by Matt Cowper
He was trying his best to kill Nightstriker now, laughing all the while. For once, Nightstriker kept his distance. There were few non-powered opponents he was wary of facing in hand-to-hand combat. Carrion, aka the Judge, was one such threat: if he could get a grip on someone, he could finish them off in a hundred different ways.
“Come here, Nightstriker!” the Judge said. “I've got an itch that I need to scratch!”
“Already dropping this absurd fiction?” Nightstriker replied. “I thought you'd pretend to be heroic for a few more minutes, at least.”
“Your teammates are engaged, and the sheep are running for cover.” He jerked his head towards the civilians, most of whom were sprinting away from the battle. “No one can hear me. I can be myself. And you know what that means, don't you? We talked about it quite often when you visited me in prison.”
“Indeed we did,” Nightstriker replied, “but you're not killing anyone today, Carrion.”
Another mad cackle. “Are you sure? You know, I've kept myself sharp in prison. Workouts. Cardio. Experimenting with slaughter. I'm deadlier now than ever before. I––”
A kick to the side of the head silenced him. Another kick nailed the villain in the ribs, but instead of pressing the attack, Nightstriker backed off. The Judge would counter-attack soon enough, and Nightstriker didn't want to get his jugular sliced open or his eyes gouged out.
“Keeping your distance, huh?” the Judge mocked. Blood dribbled from his mouth, but he still had plenty of fight left. “A smart move – if a cowardly one. Say, Nightstriker, why don't you pull something outta your utility belt and toss it at me? That'd surely do some damage.”
Nightstriker didn't reply. He hadn't employed any long-range weaponry because there was a high probability he'd miss, and the Judge would grab the weapon and use it against him.
This was a man who'd once killed six Delta Force operators armed with nothing but a stick of deodorant and a plastic spoon. Putting a throwing knife or a grenade in his hands would be suicide.
But Nightstriker just couldn't dance in and out forever, tagging the Judge with one or two shots before retreating, in an attempt to wear him down. If this was a one-on-one fight, perhaps, but there were others involved.
He glanced at his teammates, to see how they were faring.
It wasn't encouraging.
Metal Gal was twitching on the ground, her form shifting uncontrollably. Code stood nearby, laughing, her hands glowing a soft white.
Code was more infamously known as Webmistress, a tech expert, cyborg, and world-class hacker. In her heyday, she'd hacked the Pentagon, commandeered the International Space Station, and kidnapped a top-ranking Senator, replacing him with a robot copy so accurate even his wife and children were fooled.
Metal Gal, being tech-based, would have little chance against Code. Nightstriker didn't know exactly how Code had disabled Gal, but Code surely had numerous options at her disposal: viruses, nanotech, micro EMPs. Any one option would give Gal trouble. All of them at once would be devastating.
Code was likely the one who'd sabotaged the Beacon's core. Though the Beacon's security measures could slow Code down normally, if she had help from government insiders – or had interrogated Professor Perfection, the Beacon's architect – she'd be able to blitz through the system with ease.
Breaker was slugging it out with Slab, neither behemoth giving an inch. While Nightstriker was proud of Slab for standing tall, his teammate should've learned by now that he needed to use his rocky head for more than a battering ram. There were other ways to remove Breaker from the fight besides trying to pound him into submission.
Buckshot was a blur of motion, unloading his pistols and shotgun at Midnight. The shots were accurate, but they went into the faux-hero and disappeared, seemingly having no effect.
It looked like the sharpshooting Texan had loaned Gillespie a firearm, but she was having no success shooting Midnight either.
Midnight had been a supervillain named Wraith. Though he babbled about a “shadow realm” and being the “spirit of vengeance,” he was just a regular superhuman. His powers were deceptively simple: his body was a living portal.
He could teleport just about anywhere – even, Nightstriker suspected, to other dimensions, though Wraith wouldn't go into detail about his travels – and his body served as a gateway to wherever Wraith wanted to go. All someone had to do was step into his shadowy form, and they could be halfway around the world. This was likely how the Patriots had appeared out of nowhere.
Much like the Judge, beating Midnight meant you had to keep your distance. If he got a hold of you and tossed you into his form, you could be warped to the bottom of the ocean or the moon.
Midnight seemed unstoppable, but Nightstriker knew the villain's weaknesses.
One was fatigue.
Teleporting long distances, or with multiple entities, took a tremendous amount of energy out of Midnight. Though he didn't need sustenance or sleep like a normal human, he did need to do what he called his “meditations,” which was resting so he could draw more energy from what could best be described as the inter-dimensional vortex.
Teleporting four people here, plus himself, would've been incredibly taxing. That was why he hadn't rushed Buckshot or anyone else. Though his form looked menacing, and he was laughing like the Judge, he was too spent to do much else.
Midnight's other weakness: disrupting his form. Since he was, in many ways, a battery as well as a portal, there were numerous ways to “short-circuit” him.
But that required specialized equipment. The nearest equipment of that sort was on the Beacon, and was now likely destroyed.
Metal Gal could've morphed her form into a mechanism that would hurt Midnight, but she was out of the fight, unless someone took down Code.
Crimson Tiger was face down on the concrete, to Nightstriker's surprise. Though Nightstriker had slammed him down to start this fracas, that attack shouldn't have KOed him.
Tiger was really Apex, as in apex predator. He was a killer in the same mold as the Judge, except he had claws, superhuman agility, and he ate his victims raw after slaughtering them.
Nightstriker expected Crimson Tiger to be the most difficult to drop, besides the Judge, and he wondered just who had managed to defang the animal. Then he saw Anna's smoke-form drifting near Tiger's body, and realized she was the one who'd dropped him. Though ferocious, there was no way for the Tiger to fight against a throat full of noxious smoke.
No, things weren't encouraging, but at least one Patriot had been dealt with – but then Nightstriker saw Blaze, and had to suppress an uncharacteristic gasp.
Instead of flying around with his Fire Shield protecting him and shooting fire at their enemies, Blaze was half-crawling, half-shuffling towards the nearest alleyway. His face was a mix of fear and pain.
Blaze and Metal Gal had said his powers were on the fritz, but Nightstriker thought that was just tiredness from absorbing and releasing all of the core's energy. The aftereffects from that experience, however, appeared to be more severe than he'd calculated.
Another mistake he'd made....
A sharp laugh told Nightstriker that the Judge had noticed the retreating superhero as well.
“What's wrong with the kid, Nightstriker?” he said. “He sucked in all the energy from the core, didn't he? We saw something bright, like a star, shoot a shit-ton of energy into space. Well, looks like that did him in. Suits me just fine. He was the one we were really worried about – besides you, of course. Now he'll be an easy kill.”
He raced towards Blaze, his face contorted by malice, his hands working like they were already around the young hero's throat.
Nightstriker felt new energy surge through him. Letting out a roar, he jumped over some rubble, trying to intercept the Judge.
Blaze had picked up a small hunk of concrete to use as a weapon, but against the Judge he might as well have been armed with a toothpick. He stared wide-eyed as the engine of murder barreled towards him.
&
nbsp; Then Nightstriker tackled the Judge from the side, and they both tumbled into a wrecked car.
“Getting in close now, huh?” the Judge shouted. “Good!”
Nightstriker felt fingernails stabbing into his neck, and a knee collided with his groin.
He barely felt it.
He ripped the hands from his throat, headbutted the Judge, and gave the madman a low blow of his own.
Snarling, the Judge tried to bite at Nightstriker's neck now, but Nightstriker punched him so hard the impact rattled up his entire arm. The Judge groaned, and now he was the one trying to put some distance between him and his opponent.
But Nightstriker was in a fury, and he had the villain pinned to the ruined car.
He rained down blow after blow. The Judge scratched and clawed and tore. Nightstriker knew he was bleeding, perhaps badly, but he didn't stop his assault.
But before he could KO the Judge, the man shouted out: “Patriots! To me!”
Nightstriker whirled, and saw Breaker, Midnight, and Code racing towards him. Anna, Buckshot, and Gillespie were right behind. Slab was following at a snail's pace – Breaker must've landed some harsh blows. Metal Gal remained twitching on the ground.
The Judge seized on the distraction, again trying to slice Nightstriker's neck with his fingernails. But Nightstriker grabbed the man's hands, flinging him over his shoulder into a pile of bricks.
Nightstriker looked at the helpless Blaze, at the compromised Metal Gal, at the weary Slab. Buckshot, Gillespie, Anna, and himself were still game, but two out of those four had no powers, and Buckshot was only a flesh-and-blood person with exceptional senses and reflexes.
Crimson Tiger was unconscious. Midnight wasn't at full strength. The Judge had taken a beating. The Patriots were hurting perhaps as much as the Elites.
In times past, Nightstriker would've re-engaged and attempted to pull out a victory. Even if all of his allies fell, he would've kept fighting until the Patriots either subdued or killed him.
But then he thought about the multitude of mistakes he'd made recently. The nonsense with the Giftgiver...then his ill-fated “secret war” against corruption...then convincing Blaze to stop the core's meltdown, without fully understanding the consequences...then letting them all get blindsided by these criminals mockingly dressed in superhero garb.
Too many mistakes. He didn't want to make another by trying some rash last stand.
“Elites!” he shouted. “Cover your eyes!”
He whipped a small orb out of his utility belt and tossed it at the Patriots, then covered his own eyes. Even through his hands and eyelids, he could see – even feel – the explosion of white light.
When he opened his eyes, the Patriots were staggering around, clutching their blinded faces and screaming. All except Midnight – he didn't have eyes in the conventional sense.
“That flashbang won't work against me, Nightstr––”
Nightstriker tossed a desk-sized hunk of rubble at the shadow. The villain didn't move out of the way quickly enough, and the rubble landed right on his head – and then disappeared.
Coming into contact with his body had caused the rubble to teleport to a far-off location – and weakened Midnight further. He could absorb tiny bullets from Buckshot and Gillespie without issue, but an object that size was another story.
He went down to a knee and began making a noise that sounded like a dozen vacuum cleaners running at once.
Nightstriker looked around at his teammates, and was satisfied to see that everyone who had eyes had covered them, as he'd commanded. However, they were standing around him uncertainly, wondering what his next play was.
“Buckshot, grab Blaze!” he said. “Slab, grab Metal Gal! We're retreating!”
“Retreating?!” Buckshot shouted. “We've got these limp-dicked and rotten-vagina jackasses on the ropes, boss man!”
“No, we do not,” Nightstriker said. “They're only temporarily blinded, and we have two team members down.”
“But these Patriots destroyed the Beacon!” Slab said. “They––”
“We all know what they did – and we will get our revenge. But we cannot risk everything on a brawl in Bootheel, not when we're ill-prepared and weakened.”
“Nightstriker's right,” Gillespie said. Though her professional outfit was little more than rags, and her face was smeared with blood, sweat, and grime, she looked completely in her element. “We need to retreat and regroup. Now. The Patriots are already recovering.”
Buckshot and Slab grumbled, Anna's smoke-form spiraled like a tornado, and even Blaze looked angry, but they all did as he and Gillespie commanded. Buckshot slung Blaze over his shoulder, and Slab lumbered over and picked up the still-seizuring Metal Gal.
They all ran down the nearest alleyway, leaving behind the battle; the Beacon, their former home; and the world they'd known.
Nightstriker took one quick glance back as he ran.
“You won this battle, Patriots,” he muttered, “but we will win the war. I swear it on my life.”
Chapter Nine
Blaze
Sam's eyes fluttered open. The first thing he saw was fluorescent lighting and a concrete ceiling criss-crossed with cracks. The air was thick and cool, and he heard a low rumble coming from somewhere above.
Where the hell was he? How long had he been out?
With an effort, he pushed himself up to a sitting position. His head throbbed, and his limbs still felt leaden. His nap – more like an embarrassing fainting spell – hadn't done much to revitalize him.
Cool silvery arms wrapped around him. Sam instinctively jerked away, then realized he was being hugged by Metal Gal.
“You're awake!” she said, her voice altering from its normal tone, so she sounded like a songbird. “I was worried about you, Sam.”
Sam hugged his girlfriend back, smiling. “What, a guy can't take a quick nap while the world's ending?”
“Feeling perky enough to joke, huh? Guess that's a good sign.”
They pushed away, and each examined the other. Metal Gal was no longer in her “normal looking” form of Siobhan; she was truly Metal Gal, a sleek – and sexy – metallic being with cold blue eyes.
Sam didn't know how he looked exactly, but Gal's expression led him to believe that he looked as bad as he felt.
“Are you OK?” Sam asked. “Last time I saw you, you were on the ground, writhing....”
“Yeah.” A long pause. “That woman who called herself Code...she knocked me out of the fight easily. Blasted me with some sort of virus, made my data bank go crazy.”
“But you're fine now?”
Metal Gal nodded. “As soon as we got away, I was able to flush my system.”
“For someone to have that much control over tech...shit, the whole team was powerful. Even Nightstriker had trouble keeping the Judge at bay. How the hell are we gonna counter them?”
Metal Gal had no response. She only stared at him, her mouth tight, her eyes glistening.
“So, where are we?” he asked, before things got even more melancholy – or before Gal started questioning him about his powers. Sam had already tried to ignite some sort of flame, but the air around him remained cold and stagnant.
“One of Nightstriker's safe houses,” she replied. “Or more like a safe bunker. This used to be a subway tunnel, but it's been abandoned for years. Nightstriker converted it into a high-tech hideout. The guy's always three steps ahead, isn't he?”
Sam glanced around the room. It was nothing special: just concrete and steel beams, with heavy wires running along the walls. The bed he lay on was surprisingly comfortable, though, and the sheets were a spotless white.
Had Nightstriker constructed this all himself? Most likely – it would be the Nightstriker thing to do. But if he had converted this tunnel alone, it would've taken months of back-breaking labor – again, not that that would bother him.
“Yeah, he is three steps ahead,” Sam said. Then he grimaced. “But then he takes four st
eps backwards.”
Metal Gal frowned. “I have to agree, but now's the time for unity, not quarreling. This situation with the Patriots and President Lancaster is bad, and getting worse by the minute.”
“Shit. How long have I been unconscious?”
“About four hours. We're still––”
“Good,” someone else said. “You're awake.”
They both turned, and there was Nightstriker standing in the doorway. Sam noticed some cuts and bruises on his face, but he must've changed into a new costume, because his black spandex was unscathed.
“How are you feeling, Sam?” Nightstriker asked, an almost shocking amount of concern in his tone.
“Tired. I'm afraid that nap didn't do much good.”
“And your powers?”
Sam closed his eyes and concentrated, trying his hardest to create a spark, or even a burst of heat.
Nothing.
“Still not working,” Sam said softly. “I'm sorry. Either I'm just too fatigued, or that energy transfer with the core screwed me up majorly.”
“I suspect it's the latter,” Nightstriker said, “and I'm the one who should be apologizing. I knew that absorption would test you, but I didn't think it would nullify your powers, even temporarily.”
Sam shrugged and tried to keep a smile on his face. “We're all still alive, aren't we? If losing my powers is the price I have to pay for that, so be it.”
Nightstriker frowned, and Sam thought he saw moisture in his eyes. “I'll do everything I can to help you, Sam. There are countless methods we can try to reignite your fire-abilities.”
“Thank you,” Sam said.
“Think nothing of it. Everyone is dedicated to your recovery – even Buckshot, that rebellious fool.” Nightstriker chuckled – an awkward sound. He still hadn't quite got the hang of joking and laughter. “But right now, we need to bring you up to speed. I'm sure you want to rest, but events are dangerously close to spiraling out of control.”
“The Patriots just knocked the Beacon out of the sky,” Sam said. “Things were already out of control.”
“They've gotten worse,” Nightstriker said. “If you'll come into the main room, we'll brief you.”