She fled then, or she tried to.
I teleported in front of her flight path, and then I slammed her shield with a TK punch that sent her flying and spinning back, right into Lia’s kick which took her in the small of her back. Lastly, another lightning strike followed by an energy bolt.
Powerful or not, the four of us acting together had beaten down her shields, and my next TK strike knocked her out and sent her spinning for the ground.
Lia dove, and my best friend caught her by the leg before she could pancake on the concrete. It was only then I noticed she was shivering, hitting the shield must’ve been hurting Lia as much as it had drained Siren’s shields. It was a quick fight, and she really didn’t have much of a chance, not four on one, with us well trained to fighting together. We’d also kept the collateral damage to a minimum, save the judge’s car that is.
I smirked, as I flew over and pulled out my cuffs.
Lia asked, “Shoes?”
I snickered, “Hell yes,” I countered excitedly as I snapped the cuffs on the sadistic supervillain, and we lowered to the ground.
Lia smiled, and she looked like I felt, with her face flushed with success and excitement.
“Aura?”
Aura replied, “I’ll get Harmony to teleport her straight to a cell. I’ll also append the video evidence. Stand by.”
It didn’t take long, before she disappeared in a teleport. I figured Harmony used the beacon in the cuffs to lock her in. Appending the evidence of the attempted first degree murder was simply standard procedure, but in this case it was kind of moot. Still, she could wind up earning a fourth life sentence on top of the first three for it.
“Shortest mission, ever,” I said. I wouldn’t call it easy, but it was the most straightforward job yet.
Lia snickered.
Ella helped the judge out of the car, who gave us a thankful nod.
The judge said, “Thank you. I think I’ve got it from here,” but his voice wavered, and he was obviously in shock from the encounter.
Ella smiled, “We’ll walk you in, your honor.”
Lia ripped out the huge ice stalactite, and she tossed it on the berm of grass. It’d melt, eventually, but would likely take days even the heat.
It was a hell of a morning, and I felt really good about what’d happened. I may have chosen a different path, but nothing beat the feeling of taking down the bad guy and saving their intended victims.
Added to the joy of shoe shopping with Lia, I was walking on air the entire morning, figuratively speaking.
It was late afternoon, and we were all at home. Once we’d taken care of the judge and car, we’d gone shoe shopping. I did super work to help people, but I’d be lying if I said the fight hadn’t been a thrill.
Aura joined us, and she put on the news again. What now?
The anchor said, “I repeat, Russia has launched missiles of some kind at China. The launch site appears to be a wilderness area in Siberia, far from any known settlements or bases. Several have already been destroyed, either by energy supers or drone aircraft with more conventional anti-missile defenses. The explosions are devastating, and the shockwaves have caused great damage to the environment, but as of yet no destroyed cities or major loss of life has been reported.”
The co-anchor said, “Russian authorities are denying any involvement with this incident, and they’re asking Dragonfire for a little forbearance while they investigate just what’s happened. They deny they have a large-scale bomb dimensional weapons program, and that they’ll get to the bottom of this quickly to find out where they came from.”
The anchor said, “Hold on, Dragonfire is going on air, let’s hear what he has to say.”
The screen changed, and Dragonfire was sitting behind a desk in casual clothes, he obviously wasn’t prepared to give a speech, or at least… he didn’t want to appear that he was prepared.
I snorted at my paranoid thought, now I was thinking like Uncle Jace.
Dragonfire scoffed, “Forbearance? This was a preemptive and unjustified attack against the sovereign country of China, with weapons that can erase cities from the Earth. That is not something I can allow to pass. Their pleas are obvious lies. They wanted to remove us as a threat, and now that they’ve failed thanks to our surveillance and defensive systems, they want to take it back like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar. No, we will not, cannot accept such treachery from a government parroting false denials. There can be no doubt what happened, Russia fired the first shot.”
Jace snorted in disbelief.
Dragonfire continued after a brief pause, as his face turned ashen with self-righteous indignation, “Shishi in the Quanzhou province has just been destroyed by those murderers. Over three hundred thousand of my citizens have been taken from us. It could’ve been much worse, were it not for my preparations against such a cowardly and illegal attack. China is now at war with Russia. We will not rest until the government and those responsible for this travesty have been met with justice. China does not want war, but when it comes to us, we will deal with it quickly and decisively.”
The video blinked out, and a moment later the anchors came back on.
The anchor said, “The millions in the Chinese army have already taken to the skies, from the reports I’m getting. Many are headed toward the launch site, but many others are heading for Russian cities. The force is overwhelming, and we can guess it’s likely to be similar to their invasion of Japan. The government and top military officers will die, as will many soldiers, but the people will be spared.”
He held his hand up to his earpiece, and tilted his head slightly, then continued.
“I’ve just heard many countries in the U.N. including the United States are calling for an investigation, but the Chinese ambassador has just made it clear they’d be acting unilaterally in this matter. He has also advised the rest of the world not to make the same mistake as Japan and Russia, and to keep their word and treaties.”
The television blinked off, and Jace shook his head as he put down the remote.
I was almost afraid to ask, “What?”
Jace said, “False flag operation. More mud, another major country annexed.”
Lia snorted, “Are you suggesting he built the illegal weapons, smuggled them into Russia, and then fired them off and purposefully and let a city be destroyed as he stopped the rest of them? That’s crazy.”
Jace looked at her like she was hopelessly naïve.
“Think about it. He can’t declare his intentions to rule the world. Even his own army wouldn’t stand for that. This is the best way to stiffen their spines. After slaughtering a whole city, his army will do anything he asks in angry desperation to stop it from ever happening again.”
I shook my head in disbelief, “You’re serious.”
Jace nodded, “It wouldn’t even be hard. I mean logistically, Chris?”
Chris snorted, “Nothing easier, build a mobile missile platform, and then cloak it. He could move it anywhere in the world, with no chance of being detected. Highly illegal, but easy.”
Jace said, “And there’s nothing in that part of Siberia. Granted, that’s the kind of place a hidden cloaked base would be, if Russia had a secret base and build program, but I don’t think that’s what happened. Dragonfire is going to eat as much of the world as he can, before finally turning on India. If he takes them before the rest of the world combines, then it’s all over. He can absorb all the smaller countries at leisure at that point.”
“Isn’t that paranoid, how can you really be sure?”
Jace tilted his head, “If the Russians really had a secret missile base for a preemptive strike, with plans to not only take out the government but the citizens of the largest populated country on Earth, don’t you think they’d have cloaked the missiles too? No one would’ve known who’d fired the weapons, if they weren’t visible to the satellites and drones all over the world.”
My stomach tightened. I hadn’t considered that. Th
e only reason not to do it, was to point the blame at Russia. Sure, it was illegal to use cloaking devices on weapons, but if they’d already broken the law building interdimensional powered weapons then what was one more war crime?
Jace said, “Worse, if his shenanigans make another country nervous enough to start a dimensional weapons buildup for real, that’s exactly what they’ll do. It’s one of the main reasons for the treaty, with stealth technology there’d be no stopping it. Stealth by law and treaty are restricted to non-weapon applications, surveillance only, but if you’re going to break one treaty stipulation why not both?”
“What can we do about it?”
Jace replied, “Nothing, except get ready for the inevitable. World War three is coming, soon. I won’t be the only one to call bullshit. It’s too convenient, annexing Japan and Russia in the same week? His own people will never believe he’d blow up a city in a false flag operation, but the other world leaders will be cynical enough to see the truth.”
Right, as a superhero I’d be drafted. We all would. All the ones with defensive or offensive abilities, at any rate.
Chris shook his head, “I think Jace is right.”
Which… scared me, because Chris was the smartest person I knew. Not that I ever told him that, my boyfriend was confident enough.
I knew Russia didn’t have a chance. Their population was less than a tenth of China’s. It was all but over by dinnertime. Their government smashed, and their bases and conventional weapons destroyed. The cities occupied and cowed. Most of the super military was gone too. Dragonfire’s empire was growing.
The data gathered from the missile base was damning toward the Russian government, before the Chinese military destroyed it. Of course, data could be falsified, but Aura couldn’t prove or disprove the data, only report on what it said.
The world’s governments weren’t happy, but nor did they make any demands of China. They just postured to show their displeasure. All talk, no action. It was obvious they were worried by what was going on, but human nature and reasonable doubt was stopping them short of actual accusations and action. No one sane wanted to see a third world war, but Dragonfire clearly wasn’t sane.
I wondered, and worried. Would America be next? If it was, would the world standby and watch as another of the higher population countries lost the majority of their offensive supers in a desperate and doomed to fail military defense, along with our leadership? I wasn’t usually a pessimist, but I started to see things Jace’s way, and it was frightening.
We’d have a better chance than Russia had, our military would be outnumbered close to six to one, instead of ten to one, but six to one was long odds. Just like Siren Slaughter was extremely powerful, but she was easily taken down by the four of us acting in concert. Six to one… well, it wouldn’t be pretty.
Of course, it might be less than that. They’d have to keep some supers in Japan and Russia to maintain their control of them, as well as some at home for defense. But four or five to one was just a bad in my mind.
It was almost obvious at that point that Dragonfire was going after the highest population countries that he greatly outnumbered, and he would continue to do so until the largest threat to his plans of world conquest finally woke up, India. That fight will be about even and his biggest roll of the dice, but if he won that battle then he’d no doubt rule the world.
The world was mad, and tensions were high.
Chapter Fourteen
The next couple of days not all that much happened on the home front outside of training. No new jobs came in for us and even the patrolling supers seemed to be bored. The world stage felt fragile, on the brink of war, but no one suggested openly that Dragonfire needed to be stopped. I imagined though, that world leaders were talking privately and securely with each other. Surely, they weren’t that naïve.
Which was ironic, because I was that naïve not a week ago. In my defense, Dragonfire hadn’t conquered two countries yet a week ago.
It was mid-afternoon when Chris called a meeting, which was something that hadn’t happened before. I was more than a little curious, as I walked into the conference room and took a seat as the others came in from wherever they’d been in the house.
Chris said, “We figured out how to block the electronic scrambling signal.”
“We?” Lia asked.
Chris nodded, “Me, Aura, Harmony, Prisma, and my mom.”
Three A.I.s and two mad scientists made a formidable scientific team.
“How does it work?”
Chris explained, “Well, the electronic scrambler works by…” he trailed off and frowned, then said, “It’s pretty esoteric actually and not easily explainable. Think of it like water, pure water is an insulator, and saltwater is a conductor. The field dampens the conductivity of metals which in essence kills the device as the wrong amperage is applied to the device as resistance rises. That’s an oversimplification of course, the dimensional physics involved is quite advanced.”
He looked like he was in pain, from having to dumb it down enough for us to understand. He also got a pass on that from me, even if I probably should be offended. It was one of the costs of falling for a gorgeous mad scientist.
He shook his head, “Anyway, it’s not so much blocking the signal, as using conductive materials that are immune to the effects of the field, where the typical copper, silver, or gold found in most devices is not. We’ve found a combination of Mercury and Graphite as a conductor to be completely immune to the field. Of course, copper is a much sturdier metal, so we decided to go with a layer of diamond to insulate and protect the graphite.
“We’re building new suits, drones, and watches now, using the various carbon allotropes for electronics, that will be immune to the effect. We plan to share the information with other cities and hero teams, as soon as we’re protected. They should be ready by tomorrow morning.”
Lia nodded, “How about the probe, so we can shut down supervillain mad scientists.”
He said, “We’re building a couple, but the information is bound to leak quickly, so you may face supervillains with devices created immune to the effect over a relatively short timeframe. In the interim though, it should be effective if there’s a need. Just don’t depend on it.”
Aura appeared with a cat that got the cream look on her face.
“We got them.”
“Got who?” Ella asked.
Aura responded almost gleefully, “I’ve had those five supervillains that got away with kidnapping Cerise Daniels under surveillance whenever they were out of their homes. They just kidnapped Ben Kingsley, a nine-year-old boy from an affluent family that lives north of the city, and I got it all on video.”
Not a paid job, but very welcome news. The surge of pre-fight excitement was already hitting me. I wanted to take the bastards down so bad I could taste it, but I didn’t want to put a nine-year-old boy in the crossfire. Five against four would be a tough fight. That meant we either had to wait, or I had to let the others fight for as long as it took me to teleport Ben to safety.
Which granted, wouldn’t take long, and it might be worth it to fight them outside of the city, where we didn’t have to overly worry about collateral damage. If we waited for them to collect the money and return the boy, we’d just be putting the people of the city in danger when we tried to take them down.
There were risks either way.
Aura said, “They’re heading toward the same area the ruined cabin is in, but I suspect they’re taking him to a different one.”
I said, “Let’s give them an hour to settle in and gain confidence they got away clean. Then I’ll snag the kid, you three will have to hold them off for a few seconds without me.”
Lia smirked, “We’ll manage.”
I said, “I’ll just jump him away half of a mile, then slap a watch on him. Harmony can transfer him to the super building and my mother can take care of him from there, and I’ll bounce back.”
Ella said, “We can distr
act them. I’ll shield all three of us and call them out, while you sneak in and grab him. Then we’ll go with the original plan?”
I nodded, “You handle the energy wielder, Gabriel gets the gravity supervillain, and Lia and I will team up against the three bruisers. Then of course, we’ll help you after we wipe them out.”
Ella snorted, “You mean we’ll help you, after we take down our guys.”
Lia giggled.
I shrugged with a challenging smile, “We’ll see.”
In truth it might happen that way. Ella was a strong energy wielder, with expanding shields, probably more than a match for the supervillain energy guy. Also, gravity had no hold on electricity, I imagined he’d go down fast under Gabriel’s attacks.
But then, I didn’t plan to coddle my and Lia’s opponents either. Lia was an above average bruiser at an thirteen-thousand-pound lift, but hardly at the top of the scale which was around twenty thousand. I could only do ten, but I was far more adaptable with TK.
I turned to Aura, “Thanks for the good news. It’s like finally getting a chance to wash a nasty taste out of my mouth.”
Ella grinned, “I know what you mean, but it is what it is, and it won’t be the last time we’ll have to wait to take a supervillain down.”
Aura winked, “My pleasure. I just wish I’d have found something sooner. If they’re doing anything outside of professional kidnapping, they’re covering their tracks amazingly well. Also, I have an alternative plan, since I already have cloaked drones following them.”
“Alternative?”
She replied, “I can set a microdrone down on him before you even get there, and teleport him out when you arrive using it as the teleport beacon. That will lower the chances of anything going wrong if you try to sneak in from behind.”
I nodded, “Do it, that sounds a lot safer for Ben, we’ll just hit them hard. Poor Ella, she’ll never beat us now.”
Wraith: Origins of Supers: Book Three Page 10