Standing around him were two girls, Supers or Normies, Lucas couldn’t tell. On the floor was another girl, lying still on her back, she stared up at the ceiling, her pupils dilated.
“Oh, hey Lucas. Thought I sensed something.”
“What are you doing here?” Lucas asked, his jaw setting.
He didn’t like Vengeance. This was the creep that had created the master slave serum. He’d planned on turning Jenny into his complete slave, giving himself control over her mind and body. Jenny escaped before he could complete the process.
“I could ask you the same,” Vengeance said, wearing a malevolent grinning.
By now, Lucas had been joined in the corridor by Michelle, who having spotted him, and then the girl on the floor, reacted by raising her fists, both blazing blue.
“Easy now,” Vengeance said. “Don’t do anything you’d regret.”
The only thing Lucas regretted was letting Vengeance leave after their first encounter. He should have sliced the Super’s head off.
“What have you done to her?” Michelle asked.
“Injected her with my special serum,” Vengeance replied, smiling widely, looking very pleased with himself.
Michelle’s face paled as her fists of blue wavered. The gravity of what was going on sunk into them both. Lucas glanced at the two girls standing beside the Super, a brunette and a blond, they were both attractive, and they held themselves in a way that usually indicated a badass human, or a Super.
Lucas was betting it was the latter.
“I know you like to shoot first and then runaway if that doesn’t work, Lucas. But I reckon you should hear me out,” Vengeance said.
“Go on,” Lucas said, his mind racing, hoping to buy time while he figured something out.
“Now that Mayor Carcass is dead, it’s time for a fresh-”
Lucas pointed his pistol at Vengeance.
The Super frowned. “Seriously?”
“Yup. Done thinking. It’s a three versus two at the moment. That’s going to change once your Super on the ground regains her consciousness.”
“Fair enough,” Vengeance nodded agreeably.
Aiming for Vengeance’s head, Lucas pulled the trigger. His aim was accurate. The bullets struck Vengeance on his forehead. Blood splattered. The Super staggered back. Lucas pulled out his sword and charged, hoping to slice off the asshole’s head.
The two girls standing beside Vengeance moved quickly to block his path. As Lucas slashed with his sword, the blond girl tilted back, ducking underneath his blade. When she came back up, she swung forward and caught Lucas on the jaw, sending him flying back.
Lucas crashed into the wall and slid down it, landing on his bottom.
“Fucking Supers,” he grunted.
He knew the girls were under Vengeance’s control and he had feared they were Supers too. Being hit by one removed any doubt. And it fucking hurt.
Lucas climbed to his feet, feeling somewhat groggy, he felt his jaw. It was numb, but it should have been smashed. He’d been struck that hard. It was the power of the green crystal that had saved him. If only it could have given him some more superpowers, that would have been fantastic.
Michelle was currently battling the two girls but doing it from a distance. She threw balls of blue at them. Both girls dodged out of the way, but in doing so, cleared the path to Vengeance, who had just recovered from being shot. A ball of blue struck him on the chest and sent him tumbling to the ground.
Lucas reached inside his long coat and pulled out another pistol. He aimed for the girl that had punched him. As the bullets left the barrel, Lucas knew he had missed. Not because he had bad aim, but because the girl moved out of the way.
It wasn’t like she was dodging bullets. It was more she was moving to ensure his gun never pointed at her. Equally impressive.
“You take the blond,” Lucas said to Michelle, now turning his gun towards the brunette.
This time he did not miss. His bullets struck the brunette in the chest. Being the first time she had been shot, they were effective and knocked her down to the ground. Lucas moved in, sword out once more. The girl lay on the floor, blinking rapidly, blood pouring out of her chest.
Normally, Lucas would have sliced at her neck – the only sure way to kill a Super. But he hesitated. It seemed wrong to kill her. She had no control over her body, over her mind. If she did, there was no chance she would work for Vengeance. The guy was a creep.
Lucas thought of Jocelyn, still missing an arm. Turned out it took a long time for limbs to grow back.
Lucas sliced at the girl’s left leg, cutting it at the knee.
She let out a chilling scream.
Blood gushed out of her knee, squirting out like it was being fired from a water gun. Lucas leaped back, getting out of the way just in time. He’d never seen blood squirt out like that. He was a little disgusted. It threw him off to the point where, when Vengeance rose to his feet, having been blasted by Michelle, Lucas didn’t react.
He didn’t fire with his gun, or slash with his sword.
Vengeance moved quickly and punched Lucas on the face.
The Super wasn’t the strongest out there. It hurt, but not as much as it had when the blond punched him.
Lucas lifted his gun to shoot, but he was too close.
Vengeance pulled the gun from his hand. Lucas slashed with his sword, but Vengeance ducked beneath it.
Lucas stared at him, eyes narrowed. He swung his leg, aiming for a high kick. Vengeance raised his arm and blocked in time, though he did it awkwardly. His wrist took the force of the strike. He shook it, his face crunching in pain.
“What the fuck,” Lucas muttered. “How are you doing this?”
Vengeance grinned like a creep before licking his lips. “I’m an awesome martial artist.”
“You’re fucking not,” Lucas said.
He remembered then what Vengeance’s power was. The ability to read minds. But how was he able to read minds and act so damned quickly?
Vengeance frowned as Lucas suddenly reached for another pistol and fired with his gun in his left hand and slashed with the sword in his right hand. It wasn’t something he’d tried before, to fire and slash at the same time. His aim was off as his sword came in. His grip on the sword was loose. It flung out from his hand, the flat side struck Vengeance on the arm.
It wasn’t elegant at all. But it confused vengeance enough. Lucas took advantage of that and landed a barrage of punches at the Super.
Lucas was an excellent boxer, and he was much stronger than normal, thanks to having the green crystal powering through his blood. But the green crystal wasn’t giving him the strength that blue crystals gave. It wasn’t as consistent.
Lucas’s punches were hurting Vengeance, but not enough. With every punch, Vengeance face seemed to weather the blow and harden until it was like striking a brick wall.
And punching a fucking brick wall wasn’t much fun.
“You done?” Vengeance asked, as Lucas’s hand rested by his sides.
“For now,” Lucas nodded, stretching his fingers, hoping his knuckles weren’t broken. “How about I hear you out now?”
“Too late for that,” Vengeance said.
He grabbed Lucas by the neck and lifted him off the ground. His fingers tightened, suffocating him. Lucas brought his arms down against Vengeance’s. When that didn’t work, he kicked out with his feet, and at the same time, punched with his fists.
But Vengeance was much stronger than him. The green crystal was no match for the blue.
As his body reacted to the lack of oxygen, as his eyes began to weigh heavy and a darkness set about him, a blur of blue whizzed past.
Lucas’s feet hit the ground from a distance of a foot or less. But his legs were weak, unsteady. His arms flailed as he tried to keep his balance. He staggered back until he came up against the wall. Gasping for breath, he collected himself and took in the scene before him.
In the moment he was being strangled, his senses focused
on surviving, he had missed a whole lot of carnage. The brunette was still on the floor, her leg had stopped bleeding, the skin had grafted some around the edges. She lay with her eyes closed, her chest rising and falling.
Past her, the living room had a meter-wide hole in it. Lying in the rubble was the blonde. When the hell had that happened? Sometimes he forgot how strong Michelle really was. Her blasts of blue balls could knock through solid brick and mortar.
But that wasn’t enough to break the blond. Grabbing the edges of the wall around the hole, she shrugged off the debris and pulled herself up. She was unsteady on her feet, not quite there. Lucas reached inside his long coat. The only weapon he had left was his assault rifle.
Taking it out, he pressed the butt against his shoulder and stared through the scope. Knowing the Super was incredibly fast, Lucas fired wildly, aiming at her general direction and more, as if she were a sumo wrestler in size.
It was a good tactic. He emptied his magazine but managed to send the blond to the ground once more. Having been thrown through a wall hadn’t broken the Super. It had done the opposite. It had sped up her recovery from injuries.
The bullets fell out of her chest, out of her arms, her legs. The wounds healed before his own eyes.
“Fuck’s sake,” Lucas grumbled.
He spotted his sword lying on the ground and ran towards it. As he picked it up, the blond was back on her feet.
Lucas held the sword in hand, ready to face her when from behind him, another bolt of blue shot past. It struck the blond Super on the chest.
Lucas didn’t get a chance to see if it knocked her down.
Michelle grabbed his arm and yanked it much harder than was necessary. “We need to get out of here now!”
Lucas didn’t disagree. Reaching inside his coat, he found a grenade and threw it over his shoulder as he dashed down the corridor, following after Michelle.
Chapter 12
Lucas drove recklessly, his foot pressed on the pedal, he pushed the car hard, turned corners as if they were bends, and mounted the curb as if it were a second lane of the highway. When he was finally convinced that Vengeance and his gaggle of Supers weren’t following closely, he relaxed somewhat, enough at least to be petty.
“I told you we should have killed Vengeance,” he muttered.
“That’s what you’re going with? I told you so?”
Lucas nodded, his jaw set.
“If it were up to you, we’d kill all the Supers,” Michelle muttered.
She had a point there. Up until meeting her, Lucas had a very low opinion of Supers. “We’re going to have to kill him, you know,” he said.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Michelle murmured. “I’m more worried about how many innocent Supers we’re going to have to get through before we get to him. He could have an army by now.”
Fuck.
She was right.
Vengeance already had three Supers under his control. That could be his whole army, or it could be the tip of the iceberg.
The rest of the journey home was a silent one.
* * *
Later that day, Lucas sat in the living room with the girls, Jocelyn included. He told them what had happened earlier, how they came up against Vengeance. At the mention of his name, Jenny shuddered. She knew him well, and Lucas needed the information in her head.
Anything she had was more than what he had.
Because he had nothing.
He knew very little about this Super.
Aside from the fact that Vengeance could read people’s minds. In the grand scheme of things, being able to read someone’s mind wasn’t impressive. Knowing someone was going to punch you in the face wasn’t helpful if you ended up getting punched in the face. How the fuck had Vengeance managed to match him in a fist fight?
There was silence after Lucas finished talking as the gravity of what was going on was absorbed.
Jocelyn broke that silence with an outburst. “Fuck off,” she said. “It’s not possible. I don’t believe it. You can’t control other Supers. We’re a superior species. It can’t be done.”
“You’re a Superior species?” Anika asked. “How the fuck do you figure that?”
“I’m a Super,” Jocelyn replied, completely unperturbed.
“You’re a cripple is what you are,” came Anika’s response.
Her face contorted with rage, Jocelyn held out her right hand pointed at Anika, palm flat. Lucas knew what was going to happen next, and he jumped to his feet to get in the way. There was some hesitation on Jocelyn’s face. Her nose even twitched. Phantom pain from having had it broken so many times by him?
Lucas stared down at her, but she met his eyes with equal measure. The cripple comment had stung her, and she was not going to be mocked by a human. Especially considering she genuinely seemed to think she was better.
But Lucas didn’t care about any of that. “If you don’t put your hand down, I will cut it off.”
He said the words calmly, his voice quiet, barely above a whisper. Jocelyn knew he wasn’t trying to be intimidating. He was simply telling the truth. And that terrified her. She lowered her hand. Lucas sat back down and turned to Jenny.
“What can you tell us about him?”
“He’s evil,” Jenny said immediately.
“Aren’t they all,” Anika scoffed, causing Michelle to frown at her.
“What about his powers? Does he have any others aside from the mind reading capabilities?”
Jenny shook her head. “Not that I know of. But he was trying to enhance his normal superpowers. He plays around with… I don’t know. He’s got a lab and lots of test tubes. I don’t really know what he does,” she shrugged her shoulders. “But I remember once, he got really strong. Picked up a car and threw it a mile in the air… and then he collapsed.”
“So, a Super on steroids?” Anika asked.
“It’s more than that,” Lucas said. “He comes across like a creepy loser. But we can’t underestimate him. He managed to create a serum that lets him control Supers and Normies. The potential of that… it’s limitless.”
“Lucas is right,” Michelle said. She climbed to her feet, as if to better address the small group of people who surrounded them. “He could create an enormous army of slaves in a short time. He needs to be stopped and immediately.” Michelle turned towards Jenny. “Do you know where we can find him?”
“I know where he lives,” Jenny said.
“That’s a start,” Lucas said. “We leave tonight,” he nodded at Michelle.
Anika jumped to her feet. “I’m coming too,” she said, glancing furtively at Michelle.
“The more the merrier,” Lucas turned to look back at Hannah. “We could be walking into a fortress. Would be good to have a sniper on the team.”
Hannah nodded.
“Great,” Lucas rubbed his hands together and glanced out the window. With the days winding down and winter approaching, the sun shining in through the windows was dim. “We’ll leave in a couple of hours.”
* * *
Later that evening, Lucas was down in the basement. The space was primarily a gym, but it also housed his weapons cache. Lucas wore his long coat, made from hardened Kevlar, it offered protection from bullets and projectiles fired by Supers.
He’d lost a few weapons in his latest bout and was running low on supplies. He had enough spares for tonight, but he would have to make a trip to Broad Street soon to replenish his stock, maybe see if any new weapons had flooded the market, something with a bit more bite to match the increased risks he was now taking.
Risks that were catching up to him.
He could have died today. That punch from the blond Super would have crushed his jaw, shattered it into a hundred little bits were it not for the power of the green crystal flowing through his body.
Lucas collected an assault rifle from the shelf and hung it on the inside of his coat. He collected two 9mm pistols and slid them in too. It was as he was collecting maga
zines did the door to the basement open. It was Hannah.
“Hey,” Lucas nodded at her.
“Hey,” she nodded back as she headed straight for the shelves with the snipers. It was her speciality, her skill. One that she was getting better and better at. “What’s going on with Anika?” she asked, her hand rested on the scope of a sniper rifle.
“How do you mean?”
Hannah turned her head to look at him. “She seems… jealous probably isn’t the right word…”
Oh. Lucas sighed. “If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, jealous is the right word.”
“Oh,” Hannah’s brows furrowed. “What a bitch, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s allowed to parade naked in front of you, to fuck you whenever she wants to, but when I play with your cock, she gets jealous?”
They only fucked whenever they both wanted to, Lucas thought. He wasn’t her sex toy, or whatever the term was. But it wasn’t an important point of discussion. He didn’t think any of it was, to be honest. So, he shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s it?” Hannah asked. “That’s all you have to say when this is your fault?”
Lucas turned to face her now, his arms folded across his chest, he asked, “How is this my fault?”
“Because you seduced me!”
“Did not,” Lucas muttered.
“You took advantage of my vulnerability and introduced me to cock!”
“Didn’t happen like that at all.”
“And now I’ve got an angry jealous girlfriend!” Hannah said, frustrated she pounded her hands against her thighs.
Lucas stared at Hannah, really looked at her. He’d never really known the girl much. Rescuing both girls from the rough streets, Lucas had taken them in, shared his home with them. He’d known the girls for years now, but Hannah never opened up to him, not in the same way Anika had. Hannah had clung onto Anika, like that shy girl at a party, sticking to the one friend she knew.
Lucas had viewed Hannah as the lesbian girl, jealous that her lover, Anika, slept with him. What with his life being hectic, Lucas didn’t think much past that.
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