The World Savers

by Matt Cowper

  Wren had been both dejected and intimidated, but now she stood ramrod-straight and looked Nightstriker directly in the eye.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll do it – no matter the cost.”

  “Good.” Nightstriker placed a hand on her shoulder, and she beamed with pride. Sam beamed himself. So much had changed in such a short amount of time. Only a few days ago, Nightstriker would have coldly told her to do what he commanded, and mocked her when she balked. Now, though geared up for battle, he’d taken the time to explain how Wren’s task was essential, how it required bravery and skill.

  Wren scooped up the portal-maker, and with one last nod, she flew down the hallway and out of sight.

  “Not bad, boss man,” Buckshot said, finally lowering his shotgun. “She’ll probably be your number one fan for the rest o’ her life.”

  Nightstriker let a tiny grin appear on his grime-covered, sweaty face. “Perhaps. Now, let’s get moving. We can worry about these dead or wounded superheroes later. The others have slowly pushed the Giftgiver and his cronies to the rooftop. We need to get there, post-haste.”

  “Are we finally gonna stop that white-robed zealot?” Slab asked. “Some of those jackasses were able to crack my rocks, Buckshot here’s running out of steam, though he claims otherwise, and Blaze is injured.”

  Nightstriker looked over at Sam, perhaps noticing his wound for the first time. His eyes momentarily went wide, then he was at Sam’s side, gently probing his stomach area.

  “I’m sorry, Blaze,” Nightstriker said. “I was focused on that portal-creator, and didn’t notice you’d been hit.”

  Metal Gal also rushed over, her eyes blinking a dozen different colors in her consternation.

  “Sam! I mean, Blaze!” she said, her flub causing her body to momentarily switch to a purplish color. “Are you OK?!”

  “I’m fine,” Sam said, though that was far from the truth. “Whatever projectile hit me went straight through, and I cauterized the wound.”

  “You…used your flame powers to…oh, Blaze.” Metal Gal stroked his arm tenderly, and created tears ran down her slick metal face.

  “That was courageous of you,” Nightstriker said. “I’m sure it caused you even more pain. But you stopped the bleeding, which is the most important thing. There may still be fragments inside you, if whatever hit you was a solid object and not energy-based, but they can removed later. However, you’re out of the fight. Exertion may––”

  “I’m not out of anything,” Sam said, flames flickering around his body. “If this happened to you, you’d just forge ahead like it was nothing.”

  “Perhaps, but––” Nightstriker began.

  “But nothing.” Sam stood up and tried to straighten his posture exactly like Wren had. “I’m not going to be sidelined – period.”

  To punctuate his point, he turned on his Fire Shield, jacking it up so Nightstriker could feel the heat. The legendary hero stepped back a few paces, and wiped off the sweat that was now running off his face like a waterfall. Even Metal Gal’s form was rippling a little from his display of power.

  “We’re wasting time,” Blaze said. “We need to get to the roof – NOW.”

  Again, Nightstriker grinned. He nodded at Blaze, then turned towards the others. “What are you all waiting for? The man has spoken. To the roof!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Nightstriker

  As Nightstriker ran, he felt yet another surge of adrenaline pump through his system. Seeing how Blaze had cauterized his wound and then watching as he ignited his shield, refusing to be sidelined – it made Nightstriker proud. The kid had already been progressing rapidly, but in that moment he looked like a true superhero.

  And then there was Wren. He hadn’t recognized her at first, as she’d updated her costume slightly. When Gillespie had first contacted him at that motel, he may have been too brusque with Wren in his haste to get away. Now, though, he felt like he’d healed any enmity she might have had; Wren had looked inspired and courageous when he persuaded her to carry the portal-creator to the Beacon.

  Those two moments, those two heroes, made him feel as strong and nimble as when he’d pumped Overdrive Juice into his body.

  The other Elites followed behind as he navigated through the battle-scarred interior of city hall. Only a few passages between the different floors remained open, the rest having been destroyed by his explosive charges. A few non-flying and non-durable Purifiers were moving between the floors, but they were walking right into choke points, exactly as Nightstriker had planned. The Elites plowed through them in just a few seconds, their goal of reaching the rooftop impossible to stop.

  As they climbed up the access stairs leading to the roof, Nightstriker activated his commlink.

  “Gillespie, what’s going on?” he asked. “Is the building contained?”

  “Your knockout gas took out a large number of the Purifiers,” Gillespie replied. “Over three-fourths is our estimate. The superheroes have the ground and air covered. Any Purifier trying to run or fly away has been neutralized.”

  “And the Giftgiver?”

  “He’s on the roof, along with several of his people,” Gillespie said. “From the looks of it, they’re the most powerful and competent superhumans. While there aren’t many of them, their powers are undoubtedly top-tier. They won’t fall easily.”

  “It was expected that the best and brightest Purifiers would be the last to fall,” Nightstriker said. “Did everyone get that? Tread carefully! You saw how dangerous that portal-creator was, and like all of these revolutionaries, he was cocky and untrained.”

  “Got it, boss man,” Buckshot said. “We’ll take ’em out lickety split.”

  “And don’t let them teleport away!” Metal Gal said. “They’ve done that twice to us. If they escape, we have to fight a battle like this all over again!”

  “Metal Gal is right,” Nightstriker said. “If you see anyone with teleportation abilities, or if you see them attempt to link hands like before, stop them by whatever means necessary.”

  That was easier said than done. If Nightstriker knew exactly how those teleportation abilities worked, he could’ve deployed a device that scrambled their powers. But without knowing specifics, he’d have to use a broad range of countermeasures, which could possibly affect the powers of the other superheroes aiding them. That wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

  The access door to the roof had already been kicked in by someone with superstrength, so they all rushed out onto the roof, into the bright, open air. Nightstriker’s vision adjusted after a second, and he quickly took in the scene before them.

  In the center of the roof, the Giftgiver was surrounded by roughly twenty of his followers. As Gillespie had noted, they all looked deadly serious, and they all appeared to be enormously powerful. One had a sonic scream, which knocked five superheroes out of the sky in one go, and made Nightstriker’s ears ring even from this distance.

  Above them, the flying superhumans, both the Purifiers and the superheroes, were zipping around like fighter jets. Similar to the Purifiers on the roof, the flying ones were much stronger than the others that had been dispatched. The heroes had set up a series of concentric circles around city hall, and any Purifier who tried to escape solo was dispatched, but the ones who stuck together around the rooftop were difficult to drop.

  Nightstriker put in earplugs in addition to his gas mask. He could stand being hit by low-level energy beams, but he couldn’t stand being hit with that sonic scream and losing his hearing. Without it, he’d be near-useless.

  Blaze turned up his Fire Shield to an even hotter grade, melting the concrete beneath him. Fire poured out of his mouth, ears, and even his eyes. It hurt Nightstriker’s eyes just to look at him. Again, the sight energized Nightstriker; the strain had to be great on the young hero, but he wasn’t giving in.

  Blaze’s power up must have caught the Giftgiver’s attention, because he pointed at the onrushing Elites, and three of the Purifiers ad
vanced. One of them was an air-manipulater; Nightstriker had seen some of the fighting on the lower floors, and knew how effective those powers had been against Blaze.

  “Slab!” he shouted. “Focus on the woman with the air powers. As heavy and strong as you are, she should need all her power to keep you from getting near, which will let one of the others take her out!”

  “Affirmative!” Slab grunted, lumbering towards the woman. As expected, she held out her hands, and a gale-force wind slammed into the rocky superhero. It wasn’t enough to topple him, though; while his advance was slowed, he was still moving forward, one heavy step at a time.

  Without prompting, Buckshot whipped out a pistol and shot the air-controller. Her head snapped back and she fell hard, unconscious or dead. Her powers abruptly cut off, causing Slab to fall forward and create a giant hole in the roof.

  Nightstriker glanced at Buckshot, but the Texan grinned, anticipating what the leader of the Elites was going to ask. “Don’t worry, boss man. Non-lethal round. Promise.”

  “I wish you would’ve told me you were gonna fire,” Slab said, picking himself up. “Made me look like a – oof!”

  One of the other Purifiers, a pasty man without a muscle to his name, had punched Slab in his belly. If he was strong enough to hurt Slab, his strength must’ve been enormous – but as Nightstriker looked closer, he saw the man’s fist was surrounded by a strange sort of energy, like his fist was being mirrored and distorted dozens of times over.

  He knew exactly where he’d seen that effect: from a supervillain named Fractal. Fractal could tap into the multiverse to generate innumerable potent abilities. One of his trademark moves was doing what this pasty man was doing now: combining the strength of different versions of himself from dozens of dimensions into one ultimatium-like fist. In the other dimensions, his counterparts were probably much like himself: thin and weak. But by bringing their individual strength together, the man could raise his strength to Class S level.

  Slab clearly didn’t know this was how his powers worked. He tried to start a fistfight with the man, but the distorting effect surrounded the man’s whole body, and he blinked away. Now he was tapping into his counterparts’ speed. Slab’s rocky maw dropped, and then took another powerful punch, sending chips of rock flying.

  Nightstriker was about to call out instructions, but the third superhuman was on them. Her hair and eyes were black as midnight, and Nightstriker immediately thought “magic.” Sure enough, she mumbled something, and thorns as thick as a man’s arm sprang up out of nowhere, wrapping around Buckshot and stabbing into him. Blaze instantly sent a fire-blast at the thorns, burning them away, and Metal Gal caught the wounded gunslinger.

  Like some magic users, the woman’s abilities appeared to be tied to her ability to speak; if she couldn’t utter her spells, she was helpless. And, as Nightstriker had shown during their first battle with the three superhumans, he knew plenty of magic himself, though he refrained from using it unless it was an emergency, as magic was unpredictable. One misspoken syllable, and you could end up summoning a dragon that would swallow you whole.

  This, however, was an emergency, so he again prepared to tap into the dark arts.

  He ran directly at the dark woman, who began mumbling something that would certainly create a painful, perhaps lethal effect. But before she could finish, he shouted out a spell of his own.

  “Repiv, raeppa!”

  A giant snake materialized next the woman, coiling itself up until it was level with her waist. It flicked its foot-long tongue and stared at her with soulless eyes. The woman screamed – then fell silent at Nightstriker’s fist connected with her jaw.

  Two down. Nightstriker spoke the counter-spell to return the snake to its evil realm, and turned to the last Purifier who’d engaged them: the Fractal-clone. He was still pounding on Slab, who he’d nearly beaten into submission. Buckshot was patching himself up with gauze, unable to unload any firepower at the moment. Blaze and Metal Gal were blasting away, but the man simply tapped into superspeed and dodged away a split-second before their shots landed.

  “Metal Gal!” Nightstriker shouted. “Come here!”

  Gal swooped down and hovered over him impatiently.

  “What?” she demanded. “We need to––”

  “Yes, we need to stop him, of course,” Nightstriker replied, “but we’ll never beat him head-on. He’s tapping into the multiverse. That means––”

  “We need to scramble his connection!” She slapped her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?! I knew I’d seen that distorting effect before, but I couldn’t place it.” Her eyes turned red. “Accessing my databases…OK, I know what frequency will disrupt his powers.”

  She flew back into the air, and shifted her arm-cannon until it looked more like a telescope than a weapon that could put a hole in a tank. A strange hum filled the air, and a translucent, rippling blast shot towards the man. He activated his speed, but the blast had a wide angle, and hit him nonetheless. Immediately he slowed to a halt, and the warping around his body disappeared.

  “What the––?” he said.

  “Now, Blaze!” Nightstriker shouted.

  Blaze recognized that the man was now depowered, and shot a low-grade fireball at him. He screeched as he was engulfed in fire, and dropped to his knees, pleading for mercy. Blaze closed his fist, and the fire extinguished, leaving him charred, smoking, and in intense pain – and out of the fight.

  Nightstriker ran over to Slab and crouched beside him. Pieces of rock were scattered across the roof, and Slab could barely keep his eyes open.

  “He was pretty strong…for a scrawny punk,” the rocky superhero rasped.

  “If he could crack your hide, he was indeed strong,” Nightstriker said. “How are you feeling? Do you––”

  “I ain’t quitting,” Slab said. “Blaze ain’t quitting, you ain’t quitting, and Buckshot ain’t quitting, and you’re all hurt bad. I’m supposed to be the most durable one here. I’m not going to be the only one who cries like a baby and sits this one out.”

  “Very well,” Nightstriker said, helping Slab to his feet, though as strong as he was, his assistance was negligible when it came to lifting a multi-ton rock man. “You all are becoming just as stubborn as me.”

  “Ha!” Slab said. “Don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “A bit of both, I suppose,” Nightstriker said, smiling.

  The Elites came together, and each one surveyed the injuries of the others, and then looked out across the rooftop. Though there was still fighting, the Purifiers’ numbers were slowly decreasing. The Elites had taken out three of the most dangerous remaining Purifiers, and the Giftgiver and his guards were staring at them with undisguised fear.

  Reaching a silent accord, the Elites headed towards the Purifiers.

  “Giftgiver!” Nightstriker shouted when they were within hearing range. “You’ve failed! You––”

  “I’ve failed in my primary goal, yes,” the Giftgiver replied, “but I have a plan B! You haven’t given me any credit, Nightstriker! Think you can outsmart anyone! But I bet you haven’t planned for this!”

  He put his arm around a girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Though she was thin and tan, her face was contorted into a sneer of utter loathing, rendering her as unattractive as a corpse. Nightstriker knew she was one of the true believers, someone who would kill without mercy – or martyr herself if she knew it was for their righteous cause.

  “Natalie here loves documentaries on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” the Giftgiver said, “and she’s read numerous books on the nuclear struggle during the Cold War. So, when I used my powers on her, it gave her the ability to create explosions, from tiny ones that wouldn’t hurt a bird, to ones that can destroy entire cities – cities like Z City.”

  “You’re a madman!” Blaze shouted, his eyes literally burning. “You wouldn’t––”

  “I would,” the Giftgiver said. “Of course, we haven’t tested
the upper limit of Natalie’s powers, but I’m quite certain she can destroy this entire city. Right, Natalie?”

  “I can do it,” she said, her fervor unsettling, her eyes dancing madly.

  “I believe you can, my dear,” the Giftgiver said, squeezing her shoulder. “Unfortunately, unleashing such power will kill everyone in Z City, including me. Only Natalie will survive; she’s immune to her powers, of course. But all that’s a price I’m willing to pay. While my Purifiers will all die, along with everyone else, this cesspool will be wiped off the map, and Natalie will continue my good work, rebuilding the Purifiers and eventually transforming the world. I don’t long for death, Nightstriker, but if this is what it takes, so be it. You can kill a person, but you can’t kill ideals, after all.”

  “If you do this, your cause is doomed,” Nightstriker said. “No one will flock to a girl who committed mass murder. Surely you know this.”

  “Ah, but you underestimate the anger that simmers just beneath the surface of our society,” the Giftgiver replied. “People may be shocked at first, but once they see our reasoning, they’ll come around.”

  “That’s nonsense––” Nightstriker began.

  “Shut up!” the Giftgiver screeched. “You’re stalling, trying to come up with a way to stop us. You can’t. Natalie can activate her powers almost instantly, and none of you Elites or these hack superheroes can reach her in time.”

  Nightstriker had been trying to stall, and he still hadn’t come up with a solution to the imminent genocide. Metal Gal could morph into a shield and surround them, but he didn’t think she could stand up to a nuclear-grade explosion. Even if she could, millions would still die.

  He glanced around at the other superheroes, cataloging their powers. Some had shielding abilities, a few had superspeed, and a few could teleport, but the end result was the same: while they might be able to save a few people in the immediate area, Z City as a whole would be wiped out.