Incandescent Guardians

by D. R. Rosier

  Gravimetric made two of the towers implode, while the fire supervillain hosed down the compound with a napalm like fire that stuck to the guards and wouldn’t go out. Just like that, about twenty guards died. I decided his name would be Napalm in my head, until he got around to being named in the press. A lot of brand-new supervillains never even got names nowadays, since they were taken down before they could earn one and were never heard from again.

  Of the other four remaining I recognized two. Painblossom was a petite and very exotically attractive Asian girl that could use telepathy to cause sensations in others. She was so named, because pain was her favorite sensation to share and while in her super suit, she wore cherry blossoms in her hair. The second I recognized was Magmatic. His power was to turn any earth into magma and then he could shoot it at his enemies. He couldn’t just make fire out of thin air, but in a lot of ways magma was even worse than plasma.

  Fortunately, Magmatic and the two I didn’t recognize because they were all in orange jumpsuits, took off and flew to the west at full speed. Well, unfortunate for the city they went to, but the point was they weren’t sticking around for revenge. Out of fifteen, three split town like their asses were on fire, and nine were taken down by the government’s rifles, so that only left three to face. Painblossom, Napalm, and Gravimetric.

  The bad news was that all three of them were SE-class at the least, special energy, and Napalm was definitely higher than that. One of the most powerful in the SP class based on how badly he’d spanked Venus when they’d fought the first time. I thought I was SP-class too, but it was hard to dismiss Amber’s affectionate amusement the other night when she’d implied that I was a Titan class. Or at least, far past SP-class.

  It seemed so unlikely, but at the same time Amber was the smartest person I knew.

  “Make sure Serina and Amber are aware.”

  She replied, “Angel is briefing them already.”

  I teleported the suit to me, and I changed while I watched the screen. Gravimetric took out more towers, and Napalm started to shoot fireballs to assist in that, while Painblossom scanned the sky with a disturbing glint of dark anticipation in her eyes, and on her vulnerably beautiful face. I knew it was stupid, and naïve, but it shocked me that such delicate beauty could be so hard or evil.

  Angelic Fire swooped down and immediately attacked Painblossom with a blast of flames that would blind her for a moment, while the other two went for Gravimetric and Napalm. It was a decent tactic, Painblossom would have to get through Angelic Fire’s shields before she could take him down with disabling amounts of agony, while the other two would’ve been completely helpless from the start.

  Except, Angelic Warrior wasn’t even close to a match for Napalm.

  Angelic Justice didn’t do too badly against Gravimetric as he swooped down and punched him hard enough to send him flying away, and then pursued. The secondary objective was clearly to split them up.

  Angelic Warrior however dove down and punched Napalm, who flew back but stopped himself almost immediately with his flight power.

  Napalm sent a stream of white-hot fire at Angelic Warrior who dodged out of it quickly enough, but he’d failed in his task, and a moment later he went down screaming under Painblossom’s gaze.

  Napalm blasted him with fire too, and as soon as Angelic Warrior’s invulnerability ran out, he’d be roasted. He couldn’t fly away either, not with every nerve in his body exploding in agonizing pain and blanking his thoughts.

  I was about to teleport in, the only reason I’d hesitated up until then was the Trio wouldn’t work with me at all, if I was there one of the idiots probably would’ve gone for me.

  But Angelic Fire swooped down, grabbed his partner, and took off after Angelic Justice and Gravimetric. The two split apart almost immediately and flew out of range of Blossom. With the three of them they could take down Gravimetric fast and then all return at once. Or I assumed that was their tactic.

  Napalm took off into the air, and Painblossom followed on the ground as they ran that way to get back in the fight.

  That’s when Venus showed up however, and she sent down a bright energy blast that hit Painblossom in the back and sent her tumbling down to the ground.

  Napalm turned and bathed Venus in a blast of fire, while Painblossom turned her hateful gaze to the sky. Her ability was no doubt draining Venus’s protective shields, but she hadn’t gotten through yet.

  Venus and Napalm started to exchange energy and fire blasts, as she ignored Painblossom for the moment. Both of them flying, dodging, and circling each other.

  I frowned, “Where the hell are the Trio?”

  Gravimetric was a bitch for me, but he was no match for the three of them. The only reason he hurt me at all was because gravity was one of my weaknesses. Those three all had partial invulnerability to protect themselves from it, and Gravimetric’s shields weren’t all that strong. Not three against one.

  She replied, “Gravimetric is kiting them and fighting defensively only. I estimate there’s a ninety two percent chance his goal is to keep them from coming to Venus’s assistance. Including the fact that Napalm wants revenge against Venus for taking down his brother.”

  Shit, and it was working. Freaking idiots.

  Sky said, “Magmatic and the other two supervillains are coming back.”

  Shit. The fight was too damned close already.

  I teleported, just in time to see a small lake of magma dropped on Venus. She went flying down into the ground as red-hot lava burned into her shields.

  She managed to fly out of it, but a second later her shields fell and she started to scream in agony as Painblossom’s power hit her hard. The other two assholes were A-class it looked like, and they dove for her even as she disappeared behind Napalm’s white-hot fire.

  My mind reached out and shielded her a split second before Napalm released his fire and the two A-class hit her from above hard in a dive. It would’ve no doubt sent her slamming into the ground, if it wasn’t for my shield. The two A-class stopped dead an inch above her, as the fiery red aura exploded in plasma and sent them flying back. I had a similar explosive shield around myself, and I really hoped no one noticed I didn’t say any words.

  Yeah, we were outside of a government prison under tons of surveillance, what were the chances I was that lucky?

  The real problem was that I’d waited too fucking long to assist, and she was burned badly and hardly breathing. The hit from the A-class assholes would’ve killed her.

  “Where is Elegant Prodigy, we need nanites now. Venus needs something to keep her alive until her invulnerability recharges enough to heal her.”

  A flash of lightning heralded Lady Lightning’s arrival, and she took one look at Venus and went batshit insane. Two thick coruscating ropes of lightning exploded from her hands, and they hit the A-Class assholes. Lady Lightning screamed in rage, and the ropes thickened further, and became so blindingly bright I had to turn my head away.

  When she released them two seconds later both of them were charred and fell to the ground lifelessly, though I knew they were still alive. Just… out of the fight.

  Napalm screamed in rage, “Brother!”

  Magmatic hadn’t stopped after dropping the lake of lava, and he’d flown off toward the Trio and Gravimetric.

  Napalm and Painblossom hit my shields hard, but I just ignored them as Sky said, “ETA, three minutes.”

  “Not good enough, bring up her GPS coordinates.”

  Sky plotted a course to north of the city. Elegant Prodigy’s lab was probably way out there for legal reasons, and I’d never been there, but I’d been close a bunch of times on patrols. I teleported as close as possible taking the dying Venus with me, and then shot off on a rendezvous course that would take fifteen seconds.

  Elegant Prodigy pulled out a familiar silver tube, and she hit the button as soon as the tip was flush with Venus’s skin. Only then did she take out the scanning device and start to run it over her.


  “I have to get back to Lady Lightning.”

  She said, “I think she’ll make it, if the nanites have enough time to get in place to support her systems. Go, I have her in my gravity field.”

  I popped back to the fight, just in time to see Painblossom shake and tremble under the force of Lady Lightning’s coruscating blast, and to fall on her ass as she pissed herself and passed out.

  Lady Lightning looked on edge, and weaker than I’d seen her in a long while. She’d expended a lot of energy taking down the A-Classes in one shot, then Painblossom while I was gone. No doubt being razed by Napalm’s fire the whole time.

  Napalm had lost it as well, seeing his brother brought low, but at least the little shit wasn’t dead.

  At the same time, Magmatic and Gravimetric were approaching from the north, and I barely spared even a split-second’s thought on the Trio’s fate if they’d lost that fight. Both of those supervillains were killers.

  Napalm shot white hot fire at Lady Lightning, obviously just as obsessed with killing Serina now as he had been in killing Amanda for daring to touch his brother. I didn’t like the faintness of Lady Lightning’s shields, or the weak ass bolt she fired in response.

  “Atque intendere reflectunt,” as I reached out and grabbed his fire, twisted it, amplified it, and sent it back. The Latin simply meant reflect and amplify. Roughly. I used Google translate to build my spell repertoire, so far no one had called bullshit on me.

  The fire engulfed him, but that was his power, so it was limited in its effect. I needed to take his oxygen away again to finish the fight.

  Angel said, “Venus has stabilized, and will be as good as new within a half an hour.”

  Lady Lightning returned to her senses at that news, only to scream in sudden agony as Gravimetric grabbed her in a crushing gravity well and held her still. I don’t know why she didn’t just do that lightning bolt thing and move out of it, maybe she couldn’t think, or maybe her power was too low for that fast-travel as lightning thing she did.

  Napalm grinned evilly as he sent out a pluming blast of white fire instead of a simple fireball, no longer worrying about missing. He didn’t stop, and the stream of exploding fire kept her engulfed.

  That’s when I lost my mind. Unlike earlier, when I blocked Amanda from a fire, psychic, and a physical attack combination, I couldn’t protect Lady Lightning from gravity even if I wanted to. If the gravity didn’t crush her to death, the fire would burn her alive as soon as her already weakened shields fell. Serina’s screams struck me horrifically, and I couldn’t think of a damned word in Latin in that moment, but I did manage to spit out some nonsense phrase. It was like a physical pain in my chest, her agonized screams cut me deeply, and the protective rage that rose in me was completely out of proportion because I’d had no idea just how precious she was to me before that moment.

  She was my partner, I’d always had her back, I’d have always protected her as she protected me, but it went so much deeper than that. I was with Amber and more than content with that, content with the idea Serina was happy with Venus, and we were friends. But I also loved her, her smile, her company, and in that split second of time I just lost it.

  Maybe a part of it was just going through the same thing with Amanda, I couldn’t bear the thought of Serina dying to these assholes. She’d burned off too much power in her angry madness, and she’d pay the price if I let her.

  I wouldn’t let her.

  My mind struck out, hard, even as I reached out instinctually to protect and cradle Lady Lightning in an unbreakable shield. Fortunately, I targeted that strike instinctively, or I might’ve destroyed other things, like the nearby forest, and the reinforced concrete prison. I’d have almost surely have killed Painblossom and the two A-class idiots as well as the nine supervillains the guards had taken down, all lying unconscious on the ground below me, but I didn’t.

  Gravimetric and Magmatic were punted so hard they almost immediately disappeared over the horizon, and there was a triple shock wave as three sonic booms sounded almost simultaneously. Only my shields saved me and Lady Lightning from ruptured ear drums. As it was, every car window in the parking lot outside the prison exploded.

  I’d been flying higher than Napalm however, so his faster than sound trip was extremely short as he slammed into the ground like an asteroid. Dirt, rocks, and splintered trees exploded into the air, as Napalm’s body dug a trench almost thirty yards long, before his fire went out.

  Permanently.

  I figured out later that even in my desperate and insanely protective rage, my subconscious mind had calculated the needed telekinetic energy in the attack to knock them out in one blow based on prior fights with all three supervillains. I’d also learn that the other two had survived, which is most of the reason I believe that to be true. What my mind hadn’t gauged, was using Napalm’s body to dig a ninety-foot ditch and destroy about six trees.

  I stared at the dead and brokenly mangled and bloody body, completely lost. I’d never killed before, not once. Not even when I’d triggered, since the danger of death for me had been from an accident, not a tormentor. I felt like I’d lost something precious in that moment, an empty void in my soul that could never again be filled.

  At the same time, I knew I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, if I had to in order to save Serina or Amber. Or anyone else. Except, now that the moment had passed, and Lady Lightning’s screams of agony weren’t clouding my mind with rage and an insane need to protect her, I knew there’d been other options.

  I could’ve used crushing darkness on all three of them, contained their powers, and blinded gravimetric again so he couldn’t finish her. Or I could’ve simply shielded her from the fire, and teleported gravimetric out of range so his attack ended. He couldn’t stop my power, any more than I could’ve stopped his.

  There was no denying the truth.

  Napalm’s death had come simply because I’d lost control of myself. I’d struck out like an enraged toddler with a stick out of anger. Not that the fucker hadn’t earned it, he was sadistic and evil, and the world was a much safer place without him in it. But… I wasn’t sadistic and evil, and that’s not what superheroes did.

  We were supposed to be better.

  I felt a warm hand on my side, and turned my head her way, horror in my eyes. The shock and disgust that I felt and expected to see in her eyes wasn’t there. Instead, her warm blue eyes were filled with compassion, worry for me, and thankfulness. She looked a little wrung out, but she’d also never looked more beautiful to me.

  She said softly, “I’m sorry. It was my fault. If I hadn’t lost my head… This sort of thing happens, all heroes have had it happen to them, especially when they’re out every day fighting to protect people like you are.”

  Elegant Prodigy asked worriedly, “What happened?” no doubt hearing the compassion and worry in Lady Lightning’s usually playful and sweet voice.

  Lady Lightning said, “The fight’s over. Napalm is… dead. I’m not sure what happened to the Trio yet. Venus?”

  Elegant Prodigy replied, “Stable and already healing.”

  Good, with invulnerability she’d heal really fast, much faster than I could. Once her power reached the threshold for it, she’d heal in minutes and be as good as new.

  “Are you alright?”

  Lady Lightning nodded, “Thanks to you, Mythic. We should check on the Trio.”

  I shook off the shock, not really, my mind was numb, but there was a certain comfort in keeping on going. Doing what I always did, and the two of us flew that way. When we got there, I froze.

  “Fuck.”

  Lady Lightning sighed, “It looks like Chicago is down to one legal superheroine. They’ve been crushed, and then buried in magma.”

  It was a ghastly sight. The ground was still glowing and steaming as it cooled, enough of them were sticking out in three places to identify three bodies, all with burnt white burning material. They were idiots, but they helped in their own way, and the
y were superheroes. Had been, superheroes.

  Sky said, “Guards just poured out of the prison, and they’ve taken Painblossom and the other eleven back into custody. I’d advise not returning to the prison, they’re likely to shoot at you both.”

  Lady Lightning said, “My place? Dinner, and lots of whiskey.”

  That sounded like a really good plan to me.

  Afterword:

  I hope you enjoyed the story. This was the first book of a trilogy. The second book will be out soon.

  If you can, please take the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and they have a bigger impact than you’d believe.

  About the Author: If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at magicwrtr@gmail.com. I started out posting short stories online and at readers’ requests started to publish them. If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.

  Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

  Cirenthian Chronicles – Book one is Out of Darkness.

  Marcus, an ancient vampire, finds himself moved to another world where suddenly he is alive again, and magic is a known and powerful danger. No longer a vampire and dealing with emotions he hasn’t felt in over a millennium, will he be able to start a new life? This series is now complete.

  Necromancer Chronicles – Book one is The Necromancer.

  Vincent is a necromancer and has an even darker secret. Feared by the rest of the supernatural community he lives on his own, often struggling with his powers, and how to use them. But change is coming, and he will soon find himself dragged into the middle of a suspicious and untrusting community.