The countdown pops up on the HUD and I start sweating. Not because of the heat, but because what is about to happen. Ericsson jump-started his plans because of me. Logically I know he’s off balance. He’s reacting, not acting. Which means he wasn’t fully ready to do this.
Still… thousands of warbots. Who knows what heroes and villains they have on their side and even then… I still have to go into this with the intent to kill Behemoth.
It is war, Amelia.
“You a mind reader now?”
No. But I am thinking it too. Communications blackout passes in five…four…three…
The optics depolarize, allowing me to see again. We’re a hundred thousand feet up and everything seems so small.
Amelia, brace for—
The sky lights up and for a heartbeat my optics stay open nearly blinding me before going dark again.
“What was that?”
Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse weapon. If we were not shielded against a nuclear EMP we would be falling dead. However, I have lost comms with everyone. The greater DC area is devoid of power.
He isn’t exaggerating. There is a massive black hole looming below us where there was a city full of lights. No traffic, no buildings, no beacons.
“Any aircraft in the area?”
Thankfully all aircraft have been diverted for security reasons.
A flash of light catches my eye. I can see it now that we’re only a few thousand feet up. Thousands of camouflaged warbots marching through the city. Occasional bursts of green light as they open up with their plasma weapons.
The majority of the fire is happening at the Capitol building and the White House.
“Unlock,” I order. Arms forward, we shoot off toward Pennsylvania Ave. Congress may or may not be in session, but there are lots of them. There’s only one president and while I may not have voted for him… he’s the symbol of our country. If Ericsson manages to kill him then it will be that much harder to stop all this.
“Go full ECM, give me a scan of the area. Bring up Artemis and have her for backup. Once comms are re-established try and coordinate this mess as best you can. Break whatever laws you have too.”
Understood. I’ve located Behemoth. She is engaged US Marshals and Secret Service meta-human teams at the white house.
“I see it.” I don’t normally curse but I want to right now. It’s a frigging disaster. Part of the White House is burning. Overturned armored fighting vehicles and a hundred bodies litter the lawn.
“Full power to everything, unlock the safeties on the Particle Beams and go auto on the grenade launcher.” The HUD flashes as it switches to angry red. Weapons status, shields, and power levels all become easier to read.
I’m not set up to fight a war. Fifteen grenades against thousands of warbots isn’t even a contest, more like a slaughter—mine.
They spot me at a few hundred feet. Fifty mechanical heads turn at once raising their weapons to fire.
I cut power to the boots and fall right at them. I hear the puff-puff-puff of the grenade launcher lighting up targets. No pods or bean bags today, nothing but HE. The explosions rip through their metallic hides, setting off a series of secondaries as whatever powers them goes off as well.
I hit the ground a hundred feet from where Behemoth is pounding the tar out of a woman I don’t know while the US Marshal I met a while back, Bricklayer, ineffectively punches her. There is a volume of small and medium arms fire as pistols, smgs, and heavy machine guns fire from every window pouring down lead on the army of warbots. I can only thank God and Epic that Ericsson never figured out how to replicate my armor.
“Particle beams, sustained fire!”
Arms straight out from my shoulders, wrist down, they fire. Hyper-accelerated silicon spews out at near light speed. Epic shows me where to aim as I rush forward, decapitating and decimating everything the beams touch. Metal slags as the beams pass through countless warbots.
The world lights up and I’m upside down, flying through the air. My teeth rattle when I hit the cratered concrete walkway just outside the White House.
Close proximity plasma detonation. Amelia, get up!
Right! I roll over and kick in the jets. Two warbots come from behind the flipped over AFV and I tear right through them.
“How’s Bricklayer?”
He’s incapable of slowing her down.
I risk a glance at the field and I cringe. My stomach threatens me but I bear down on it. The poor woman is dead. Her body beaten to an unrecognizable pulp. As I watch, Behemoth puts Bricklayer through an armored vehicle. I don’t know if he’s getting back up.
We need to engage her. She is the single most powerful super in America. Amelia, I know you do not want to set out to kill her, but I have run the numbers. The only way to stop her is to kill her.
He’s right. I’ve killed before but only accidentally. “Unlock the sword.” The blade clicks free as I pull it around. The particle beams might pierce her hide but they would take time. She survived an orbital strike not twenty-four hours ago. No, it’s this or nothing. I swing a few times to loosen up my arm. I can’t imagine this is going to be easy.
“Epic, we’ll need maximum weight when I swing.”
Roger.
I run at her. There are moments I wish I could feel what it is like to run, to flex my toes in the carpet, to really move my legs and not just have actuators moving them for me while responding to my nervous system. Maybe one day, not today.
I raise the sword up over my head and leap into the air. The Emdrive kicks in adding extra oomph.
Behemoth has Bricklayer’s neck in one massive hand. She’s holding him up like he’s made of paper. His face is a mass of bruises and blood. She tosses him aside and spins around to face me a half second before I bring the blade down on her.
God forgive me.
The sword hits her forearm and I slam into the ground—the blade bites a half inch into flesh and comes to a halt against bone. She screams, whipping her arm aside, dragging me with her since my hands are kinetically locked to the sword. The blade tears free and I tumble end over end through the side lawn to come to rest against a wall.
It didn’t work.
“You think?” Oh, man, she’s pissed. Blood flows freely down her arm. Epic had to let the sword go while we tumbled so it didn’t cut me. I search for it and try to stand at the same time. The ground shakes as she stomps her way toward me.
No time for the sword, I flip my arms up, wrist down and fire both Particle Beams. Light flashes as they burn through the air to her. She screams as the silicon particles smash into her, instantly burning through her costume but splashing off her skin.
“I can’t believe your stupid sword cut me!” She hurls a chunk of through the air. I shift the beams to shatter it into a million pieces. She plows through the dust and slams one giant fist against me.
Amelia…
“Five more minutes,” I mutter. Then the pain hits and I sputter to life coughing up blood on my HUD.
Move!
Everything hurts, I have no idea where I am but I can’t argue with his advice. I trigger the jets and I’m up in the air a half second before an AFV crashes into the ground where I was a half-second before. She knocked me through a corner of the building and I only came to rest against a concrete pillar.
“Epic, I don’t know what to do. I can avoid dying by keeping her at a distance but I can’t stop her. The second she figures this out she’s going to resume her mission.”
Down!
I cut the jets as two plasma balls explode above me.
“Comms back yet?”
For us. Not for anyone else.
“I should have made Artemis an actual comsat.” I hit the ground, staggering a few feet. My chest is on fire and it hurts to breathe.
Amelia, you require medical attention.
“Where is she?”
She just ripped the door off the White House and is proceeding to the elevator leading to the underg
round bunker. She figured it out fast.
If I recall right that bunker can take a near direct hit from a nuke.
“Epic broadcast what you can from Artemis. I know she’s not commercially connected but figure something out! We need backup.”
What are you going to do?
“Improvise.”
It only takes a second to get back around the front. The devastation is incomprehensible. Behemoth simply ignores everything and everyone as she pounds her way through reinforced steel security doors. I land at the entrance and follow her in.
Two agents in black coats with shotguns turn on me and I raise my hands, “One of the good guys.”
“The fact that you aren’t killing us already makes me believe you. Can you stop her?” He points to Behemoth.
“I’m not sure. You guys should run, she’s about to come this way in a hurry.” They scatter and I’m glad. I’d come to terms with killing her when I thought I could. Now, I’m desperately trying to figure out a way to do it. The sword should have lopped off her arm. Nothing is that indestructible, not against a one molecule thick blade. It should’ve worked.
Arms forward, wrist down, I light off the particle beams. They strike her dead center in the back. I can see smoke rising as her outfit vaporizes followed by her skin blackening. She turns, snarling at me through a mask of rage.
“You? I am going to peel you out of that tin can and bathe in your blood!”
Warning lights on my HUD tell me the particle beams are in danger of over-heating.
“You’re going to have catch me first,” I fire up the jets and fly backward trying to keep the beams on her as I move. She leaps at me. I don’t have time to react and a distant part of my brain wonders why I didn’t think this was a possibility? She crashes into me, her massive weight overrides the jets and we slam against the concrete outside. Using her knees she pins me to the ground. I didn’t even see her move, not really.
“What was that about catching you?” She laughs as she reaches down to grab my helmet.
A bolt of lightning arcs through the air to light the night in a single frozen moment. She glances up and I do too as a familiar spear falls through the air at impossible speed slamming into the ground point first.
Protector lands in a thump, the shockwave of his arrival splashes debris in every direction. The spear leaps to his hand and he holds it out to her, point first. He’s every bit as impressive as the first time I saw him.
“Surrender, Karen, I won’t ask a second time.”
“Your parlor tricks might scare the newbs, Sydney, but I ain’t afraid of you.” She slams my head into the ground to make a point before standing and stomping on my chest.
I roll out of the way, coughing painfully as I do so.
“Epic, did you get a signal out?”
Negative, I have not successfully restored communications.
Pythia, then. I guess she decided to side with me over her visions.
Based on their level of strength I suggest you move before they collide.
“Good point,” I say, launching into the air. A list of systems flash yellow and crimson with damage. IP Cannons are offline, I’m down to one Particle Beam, no grenades, and no sword. There are still thousands of warbots to deal with. I’d EMP them but clearly, they’re shielded.
A crack like thunder explodes bellow me and a massive shockwave blasts through the air. Behemoth halls herself back and slams into his shield again. Protector actually slides backward from the blow. The ground around their feet pulverizes as do the nearest vehicles.
“Epic? He can take her, right?”
I do not have enough data to predict the outcome reliably. There are other things we could do. Other leaders who need our help.
“I know, but Sydney is here because of me. All of this is because of me. Maybe what Pythia saw was me forcing Ericsson's hand and thus ending in annihilation.”
Possibly.
“My point is—he’s here because of me and if he loses then it’s my fault. We’ve got to help him!”
How? All of our weapons have been ineffective. Even a direct hit from an Arrow is unlikely to even render her unconscious.
I fire off my one working particle beam into the melee of swirling fists and spears. I nail her shoulder with no visible effect. I’m not even sure she feels it. “Set the beam to pulse, at least that way I can use it longer.”
Too bad I can’t get her to swallow a ZPFM. Her fist clangs off Protector’s shield and he swipes at her with his spear. The point slashes her skin and I see blood dripping off the bronze tip.
“Epic! The spear can hurt her.”
So could your sword, but not enough.
Her hand flashes out at a chunk of rubble and she hurls it at me. At the same time Protector shield checks her to the ground. I dodge the concrete and Rebar projectile and land a few yards from them, my one working particle beam pointing at her.
“Give up, Karen, your cause is lost. Once we locate your master, he will be too.” Protector has her pinned with his spear hovering over her abdomen.
This is better than I hoped for. If he can force her surrender then we can find out—
She grabs the spear and yanks it toward her. The point penetrates her stomach but the motion forces Protector off balance and he falls toward her. Faster than I can shout a warning she slams her hands together over his ears with the force of a thunderclap.
Sydney, the Protector, the one hero I admired growing up, stumbles off of her barely keeping his feet as he sways from side to side before falling to his knees then face first against the ground. He takes one last breath… then his heart stops.
My vision dims and I can hardly breathe. All I can hear is my heart pounding.
Blood pours from his ears, pooling on the ground around his face. Behemoth laughs as she stands. The spear’s still wedged in her side. She yanks at it but the arrow-shaped tip is wedged into her ribs and she roars in rage when it won’t dislodge.
“You’re next,” she growls, holding the still embed spear up, she charges. In shock, I don’t react quick enough and she hits me—hard.
The HUD scrambles as the armor impacts the ground. Alarms scream at me as the kilo-pascals rise beyond tolerance. The ZPFM output highlights as it shoots through the roof dumping power into the kinetic shields just to keep me alive.
I can see Sydney, lying face down in his own blood. He was so nice and selfless. He didn’t deserve to die. Not the man who took me into space for the first time. Not the man who gave people, gave me, hope.
Over the alarms, I scream at Behemoth. I don’t think she can hear me, I’m not even sure my PA is working. I reach for the spear, trying to grab it as she jerks around sending the short shaft flying wildly. It’s inside her a good six inches at least.
“Your armor is tough but you can’t take this forever.” She lifts her foot up to curb stomp me and I manage to find a handful of haft.
“Behemoth, I may not be able to kill you, but you can’t fly.”
She pauses, looking down at me then to the haft in my hand.
In my mind, with all my will I scream—Take me to the moon.
With as much strength as I have left I shove the spear forward. Whether it’s Pythia or the grace of God, the spear takes over from there. Behemoth screams as the magical weapon leaps up to the sky, carrying her with it faster than I can track. In the blink of an eye, she’s gone. I don’t know if she needs to breathe or not, but I sure as hell hope she does.
I fall back to the ground. I’m done. All I can see is poor Sydney as the world turns black.
Amelia, wake up. Communications have been restored and reinforcements are inbound.
“Wake up?” my voice slurs and my mouth feels like cotton candy. The sky is still dark. Sort of. I can’t see out of the right side of my faceplate.
“Epic, why can’t I see?”
Some of the optical sensors in the suit have sustained damage. They will need to be replaced.
“Fantast
ic,” I mutter. Everything hurts. A groan escapes as I roll over.
The Protector. I can’t believe she killed him. He’s still there, kneeling face down almost as if he were praying, but he isn’t. His words come back to me, he said if he were ever to die, she would find a new one. That’s a cold comfort for the man who gave his life to help me.
“Amelia?”
Luke’s deep voice and the concern that one word carries is sweet relief to my pain-wracked body.
“Luke? Where are you?” The air pops and he’s next to me, his big hands helping me up. There’s a rapid series of pops as Kate brings the whole team with the exception of Pierre.
“Mr. Perfect is still in his magically induced coma,” Luke says.
“Were you able to get through to the Arizona AG?” I ask Kate. Epic is running through a checklist of damaged components while we talk and I try not to be distracted by the laundry list of repairs needed. He’s bypassing what he can but it isn’t pretty.
I need some form of self-repair. Nanites maybe? But how could I have them repair the exoskeleton? Maybe some form of temporary—
“…the bottom line is he believes us, but with the mass attack there isn’t a lot he can do.”
I shake my head to focus. I missed what she said but I get the gist of it.
“Fleet, inside the White House, are a couple of agents, make sure the President is secure and let them know Behemoth is gone,” I tell the speedster.
“On it.” He vanishes in an eddy of dust.
“Glacier,” she turns to me and I can see some micro-fractures in her ice from the fires nearby. Thank goodness Luke leaped in front of her. “These warbots are using plasma weapons. High energy gas super accelerated until it is a few thousand degrees. I want you and Tommy—”
He re-appears in a blur. “They say the President is secure. Without the threat of Behemoth, they’re confident they can take it from here.”
“Great. Fleet, take Glacier and you two are on fire duty. These weapons are a menace and with the rampaging warbots and other supers those fires are going to quickly get out of control.”
“Arsenal, you’re bleeding,” Glacier says pointing at my waist. I look down as best I can, not easy to do in the armor. My hand does come away bloody but I realize it isn’t mine. It’s hers.
Unstoppable Arsenal (Full Metal Superhero Book 2) Page 13