almost run over Jae and Kella was involved in a bank robbery? No wonder the driver was distracted and didn’t bother to stop. Though actually, come to think of it, shouldn’t that make them drive a lot more carefully so they wouldn’t attract attention? Maybe this was a bad getaway driver. 

Either way, we reached the end of the building and I used red paint on the one next door to yank myself that way. I could see the bank in question on the corner while flying through the air. There didn’t seem to be anything hinky going on from the outside. Not yet, anyway. But I trusted Lucent to know what he was talking about. He could probably see through the windows better than I could. The building itself was a three-story red brick thing, with a narrow one lane drive-through connected to the alley, and a small parking lot that wrapped around the opposite side and into the back. And sure enough, as I launched myself through the air to land on the roof of the building directly next to the bank, I could see the car from before idling right by the marked employee exit, pointed toward the next street over. They were clearly ready to bolt out of there. 

Crouching down on the edge of the roof and peering that way, I hesitated before asking, “Okay, so how do you want to play this?” Lucent had a lot more experience and seniority in the whole Star-Touched situation. I was going to follow his lead. Especially when it came to something like an actual ongoing bank robbery. 

He, in turn, landed next to me and cocked his head a bit, looking between the car and the bank. “‘Twould be best to have some measure of what is happening inside before leaping to actions that may endanger civilians. Perhaps–ah, assistance.” 

He was looking back the way we had come, and I turned to see a familiar figure. Carousel, from the Minority. She wore the same full gold, silver, and purple robe and hood, with a matching jester’s mask. Oh, and she was crossing the street in the air from the other roof, like I had. But rather than having paint pull her, she was using her own power. In this case, she had what appeared to be a park bench, a chair, and a garbage can. They were pulled in by her power, miniaturized to spin around her in orbit. She would jump, make one of the objects resume its normal size just long enough to land on it, jump off it while shrinking it back down and making the thing spin around her again, return the next object to its normal size, land on that before jumping off it, and repeat. She did that all the way through the air from the other roof to this one, crossing high above the street before landing smoothly. 

“Dude,” I managed, “you would be amazing at playing the floor is lava.” 

“I heard you were stopping a robbery,” she replied, “Not one to engage in snobbery, I thought an alliance was due. To turn a pair into few.” 

“Excellent,” Lucent agreed. “I had thought it would be only the two of us. Yes, we would quite welcome your assistance, Carousel. Your aid is as welcome as your delightful balladry. Now come…

“Let us discuss how to safely detain these scoundrels.” 

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Interlude 12B – Raindrop (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter                                          Next Chapter

The first time that Izzy Amor had worn her official Minority costume, she had felt like a little kid playing dress-up. Largely because that was essentially what she had been. Eleven years old at the time, she’d had her powers for only a little over a week. A week since the night she had climbed out her window and onto the roof of their condo in the middle of the night to escape the sound of her mother’s tryst with some man she had never met. Izzy had been wishing for the chance to find her real father. Instead, she found one of the Summus Proelium orbs hovering there. In a daze, feeling like the whole thing was a dream, she had touched the orb. 

The week that followed had passed in a rush. Her mother had negotiated everything about Izzy’s joining the Minority. The rules stated that, young as she was, she had to have specific parental approval to join the team in the field. Usually, people under fourteen, even after being approved to be part of the team, did not participate in field exercises. They focused on training. 

But Izzy’s mother had believed that her daughter would only make a name for herself in order to join one of the good teams if she got started right away. She’d wanted Izzy to stand out, the same way an enthusiastic parent might push their kid too hard to make a name for themselves in their chosen sport in order to attract colleges and pro teams. So, she had signed contracts approving Izzy’s deployment into the field under controlled circumstances. Even with contracts, Izzy still couldn’t go out in costume by herself, of course. You had to be at least sixteen to do solo patrols, and even then you had to earn (and request) the privilege. 

In any case, Izzy had been eleven years old and approved, thanks to her mother, for supervised, team-centered field work. After several days of adjustments and tests, her costume had fit perfectly, yet somehow still felt too big for her. Standing in front of the cameras in that dark blue bodysuit with silver armor panels, a white cloak and hood, and a mirrored faceplate that completely obscured her appearance, Izzy had felt like a fraud. She’d felt as though any minute, one of the reporters was going to laugh at the idea of eleven-year-old Izzy Amor being some kind of hero. The fact they didn’t actually know her name or anything about her hadn’t helped calm her nerves. She had been a little kid playing dress-up with a costume that, by itself, had been more expensive than basically everything she had ever owned all put together. 

She’d gone out with the team over those few months, growing slightly more comfortable with what she could do. The others had helped a lot, keeping her calm, making her feel like part of the team despite her uncertainty and misgivings. Her power was helpful not only in combat situations, but for a lot of other uses. She could put out fires, could lift heavy objects off or away from people by getting them wet and then making them float. She could even help stop some entire fights in their tracks just by bringing an intense torrential downpour of cold water. A lot of the time, people who were soaking wet from heavy rain that kept getting in their eyes stopped wanting to fight. It was especially useful for breaking up random brawls on the street between Prev gang members. 

The point was, doing all that made Izzy feel useful. She had still felt as though she didn’t really belong in the expensive, incredibly cool-looking costume she’d been given. After all, she hadn’t done anything to earn her powers. She’d just gone up to hide on the roof away from the sound of her mother having sex with some random guy. The orb came to her and suddenly she had powers she had done nothing to earn. Powers she was pretty sure she didn’t actually deserve. 

But deserve them or not, she’d had them. And, for those few months (during which she had turned twelve years old), she’d gradually started to feel like she might be able to actually be a real part of something. She’d started to feel attached to the team… to her team. She’d even felt as though she might be able to make her mother proud of her, might be able to give her mom the better life that Izzy knew she wanted. Things were looking up. 

Then… then her mother had sold her to Oscuro. Her mother had sold her, had taken money in exchange for her, knowing that Izzy was going to be hurt. Worse than hurt, tortured. Her madre had sold Izzy to be tortured and trained, forced to do bad things for bad people just so she could have money. And not even that much money. The ultimate, indescribable act of betrayal, and her mother had done it for half a million dollars. Five hundred thousand for selling her daughter. 

Now, weeks later, here she was, a guest at the Evans’ obscenely spacious and well-adorned house. Playing video games with their daughter, eating at their kitchen table, sleeping in a bed that, like her Minority costume, was clearly worth more than anything else she had ever owned.  

And again, just like her powers, Izzy had done nothing to earn it. She didn’t deserve any of this, didn’t deserve to be treated like one of Mr. and Mrs. Evans’ children. She was just… Izzy. Why should she be in this virtual palace, being treated like some kind of… of important person? 

She didn’t. She didn’t deserve that. Which was part of what convinced Izzy that she had to go back out again as Raindrop. She didn’t deserve this kind of life at all, but maybe she could at least give some of it back by helping people again. Even if the thought of dressing up in that suit and playing hero made her feel even more like she was just pretending. She could still try. She could put the suit on, go out, and try to help as many people as possible. And if she did that enough, maybe someday she wouldn’t feel like such a fraud. 

That day wasn’t now, however. Izzy stood in costume, staring at herself in the mirror. She was in the bedroom she’d been allowed to use in the Evans’ house. Cassidy was at school, and Simon was off on some kind of family business. Still, the house was busy enough that Izzy had locked the door and stuck a chair up under the knob, just to be on the safe side. The blinds and curtains were also drawn across the windows. She was definitely alone, watching herself in costume while thoughts of her mother ran through her head. The mirrored faceplate stopped Izzy from seeing her own expression, but she already knew what it looked like. Small, pale, nervously biting her lip, her dark hair a mess. Eyes that perpetually looked too wide and too wet. Not brave. Not strong. Not heroic. Just Izzy. 

Abruptly, Izzy’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a knock at the door. She jumped, gasping reflexively as her gaze snapped that way in time to hear Mr. Evans call, “Izzy, you okay?” 

Finally breathing (a bit too rapidly), Izzy pulled the hood down and reached behind her head to undo the straps of the face plate, pulling that off as well as she blurted, “Sorry, Mr. Evans! Umm, uhh, is it just you?” The question came out awkwardly, making her flush a bit at the sound of her own voice.

There was a brief pause before the man answered, “Yeah, Izzy, it’s just me. Is everything alright?” 

Stepping over, Izzy undid the lock, pulling the chair away from the door before opening it for him. Both Mr. Evans and his wife knew all about her Touched identity. It was part of them allowing her to stay with them, as they’d had to know what they were getting into. But Silversmith had assured her that he trusted the Evanses and that she would be safe with them. 

Now, she stepped away from the door, in full costume save for the faceplate and hood, the former of which was held under one arm. She was also flushed from embarrassment. “Sorry, Mr. Evans,” she repeated, “I just didn’t want one of your… umm, people to walk in.” 

The man held a hand up to stop her, while stepping through. He closed the door behind him after checking the hall. “It’s okay, Izzy, I promise. You’re fine. Superhero or not, you’re entitled to your privacy, kid, believe me.” He paused before offering her a small smile that she supposed many would have found handsome and charming. “So, you’re about ready to go out there again, huh?” 

Even more self-conscious, she shrugged at the question while ducking her gaze. But something made her take a deep breath before looking back to meet his eyes. “Yes, sir,” she informed the man as steadily as she could. “I’m ready.” 

********

“Wham, Rain, the truck!” Syndicate (Or one of him, anyway) shouted a couple hours later, as his fist slammed into the side of a tatted-up Easy Eights gang member, knocking the guy staggering backward. The Prev lashed out with his knife, but that version of Syndicate turned insubstantial, allowing the blade to pass harmlessly through him. 

At the same time, a second version of the boy, on the opposite side of their opponent, turned solid and lashed out with a kick to the small of the man’s back. He was knocked forward just as the two Syndicates swapped solidity once more so the first could strip the knife from the stumbling man’s hand, tossing it aside. In that second, a third Syndicate took a running leap, turning solid in mid-lunge (as the other two turned ghost-like) in time to crash into the man and take him to the ground. 

Of course, despite her own self-assurances that she was prepared to back out on the streets, Izzy was still under sixteen. Which meant she still had to go out with a group. No solo patrolling. And that was just fine with her. Ready as she might’ve been to ease back into this whole thing and work to earn the things she’d been given (including her powers), Izzy didn’t want to do it alone. A part of her was still afraid of what would happen if she ran into any of the Oscuro people, people who had been ready and willing to abduct her right out of her own home. According to Silversmith, who had visited the Evanses shortly after her arrival there, Cuélebre and most of the gang had been unaware of what Handler was doing. He was, supposedly, working on his own. But that didn’t change much for Izzy, even if it was true. The emotions that came whenever she thought about those people… she was afraid of what she felt in those moments. 

But here, now? She was with her team, all of them. They had all wanted to come out for her first night back on the job. Which was apparently a good thing, as the six of them had managed to stumble across some kind of Easy Eights job. A group of Prev thugs, led by two Fell-Touched known as Juice and Pivotal, had been loading some kind of shipment out of a warehouse and into a couple semi trucks. A night watchman had managed to call out an alert, and Raindrop’s team was close enough to intercede. 

They had shown up in time to catch the gang right before they’d been about to pull out. Now, Carousel, Wobble, and That-A-Way were busy with Juice (a very heavy-set black guy wearing a silver, entirely featureless and smooth helmet that covered his whole head and a black tank top that showed off his arms with their stormcloud and lightning bolt tattoos whose powers allowed him to control electricity and granted him incredible strength), near one of the trucks. 

The other truck, as Syndicate had just pointed out, was rapidly speeding through the lot. It had just turned the corner around the nearest warehouse building when Izzy snapped her gaze that way. Out of sight. 

But not for long. Even as Izzy saw the taillights of the truck disappear, Whamline jogged to her, extending a hand. “Ready, kid?” he blurted, clearly ready to abort and go after the truck by himself if she declined. Because everyone here, all night, had been treating her with child-gloves, acting like she might break the moment anything bad happened. Even Syndicate had very obviously almost declined this whole situation the moment he heard it involved an actual Fell-Gang with powers. Not to mention the fact that, now that they were in the midst of it, the team had been going out of their way to make sure Izzy didn’t even get close to any bad guys. They were trying to help, she knew, surrounding her with as much protection as possible after what happened (they were aware that her mother had tried to sell her to Oscuro), but it wasn’t helpful. She wanted to prove, at least to herself, that she belonged here, not act like a little kid going bowling with the stupid rubber things in the gutters. 

Now, in this moment, Syndicate and Whamline were offering her that chance. In the midst of combat, seeing that truck about to get away, they had both either forgotten or dismissed the whole ‘keep Raindrop away from the action.’ They were giving her a chance to contribute. 

She took it, grabbing Whamline’s hand before he could change his mind. The instant she did so, the older boy extended his other hand, shooting off one of his energy-coils, which caught hold of the roof of the nearby warehouse. A second later, they were being yanked up toward it. 

They’d done this before, mostly in training, but part of Izzy was nervous about actually pulling it off in the field like this. Still, she shoved those doubts away and focused. An orb of water appeared in the air in front of them, soaking the two as they passed through it. And the second they were wet, she cancelled the effects of gravity on them, blurting, “Now!” 

Whamline’s coil disappeared, no longer yanking them toward the roof. Yet, thanks to the lack of gravity, the pair were still hurling up and forwards. Their momentum carried them clear over the roof, passing above the warehouse and to the other side just in time to see the semi-truck below heading for the street. 

There it was. Seeing it down there, Izzy focused on increasing the effect of gravity on herself and her teammate. They dropped like a pair of heavy stones, crashing straight down while she restrained the urge to scream. Trust. Trust herself. She had to trust herself and her partner. 

Whamline sent out two coils as they dropped, which latched onto the back of the truck and hauled them both that way. They were still dropping so fast Izzy’s stomach felt like it was somewhere up around her throat. Still, she waited, waited…

Just in time, at the last possible second before it would have been too late, she cancelled and then reversed the effect of gravity on them. Momentum carried the pair forward, until the reversed gravity worked to negate it. Izzy had practiced this enough that, while there was a slightly painful jerk, it wasn’t too bad. The reversed gravity and Whamline’s coils worked together to catch them almost like a parachute, just as the two landed on top of the speeding truck. 

“You got this?!” Whamline called, using one arm to hold onto Izzy while the other maintained one of his coils to hold them against the truck. 

“Got it!” she confirmed. All her fears, nerves, and everything else seemed to wash away as she focused on her power. Ahead of the speeding truck, a ball of water appeared. It began as an orb that was only a few feet across, but very quickly grew larger. By the time the truck hit it, unable to stop, the ‘bubble’ was almost as large as the truck itself. 

Izzy and Whamline threw themselves flat against the roof of the trailer, just as the truck crashed through the water. The instant it did and soaked itself, Izzy threw every bit of her power into cancelling its gravity. 

It worked. The truck floated up off the ground, leaving the engine screaming and tires spinning uselessly. They couldn’t go anywhere. 

Strong as her power might’ve been, it took effort to make it work over something as big as a truck. More effort than Izzy was capable of keeping up for long. Still, she didn’t have to keep it going. A couple seconds after making the truck lift a few feet off the ground, she increased gravity on the cab part alone. The trailer continued floating, while the truck itself slammed downward, hitting the pavement with enough force to crumple the hood and front-end and shatter the windshield. The truck definitely wasn’t going anywhere anymore. 

The doors of the truck were thrown open, as two figures launched themselves out of either side. One was a random thug with a gun, who landed on his side on the ground, already pointing his pistol up toward them. But Whamline was on top of that, one of his coils smacking the weapon out of the man’s hand while another lifted him up and threw him out of the way. 

The man who dove out of the driver’s side of the truck, however, was Pivotal, a small, thin guy in a green bodysuit with white highlights and a white ski mask. His power allowed him to designate any point of any non-living object as a pivot and make more of that object rotate or revolve around that point. Which he used right then by making a section of the ground rotate upward even as he jumped from the truck, landing on that vertically twisted bit of pavement. 

Izzy sent a geyser of water at the man, but he backflipped away from his raised platform while simultaneously making a larger section pivot upward to block the spray of water. At the same moment, the truck split in half under herself and Whamline as Pivotal obviously designated the spot beneath their feet as a pivot point and bent the trailer to the side away from them. 

They fell, but Izzy lowered gravity, allowing the pair to land lightly, facing the large section of pavement (it was about nine feet high and six feet wide) blocking them from Pivotal. 

Whamline threw three quickly summoned energy coils at the raised ground, making them explode to send a shower of debris in every direction. Izzy was already sending a new wave of water that way, just in time to catch…

Nothing. The area behind the raised ground was empty. No one was there. Pivotal had disappeared. 

“The ground,” Izzy realized a second after she and Whamline had stood there in confusion. She pointed. “He lifted the ground out of the way to get down under it. Now he’s tunnelling… somewhere. He just umm, he just has to rotate sections of ground out of his way, see?” 

“He’s running,” Whamline muttered, looking in every direction. “Shit–I mean…” He coughed, turning in a circle. “Guess you don’t really think about ‘power to rotate things’ being that impressive, but…”

That-A-Way appeared beside them, teleporting into view before looking around. “What–Juice took off, what about you guys?” 

“Ours got away too,” Izzy admitted, folding her arms across her chest while adding an explanation of how Pivotal had escaped. 

“Well, we got most of the Prev thugs.” That was one of the Syndicates, approaching while still in his ghost-form. “And stopped them from escaping with the trucks. The Fell-Touched might’ve escaped, but they didn’t get what they were after. Which… what were they–” 

“Guns,” Carousel called, approaching with a shrunken object revolving around her. She sent it forward and let it resume its full size as an open crate that landed on the ground between them. “Guns by the tons.” 

She was right, Izzy realized. The crate was full of firearms. And all the crates that had fallen out of the split-open trailer nearby also had weapons in them. Guns, shields, ammunition, grenades of all sorts, explosives…

“God damn,” That-A-Way muttered, “what the hell is all this for?” 

“They’re prepping for a war,” Carousel noted, “but to even what score?” 

Syndicate swallowed hard, speaking up. “Let’s call it in and get people here to clean the place up before those guys come back with reinforcements to get all this stuff. But I think you’re right, Carousel. 

“The Easy Eights are getting ready for war.”

Previous Chapter                                          Next Chapter

Showdown 7-09 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter                                    Next Chapter

Citing exhaustion after everything that had happened, which wasn’t exactly a stretch, I let Eits drive me back to the store where all that fighting had happened. The two of us sat in that car, staying quiet for the first part of the drive before he looked to me. “You believe me when I say I won’t tell anybody about you, right?”

I shrugged a bit. “I don’t really have much of a choice, do I? My black paint only lasts ten seconds, and I can’t exactly follow you around constantly reapplying it just to keep you quiet.”

He gave me a brief look, coughing once. “Why do I feel like you actually considered that for a second back there?”

Flushing under the mask, I retorted, “I was panicking, sue me. My identity is kind of sensitive.” With that, I turned a bit to stare at him. “So when you promise you won’t tell anybody, you really have to not tell anybody. I mean it. Not even Pack. Nobody. Don’t even write it down. It could… it could get both of us in deep trouble.”

Because I was pretty sure if my parents found out who I was and even suspected that I knew about them, they’d work to shut up anyone else who might know. That included anyone who had found out any hints of my identity. They wouldn’t take chances.

Eits looked uncertain for a moment, but finally nodded. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, but I think I’ll just take your word for it. Like I said, I’m not going to tell anybody about you. And I won’t write it down or anything. I’ll even try not to dream about it if that helps. No promises on that front though, subconscious Eits kind of has a mind of his own.”

Another moment of silence passed before he offered, “I guess we both know more about each other than we intended, huh? Funny how that works when you’re not even trying.”

I nodded. “I haven’t done anything to try to find out who you are from that whole baseball thing. Now, I guess we both sort of have power over each other. We don’t look into each other‘s pasts or identities, right?”

“Right,” he agreed readily. “Just… I swear this isn’t me trying to pry, but when you talk about how dangerous it would be if anybody found out who you were, it doesn’t sound like you’re talking in general. You’re afraid of someone specific. So, I just want to ask… are you okay? Sorry, you don’t have to talk about it. I just… yeah, if you need anything or whatever…”

Blinking in a bit of a surprise, I quickly shook my head. “I’m okay. I mean, you’re not wrong about it being dangerous, but it’ll be fine.” Pausing, I added a somewhat awkward, “Thanks. But you know what? This is going to make having to come after you once we’re on opposite sides again really awkward.”

He shrugged. “Like we said, you have ways of finding out who I am if I go too far looking into you, or give away any of your secrets. Besides, I am fully prepared to cool my heels in a cell if you grab me doing something bad. It’s not like Blackjack won’t get me out.” 

He paused then, head tilting. “Err, did that sound like I was taunting you? Cuz I wasn’t trying to taunt you. It’s just… uhh, yeah. La Casa look after their own. Blackjack has these strict rules about how much force we’re allowed to use if we’re actually caught, depending on by who, the situation, and everything else. The point is, we play nice and spend a little time in jail if we have to until the others resolve the situation.”

“So what you’re saying is,” I started slowly, “you’re not going to start screaming about me being a girl the second I catch you breaking into someone’s system and lock you down for the cops.”

He gave me a serious look then. “Like I said, your secret is safe with me. I’m not gonna tell anybody. I mean, I wouldn’t exactly be happy about it, but I trust Blackjack. Besides, if you catch me breaking in somewhere, I deserve to be caught.”

Snorting at that, I retorted, “Pretty big words for someone who had to call me for help to get him off a roof, dude.”

He was clearly blushing a little while waving that off with his hand. “A crazy fluke. Totally not gonna happen again.” Sobering a bit then, the boy looked to me once more. “You and me, we’re good. I know the risks of what I’m doing, and I’m ready for the consequences if they come. You catch me fair and square, I’m not gonna say anything. I swear. But you do have to catch me first.”

Hesitating, I took a breath before pointing out, “You could always just stop being a bad guy. Seriously, you seem really cool. It’d be a lot easier to avoid any problems if you weren’t stealing things anymore.”

He sounded honestly regretful while replying, “Sorry. I owe Blackjack, not to mention the rest of La Casa.  Without them, I’d… let’s just say I’d be in much worse shape.” Shrugging, he added, “Besides, I hate to tell you this, but stealing things is kind of a rush. Beating security systems, finding a way around the guards, even dealing with Star-Touched like you. Some of the other Fell take it way too seriously, or they’re just fucking monsters. Me, I just want to see if I can do it. And, like I said, I owe Blackjack more than I could ever describe.”

There was a lot I wanted to say to that, but I wasn’t sure how to phrase it. I also kind of wanted to ask the boy if he knew anything about a secret group who were paid by villains for the right to operate in the city. He was probably one of my best ways of getting more information about my family’s organization. But I couldn’t bring that up yet. I didn’t want to endanger him if he went looking for information, and I still wasn’t exactly positive about how much I should tell him anyway. I wouldn’t be able to unring that bell once I brought it up, and I was pretty sure he would be able to figure out that there was a connection between me talking about how dangerous it was if someone found out too much about me, and this random mysterious shadowy organization. He could put two and two together. 

So, I just stayed quiet as we pulled into the back lot behind the store. There were a lot of people there. Mainly I saw La Casa troops of both the Touched and Prev variety grouped up on one side, and the four Minority people on the other. There was obvious tension in the area, and I hoped things didn’t boil over. Quickly getting out of the car with a last look back toward Eits, I moved to Carousel and the others. “They’re not back yet?”

Syndicate (or the one of him who was standing there) spoke up. “No. According to those guys, this Jailtime asshole takes you into his own private prison and you have to find your way out.” He paused before muttering under his breath, “Way better get out of there.” 

Unable to help myself, I asked, “So where’s Raindrop? I figured she’d be with you guys, or at least show up by now.”

Syndicate quietly answered, “She’s… on vacation. She needed a break.”

Okay, there was definitely something more to that, but before I could think about it too much, Carousel looked to me. “Seems like you went many miles. Tell us you got the vials. All the danger this has fraught, it’d suck to be for naught.”

Wobble nodded, the huge guy looking to me. “She’s right,” he rumbled in a deep voice, “if we went through all this and those vials are still out there…”

“Almost,” I assured them. “We’ve got all but one of them. And that last one… well, it’s with Pack and That-A-Way.” Looking back to the spot where the two had disappeared, I quietly added, “So I guess that’s another reason to hope they make it out.”

Whamline spoke up. “You’re a pretty hard little guy to figure out, you know? You’re obviously trying to help people, but you’re also on friendly terms with villains like Blackjack and Pack. Not to mention that Eits guy. You’re not a villain, but you say you don’t want to join us either. So what’s the deal? Do we have cooties or something?”

Turning away from where he had been staring at the La Casa people, Syndicate agreed. “Yeah, we’ve been trying to figure out why you’re so adamant about staying on your own. I mean, you’ve seen how dangerous it is out there. Look at your helmet. That was Cuélebre, right? He nearly killed you. And let me guess, you still don’t want to join.”

Blanching a bit out their interrogation, I gave a quick shake of my head while holding the broken helmet tighter. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m just not a team player right now. You’re right, I’m not a bad guy. I just want to help people. But I have my own way of doing it. I don’t mind helping out, I just can’t join up with you.

“And I was helping Blackjack save his daughter. That’s it. I don’t agree with the guy or anything. I just don’t think his kid should pay for what Blackjack does. I get why Ashton is pissed at him. But he took it too far.”

The four of them exchanged looks, a silent conversation of some kind passing between them before Syndicate looked back to me. “I guess that’s fair enough for now. But we’ve still got a lot of questions. Sorry, I’m just pretty sure there’s still something more behind your whole situation than you’re saying.”

Inwardly, I blanched while trying not to show any reaction in my body language. How could I just tell them to leave well enough alone without piquing their curiosity even more? If I acted like it was a big deal and tried to warn them, they’d definitely dig deeper. And that could be really bad for everyone, considering my supervillain/hero father was basically their boss. 

So, I just did my best to shrug it off, deliberately changing the subject. “Are you guys gonna be okay after all this? I mean, you were technically fighting alongside La Casa tonight too.”

Carousel was the one who replied. “They’ll just have to let us explain. With that kind of danger, we couldn’t abstain.”

“What she said, only less rhymey,” Syndicate agreed. “At least for tonight, the truce was the best way to go. Two other gangs to fight, nobody’s going to blame us for not jumping straight into fighting La Casa too. And like you said, in this case it was about saving a little girl. Even if she was the daughter of a supervillain.”

Everyone stopped talking then, because the car with Blackjack himself had shown up. He stepped out of it, glanced over to us, and then said something to his men. After a brief back and forth, he approached, watching our reactions before speaking. “I owe all of you a debt of gratitude for what you’ve done tonight, and the risks you took to secure my daughter’s medicine.”

Wobble quickly asked, “Don’t suppose we could all trade in those debts of gratitude and get you to turn yourself in?” After a brief pause, he shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

Chuckling in what sounded like genuine amusement, Blackjack nodded. “It certainly was. But no, I’m afraid tonight will not be the time you manage to talk a Fell-gang leader into surrendering. Given what I’ve seen of you all, however, I would hardly be surprised to see you manage it at some point. I’ll even wish you luck, given how my own organization could profit from such an event.”

He was still nervous. I could tell that much just from watching the man. He was trying to play things off, but there was a certain tenseness to him. Probably because he was so close to finally saving his daughter. There was only one vial left, and he could do absolutely nothing about getting it back. He just had to stand here and wait to see if… no, when Pack and That-A-Way got out of there. They had the last vial, and his daughter wouldn’t be safe until they were here. But he could do nothing to influence it and clearly felt completely helpless. I knew the feeling. 

Before anyone else could say anything, there was a rush of motion from above and to the side, I quickly looked that way with the others, just in time to see Flea come leaping down to land between the Minority Touched (as well as me) and Blackjack. She was joined a second later by another female figure in a purple and white skin tight suit with a helmet not too dissimilar from mine. Dynamic, the Conservator speedster who could temporarily drain the powers from people she ran past in order to create energy constructs. She came skidding to a stop beside the other woman, both of them standing with their attention fully centered on Blackjack. 

“Problem here?” Flea asked flatly, her voice full of warning. She had a sword in one hand, though she hadn’t actually raised it. The tip was pointed at the ground. But her intent was clear. 

Syndicate quickly spoke up. “It’s okay. Nothing’s changed since we reported in a few minutes ago. We’re still waiting for That-A-Way.”

Blackjack gave a slight nod. If he was at all intimidated or worried about the two adult Star-Touched, he gave no sign of it. I even saw him suddenly wave his hand back to motion for his own men to stay away. His voice was as calm as possible given the situation. “Your protege is correct. We have all held to a truce this evening to focus on more important matters. I hope that can be maintained through these last few minutes.”

Flea made a noise of curiosity. “Few minutes? The way I understood it, we have no way of knowing when our people will get out of that prison. Unless you’re privy to something the rest of us aren’t?”

She was trying to find out if his words had anything to do with his power, I realized. No one knew exactly how it worked, or how much information the guy could get. 

From the way he chuckled, the La Casa leader was just as aware of what she was doing. He bowed his head, seemingly in acknowledgment and approval of it before replying, “Let’s just say I have a certain level of optimism. Assuming our disagreements can wait until later?”

Dynamic spoke up, her voice bright and cheerful. “Oooh, by disagreements, you mean the fact that you’re a super villain who keeps robbing and hurting people and we’re supposed to take you to prison? Those disagreements?” She gave him a clearly embellished thumbs up. “Sure, we can wait to bring you to justice. It’s not like you’re suddenly going to disappear. Though, you know, that would probably be the best super villain move ever. Just completely vanish so no one ever finds you? I wonder if—” 

She stopped as Flea nudged her. I didn’t know a lot about Dynamic, except for the fact that she was the youngest member of the Conservators. She’d been part of the Minority only a year earlier. Not our Minority, but the one in the Utah/Wyoming area. On graduation, she’d been picked up by none other than Silversmith himself. 

Did that definitely make her one of the bad guys, or was I just being paranoid? Dad would obviously want good Star-Touched in the city, or he wouldn’t have anything to threaten people who didn’t pay up with. But was she just a good recruit to have, or actually part of the shadow organization? Having a loyal person on the Conservators besides himself, and one who could actually drain people’s powers at that, would be really useful for him.

“Paintball?” With a start, I realized that Flea had been trying to get my attention. When I looked that way, she gestured to the broken helmet in my hand. “Are you okay?”

“I…” Pausing, I swallowed before nodding. The brief memory flash of that lightning made my throat dry. I was really trying to focus on anything other than that. “I’m fine,” I claimed in a voice that I was proud to say was only shaking a little bit. “I just need a shower and a nap.”

With an audible giggle, Dynamic blurted, “Tell me about it, little dude. After all the shit that’s been going around tonight, I could use a spa day.” She didn’t seem nearly as tense as Flea was for standing in front of Blackjack. A sign that she was part of my parents’ organization after all, or just her personality? I wished I knew for sure. 

Belatedly, I looked to the two Conservator Star-Touched. “I… I saw Silversmith fighting Cuélebre. Is he–I mean, are they still–” God, how stupid was this? My dad was an actual secret supervillain and I was still worried about his safety. What was wrong with me? 

For her part, Flea simply offered me a short nod, clearly having no idea what was behind my question. “He’s fine. Cuélebre escaped, but I promise, Smith made him regret coming out tonight.” 

With that, she turned her attention to the La Casa leader. “It sounds like you treated these guys right.” She nodded to the Minority and me. “So thanks. Still, I have to say, this truce only lasts until you get that vial and get out of here. We see you again tonight, this whole thing is gonna go differently, got it?” 

Blackjack started to respond, but before he could say anything, there was a sudden flash of light nearby. Everyone’s eyes snapped there, as the light began to resolve into a figure. Or two figures. That-A-Way and Pack. The latter had all her lizards clinging to her arms and shoulders. 

As everyone stared, both girls staggered and stumbled a bit. They looked pretty haggard, worn out, and generally like they’d been through a lot. Finally, they looked up to find everyone watching. 

“Oh, hey, boss.” Pack’s words were light, though she was clearly barely able to keep standing. “Special delivery?”

Then she held up the final vial. The last one. She held it out, letting her employer take it from her with a somewhat shaking hand. Clutching it, he turned and nodded to someone. A moment later, Ashton was brought out and sent stumbling to me. 

It was over. Blackjack finally had what he needed to save his daughter. After all that, we’d actually pulled it off. 

And you know what, whether Dynamic was a secret bad guy or not, she was absolutely right about one thing. 

A spa day sounded really fucking good right about now.

Previous Chapter                                    Next Chapter

Showdown 7-06 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter                  Next Chapter

That saying ‘all hell broke loose’ didn’t apply here. Not because violence didn’t erupt, but because those words in that order utterly failed to really portray just how much violence erupted and just how quickly. Hell didn’t break loose, it was a meteor that suddenly and apocalyptically slammed into the Earth. Followed by several more meteors that came slamming in behind the first because they just couldn’t stand to miss all the fun.  

Honestly, the best analogy I had for it was one time when I had needed to ask Simon something a few years back. I’d gone into his room to find him lying on his bed with his headphones on. Next to the door was his wall-to-wall sound system, so I’d just reached out and hit a button with the headphone symbol on it. Pretty dumb, I know. It turned off the headphones, and suddenly the entire room had been flooded with screaming, earsplitting metal music. It had, with the touch of a button, shifted all that music from being pumped through his headphones to being pumped through the dozen different high-end speakers he had scattered throughout all of his rooms. My ears had practically been ringing for days after that little mistake. 

That’s what this was like. Not that it had been exactly peaceful before, but when the Ninety-Niner and Oscuro troops had surrounded Pack (and her pack), Eits, That-A-Way, Syndicate, Whamline, Wobble, Carousel, and me, the violence had at least paused. Mostly because we really hadn’t stood the slightest ghost of a chance in that position, against those kind of numbers. But now that Blackjack and more of La Casa had, in turn, surrounded the Oscuro and Ninety-Niners, everything just sort of exploded. Violently. 

For me, ‘violence exploded’ was pretty apt, considering basically the same instant everyone started fighting, just as I dropped my phone back in the pocket that hadn’t been cut open, something hit me. It was Cuélebre’s tail. I saw it coming from the corner of my eye, just in time to activate a bit of the orange within the image I’d painted across my costume. Even then, the tail still struck me with enough force that I was lifted clear off the ground and sent hurtling through the air with a belated scream. Flailing, I failed to actually right myself properly before colliding with a dumpster near the corner of the loading dock behind the store. The orange paint meant I didn’t end up with any broken bones (or worse), but I was still dazed, slumping to the asphalt with a low groan as my vision went a little blurry for a moment. 

The fighting, of course, didn’t stop for me. Gunshots and more filled the air, even as I groggily lifted my head to stare in that direction, trying to blink the daze away. Two Ninety-Niner thugs with shotguns were hoisted off their feet, slammed into one another, and hurled away in opposite directions by a couple of Whamline’s coils. Those same coils exploded in front of Coverfire, the concussive force knocking him away from That-A-Way while he was still trying to grab her. An instant later, there was a sharp whistling sound and a narrow distortion in the air slammed into Whamline. It was Silbón, a guy from Oscuro with a dark wide-brimmed hat over a dark gray face mask that left his mouth exposed and ragged clothes. 

Silbón was joined by a couple Oscuro thugs firing guns. They were set upon by Twinkletoes and Holiday. One of the Syndicates was on the ground. Another was shot at several times, but the bullets went through his semi-translucent body. The guy who shot at him was hit by one of those electric shopping carts directed by one of Eits’ mites (going faster than I thought those carts were capable of), just before one of the La Casa troops dove into him, both thugs rolling across the ground as they each fought for leverage against the other. 

Violence. Fighting. More than I could possibly hope to follow. Double Down, Blackjack, Cardsharp, and another member of La Casa named Hardway (a guy who manipulated inertia and motion of himself or things around him) were fighting Cuélebre and Sandon. The latter wore a modernized suit of armor with a lion’s pelt over the back, its fake ‘head’ functioning as her helmet and mask. They were all fighting in a jumble of motion and violence. Everyone was. It was all blurred movements, gunshots, powers flying off, the roar of animals and screams of both anger and pain. By the time I dragged myself off the ground, half the people there were down for one reason or another. Some would be down for much longer than others, but either way, the violence was taking its toll. This was too many people with too many powers and weapons in too close of quarters. Even as I took a step that way, my eyes caught sight of Pack and That-A-Way, bumping up against each other just as a figure loomed up behind them. It was another teenager, though definitely not part of the Minority. He wore the completely cliche ‘inmate’ outfit of a black and white striped prison suit with a black burglar mask and one of those prisoner numbers written across the front of the striped shirt. I had… no idea what his powers were. But before either That-A-Way or Pack could react, his hands grabbed each of them by the shoulders and all three disappeared. The ‘prisoner’ guy as well as both girls vanished. 

No! No, no, no! Where were they?! What– then I realized that Pack’s creatures must have been linked to her or something, because all of them disappeared a second later too. Hopefully, whatever prisoner boy had been doing, he hadn’t planned on that. 

But I didn’t have time to think about it. I didn’t have time to think about anything. Suddenly, just as I saw the group vanish in front of my eyes, a guy grabbed me from behind. It was just some random Ninety-Niner thug. I smelled awful alcohol breath as he yanked me off my feet with an arm around my waist, his other hand groping down my side toward the unruined pocket as he snarled, “Okay, kid, where’s the other vials, huh?! Where are they?!” 

That was what it took. Up to that point, since the moment Cuélebre’s tail had knocked me thirty feet into the dumpster, everything had taken on a bit of a dreamlike quality. My ears had been ringing, and I’d just sort of been staring at all this fighting in a daze for the past few seconds, as if I wasn’t really there. It was like I was watching all of this on television rather than interacting with it. But this guy grabbing me, that was enough to snap me out of all that and make me remember that I was actually involved.

As the guy groped over my leg looking for my pocket, I quickly turned that part of my pants blue and activated it, sending his hand snapping up and back. At the same time, I drove my helmeted head backward into his face. The combination of both made him drop me with a yelp, and I turned while landing, sending a shot of red paint into his chest while my left glove turned red as well. Activating both yanked him toward me, just as my other hand turned purple and decked the guy. He hit the ground and didn’t move. 

Another guy was coming for me, but I painted my legs green and my feet purple, using that to leap up and over him, twisting in the air before coming down right on top of his shoulders. He collapsed under my weight, and as we both fell to the ground, I snapped my hand to the side, shooting a spray of yellow paint at a group of bad guys who were going after Wobble and Carousel. They suddenly slowed dramatically, giving those two a chance to deal with them while I rolled forward off the guy I had just dropped onto. 

Unfortunately, that put me right at the feet of the Oscuro Touched with the wide-brimmed hat. Silbón. His power involved whistling, of course. Basically, any time he was whistling, he was almost entirely immune to damage. He would absorb that damage, and could then expel it through a whistle. When he did, his whistle would take on the same traits as the damage he had absorbed. He could whistle to absorb bullets, whistle again to absorb lightning, and whistle a third time to absorb fire. After that, he could, at any point, use the kinetic force of the bullets, the electricity from the lightning, or the heat from the fire in his whistles. Using a damage type spent the charge of absorbing it, but he tended to have absorbed a lot. 

Just as I ended up basically half-sprawled in front of the man, staring up at his black mask under that wide hat, he pursed his lips. Eyes widening, I slapped my hand against his foot and put black paint there. 

No sound came. I’d muted him. He had a moment to somehow look surprised despite me only being able to see his lips before I twisted around and drove my foot up between his legs with a bit of purple-paint boost. Then he wasn’t interested in trying to whistle anymore. But I still kicked him a couple more times just to be sure. 

Scrambling back to my feet, I snapped my gaze over to the fighting. It was… uhh… wow. Chaotic. Still. A couple random thugs were coming for me, but I blue-launched myself up and back, flipping in the air to land on the edge of the metal awning over the loading bay. Activating a bit more orange meant that the bullets they shot up at me just made me stagger a bit before I managed to yank their guns away with a shot of red. Before they could react to that, I took a few steps back out of their line of sight, tossing the pistols away to either side. And then I sort of… doubled over and tried not to hyperventilate while hugging myself. The shouting and screaming coming from everywhere, being shot at, nearly being hit by Silbón, all of it just… just… it was too much. It was too fucking much. And what about Pack and That-A-Way?! Were they okay? What was going on? Where were they? What could I do? What–

Nothing. I couldn’t do anything for them, not at the moment. I just had to hope they were okay, and focus on what was going on right here, right now. I could do this. I had to do this. I couldn’t abandon them down there. I had to help get that vial back. 

That settled, I took a deep breath before running forward, using a mixture of purple and blue paint to launch myself into the air. Between the two, I was sent really high and really far. Sailing over the battlefield, I helped out the best way I could. Namely, I first used yellow paint to slow my own descent, then used all the time I had while passing over the fighting to hit bad guys with more yellow paint and good guys with a mixture of green, purple, and orange. Mostly green and orange, as I couldn’t expect them to suddenly know that they were strong. But being faster and tougher would help regardless. As would their opponents suddenly being much slower. 

It helped so much that, by the time I landed on the far side of the lot, dropping into a roll, most of the random Ninety-Niner and Oscuro Prevs were down. Between the four Syndicates, Wobble, Whamline, and the La Casa people, they dealt with their unpowered opponents neatly. Unfortunately, that didn’t solve the issue of the guys who did have powers. Especially Sandon and Cuélebre. And that situation had gotten worse, as I saw Hardway off on the far side of the field trapped inside Ringside’s bubble. The two of them were fighting sans any powers as Ringside had apparently elected to remove Hardway’s at the expense of her own, and both were really good at that. They would be busy for awhile. 

Meanwhile, the remaining three La Casa people were fighting the leadership of the two rival gangs. Blackjack’s power wasn’t exactly suited to straight up and prolonged confrontation, but he had Double Down and Cardsharp for that. And they were definitely earning their keep. 

As far as Sandon went, the Ninety-Niners’ leader had been around long enough that her powers were pretty well known. They revolved around bones. Yeah. Basically, touching a bone gave her access to all of that person’s strength and general toughness. If they were a Touched with enhanced strength, it gave her a portion of that as well. Of course, touching bones from multiple different people gave her each of their strength together. And the inside of her suit was apparently completely lined with little pieces of bone. She was one of the straight-up strongest people in the city just because whenever someone with super strength showed up, she made a point of hunting them down and taking a piece of bone from them if possible. Which was eeeuuuggh.  

So yeah, between Sandon and Cuélebre, there was a lot of strength on the bad guy’s side. Double Down’s ability to absorb any kinetic force that hit him and Cardsharp’s power to alter her own physical properties to make herself tougher helped deal with that somewhat, but they couldn’t actually hurt the bastards enough to put them down. The best they could do was let Double Down absorb enough kinetic force to send right back at the Oscuro and Ninety-Niner leaders, while Blackjack used his own power to watch for the right moment and target. I kept seeing him randomly using a pistol to shoot at Cuélebre’s tail for some reason. Then I noticed that every time the tail was struck, a bit of electricity shot off of it. Like it was fizzling. 

Was Cuélebre’s tail how he summoned lightning? And was Blackjack shooting it to disrupt his attempts to do so every time? Was that why he hadn’t just fried everyone already? 

Well, that and the fact that he didn’t know where the other vials were, beyond the one in his hand. That was probably why he wasn’t just throwing lightning around everywhere, beyond Blackjack stopping him from using calculated strikes. Hell, maybe that was why Blackjack was able to stop him, because it took more time for him to carefully aim or something. Enough time for Blackjack to hit that spot of his tail. 

Whatever the answer, I was just glad we weren’t fried. Because we already had enough problems. As I crouched there, trying to present as small a target as possible while watching for an opening in the midst of their busy fight, I saw it. The vial was still in Cuélebre’s hand while he was fighting. It was right there. 

Unfortunately, just as I prepared myself to try and take it from him with a careful application of red paint, there was another interruption. This one came in the form of a figure who appeared in the middle of their fight. He was a tall guy in a dark red hood and cloak over a white bodysuit with a collar that extended up over the lower half of his face. Longhaul. That was Longhaul. 

The second he appeared, the man used his power to send Blackjack, Double Down, and Cardsharp to the far side of the parking lot, while looking at his leader. “They found the car that took off, it’s on the far side of Campus Martius Park. Still no driver.” 

Wren. She was remote driving the thing to get it out of here. 

Sandon was already looking to Cuélebre, who smiled. He was looking right at me. He read my body language. “The vials. That’s where they are.” 

Blackjack was coming. So were the others. But Cuélebre bellowed a deafening, “Do it!” At the same time, his wings came slamming down, as he launched himself upward. 

And then a woman’s voice called, “Ladies and gentlemen!” At that, my eyes, as well as basically all of those attached to anyone on our side in the immediate area, snapped over to see a woman in a sexified version of a ringmaster’s outfit sitting there on a motorcycle. Where had she come from? It was Grandstand, Cuélebre’s second-in-command. Even as everyone looked that way, she smiled. “Follow the leader.” Then the motorcycle kicked into motion, peeling out and swerving around before tearing out of the lot. 

After her. We had to go after her. Everyone else was already rushing that way, leaping into action to catch up with the woman. But just as I went to follow, intent on using green and red paint to catch up and maybe stop her, a hand grabbed my arm and yanked me back. It was Eits. He shook me violently, yelling something about Cuélebre at me. But who cared about Cuélebre when–wait. 

Grandstand’s power faded a second later as Eits shook me violently once more. I snapped out of it in time to see everyone else disappearing as they took off after her. After the distraction. 

“Cuélebre!” Eits shouted at me. “He’s getting away, what do we do?!” 

“How did you–” Then I realized it was probably the fact that his focus had been split between his own mind and all of his mites. That had saved him from Grandstand’s power. And there wasn’t time to worry about it anyway. 

“Close your eyes,” I blurted, grabbing onto Eits. He had time to yelp before I launched both of us into the air through a combination of blue paint at our feet and a red paint yank at the nearby building. We went up and over the roof, while I informed the boy currently holding on for dear life, “There’s a demon trying to catch a car, and we’ve gotta catch him first.”

Previous Chapter                  Next Chapter

Showdown 7-05 (Summus Proelium)

Previous Chapter                               Next Chapter

Apparently the Minority communications worked despite the jammer. Probably because they were all within the same area the jammer was affecting or something. Either way, the Syndicate with us was able to talk with the rest of his team outside, including his other selves. They coordinated what was about to happen, doing so with what amounted to a thirty second explanation. And given that we were about to have Cuélebre and Sandon dropped on our heads, even that felt like too long. We needed to get the hell out of here right freaking now.

First, I had to go grab Ashton. Vaguely tempting as it might’ve been to leave him here, I wasn’t going to do that. Instead, I moved up to where I’d left him in the ice cream aisle. He was… uhh, yeah, definitely losing his mind. When he saw me, his wild eyes focused and he shouted something that was muffled by the currently transparent visor. 

“Let me guess,” I dryly replied, “you need to scratch your nose like a son of a bitch.” Even as I said it, my hand was pulling the remote out and I quickly hit a couple buttons on it that Wren had told me about. “There, you can move now. But before you try running away, there’s a couple things you should know. First, there’s a whole bunch of guys out there from two different gangs who would love to torture you if you can’t convince them that you don’t have what they want. Or just for fun, because you wasted their time. Not to mention the fact that one of those gangs is the one whose people you used to piss off La Casa in the first place. And second, you definitely can’t get that suit off without Wren’s help, which means that anytime I hit the recall button, you’ll come marching right back to me anyway. I’m not going to unmute you, because we really don’t have time for any more bullshit. But I’m not leaving you here either, so come on.”

There was the briefest of hesitations, before he seemed to deflate a little bit and moved to follow me. I led him to the back of the store quickly, while giving him a brief explanation of what we were going to do. If he had any input on the plan, his facial expression and body language didn’t really depict it. Not to mention the fact that after all the times that he had said he was fine with a little girl dying for his revenge, I wasn’t really interested in his strategy ideas anyway. 

The two of us reached the back storeroom, passing a bunch of heavily-laden shelves before finding the others. As soon as we came into view, Pack put a hand on Mars Bar and pointed to Ashton. “See him? He stays with you. If he tries to go anywhere else besides with you until I say otherwise, rip one of his arms off and try beating him with it.”

While the bearguana growled, Syndicate cleared his throat. “Can we avoid openly discussing criminal acts like torture for a little while? I know I said we’d catch you guys another time, but you really shouldn’t go out of your way to make me regret that. And who are you anyway?”

“He’s on vocal timeout,” I replied. “But this is Ashton Austin, the guy behind that bank robbery that you guys have all been looking for. When this is over, you can have him. So, you see? You’re not getting out of this totally empty-handed after all.”

He looked back-and-forth between us briefly before simply noting, “If we get out of it. And if we do, we’re gonna have a lot more questions for you.”

“If we do, I’ll see about answering them.” With that, I looked over to the nearby closed loading dock doors. “So, are we doing this, or what?”

Syndicate nodded. “Remember the plan. All we need to do is get everyone to That-A-Way and she’ll teleport us out of here. We don’t need to stay and fight. We don’t need to win anything. We just need to get out. And we need them to know we’re gone so they leave everyone in the store alone. We make a break for it, go through any forces we need to, and teleport away. That’s it.”

Eits gave him a thumbs up. “Yeah, trust me chief, some of us aren’t interested in fighting at all. Running away sounds pretty good.”

For a second, it looked as though Syndicate was going to say something about that, before he just shook his head and asked, “Anything else?”

I quickly spoke up. “Yeah, this.” Raising my hands, I shot some orange paint at everyone in turn, including the lizard creatures. Two at a time (one with each hand), I hit everyone with a circle of the paint. “There, as soon as I activate this, which I will once we get out there, you’ll be tougher for about ten seconds. Bulletproof tough. And here.” For good measure, I added a spot of green paint to everyone as well. “Now you’ll all be faster too. Again, just for ten seconds. You’ll be faster and tougher than they expect. Just use it to get to That-A-Way.”

“Dude,” Eits intoned in what sounded embarrassingly like awe. “Support classes kick ass.”

Flushing under the helmet, I shook my head. “It’s no big deal, really. If we had more time, I’d do more, but we’re sort of pressed right now.”

Syndicate looked like he might say something to that, but in the end he just snorted and used his com. “We good out there? Okay. Other me going on three, the rest of us hold until he’s got their attention at the front. One, two, three.”

Even knowing it was coming, I didn’t hear anything at first. I was listening for the reaction and there was nothing. Which made sense, we wouldn’t get anything overt until he made them think he was—

Aaaand the gunfire started. Suddenly we could hear all those guns coming from out front. It was like someone had unleashed a swarm of monsters from hell. And those monsters were really pissed off. 

“Wait,” Syndicate cautioned, holding up a hand. “Wait for it. Wait for them to really commit to it. He’s in the store. Now they’re trying to break through that security shield. They’re breaking it, and… and they’re in! They’re moving through the front! Go, go!” 

We went. Eits had control of the security system, and he instantly opened the sealed doors. As planned, he opened all of them, the big rolling doors on all of the loading docks, and the regular-sized doors as well. They all opened as one, and we booked it through the loading door furthest to the left. We weren’t going to take the time to go through one of the regular doors. This way, we could all flood out and run for it. Hopefully, that way this would be less of a shooting gallery for the guys facing us. 

The second the doors were up and we were moving, I hung back just enough to let the others get ahead of me, and activated the orange and green paint I had to put over everyone. Suddenly, we were all moving even faster than our fear and adrenaline had been managing to make us move already. Which, honestly, was saying something. 

It was safe to say that the guys out back were pretty surprised by our appearance. They had been looking around toward the sides at the sound of gunfire from the front, when we suddenly came pouring out of the now open door right in front of them. Only a few of the many who were there managed to start firing immediately. And for that, the orange paint did its job. I saw several of the others take a couple hits that did little more than sting them thanks to the paint. Mars Bar by himself, probably thanks to his size and sheer intimidation factor, was hit a good six or seven times in those first couple seconds. He barely reacted, aside from opening his mouth to give a loud, pants-wetting roar while slamming into three guys at once. They went flying like bowling pins, while a fourth guy tried to open up on the bear with a shotgun. But Mars simply snatched it out of his hand, crumbling the gun like it was made of tissue paper with one paw, before grabbing him in the other and sending the man flying a good twenty or thirty feet with a dispassionate shove that way. 

Holiday grabbed a guy’s leg and ran off with him, dragging the poor bastard along with her as he screamed. Two other guys tried to shoot at her, but Tuesday and Twinkletoes wrecked them pretty thoroughly on their way past. One was walloped in the back of the head by a nearly invisible gorilla-lizard, while the other took a small, yet really dangerous monkey-lizard fist to the privates. The former was left completely unconscious, while the latter just really wished that he was. 

The first thing I did upon emerging and taking all this in was shoot a spray of blue paint as wide as I could make it around the feet of the group in front of us. Activating it sent them flying in every direction with a collection of screams. Which worked nicely to clear the path of the guys that Mars hadn’t already trampled through. 

Ashton was just behind the bear, apparently having taken Pack’s warning to heart. Or maybe he really didn’t want to be left to deal with all the angry Ninety-Niners after he’d used them in his revenge scheme and figured being behind the giant beast was his best shot. Either way, he was sticking really close to Mars Bar. 

Two guys with guns popped up toward the right. Both were taken down by Syndicate with a quick flurry of motion that I couldn’t even follow that left them on the ground, disarmed. On the opposite side, a guy who popped up with a rifle raised was literally run over by a car that came screaming through the lot, accompanied by the familiar sound of one of Eits’ mites cackling. The car proceeded to spin around, hitting another guy with its tail end during the skid. 

Just ahead, on the far side of the small rear lot where they had been able to crouch out of sight, That-A-Way appeared with another Syndicate, Whamline, Wobble, and Carousel. Not Raindrop though. Maybe she had the night off. Those five, however, were right there, and the path to them was clear for the moment, thanks in large part to the blue paint flinging the vast majority of people out of the way. Unfortunately, just as they came into view and I had a second to think this might be easy after all, there was a blinding flash of light. It faded quickly, but what didn’t fade was the new group of combined Oscuro and Ninety-Niner troops that had suddenly appeared. Long Haul. That had to be Long Haul, the Ninety-Niner Touched teleporter. He’d just dumped a bunch more problems right in front of us. 

Get to That-A-Way. Get everyone to That-A-Way. That’s all we had to do. Two guys who had recovered from their paint-assisted trip were picking themselves and their guns up and turning our way. I sprayed blue again, this time at my own feet, to launch myself up and forward. Twisting in the air just as the pair finished rising and turning, I passed by over their heads. One arm pointed down and one pointed up and back, I sprayed red paint from both. The first hit both men, while the other hit the back of the store we’d just left. Activating it sent them flying up and toward it with a couple screams, just as I landed in a crouch behind where they had been. 

Only then did the green paint run out. And we were almost there. Eits was just reaching the spot where I was, while his mite-controlled car ran down yet another guy that was coming around the corner of the building. I hit him with another bit of green to help him keep moving. “Go, go!” I blurted, hitting as many of our side as I could with orange paint to keep them safe while scanning the lot. Ashton was right there with Mars Bar. The Syndicates who were out here were fine, working together to disable a couple more guys who didn’t even know what hit them. More people were shooting, but the orange paint was doing its job. It meant we could focus on moving instead of fighting. Move instead of fight, that was the entire point.

Most of the people Long Haul had sent in after us were dealing with the Minority. There was a rush of motion and fighting I couldn’t even follow. One of the new arrivals took deliberate aim at me, but I dropped to the ground just before he fired, throwing my hand out to send a shot of white paint onto his arm. Activating it to blind the guy, I used blue paint to launch myself that way, shifting purple onto my arms as I slammed into him to take the guy to the ground. A quick smack to the face knocked him out of the fight. 

But that was just one guy. What had started as a quick run to That-A-Way was quickly devolving into total chaos. I could see the girl herself, trying to help Wobble, Whamline, and Carousel.

Another flash of white announced the arrival of more bad guys. One was directly behind me, and I spun that way just in time to duck the bat he was swinging at my head. A quick shot of yellow at his chest, accompanied by activating part of the green I’d already prepared on the portrait across my uniform meant that he was suddenly a lot slower, while I was a lot faster. And, thanks to a bit of purple that I also activated, stronger. My hand snatched the bat from his grip in mid-swing, tearing it away from him while my foot lashed out to kick his leg. It was enough to make him start to stumble, before I drove the bat into his stomach and put him fully on the ground. 

Damn it, damn it, just get to That-A-Way! This shouldn’t be that hard, right? We’d cleared the way, we had the advantage of surprise and a distraction up front. All we had to do was get everyone across the parking lot to meet up with her and she could teleport us the hell away. And it was close. Pack and her animals were all-but there, crashing right into the back of the group of newcomers with Ashton on their heels. Eits was using his borrowed car as his own bodyguard to clear a path. We were almost there. Almost there! 

Which, of course, was the moment that something dropped from above. A lithe figure with great eagle-like wings slammed down behind That-A-Way. Yahui, the Oscuro woman who mixed and matched various animal parts. Apparently she’d decided to throw herself into the fight instead of just watching. 

In addition to the eagle wings, she also had a scorpion tail, which lashed out toward That-A-Way. But it went straight through the Minority girl, who was moving south and was therefore intangible. Unfortunately, that didn’t help Wobble, who was smacked by the tail moving sideways and thrown to the ground. And given he stood six and a half feet tall, that tail had to be pretty damn strong to knock him down that easily. Yahui tried to follow up by driving the blade of the tail down into him, but Wobble snapped his hand up and I saw a distortion in the air as he sent a wave of vibrations into the tail that knocked it out of the way. That was followed by two of Whamline’s energy ropes, which wrapped around her arms, flinging her into the air before exploding with a burst of kinetic energy that flung her senseless to the ground somewhere off on the other side of the lot. She was down. 

Carousel, meanwhile, had managed to disarm basically all the guys in our path, yanking the guns from their hands as she passed close to them. She also had two cars (miniaturized by her power) floating in orbit around her, which she sent flying at them. The cars regained their full size just in time to crash into the group, scattering everyone that remained. 

Clear, we were clear! 

“Go!” I blurted, sending a wide spray of red paint at all the bad guys I could see, before activating it so they were all slammed into one another, crashing into one big heap. Long Haul? Where was Long Haul? I hadn’t seen him at all, aside from the troops he kept sending in. But whatever, he didn’t matter, we just had to get the hell out of here. That’s all, we just had to go!

“Grab on!” That-A-Way was blurting. There, we were there. Everyone was there. We’d made it. The bad guys behind us were still picking themselves up, and we… everyone… yes, everyone was here, even Pack’s creatures. We all grabbed any part of each other we could, my left hand finding Eits’, while my right was grabbed by Ashton. The latter looked at me sharply, fear and relief in his eyes. I knew the feeling. But at least we were…

Nothing happened. That-A-Way was there, we were all holding onto each other and her, but… nothing happened. She frowned. “Wait, hold on. I–” 

“Did you truly think it would be that easy?” The voice. It was familiar. It was terrifyingly familiar. Cuélebre. He came floating down out of the air on his wings, gliding in to land with disconcerting grace considering his enormous fifteen-foot size. “Did you think I wouldn’t have prepared for a teleportation escape after the way you insulted and embarrassed me last time?” He made a tutting sound, while more of the Ninety-Niners and Oscuro troops, both of the Prev and Touched varieties, appeared on all sides of our suddenly surrounded group. 

Before I could move, before any of us could move, that bladed tail lashed out. I had time to yelp, just before it cut straight through my pocket. The vial and my phone fell out. I grabbed the latter, but the vial was caught on Cuélebre’s tail and smacked right into his waiting hand.

“No, no, no,” the giant demon taunted with the vial held gingerly between two massive fingers.  “You’re not leaving this time. We have too much to talk about.” 

“Talk about?” another voice echoed, and everyone spun in place to find Blackjack, surrounded by an assortment of his own people (Touched and Prevs alike). 

“I think we’re pretty much done talking.” 

Previous Chapter                               Next Chapter