by Chad Kunego
A throb of pressure, bordering on pain, slowly intensified behind his eyes while he struggled to multi-task. Gritting his teeth against the throbbing pain in his shoulder and growing pain in his head, he managed to heal his shoulder enough to stop bleeding while also redirecting enough of the energy to keep from being cooked.
When I get out of here, I’m seriously going to have to start training again. This is taking more out of me than it should. And the fact that they got the drop on me…
As the flames died down, he only had a second to make eye contact with the fire-throwing woman again before Reaper’s body exploded. His powers reacted instinctively, launching him backward off the roof. He ricocheted off the building across the street, jarring his wounded arm again, before dropping toward the street below.
As he fell, he caught a glimpse of the fireball enveloping the rooftop. Exerting his will, he yanked his spheres back toward him and caused them to refill the tube on his back. Rotating around as he plummeted, he watched the ground rush up to greet him. In horror, he noticed the police had only moved the crowd to the opposite side of the street, which meant they were now directly beneath him and several large chucks of falling building. He mentally shoved all the debris over to the far side of the street where the cops had cleared everyone away.
Accelerating himself downward, his jacket started flapping wildly in the wind, but he ignored it as he stretched his good arm out in front of him like he was diving. It came as a surprise that his singed fingers were still clutching a chunk of armor plating from Reaper’s chest. He quickly switched the chunk over to his other hand rather than dropping it so it wouldn’t hit someone by accident. Stretching his good hand out again, he focused all his mental reserves in an attempt to absorb all the kinetic energy from his coming impact rather than have it dissipate uselessly behind him. He was going to need everything he could pull in.
In slow motion, the expression on the bystanders faces slowly shifted from looks of surprise to looks of horror as he rapidly approached. At the last instant, Rick pulsed his aura with an almost inaudible thump, instantly freezing his body in the air before quickly rotating his feet downward and lightly touching down on the sidewalk.
“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Rick watched the man slowly nod his head before he noticed a wet spot slowly start trailing down the man’s leg. Backing away slowly, he noticed the stunned officers around him hesitantly start to draw their firearms. A sudden scream caused everyone to freeze again. Rick expanded his awareness again and felt a large chunk of debris that he’d somehow missed falling toward the crowd he was surrounded by. Glancing up to gauge where the chunk of roof was going to land, another scream tore through the air. He spotted the little blond-haired girl from earlier was cowering in fright, directly under where the chunk of building was going to hit. On the other side of where the frightened girl was cowering, her mother was rushing toward her in an effort to save her. Pulsing his aura, he launched himself toward the little girl, arriving at the same time as the girl’s mother. Standing over them, he fanned his duster over them while modifying his aura just as the debris hit.
Reflecting the energy back and adding to it, the chunk of roof exploded upward in a shower of dust and gravel-sized particles. He held out his good hand as he helped the stunned mother to her feet as she clutched her daughter.
“Are you okay?” he asked, wincing slightly from the aching pressure behind his eyes that was slowly becoming a migraine.
All the woman could do was nod in shock before clutching her daughter tighter to her chest, spinning around, and running away. Sighing in relief, he’d only managed to turn slightly when a shout caught his attention.
“GET ON THE GROUND, NOW!”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Rick turned slowly toward the sound of the voice, expecting to see some of the police from earlier. Instead, he was surprised to see more people in nondescript tactical gear standing in front of him.
“Ya’ll are a bunch of assholes for using innocent bystanders like this! Since I know you’re broadcasting this, you can tell Haze that when I find him, I’m going to dismantle his little shit group like a four-year-old plowing through a sandcastle.”
Rick watched a confused look cross several of the faces in front of him. One of them touched the side of their throat, whispering something before nodding and grabbing the forestock of his weapon again.
“I SAID GET ON THE GROUND, NOW!”
As he shouted it, several of the other members started approaching him slowly. Taking advantage of the momentary lull in action, he focused on his injured shoulder, using some energy he’d absorbed to finish restoring the chunk that had been vaporized by Reaper. Rolling his shoulder, he watched as the tactical unit flinched back slightly at his movement.
Interesting… They’re not acting like Maelstrom agents or they would have already tried to blast me. Unless…
He pushed his senses outward, trying to detect movement around him, but with the size of the crowd that was milling around, he was having difficulty filtering out threats. He noticed in passing that the team on the roof appeared to have survived the blast if the motion he was detecting was any indication. Pulling his senses back, he tried to reassess the team in front of him.
“You’re not from Maelstrom, are you? Who are y—”
“GET. ON. THE. GROUND. THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!”
Shrugging, he started to turn away.
“That’s what your team on the roof said as well. It did turn out that great for them, either.”
Suddenly, he felt a massive object flying toward him. Looking back, he saw a huge war mace hurtling toward him. The impact against his aura launched him forward unexpectedly.
What the hell? This is the second time in as many minutes that I’ve been launched away because of an impact. I really need to start training again.
Using the momentum from the impact, he spun around before lightly touching down on his feet. He gave a slight wave at the team in front of him. Gathered his power, he spun around again and took off. Behind him, he could just make out the sound of the leader yelling as he accelerated away.
“Team two and three. After him. Don’t let him escape!”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Damn it, this wasn’t how I planned my day to go. Why the hell did I let myself get involved.
Glancing behind him, he watched two military style vehicles tear around the corner and fall in behind him. Looking ahead, he extended his senses, mentally plotting a course through obstacles coming up.
At least it’s not rush hour or someone might’ve gotten hurt with the way these yahoos are driving.
He slowly absorbed more kinetic energy from the environment, allowing him to accelerate further. Within a minute, he started to distance himself from his pursuers. A hollow thump reverberated across his senses before he picked up a fast moving object approaching from behind. When the projectile finally entered his aura, it instantly stopped moving. A split-second later, the 155mm round dropped inert to the ground when it left his aura.
The additional energy from the round from the projectile finally allowed him to stop running and switch to gliding across the surface of the road, expanding and solidifying his aura under his feet to negate friction.
Man, it’s been a long time since I got to do this. I wonder if this is how snowboarders feel tearing down the side of a mountain.
The sound of two more thumps behind him brought him back to his present situation. Preparing to absorb the energy from the two incoming rounds, the sudden explosion a foot short of entering his aura took him by surprise. The unexpected shockwave threw him off balance, causing hit to sail through the air and slam into the side of a building. Absorbing the impact, he allowed himself to become embedded a few inches into the brickwork before pulsing himself away at an angle down the crossroad. He smiled in satisfaction as he felt one of the vehicles slide through the intersection, unable to break in time to f
ollow him, but the other one was able to slide their vehicle sideways early enough, barely make the turn and taking out a hydrant before accelerating down the sidewalk. Hopping the curb, the vehicle continued speeding down the asphalt after him.
These guys don’t know when to give up. They also don’t seem to care about collateral damage. Need to figure out how to put them down quickly without causing any more damage or hurting them.
He pondered the problem as he rocketed down the street away from his pursuers.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Kaitlyn glared ahead, her lips pressed into a tight line. Not only had the suspect nearly killed her team (thankfully she’d been able to redirect the blast mostly upward, leaving behind only minor singeing), but was now in the process of getting away from another response team as well. After getting her team on the jump jet, she’d spun around and leapt off the edge of the building. Bursting into flames, she raced off after her quarry. Tapping her throat to activate the subdermal mic, her voice took on an odd crackling effect as she spoke.
“Response team in pursuit of target, this is HellKat. What’s your status?”
“Roger HellKat, this is response team Harbinger. Subject is currently pulling away from us traveling west on Sumpter ave. The 155 Mike Mike seems to have little measureable impact on him. First round failed to impact target. In fact, it just stopped in mid-flight and dropped to the ground.”
“Did it detonate?”
“No, that’s the other odd thing. Team one is recovering it, but it seems to be completely inert. We fired two more rounds calibrated to detonate a couple feet behind him.”
“And how’d that work out?”
“Embedded him in the side of a building for all of two seconds before he shot off again, heading down Sumpter. Best we can tell, it had almost zero affect as well.”
“Ok Harbinger. My ETA is five minutes. Try to keep the target in sight.”
“We’ll try. He’s using traffic to put distance between us though. Request permission to go vertical.”
Another voice suddenly cut into the conversation.
“Response team Harbinger, this is Colonel Sinclair. Permission granted. Be careful and try to keep casualties and collateral damage to a minimum.”
“Roger that sir. No spraying the crowds or property. Harbinger out.”
“HellKat out.”
Kaitlyn tapped her throat again. Glancing down at the GPS strapped to her left forearm, she tapped a few commands. After a quick glance, she mapped out where she planned on stopping her target. Gritting her teeth, she accelerated away with a roar, a long plume of fire trailing away behind her.
Chapter 5
Rick knew it was only a matter of time. At the speed he was going, he’d soon be out of sight of the two teams that were trailing him. Because of growing traffic, he kept absorbing more and more kinetic energy without the need to pull from his reserves any more. As the recent skirmish had reminded him, building up some excess energy allowed him to respond in more radical ways if needed. For now though, his focus was on increasing the amount of energy he had to work with. Stretching his senses behind him to gauge how much distance he’d put between himself and his pursuers, his mouth dropped open slightly when he felt them suddenly gaining on him. Spinning around, he could just make out the vehicle that had made the turn flying about eight feet above the traffic, eliminating one of the advantages he’d been using, allowing them to begin closing the distance to him.
Spinning back forward, he started to draw in energy more aggressively, causing traffic to slow down while allowing him to surge forward again, increasing the gap again. If he started jumping over the traffic since it no longer slowed his pursuers, he knew he could go significantly faster, but since he didn’t know the status of the aircraft the other team had arrived on the rooftop with, he didn’t want to move too far away from ground level and give up his current advantage of cover for maneuverability. Worst case scenario, when he made it out of the city, he’d have the option to go supersonic and ride the shockwave to safety, but he’d prefer to find another way to escape.
It’d been a long time since he’d moved that fast and he wasn’t looking forward to it if had to do it again. At that speed, he wouldn’t be able to suppress the shockwaves like he could now. One of the reasons he’d convinced himself to leave Maelstrom was due to collateral damage and death he’d accidentally caused on a mission the last time he’d moved that fast and he didn’t want that on his conscience again. Even now, he still found himself waking up sometimes in a cold sweat when he remembered the family of four he’d accidentally killed with the shockwave he generated.
Now he was contemplating going that fast again to escape some unknown group that was chasing him, thanks to Reaper pulling him out of hiding. Distracted, he wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Without warning, the woman from earlier landed on the road directly in front of him in a brilliant flash of light, sliding several feet before coming to a stop. He also noticed the asphalt starting to bubble and pool beneath her feet while she waited for him to get closer.
The second thing that happened was, she appeared to be so focused on his approach that they failed to notice the armored car barreling toward her from behind. He watched in horror as the vehicle locked its brakes in an attempt to dodge the person that’d suddenly appeared in front of them. Time seemed to stop as he instinctively pulsed himself forward, the crack of the sonic boom rippling behind him. The shockwave shattered windows and rocked vehicles as he rushed forward, trying to get to her before the vehicle did.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Kaitlyn checked her readout display again as she swerved around another building. Based off the coordinates the response team were feeding her, their target had been steadily accelerating, forcing her to readjust her desired point of contact twice. Pushing herself to the limit, she’d finally gotten far enough ahead to be able to get herself set up before he’d reached the next corner. If her estimate was accurate, he’d still be almost a block away when she finally touched down, hopefully giving her the element of surprise. So unless he could fly, he’d be boxed in between herself and team two. If he veered right, he’d run into the other vehicle. Hopefully her team in the dropship would be following up behind her soon enough to box him in from that direction as well. Seeing the corner rushing up, she dropped low before coming in hard, skidding several feet before coming to a stop, barely registering the asphalt slowly puddling beneath her.
She caught sight of her target halfway down the block and prepared herself to engage when she heard an unholy screech of brakes behind her.
“Oh shit!”
She nearly wrenched her knee trying to move, the sickening realization that the molten asphalt had locked her in place, allowing her only enough mobility to turn her head and upper body far enough to see what was approaching from behind.
She instinctively scrunched her eyes shut, bracing herself for impact as the armored car barreled down on her while the temperature of her flame aura shot up. She wondered whether she’d be able to build up enough heat to destroy it before it killed her and whether the people riding in it had families they’d never see again.
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Have to do this just right…
Rick slid forward, rapidly closing the distance before wrapping his arms around her. He locked eyes with her when his face suddenly appeared within inches of her face, her eyes going wide in shock. Concentrating, he managed to negate all of his inertia while snuffing out her flaming aura at the same time while trying not to hurt her. Slamming his aura into the surface beneath them, the melted asphalt sprayed outward before he quickly spun them both around. He barely had time to prepare before the heavy vehicle slammed into them, his legs slightly buckling under the impact.
Struggling to keep his eyes from crossing due to the blinding spike of pain in his head, his body started to shake from the strain of eliminating all the truck’s momentum without the passengers experiencing th
e effect of running into the equivalent of a large block of steel. Unable to contain the excess energy, he directed a huge chunk of it toward the vehicle that’d been behind him, causing it to lurch to a halt as well. Unlike the armored car’s passengers, the people in the pursuit vehicle got jerked to a stop by their seat belts. With the remainder of the energy he wasn’t able to internalize, he ricocheted to the left, carrying the woman with him down to the next block before depositing her safely. Letting her go, she flared back up momentarily before the flames died again.
“Ma’am,” he said, tipping his trucker’s hat at her before accelerating away.
He sensed rather than saw the large aircraft coming toward him from up ahead. While he couldn’t see it due to whatever cloaking field it had, he could easily feel the kinetic energy it was throwing off when it rapidly dropped in altitude while braking in what he assumed was an effort to block his escape. Seeing a way out without anyone else getting hurt, he pulsed ahead faster while leaping fifty feet into the air. Throwing out kinetic tendrils, he wrapped them around the aircraft, then yanking himself toward it. Changing his trajectory slightly, he whipped past the jet before sling-shotting himself away from it. The crack of another sonic boom echoed down the block as he catapulted away, hopefully faster than they could track him. The last thought he had as he rocketed to safety was how surprised the woman had looked when he snatched her away to safety.
Chapter 6
“Holy shit Kat, you sure you’re all right?”
Kaitlyn mentally kicked herself again for making such a major tactical error that it nearly killed her. Crossing her arms tightly under her chest, she pressing herself further into her seat aboard the jumpjet before responding.