by Drew Hayes
Searing pain brought Thomas’s attention back to the other three, one of whom still had a tiny spark of electricity dancing across his hands. Vince had hit him with a strong jolt, enough to pierce the energy armor and still do damage, but Thomas was under no illusions that such attacks were the limits of Vince’s power. He was testing Thomas, seeing how much he could take before ratcheting up the amperage. The next attack might very well be enough to stun him, which meant Thomas had to try and make sure another didn’t come.
His train of thought was derailed by a flurry of attempted strikes from Jill. Her hands were still crackling with the white glow, and as Thomas ducked and dodged, he realized that the longer this frantic scramble went on, the easier a target he became for the others. He couldn’t risk punching back, not without knowing what affect those glowing hands might have when she blocked with them, but he also couldn’t keep shuffling around. A rogue, wild idea entered his head, and beneath the bright orange glow masking his face, Thomas smiled. In all the training, and fear, and effort, he’d nearly forgotten the exhilaration of battle; of finding solutions in a moment that years of thinking would never bring to mind.
From Thomas’s torso, a massive hand extended out of his energy armor, bright orange and big enough to palm a person. It grabbed Jill around her midsection, taking her completely by surprise. True to training, she tried to refocus her attack, but her moment of confusion had given Thomas the chance he needed to grab her forearms with his hands. For a second, it seemed they were locked in a stalemate. Then the crunching of electronics filled the air as Thomas’s stomach-hand tightened, crushing Jill’s suit and the hardware contained within. He stopped as soon he saw sparks and smoke flying, and then tossed her away for good measure.
Violet slammed into him with what felt like the force of a large truck, sending Thomas hurtling to the ground. Rather than letting himself land, though, Thomas kept on rolling, willing the armor to move even as his own body was too slow. It was a good call, too, as he could see bright bolts of electricity striking the area he had been only moments before. They didn’t let up, and he kept moving; Vince was raining lightning down like an angry Zeus. Of the two remaining opponents, he was the bigger threat. He could use range, but if Thomas tried, he’d get his power drained.
To his surprise, Thomas realized that this thought, while scary, didn’t cause his mind to freeze up. It was just a fact, the same as the knowledge that he’d be taken out if Violet landed one of her drop-blows on him. Certainly, it would be painful and unpleasant, but Thomas wasn’t losing control at the idea of it. His smile grew wide and wild. At long last, he was truly back in the fight. Thomas could think of no better way to celebrate than by achieving victory.
Violet charged again, coming from the other direction as Vince’s electrical strikes. With a moment of sudden clarity, Thomas knew how he could attack Vince. Waiting until his housemate was only a few feet away, Thomas struck. A hand-shaped tendril of orange energy as thick as a tree trunk surged outward, grabbed Violet by the shoulder, and tossed her into the air. It took everything Thomas had to keep her suspended—she weighed so much it felt like he was trying to lift the ground beneath his feet—but he refused to let go. As her mid-air arc came to an end, Thomas took careful aim, and finally released. All in all, it was an unconventional toss, but it had sent the ultra-dense girl careening through the air.
Careening . . . directly into Vince Reynolds. Vince’s eyes went wide as he saw his temporary teammate on a crash course with him. Without time to dodge, Vince merely held up his hands. Violet hit his palms and abruptly stopped, dropping to the ground at his feet with a mighty crash. Vince let out a deep breath, no doubt thankful that he’d managed to absorb the kinetic energy. It was in that brief moment of relief that Thomas struck, slamming a powerful blow into Vince’s leg. The snap echoed through the concrete room as Vince dropped, grabbing his shattered shin in pain.
Thomas paused for a moment to reassess the situation. Violet was getting up, ready for another go, but Adam, Jill, and Vince were down for the count. In a purely physical fight, he had the advantage, which meant he had it in the bag. Thomas was thinking exactly that thought when a hand glowing with crackling white energy slammed into the base of his head, piercing his energy armor and knocking him out instantly.
“Just ‘cause the suit is down, doesn’t mean I am,” Jill muttered. The light faded from her hands as the last of her backup power ran dry.
“Thomas Castillo was taken down in five minutes, eleven seconds,” Professor Fletcher announced. It was too bad; if not for underestimating one opponent, Thomas likely would have managed to pull off a victory. Still, as he watched the orange energy fade from the tan young man’s body and caught sight of the smile lingering on his unconscious face, Professor Fletcher had a feeling that no one, least of all Thomas, would count this fight as a loss.
189.
Ralph Chapman slipped through the front door of his apartment, unsurprised to find an intruder sitting on his couch. He let out a long sigh and hefted his groceries the rest of the way in, walking into the kitchen and setting them on the counter. As he finished dropping them off, he glanced at the knife block a few feet away, perched on the granite surface. For a moment, Ralph considered picking up a weapon to bring back with him into the living room. Ultimately, though, he left the kitchen unarmed. If this idiot decided to attack him, then that was the way things would go. It had been many years since Ralph Chapman feared death, and he saw no reason to start letting such a base urge rule his decisions now.
“I have a phone, you know,” Ralph said to his uninvited guest.
“But face-to-face is just so much more personable,” Nick replied. He had his feet resting on the coffee table and was idly playing a game on his smartphone, which he quickly put away at the sound of Ralph’s voice. “Besides, technology isn’t something I like to trust easily. Too many ways for it to be compromised.”
“Give us a little credit; DVA technology is as secure as it comes.” Ralph took a seat in his recliner, somewhat wishing he’d bothered to grab a soda while in the kitchen.
“Oh, so you want me contacting you through DVA channels? The sort that are often recorded and monitored for extra security?”
“Fine, you make a good point. But how do you know you won’t drop by when Nathaniel is paying me a visit?” Ralph asked.
Nick nodded his head out the window. “I have people keeping watch on him. Besides, I’ve caused some trouble for him back at home, which means he’s a little too busy to worry about you at the moment. Thanks for the heads up, by the way.”
“It was either telling you, or reporting it through official channels; I couldn’t very well just let him try and ambush a bunch of Supers in a public place like that. Innocent people could have gotten hurt.”
“Innocent people like the Supers he was targeting,” Nick pointed out. He didn’t push the issue much, partially because he realized that Ralph wouldn’t be coming around overnight, and partially because, at the moment, he needed this relationship to stay a step ahead of Nathaniel. “Was he suspicious that we intercepted his people?”
“He might have been, if I’d come off as accommodating,” Ralph replied. He got up from his chair and headed back toward the kitchen, deciding he did want that soda bad enough, after all. “As soon as he told me there was a problem, I lit into him about wasting my time and threatened to cut off contact. The boy was too busy playing defense to worry about making accusations. He did say something interesting, though.”
Nick waited until the older man had returned with his beverage before speaking; he found yelling in such a small place to be particularly tactless. “Dare I even ask what Nathaniel told you?”
“You should, though I’m not sure why you’d want to. He said that the next attempt would be much broader, and that there was no way for you to foil it.”
“So, then, he’ll attack multiple targets at once,” Nick surmised, leaning slightly forward on the couch. For a moment, his mas
k of composed boredom slipped away, and Ralph could see the wheels turning in Nick’s head. He’d read everything he could find about the young man from Vegas with the power to affect luck, and not one document had managed to capture what dealing with Nicholas Campbell was actually like. Ralph shuddered to think what he would have been capable of if Nick had actually made it to Hero status.
“Think he’ll do it publicly?” Ralph asked, more groping for something to say than because he needed the answer.
“Fits his motive. He’s trying to win favor with you by making them break cover, which means the more people around, the better. Of course, he’s also keeping it public because he knows that’s the only way some of them will break cover.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Any of them will show their power if it’s for self-defense.”
Nick slowly shook his head, his eyes heavy as he contemplated countless situations. “Mary might, she’s a bit more skittish than she likes to let on, ever since the kidnapping. Alice is hard to say, but I think she’d find a way to escape. The only reason she whipped Nathaniel like a dog the first time is because I was in danger. Hershel has a complex about being helpless, so he might try and take on an attacker without Roy’s help, but that one is fifty-fifty either way. And Vince, your silver-haired white whale, would never break the rules unless other people were in danger.”
“Vince Reynolds has a history of fighting outside of class and losing control. I find it highly doubtful that he’d resist the urge to use his abilities, regardless of whether it meant others were getting injured,” Ralph replied. His tone was even, but firm.
“Vince has a history of getting jumped outside of class, and as for the self-control thing, only one of those times was his fault,” Nick said. His own voice was just as hard as Ralph’s; neither man was willing to give an inch on the issue. “Besides, there’s a pragmatic reason Vince wouldn’t use his powers: he wouldn’t need them. Aside from people with physically-based Super abilities, Vince is one of the best hand-to-hand fighters I’ve ever seen, and I grew up around a lot of fighting. Trust me, if he’s busting out the big guns, it means other people are in danger.”
“To be frank, I don’t trust you,” Ralph said, pausing to take a long swig of his drink. “But of the two criminals who have approached me, you’re the not the one whose plans involved endangering innocent bystanders, so at the moment, you’re the best of my bad options.”
“You’d be surprised how often people have called me that,” Nick said, leaning back into the couch with a wistful grin upon his face. “Though usually, they’re female, and quite a bit younger than you.”
“Very cute, but let’s stick to business. Are you going to be able to stop Nathaniel’s next attack?”
“If you can get us details: definitely. If he tries to surprise you with it: maybe,” Nick admitted. “I’m doing all I can to cripple Nathaniel’s resources, but a few things aren’t adding up. He’s lost a lot of favor with his family in the last few years, yet somehow, he’s bankrolled this revenge mission against me and been able to grab multiple goon squads. Until I can find and destroy his support structure, we have to keep reacting to his moves.”
“I’ll get as much out of him as I can,” Ralph said. He didn’t care for either of these children, but he would be damned if he allowed regular people to get hurt on his watch. The DVA and Heroes could only act in the aftermath, and he couldn’t order an investigation without more evidence; not without coming clean on every rule he’d broken in his pursuit of Vince Reynolds’s crimes. At the moment, Nick Campbell was his best shot at keeping Nathaniel Evers contained.
At least, until he was able to finally show the world what kind of monster Vince Reynolds truly was.
190.
Roy sat in the single occupancy concrete cell and dearly wished he’d thought to bring his phone with him. Like every day when he went to class, Roy had set it in his locker when he changed into his HCP uniform. The delicate electronic devices were far too breakable to be brought into the sorts of sparring matches he regularly engaged in. That had been doubly so when he changed this morning, as he was heading into his Weapons mid-term, which certainly promised to be a tough one. Still, if he’d known Professor Cole was going to send the entire class into individual cells so she could test the groups separately, he might have risked it. After only five minutes of sitting around, he was going out of his mind with boredom.
For the umpteenth time since his incarceration, Roy picked up his bat and turned it around in his hands. It was still new enough to be in mostly the same shape as when he’d received it, but the few dents running along the side spoke to the hours he’d trained with the weapon to get accustomed to its weight. After a couple of weeks, he could wield it as easily as he had his first bat, which was no small accomplishment, given the difference in weight between the two.
If nothing else, Roy felt like he was getting worth from his Weapons training in terms of his workouts. Weights were all well and good, but trying to wield an object that weighed hundreds of pounds had tested him in ways he could have never seen with just lifting. Were he truly pressed on the issue, Roy might have admitted that he’d grown a certain fondness for his bat; that it no longer seemed like a haphazardly chosen tool to satisfy a professor’s demands, and was now, in fact, a part of his arsenal.
He still wasn’t all that good with it, though, not compared to the skill the other students had with some of their weapons. They could move with a grace and precision that Roy could scarcely manage with just his body, let alone with the cumbersome bat clutched in his hands. Roy had accepted that he would never be able to move as fluidly as Vince or Chad, and under Hank’s summer tutelage, he’d learned that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Moving with controlled power had a beauty of its own, and that was something Roy felt he could master, with enough effort.
The sound of his door sliding open nearly made Roy drop his bat, a mistake that would have no doubt cracked a large section of the concrete. Slowly, he rose to his feet and peered out the door. From above, a soft voice whispered to him over the intercom.
“Follow the stairs to the left, Roy. It’s time to show me what you can do.”
With Professor Cole’s voice still lingering in his ear, Roy walked slowly down the hallway. As he did, he noted that two more of the individual cells had been opened, meaning he was either the last in a group of three or next to last in a group of four. Personally, Roy hoped for the former. No one had said it out loud, but every Weapons student had assumed that Professor Cole would put the best three into the smaller group to make for a more balanced challenge. Aside from matters of pride and ego—of which Roy had plenty—he wanted to be in that more exceptional group so he could fight alongside the best his class had to offer. Despite her warnings about never losing, Roy was going into this fight with the intent to win it. He had to get strong enough to take on a professor if he was ever going to be able to properly pay back George for that freshman year beating.
Roy reached the end of the hallway and began climbing the steps, too aware of the heavy clunks from his boots echoing down the concrete corridor. When he reached the top area, he found four doors standing before him. The two on the left were closed, the one in the middle was open, and the last one was also closed. Inside the one open room, there were a few feet of space and another door at the opposite end, this one still closed. Roy might not have been as smart as Hershel, but he could put this one together pretty easily. Stepping through the only open door, Roy managed to not jump as it slid shut behind him. It seemed Professor Cole was pretty serious about keeping them in the dark over who was on their teams until the real fighting began. Roy wondered who he’d be fighting alongside, and he also began to ask himself why exactly Lander needed a chamber like this one. It couldn’t be just to support one professor’s favorite method of assessment. Sometimes, it bothered him how long he’d been at Lander without seeing all of its secrets. None of the students knew how deep Lander went, either literally or met
aphorically, but it was often the topic of speculation when minds got to wandering.
“Attention students of the junior Weapons class,” Professor Cole said from a speaker overhead. “Here is the situation for your exam: A rogue Super has been located after a deadly encounter with police. She is presumed very dangerous, and has already taken multiple civilian lives. All Heroes in the area are being tapped to respond, which means you’ll be working with whoever happens to be on hand. Your target must be neutralized by any means necessary, so lethal force has been authorized. Stop her before she stops you. Good luck.”
Roy licked his lips and tightened his grip on the bat. Already, he could feel his fingers tingling as adrenaline surged through his system. Here it was at long last: a real fight. The sort where he didn’t have to be afraid of tearing his opponent apart. For the first time since his winter final against the Sims, Roy was being told to come out swinging with everything he had, and he could barely contain himself at the opportunity.
When the door in front of Roy finally swung open, he bolted forward, right into the action. It was where he was always meant to be.
191.
As Roy hurtled forward, he caught sight of Will sprinting across the ground next to him, and heard a familiar yip of excitement as Violet hurled herself into the air. It brought a smile to his face as he realized that, aside from the professor calmly staring down their charge, there was no one else in the combat arena. He was on the three-man team; now, he just had to prove he had a right to be there.
With a grunt of effort, Roy ratcheted up his speed, leaving Will well behind. None of them knew what Professor Cole was capable of, but as the resident tank, it was his job to make her show it. Hit and get hit; that was what Roy could do better than anyone else in this match. Hell, better than anyone else in his class, really. He surged forward, raising the bat in his right hand, but keeping his eyes trained on the target. Heavy as the bat might be, Roy needed to try and overrun her to make sure she came out swinging. A dodge would tell them diddly shit, and would leave the others exposed.