Blood Legion: Adamantine Chronicles Book Two

by D. R. Rosier

  Where the hell was Red Siren?

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was about an hour later, the debrief had been brutal, and while it wasn’t a complete loss it was our first draw and it felt like a loss. Alyssa had almost died, again, and I was more than a little bothered at that. Myriad too, that’d been the real body of Myriad, inside those crushing vines.

  I’d also learned they didn’t have separate supervillain names, more like titles. They all identified as Blood Legion. The Flame of Blood Legion, the Wind of Blood Legion, the Stone of Blood Legion, the Water of Blood Legion, and lastly the Nature of Blood Legion.

  We were up in Alyssa’s apartment, eating a quick easy lunch and drinking sodas.

  “What happened today, this morning.”

  Alyssa sighed, “I lost it, told her off in a big way. I need to apologize when we find her. Not that I didn’t deserve to feel anger, but I definitely overreacted.”

  I nodded, “She manipulated you.”

  Alyssa’s eyes widened in surprise, and Carol let out a small chuckle.

  Carol said, as if to instruct a particularly slow student, “She loves you, Daniel, as I do. We were both… angry on your behalf, not on ours. Sure, we were angry she manipulated us too, but that just brought us all together. No, we lost it because of what she did to you, what she tried to do to you.”

  That… actually made a lot of sense. I’d been more worried about Alyssa last night than myself, when she learned the truth, I’d been more afraid she’d get hurt. It made sense that it would work, should work, both ways, guarding each other more fiercely than ourselves. Still, I didn’t put that together in my head, until it was spelled out for me, it was startling in a way. To be loved that fiercely, I felt a little self-conscious about it, but I had to say something.

  I smiled, “Thank you, but I’m really okay. What happened after that?”

  They exchanged glances, and Alyssa said, “We haven’t really talked about it, we were both still steamed when we left on patrol. I’d like to go forward, with your plan, maybe we can work with Tina and things will heal or get better there, I don’t know. Either way, if you’re really okay with that so am I, now that I’ve had time to come to terms with it.”

  Carol nodded, “Me too. The four of us in bed, Alyssa and I can switch back and forth, or well, I can be in three places at once.”

  I laughed, and she winked.

  “Wait, we’ll need a bigger bed.”

  Carol blushed, and I didn’t understand why until Alyssa explained.

  Alyssa said, “Tina has a huge bed, to make room for the four of them, when she’s split? California King. Anyway, the four of us should fit if we snuggle close for sleep, and there should even be enough room for six to play, in two piles. Regardless, I’ve already got an even bigger custom one on order.”

  I smirked, “Alright, so we need to find Tina, make nice, and then? Tonight is a group thing?”

  Carol nodded, “That sounds nice. We should just stay in though, relax, and talk. I know I miss her, and Alyssa wants to renew your intimacy, but we’ll also come together and do it together in one place.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, all we had to do was find Tina. Somewhere. I also didn’t care, together as a group or not, I wanted to be with my loving and sweetly mischievous Alyssa tonight. It’d been too long since we’d been intimate at length and spent time together. We hadn’t had more than wild sex together in a short time frame and then split up again. I missed hanging with her, it’d been almost five days, and I wanted to make love to her.

  I was also worried about Tina.

  Rose?

  Rose replied, “Nothing yet, I’ve expanded my search. I think she’s left the city.”

  I went over to Alyssa and gave her a soft kiss, and then put the silver shark’s tooth in her hand. Perhaps it wasn’t the most ideal time for my gift, but I wanted her to have it.

  She looked up at me curiously, “What is it?”

  I stepped back, “Think at it, to raise a shield.”

  She concentrated on it, and I felt the enchantment activate.

  I smirked, and I went back in for another kiss. The shield wouldn’t stop anything physical. It was a shield that would prevent one specific kind of force from crushing or hurting her.

  “Keep that on you at all times and use it in battle. Hang it on a chain, or we can get one later?”

  She frowned, “What does it do?”

  I winked, “It’s a shield against gravity attacks, of course.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “You know that makes me invulnerable.”

  I shook my hand in a so-so gesture, “Until another clever use of two powers comes up, or when you aren’t in battle and don’t have shields up, but yes. An invincible White Witch will help me sleep at night. I worried about that Singularity guy, and I’d finally figured out a way to shield you from it. By the way, don’t let anyone else know about it, I don’t want it getting around that I can now create powerful self-sufficient enchantments.”

  She looked a bit dreamy eyed, I loved the way she looked at me, with those warm brown eyes, I got a little lost in them.

  I smiled at her, kissed her, and then claimed a warm kiss from Carol too. Carol seemed startled at first, but returned it rather passionately after a moment, and she had a shy lip twitching smile on her face when it broke.

  Alyssa looked… turned on. Not jealous at all, which had been my fear. In fact, they both looked rather breathless in that moment.

  I rather expected things would have gotten very interesting at that point, but the building alarm for a leadership meeting went off just then. That included the four of us supers, plus Millicent, Jenna, Nate, and Carina. Of course, Tina wasn’t there, but there wasn’t anything we could do about that.

  Alyssa sighed regretfully, and she stole one more kiss from me, and Carol, before we filed out of the room. That last had done it, watching her kiss Carol was… hot. I was about to show up at a meeting with wood.

  I also thought we needed to discuss public and private interactions, between us all I mean. I’d only kissed Carol because I’d kissed Alyssa in front of her, and I didn’t want her to feel left out. My intention hadn’t been to start a three way, which definitely would’ve happened if we hadn’t been called to a meeting. Well, that and I’d wanted to kiss my beautiful dark blue-eyed warrior, but my point was that there were no social rules for that sort of thing. At least, none that I’d been taught.

  Public should be easy enough, the normal public display of affection rules were probably good enough. It was privately, and how we acted with each other in front of each other that I had questions on.

  That whole time and place thing. A playful spank on Alyssa’s sexy and supple bubbled ass in private was playfully received, and even enjoyed by her. If anyone else was in the room, it wouldn’t be well received at all, and would be disrespectful on my part. But what if Carol or Tina were in the room, who were also our lovers? Did that make it okay? A shared playful intimacy? I needed to understand where that flirting and playing line was between us in front of each other, before I got myself in trouble. Well, outside of the bedroom, I assumed in the bedroom it was pretty much anything goes.

  Assuming of course, Tina didn’t tell us all to fuck off when she got back. I hope wherever she was, she was okay.

  Millicent looked shaken when we walked in, and that cleared my mind of all the relationship angst. She maintained her usual professionalism, and her mask, but I could tell she was highly disturbed by the look in her eyes and the micro-expressions on her face she couldn’t suppress.

  “What’s going on?”

  Millicent said, “We now believe the Blood Legion wasn’t a random attack. There’ve been similar attacks all over the country. We’re also sure if it wasn’t for Daniel joining you, they’d have killed both of you,” she glanced between Carol and Alyssa, and paused for us to absorb that point.

  I couldn’t disagree, their attacks had been designed to k
ill, not just knock out or suppress. Of course, they could have just let up after the superheroines were knocked out, but she must have had a reason to believe they wouldn’t have.

  Millicent continued, “Similar attacks have occurred all over America. Most of them have been pushed back, but right now there are twenty-one cities being held by supervillains. Their entire hero groups as well as the MTF tactical teams have been killed. In essence, they have taken over the city, and claimed in the press they are now the rulers there. The police are currently being chased off the street, and if they resist in those cities, they’re also being killed.”

  Holy shit, Tina and I had just been speculating about this last night. What the backlash would be from the government outlawing hero work for all but one or two percent of the superheroes across America, simply to gain control. To gain control, they’d made us weaker. The good guys anyway, and that seems to have led the bad guys, the supervillains, to have a party.

  The government was so stupid, making the good supers weaker and less effective to control them, had of course backfired. Supervillains didn’t follow the rules.

  Millicent sighed, “We suspect that’s why villain activity dropped the last couple of weeks, we believe they’ve all conspired together somehow during that time, and off the radar. We don’t have a clue who organized it, or even how.”

  I nodded, “So, we can expect the Blood Legion to come back, better prepared or perhaps with some allies.”

  Shit. It was the worst possible time for Tina to disappear on us.

  Millicent nodded at my obvious conclusion, “Exactly. The loss of life is a tragedy. There’ve also been reports of some of the ex-heroes coming out and joining their ranks. Perhaps even worse, it is not a local happenstance to the United States, this is happening in all the first world countries that followed suit in the creation of their own MTF.”

  Nate said, “We’ll be ready for them.”

  I snorted, “No. We’ll have a hard-enough time fighting the Blood Legion, without needing to worry about you. They’re all enhanced S-class threats, and powerful, you wouldn’t stand a chance against them, and would just wind up getting killed.”

  Carina said, “I agree, this one is over our heads, and if Millicent is right, they’ll be even more dangerous when they regroup and come back. I won’t sacrifice my team for my pride.”

  Millicent ignored our argument completely, and asked, “Where is Tina?”

  Alyssa said, “She left this morning, had some personal stuff to see to.”

  Millicent frowned, “She is contracted to always be on call, turning off her cell phone is not acceptable. I want her back here, by tonight, or I’ll be forced to declare her in breach of contract and replace her with one of our standbys.”

  I nodded, “Understood. I wouldn’t expect another attack until tomorrow, it’ll take at least that long before they recoup their energy.”

  For Nature, it might even take a few days, his energy was totally drained to nothing by Alyssa’s ice storm attack, while I’d just hurt the others a bit.

  Jenna said, “I’ll try and track down the Blood Legion, see if we can find where they’re hiding, or what they’re up to.”

  Rose said on the speaker system, “I’ll help.”

  Nate growled, “What about us, are we benched?”

  Millicent sighed, “Yes, Nate. This threat is beyond us, it may be beyond our super team. We need to support them as we can, but not in the field. For the moment, we hold the line. I don’t know what this will mean for our future, and the future of the MTF, but until Washington makes that decision, we’ll follow procedure and protect our city from the supervillain threat. Understood?”

  That was a good point, Tina had mentioned that last night too. Did Millicent see the writing on the wall? Would the government back off, repeal the law that made independent superheroes illegal? Decide they’d acted in haste? Or would they double down and make it worse?

  We might be able to hold Silver City, but what about the twenty-one cities that had already been taken. Short of the rest of the supers in the city breaking the law, I didn’t see how it could be freed, they’d be stuck under supervillain control until Washington got their heads out of their asses. Unless they called in the military, armed with plasma and rail gun MFWs. That would just get a lot of people killed, if the villains killed the local super teams, they would slaughter the military.

  We certainly couldn’t do it, just watching one city was more than enough for us to handle. Well, that and natural disasters, and mutated animals and sea creatures.

  So much for the government’s bullshit line of keeping people safer, by getting dangerous and untrained supers off the street and using highly trained humans to do a better job to keep them safe. Of course, it’d always been bullshit, and really about taking control, but now it was obvious bullshit, even to humans that didn’t pay all that much attention to politics.

  Well, it should have been obvious, but my guess was a lot of people would fall for whatever double talk they came up with to explain the emergency and their failure. They’d probably blame it on Supers, and double down on their bets. Seriously, politicians were just that stupid, and fear in the population would allow them to get away with it. Most likely.

  I hoped I was wrong, but I probably wasn’t. Time would tell. Add to all that, Oracle telling me to stick with my morality and guns, I couldn’t help but suspect this was part of that, although I couldn’t see how. But it had been what he’d talked about, tangentially. Whatever it was about, I didn’t think it’d be more than a week before I found out the truth of things, Oracle couldn’t see much past a week in the future, and only out a week if it was a major thing effecting a lot of heroes.

  Millicent asked, “Plans to deal with them?”

  Alyssa said, “They ambushed us last time. Hopefully we’ll have to respond to their presence next time, and if I can get a shield around Myriad before the fight starts, she’ll be much more effective. They’re all energy-based S-class threats, and high ones.

  “We also need to take down fire or water, and stone or air, fast. Those four work in pairs quite effectively in combined attacks and defenses. I’d suggest fire and stone be our initial targets, those are the parents and seemed to be in charge of their tactics. It was fire, the mother, that called a retreat.”

  Damn, she was so hot, and sexy as hell, when she talked tactics. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but damn.

  She blushed when she looked at me, and I wondered what expression was on my face.

  Carol said, “I’ll proactively send one of me at both, if I’m shielded that should work. While I myself will take a more reactive approach, to deal with the unforeseen. Either I’ll get through, or Daniel and Alyssa will.”

  I nodded, “I’ll hit stone with the rail gun, that seems to be the best weapon, wind will deflect my plasma attacks. I’ll also look to cuff both, once they go down. Then we can clean up the last three. Siren can deplete all their shields, slowly, or help one of us with a primary target if we run into unexpected trouble.”

  Millicent nodded, “Very well, I want you all to stand down and relax. So, you’ll be sharp when they return. Keep me posted when you find Tina, or if Jenna and Rose find the Blood Legion. I’ll also update you on the bigger picture, when I find out more. Dismissed.”

  Nate jumped up and stormed out, obviously angry and embarrassed, I hoped that wouldn’t turn into another problem. The last major fight the bastard had shot me in the back.

  Carina shrugged and smiled at me impishly, before she too got up and walked out.

  The three of us got up and left, and we headed back upstairs.

  We’d barely gotten inside when Rose spoke.

  “I found her, she’s in Seattle. By the docks west of the city, which is rather vast actually, I put it on as a destination. It’s about an hour flight, round trip, even at Mach four. Given it’s only a little over a thousand miles away, a sub-orbital approach wouldn’t make much of a difference.�
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  Right, we’d fly the distance about three times faster, but it would also lose about as much time getting up to where the atmosphere was whisper thin, and then getting back down.

  I sighed, and then passed along to the others what Rose said.

  We all looked at each other.

  Carol said reluctantly, “We shouldn’t all go, just in case. The Blood Legion probably won’t attack us again until tomorrow, but that’s not a guarantee, and it doesn’t mean there won’t be another emergency, or quickening to deal with.”

  Alyssa bit her lip, “I don’t like it, but she’s right.”

  I nodded, “I’ll go get her.”

  Alyssa teased, “Damn, you’re going to miss our playtime again.”

  I scowled, and then spanked her ass.

  “That hurts, I was looking forward to getting you both back up here.”

  She blushed, and she looked turned on. Well, I supposed that spanking was okay in front of Carol or Tina then.

  Carol moved to me in that wonderfully predatory grace she possessed, and she gave me a sweet and hot lingering kiss. Damn, I was going to explode if I kept getting teased like this. Then my wild sexpot got her kiss in too, and the way Alyssa kissed me was mind-blowing, one of those kisses that promised untold pleasures later on.

  I caressed her face softly, “I’ll be back, soon I hope.”

  Alyssa smiled wickedly, “We’ll be in bed, waiting for your big fat cock, but you can come too,” she teased.

  Carol laughed, and then her face colored slightly, but I didn’t see anything in her face that disagreed with Alyssa’s earthy statement.

  “Tease,” I accused.

  She grinned, “Who’s teasing? That was a promise.”

  Right, I guess I had to leave before I could make it back, so I got out of there after one last kiss for both. Once again, I left the room with a chubby. This whole polyamory thing was going to kill me, but damn, what a way to go…

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I reached my destination, I had trouble finding her by eyesight, but my scanners picked her up and identified her as soon as I was in range. It’d taken just over twenty-five minutes to get there, and I headed down and changed into clothes as soon as my feet hit the ground. Fortunately, Seattle wasn’t one of the cities taken over by supervillains. They’d managed to take out their attackers, and also get them in the supermax.