by Riley Tune
“It’s very crowded, which gives her the ability to blend in. These vendors clearly don’t seem like the type to ask questions, and would likely give her what she wanted without a fuss if threatened. She can’t have much money on her fresh off of an escape from an Icon prison.”
Power Prince nodded and had thought some of the same things, but for some reason was cautious to voice them. He didn’t like playing the role of leader. That’s why Flex ran things but after hearing those supportive words from Life-Line in the base, he was slowly seeing that he had what it took to play the lead role too. Even still, having Life-Line here allowed for a more experienced Icon to step into the role that he was slowly warming up to.
“We need to get some of the people out of here,” Power Prince finally said. He didn’t want to be a leader, but he refused to have a street full of bodies on his heart because he was shy about being in control or speaking up.
“We don’t have the resources just yet to get them out so we have to be as cautious as possible until help arrives,” Gleam said. As he spoke, the locals on the street began to notice the three Icons standing among them. How could they miss a man dressed in purple, or another with a green cape on? Not to mention the young man dressed in black with orange highlights.
“I have eyes on her,” Power Prince said as he focused his attention on a cart halfway up the street. “As do I,” Life-Line said. “Gleam, give us support from up top.” Gleam didn’t say anything. Not even a slight nod. A dazzling rainfall of bright light appeared for half a second, and then the man dressed in purple was gone.
“He’ll cover us from there if needed,” Life-Line said before he asked Power Prince a question. “How do you want to proceed?” Power Prince bit his lower lip for a moment before he considered a few things in his head. From where he was, he could see Zeva even though she didn’t look like her normal self. Instead of her normal black hair, she now had short blond hair.
He couldn’t tell if it was a wig or a dye job. She also was dressed in more casual clothes. Large jeans, sneakers and a tank top that exposed her toned upper body. All this aside, he knew it was her. He had seemed that face around their base a lot a year ago and if you squinted, she even looked like Flex some.
Power Prince and Life-Line flinched some as a sudden burst of wind touched them. As they turned around, they could see a woman towering over them both. She was dressed in a costume of teal and white with yellow trim. Most of her face was covered, and her brown short hair stuck out on top.
“Vicky Velocity,” Life-Line said with a slight smile. “I take it you heard the call for additional help.” “I did,” she said with a smooth voice that had a slight accent. “What’s up?” Power Prince said to her with an upward head movement. He hadn’t worked with the speedster before. When the Imperial Lords were around, they had no need for her. Impervious was their resident speedster and was considerably faster that Vicky Velocity.
“Power Prince,” she said with a slight nod as she looked at him and then in the direction of Zeva. “That her? Blond hair over there?” “Yeah,” Life-Line replied. He knew Vicky from when she was a newer hero on the scene, and the way he knew her, made this situation a little more difficult.
“I know Detach and your mom were close, but,” Life-Line tried to finish his words but Vicky wasn’t having it. “Close, she was my godmother,” Vicky said with a hiss. Power Prince closed his eye for a few seconds and then opened them again. He remembered seeing Vicky at the service for Detach and she hadn’t taken the death well. Now he knew why.
“I know,” Life-Line replied, “but our priority will always be the safety of the innocent first. So, do what you can to declutter the street.” After a loud sigh, and a burst of wind, a sea of teal streaks washed over the crowded street as one by one, the area became less crowded. From across the street, Zeva looked around her, and Power-Prince felt the temperature in the area drop some.
“Bingo,” Power Prince said as the head of Zeva finally turned in his direction. The glowing green hands of Life-Line were placed on Power Prince’s shoulders as the glow consumed him for an instant. “It’s all on you now,” Life-Line said.
Power Prince could feel the difference in his body. It was as if every fiber of his being was tingling. What Life-Line had done to him, was a new discovery he had figured out while in his healing practice. Some of his clients didn’t have the need for immediate healing and requested a subscription healing plan.
Life-Line wasn’t familiar with the request, but the rich are prone to come up with out of the box ideas. The rich man in question was an extreme sports junkie that wanted to have a healing aura running inside his body at all times. That way if he got hurt, he would in theory heal from it, as if Life-Line himself was there. It had taken a few attempts, but Life-Line got it done.
Just like that, a new avenue of healing on the go was created for his clients and colleagues. It was short-lived, usually around twenty- four hours, but in a situation like this, it got the job done. Unfortunately for Life-Line, Zeva didn’t know about the recent discovery, and he became her first target.
CHAPTER 17:
ENERGY VS ICE
Z eva had tried to push the voices away from her mind. She had been trying since she was a child, and for equally as long she had been failing. Her pills used to help, but not in the way she wanted. While the voices, or her demons as she called them, weren’t heard quite as often she still knew they were there.
To her, it always reminded her of being in one room, and people were in the next room beside her, and those same people were screaming. She couldn’t hear them clearly, but she could hear enough to know they were there. She could hear them enough to want them gone. Her pills were her wall, keeping her and those loud angry voices separated in their personal rooms. Take them away and the wall comes down. Take them away and she was free to listen, a thing that she enjoyed more than she wanted to admit.
In Vincula they forced the pills on her, but near the end, she didn’t take them as much. Having a guard on your side had many perks. Now that she was free, she could take them as she wanted. If she wanted the wall up, then she would take some pills. If she wanted freedom, and to be washed over by her true potential then she would ignore the pills altogether. Working out proved to be a buffer for her.
She found herself working out daily for a number of hours, sometimes twice a day. That combined with her pills made her mental wall thicker. For right now though, the wall was paper thin, and she needed her pills. She knew if she was overtaken by the voices before she got herself and Slingshot to safety, she wouldn’t be any good to either of them, especially when the heroes came.
That’s why she came to Millwater. The vendors there sold everything, and if you asked the right questions, sometimes you could find what wasn’t even advertised. Slave labor, sex, and even drugs were in the grasp of some of the vendors for a price.
“How soon can you get them to me?” Zeva asked the vendor as she scratched her neck and looked around. The vendor, a man with tanned skin, a hump in his back, and thinning brown hair, continued to move his hands and show Zeva some of the assorted clothing his cart had. One must keep up the ruse at all times.
What he had in his hand now, was a red silk shirt, and from a distance, he looked like he was talking about the shirt at great lengths. “Meet me back here tonight. Bring cash,” He looked Zeva up and down as he kept talking and moving the shirt around. “Unless you would like to pay by other means.”
His smile faded as he shivered some. He suddenly found himself unbearably cold. The voices were clawing at the wall now as several began to get through. The demons inside of Zeva were angry the man had dared to insult them. Dared to insult the body they called home. Ice covered in blood was the only form of payment that the voices would accept.
Zeva took in a breath and closed her eyes.” No, cash is fine.” she said as she opened her eyes and looked around for Slingshot. She was supposed to be getting them some food and coming right back. W
hat Zeva saw instead, were three men dressed in colorful clothing. She recognized Life-Line and Power Prince at once.
The man dressed in purple she didn’t. As she tried to figure out what to do, Power Prince locked eyes with her. She didn’t know the Asian youth well, but she knew he had made it to be a full member of those liars of a supergroup, The Imperial Lords. That alone spoke volumes to his skill and add to it that her brother spoke highly of him so he wasn’t to be ignored. “If you were good enough for Flex to accept you, then you won’t be easy,” Zeva said to herself.
“Huh,” the vendor asked as he finally put the redshirt down. Several people around Zeva had suddenly begun to shiver, and some were begging to realize that they were seeing their breath as they talked now. She thought it over for a second, and she knew how the Imperial Lords worked.
Suddenly, the man dressed in purple was gone after a minor light show. “They brought their own teleporter,” Zeva said to herself as her throat felt a little dry. It’s hard to run with a teleporter on you, especially if it was a good one and it likely was. The Imperial Lords had reach, money, and connections. They could get the best help, even after they fell. Disgraced or not, they could still call in favors. “And all I have is a junkie, among other things, that I met in prison,” she said to herself in a tone that sounded like she was scolding her actions.
They were here to take her in. Not kill her. It wasn’t the heroic way. Then she heard the voices again. The demons in her had a point. She had killed one of their own and escaped prison. An escape that involved killing a few people in the process. A peaceful surrender wasn’t going to help. The voices were right.
She could feel the sliver of the wall falling down inside her mind as she listened to them more. They noticed that her brother, the mighty Flex, wasn’t even with them. He didn’t want to see her die. So, he left her to the wolves. Killing them all was the solution. The voices knew it and she did too.
As she slowly turned to face them a woman appeared. She was tall and in full costume. Moments later she became a blur and people around her, vendors and customers alike were being plucked off and whisked away.
Zeva could feel her breathing increase as the last remnants of the wall came crashing down and her voices were set free. There was no walking away now. Not for her, and the first person to fall would be the healer. “It’s always the healer,” she said to herself as she created several daggers of ice in her hand and sent them towards Life-Life.
Before the shards could impale him, a streak of teal moved across the street, and in a second, he was gone. Power Prince went from cautious to full blown pissed off. She had just tried to kill Life-Line. She had the nerve to try to kill another Lord. As he controlled his anger, he could see the pink glow from his fist. He took a stance, and in boxer fashion put his guard up. So much energy was in his fist now that he could hear it crackle as sparks of miniature lightning bolts began to dance up his forearms.
“Where is my brother?” Zeva shouted as she encased herself in a suit of ice. “I’d focus on me if I were you,” Power Prince replied as he aimed his fist down and released some of his energy and propelled himself into the air.
Being the living battery that he was, he had enough energy inside him at any giving moment to power two cities. The more energy he used, the more his body produced. He had a limitless well of power on a supreme scale, and all he had to do was be smart and patient and he would avenge Detach.
He came crashing down like a pink meteor and flooded his fist with energy as he connected with Zeva’s armor of solid ice. It was thick, several inches thick, but his fist melted through her ice with ease. He couldn’t see her face inside the arctic armor, but he could imagine that she was cursing.
The downside, as Power Prince removed his fist to throw another punch, was that the ice had begun to reform. It seemed that she could generate ice as easy as he could energy. “Frosty bitch,” he said under his breath. He kept on the pressure even still.
Sending combo after combo to her frame as he chipped away huge shards of ice. He wanted to scream at her, but he kept his emotions in check. That was one of the first rules he learned early in his hero career. A level head and no witty banter unless needed. Focus on the goal and your opponent.
Focus he did, and he quickly realized this was getting nowhere and needed a change of attack. Power Prince quickly aimed his fist down and blasted in the air again. This time only slightly as he flipped over Zeva and landed behind her. She was too fast for him, though.
As he landed, several shards the size of water bottles exploded from her back. They all found their mark as Power Prince screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Zeva turned around and looked down at him. One shard was in his leg, and two in his stomach. While he couldn’t see her face, he could only imagine that she was laughing inside the armor.
What Power Prince could see though, was a large fist raise into the air. As the fist rose, several large shards of ice formed around it creating an arm of impaling danger. He flooded his fist with energy once more and pushed himself back on the ground. The spiked fist exploded as it hit the solid ground where he just was. “Okay, that was embarrassing.” Power Prince said to himself as he began to pull the shards out.
He fought the urge to yell out in pain as he did so, but as soon as the shards were gone, his body healed. “Oh, thank Atlas,” he said as he looked at the newly- healed skin. A part of him was cautious about this new ability Life-Line said he had found, but apparently, it worked. As he stood, he was greeted by several ice figures that Zeva had created.
Not only that, but it had begun to snow. His teeth chattered as more and more snow came down. He hadn’t seen her use snow before, but it made sense that she could. Snow and ice weren’t that far from each other on the spectrum. What he also saw through the falling snow was that the area was clear. There were no longer vendors or customers on the street.
Somewhere between fighting and getting his ass kicked, Vicky had removed everybody from the scene. He wondered where she was now, and why she wasn’t joining in the fight. He ignored it and put his fist up as he smiled.
“Seriously?” he heard a voice say as the armor around Zeva’s head formed an opening. “I’m pretty sure we can beat you,” she said as her ice imps all began to form daggers of their own. “I always thought you were more so a battery, not a bruiser anyway. Guess I was right.” Power Prince didn’t speak. Instead, he ran forward and clapped his hands together.
It took only a second, but she reformed her armor just in time before the wave of pink energy from Power Prince’s hands was sent forward slicing through each imp and leaving large puddles where they once stood. The heat from the wave melted right through the snow, too.
“The kid’s holding his own pretty good.” Gleam said from atop of a nearby building. As he said this, he extended his hand over towards Vicky. “You owe me ten bucks.” “Has it been enough time?” She asked as she reached in a pocket. Life-Line nodded his head as he refused to take eyes off the fight. “I told you to not join the fight because Power Prince needed to do this on his own. He’s more capable than he thinks,” Life-Line said.
“You responded saying that you didn’t think he could last ten minutes. Even called him Battery Boy,” Life-Line added. “That’s when I bet you ten bucks he could, and that was ten minutes ago,” Gleam said. “So, pay up.” Vicky no longer protested as she gave two bills to Gleam who looked at the front to back in a mock fashion to check that they were authentic. “Now both of you focus,” Life-Line continued.
“I have faith in him, but I still want to be ready.” They all remained quiet as the fight unfolded below them, and then they all gasped as the wave of pink energy exploded from below them and carved a path through the ice. “Holy shit,” Gleam said as he winced at the bright flash of pink.
As Power Prince ran, he sloshed through puddles around him. Zeva was taking steps back as she peppered the area in front of her with tiny slithers of ice. They should have been cutting h
im but many of them were melting before they could get close enough.
She could feel her heart pounding in her chest now as the pink glow from her opponent's fist increased in intensity, and the snow on the ground literally turned to water as he ran towards her. She focused, and more snow began to fall, but now large bowling ball size hail was mixed in with it.
This didn’t stop him but it did make him slow down. It slowed him enough that Zeva reached out and controlled the snow around him and made several large shards rip through his leg. Blood spattered on the snow around him as he fell, and his glowing hands faded. He screamed, but it was hard to hear over Zeva’s laughter.
“Not yet,” Life-Line said as they continued to watch the battle. All of them were standing a little closer now as the cold had reached them too. “Marcus, I think,” Life-Line silenced his friend with a simple look. “Okay. Have it your way, but it’s on you,” Gleam replied.
“I watched this boy train. I’ve seen the amount of damage he can do and energy he has both physically and mentally. He has this well within his grasp. If he’s doing what I think he is, then he is playing a dangerous game.”
Vicky didn’t speak. Instead, she looked at the two older Icons beside her and began to bite her nails. She didn’t like this type of tension outside of a movie theatre. As Life-Line watched, he felt bad for wishing Zeva hadn’t gone bad. She had come from purestock and like Flex was rather powerful. She would have put fear in many under the right guidance. Yet, here she was on the wrong side of justice just the same.
“I don’t know how you healed earlier, but that trick seems to be a one-time thing,” Zeva said as she walked towards the sprawled body of Power Prince. As she took her steps, she kept her armor on but exposed her face again. She was stupid enough to think the battle was over simply because the target was down.
Her mouth moved but nothing came out as she heard the voices again. She grimaced some then created a large knife out of ice. Power Prince groaned as he looked to her. She walked around him, and only the crunching sound of her weight on the snow was all Power Prince could hear.