《The Montreal Exigency》
Opening Moves
June 6th, 1991. Toronto, Canada. 10:11 a.m. on a stormy Thursday morning.
Comms check.
Stormfront: Checking in, smoking outside on a bench. This rain sucks.
Zero: Sightlines into second story windows are clear.
Transporter: Fuel gauge around 90%, weapons tracking currently on passive.
Black Hat: I¡¯m good, Cracker and Jacker will be in 30 seconds after you give the go.
Amp: Getting mad at Stormfront for neglecting to share his lighter.
Pockets: I¡¯ve got all the main routes connected, starting secondary measures now.
Flora: Rooftop garden is all ready to grow.
Flashbang: Watching Flora get distracted by a very nice derriere passing in the ¨C ow! All good here.
Bubbles: Distracting the security guards now.
Flashbang: I¡¯ll say, you¡¯re certainly giving ¨C ow! Stop that!
Khyber: Parked out front in the throw away. Just watched the fuzz turn the corner.
Web: Taking my precautionary Aspirin now. Comms are clear Petra.
Security desk distracted by Bubbles, check. 10 min patrol route just cleared, check. Pre-op system infiltration achieved silently, check. Backups and response teams in place, check. Petra went through the list in her head once more. She exhaled slowly and looked at the projection Web was displaying on the command table. ¡°Go.¡±
10:11 a.m.
She could hear ¨C both in her head and audibly ¨C Black Hat¡¯s commands being given rapid fire to his programs. ¡°Cracker, start brute forcing the firewall, Jacker get in and cut off their emergency systems communications. Cracker, you done yet? Don¡¯t give me that ¨C excellent Jacker, inner security systems are next, bring their security cam display up for me as soon as you can. Cracker, you¡¯re still not done? I don¡¯t want to hear that you¡¯re tired, you¡¯re a program for God¡¯s sake. Jacker, nice work, go for the buildings¡¯ broadcast system next. Cracker, I swear to ¨C¡°
Examining the projection, she could see ¨C and thanks to Web, sense ¨C Flora¡¯s plants spreading through the vents, growing rapidly towards the vent above the main security desk. Meanwhile, Bubbles had thrown up a translucent ¡®bubble¡¯ around herself and the guard station, for the moment only preventing sound from entering or exiting. Not that she need have bothered, the two gentlemen currently manning the desk were much too distracted by the blonde woman shamelessly flirting with them to notice their security system go on the fritz as Jacker assumed control.
Shouldn¡¯t that be a giant red flag? I mean come on, surely they have to cover the whole ¡®random attractive woman coming up and flirting for no reason¡¯ scenario in training, right?
Bubbles: Men are idiots Petra, you know that.
Flashbang: Don¡¯t blame them. Unlike someone you know, most men aren¡¯t used to having women throw ¨CDammit! Flora, are you just waiting for me to talk and hitting me?
Focus you three.
Flashbang: Silence is not an answer Flora. Hey! Laughing at me isn¡¯t either!
Bubbles: Like I said.
Stormfront and Amp were making their way up the steps towards the front doors of the bank, holding hands.
Amp: God, why are your hands so sweaty?
Stormfront: Well, something about pulling a job like this makes me nervous.
Amp: Nervousness is no excuse for sweaty hands!
Stormfront: Really? So you never, ever sweat when you¡¯re nervous?
Amp: Of course not, I¡¯m perfect after all.
Petra observed as Amp turned to Stormfront and gave him her biggest fake smile, one that Petra was all too familiar with.
Flashbang: Yeah, you certainly have a perfect ¨Cha! Ducked that ¨Cmmmph!
Amp: Hit him again for me, would you Flora?
Flashbang: Not cool Amp, not ¨C ow! Shit! Goddammit!! Cut it out Flora!
Zero: Flash, shut the hell up.
Flashbang: Sorry.
¡°-God, you¡¯d better have that damn firewall ¨C oh you do? Great, you can relax and go get a drink. No I¡¯m not serious! Start on the other target¡¯s security measures. Be careful with it, they¡¯ll have some nasty surprises for invading malware. Yes, to them you¡¯re technically malware. If it hurts your feelings, then take it out on them. Jacker, get the connection established between Stormfront¡¯s mike and the broadcast system. Cracker, if you don¡¯t shut your goddamn mouth ¨C ¡°
Flora: Vines are in place above security desk vent. Growing root system into the connecting walls will start making some serious noise, do you want me to start?
Hold until shit hits the fan. Approx thirty seconds.
Flora: Gotcha.
10:12 a.m.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
On the projection, Stormfront and Amp had almost reached the top of the stairs.
Stormfront: Time?
Black Hat?
¡°I will shove so much garbage into it you ¨C yeah boss, we¡¯re about as far as we can get before we start stepping on toes ¨C Cracker, don¡¯t think you can start slacking because I stopped talking to you, go all out now, we¡¯re going loud!¡±
Showtime people.
Vines came smashing through the vent, wrapping the security guards and suspending them from the roof. Amp discharged the energy passed on by Stormfront in a massive flash of light, blinding anyone not taking precautions in direct line of sight. Stormfront discharged a portion of static to rapidly heat the air around him, causing a thunderclap. The glass front of the bank shattered. Patrons and employees didn¡¯t even have time to scream before the glass shards shattered on Bubbles¡¯ second force field put up around the lobby. Bubbles herself collapsed to the ground, screaming and shaking in mock fear. There were a series of disturbances as Flashbang jumped around the lobby, stunning people further. Stormfront and Amp strode into the bank lobby as they shed the hooded overcoats that had been disguising their costumes, Stormfront¡¯s voice booming out of every speaker in the building.
¡°Hi there folks. I would say to stay calm, but that¡¯s not really good advice to give to hostages. So instead, how about we say this? Stay still, don¡¯t do anything stupid, and you probably won¡¯t die. Okay? Great. Flashbang, ziptie ¡®em. Amp, help him out.¡±
Stormfront: I like channeling my inner Petra.
Focus. Keep this particular link for questions later.
Stormfront: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Save the flirting for my sister, will you? Or would you like me to widen out this particular comm link? I can think of-
Stormfront: Ah, no, let¡¯s not do that.
Good boy. Petra could hear Web trying not chuckle.
¡°Jacker, now that you¡¯ve got that audio hooked up, help Cracker. He seems to need it. Now don¡¯t go taking that the wrong way. You¡¯re just not making enough progress. Alright, fine, whatever, but Jacker¡¯s making you look bad. Oh, so you weren¡¯t really trying huh? That whole threat of cramming you full of garbage code is still ¨C ¡°
Flora: My roots have worked their way into the adjoining wall, it should start cracking soon.
Good, focus on the vault in the bank and growing your suit. Gut feeling, response team will scramble in about thirty seconds. Zero, any response on that front?
Zero: Increased activity, but nothing signaling panic yet.
It¡¯ll get there. If you see them start to deploy, take disabling shots on their equipment and give Khyber and Flora their vectors.
Zero: 10-4.
Find the manager yet, Stormfront?
Stormfront: I don¡¯t have him in my sight yet but I¡¯m looking.
Bubbles: Check the one of those back offices, one of the guards was bitching about having to check in intern applicants.
Stormfront: Flashbang?
Flashbang: On it. Nope. Nope. Nope. No ¨Cwoah!! Didn¡¯t realize that literal brown nosing was an option for interviews.
Flashbang popped back into the lobby, with a very flustered bank manager with his pants around his ankles. ¡°Hold him for a second, going grab brown noser.¡± He popped out and then back almost immediately, this time holding a hysterical looking young man. Upon releasing him, the young man took off towards the exit. The three gifted turned and watched. Three feet before the door, he ran full tilt into Bubbles¡¯ force field, knocking himself out cold.
Stormfront whistled. ¡°That had to hurt. Amp, done with the hostages?¡±
¡°All tied up. A couple might have pissed themselves.¡±
Amp began walking over to the unconscious young man and dragging him back towards the other hostages. Stormfront moved to help. ¡°Could be worse. We could¡¯ve gone with the root restraining method again. Also, Flash, did you mean what I think you meant with the brown nosing?¡±
Flashbang made a disgusted face and pretended to gag. ¡°Nearly lost my lunch to the smell.¡±
Amp and Stormfront both turned with eyebrows raised, Amp dropping the young man. ¡°..Smell? Never mind, I don¡¯t want to know.¡±
10:21 a.m.
Flora: I think I¡¯m through the adjoining wall. The vault is taking a bit longer.
Zero, check the leftmost windows.
Zero: Got it. Good call, two tangos, looks like Vector and Trickshot. May have seen Garganta and Calypso in the doorway behind them.
Flora, once your suit is on, contain Vector. He¡¯s going to be a problem in open space on the street. Zero, hold your shots until you spot Titan, then prioritize directing Khyber to his location. Khyber, you know the drill. We do not want that fight going on anywhere near the rest.
Khyber: 10-4.
Good. Amp, Stormfront, if Zero can¡¯t take out Trickshot¡¯s guns fast enough, you¡¯ll need to watch out for him. God only knows what crazy ammunition the bastard has come up with in the last year. Otherwise, keep up the special effects show as long as you can.
Stormfront: Gotcha, I¡¯ll work on juicing up the storm outside.
Amp:¡I¡¯ll go be a lightning rod.
Atta girl. Flashbang, I need you ready to jump for the vault when Flora gives the go. Transporter, reposition 2 miles west, in case I need direct line of sight. Web, shift the static display, I need the street outside rather than the inside of the bank.
Web: Done.
Transporter: We¡¯ll be there in thirty seconds. Weapons are cycling over to hot.
¡°-Boss we¡¯re in the secondary building¡¯s systems. Either Glyph¡¯s AI wasn¡¯t as strong as we predicted or Jacker was having a really good day. Cracker, you will get a god damn compliment the minute I feel you deserve one. Surveillance going up on screens one through four, Cracker, prioritize cameras tracking on Titan or Marionette, Jacker, keep Glyph¡¯s AI in a corner. Cracker, what is with your sass today? I¡¯m seriously contemplating, ah there we go. Boss, screen one and two will have Titan and Marionette respectively, three has what Cracker is guessing to be their crisis command center, and four has a display of all attempted inbound and outbound communication. Unless it¡¯s not networked, it¡¯s not getting through, but I thought maybe it¡¯d be useful.¡±
Very, thanks Hat. Looks like Marionette is headed out to the street. Zero, she is priority number two. Titan is sprinting along a third floor corridor, no rendezvous yet, Khyber. They¡¯ve already tried to call up Meridian twice. Shit, guys, they know who they¡¯re up against. Expect them to have plans to deal with any of our normal tactics. This is going to go south and quick. Flora, how much longer on the vault?
Flora: With me concentrating on getting my suit ready and setting up for Vector, at least a minute.
Out on the street, a field of thick grass about waist high could be seen sprouting from the sides of the road and the asphalt was cracking as more forced its way up from directly underneath. Khyber had exited the throwaway car to avoid getting trapped in by the overgrowth. Amp had one hand in the air and another directed at Stormfront, as he shot bolt after bolt of lightning at her. For every bolt that went in, ten or more shot out of her upraised hand and both of them could feel the effects the rapid charge and discharge was having on the air around them. The storm outside was growing angrier looking, the rain increasing in volume. Flashbang was still inside the bank, teleporting around to keep the hostages nervous and stunned. Occasionally, he would teleport next to Bubbles, wait for her to grab his leg, and move her closer to the shattered windows. Thick vines had descended nearly halfway down the building and the top of it looked as if a rainforest had been transplanted to the Corp of America bank roof. Somewhere in there, Flora was finishing up growing her suit and the various other useful plants. Surprisingly, no opponents had shown themselves yet. That was concerning. On screen, Titan was still on the third floor, looking to be in deep discussion with Glyph as he fiddled with Titan¡¯s helmet. Why weren¡¯t they¡
Khyber, bank vault, now. Flashbang, forget subtlety, get Bubbles the hell out of there now and stay out once you¡¯re gone. Wait til I give the go ahead for the package drop. Pockets, collapse the vault route, that whole place is coming down. Flora, forget the wall and the vault, get your ass off the roof. Black Hat, get your AI out of their systems, stat. Amp, Stormfront, hostages are no longer viable, I repeat, hostages are no longer viable. Stop juicing the storm and get the hell out of Dodge. Zero, start shooting and don¡¯t stop. Transporter, get us in sand range.
Complications
10:26 a.m.
Khyber had taken off at a dead sprint before the thought had fully formed, meaning he was almost to the bank vault by the time Flashbang had processed his orders. He made a series of rapid jumps across the breadth of the room, ensuring the hostages stayed blind and deaf while he grabbed Bubbles. As they jumped to the alley that was her get away point, Bubbles gave Flashbang an ¡®oh shit¡¯ look before jumping into the spot Pockets had created for her. Flashbang frowned, as he agreed with Bubbles, even if he had no idea why things were going to hell even faster. But when Petra threw one of her plans out the window and started talking about sand range¡well, ¡®oh shit¡¯ might be optimistic.
He jumped to a roof above, just in time to hear Zero let off a fusillade of rounds. Looking down at the building next to the Corp building, Flashbang saw what looked to be two or three of Trickshot¡¯s guns in pieces on the steps and Trickshot in the process of pulling yet another one out of his vest. Seeing his gaze directed towards Amp and Stormfront, Flashbang braced himself for the kickback of a long jump and popped in right next to Trickshot. Appearing, he saw Trickshot¡¯s eyes widen briefly before Flashbang¡¯s elbow connected with his stomach. Flashbang jumped away immediately, barely dodging two of Marionette¡¯s contraptions. As he tried to reorient himself, he saw Vector lining him up. Staying in that line would lead to lots of pain, so Flashbang jumped away again, this time moving in a series of jumps until he was out of sight behind a dumpster.
There, pausing to make sure no one could see him, he proceeded to lose his breakfast to the kickback from the long jump and series of shorter jumps afterwards. After steadying himself for a moment, Flashbang jumped to the top of the dumpster ¨C which was thankfully closed ¨C to assess the street. Petra had gone silent. Hopefully, that meant she was focusing on her sand and not that Web was temporarily overloaded. His hopes were confirmed a moment later when Amp and Stormfront began their mental singing. Although, even he had to admit that ¡®Thunderstruck¡¯ was kind of a corny song to sing. Not that it wasn¡¯t thematic. As he watched, lightning and pulses of sound began emitting from both of them, driving a suddenly visible Calypso and Garganta to their knees. Flashbang, eying the open dumpster next to him, timed his jump for a pause in the song. When it came, he popped in, grabbed Garganta, and popped her into the dumpster. Which he promptly closed and sat on. Grinning, he began humming along to ¡®Thunderstruck.¡¯ Although he was still confused as to Petra¡¯s orders and he could sense that the others were too. One of the main points of their plan was not letting Khyber and Titan duke it out anywhere near the hostages. So why would she shift it like this?
The question was answered shortly afterwards, when the Corp of America bank building took off like a rocket. Well, all the levels above the ground floor did. The shockwave from the liftoff toppled everyone but Amp and Stormfront on the street. Amp redirected the blast directly at the building Trickshot was taking cover behind. The bricks blew inward, leaving a very exposed Trickshot with his gun sticking up over his head as he ducked for cover. He got away clean, though his gun was smashed by another shot from Zero. Flashbang, noting that Vector was extremely focused on avoiding the snares Flora had out for him, elected to pop over and snag any bits and ammunition that he might find.
Glancing up also showed him that the storm was being forcibly dissipated by the displaced air from the still rising building. He let out a soft whistle; even for gifted, that was something else entirely.
In the time he took to hop over there, the dust was forcibly cleared from the bank site by the power of the fight that was going on. There were no hostages left, though Flashbang had no idea if they were dead or the Crusaders had pulled something to rescue them. Khyber and Titan were not holding back. Beams of energy shot randomly from the area as Khyber deflected strikes from Titan¡¯s ridiculously large hammer. Which also could shoot energy, for whatever reason. Flashbang wasn¡¯t sure why, just that it made the already frightening Titan even scarier.
Fortunately, their own muscle was more than willing to meet the challenge. Which was lucky, because Flashbang could count on his two hands the number of people willing to take on Titan in a direct fight. Khyber didn¡¯t look like much outside a fight. Shorter than Flashbang, who was himself only 5¡¯6¡±, he had a face that would be difficult to pick out in a crowd. He had a few scars, but nothing that looked particularly scary. Khyber tended to wear jeans and flannels, the type that made people think of a slacker. All in all, not the person you would associate with the man fighting Titan. That man had glowing green eyes and his grey costume damped the glow of green coming from his skin. Wielding plasma he could reshape at will, Khyber was taking the offensive against Titan.
Which was good, because the threat would only increase the longer Titan had his power active. Already he was over 8 feet tall, wielding a hammer that had to weigh more than Flashbang in each hand. Not that it was a problem for Khyber. Yet. Petra had gauged that once Titan got beyond 14 feet tall, the growing difference in strength would make it impossible for Khyber to keep the fight contained without unleashing true hell on the surroundings. Khyber was tough and strong, but he wasn¡¯t unstoppable. Just close to it.
As he stuffed all the pieces of guns he could find into various pockets, he tried to keep an eye on both fights. Vector was back on his feet temporarily before dropping back on his ass to avoid more lightning from Stormfront. Garganta still hadn¡¯t gotten out of the dumpster and Calypso was helpless as long as the sound and lights show kept going. Trickshot was not in sight, but the hail of bullets striking a wall about thirty feet to Flashbang¡¯s left gave a good indicator. The air in the immediate area around Khyber and Titan was beginning to haze up from all the latent energy. Flashbang popped out as a few random beams came dancing his way. As he arrived back at the dumpster, he noticed the lid was partially open. Before she could get all the way out of the dumpster, Flashbang jumped back on top and was rewarded with a frustrated yell from Garganta inside. Surveying what was now a literal field once more, he noticed the roots of Flora¡¯s plants render Vector and Calypso immobile. Those roots led back to a particularly dense section of the field growing around Flora herself, as she put the finishing touches on her ¡®suit.¡¯ Well, Flashbang called it by various acronyms as he came up with them. He¡¯d just come up with a new one, Bark and Root Armor. He chuckled while imagining Flora¡¯s reaction. He could picture her getting all red and ¨C
10:28 a.m.
Flashbang, get the package inside now!
Flashbang: Huh? Uh, okay, headed in.
Pockets, get to the secondary objective and get ready to drop your entrance as soon as Flashbang is in. Khyber, get ready for Titan to get reinforcements. Flora, Stormfront, Amp, there¡¯ll be a Meridian response team on the way now that Black Hat¡¯s AI are out, prep a welcome for them. Zero, is Trickshot out of guns?
Zero: Yes.
Then start scouting for the incoming response as well. Everyone, get ready for mental comms to get cut once Meridian gets here, it¡¯s almost a guarantee they¡¯ll bring Screamer. Transporter will signal the extract. Bubbles, how close are you to the ship?
Bubbles: At least two minutes, this isn¡¯t an easy tunnel to travel.
Shit. Flora, after the ambush try to neutralize Screamer and his escort. You¡¯re her long range cover Zero. Stormfront and Amp, get out of there after the ambush, Neutronis will be hunting for you. Flashbang, after you drop off the package, I want you to ¨C
Flashbang: Already dropped, headed back out now.
Good, see if you can¡¯t support Flora. Pockets, I need you clear of the area before Khyber is forced to let loose. Hat, you¡¯re on standby in case any of their techies or mechs come along.
Black Hat: Got it boss.
Cutting off mental comms early, will re-establish if Screamer is taken out. Otherwise, stick with the plan. Web, kill active communication.
10:29 a.m.
¡°We¡¯re silent Petra.¡± Web said. ¡°Display should stay up when Screamer goes off, but it¡¯ll be fuzzy.¡±
¡°Web?¡± Petra asked.
¡°Yes?¡±
¡°Shut up. We¡¯ve done this before and I do not need you distracted when Meridian shows.¡±
¡°Roger that.¡±
The monitors Black Hat had activated were dead now, as he had withdrawn Cracker and Jacker from the Crusader building. From her view of Web¡¯s display, she could see most of the Dozen¡¯s team securing the downed Crusaders and staying well clear of the lightshow coming from Khyber and Titan. It looked like Flashbang had snagged Glyph on his way out. She watched as he dragged Glyph to Flora¡¯s roots and dumped him into the writhing plants. Glyph and the rest of the Crusaders minus Titan were bound up by roots. None of them had bothered securing Amoeba, her gifts were completely non-threatening in this situation. Stormfront and Amp were breaking into the building across the street, presumably looking for a few windows to shoot from. Even with Web¡¯s display, Petra was still having a difficult time tracking Flora as she moved through the overgrown street. In her wake, small saplings were breaking out of the earth and the grass had grown over her head while ivy began creeping up the fronts of buildings on the street. Flashbang was jumping around the street, presumably to make their true locations uncertain. Zero was shifting buildings using her grapple, taking a line that would give her full view of the street. As soon as Bubbles got on board, the ship would be able to actively engage.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Everybody went still as the air above the street began to visibly warp. Even Titan and Khyber paused to take note of the location before resuming their brawl. The air seemed to writhe and constrict to a point, before exploding outward. In the wake of that explosion, the Meridian response team began to pour out. First through was Spartan where he was met with a barrage of lightning from Stormfront and Amp. As the lightning hit, Spartan¡¯s steel plated armor began melting onto his form and the bolts that met with flesh left visible burns. Spartan stopped and began retreating immediately back through the portal. Another shot of lightning encouraged his retreat. That was lucky, Spartan wasn¡¯t particularly resistant to energy and the burns Petra saw looked to be serious enough to keep him out of the fight. Next through was Neutronis, who flew out in front of the portal to block further lightning strikes. Stormfront and Amp didn¡¯t even bother, hitting Neutronis with lightning would start supercharging him. Instead, they let Flora contribute. Vines shot out from multiple buildings above Neutronis, seeking to bind him. He swooped low to dodge and a root rising from the ground caught one of his feet. It dragged him down, his form brightening. As he began to burn off the root holding his foot, more shot out to further restrict him. She knew those wouldn¡¯t hold him forever, but it would allow Stormfront and Amp one more barrage before retreating.
Unfortunately the following barrage met Centurion coming through. At least that would jolt her a bit and blind her for a second. Petra had been hoping they might send Screamer or Winky through next. Centurion dropped to the ground, ignoring the roots wrapping around her. As she moved, Centurion simply ripped them out of the ground as she walked over towards Neutronis. No more lightning barrages came from the buildings, indicating Stormfront and Amp had followed orders. Centurion cut Neutronis free and he shot towards the building the lightning had originated from. Centurion looked around, obviously looking for Flora to cut the roots off at the source.
Good luck with that, Petra thought. Finding Flora in her field would require burning it down and Neutronis was prioritizing hunting for Stormfront and Amp. Centurion started making her way towards Khyber and Titan, her helmet and armor began to glow. Petra watched as she barreled towards the fight, picking up speed until she was impossible to track with the naked eye. If it weren¡¯t for Web¡¯s projection using Flashbang¡¯s, Zero¡¯s, and Khyber¡¯s enhanced senses, Petra would¡¯ve been as blind as anyone else. Centurion lunged as if to grapple Khyber. He had sensed her coming, sliding underneath and blasting her straight up into the air with a blast of green light.
Unfortunately, Titan took advantage of the pause and landed a solid hit with his hammer. Khyber went flying backwards, landing near the edge of the street/field. He popped right back up, deflecting a thrown hammer with a light shield. Titan, now approaching 9-10 ft in height, paused to recall his thrown hammer. Khyber took the opportunity to blast him repeatedly, forcing Titan to cover his face. Titan may have been invincible and pretty much immune to all forms of energy, but he was vulnerable to the effects of kinetic forces. Khyber¡¯s blasts didn¡¯t do any actual damage but they could knock him over and blind him if he wasn¡¯t careful.
Petra was slightly confused why he wasn¡¯t following up by getting back into close range until she saw him looking over his shoulder, at Flora¡¯s field on fire near the portal. Stepping through was one of Exact¡¯s suits that was covered in fire from head to toe. As it stepped out, a wave of fire rolled out from the suit, incinerating everything within a 15 ft radius. Petra hoped Flora took that as her cue to get to the extract point. Flashbang popped over next to Khyber, yelling something. Nodding, Khyber doubled down on blasting away at Titan, who was slowly stepping forward, deflecting blasts with one hand while shading his eyes with the other.
Centurion had landed, briefly starting towards Khyber before getting bowled over again. It was bad luck for her, Petra thought. Trying to step into a fight between two of the biggest blasters/brawlers out there was a tough ask and Centurion was great brawler but didn¡¯t have any ranged abilities to speak of. As she rolled away, she did manage to throw her shield. Khyber wasn¡¯t stupid enough to try and catch it, ducking instead. The shield sheared through a bunch of trees, exposing Flora as she had been moving towards her exit. Exact¡¯s suit noticed and signaled behind before extending its¡¯ hands towards Flora, shooting out twin streams of fire.
10:36 a.m.
¡°Flora¡¯s pinned down there, how close are we to extraction?¡±
¡°We¡¯re still waiting on Bubbles,¡± Web noted. Petra pulled at her chin as she looked over, noting the strain showing on Web¡¯s face. Keeping a projection going that tracked a fight of this magnitude would have repercussions for him later.
She glanced over to Black Hat. ¡°Any chance you can disrupt her suit?¡± As she asked, Petra watched two more suits step through the portal, both also on fire. ¡°Scratch that, suits?¡±
¡°No chance boss. She knows I¡¯m in the area somewhere, the networks are closed off to anything not direct suit to suit. Why she¡¯s shouting at her teammates instead of comms. Speaking of which, Cracker, Jacker, can you find any access points on the other side? We can always use the info, right boss?¡± Black Hat was back to scanning his monitors, looking for something in his displays.
¡°Yeah, get what you can.¡±
¡°On it. Jacker, you¡¯re doing the digging. Cracker, watch out for Unity¡¯s security programs. They won¡¯t be high level, but there will be a shit load of them. Don¡¯t give me any lip about the roles, security is more important. Jacker, pay attention to that. If Cracker calls it, you both get out of there. I am not losing either of you to Unity or Exact¡¯s countermeasures. Bingo Jacker, that¡¯s our access point, go get ¡®em!¡±
Petra looked back at the loud clatter of Bubbles falling through the entry tunnel. ¡°You need any time to recover Bubbles?¡± She walked over to help Bubbles up.
¡°Give me a minute, that was a long run.¡± Bubbles panted.
¡°Petra¡¡± Web groaned. Petra spun around, witnessing the aftereffects of a massive explosion on Web¡¯s display. Web slumped to the ground, the display flickering in and out. Petra hurried over to him, tilting his head up. Blood was leaking out of his nose. Web gave a grin before passing out, the display winking out as he did.
¡°We don¡¯t have the time, Bubbles, get us covered. Transporter go, now!¡± Petra lurched as the ship jumped out of hover mode. She pulled Web away from the display station, getting from help from Bubbles to strap Web into a bucket seat. ¡°Hat, Web¡¯s down, get the cameras up and running.¡±
She finished strapping Web into his seat and moved over to help Bubbles. In the background, she heard Hat¡¯s rapid keystrokes and the whir of the monitors coming back online. The noise of the engines began to ramp up, drowning out the other ambient noise. As Bubbles was finishing buckling, she shouted something. Petra couldn¡¯t understand and Bubbles tried to shout louder. Petra crossed back across the bay and grabbed two headsets. She tossed them to Bubbles, gesturing to her and Web. Turning back to look at the monitors, Petra grabbed another headset for herself, strapping it on. Straightening it on her head, Petra heard Bubbles voice ¡° ¨Cted me to tell you that her tunnels in the area around the brawl aren¡¯t accessible. The energy blasts shredded them. She retreated back to Zero¡¯s pick-up point.¡±
¡°Got it. Transporter, adjust for three person extract. Cycle weapons over to rubber rounds. Hat, pull your A.I. out, put them in charge of target tracking and under turrets. Bubbles, strongest shield, combat filter. Listen for the sand drop. Let¡¯s kick some ass people.¡±
10:34 a.m.
God dammit! Flashbang jumped back away from the street as Neutronis came flying out of the portal. Taking the time to reposition, he got to the edge of the field, closer to the fight he wanted no part of. As he arrived, he saw Khyber tumbling towards the edge of the overgrown street. Glancing back towards the portal, Flashbang watched the wave of fire roll out from Exact¡¯s suit. Flashbang knew that suit would burn the field down in no time. Judging by the heat, anything not fire resistant wouldn¡¯t stand a chance either. He could probably handle the heat, but the only other person with any kind of heat resistance was rather occupied. Flashbang pondered as he looked back and forth between Khyber¡¯s fight and Exact¡¯s suit burning up the field. Maybe¡
Flashbang jumped near Khyber.
¡°Khyber, if I jump the suit into the middle of this, can you take it down?¡± Flashbang shouted, trying to be heard over the shrieking noise Khyber¡¯s barrage was making. Khyber nodded ¨C I hope to God that was a nod for me ¨C and renewed his assault on Titan. Flashbang popped away fast, getting the hell out of the way of any counterstrokes Titan might throw back. Jumping his way back towards the opposite side of the street, Flashbang was working his way into the tall grass near the portal when he saw the other two suits step out of the portal, adding their streams of fire to the inferno. He saw one of Exact¡¯s suits turn his way and popped away in a series of jumps before the fire could follow. Flashbang wasn¡¯t sure just how much heat resistance he had, but he could already feel the heat as one of the suits tried to torch him. This is going to fucking hurt. He could see that Flora was rapidly getting pinned in by the fire. Meridian didn¡¯t normally kill, but the Dozen and Meridian didn¡¯t exactly see eye to eye.
Old, bad blood there. Ugly bad blood.
Moving erratically to keep from getting caught in the flames, Flashbang jumped his way closer to the rearmost suit, the one focused on him. As he finally came into range, the suit let off a wave of flames. Gasping from the pain, he jumped to grabbing the suit directly. Groaning from the effort, he jumped back across the street, about 15 ft in the air.
Letting go of the suit, he jumped into the alley across the way. Stumbling against the wall, Flashbang started convulsively dry heaving for a few seconds, nothing coming up. Flashbang looked up to see the other suits charging towards Khyber. He had gotten lucky and grabbed the actual Exact apparently. Which meant he didn¡¯t have to go through that ordeal again. Steadying himself from the pain of his burns, he jumped towards Flora. As he arrived, Flashbang saw Flora on the ground, her suit partially on fire. ¡°Shit!¡± Flashbang grabbed Flora and jumped back to the alley to beat the flames out. As they got back into the alley, he heard screaming. Stumbling from the disorientation of too many jumps and reeling from the heat, he tried beating out the flames. Flashbang was confused for a moment until he looked back down at Flora. He was getting rid of the flames, but as they went away, he could see the burns in the gaps of her costume and armor. They were red and weeping. Flora went silent for a moment, looking up at him. Seeing the pain in her eyes, Flashbang braced himself for another long jump. Picking up Flora, he put a shoulder under her arm and moved towards the far exit of the alley. Once he got to the entrance, he popped about two blocks away at the entrance to his emergency exit. Moving into the entrance, he laid down Flora and stepped back out. The entrance to the tunnel was hard to see, but Flashbang managed to grab onto each side. Once he closed it, he knew Pockets would sense it and come looking. Alright, just me and Khyber left. Thank God, this shit show is almost over. As he unclenched his hands, he had to pause for a moment to fight back tears. His hands were burned all over.
Taking his time with multiple small jumps, Flashbang moved back into the alley. He hadn¡¯t made it quite back to the alleyway entrance when he saw a bright flash of greenish-red light. He felt himself moving suddenly and then stopping abruptly. Well this can¡¯t be good. Everything¡¯s going black¡
Fight and Flight
10:35 a.m.
I hate complications Khyber thought as he ducked Centurion¡¯s shield. He sent a few more blasts her way, making sure she stayed out of the fight. Titan was getting back into direct combat range and he did not need that distraction. Flora was still too close for him to really let loose, which was proving problematic. Stepping left to avoid an energy blast/thrown hammer ranged combo by Titan, he let loose with a concentrated blast to push Titan back a few steps. He needed to buy just enough time for Flashbang to bring Exact¡¯s suit over here. Meridian would focus on getting Exact out of there rather than leaving her within his combat range. Unfortunately, Titan was getting beyond the point where even concentrated plasma blasts could affect him significantly.
Fuck it, Flashbang will just have to get in close. Khyber sent a wide blast, trying to obscure all of Titan¡¯s vision. Following on its heels, Khyber charged straight toward Titan. Titan must have been expecting him to close because a hammer came flying out of the wall of light. Titan¡¯s massive size worked against him. He had tried to throw low, but low for Titan was 3 ft in the air. Khyber slid under, popping back up to lay a fist into Titan¡¯s gut. He blocked the counterpunch towards his head, pulling up a shield of plasma to take Titan¡¯s hammer-blow from the other side. The shield fractured and Khyber rolled away before Titan could follow up with more shots. Throwing up a bubble of plasma around him, Khyber paused for a moment before sending the plasma bubble directly at Titan. He took off in the direction he¡¯d sent Centurion, feeling the bubble shatter as Titan sent an energy blast through it.
Khyber jinked left to avoid the hammer he knew was coming. Centurion was having a really bad day, as she caught the hammer to the gut. Khyber sent a lash of plasma behind the hammer on the hope he might pin Centurion with it. Simultaneously, he threw up a wall to his rear. Titan crashed through it, momentarily stumbling over the second low wall Khyber had hidden behind it. Over the crash, he felt his plasma pinning Centurion to a cracked, concrete wall. Before she could get a hand free to break the light binding, he quickly expanded it to cover her entire upper torso to deny her the leverage she needed for a quick escape.
Feeling confident that he¡¯d at least temporarily neutralized Centurion, Khyber turned to take Titan head on. Creating a shield and sword to counter Titan¡¯s hammers, he charged Titan as he recovered from his stumble. Deflecting energy shooting from both Titan¡¯s hammers, he got into close range before Titan could take advantage of his longer reach.
Take a hammer-blow on the shield, step right to avoid the overhand strike, tilt his shield up to blast Titan in the face. Duck the warding blow that covered Titan¡¯s recovery, strike low with the sword to force the hero off balance, bring it up in a feint to draw Titan into striking a false opening. Dismiss the shield and sword as Titan struck for the shoulder, drop to avoid the sweeping high to low blow, reach a hand up to catch the hammer as it passes. Use the momentum to pull the hammer further to bring Titan in close, sweep Titan¡¯s legs as he stumbles off balance, take advantage of the momentary gap in Titan¡¯s defense to send him sprawling with a massive blast of plasma.
Khyber rarely got to enjoy a truly good fight, so taking on Titan was great. Watching Titan stand up and refocus on him, Khyber took a moment to reflect on what he was doing. As a kid, he had always fantasized about being the hero in a fantasy book, taking on the big bad guy in an epic fight. His older sister had despaired of getting his nose out of a book. It took introducing him to kendo and karate to pull him out of his books, and even then, he was always picturing fighting a dragon or an evil knight. He¡¯d taken to both martial arts with gusto, eventually getting into Renaissance fairs as one of the entertainers. As a knight, of course. He¡¯d gotten lucky, meeting other people who shared his interests. When he had the spare time, Khyber still tried to go back to visit his Ren fair. Now, bracing himself for Titan¡¯s charge he grinned at his luck. He wasn¡¯t quite the hero of a novel, but, he did get to have the awesome powers. Plus, the mercenaries were the coolest characters anyways.
Sliding back into the fight, Khyber pushed aside the fantasy musings. Throw a blast of plasma at Titan¡¯s head, create a tripwire to snag Titan while blind, swing a mace made of plasma into Titan¡¯s head as he was stumbling from the tripwire. Let the mace shatter, roll back to avoid Titan¡¯s retaliatory swing of the hammer, check his environment to make sure he wasn¡¯t being backed into a corner. Step quickly aside to avoid Centurion breaking free of her binding, redirect her into Titan¡¯s path, glance up to see Flashbang dropping a suit in.
Exact¡¯s suit crashed to the ground, directly between himself and his opponents. A brief moment of silence ensued as all three noted the new, very fragile combatant began to roll on its side. Khyber grinned, creating a giant hammer out of his plasma and moving in. Titan rushed to cover the suit while Centurion moved forwards with clear intent to knock Khyber away. That told Khyber that Exact herself was likely inside of the mech, altering his strategy.
Throw the hammer to bring Titan up short, shoot a blast in between Titan¡¯s legs to knock Exact¡¯s legs back out from under her, roll to avoid a two handed swing of Titan¡¯s hammer. Use both arms to block Centurion¡¯s blow, kick up to clear space, spin to step inside a hammer swing and take it on an arm. Stiff arm Titan to push him back a pace, send a blast of plasma out his back to slow Centurion, slide under Titan¡¯s arms to close with Exact. Blast plasma through his feet to jump clear of Titan¡¯s backswing, land on Exact¡¯s shoulder to prevent her from getting up, push off towards Centurion. Blast plasma out of his hands to force himself under her sword swing, use a plasma hook to yank her feet out from under her, back-roll over his head to avoid Titan coming for him again. Take note of Exact¡¯s automated suits charging in, send a blast to knock Exact¡¯s blast of oil off course, use that oil to slide behind Titan. Start counting to ten for likely incoming from Neutronis, shoot a pair of blasts toward Centurion, roll left to stand between Exact and Titan. Ten, take advantage of Titan¡¯s hesitance to knock Exact on her ass, turn back to deal with Titan closing in. Nine, dodge Titan¡¯s blast of energy, reel in one of the automated suits with a rope of plasma. Eight, throw suit at Titan and spin left to deal with Centurion, make a mental note Flashbang had reappeared at the end of the alleyway.
Khyber felt the beginnings of the explosion happening behind him and drove spikes of plasma into the ground. Gripping those, he had halfway formed a shield in Exact¡¯s direction when the explosion went off fully. He felt the explosion try to wrench his grip free and his shoulder muscles felt strained as he maintained his grip. Khyber focused on trying to maintain the shield by Exact, knowing she had no special resistance to any of these forces. Khyber felt more than saw Titan and Centurion get blown away by the explosion. The explosion happened in waves and his shield could only take four waves before shattering. His shield shattered at the same time as he felt a searing pain in his shoulder. Exact was blown in Flashbang¡¯s directions by the last pulse along with the remnants of the shield.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
As the last pulse ended, Khyber fell flat onto the ground, too stunned by the effort of weathering the explosion to catch himself. Khyber picked himself up, looking in Exact and Flashbang¡¯s direction. Exact was sprawled halfway across the street. The buildings along the other side of the street were collapsed and Khyber couldn¡¯t see any sign of Flashbang. He looked back in the other direction, where Titan and Centurion had gone. He couldn¡¯t see Centurion, but there was a Titan sized hole in one of the skyscrapers a few blocks away. There wasn¡¯t a building intact for at least a block, the nearby ones completely leveled. The hell was that explosion? Khyber started towards where he¡¯d last seen Flashbang. Looking down at his shoulder, he saw that it was dislocated. He paused by the only remaining light pole which had miraculously survived and slammed his shoulder into it. The pain was so bad he saw stars but rolling his shoulder, he had mobility again.
Can take a direct shot from Titan but not a dislocated shoulder. Figures. Khyber made his way to where the alleyway had been, finding Flashbang a minute later.
10:39 a.m.
Flashbang swum slowly back to consciousness. It sounded like someone was trying to talk to him.
¡°-hear me man? C¡¯mon, need you conscious Flash.¡± Flashbang felt himself being lifted onto someone¡¯s shoulders and he groaned.
¡°Good, you¡¯re alive at least.¡± Flashbang recognized the voice as Khyber¡¯s.
¡°You sure?¡± Flasbhang rasped. ¡°Doesn¡¯t feel like it.¡±
¡°You¡¯ve got some light to medium burns on various parts of your body and I think you broke a couple of bones in your leg, I had to dig you partway out from a collapsed building.¡± Khyber shrugged to adjust how he was carrying Flashbang and Flashbang groaned when he felt the pain flare.
¡°This went to shit.¡± Flashbang got out when the pain receded somewhat. ¡°What the hell went wrong?¡±
¡°Somebody had to have tipped the Crusaders, they were calling Meridian almost immediately after our initial move. Heads are gonna roll when Petra gets ahold of our employer.¡± Flashbang heard Khyber laugh grimly. He knew it was true. Petra was willing to do nearly impossible jobs but having someone tip off the opposition, especially the Crusaders, and consequently Meridian¡she¡¯d probably have Khyber, Web, and Zero take off the kiddie gloves before going ¡®visit¡¯ their employer. Flashbang did not envy their employer one bit.
Khyber shifted his grip suddenly as Flashbang felt him stop. There was a moment of tension before he felt Khyber relax.
¡°Zero, you good?¡±
¡°Good Khyber. I was still far enough away that the shockwave wasn¡¯t too bad but it ripped my extract tunnel to hell. What was it?¡±
¡°I think Titan may have accidentally blasted whatever Exact was using to power one of her auto-suits at close range. I felt it happen and anchored myself. I think I managed to keep Exact alive, she was still breathing when I passed her by.¡±
Flashbang could only watch the alleyway behind him as he heard Khyber and Zero talking while they walked. Then he heard the familiar roar of their ship¡¯s engines.
¡°This might hurt a little Flash.¡± Flashbang didn¡¯t have time to acknowledge that before he and Khyber were yanked upwards. Shortly afterwards, he was in a bucket seat next to an unconscious Web and Flora. The pain made that seem like a brilliant idea so he decided to join them.
10:49 a.m.
Petra shut the hatch behind Zero as the last of her teammates clambered aboard. Turning around, she saw Flashbang pass out the minute Khyber deposited him in a seat.
¡°What the hell was that explosion?¡± She directed the question towards Khyber.
¡°Titan¡¯s energy blast colliding with the power source of one of Exact¡¯s suits at extremely close range. Best guess anyways.¡± Khyber shrugged. ¡°I threw the suit at him but I didn¡¯t reckon on anything like that happening.¡±
¡°You alright?¡± Petra asked, concerned.
¡°Dislocated my shoulder but I already put it back in. Managed to keep Exact breathing too, who knows how far away Centurion and Titan got blasted, I know he went clean through a skyscraper about four blocks from the epicenter.¡± Khyber rubbed his injured shoulder. ¡°I barely managed to anchor myself.¡±
¡°Well we¡¯re away clean and Flashbang got the package in place. Hat, would it have survived?¡± Petra turned to Black Hat, who was still sitting at his console. It helped her contain the flare of worry at Khyber¡¯s injury, knowing he wouldn¡¯t appreciate the concern.
¡°I¡¯d give it an eighty percent chance. I don¡¯t know whether or not Archimedes designed it to do damage first or secure itself first. He¡¯s a cautious bastard though, so I¡¯d say it¡¯s¡¯ pretty likely to have survived.¡± Black Hat grinned. ¡°Either way, Jacker managed to get info on Meridian¡¯s last three month¡¯s expenditures. Which is always a favorite of yours.¡±
Petra smiled back at him. Before she could respond, she heard Web pipe in. ¡°Follow their money and you find their secrets,¡± quoting Petra exactly. She turned to see him unbuckling himself from the seat he was in.
¡°I¡¯m good,¡± he said in response to the concerned looks the rest gave him. ¡°I cut myself off before I got too involved in the model. It just hurt like hell.¡±
Petra directed Transporter to take them to Asclepius¡¯ reception center for Toronto. They were just getting back in the air after dropping off Flashbang and Flora when Black Hat started swearing.
¡°What Hat?¡± Black Hat swore more than the rest of the team put together, which was saying something, but he didn¡¯t start up for no reason. Mostly.
¡°Boss, we¡¯ve got an open frequency communication from both Crusader and Meridian¡well, you¡¯re going to want to hear it.¡± Hat looked nervous, which was not a normal state for him.
Petra grabbed the proffered set of headphones and put them on.
¡°-your help. Repeat message. Dozen, if you¡¯re still in the area and receiving this, we¡¯re calling for a cease fire. Repeat, cease fire. We¡¯re detecting a massive spike in local space fluctuations. Right here. Bigger than anything we¡¯ve seen before, by a lot. Winky doesn¡¯t have the juice to retrieve more than a few teams before a critical point is reached. The Pantheon is still recovering from their encounter in Europe, the Ironhides have dropped off the map again, and Atlantis won¡¯t cycle back to our dimension for another six hours. Winky can grab the Valkyries and RMDF, but that¡¯s it. We¡¯re putting out the call for help, but there won¡¯t be much coming. Even with those two teams, it won¡¯t be enough to prevent massive casualties. We need your help. Repeat message. Dozen if-.¡° Petra listened to the message twice more before turning to face the rest of team.
¡°They¡¯re detecting a spike in local space fluctuations, right here. Bigger than any previous, a lot bigger.¡± Petra paused as the remaining Dozen soaked that in, frowns breaking out. ¡°They can¡¯t get the other three big guns they normally work with and they won¡¯t have quantity to make up for quality. Even with them bringing the Valkyries and RMDF, they¡¯re going to get crushed. And they know it.¡±
Deep Breaths
12:16 p.m.
¡°Shit.¡± Petra heard Web mutter before continuing louder. ¡°They want us to come back don¡¯t they? A cease fire?¡±
¡°Yeah.¡± Petra said. ¡°Opinions?¡±
¡°Fuck that,¡± Black Hat spat. ¡°I want no part of going up against a Contender or two outgunned. Especially not when the fluctuations are tripping the sensors to this degree.¡±
He had pulled up the readouts from the small sensors that the Limo had equipped onboard, throwing them up on the monitors attached to the front bay wall. The screens were showing an insane degree of fluctuation in the local space, well beyond anything that Petra had ever encountered before. They hadn¡¯t stabilized into a new pattern yet, which made the uncertainty even worse.
¡°Seconding Black Hat.¡± Transporter called from up front.
¡°We have to go back!¡± Pockets exclaimed. ¡°We¡¯re mercenaries, not evil!¡±
Zero made an either-or gesture with a flutter of her hand.
¡°I say we go back.¡± Amp declared. ¡°I don¡¯t want to live with that on my conscious.¡±
¡°I vote with Black Hat and Transporter, going back is insane.¡± Bubbles argued.
¡°I¡¯m with Amp on this one, I¡¯d feel guilty if we didn¡¯t go back.¡± Stormfront sighed.
Web and Khyber remained quiet; Petra knew they¡¯d follow her lead, regardless of their own opinions. She still wondered where she¡¯d earned that type of loyalty from. She didn¡¯t deserve it.
¡°So we¡¯re split?¡± Petra asked after no one else volunteered anything. ¡°Vote or leave it up to me?¡±
12:18 p.m.
¡°Your call boss, always is.¡± Black Hat quipped. For all the vehemence he¡¯d displayed, if she decided to go back, he¡¯d follow. They all would. Again, Petra wondered at the loyalty.
¡°All right, I¡¯ll break it down.¡± Petra stated. ¡°If we go back, we¡¯re short Flashbang and Flora. Flora¡¯s not so great against Contenders unless they¡¯re water focused or easy to restrain. So it¡¯s not a big deal to go back without her except the ground forces will lose some potential camouflage. Flashbang hurts because he¡¯s our main evac protocol. Without him, we¡¯re either relying on being physically carried out or getting to one of Pocket¡¯s tunnels if we can. That is a significant hike in danger, especially since the Contender¡¯s entrance will shred all her tunnels within a few miles so she¡¯ll be building from scratch. From previous experience we know that any airborne Contenders tend to hate the Limo, so we¡¯ll be a big target if we engage with it. And the final worry is that after this fight, provided we survive it, is that Meridian will turn around and jump us. Normally that¡¯s not a problem because its¡¯ so damn difficult to restrain Flashbang that they haven¡¯t even bothered. Again, he¡¯s not here this time. Those are the cons.¡±
Petra took a deep breath before continuing. ¡°If we go, we will make a significant difference. We¡¯d only be putting Zero, Khyber, Amp, Stormfront, Pockets, and maybe Bubbles on the ground. Contenders don¡¯t use electronics, at least that we recognize so Black Hat¡¯s AI can focus on being tracking and shooting for our ship. The only person who misses less is Zero. The rest of us would stay on the ship and if I use my sand defensively, between it and the guns we should be able to fend off an airborne Contender until we get back-up. We haven¡¯t worked with the Crusaders before but this would be our third time with Meridian. Amp, Stormfront, we¡¯ve seen just how effective a combo you two with Neutronis can be. Bubbles, either in the air or in the ground, you will save lives if the Contender is a blaster of any type. Zero, if you work with Trickshot and Exact, provided she¡¯s able, that combination of ammunition, weapons, and aim would be effective almost regardless of what type of Contender it is. And Khyber, they¡¯ll only have five viable front liners. You¡¯ve never even met Arc but you¡¯ve worked with or against the rest. If we give the six of you space, you might be able to kill the Contender by yourselves.¡±
Petra took a moment to look each team member in the eyes. ¡°We need to go back. We make too much of a difference to do anything else. Hat, get to replying. I want a direct channel to talk to Excelsior as soon as it can be arranged. He¡¯ll be coordinating.¡±
There was no dissent, there was no hesitation. Transporter banked the Limo back around to head towards Crusaders¡¯ former headquarters. Petra waited on Black Hat¡¯s signal before putting her headset on.
12:28 p.m.
¡°Petra.¡± Petra restrained the urge to snarl in response to the man on the other end of the line. Meridian and the Dozen had never officially shed blood fighting. Unofficially was a completely different story. And Excelsior was the man behind that unofficial history.
¡°Excelsior. What are we looking at?¡± Petra said flatly.
¡°Big enough fluctuations to guarantee a double rupture, likely with a Colossus. Or something unheard of, which would certainly be worse.¡± As much as they personally disliked each other, the two had an accord to keep professional when cooperating. A tenuous accord, but it had held. ¡°The Valkyries are already here and Winky should have the RMDF any minute. We were planning on staying defensive until we¡¯d analyzed our opponents this time around.¡±
¡°We should be there shortly ourselves.¡± Petra responded.
¡°If you could, we¡¯d like to have Web interface with the respective team leads, we¡¯re not going to use Screamer unless one of them is a mentalist. He¡¯d need to string together you, Joan, Pike, Centurion, and Glyph. The RMDF just arrived.¡± Excelsior said. Petra, knowing that Web had been listening in, simply gave him the thumbs up.
¡°Should be up and running shortly, I¡¯m going off air to work with the other team leaders. Respond on this frequency if you need something directly between the two of us, I¡¯ll keep it open.¡± Petra said.
12:29 p.m.
¡°Pleasure working with you as always.¡± Petra didn¡¯t bother with replying before switching over to her team¡¯s headset channel. They¡¯d all hooked up to one to hear better over the engines. Before she addressed them though, she looked over to confirm with Web. He nodded.
Can you all hear me? List your name off if so. This is Petra.
Centurion: Been a while since I¡¯ve felt this. Centurion here.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
Pike: So that¡¯s what this feels like? Pike.
Glyph: It itches a bit. Glyph.
Joan: Nice to finally talk, sort of, Petra. Joan.
Good, let¡¯s get this show on the road. Excelsior said a guaranteed double Rupture. Thoughts?
Glyph: Agreed, the spikes are huge, we¡¯re still trying to firm up the pattern.
Shit, well there went my optimism.
Joan: Fascinating that you can feel the sarcasm. How do we want to deploy our team members?
Centurion, what kind of shape is your team in?
Centurion: Exact is only going to be able to contribute with her mind from a bed with a morphine drip. Thank Khyber for me, whatever he threw up saved her life. Spartan is getting treated by Amoeba, but he won¡¯t be fully functional. Winky is exhausted, four major transports in one day is about his limit. We¡¯re holding off on using Screamer to allow this mental link. Myself, Neutronis, Unity, and Sledge are fully functional, if a bit tired.
Sorry about that. Glyph?
Glyph: We¡¯re all technically fine. But Marionette is down two of her best toys and Trickshot has no guns in working order. Calypso¡¯s a bit dazed from the sound and lights show but she¡¯ll contribute what she can. Everybody else is fine, if a bit bruised or itchy.
Okay, again sorry. Joan, Pike?
Joan: Myself, Celestis, Aura, Freya, Whistler, Lyudmila, Curie, and Chariot are all here. We left Porcelain and Myst behind, they¡¯re still recovering from being infected the other day in a scrap with Pestilence and his crew.
Pike: That¡¯s where that bastard went? Damn, he slipped us a few weeks back. I¡¯m good to go. So are Arc, Sabre, Quetz, Daedalus, Vulture, Jekyll, and Phosphor. Mole, Castor, Pollux, and Banshee are all down, Pestilence left us a little present before he left and they haven¡¯t recovered yet.
Alright, we¡¯re down Flora and Flashbang with some serious burn wounds. We¡¯ve already dropped them off for treatment, so we¡¯re free of any dead weight. We¡¯re about a minute out of the indicated rendezvous.
Centurion: Before we go any further, suggestion?
Go for it.
Centurion: I vote we put Petra in overall command.
12:32 p.m.
All three of the other team leaders began protesting at the same time.
Centurion: HOLD IT!
Her mental scream seemed to shut them up. Petra though them fortunate, she¡¯d been about to signal Web for the mental equivalent of having a gun fired next to their ears.
Centurion: Look, not knocking any of your abilities. I¡¯ve worked with all of you before, you¡¯re good leaders. But there¡¯s a reason the Dozen have a nearly flawless record against all of our teams and Petra¡¯s it. Well, her and Khyber. You all would accede to Athena being put in overall command, right?
Silence greeted the question before three grudging affirmations were heard.
Centurion: She¡¯s just as good. Petra and Athena were the ones who came up with the strategy that stopped the Bastion rupture in St. Petersburg three years ago. Her team just functionally disabled every Crusader but Titan and Amoeba and contained my team at the same time, despite the fact that we knew they were coming and had an ambush set up. And no Petra, I¡¯m not telling you how we found out.
Glyph: She¡¯s telling the truth. I still can¡¯t figure out how you predicted Titan¡¯s entry point or how Black Hat got past my security.
Joan: Well, I can¡¯t argue with results.
Pike:¡Fine.
So, I¡¯m in overall command? Great. We¡¯re over the rendezvous now, my ground team should be dropping out.
Glyph: Yes, Khyber just made a grand entrance.
He likes those. Centurion, you¡¯re my front line contact. You, Khyber, Titan, Celestis, Arc, and Sabre are our front line. Keep yourself and Sabre in reserve until we know how to best use the two of you. We¡¯re going to try and give the front four as much space as we can to absorb the brunt of the initial attack.
Pike, you¡¯re in charge of our flyers. The Limo will be operating semi-autonomously, but yell out if you need us. Take Neutronis, Vulture, Freya, Whistler, and Quetz. Whatever you do, do not get anywhere near the front liners if things start going poorly. If Khyber has to flip forms, he¡¯s going to take out everything non-heat invulnerable in a quarter mile radius.
Pike: Jesus. Really?
Centurion: Yes. We lost Shocker that way when he disobeyed orders in Boston two years ago. It will incinerate you.
Glyph, tech and analysis teams are yours. Make sure to keep up a link to Black Hat so he can contribute. Set up at least a mile away and make damn sure you¡¯re mobile, Contenders like soft targets. Curie, Unity, and Jekyll are all with you and you¡¯ll take Daedalus if he doesn¡¯t think his suit can contribute enough.
Joan, if he thinks he¡¯s able, he¡¯s yours. You¡¯re also getting Spartan, Sledge, Vector, Marionette, and Phosphor. Amp and Stormfront will also be with you but they¡¯ll be prioritizing charging Neutronis. Stay back from the front lines until we¡¯ve got an idea of which, if either of the Contenders you can go up against directly. Lay into them from range otherwise.
I¡¯m going to be sending Zero with Trickshot and Lyudmila out to extreme range with a comm link to Exact. Any weapons she has available should go to them. The rest of the support is going under Chariot. Joan, tell her that she needs to keep them moving at all times and I mean all times. Contenders seem to smell weakness and wounded draw them like flies. Bubbles will be going with her to provide cover and Pockets should be able to help with mobility if neither of the Contenders are shifters. If they are, I may have her retreat to the Limo or make tunnels as bait depending. Amoeba and Aura will be there to help anyone who needs it. Between the two of them they should be able to get anyone who¡¯s not critically injured back in the fight. Calypso and Garganta can help provide camouflage.
I¡¯ll be in the Limo providing defense as necessary. We¡¯re fully loaded on ammunition, so we¡¯ll be staying at a distance to ensure our mental link stays up. Pike, don¡¯t hesitate to call out for assistance or opportunities, depending. As for the rest, I¡¯ll wait until we see our opponents.
12:37 p.m.
Petra smiled grimly as she received four affirmatives. She couldn¡¯t really plan out anything better than that. Contenders shattered plans the minute they arrived, so she simply formed the groups as best she could. Black Hat had the monitors up and running. Khyber was shaking hands with Sabre before getting a hug from Celestis. Petra raised her eyebrow at that, but refrained from saying anything. Khyber said something to Titan and the two of them started laughing. No one who hadn¡¯t seen would have ever suspected they¡¯d been trying their level best to incapacitate each other earlier that day. Centurion was talking to Glyph while Arc was staring suspiciously at Khyber. Given that RMDF hadn¡¯t ever interacted with the Dozen, Petra wondered which rumor was fueling the stare. Probably the one about Khyber intentionally killing Shocker; that one persisted despite Centurion¡¯s flat denial.
Shocker had been headstrong and was heat resistant. He had charged the Contender Khyber, Ares, Hephaestus, Dominus, and Centurion had been containing without any real back-up. He¡¯d ignored Athena¡¯s command that all non-heat invulnerable fighters retreat outside the quarter-mile radius. Petra and Athena had been too busy trying to coordinate the containment of the Blue Angel, a particularly nasty Contender, to notice that Shocker had disobeyed the order. Khyber had already been given the go ahead and his plasma wave caught Shocker when he was about a hundred feet away. Dominus had seen Shocker charging but hadn¡¯t thought anyone would be stupid enough to ignore Athena¡¯s order so he hadn¡¯t called the kid off. He saw Shocker burn away when the wave hit him. Khyber had felt guilty for months afterwards.
Chariot was in the process of constructing a giant, spectral chariot. It was pulled by equally spectral horses, six of them for a chariot of this size. Bubbles had already hopped on, chatting with Aura and Amoeba. Pockets was still visible; she wouldn¡¯t start tunneling until getting the go ahead from Petra. Zero, Lyudmila, and Trickshot were in the middle of breaking down a table full of weapons, presumably receiving instructions from Exact over the radio they had. Freya and Quetz were nearby, ready to transport the three shooters as soon as they were ready. Pike had the rest of the flyers nearby, with Neutronis a little ways apart. He was already glowing slightly from the barrage of lightning Stormfront and Amp were directing his way. Joan had most of the middle range combatants on top the roof of a church. It was centralized and would allow for a rapid response in almost any direction.
Petra sighed. Excelsior would already have started the evacuation of the city. It was a waiting game now.
A Measured Response
1:02 p.m.
Unity shook her head as she looked at the monitor in disbelief. ¡°Jekyll, Curie, take a look at this.¡±
The two other technicians turned her way. Curie was a tall and lanky woman, Jekyll a short and pudgy man. Unity waved to the monitor.
¡°What the hell¡oh please God no.¡± Curie said in a tight voice.
¡°Glyph, we need you to look at this, now!¡± Jekyll called out. Glyph and Centurion whipped their heads around at the crack of Jekyll¡¯s voice. Unity watched as Glyph came striding over, Centurion a step behind. Glyph wasn¡¯t that short of a man but standing next to Centurion, he looked small. Everyone looked small next to Centurion with her 6¡¯10¡± stature and world-class physique. Glyph looked at the monitor in question. He looked at it with apparent disbelief for a second.
¡°Shit!¡± Glyph swore before turning and putting a hand to his head. Centurion, who hadn¡¯t even seen the monitor was already dashing over to the other front line fighters, yelling orders. Pike and the airborne fighters took off into the sky; the Limo, which had been hovering about forty feet over the rendezvous shot off, engines screaming. Unity¡¯s attention was drawn to Chariot kicking into high gear, the support team speeding away. The shooters had their newly assembled weapons in hand and were being lofted by Freya and Quetz over to the skyscrapers downtown. They were outside the clearly evacuated zone but if the Contenders got outside that zone, everything had already gone to hell. Unity was startled to hear the engine of the armored truck they¡¯d commandeered start kicking.
¡°Tech team, into the truck! Curie, you¡¯re driving, Jekyll¡¯s shotgun with his guns and a monitor to switch between screens back here. Unity, you¡¯re with me in the back. Black Hat has a direct comm link with the van and we¡¯ve got access to each other¡¯s video feeds and sensors.¡± Glyph was shouting as the three technicians scrambled to grab their gear before hopping into the van.
Once inside, Unity took a moment to appreciate what five technicians could do working together and given some time. The armored truck now carried significantly more armor paneling and fewer weak spots while improving steering and speed. The back of the truck also had two seats in it that were each facing a wall of monitors and had several different computers hooked up in a network. Even better, the seats could be raised through a hatch in the roof where there were two turrets set up for defense. Up front, Jekyll had access to an array of weapons secreted away on various portions of the van while Curie could deploy a number of countermeasures from her seat. On her wall, one of the screens displayed the feed that had caused the frantic response by the fighters.
Local space fluctuations had a distinct pattern to them. When they were stable, as they were most of the time, the pattern was a series of peaks and troughs that were all roughly equivalent in amplitude. When a Contender¡¯s arrival was imminent, the local fluctuations increased dramatically in frequency and amplitude. They¡¯d long ago isolated the pattern that indicated a Contender was coming.
Five years ago, they¡¯d been thrown when the first double rupture of local space occurred within range of sensors. Since then, they¡¯d isolated the moment the fluctuations began and had established a known pattern that proceeded a double rupture. Given two different patterns, several different predictions had emerged for what a three Contender pattern would look like. The leading theory had been by Systemic, a brilliant technician from the Atlanteans. And his pattern precisely matched the pattern now displayed on the monitor. Unity felt fear begin building as the van roared down a random road. They¡¯d already known they were outmatched with two Contenders; how the hell were they going to deal with three?
1:04 p.m.
Glyph: Petra! Problem!
Petra¡¯s eyes snapped open. She was rising from her seat before she was even aware of moving, her hands signaling Transporter to get the hell moving as she concentrated on the mental conversation.
What kind?
Glyph: The fluctuation pattern matches Systemic¡¯s predictions exactly.
I don¡¯t follow.
Glyph: His predictions for a triple Rupture.
Centurion: Shit, we¡¯re moving.
Pike: We¡¯re spreading out and the shooters are being ferried as fast as possible.
Joan: Chariot¡¯s team is away and Bubbles already has one of her fields around them.
Alright, this is why we don¡¯t make plans until the Contenders actually show themselves. Centurion, assessment. Best two man teams of front liners to slow down the Contenders out of the gate.
Centurion: Khyber and Celestis. Titan and Sabre. Myself and Arc.
Delegate and stand by. Glyph, as soon as your people can pin down rupture points, get them to Centurion. Pike, stay spread and watch out for an aerial rupture point. Or God forbid, two. Joan, you¡¯ll need to split your team. Send Amp, Stormfront, and Sledge over to the brick building with the two points. They¡¯re the longest range blasters we have and they can resupply Neutronis from there. Sledge can buy time for the three of them to get clear if one of the Contenders heads their way. Also-
Glyph: Centurion, there¡¯s one aerial rupture, but the other two are by the bomb site and directly in the church as far as we can tell. Pike, aerial rupture is about five hundred feet above the museum a few blocks from the church.
Joan, get your people clear of the church, now! Centurion, take Sabre, Titan, and Arc. Do not let that Contender tear into our team before we even get established. Send Khyber and Celestis to the bomb site and tell them they¡¯re going to be on their own until further notice. Pike, forget about harrying the Contenders on the ground until we¡¯ve got a measure of the one in the sky. We¡¯ll provide what cover we can but expect the aerial Contender to make a beeline for the Limo, they always do. Glyph, I need you to-This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The words died in Petra¡¯s mind as she saw the ruptures form on three different monitors. What came out was enough to plant a cold feeling in her stomach.
Shit.
1:04 p.m.
Shit.
Centurion hated dealing with Contenders. Everyone did, but Centurion really, really hated them. They always inflicted massive civilian casualties, even when there were adequate countermeasures in place. And here, there were definitely not adequate countermeasures in place.
¡°Khyber, Celestis, bomb site, now! You¡¯re on your own until further notice, stay alive! You three, with me, the second Contender is at the church where most of our utilitarians are.¡± Centurion felt the warmth that always accompanied her powers fully activating. She knew that to others her equipment was now glowing pure white, though it still looked normal to her. She took four steps to get up to full speed.
Centurion was glad they¡¯d put Petra in charge. None of the other team leaders would¡¯ve reacted nearly as quickly or well as Petra had. Part of that was the sheer amount of experience Petra had going up against particularly nasty opponents, Contenders included. Petra had split her front liners into the two best teams to deal with their respective threats given their potential support options.
Khyber and Celestis complimented each other fantastically. Khyber worked with plasma generation and manipulation, top tier superhuman in every physical sense, and an awareness bubble about twenty feet across. He wasn¡¯t invincible, technically. But he could infuse his body with his plasma and allow it to absorb an unreal amount of punishment without suffering any injury or even much pain.
Celestis actually generated solid light, in multiple, simultaneous spheres she could contract and expand at will in a 500 meter radius around her. She could also move each of them independently, making her a nightmare to deal with, since she could and would come at you from fifteen different directions at once. She was also invulnerable to most known forces or energy, except kinetic. Combined with her super speed, super strength, enhanced senses, and limited flight, it made her just about impossible to remove from a fight for more than seconds at a time. Her ¡®stars¡¯ as they were called, had a top speed of around 2000 feet per second or 600 meters per second. That was fast enough to smash through most solids and would kill when used at top speed.
Which was why she and Khyber worked well together. Khyber had the awareness, reflexes, and speed to stay in close proximity to Celestis¡¯ stars moving at full speed. He also could take multiple hits from the stars before having to worry about injury. Celestis was perfectly capable of fighting at close range, but she was well aware of just how much more effective Khyber was face to face. Celestis would stay close enough to make life a living hell with her stars while Khyber got in the Contender¡¯s face to dish out punishment.
Centurion was actually more confident in those two slowing down their Contender than she was in her own team. She was invincible, had super speed and super strength, and her spear and sword were hot enough to radiate heat for five feet in every direction and slice through steel like butter. Centurion had been given enhanced senses, but only just enough to track herself. Which meant she wouldn¡¯t be able to effectively track Sabre or Arc. Or Titan, depending on how long the fight went.
Sabre could generate objects made of pure kinetic energy at will and could also unleash it at a distance. His eponymous sabre was one he generated and he often would make sweeping slashes to send out slices of kinetic energy that could cut through entire buildings. He also had super speed, senses, and reflexes a tier or two above Centurion¡¯s. Sabre was the most fragile of her front liners as he was not invincible. Instead, he relied on a suit of kinetic energy he could maintain around his entire body that would absorb most attacks. He was also invulnerable to heat, an extremely useful perk that likely corresponded to the amount of friction generated by his speed and gifts.
Arc was immune to heat due to the nature of his power. He could generate incredible amounts of electricity that he could shoot out or shape into objects. It was a power similar to Khyber¡¯s plasma generation, but Arc¡¯s creations had a far greater range than Khyber¡¯s and he could imbue them with a semblance of autonomy. Arc was not invincible either but possessed the ability to rapidly regenerate his body. If he was directly wired into an electricity source, it was nearly infinite.
Titan was¡well, he was Titan. Truly invulnerable, the only thing that could affect him was kinetic energy, though it couldn¡¯t hurt him. Also, Titan¡¯s invulnerability didn¡¯t extend to simply walking through anything in his way. It was more like nothing could damage him or cause him pain. He could create hammers out of some form of purple metal. The hammers responded to mental commands of his, flying back to his hand or sending out blasts of purple energy from the top or faces. The hammers appeared and disappeared with a moment of focus by Titan; he could choose and alter their size as necessary. The growth thing simply put him over the top, though it slowed down rapidly beyond a certain point. The largest he¡¯d gotten was 20 ft in height, after nearly a day of going toe to toe with a Colossus in Montreal alongside Ares and Dominus. As he grew, his strength and speed increased, making him a foe that only got stronger as the fight went on.
1:04 p.m.
Centurion wasn¡¯t concerned with her team¡¯s abilities. They were, without question, more than capable of taking on a Contender and containing it, even without back up. But they would need teamwork to achieve that, because Contenders always made mincemeat out of gifted who couldn¡¯t work together effectively.
Khyber seemed to gel with anyone he¡¯d fought against in the past, meaning he and Celestis would sync up quickly. It was her team that had¡confidence issues.
Sabre was fine; he¡¯d been with RMDF for several years and was used to playing second fiddle to the other front liners, covering their flanks and harrying the Contender from a few feet beyond their reach. Centurion herself had similar experience, though her role usually consisted of sealing any breaches that appeared in someone¡¯s defense or a gap in the line against the Contender. It was Arc and Titan that would be problematic.
Arc was a very, very new fighter. He¡¯d gotten his powers during the last stateside rupture four months prior. This was his first experience going up against a Contender and his arrogance worried Centurion. Arc would be likely to underestimate the true danger of a Contender.
Titan was the opposite problem. Like Centurion and Sabre, this was not his first or tenth time dealing with Contenders and he was well prepared to hold his own. But this was the first time where he¡¯d be the only experienced powerhouse on the front line. Titan had always fought alongside some combination of Ares, Hephaestus, Dominus, Attila, Regius, Strongarm, or Hellion. Centurion was concerned he would either be hesitant in taking the lead or too aggressive attempting to make up for the perceived lack of support. Either would present a problem when fighting alongside Arc, who in Centurion¡¯s view was eager to prove himself.
Centurion found herself wishing Excelsior or Deus still were active members of Meridian. Though having either of those two on a battlefield at the same time as Petra and Khyber would end up with someone dying. She sighed as her team covered the block to the church, saddened once more at the death of Caesar. He¡¯d been the only one who could reign in Excelsior and Deus and when he¡¯d died, the Legion had come crashing down shortly thereafter.
Widening Eyes
1:07 p.m.
Centurion shook her head to refocus on the present. Staring at the church, she saw members of the utilitarian team bailing from the roof or out of the building. Around the building itself was the hazy look the air took on right before a rupture occurred. Her team was maybe a hundred yards away when the rupture opened. Which was one hundred yards too far for Marionette. She was leaping out of a building assisted by a flying toy of hers when all the walls exploded outwards. Centurion watched helplessly as a chunk of marble the size of a horse dropped Marionette out of the sky. The way she landed, Centurion had no doubt she was dead. Joan, who had been nearby, blasted another similar chunk away with her fire.
Joan, don¡¯t go back! Take your team and regroup! Centurion gave a mental shout but Joan wasn¡¯t listening as she leapt back to check on Marionette, practically falling on top of the limp body from the force of landing. Arc and Sabre were already moving faster to try and cover Joan. They were ten feet away when a gigantic axe blurred through the air, cutting the flaming woman¡¯s body in half. Arc and Sabre pulled up short as the dust and haze settled, revealing their opponent. Wreathed in green flames, a Minotaur class Contender emerged from the ruins of the church, bellowing. Minotaurs had earned their name by the two curved horns on their head and vaguely hoof-like feet. After that, the resemblance to the famed Minotaur ended, as these Contenders had two tails, were usually covered in colored fire, and used small-scale pyroclastic powers.
As the Contender emerged from the rubble, the ground beneath its¡¯ feet began to bubble and small pops of superheated gases could be heard. Centurion pulled up to assess for a moment. This was easily the biggest Minotaur class they¡¯d ever run into, at least twenty five feet tall and probably weighed at least a ton, if not two. Even Titan would be outclassed strength-wise for most of the fight. Well, if was only strong it wouldn¡¯t be too difficult to contain.
Petra, Minotaur class, biggest yet. Joan and Marionette are dead. This is not going to be quick.
Petra: Got it, organizing a replacement now. Utilitarians are shattered, don¡¯t expect back-up from them for a while.
Confirmed, we¡¯ll engage with that in mind.
Centurion¡¯s hopes about speed were dashed as the Minotaur spotted Spartan helping an injured Phosphor away. The Minotaur charged directly for them and Centurion was too surprised to react, it was fast. Fortunately, Sabre wasn¡¯t caught flat-footed and a slice of kinetic energy caught the Minotaur mid-charge, sending it stumbling off course. It turned and glared at the only four beings not sprinting away from it. When they held their ground, it roared a challenge and charged their way. Centurion braced herself for the charge and began barking orders.
1:07 p.m.
Vulture watched as ground teams began scattering before he heard Pike yelling orders. Soon, he was flying about 300 feet off the ground, about forty yards away from the predicted rupture point. This wasn¡¯t his first encounter with Contenders, but it was his first time dealing with an aerial opponent. Vulture was nervous, the ones that could fly tended to the most dangerous and he wasn¡¯t exactly able to take a hit from a Contender. His only power was wind manipulation, which he used to fly. Granted, he could knock most other flyers off course with his winds but Contenders were almost always big enough that they would likely laugh at his efforts. His nervous musing was interrupted by Pike barking into his earpiece.
¡°Vulture, you¡¯re our safety net. Catch anyone who¡¯s rendered unable to fly. Land them or revive as needed but stay out of the way. Freya, you¡¯re with me up front against this thing. The rest of you, hammer at it from range and stay the hell out of its¡¯ way. Also, I¡¯ve never worked with the Dozen before but their leader said their ship is usually targeted by aerial Contenders, is that right?¡±
¡°Petra¡¯s usually right.¡± Vulture heard a voice he thought was Neutronis¡¯s. ¡°And I¡¯ve seen it personally, it will almost certainly be a target. Exact thinks it has to do with it being a threatening size compared to the rest of us.¡±
¡°Hmmph. Well, be prepared to defend that ship then, our coordination¡¯s all running through there.¡± Pike crackled over the radio.
¡°I wouldn¡¯t worry about the Limo defending itself.¡± Vulture jumped as he heard a voice next to him, only to see Neutronis floating about twenty feet away. There was no response over the comms and Vulture realized that comment was just intended for him. Neutronis gave him a reassuring smile, right as a series of lightning bolts struck. Vulture zipped backwards until the flash faded and he saw Neutronis still there, now glowing brighter. ¡°Ahh, sorry about that. I know you¡¯re new and haven¡¯t worked with the Dozen before but I have. If you¡¯re worried about having to be the safety net for the Limo, don¡¯t. It¡¯ll be the hardest opponent for the Contender to deal with.¡±
¡°Uh, thanks.¡± Vulture said back. He hadn¡¯t really been thinking in those terms but it was nice to know he wouldn¡¯t be on the hook for saving an entire ship. Vulture wasn¡¯t sure his winds could support that much weight.
¡°No problem. Trust me, the Dozen are veterans dealing with Contenders, we¡¯re lucky they came back.¡± Vulture thought he saw Neutronis frown and mumble to himself.
Both of their heads snapped upwards as they felt the pulse signaling a rupture. A rift appeared in the haze, about twenty feet tall. What flew out of it was a nightmare given a fifteen foot tall form. Two sets of red, bat-like wings, a head that looked crocodilian, two sets of humanoid arms, a pair of squat legs, and a crocodile like tail. The eyes gleamed with a wicked intelligence and there was pungent smell of ozone as lightning arced from its¡¯ body. As if that wasn¡¯t bad enough, each humanoid arm carried a weapon, two maces and two whips, all crackling with electricity.
Vulture saw Neutronis dart towards the Contender, closing the gap in a few seconds. Neutronis pulled up short, about fifteen feet away and lightning arcing off the creature began to all be drawn his way. Neutronis sat there absorbing the electricity and Vulture watched the Contender¡¯s eyes focus on Neutronis before it darted towards him with a powerful flap of its¡¯ wings. Freya intercepted it with a punch, knocking it sideways as Neutronis zipped backwards to maintain the fifteen foot interval. Pike zoomed up to block direct access to Neutronis. The Contender roared, a sound filled with rage and bloodlust.
Vulture thought he saw it tensing up for another charge when an explosion appeared on the side of its¡¯ body, knocking it into a spiral for about twenty feet before the Contender caught itself. Vulture¡¯s eyes followed the Contender¡¯s line of sight to see the Limo strafing sideways, a gigantic gun barrel protruding from its¡¯ underbelly. As Vulture watched, the ship seemed to shudder slightly as the barrel flashed. The Contender roared again as it was knocked into another spiral. The Contender was getting entirely too close for Vulture¡¯s comfort and he zipped away before it could notice him.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He needn¡¯t have worried; the Contenders eyes were riveted on the Limo and one armed blurred as the Limo¡¯s gun belched once more. There was a different sounding explosion as the Contender detonated the shell about ten yards in front of it with one of its¡¯ whips. As the Contender made directly for the Limo, Vulture thought he had a better idea of why the ship was targeted so much.
1:08 p.m.
Centurion dove out of the way as the Minotaur charged her directly. It passed through the group, Titan blocking an axe swing with his hammers. Before the Minotaur could turn around, Titan¡¯s hammer flew into its¡¯ back, sending it stumbling into a wall.
¡°Titan, front and center, hold it in place!¡± Centurion shouted as she came up from her roll. ¡°Arc, Sabre, hit it from range, keep it off balance.¡±
Titan settled into a spot, daring the Contender to try and move him. The Contender took the challenge, charging directly at Titan. Arc and Sabre laid into the Minotaur and it staggered but kept coming. Centurion didn¡¯t like the fact that no damage or pain was evident from the ranged attacks. If the Contender proved too tough, there would be massive casualties as the Contender forced the defenders to continually reset their cordon.
Titan absorbed the charge, taking an axe swing on one hammer and using another to smash the other hand grabbing at him. He ducked low, using the Minotaur¡¯s continued forward momentum to flip it over his back. Centurion grinned while the Minotaur went skidding along the ground, taking a direct hit from one of Sabre¡¯s slashes as it did. Titan had just pulled a move almost identical to one she had seen Khyber execute on him that morning. As much as Titan griped about fighting people smaller than him, he apparently also learned from what they did.
The Contender came up swinging and the strike made a pealing sound when it connected with Titan¡¯s hammers. Titan was now twelve feet tall, dwarfing his teammates. But he still looked runty compared to the Minotaur he was facing. It roared as it swung repeatedly, trying to bash a hole in Titan¡¯s defenses.
Centurion hung back, letting Titan absorb the initial punishment while she assessed. Arc¡¯s bolts of lightning were having minimal, if any, effect. Sabre¡¯s slashes were much more potent and Centurion decided this thing was probably only affected by kinetic force and maybe large amounts of energy. It had Titan outmatched strengthwise. Centurion guessed another few hours at minimum before Titan could match the Contender. For now, Titan fought defensively, dodging and deflecting as much as possible to minimize the effect of the strength differential.
Centurion glanced away, checking on her team¡¯s positioning. Sabre was a safe distance away and moving as necessary to maintain a good buffer distance. Arc however, seemed to be inching closer and closer to the fight. He was standing as if straining at a leash, obviously wanting to mix it up directly with the Contender. Centurion frowned, hoping reason would hold back his eagerness.
Shifting her gaze back to the fight, Centurion smiled as she watched Titan¡¯s posture gain confidence. He sent the Contender stumbling away with a well-placed leg sweep. Following behind it, Titan charged the Minotaur, obviously intending to slam into the unbalanced Minotaur. Centurion felt alarm thrill through her as the Minotaur recovered far too quickly and planted its¡¯ feet to receive Titan¡¯s charge. Titan¡¯s shoulder impacted the Minotaur¡¯s lower chest and he bounced off, staggering away. His defense was open and the Minotaur¡¯s axe blurred upwards. Centurion¡¯s heart leapt into her throat as she saw a spray of blood in the wake of the axe swing. She sprinted to cover him as he reeled, dropping his hammers and clutching at his chest.
Centurion used her shield to block the Minotaur¡¯s axe, brought to her knees by the power of the blow. She jumped back, intending to get clear of immediate range and force the Minotaur to face away from Titan. As she moved backwards, her foot was grabbed by something warm and yanked. She stumbled and out of the corner of her eye, saw a tendril of electricity snaking away.
Arc tripped me? Was all she had time to think before one of the Minotaur¡¯s horns caught her directly in her stomach. Instead of sending her flying after her invincibility rebuffed the point, Centurion felt a searing pain as the horn pierced her stomach. She stumbled backwards, gasping in agony as the Minotaur lifted its¡¯ head back up, the tip of its¡¯ horn creating a line of fire in her chest. Centurion dropped to her knees and watched the Minotaur go stumbling away as Sabre repeatedly laid into the Contender with everything he had. She saw Arc step into its¡¯ line of sight, obviously challenging it. Sabre began running up to her as blackness rushed in.
1:06 p.m.
Celestis darted towards the bomb site right behind Khyber. Having an aerial Contender complicated things and it didn¡¯t help that the Valkyries had never worked with the Dozen before. In fact, only Meridian had, Celestis thought as they covered another block. Which was ironic, considering those two teams had a legendary feud. Celestis didn¡¯t know what started the feud; no one outside the two teams did. But the Dozen and Meridian hated each other¡¯s guts, without a doubt, their clashes pushed the limits of the unspoken accords between most teams.
Which made it odd to see Centurion and Khyber treat each other with such respect. Celestis didn¡¯t know what she¡¯d expected, but respect certainly wasn¡¯t it. Though Centurion had struck her as honorable the previous times they¡¯d worked together against a Contender. And certainly competent. Centurion had been on the front lines against Contenders since day one; she¡¯d gotten her gifts during the very first Rupture. That she was still alive and very much kicking after eleven years spoke volumes about her ability.
And Khyber, well, Celestis was the last person who could accuse Khyber of not being honorable.
That thought brought back the memory of their first encounter. Celestis had gotten her powers less than a year before that encounter and had only reached the three month mark with the Valkyries. She¡¯d already participated in two separate Rupture events and had earned a good deal of respect for holding her own on the front line. It didn¡¯t matter that those Contenders were fairly mild, Celestis was already being hailed as the Valkyries¡¯ big gun. She was arrogant and hadn¡¯t met anyone yet to pop her bubble. Then the Dozen came to town on a contract.
The Valkyries still weren¡¯t sure, two years later, what the Dozen had been after. In the two days they were in the city they¡¯d robbed a bank, held up a gas station, ¡®remodeled¡¯ the interior of an office building with brute force, and planted several acres worth of endangered plants at a retirement home. Their motive should have been cut and dry considering they made off with several million from the bank in cash and stored valuables, but the Valkyries couldn¡¯t be sure. The gas station was owned by the son of one of the biggest mob bosses in the state of California, the office building had housed a top secret satellite monitoring facility, and the retirement home had used the plants to stave off a predatory real estate operator who was trying to foreclose on the business. Given that the Dozen would take a job from almost anyone, any number of those actions could have potentially been the job and the Dozen had just done the others as a smokescreen.
They¡¯d done it before; the year before Celestis had joined the Valkyries, the Dozen had broken into seven different hotels on different days to kidnap guests. They¡¯d then used the hunt for the missing persons to draw out the family member of one guest. It turned out that man¡¯s wife had been the target the whole time, which was only discovered when she confessed on CBS a year afterwards that she¡¯d been encouraged by the Dozen to drop a certain line of products in her design business to have her husband returned.
Looking to the Past
October 14th, 1988. Friday afternoon, 4:15 p.m.
Celestis had the hotels incident in the back of her mind as she¡¯d gone with the rest of the Valkyries to confront the Dozen midway through their ¡®remodeling¡¯ session. She¡¯d mentally blown off Joan¡¯s warning about tangling with Khyber.
¡°Underestimate him and you¡¯re going to regret it.¡± Joan had told her sternly. ¡°You and Myst are the only ones who can keep him occupied, do not let him take either of you out of the fight. If he gets either of you one on one, things are going to go downhill very quickly.¡±
Celestis was still riding the high she¡¯d gotten from holding a Contender at bay by herself for three minutes before any other front liners could be brought to bear. She was certain Joan was exaggerating to make sure Celestis kept herself safe. They¡¯d surrounded the twelve story building, Whistler and Freya overhead to prevent any airborne evacuations, herself and Myst standing in the street out front. The rest of the Valkyries were waiting for the Dozen to make a play before revealing themselves.
She and Myst had both jumped when an unfamiliar voice came over their comms. ¡°Now, all respect to Curie, but her technical expertise is in the field of chemistry and stuff. That¡¯s awesome stuff, but it doesn¡¯t really qualify her to keep me out of your comms. Sorry, this is going to be a bit loud.¡±
4:17 p.m.
Celestis doubled over and clapped her hands to her head as an ear-piercing shriek came over the comms. It warbled on indefinitely and Celestis had to shut her comms off to find any relief. Looking over, she saw Myst had done the same. As Celestis looked back up, she saw both Whistler and Freya trying to return to their original posts as they recovered from the shriek. She also saw something new, a storm cloud brewing over the building, where there was a perfect sky beforehand. She tried to call out a warning only to realize that her comms were still off. Celestis turned them back on for only a second before hastily silencing her link once more, the shriek hadn¡¯t abated.
¡°Well, that¡¯s going to be an issue.¡± Celestis turned to see what Myst was pointing at. In the sky was a ship, with multiple tendrils of sand drifting around it and the distinctive glimmer of a force field surrounding it. Whistler and Freya scattered as the ship let loose, a hail of bullets sweeping towards both flyers. Celestis had been assured they used rubber bullets against humans but it still made her nervous for her teammates.
Both women¡¯s gazes were drawn back down to the street as something flashed and impacted the asphalt in front of them, leaving a deal of dust and debris floating in the air.
¡°Shit.¡± Celestis heard Myst mutter before a wave of green light came flying outwards. Celestis summoned and smashed six stars through the wall. She turned to see that Myst hadn¡¯t been as lucky and was pinned to one of the buildings on the far side of the street.
¡°You the new kid?¡± The man emerging from the dust was maybe an inch taller than her five foot three inches and had on a grey bodysuit that glowed softly underneath. ¡°Heard you¡¯re pretty good, mind giving a demonstration?¡±
Celestis could hear the mocking grin behind the mask, people always had that expression on their face when they said demeaning things like that to her. She didn¡¯t bother with words, snarling as she summoned fifteen stars each the size of a basketball and slammed them towards her opponent at full speed. They came together with a satisfying thud and Celestis smirked. She¡¯d felt the contact, whoever the guy had been, he hadn¡¯t been able to dodge her, same as anyone else.
¡°So much for the amazing Khyber.¡± She gloated. ¡°Joan seriously over exaggerated how good you were.¡±
She dismissed her stars, expecting to see a body slump down on the ground. Instead, she saw a green, human-sized lump break into pieces. ¡°Huh?¡±
4:18 p.m.
¡°You are good.¡± Celestis jumped at the sound of a voice behind her, bringing a wall of stars into existence directly behind her while she created more to home in on and destroy the source of that voice.
¡°Very good.¡± Celestis spun and went rigid as she felt several of her stars deflected off course. Neither Contender she¡¯d faced had been fast enough to do that, yet this guy could?
¡°They said you were invulnerable.¡± Celestis sent waves of stars to converge on the new place she heard the voice, to her back and right. She¡¯d yet to even catch a glimpse of him after that first moment. To hell with skill and finesse she thought.
Thousands of baseball sized stars appeared everywhere in her radius. Celestis smiled as she began swirling them around, creating a makeshift location detector. She wanted to see him dodge that. Frowning after nearly twenty seconds with no contact, she turned a full circle to try and spot where he¡¯d exited her radius. She screamed when she made her full rotation and saw Khyber standing not two feet away from her, pleased judging by his posture.
¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re invulnerable.¡± He said and in her shock at his incredible approach, she completely forgot the idea of retaliation. ¡°It means I can teach you some humility the same way I learned. By having it pounded into me.¡±
Celestis barely got an arm up to block his first punch, she ducked the second, only to take a knee to the face. Being invulnerable, she didn¡¯t feel any pain but she was still subject to the effects of kinetic energy. Her face and body snapped upwards and as they did, she saw in her peripherals Khyber¡¯s fist glowing with his green energy. Again, the punch didn¡¯t hurt but Celestis had to dig herself out of the street nearly three blocks away when she landed. She flew back towards the front of the building only to be intercepted by a blast of green light about fifty feet out. Using her spheres as a shield, she barreled through, weaving random patterns with the thousands of spheres still under her control. She felt a good deal of those spheres being deflected and knocked out of existence when a hand came shooting through her sphere wall. It grabbed her leg before she¡¯d registered it and she found herself slammed into the street, then a parked car, then a lamppost. Before she could reorient, she was once again dug partway into the street a few blocks away.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
This guy is nuts! She thought to herself as she once again flew towards the office building. She saw Myst getting re-plastered with Khyber¡¯s plasma, ensuring she stayed stuck. He makes those Contenders look slow!
4:18 p.m.
Khyber was standing in the middle of the street and held up a hand indicating she stop. Celestis halted about a hundred feet away from him, giving herself nearly twenty feet of clearance from his maximum range according to Joan.
¡°Your teammates are having some issues.¡± He shouted and pointed upwards and Celestis followed his finger. She saw Freya getting lit up by a hail of bullets, an explosion blowing her backwards as Celestis watched. Whistler was attempting to hit the ship with her blue darts, only to have them rebuffed by the spherical field surrounding the ship. The tendrils of sand were whipping around, deflecting arcs of fire that Joan was throwing from a nearby roof. Occasionally, a tendril would flick out in a seemingly random direction, only to stop a red streak that had suddenly appeared.
¡°Bubbles¡¯ shield can only take so much energy at once.¡± Celestis jerked her gaze back down to Khyber, chastising herself for letting him distract her. She let out a small sigh of relief seeing that he hadn¡¯t moved. ¡°Petra¡¯s making sure that Lyudmila and Joan can¡¯t contribute to wearing her down. Sorry about the comms thing, Black Hat¡¯s got a nasty sense of humor.¡±
¡°Uh¡no problem?¡± Celestis called back. She was confused; none of the bad guys had ever stopped to engage her in idle chit chat before. And Contenders weren¡¯t big on talking either.
¡°I have a proposition for you.¡± Khyber¡¯s form flashed green and Celestis summoned a wall of two meter thick stars around herself for protection. ¡°Not to attack you, not yet.¡±
Khyber sounded much closer now. ¡°Hear out my proposition: we¡¯re basically done inside and we¡¯re clearing out shortly. But from what I¡¯ve seen, you¡¯re well¡you¡¯re obviously pretty new at this. How long ago did you get your powers?¡±
Celestis started. Was he insulting her? He didn¡¯t seem to be, he seemed genuinely curious. ¡°About ten months ago.¡±
¡°Hmm.¡± Khyber sounded thoughtful. ¡°You can dismiss that wall of yours; it wouldn¡¯t do you any good if I really wanted to get to you.¡±
Celestis couldn¡¯t argue with that given what he¡¯d done already. Still, she felt safer with some measure of protection, so she shrank the stars to a half meter in diameter each, giving her an easy view of Khyber. He was about ten feet from her, looking across the street. When Celestis glanced that way, she saw Myst still pinned to the wall, though her binding had cracks in it. Those cracks were re-sealing almost as fast as they appeared.
¡°That would mean you haven¡¯t dealt with any real Contenders yet, just the lower strength stuff that''s shown up recently in the area.¡± Khyber turned back to look at her. Celestis could feel the intensity of his gaze, even hidden behind his gray mask. ¡°So you haven¡¯t fought anyone as strong or stronger than you until now, right?¡±
Khyber stopped and Celestis thought he wanted a response of some kind. ¡°Right.¡±
¡°You¡¯re strong enough that eventually Ajax will come looking for you, see what you¡¯re made of. He¡¯d kill you in less than five minutes, once he got done toying with you. And if not him, if the Cast-outs or Rasputin¡¯s crew or Et Timuerunt ever roll into town, their heavy hitters would do it even quicker since they usually don¡¯t play with their kills beforehand." Khyber paused for a moment, shaking his head angrily.
"Invulnerable doesn¡¯t make you impossible to kill, just difficult. A top tier Contender probably won¡¯t kill you, but when you¡¯re not able to hold your own against it, your teammates and civilians will pay in buckets of blood.¡± He delivered the speech in the tone of a counselor pointing out something their patient didn¡¯t want to hear.
Celestis had no idea where he was going with this. ¡°Okay¡and you¡¯re telling me this because¡?¡±
¡°My proposition of course.¡± Khyber sounded almost offended that she didn¡¯t understand that. ¡°Meet me about thirty miles north of San Francisco, at a ranch called Huevos this Saturday morning. I¡¯m going to spend the weekend giving you some actual experience fighting against someone stronger than you and advice on how to deal with it.¡±
¡°That smells like a trap to kill me.¡± Celestis pointed out.
¡°We don¡¯t kill unless provoked.¡± Khyber said flatly. Celestis had never heard of the Dozen killing anybody, so she wondered why he¡¯d added the proviso. Her response had been more of a gut reaction than anything concrete. ¡°Just ask Myst about my offer; I gave her a similar offer a year or so ago.¡±
With that, he gave a wave and flashed green again. Celestis saw him sprint and jump off a nearby car, grabbing onto a line trailing from the Dozen¡¯s ship as it screamed down the street with Whistler in hot pursuit. She broke off when Khyber sent several blasts of plasma her way.
4:26 p.m.
¡°Dammit, I hate it when he does that.¡± Celestis turned to find Myst brushing off some of Khyber¡¯s plasma from her outfit.
¡°He¡¯s done that before?¡± Celestis asked.
¡°Yeah, it¡¯s a favorite tactic of his and it¡¯s so damn fast I can almost never dodge it.¡± Myst grumped. ¡°Looked like he talked to you more than he fought.¡±
¡°He said to ask you about an offer he made.¡± Celestis said hesitantly.
Myst nodded. ¡°Going out to Huevos, right?¡± Celestis nodded and Myst continued. ¡°It¡¯s a serious offer. Khyber¡¯s a bit weird; he loves having challenging opponents to fight, it chafes at him that the Dozen don¡¯t get called to more rupture scenes or that Petra won¡¯t let him go challenge Ajax. Now that would be something to watch.¡±
Myst shook her head. ¡°Anyways, he hates seeing people with potential be destroyed before they get good. He seriously wants to show you how to get better so that you¡¯ll survive and provide him with a challenge later. And hopefully rack up a few Contender kills.¡±
¡°So I should go?¡± Celestis couldn¡¯t believe she was contemplating it.
¡°Yeah, but clear it with Joan first, that¡¯s what I did.¡± Myst told her. ¡°She¡¯d be pissed if she didn¡¯t know beforehand.¡±
¡°Okay, thanks Myst.¡± Celestis started walking back down the street to where the after action rendezvous had been set.
¡°Celestis, it¡¯s a hell of a workout, in a good way. You¡¯re going to learn a ton of things you didn¡¯t even realize you were missing.¡± Myst said as she caught up with her a second later, with a grin on her face. ¡°One piece of advice, though: he¡¯s got a thing for redheads.¡±
Celestis stopped dead in her tracks as Myst casually flipped her bright red hair with one hand, sauntering away after a wink. Celestis tried to say something, ask a question, and only silence emerged. Celestis reached up and tugged on one of her own auburn locks, a nervous habit she thought she¡¯d broken. Myst isn¡¯t saying what I think she is, right¡?
A Real Charlie Foxtrot
June 6th, 1991. Thursday afternoon, 1:07 p.m.
All reminiscing about the past stopped cold as Celestis and Khyber rounded the corner to see the rupture and what came skittering out of it. She and Khyber both darted forward to get it well within their respective ranges.
Putting a hand to his ear, Khyber began talking. ¡°Petra, Crawler class, at least thirty legs and loaded with muscle. And-¡±
Khyber paused as he dodged, the Crawler spitting a stream of liquid at him. It sizzled as it hit the ground about forty feet to Celestis¡¯ right. ¡°-it¡¯s an acid maker.¡±
The Crawler was massive; Celestis had never heard of a Crawler with more than twenty legs before. It could be compared to a centipede, except a centipede designed by a mad scientist to murder everything it ran across. It had pincers and a circular maw filled with teeth. There was a protrusion between its¡¯ eyes where acid could be sprayed and as Celestis knew from past experience, any form of blood or liquid that came from the Crawler would also be highly acidic. Each leg was multi-jointed and doubled over, obscuring their true length and reach. They had three claws on each foot and the claws were at least a foot long. It wasn¡¯t segmented but sinuous and its¡¯ entire body was covered in skin that was nearly impossible to breach if past Crawlers were anything to go by.
Khyber was closing fast on the Crawler and as Celestis summoned a few dozen stars to begin testing defenses, the Crawler surged towards her with a burst of speed. Celestis summoned more stars to wall herself off and escape. As she did so, she felt an unbearable pain in her head and her focus was shattered. Her stars all winked out as she dropped into a fetal position and the Crawler bore down on her. Celestis had never been eaten by a Contender before, but the one thought that made its way through the pain was that she was about to experience it.
As she watched through the haze of pain, the Crawler reared up over her, maw wide. Before it could plunge downwards, Khyber crashed into it, a green blur. The Crawler had pulled about half its¡¯ legs off the ground to rear up and the remaining legs couldn¡¯t stabilize the Contender against Khyber¡¯s slam. It went sprawling and Celestis felt the pain in her head recede somewhat.
She looked up to see Khyber holding his head with one hand and the other reaching down to yank her to her feet. His face was a mask of pain as she actually processed what he was screaming. ¡°-list! Mentalist! Mentalist!¡±
1:09 p.m.
Petra watched the three Contenders emerge on screen and their opening moves played out. Minotaur, Crawler, Angel. All three of which were larger than any previously seen Contender in their class. This was turning into a shitshow, fast.
Web, hook me up to Spartan.
Web: Done
Spartan!
Spartan: The hell?!
Petra, mental comms. You¡¯re taking over the utilitarians, Joan¡¯s dead. Reorganize and contact me when your team is ready to go.
Spartan: I uh¡
No choice, just do it.
¡°Mentalist! Mentalist! Mentalist!¡± She heard Khyber¡¯s pained scream come over the comms.
All team leaders, Crawler is a mentalist. We¡¯re killing mental comms, switch to electronics.
Web gave her a thumbs up as she flicked her headset over to a previous channel. ¡°Excelsior, confirmed mentalist, Screamer¡¯s a go.¡±
¡°Done.¡± Excelsior replied less than ten seconds later and Petra saw Web¡¯s face scrunch a bit as confirmation. Petra flipped back to her team¡¯s channel.
¡°Transporter, Hat, get the Red Angel¡¯s attention and don¡¯t let it go!¡±
¡°On it!¡± She heard tandem responses. A moment later, the ship shuddered slightly as a modified HEAT round was fired from their under-mounted gun. The Limo began strafing sideways and shuddered again as another round was fired. Petra watched on the monitor as the Red Angel detonated the third shell.
¡°We¡¯ve got its¡¯ attention, get us dancing Transporter. Hat, keep the damn thing pissed off!¡± Petra took a moment to hit the button that ejected her sand into the air around them, grabbing ahold of it mentally. She flipped channels to the other teams.
¡°Pike, hammer the bastard while it comes after us. We take this thing down and we should be able to -"
1:11 p.m.
¡°Fuck!¡± Petra heard a voice she didn¡¯t recognize over the comms. ¡°Titan¡¯s hurt and Centurion is down! This thing doesn¡¯t give two shits about invulnerability!¡±
Petra looked over to the monitor tracking the Minotaur. Titan was rapidly retreating from blurring slashes of the Minotaur¡¯s axe, holding a hand to his chest. Sabre had Centurion in his arms; she looked to have a goring wound through her stomach.
¡°Sabre¡¯s moving Centurion, I¡¯ll take the lead against this bastard until Titan can recover.¡± Petra watched on screen as Arc sent bolt after bolt of lightning lancing into the Minotaur. It didn¡¯t appear phased but the Contender¡¯s attention shifted to Arc. Titan took the opportunity to disengage, revealing that the wound on his chest was serious.
Shit, that¡¯s new. Petra assessed the situation and was not happy with the conclusion she reached.
¡°Acknowledged.¡± She replied directly to Arc before flipping over to a private channel with Khyber. One of these days she would have to thank Black Hat for insisting she learn how to operate the comms from her headset, it was quite possibly a life-saver here. ¡°Khyber, can Celestis hold the Crawler by herself?¡±
¡°If you don¡¯t mind it tearing through a block or two every few minutes, she can slow it down some now that Screamer¡¯s up and running.¡± Khyber grunted. Petra watched on screen as he yanked half a dozen of the Crawler¡¯s legs out from under it just as Celestis sent a wave of stars crashing into it. The effect was that the Crawler was flipped over onto its¡¯ back, temporarily exposed. Khyber and Celestis took advantage as stars and plasma hammered into the slightly less armored underbelly.
¡°No choice, Centurion is down and Titan¡¯s seriously injured. I need you to go contain the Minotaur, there¡¯s no way Arc and Sabre can handle it.¡± Petra ordered.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
¡°Got it.¡± Petra watched as Khyber signaled to Celestis before dashing off towards the square that contained the church.
¡°Khyber, it¡¯s big. Biggest yet and according to Arc doesn¡¯t care about invincibility at all.¡± Petra informed him as he became a green blur on her screen. ¡°Use Ajax protocol.¡±
¡°Interesting.¡± She could hear the stupid smirk in his voice.
1:10 p.m.
Arc was excited as he reported the situation. Here and now, he had the chance to prove himself as the one of the best. He knew he deserved the title. He easily outclassed all his teammates on the RMDF and in his opinion, everyone else here. Arc wanted, craved the respect that people gave to Titan or even better, the Atlanteans. Centurion, the Amazon bitch, hadn¡¯t even noticed his actions. So much for the first front-liner.
Celestis, well he wanted the respect but he also thought maybe she¡¯d be fun to get some respect from in return. Sabre was a one trick pony in Arc¡¯s mind and wasn¡¯t really equipped to be a front liner.
Khyber¡Arc couldn¡¯t understand why everyone didn¡¯t already acknowledge that Khyber was inferior to him. Arc¡¯s abilities with lightning were almost identical to Khyber¡¯s plasma and had better documented range, power, and flexibility. Sure, he didn¡¯t have Khyber¡¯s durability or strength, but he had regeneration like nobody had seen since Luna died. But everyone still called Khyber one of the best, listing him along with Dominus, the Dragon, and Ares as the best front liners around. They put him ahead of Titan and Arc was only marginally sure he could take Titan in a stand up fight. Arc thought it was time to show what the newest blood was capable of.
A familiar voice crackled in his ear after reporting. It wasn¡¯t Petra or any of the other gifted on scene. ¡°Rising Phoenix.¡±
Arc¡¯s vision blurred for a moment before snapping back to clarity. Bleak amusement ran through him; perhaps his subconscious had anticipated this.
He unleashed a barrage of bolts at the Minotaur, which turned to bellow at him. Arc grinned as he watched Titan retreat and Sabre get Centurion out of the way. For the next few minutes, it would be just him vs the Minotaur. A Minotaur bigger and faster than any previous recorded Contender of that class. The Minotaur charged and Arc stepped aside, using a lash of lightning to knock the Minotaur off balance. He was annoyed that his lightning didn¡¯t have much of an effect besides the impact, but he¡¯d been told Contenders had hides that made steel look soft.
Arc ducked the backslash of the axe, sending another, much more concentrated bolt directly into the pivoting Minotaur. He was startled when the Minotaur shrugged it off without even flinching.
The thing actually faked being affected to keep me in range? Arc thought in wonder as the Minotaur¡¯s free hand clamped onto Arc¡¯s outstretched arm, yanking hard. Arc accepted the loss of the arm, screaming with pain as the limb was separated from his body. He jumped back from the Minotaur, which looked down at the limb in its grip before tossing it aside. Arc glanced down to his side and saw his arm had nearly fully regrown. He grinned at the Minotaur. Arc could do quite a few more regenerations like that before he needed to recharge and there was no way the Minotaur would catch him-
Suddenly, the Minotaur was standing next to Arc. As Arc tried to process that impossible movement, he failed to dodge the Minotaur¡¯s grasping hands. He screamed and blacked out from the pain of feeling himself literally crushed as he was torn in two.
Arc came back to consciousness as he hit the ground, his mind and body screaming in pain. He blinked and tried to sit up. He managed to prop himself up on his arms, looking down to see new legs growing from his hips ever so slowly. He blinked in pain and watched as Sabre took the Minotaur¡¯s attention away, obviously trying to buy time for Arc to escape. Arc would have laughed at the idea if he could have without crying. There wouldn¡¯t be a retreat from this thing, it was too fast and strong.
Arc felt his convictions affirmed when Saber lost an arm and then his head in a furious clash of weapons between himself and the Minotaur. The Minotaur stomped on the body, making sure it was dead. Fear blossomed in his stomach as the Minotaur suddenly appeared beside where Centurion had been set, clearly intending to do the same. Arc looked over to see Titan leaning against a building, his features contorted in pain as he clutched at his chest. He looked back over to Centurion, resigning himself to all three of their deaths.
As the Minotaur raised its¡¯ foot, a green blur came from a side street, streaking towards the Minotaur. The Contender turned and planted its feet, not squishing Centurion. It bellowed at the new threat only to be knocked clear off its feet as the blur collided with it. Arc was in disbelief as he saw the blur clarify into the grey bodysuit that Khyber wore. The glow from underneath was much brighter now. Arc had watched Titan attempt to do that very same thing earlier, right before he¡¯d taken that cut to the chest. Titan had bounced off like a kid running into a brick wall.
Khyber stopped to check on Centurion. The Minotaur sprung back to its feet, enraged at this assault. Arc watched as it simply appeared right behind Khyber, its¡¯ axe blurring toward his form. A green wall sprung up to meet it and the axe was slowed enough for Khyber to roll away. The Minotaur gave chase, ignoring Centurion completely.
As Khyber and the Minotaur faced each other from ten feet away, Arc saw Khyber put up a hand to his head. ¡°Not just big and fast, its¡¯ a shifter. This should be fun.¡±
Khyber laughed and Arc gaped.
1:12 p.m.
Khyber was glad Centurion had still been breathing when he¡¯d arrived. This Contender was taking no chances, judging by the blood stain he guessed to be Sabre. Titan was clearly out of commission and Arc¡¯s legs were re-growing at a snail¡¯s pace. He put up a hand to his comm link.
¡°Not just big and fast, its¡¯ a shifter.¡± Khyber informed Petra. ¡°This should be fun.¡±
Khyber laughed, this looked to be a truly interesting fight, possibly lethal. The Minotaur charged towards him and Khyber stood his ground, ducking under a wickedly fast swing. He felt the Minotaur pivot and bring down a looping overhand. Khyber threw up a shield of plasma to obscure the Minotaur¡¯s vision of him and dodged right, shooting a low blast backwards to foul up the Minotaur¡¯s footing.
He wanted it to-Yes! Shift just like that.
Khyber used this second shift to confirm exactly what the disappearance and reappearance felt like in his awareness field. He ducked under the horizontal slash, conjuring up a shield of plasma to deflect the grasping hand that followed. The Minotaur bellowed at him as Khyber pivoted to face it. He preempted the next swing by shooting a blast of plasma right at the Minotaur¡¯s face. Following up on the blind spot, Khyber closed to get inside the axe¡¯s effective range. The Minotaur proved its¡¯ craftiness, shifting instead of getting hit and being blinded.
It also showed its aggressiveness, shifting about five feet behind Khyber. Khyber grinned as he hit the deck to avoid the predictable swing of the axe. Rolling, he shot a concentrated blast of plasma at the Minotaur¡¯s feet, causing it to stagger. Khyber used the time to pop back up on his feet and summon up another shield of plasma to deflect the red hot rocks sprayed from the ground underneath the Minotaur¡¯s feet.
Feeling somewhat confident that he knew enough about his opponent, Khyber let himself slide into the flow of the fight. Step into the axe swing, coat arm in plasma to knock haft upwards, shoot a blade of plasma at the Minotaur¡¯s hands. Move even closer, deliver a solid punch to the knee, throw up both arms to block the Minotaur¡¯s descending forearm, cover ground in plasma to prevent more hot rocks from spraying upwards. Release block and roll to avoid the jet of lava coming from an oblique angle, turn to minimize force from an incoming kick, throw up a small shield of plasma to reduce the impact of the kick. Tumble out of close range using momentum from the reduced kick, pop up and send a flurry of blasts at the Minotaur¡¯s face, redouble that when it charges. Hold ground, summon a lance of plasma, set it to intercept charge while still blasting at the Minotaur¡¯s face. Change direction of lance as the Minotaur shifts, use transferred momentum to nick the Minotaur¡¯s upper thigh, jump away from the literally volcanic fury the Minotaur displays at the wound.
Khyber began laughing and he saw the Contender¡¯s eyes burn with fury at the sound. Evidently it knew it was being laughed at and did not appreciate it. Khyber took a moment to confirm that Titan was moving Arc and Centurion away from the scene before refocusing on the Minotaur. He paid for that lack of focus when the Minotaur¡¯s axe caught him in the side. Khyber went flying through the side of a building, into a lobby of sorts. Righting himself after the impact, Khyber did a quick self-scan for injuries and came up clean.
Alright, now we can really play. Khyber thought as he dashed out of the rubble towards the Minotaur. Enough lightning to electrocute an army hit the Contender and it went sprawling, clearly unprepared for the attack. Khyber jumped on the opportunity, literally.
The Other Shoe
1:15 p.m.
Pike could not believe what he was seeing. This was Pike¡¯s third time going up against an aerial Contender and this Red Angel was significantly more powerful than the other two he had faced. Both those previous Contenders had made short work of anything and everything not invincible or invulnerable, including three different state of the art automated ships made by Daedalus. Those ships packed considerably more firepower, speed, automatic defenses, and armor than the Dozen¡¯s ship. Common sense said the ship should have already been ripped to pieces by the furious Contender.
The Dozen¡¯s ship was defying all common sense. Three times now Pike had been sure the Contender would close the gap and begin ripping the ship to pieces. Three times, the ship had danced away, delivering a stinging counterblow with guns and sand.
Pike and Freya had thrown themselves in the way repeatedly, attempting to block the Red Angel¡¯s direct path to the ship, buying it time to retreat out of range. Every time either fighter had tried, the Red Angel had knocked them aside, slowed by perhaps a second. Pike couldn¡¯t figure out how they were doing it but he found himself actively rooting for the Dozen¡¯s ship.
If nothing else, nobody on his team had taken a scratch from the Contender as they blasted away; it was purely focused on destroying that ship. His team had been hammering the Red Angel continuously and it was starting to show. Pike could make out cracks in some of its armored hide and one of its wings hitched whenever it flapped. Neutronis was playing an incredibly dangerous game of chicken, sitting right at the edge of his absorption reach to siphon the electricity arcing off the Contender¡¯s body and weapons.
The Contender was knocked awry by a tendril of sand as it swooped towards the Dozen¡¯s ship and before it could correct itself, it was hammered by a tank shell and high pressure jet of water from Quetz. In the few seconds the Contender took to re-orient, the Dozen¡¯s ship had cleared about four hundred yards of space away from the Contender, still unloading into it with several different automatic weapons along with their under-mounted barrel.
Glancing over at Freya, Pike saw her tapping her earpiece. Hardened comms units were great, but they had downsides, like being extremely uncomfortable. Pike gave Freya a nod as they continued to pursue the Contender, which chased the Limo relentlessly.
¡°Pike, we¡¯re down to about 70% ammo here, how beat up does it look?¡± Petra¡¯s strained voice came over his earpiece. Pike wished they could have kept the mental communications but he couldn¡¯t be too upset; a mentalist Contender was not something to fuck around with.
¡°There are cracks in its hide and a hitch in the pattern of one wing.¡± Pike replied.
¡°Slow and steady wins the race.¡± He heard.
1:16 p.m.
Pike saw an opportunity to really knock the Contender off balance and dove towards it. He knew he¡¯d take a retaliatory swipe, but he trusted his regeneration to see him through it. He came in at an angle, intending to clip the tip of the Red Angel¡¯s wings to force it further down. As he approached, Pike suddenly felt extremely heavy and collided with the Contender¡¯s snout.
This thing has gravity control? He thought as he began to zip backwards. However, he saw surprise in the eyes of the Contender. Wait, if it sucked me in, why the hell is it surprised?
Pike was still wondering that when the gravity sucked him straight back into the Red Angel¡¯s arms. The Contender grappled him and Pike knew he was stuck. Gasping in pain as the Contender began applying pressure, Pike prayed fervently that his teammates could get him out of the thing¡¯s grip before his regeneration was overloaded and he died anyways. He felt the charge beginning to build in his body, pain lancing through him as bones began cracking and resealing repeatedly, his regeneration trying to right the damage. Turning his head, he saw Neutronis flying towards him, but he seemed to be moving far slower than usual. Pike wondered just how badly the pain was affecting him as his eyes shifted over to Freya. He saw her flying his way as well, wearing a look of concentration. When their eyes met, guilt flashed across her face.
It took Pike several seconds to work through the logic of that as he fought against blacking out. Her powers included deft control over gravitational pull of objects; she had altered his gravity to suck him right into the Contender¡¯s arms. He puzzled through possible reasons for betrayal. As far as Pike knew, Freya had genuinely liked him and he¡¯d never done a thing to harm the Valkyries. They¡¯d saved each other¡¯s lives before against Contenders and Et Timuerunt. The only difference this time was¡the Dozen? Pike struggled to put the pieces together as pain lanced through his body once more, following the path of the electricity burning its¡¯ way through him.
They want to ambush the Dozen? He asked himself and came up with no other alternatives. Pike wouldn¡¯t have stood for betraying an ally, even mercenaries like the Dozen. So they had to get rid of me. Damn, Joan too?
The pieces clicked in place and Pike suddenly was certain he wasn¡¯t escaping alive. Peace flooded through him, muting the pain somewhat as he decided to throw a small wrench into their plans.
¡°Petra,¡± He coughed, saying her name to activate the comm line directly to the ostensible leader. ¡°Freya, gravity¡trick. Ambush.¡±
There was silence for a few seconds.
¡°Damn it,¡± he heard Petra swear, as if talking through a cloth.
¡°Thank you Pike.¡± Pike could¡¯ve sworn he heard her voice catch, faint as it seemed to him. She said something else, but Pike was suddenly free-falling into blackness and he embraced the escape from pain.
1:13 p.m.
Stormfront hauled ass up the stairs to the top of the brick building he and Amp were supposed to be shooting from. Amp was a few steps behind and Sledge had stopped at the base of the stairs to buy time if one of the Contenders got too close.
¡°Shit, can¡¯t believe that thing got Joan.¡± He heard Amp panting behind him.
¡°Don¡¯t think about it.¡± He replied, seeing the sign for the tenth floor go by. ¡°Let¡¯s just get in place to help out with the aerial Contender.¡±
Only ten more stories, he thought wryly. They arrived at the top floor of their peak of the building a minute later, both panting and doubling over.
¡°Petra¡we¡¯re¡.shit that was a long climb¡we¡¯re in position.¡± Amp was bent over, holding her knees as she communicated.
¡°No go for helping with the aerial Contender.¡± They heard Petra¡¯s terse reply. ¡°It¡¯s an electricity based Red Angel. I ¨C Transporter full reverse now! Shit, sorry, this thing is stubborn. Can you see either of the other two Contenders from where you¡¯re at?¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Stormfront and Amp shared a look. Electricity based enemies were a pain in the ass for them, especially Stormfront. As he looked out the window, Stormfront saw the Limo darting away from the Red Angel, tendrils of sand lashing out to knock aside lightning as it arced toward the ship. It was always an impressive sight to watch as the Limo danced around an aerial opponent. Shifting his gaze, Stormfront saw flashes of green impacting against a fire-wreathed giant six blocks away.
¡°We¡¯ve got vision of the Minotaur over by what¡¯s left of the church.¡± Amp was reporting. ¡°Khyber¡¯s kicking its ass.¡±
As they watched, Khyber took a shot from the axe, crashing through a wall. ¡°And maybe get his ass kicked a bit too.¡±
¡°Give him support if you can, we need that thing contained.¡± Petra barked. ¡°Update me when you can.¡±
¡°Got it boss.¡± Stormfront replied. He heard the comm link click off. ¡°Ready?¡±
Amp turned and flashed him a coy smile. ¡°Make me glow.¡±
Stormfront grinned and chose not to comment on the intentional innuendo by his partner. He focused and lightning leapt from his fingertips, striking into Amp. She glowed briefly before a torrent of lightning flew from her outstretched arm directly towards the Minotaur. The impact was enough to knock it off its feet and Stormfront saw Khyber leap in to pummel the downed Contender. He and Amp repeated the barrage multiple times, hitting more often than not. The Contender located the source of the lightning and bellowed a challenge. It charged towards their building and Stormfront once again thanked whatever being watched out for him that Khyber was on his team.
With a green flash, the Minotaur was sent reeling and Khyber interposed himself between it and the building. Amp returned the favor, hitting the already stumbling Minotaur to knock it over once more. Khyber shot a glance their way and Stormfront could tell he was laughing even from half a dozen blocks away, the bastard. The Minotaur suddenly appeared behind him, swinging its¡¯ axe. Khyber and the Minotaur became a whirling green blur that Stormfront had difficulty parsing. They separated suddenly, with the Minotaur going ass over teakettle from some move by Khyber.
Stormfront grinned as he watched Khyber dart in and smash the Minotaur into the ground. The Contender got in a retaliatory blow and Khyber¡¯s small frame hit a brick building hard enough to cave the entire five story structure in. The Contender surged to its feet and moved towards their building. Amp glanced over at Stormfront nervously as their barrages only made the Minotaur stutter while covering the distance to the building alarmingly fast. Stormfront waited for Sledge to send the Minotaur flying with whatever energy he¡¯d been storing up but nothing happened and the Minotaur closed to within a block.
1:16 p.m.
¡°What the fuck is Sledge doing?¡± Amp muttered beside him as the Minotaur approached. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief as they saw a green blur appear right below their building, knowing Khyber would head the Contender off. Then they saw Khyber go flying through the air, pinwheeling as his grey bodysuit blended with the cloudy sky.
¡°Shit!¡± Stormfront exclaimed.
The Minotaur was too far away to do that. Stormfront thought. Then he saw Sledge running away from their building. Everything clicked.
¡°Petra!¡± Stormfront screamed into his comm link as he grabbed Amp¡¯s arm and headed towards the stairwell. ¡°Double cross by Sledge! We¡¯re in trouble!¡±
The two of them pounded down the stairs as they felt the Minotaur smash its way into the building and it swayed dangerously.
Petra barked back in his ear almost instantly. ¡°Get the hell out, Khyber will buy you time!¡±
There was profuse swearing on the other end of the line. ¡°It was a set-up, they got Pike.¡±
Stormfront heard Petra reasoning her way through the ambush. ¡°Which means they got Joan and Centurion too. Celestis has to be clean or she¡¯d have pulled one on Khyber while they were alone, why didn¡¯t they¡? Oh fuck no. Stormfront I need you to ¨C¡°
Petra was interrupted by Zero jumping in. ¡°Petra. I¡¯m hit.¡±
Stormfront could hear the pain in Zero¡¯s voice. ¡°Trickshot put one in me from behind but I got away clean, I think.¡±
¡°Fuck!¡± Petra swore loudly. ¡°Zero, rendezvous with Stormfront and Amp at the secondary evac point from the job.¡±
Stormfront and Amp stumbled as the building shook, presumably from Khyber making his presence known. There was a click on the comms. ¡°Bubbles, Pockets, get the hell off of Chariot¡¯s ride, we¡¯ve been set up.¡±
¡°What the hell- Pockets!¡± Bubbles cried out. ¡°What the fuck?!¡±
There was a scream over the comms.
¡°I¡¯m okay.¡± Bubbles voice came over the comms thirty seconds later. ¡°Garganta, she, she, Pockets is dead.¡±
Bubbles¡¯ voice trailed off, the misery clear in her voice. ¡°She went after Amoeba next, the two of us bailed at the same time. They didn¡¯t turn around for us but I can hear someone clashing with a Contender nearby.¡±
¡°Dammit!¡± Petra continued swearing. Stormfront glanced over to see that he and Amp had made it all the way down to the seventh floor. The crashing sounds beneath them were growing louder and Stormfront was sure Khyber had re-entered the fight.
¡°Bubbles, you¡¯re between both ground Contenders and they¡¯re headed right for you, bail now.¡± There was another click. ¡°Khyber, we¡¯ve been backstabbed, buy the rest time to get clear. Get to Celestis and get her out of here, if they went after Amoeba, she¡¯ll be on their list too. Once they get clear, the gloves come off. Code yellow off.¡±
¡°Fucking right they will.¡± Khyber growled. ¡°Stay down!¡±
Stormfront heard the shout in stereo between the comms and the noise below.
¡°All right, the rest of you, standard evac and scatter protocol. We¡¯ll use the ¨C¡° there was a screech and then the comms went dead. Stormfront and Amp glanced at each other as they ran out the base of the stairwell, using the emergency exit on onto the street. There was a tremendous crashing sound and Stormfront looked up as the building fell on them both.
1:19 p.m.
Zero swore as she heard the screech and then silence over the comms. She looked down to check on the wound leaking blood from her abdomen. She wasn¡¯t sure what Trickshot had used but Zero was glad it had been a through and through.
Turning the corner, she saw Bubbles and Amoeba sprinting down the street, getting the hell away from Khyber and the Minotaur going at it hammer and tongs. They paused next to a collapsed building and Bubbles began digging frantically for a moment before Amoeba joined her. Zero decided to speed up their escape and walked over to a somehow untouched, Rupture-hardened car. She smashed the window and reached in to unlock the door.
Once she had the car started, Zero looked up to see Bubbles and Amoeba staggering towards her, Amoeba supporting Stormfront while Bubbles was carrying an unconscious Amp.
¡°Fuck.¡± Zero muttered to herself, driving the car up to them. Stormfront crawled into the car and Bubbles shoved Amp inside before crawling into the backseat herself. Amoeba jumped into the passenger seat and Zero whipped the car around to take off. She stopped when she saw Trickshot standing in the street, holding what looked to be a modified grenade launcher.
¡°Wish I could say I felt bad about this!¡± Zero heard him shout. ¡°But I¡¯m really n-¡°
Trickshot¡¯s head exploded as a line of red intersected it. Zero tracked the beam to an alleyway a block down where Lyudmila was crouched. Zero drove over to her, watching the rearview mirror to keep an eye on the fight between Khyber and the Minotaur.
¡°What the hell is going on? I saw him shoot you earlier and he tried to take me out when I asked why, knocked out the supports from my perch.¡± The sniper asked as they rolled up.
Zero gave her a quick outline of the situation and Lyudmila frowned. ¡°Do you know if anyone else on my team was in on it?¡±
¡°We¡¯re pretty sure Celestis is clear. Otherwise, I think ¨C¡° Zero cut off as Amoeba gripped her arm and pointed towards the sky. Zero turned her head to see the Limo trailing smoke and in a death spiral, the Red Angel clinging to its underbelly.
¡°No¡¡± She whispered as the ship crashed into the ground maybe nine blocks away, out of sight but well within hearing range of the thunderous boom. ¡°No.¡±
¡°Oh God¡¡± Bubbles whimpered behind her. ¡°Jenny, Tom¡¡±
There was a roar behind her and Zero was chilled to her very core. She turned and saw Khyber staring directly at the crash while the Minotaur struggled to right itself within the ruins of another building. Then his head turned and Zero felt his stare. Khyber nodded once and then turned to lunge at the Minotaur, smashing through the remains of a crumbling office building.
¡°Dammit.¡± Zero whispered. Fighting back tears, she shook her head and refocused on the situation. ¡°Lyudmila, get out of here now! We¡¯ll extract separately since you¡¯re collateral, not a target. Khyber will¡Khyber will buy us time.¡±
Lyudmila nodded and turned to sprint off down the alley, presumably towards her own mode of extraction.
As They Lie
1:19 p.m.
Petra heard the comms screech and yanked her headset off.
¡°What happened?¡± She called out.
¡°We just lost all our back-up and the electricity fried our comms without Neutronis absorbing it.¡± Black Hat called. Petra watched on the monitor as the Red Angel took note of every other flyer retreating from nearby airspace. It turned and roared its¡¯ satisfaction at finally being able to focus on the Limo by itself.
Petra did her best to fend off the high volume of lightning arcing towards the ship but there was simply too much. The strikes began to tell and the engines sputtered.
¡°Boss we¡¯re losing all our onboard computers from the overload.¡± Black Hat reported in a ragged voice.
¡°Screamer just went quiet,¡± Web said quietly.
¡°They¡¯re almost done retreating.¡± Petra stated. ¡°We¡¯ve got until they drop a disruptor bomb here and we die since we can¡¯t get away from the Red Angel.¡±
She laughed bitterly. ¡°Provided it doesn¡¯t kill us first. Well done Excelsior, well done.¡±
Suddenly, the ship shuddered from a giant impact.
¡°Petra, its¡¯ clinging to us!¡± Transporter yelled out. Petra hadn¡¯t realized the monitors had stopped tracking when the computers went down and she¡¯d missed the Red Angel¡¯s approach. ¡°It¡¯s underneath us!¡±
The engines died and the Limo began to plummet downwards, spiraling from how the Red Angel had unbalanced it. Blind without the monitors and disoriented from the spin, Petra was helpless to even attempt prying the Contender off of them. Petra caught Web¡¯s eyes as the ground rapidly approached. He shrugged best he could while pinned to a wall by the force of the fall, giving her a small smirk.
Damn, didn¡¯t think it would end like this. Was Petra¡¯s last thought before a sense of impact and everything going black.
1:24 p.m.
Celestis was starting to get concerned. Khyber had been gone for over ten minutes now and there still was no back-up for her. Worse, her comm link had gotten smashed when she¡¯d been clipped on the head by one of the Crawler¡¯s claws and she couldn¡¯t communicate that her situation was definitely worsening. The Contender had smashed its¡¯ way through fifteen or sixteen city blocks as she did everything she could to slow it down. The Crawler shrugged off most of the stars impacting its¡¯ hide and Celestis had been in a constant retreat for the first three or four blocks before she worked out a reliable way of tripping the Contender up. Celestis wished she could have thrown caution to the wind but these Contenders worried her. The Minotaur, by the snatch of conversation she¡¯d heard over comms before losing her link, seemed to disregard invulnerability entirely, having downed Centurion and effectively removed Titan from the fight. The Crawler hadn¡¯t done that with the few times she¡¯d been hit by one of its legs but Celestis was taking extra care to avoid the acid it spewed every few seconds just in case.
She rolled under a lunge by the Crawler, shoving multiple spheres into its maw. The Crawler had a strong enough jaw to simply latch on and prevent her from choking it but every time it did so, it bought her a few seconds to think and breathe. Khyber¡¯s wisdom about that had helped her when Ajax had sought her out and was serving just as well here.
¡°Remember this if nothing else.¡± He¡¯d told her, squatting down on his heels beside where she lay on the burnt, grassy fields that littered the Huevos ranch. He¡¯d finished thrashing her for the fourth time in a row and she was gasping for air. ¡°When you fight against someone stronger than you, you have one goal: survive. Unless you value something more than your life, do not hesitate to run, cheat, or play dirty when it comes to dealing with stronger opponents.¡±
He¡¯d paused, flicking her on the nose, an annoying habit she¡¯d learned about the hard way. ¡°Every few seconds you buy of survival, that¡¯s a few more seconds to think, to breathe, to better prepare to survive longer.¡±
Celestis caught movement out of the corner of her eye that was obviously not the Crawler. Her eyes flitted over to see Titan carrying Arc and Centurion, both of whom looked critically wounded. Titan himself didn¡¯t look much better, hunched over and limping, bloodstains visible on his white and purple uniform. He obviously wasn¡¯t paying a great deal of attention to the fight half a city block away because he failed to react when the Crawler surged in his direction, also having spied movement.
Celestis gritted her teeth and summoned a star that was about twenty meters in diameter and sent it hurtling towards the Crawler. The Crawler won the race, smashing into the wounded fighter, sending Titan and Arc in one direction and Centurion flying towards Celestis. Centurion was flying through the air like a rag doll and Celestis darted to catch her. The star collided with the Crawler, bowling it over on its¡¯ side. Celestis dismissed it immediately, the amount of focus it took to maintain a star that big would dull her reflexes in a fight.
Celestis set Centurion down, scowling at the slash across the older woman¡¯s chest and the goring wound through her stomach. Celestis was more than a little afraid of anything that could do that to Centurion. She watched as Titan hurried away with Arc on his shoulder, using the Crawler¡¯s re-directed attention to escape. Celestis couldn¡¯t blame him; in that condition, he¡¯d be a liability in a fight. Though she wished Titan had grabbed Centurion again before leaving.
1:26 p.m.
The Crawler was skittering towards her again and Celestis quickly darted away, trying to draw the Contender¡¯s attention away from the injured fighter. When the Crawler bore down on Centurion regardless, Celestis gritted her teeth and summoned another twenty meter diameter star to smack into the Crawler once more. That hit got the Contender¡¯s attention again and it veered to deal with the source of the blow. Celestis dodged backwards, pelting the Crawler with an unending stream of softball sized stars to harass it. As she continued to lead the Crawler away from the incapacitated heroine, she found herself wishing Khyber, or anybody really would show up to give her some relief.
Then a gigantic mass crashed into the Crawler, sending it sprawling. As the masses disentangled from each other, Celestis saw what had to be the Minotaur brandish its axe, roaring in fury as lava erupted from the nearby area. It lurched to its feet and Celestis saw it staring in the direction it had come from. Bright blue blood dripped from a wound on its chest and another in its leg. She followed its line of sight to see Khyber, blue blood spattered on his mask and costume, emerge from the building. Celestis had a strong urge to suddenly be elsewhere; Khyber was marching towards the Minotaur as if he intended to tear it limb from limb and damn anything that got in his way.
Before she could think about why he seemed so furious, Celestis¡¯s eyes were drawn to the Crawler, which had used her lapse in attention to scuttle towards Centurion¡¯s prone form. Celestis let out a scream of desperation, flinging a meter wide star with everything she had at the Crawler as she scrambled to block its¡¯ approach to Centurion. It ducked the star but didn¡¯t dodge her body slam, which nudged it off course from trampling over Centurion. The Crawler screeched in frustration, rounding on her in a blink. This was the closest Celestis had allowed it to get since she¡¯d been knocked over by its¡¯ mental attack earlier and once again she found herself staring down the maw of the Crawler with nowhere to run.
This time, she wasn¡¯t mentally incapacitated and summoned a wad of various sized stars, shoving the mass directly down the Crawler¡¯s throat. The Contender made a choking sound as it forced the stars back out from its¡¯ throat while Celestis skipped backwards to regain a safe engagement distance. She couldn¡¯t afford any spare attention for the fight between Khyber and the Minotaur as she desperately summoned and manipulated stars to keep the Crawler a safe distance from both herself and Centurion. Several times she was forced to summon stars to intercept streams of acid directed towards the injured fighter.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Suddenly the Minotaur was crashing into the Crawler again and both Contenders went skidding about twenty feet while entangled. Khyber appeared right beside her, blasting away at the enmeshed Contenders to keep them from separating. Celestis added in her own barrage.
1:29 p.m.
¡°Grab Centurion and run!¡± Khyber shouted at her. Celestis glanced over at him in confusion. ¡°Everyone else has pulled out of here. They¡¯ll be dropping a disruptor bomb in a few minutes, you need to get the hell out of here!¡±
Celestis didn¡¯t have time to reply before Khyber blurred towards the Contenders as they finally separated, tripping up the Minotaur and sending it stumbling back into the path of a fresh stream of acid the Crawler was spewing. The Minotaur¡¯s bellow of pain made the previous roars seem like whispers. Khyber blurred back to her side, resuming his portion of the barrage.
¡°I¡¯ll buy you two some time! Don¡¯t go back to your team, they¡¯ll kill you.¡± Celestis turned to gape at him.
¡°What the hell are you talking about?¡± She shouted.
¡°We were set up, Joan and Pike were both betrayed and killed.¡± Quiet fury entered his voice. ¡°The Limo went down with no survivors when they had their support stripped.¡±
Celestis heard the raw anguish mix with the fury and couldn¡¯t reply, too stunned to say anything. Joan was dead?
¡°Like I said, I¡¯ll buy you enough time to get clear of the disruptor bombs. I can keep these idiots distracted for long enough. I¡¯m glad we became friends Celestis, I ¨C¡° Khyber paused and shoved Celestis to the side. She went rolling and felt the impact of something heavy hitting the ground where she and Khyber had been standing. Celestis popped up on her feet right beside Centurion. Khyber was in the middle of fending off an assault from the Red Angel, which had landed and was lashing out with all four arms.
¡°Go!¡± He screamed. Celestis was torn between staying to help, getting Khyber to clarify just what the hell he meant, and retreating with Centurion.
1:31 p.m.
¡°Go!¡± Khyber screamed again, emphasizing it with a bolt of plasma sent Celestis¡¯s way. Celestis went. She scooped up Centurion in her arms and skimmed along the streets as she left downtown. Celestis had no idea which way she was going, only that it was farther from the fight she heard raging behind her. Her mind was in a turmoil trying to process the information Khyber told her.
After a few minutes of flying in a generic ¡®away¡¯ direction, Celestis calmed down enough to begin heading for the rendezvous point the Valkyries had set up in the brief time they¡¯d had before coming to Montreal. She didn¡¯t know if what Khyber said was correct, but she needed to find someone to help Centurion regardless.
Celestis flew slowly to make sure she didn¡¯t end up killing Centurion by jostling her too much, trusting Khyber to live up to his promise. A while later, she could still hear it going as she neared the rendezvous point. She was extremely concerned that she hadn¡¯t felt the telltale pulse of a disruption bomb yet. Lyudmila stepped out of a side-alley and Celestis nearly ran her over in surprise.
¡°Good, you made it.¡± The Russian immigrant ran over and gave Celestis an awkward hug with Centurion still in her arms. Part of that was due to Lyudmila still holding her rifle. ¡°I was worried they¡¯d gotten you too.¡±
¡°Me too?¡± Celestis asked.
¡°Da. Zero said Sledge took down the building Amp and Stormfront were in and he probably was the one who threw Joan in front of the Minotaur. Freya and Neutronis got Pike killed by the Red Angel, and someone tripped up Centurion to get her out of the way.¡± Lyudmila grabbed Celestis by her arm, dragging her over to a non-descript car. ¡°Get in, we¡¯ll talk on the way to Asclepius¡¯s, we¡¯re rescuing Flora and Flashbang.¡±
As she started up the car, Lyudmila glanced back at Centurion lying pale and bloody on the back seat. ¡°And maybe getting her some help too.¡±
¡°Wait, so they got everyone out of the way who wouldn¡¯t what? Be okay with us abandoning the Dozen?¡± Celestis felt the adrenaline leaving her system and fought the sudden fatigue that was exaggerated by the soothing motion of the car. She¡¯d been hoping that Khyber had been delusional. Lyudmila¡¯s conviction otherwise drained her, made her feel leaden and useless.
¡°The people who could actually cause a problem if they disagreed with the plan. Centurion, Joan, Pike, you, and Amoeba as far as Zero could figure out. Though it looks like they¡¯ll end up being two for five.¡± Lyudmila frowned. ¡°It was their mistake not to include myself or Daedalus on that list. He helped the survivors escape under Meridian¡¯s noses.¡±
¡°Me?¡± Celestis asked numbly.
¡°Da. You¡¯re an excellent front line fighter, you¡¯re generally a nice person, and you¡¯re powerful enough to be a serious problem if you took the Dozen¡¯s side in a conflict. They were planning on leaving you to die by the disruption bombs.¡± Lyudmila shook her head. ¡°They knew you wouldn¡¯t disengage as long as you thought you were still protecting people.¡±
¡°Wait¡¡± Celestis began putting two and two together. ¡°How many of the Dozen died?¡±
¡°All the ones in the Limo: Transporter, Black Hat, Web, Petra.¡± Lyudmila said grimly. ¡°They¡¯re good, but even they weren¡¯t good enough to hold off that enraged flyer by itself. Not without the rest of their crew onboard. And Pockets got her throat cut.¡±
¡°So, we¡¯re meeting up with Khyber and the remaining Dozen after our rescue mission? Get some payback?¡± Celestis began to feel a burn of anger in her stomach at the thought of being set up to die. She knew that however angry she felt, Khyber and the remaining Dozen would be far worse. Celestis found herself smiling at the thought of joining them on a campaign for revenge. Betrayal wasn¡¯t something good people did, but it was certainly something good people would avenge.
¡°Well, the remaining Dozen, yes.¡± Lyudmila hesitated, causing Celestis to turn and stare at her teammate. ¡°Khyber won¡¯t be there.¡±
¡°Why not?¡± Celestis asked. Before Lyudmila could respond, both women straightened at the feeling of a disruption bomb going off behind them. Then a second, and a third. The pulses were too weak to do anything serious to either woman, though they felt incredibly unpleasant. ¡°Jesus, three bombs, that¡¯s overkill, even if it is absurdly overdue.¡±
¡°They wanted to make sure they cleaned up their mess.¡± Lyudmila scowled.
¡°Okay, that makes sense.¡± Celestis responded. ¡°So when do we meet up with Khyber? I want to be there when he goes after whoever did this.¡±
¡°We don¡¯t meet up with him.¡± Lyudmila said sadly. ¡°Ever, if I understood Zero correctly.¡±
¡°Ever?¡± Celestis tried to make sense of that, refusing to believe the only sensible conclusion. Bits of their last conversation came back:
¡°You need to get out of here,¡±
¡°Buy you time to get clear,¡±
¡°I can keep these idiots distracted for long enough,¡±
¡°I¡¯m glad we became friends.¡±
¡°Stupid bastard.¡± She mumbled as the realization that Khyber had never intended to get clear of the disruption bombs himself hit her. Her voice grew thick as emotions warred beneath the surface. ¡°He could¡¯ve gotten away.¡±
Lyudmila grabbed her shoulder, squeezing it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I know he was a good friend to you.¡±
Celestis didn¡¯t reply; she couldn¡¯t. Lyudmila released her grip and looked forward again.
They drove on in silence.
2:07 p.m.
Web groaned as he came swimming up from blackness. As he regained awareness, Web noticed a curious feeling in his legs. He opened his eyes and looked up from where he lay on the asphalt. The Limo was in pieces around him and a particularly large chunk had landed on his legs, crushing them completely.
Guess that explains the interesting feeling, Web mused, vaguely intrigued by the initial lack of pain. Opening his mind to his surroundings, he found only one other active mind, with two others¡¯ last screams still echoing in the air. Web had never shared that tidbit with his teammates, that dying minds left a mark that lasted.
Web, feeling surprisingly energetic mentally, linked to the one active mind he felt. The mind was currently doing its best to prevent the body from understanding the depth of pain it was feeling from the jagged shard of metal sticking through its¡¯ torso. Each breath was agony, but both the body and mind agreed that living in pain was better than dying and so breathing continued. As he finished linking, Web smiled a bittersweet smile.
Petra.
Petra: ...Web?
Still kicking. Well, actually not so much kicking or even walking.
Petra: Not exactly feeling great myself. I think I finally ran out of good plans.
Could¡¯ve definitely been worse. Some of the others will get away.
Petra: Yeah, there¡¯s that. But¡I think we¡¯ll be seeing far too many of them soon enough if your metaphysical crap turns out to be true.
I¡¯m wounded. Literally wounded. Just Pockets, Hat, and Transporter died, I¡¯m stretching my reach out now, the rest of them are still alive, though I¡¯m assuming with Flashbang and Flora.
Petra: ¡And Sam.
What do you mean?
Petra: He saw the ship go down, he had to based on where he was and where we fell. He¡¯ll be following my last order.
He still can get away with time to spare before they drop disruptors.
Petra: He could, but he won¡¯t.
He¡¯ll survive for revenge.
Petra: He burned out on revenge after we broke Excelsior and Deus. And¡I don¡¯t know he¡¯d want to survive the death of the Dozen.
He wouldn¡¯t?
Petra: Sam told me after Greg and Kendra died and he¡¯d gotten revenge, he felt empty. Like there wasn¡¯t really a purpose. He couldn¡¯t see a happy future for himself. I formed the Dozen partly to keep giving him a purpose, to keep him wanting to live. Live to protect the only surviving family he had, live to keep alive the dream Kendra had, live to find a challenge worthy of finally being his end. He knew it and I knew it, we just¡never talked about it.
Tori, he had other reasons than that.
Tori: Maybe he faked them for you, but he never lied to me. We made that agreement after Cincinnati.
Oh yes he did.
Tori: No he didn¡¯t!
Web reflected on the fact he was finally having the conversation with his step-sister he¡¯d been meaning to have for the last four years. And that the conversation only was happening because they were dying. They never stopped being siblings when it came to the small things.
Let¡¯s ask him then.
Hidden Truths
4:38 p.m.
Excelsior was watching the onscreen action intently when he heard someone come in. He looked up from the screen on his desk to see Arc, still short his lower calves and feet on both legs, being deposited onto a chair.
¡°Arc my boy, glad to see you made it!¡± Arc was his planned replacement for Centurion as one of the two lead front liners for his upcoming organization; Excelsior was indeed glad to see Arc had made it. He had been worried when the Minotaur dismantled the team of four front liners in under a minute. Ironic that the two people he had planned to kill were responsible for keeping his plan alive. Chuckling to himself, he wondered if Petra had figured out what was going on before the Limo crashed.
Arc was groaning, obviously still in pain. The Minotaur must have brought him to the very brink of death for the young man to still be recuperating hours later. Excelsior made a motion and an aide brought an extension cord over Arc, offering him the unplugged end. Arc accepted greedily and Excelsior outwardly smiled at the relief the young man displayed. Inwardly, he scowled at the young man¡¯s weakness. Excelsior decided to vent his frustration, indirectly of course. He was a firm believer that a leader should be unflappable at all times, which meant never showing anger or frustration.
¡°The Minotaur got you pretty good son.¡± Excelsior made the appropriate sympathetic noises. ¡°Feeling better?¡±
¡°Much, sir.¡± Arc answered, still sucking every spark of electricity he could from the extension cord.
¡°Good good.¡± Excelsior said genially. Before he could go any further, nine more people walked into his field office. Excelsior mused that it was beneficial to insist on having such a large mobile office. Freya and Sledge found couches to sit on, Neutronis leaned against a wall while Chariot and Garganta grabbed chairs, Glyph and Jekyll stood awkwardly near the window, and Titan towered over Spartan by the door.
4:40 p.m.
¡°Ahh good, the whole crew is here.¡± Excelsior beamed. ¡°Let¡¯s have an after action report yes? I¡¯ve been watching what satellite feeds we have, but it will be much more informative to hear it coming from your own mouths. Spartan, yours should be the simplest, please start.¡±
¡°Not much to say sir.¡± Spartan responded crisply. Excelsior was proud of the discipline he¡¯d instilled in Meridian, a tradition he planned to continue in his next venture. ¡°It was a deviation from the plan to have one of the Contender¡¯s pop up right underneath us but everybody made it out. Plus, Joan was out of commission early and Petra assigned me as Utilitarian lead, which was unexpected. I just directed the team away from the fight while Sledge took off after Amp and Stormfront.¡±
¡°Excellent work Spartan. Not a large part, but crucial none the less.¡± Excelsior praised the man. Spartan was an easy one to keep in line. Give him goals and give him praise; he¡¯d follow a leader like that to the ends of the earth.
Predictably, Spartan swelled up with pride. ¡°Let¡¯s cover that little hitch in our plans. Sledge?¡±
¡°Sure thing boss.¡± Sledge said. Not as disciplined, but still plenty of respect in his voice. Excelsior tolerated the lax attitude in lieu of cracking down on one of his more morally flexible followers. ¡°It was easy to make it look like Joan simply leapt back to check on Marionette and put her in the path of whatever Contender emerged from the ruins of the church. Arc and Sabre made sure to move too slowly to get there in time. Amp and Stormfront tumbled to the double-cross, I¡¯m sure they saw me blow Khyber away from the building. But I stuck around and dropped the building on them when they tried to escape, so it was taken care of.¡±
¡°Excellent work as well Sledge. Good thinking on the building.¡± Excelsior commented. Unlike Spartan, not just any praise would do with Sledge. However, the man thought he was vastly more intelligent than he really was, and complimenting cleverness was sure to yield a reward. ¡°We¡¯ll save direct encounters with the Contenders for last, so Garganta?¡±
¡°They definitely knew about the double cross.¡± The lack of title irked Excelsior but he didn¡¯t let it show. Garganta lacked any form of a conscience and Excelsior valued that more highly than respectfulness. For the moment. ¡°I barely got Pockets before Bubbles was bailing and Amoeba followed after when I turned to her. I don¡¯t know how she knew I was going to come after her next.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not an aspect of her gifts she shared often, but she can sense people¡¯s general intent towards her.¡± Excelsior offered. ¡°It¡¯s why I advised you refrain from planning and instead act when the order went out, to give her less warning.¡±
¡°How did you know that?¡± Glyph demanded. ¡°She never even told me that.¡±
¡°She didn¡¯t trust her team, Glyph.¡± Excelsior soothed. ¡°Not that it was your fault, she simply had a hard time adjusting to people suddenly valuing her and she feared being feared or hated after being so loved for the powers she openly displayed. She confided in Centurion when she was deciding between joining Meridian or the Crusaders and of course Centurion reported that to me.¡±
¡°I can¡¯t argue with that, she never stopped being nervous.¡± Glyph sighed. ¡°It wasn¡¯t easy, but Jekyll and I managed to keep Black Hat¡¯s A.I. out of the important systems until after you gave the order to leave. Sorry we couldn¡¯t re-task the satellite to guide the disruptors sooner, one of his A.I. had commandeered it to track the position of the Contenders.¡±
¡°You did fine Glyph, Black Hat¡¯s A.I. always were troublesome.¡± Excelsior said magnanimously. He was pleased the two technicians had prevented Black Hat¡¯s A.I. from penetrating into their alternate communications or the outlines of the plan. The apology simply made being magnanimous easier.
4:45 p.m.
¡°On to the direct clashes with the Contenders. Did anyone observe the Crawler?¡± Excelsior asked.
The assembled fighters looked around for a few seconds before Neutronis cleared his throat. ¡°The Crawler was easily the biggest we¡¯ve seen sir. It was shrugging off most of Celestis¡¯ stars without blinking and had the ability to produce repeated sprays of a caustic liquid.¡±Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Excelsior noticed the shadow of grief pass over Freya¡¯s face at the mention of Celestis and made a mental note for later.
¡°Yes, it was a monstrous one. ¡° Excelsior agreed. ¡°Still, it was indirectly helpful, pulling Khyber and Celestis away from where they could interfere. Onto the Red Angel?¡±
¡°I¡¯ve fought at over half the encounters we¡¯ve had with the Angel class in North America.¡± Freya said after a moment. ¡°That thing was bigger, faster, and stronger than any of the previous Angels we¡¯ve run into.¡±
She paused and Excelsior made a gesture to continue. ¡°That made it easy to get rid of Pike.¡±
Freya bit her lip and Excelsior made another motion indicating she should share. ¡°Sir, I¡¯d never seen the Limo in action against a Contender before but I¡¯m glad the Red Angel was so focused on it. I don¡¯t want to think about what that thing would¡¯ve done if it hadn¡¯t wanted to destroy the ship.¡±
¡°And though you¡¯re not saying it, you¡¯re glad you didn¡¯t have to go after the ship directly.¡± Excelsior stated knowingly. Freya started before nodding, avoiding the looks from her fellow fighters. ¡°Those of you judging her for that have obviously never seen the Limo fully in action before. For your information, the Limo held off the Red Angel without assistance for another two minutes after all support was stripped from it. Without their three best blasters, best shooter, and best defense on board. I went up against its¡¯ predecessor myself years ago and was forced to retreat. Freya is not to be disrespected for fearing that ship. Not with the firepower typically at its¡¯ disposal, its¡¯ unmatched pilot, and most dangerously, the mind it carried.¡±
4:47 p.m.
There was a moment of silence before Excelsior continued. ¡°Now, let¡¯s hear about the Contender that was the most helpful and the most problematic.¡±
¡°The Minotaur was something else.¡± Titan rumbled. His wound had been stitched and seen to by Soother but he was obviously still in some pain. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen any Contender that strong outside Crawlers, Berserkers, or Colossi. It moved with speed and agility similar to an Oroichi class Contender as well.¡±
¡°Not to mention, it was a shifter.¡± Arc added in. ¡°And that it ignored invincibility and invulnerability completely.¡±
Excelsior watched the young man hesitate for a moment before continuing. ¡°It took down Sabre in a matter of seconds and he was a veteran. That Minotaur was a monster.¡±
¡°Hmm.¡± Excelsior steepled his hands for a moment. ¡°Monster seems to be an accurate description. Though it worked to our benefit, taking Centurion out of the picture and allowing Sledge to bring down Amp and Stormfront.¡±
There was an air of agreement. ¡°I think it also taught us some valuable lessons in always expecting the next Contender to be worse, am I correct?¡±
He waited for nods before continuing. ¡°Now, the plan worked. The Dozen are functionally out of the picture, the leaders of the main North American teams have all been replaced, and there will be no practical resistance to the formation of Primus. However, I am aware there was and still is a sentiment that it may have been less costly to simply ambush the Dozen to remove them from the picture before simply overriding the wishes of the team leaders. It is understandable to have this opinion, I am not making judgments as you did not have the relevant facts to hand.¡±
4:51 p.m.
¡°The only gifted in this room who may have possessed that information are Glyph and Neutronis. Do you know why?¡± No one answered Excelsior. ¡°They are the only gifted in this room besides myself who were active more than six years ago. Do you see the connection?¡±
¡°No sir.¡± Spartan said after a minute of silence.
¡°I thought not.¡± Excelsior responded tartly. ¡°Titan, what team would you least want to face off against right now? Heroes, villains, doesn¡¯t matter as long as you don¡¯t include Atlanteans.¡±
¡°Et Timuerunt or the Pantheon.¡± Titan responded, looking puzzled.
¡°Would your answer change if I went back more than six years?¡± Excelsior asked.
¡°No.¡± Titan looked even more puzzled.
Excelsior turned to have both Glyph and Neutronis in his view, watching their eyes light up in comprehension. ¡°Do either of you disagree? Do you think a different team would¡¯ve deserved to be more feared?¡±
¡°The Mavericks.¡± Neutronis and Glyph replied in tandem.
4:53 p.m.
¡°I¡¯ve never even heard of them.¡± Arc sounded annoyed. ¡°How am I supposed to fear a team I don¡¯t know exists?¡±
¡°You wouldn¡¯t have heard of the team.¡± Neutronis said slowly. ¡°They mostly worked alone, doing mercenary jobs or bouncing from city to city knocking local heroes and villains down a peg for kicks. They only operated as a team a few times, although it would have become a permanent establishment had fate not intervened. They were forgotten as a cohesive whole with their rather explosive ending. You would know the individual members though.¡±
¡°Subsonic, Invader, Luna, Sandstorm, Lionheart, Celestial.¡± Glyph listed off. The rest of the room took in a sharp breath; every single one of those names had greatness associated with it, already legends in the gifted community that was barely more than a decade old.
¡°You¡¯re kidding.¡± Freya said. ¡°I idolized Luna and Sandstorm while they were still active. They were some of the only solo, female gifted. I was a huge fangirl; I would have known if they teamed up.¡±
¡°You all recall the double rupture in Billings, Montana seven years ago? That was the first time they all worked together.¡± Excelsior informed them. ¡°The six of them drove back two Contenders by themselves, without back-up or using disruptor bombs. You know the names, you know they were capable of it.¡±
¡°That means¡that means¡¡± Glyph couldn¡¯t finish the thought.
Neutronis picked it up. ¡°If we hadn¡¯t done it this way, we all would have died. All of us.¡±
The younger gifted looked at him blankly.
¡°Excelsior is implying that some of the Mavericks were folded into the Dozen. Not Luna or Lionheart obviously. But think about it.¡± He urged them, sounding somewhat panicked. ¡°How similar is Web¡¯s power set to Invader¡¯s? Zero¡¯s to Subsonic¡¯s?¡±
Neutronis¡¯s voice faltered for a minute as he thought about the other two and Excelsior watched the realization of the narrow miss they¡¯d had. ¡°Petra and Khyber. Oh god, we would have tried to ambush Sandstorm and Celestial.¡±
Excelsior thought it odd, but appropriate that the normally unflappable Neutronis was unable to stay calm when talking about what might have happened.
4:56 p.m.
¡°Celestial, I guess Khyber, permanently crippled both Excelsior and Deus by himself. At the same time.¡± Neutronis said fervently. ¡°It was all anyone could talk about after the Legion collapsed. Before you formed Meridian sir, no offense intended.¡±
All eyes snapped to Excelsior and he took a moment to calm the rage that boiled up whenever he thought about that fight and the events that led up to it. They had done an immense amount of work muddying the waters in regards to that particular incident. ¡°None taken. Neutronis speaks the truth. Trust me when I say that ambushing those four while they had their eight teammates with them, without the distraction of two or three Contenders, would have been a terminally bad idea for all involved.¡±
¡°All six of them were considered as potential recruits by the Atlanteans, with Celestial and Lionheart turning down actual offers. Long before the Atlanteans actually started recruiting.¡± Excelsior continued. ¡°For the last five years, all four survivors, Khyber in particular, have been on self-imposed leashes placed in Petra¡¯s hands.¡±
He rewound the video he¡¯d been watching a few minutes ago and turned the screen towards the assembled gifted. ¡°If for some reason you still don¡¯t believe me, perhaps this will change your mind.¡±
Excelsior pressed play and the room went silent as they watched the final fight of the rupture, between Khyber and three Contenders. And kept watching, as the fight drug on long past reason and into the realm of disbelief. In particular, he watched Arc, gaining satisfaction from the blood draining from the young man¡¯s face. In the same way Excelsior had once evaluated himself in the aftermath of a disaster his memory would forevermore associate with the color yellow, he saw Arc re-considering grandiose ideas of his own strength while watching Khyber finally let loose after five years of restraint.
An Ending
2:08 p.m.
Khyber wiped blood out from his eyes, discarding the cracked mask on his face as he dove away from the crackling whip of the Red Angel. He¡¯d lost track of time but it felt like he¡¯d been fighting the Contenders for an age. Rolling onto one arm, he shot a blast of plasma directly from one hand, shooting himself away from an axe blow by the Minotaur while tripping up the Crawler as he crashed through its¡¯ legs. The Crawler crashed to the ground in front of his new position, temporarily obscuring his opponents. Khyber pushed himself back onto his feet, eyes scanning. There wasn¡¯t time to think and he was grateful for that. If he started thinking right now, he¡¯d spend the last minutes of his life in misery. He¡¯d avoided flipping forms to have it end quicker but he couldn¡¯t stop himself from giving his all otherwise.
Not that he¡¯d expected to spend the last moments of his life any other way, but he wanted to go out in defiance. Defiance of the fucking Contenders that had been the bait, the traitors who¡¯d sprung the trap, and most of all the choking, bittersweet melancholy of the last five years.
Don¡¯t start thinking! Khyber screamed at himself as the Crawler righted itself. The Minotaur came bounding over the top and Khyber stepped up to meet it in a savage exchange of blows he cut short to dodge a lunge from the Crawler. Which brought him within range of the Red Angel flapping nearby and he had to duck the crackling whip.
Ignoring the jolt from the electricity coursing through the whip, Khyber caught the weapon on its¡¯ return trip and allowed himself to be yanked along. The Minotaur¡¯s axe sank into the ground right where he¡¯d been standing as Khyber crashed into the left wings of the Red Angel, knocking it to the ground. He came up from the fall firing, giving the charging Crawler a mouth full of plasma as he set his feet to receive another charge by the Minotaur. Khyber wanted to kill that one before the disruptors fell. That small measure of revenge would have to do, as hollow as it felt. Forming a pike of plasma, Khyber set the butt and the Minotaur skidded right to avoid impaling itself on the point. Khyber took advantage, blasting the off-balance Contender into the recovering Red Angel, sending both of them sprawling once more. Khyber closed rapidly with the Crawler, desperately trying to sink into that place where his thoughts truly went away while he fought.
Jump into the Crawler¡¯s mouth, shoot a bolt of plasma down its¡¯ throat, dismount before the reflexive bite can snap down. Spin to sweep out a wave of plasma, duck the lava spray from the Minotaur while closing with the Red Angel, leap high to avoid the follow-up snap of the Crawler. Shoot plasma out of his back to propel him into the Red Angel, use the momentum to slip past its¡¯ defenses, deliver a slice to its eye. Turn to closing Minotaur, re-direct blind swing by the Red Angel towards Minotaur, snap kick Red Angel¡¯s leg to buckle it.
Fall from one leg stance, slice at Crawler¡¯s leg while descending, roll directly under Crawler while it rears away from the attack. Create a spike of plasma, roll away from the descending tons of enraged Crawler, catch axe swing on a shield while listening to the Crawler screech in pain. Shake off instinctive mental assault by cycling plasma, parry sword strike by Red Angel, deflect the Minotaur¡¯s fist to get inside its¡¯ reach. Blast plasma through feet to headbutt Minotaur in crotch, stab outwards with hands covered in plasma on contact, use crumpling Minotaur as an obstacle to buy time for recovery. Send a massive blast of plasma towards Red Angel to obscure vision, set a wall to slow Crawler, charge Red Angel. Catch descending sword with a blade of plasma, slide between Red Angel¡¯s legs, rearward blast of plasma to knock its¡¯ legs out from under it. Spin to-
Web: Sam?
2:10 p.m.
Khyber was so startled he didn¡¯t dodge a punch by the Minotaur and was launched clear through a building. Shaking himself, he watched the three Contenders advance towards him.
Daniel?!
Petra: And Tori.
What the hell? I saw the Limo go down.
Tori: It did and we went down with it. You¡¯re listening to the literal personifications of never say die.
Daniel: My legs are a leaky, red pulp beneath a chunk of the Limo and Tori has a piece of metal the size of her head sticking through her chest. Never say die indeed.
¡Damn it!
Tori: Sam, its¡¯ alright. The Dozen still live.
I know, I let Kara know I would buy them the time they needed to escape.
Daniel: I hear the finality in your voice. You¡¯re not getting out of here either, huh Sam?
In the time we¡¯ve been having this conversation, I¡¯ve had seven exchanges with the Contenders. I could maybe get away from them but Excelsior would just widen the spread of the disruptors he drops to make sure he got me and probably catches some of the others in the widened radius. I don¡¯t know why he hasn¡¯t dropped them already, I¡¯ve likely done enough damage. Maybe he¡¯s still hoping I try to run so that he might catch some others I would retreat towards. This way, my life buys something.
Tori: This wasn¡¯t how I pictured dying.
Daniel: I never pictured dying, I figured I¡¯d live forever. Never say die, right?
Tori: Not the time for jokes Daniel.
Daniel: Humor distracts from my hips sending flares of agony up my spine every time I breathe and my torso shifts.
We¡¯re something else. All three of us are staring death in the face and we¡¯re bickering.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Tori: Death stopped being scary six years ago.
Now that I think about it, that sounds about right.
Daniel: Tori has a question for you.
Tori: Daniel!
Daniel: Any second one of us could die, excuse me for trying to get to the important topic.
2:13 p.m.
Web laughed at Petra¡¯s indignation. Sam was right; they were indeed pieces of work if the three of them could stare death in the face and go right on bickering.
Sam: Ask away, not like I¡¯m busy or anything.
Tori: Sarcasm not appreciated. Daniel said you broke your promise to never lie to me after Cincinnati. Did you?
Sam: No, I never broke it. Even when I wanted to.
Bullshit. There¡¯s no way you didn¡¯t lie about that.
Tori: That?
Sam: Which that are you referring to?
That that.
Tori: I don¡¯t like you two referring to multiple that¡¯s while implying they¡¯re secrets from me.
Sam: Oh, that that. It never came up.
I don¡¯t believe you.
Sam: It didn¡¯t and I know you can tell that I¡¯m telling the truth.
Tori: What never came up?
As you would describe, Sam¡¯s fourth reason to keep on living.
Tori: Fourth reason?
Hope.
Tori: That cryptic statement makes no sense.
Sam: I don¡¯t think this is the right time to talk about this.
We¡¯re all literally about to die, there is no other time.
Tori: Some of us significantly faster than others, so explain.
Sam: All the time I spent thinking about this and I still don¡¯t have the right words to describe it.
Tori: I¡¯ll take any words, right or not. I am not about to die burning with curiosity.
Sam: Well I¡shit that hurt. I um¡I guess I ¨C
Sam¡¯s been in love with you for the past what, four years? Or was it five Sam?
Sam: Way to ruin any romance that might have softened up these last hellish moments. And seven.
I wasn¡¯t going to have you pussyfooting around and have us die before you explained!
Tori: I knew that.
2:15 p.m.
You did?
Sam: You did?
Tori: I am not an idiot, as you two are well aware. And even if I hadn¡¯t figured it out myself, Theresa would¡¯ve ratted you out in a minute when she joined the team.
Sam: Oh.
Tori: I figured I¡¯d wait until you were ready to talk about it. Which is now, I guess.
Wait until he was ready?
Tori: I wasn¡¯t going to add the burden of keeping me happy on his already fragile emotions. When he was ready, I¡¯d be around.
In retrospect, your extreme lack of dating habits from the last five years make way more sense.
Sam: Was that an ¡®I love you too¡¯ in an incredibly roundabout way?
Tori: No, you didn¡¯t tell me you loved me, so I couldn¡¯t tell you that back yet.
Sam: I love you.
Tori: I love you too.
I now you pronounce you man and wife!
Tori: Daniel, if I was capable of moving, I would crawl over to your incapacitated ass and stab you.
Sam: I wish I¡¯d said that sooner.
Tori: Me too, but better late than never. Sam I ¨C
Web felt her mind and body lose the tenuous connection to life and disengaged from her mind before he and Khyber were subjected to her mind¡¯s death knell.
Sam: What was that Tori?
She¡¯s gone Sam.
2:17 p.m.
Sam:¡Damn.
You said it brother.
Sam: Not by blood, but I always thought of you as family.
I¡¯m touched.
Sam: I will come find that ship and beat you to death myself.
There¡¯s the brotherly love I¡¯ve come to expect.
Sam: Aggravating to the end. Somehow I knew that would be the case.
I have to stick to my strengths. They¡¯re literally all that¡¯s keeping me alive right now.
Sam: Not exactly the ending I imagined for myself.
I never imagined an end so there¡¯s no disappointment here.
Sam: You really thought you¡¯d live forever?
No, but death never seemed like something worth thinking about.
Sam: Pragmatic. Well, I¡¯m not quite getting the white knight ending I always wanted to end my story with.
You know the great thing about stories? If you don¡¯t like an ending, just rewrite it.
Web wavered towards unconsciousness as the pain increased. Khyber chose not to reply as his fight intensified with the Contenders and Web saw multiple flashes of pain across his mind.
Hey, can I ask a favor?
Sam: If it¡¯s within my extremely limited ability to grant, sure.
Make it quick for me? I don¡¯t want to die afraid.
2:18 p.m.
Sam: ¡Yeah, I think can do that.
Web opened his eyes as he broke the connection with Khyber to prevent any death knells from resonating between the two of them. As he lay there, he thought about his memories of the past nine years. Despite lying in a pool of his own blood, wracked with pain and waiting to die, Web wouldn¡¯t have traded the past nine years of being a gifted for anything, even if it meant avoiding this fate.
Memories of Greg and Tori finally bonding after the years of awkwardness as step-siblings. Meeting Kendra and introducing her to Greg. Meeting her brother Sam. Meeting Kara. Falling for Kara. Dancing with Kara at Greg¡¯s and Kendra¡¯s wedding. Watching Sam and Tori dance together for the first time at the reception. Watching any chances at romance between the four of them shatter in the wake of Greg and Kendra¡¯s death. Putting Greg¡¯s daughter into double-blind foster care to protect her from the identity of her parents. Continuing to admire Kara from afar even after all these years.
Making a decision, Web stretched his mind one more time, reaching out to one he knew as well as his own, one he¡¯d never contacted by itself for the last six years. He brushed against it and pushed the message through with everything he had. The distance made it a challenge, but he was not going to fail at literally the last thing he would ever do.
I always loved you. There was surprise as her mind received the unexpected message.
Web severed the connection immediately. Opening his eyes once more, Web saw a flash of green that turned to yellow. As the wall of superheated plasma rolled towards him, Web smiled. Never say die. Give ¡®em hell Sam.
2:18 p.m.
Khyber felt tears running down his cheek as he flipped forms, the wave of superheated plasma rolling off of him and demolishing nearly everything in its way. The colors around him shifted slightly, a yellow tinge to his surroundings he hadn¡¯t seen since a tumultuous night years ago in New York. He took the hollow feeling that refused to leave his gut, filling it with the rage and fury he felt at being trapped in this situation.
¡°Just you and me left!¡± Khyber screamed at the three Contenders. The Crawler was rolling across the ground, smashing into buildings as it tried to put out the fire his plasma wave had set on its skin. The Red Angel and Minotaur were unaffected but watching him warily. ¡°And I¡¯ve got no reason left to hold back!¡±
Khyber was hysterically sad and volcanically furious at the same time, the emotional whipsawing reflected in the continual bubbling of his superheated plasma form, which refused to settle into something more than vaguely human.
¡°So, let¡¯s fucking dance!¡± Khyber surged towards the Contenders. He¡¯d do his damnedest to take all three of them with him as their payment for the part they played in his team dying. As he moved, Web¡¯s words returned to him, thundering and crashing through his mind.
You know the great thing about stories? If you don¡¯t like an ending, just rewrite it.