Killing Capes (Book 3): The End

by Mathy, Scott

  Counsel darted forward, launching himself off the remaining stairs with superhuman speed. Lia inhaled deeply as his gloved fingers stretched toward her. Her body erupted into pure violet energy as the refined powder filled her lungs. Time froze as her vibrant form breathed in the substance and grew gradually brighter as it flooded every cell of her body. Her intense heat melted the vial in her fingers, glass running like water between them.

  The swelling power overwhelmed them both. Counsel stopped just short, grabbing the sides of his helmet as Lia’s mental powers swelled beyond his control. He fell to the ground, convulsing as the thoughts of every being in the multiverse swept over him. He bashed at his reflective helm, doing anything to try to stem the flow of consciousness drowning him.

  Lia remained standing, her arms held out at her sides, riding the wave of eternity enveloping her. She embraced it, welcoming all the minds of existence into her. Dwight felt that connection through her, as if they were all, for the briefest moment, one. A billion possibilities, each with their own versions of every person that could or would ever exist became a singularity in the mind of a solitary Power.

  The wave quickly faded, settling into the intense peace of perfect knowledge belonging to the glowing being standing beside him. Where her feet met the stone, imprints of cosmic energy burned through the rock. Her entire shape was filled with the starry fields previously shown only within her eyes. The slow pulse of her inner light matched her steady heartbeat.

  She turned to face Dwight, who was frozen in awe at the vision of eternity standing before him. He triggered the faceplate of his armor to rise, compelled by Lia’s will to do so. She reached out to stroke his cheek. He flinched, anticipating the pain of searing heat. To his surprise, her fingers – manifestations of raw, unrestrained power – were instead soothingly warm. He took in the reassuring touch, then looked up to meet her immeasurable gaze. “Step three,” the goddess said, “Kick his ass.”

  Across the city, a thousand radiant star-filled projections blinked into existence. Beside every Power – Cape or criminal, mage or metahuman – she was there. She appeared to them, bringing the joy of the infinite to their minds. She embraced each one as a divine being, unfathomable by mortal minds, and then disappeared. Throughout New Haven, one by one, the Powers vanished in a flash of violet light. The sounds of fighting, of New Haven’s torturous death, ceased. In an instant, they were gone, leaving only the powerless, the Referee, and his other self.

  Counsel stopped thrashing, crawling to his knees as he fought to catch his breath. He grabbed the sides of the mask, removing it as he panted for air. He threw his bloodshot eyes up at his other self, clenching his teeth. The ancient, battle-scared faces of the tyrant and his counterpart remained twisted mirrors of one another, even without the reflective mask. “What have you done?” he spat.

  “Evened the odds, you prick. They’re gone. All the power that’s left for you to steal is in this suit’s batteries.” He reset the meter monitoring the power levels of his suit, “You’ll be dead before I run out of energy.” He lowered his armor’s protective mask.

  “I will not be beaten by a powerless weakling like you!” Replacing his visor, Counsel sprang forward, wrapping his gloved hands around the armor’s neck. The force of his ascent lifted them both from the ground. Dwight engaged the boosters, carrying them forward as one. He slammed Counsel’s back into the front face of the building, drilling another crater into its surface. More glass rained down. His opponent released his right hand, bringing it back to punch the suit’s faceplate.

  Dwight recoiled from the impact, staggering briefly to collect his senses. He glanced at the armor’s energy levels, seeing a stark “95%” slowly ticking down with each second both men drained the suit’s reserves. He looked up to the sky, seeing the angled architecture of the top floor’s shadow over them.

  He reengaged the thrusters, dragging the thrashing Power up the dark metalwork of the skyscraper, tearing a solid line of destruction as they ripped through it. They reached the top floor with an explosion of glass and steel, crashing through the floor into Wulf’s former lair. A flurry of blows from Counsel broke Dwight’s grip, flinging both combatants apart. The Referee Armor collided with something solid, the force briefly dazing Dwight.

  Reaching behind him, his armored fingers found the edge of his old master’s obsidian desk just in time to launch himself skyward as Counsel slammed into it with all his stolen might. The stone slab detonated into chunks of black rock and dust. Dwight flipped around, bringing the suit’s lasers to bear on his opponent’s back, burning through the silver cloak and white bodysuit beneath. Counsel roared in agony. His hands found one of the immense shards of Wulf’s desk, wrenching it around to hurl it at Dwight. The spike burst against the suit’s shoulder, knocking him from the air. Dwight landed on unbalanced legs, his momentum bringing him just short of the edge of the office, teetering over the ledge.

  Counsel raced into his back, impacting with enough force to rocket both men flying into the open air. The enraged Power clung to his back, repeatedly tearing at the armored plates, attempting to claw his way into the suit with brute savagery. Dwight spun, fighting to regain control. He fired his boosters, thrusting them both beyond the perimeter of StarPoint and into the city proper. Dwight kicked and flailed frantically, finally catching grip of Counsel’s arm and rotating the villain around. The thrusters screamed, overpowering the thrashing tyrant. Increasing the power to their full capacity, Dwight dragged his foe skyward.

  The two exchanged blows, each fighting to gain the upper hand as they soared higher and higher. Dwight kept his eyes on the power levels of his armor, watching the percentage plummet with every second. They passed through the lowest clouds, rising as New Haven became smaller and smaller below them.

  Through his helmet, he heard his other self screaming, “You’ll kill us both! Is that your goal!?”

  Dwight gritted his teeth, stopping their ascent with a mental command, “If that’s what it takes to keep them safe!”

  He reversed directions, burning his reserves to rocket back toward the city below. Alice’s voice shouted over the in-suit speakers, “Approaching terminal velocity! I cannot guarantee the armor will survive an impact from this altitude! Advise immediate action!”

  The g-force tore through him, pressing the blood into his lower half as he pushed harder, driving the suit’s boosters with all their strength. As they returned through the clouds, a trail of light burning behind them, Dwight felt himself losing consciousness. At the moment before he blacked out, he commanded, “Alice, all thrusters stop!” He released his grip on Counsel as he felt consciousness slip away.

  His perception returned with an electric jolt through his body. The sudden pain woke him with a violent start. He quickly looked around through the suit’s sensors, finding himself hovering several hundred feet over the city. In the distance, the ravaged face of StarPoint hung in the skyline like a broken mirror. The light snowfall had become heavier, the clouds finally releasing their payload over the cold city. Beneath him, an enormous crater cut through the intersection. It passed through sewer and subway lines, breaking through the concrete skin of the city street into the depths beyond.

  “Have you recovered, Mr. Knolls?” Alice asked.

  Dwight took a few deep breaths, searching the destruction for Counsel. “Yeah, thanks for covering. I’ll take it from here.”

  Guiding the suit into the rubble, he flipped through the sensors, scanning for any sign of his enemy. Frigid water poured into the hole where dozens of lines had been severed. The shells of a few broken cars lay strewn about the new gorge blasted in the center of the road. The hole extended at least thirty feet down into the city’s utility tunnels. He cut the thrusters, checking the power again. The meter read just over half of Lia’s energy remaining within the suit.

  “Behind!” Alice shouted. A series of warning signs lit up his display, reacting to the ambush.

  Counsel leapt at his back with
a jagged slab of rock. Dwight sidestepped the attack, elbowing the Power in the face as he dodged. The villain’s mirrored helmet must have shattered on impact; deep bleeding gashes covered the skin on one side of his face. The perfect visage of the mask was broken, the other Dwight’s feral rage plainly visible through the damaged armor.

  “You will not destroy all I have built!” the madman snarled, kicking the suit in the midsection. He brought both hands to the side of Dwight’s head, pressing into it with all his remaining strength. More alarms sounded as the metal strained under the force of Counsel’s fury. The pressure drove the Referee Armor into a kneeling stance as Dwight fought to free himself.

  He frantically looked around for options. “Alice, get us out of here!” he commanded.

  A wireframe scan of their environment washed over his visuals, taking with it the ravaged white of his foe’s bodysuit and revealing the damaged architecture behind it. Dwight released his hold on Counsel’s arms, abandoning the futile attempts to overpower him. Instead, he fired the boosters at the back of each arm, driving his fists into his opponent’s midsection. The surprise attack knocked Counsel back, temporarily stunning him enough for Dwight to feed power to all four thrusters. He launched forward through the staggered Power, driving them both into the wall twenty feet behind them.

  A look of purest shock overtook the visible half of Counsel’s face. The homicidal rage faded away over the next few seconds as the two combatants faced each other mere inches apart. Dwight forced himself back, yelling in excruciating agony as he ripped the pipe from his suit’s torso. With a final heave, the cold steel pulled away, freeing him. The display showed the immense damage to the armor’s middle plates and their occupant. Dwight grasped the wound, panting heavily.

  Before him, Counsel gazed down at his own injury. The villain lay against the wall, fully impaled through the center of his abdomen by the tube. Blood soaked his white armor where the metal penetrated his shell. A thin trail ran from his mouth.

  The ground beneath both men quaked violently. Counsel gasped from the pain of the pipe vibrating within him. “You feel it? All this means nothing. It has come. We will both die.”

  Ellis cut in on the radio, “Dwight, I’m picking up a massive disturbance inbound from the south, coming right to you. He’s right. You’re out of time. You have to get out of there!”

  “Job’s not done. Not yet,” he looked at his palm, seeing the bright red seeping through the armor. “I’m not going anywhere.” He looked up at the snow falling into the crater.

  Counsel chucked weakly, unable to drag himself from the cold steel pinning him down. “So this is it, then? You won’t stop it. Your fight means nothing.” He spat a thick gob of blood on the ground.

  “It wasn’t meaningless,” Dwight corrected, still looking skyward. “Doesn’t matter if I win or not. Lia, Ellis, Zhu – all of us – stood against a tyrant and fought for what we believed in.”

  “And what is that, you powerless filth?”

  “That they all matter: Powerless and Powerful, everyone you’ve threatened. They’re all worth fighting for, and win or lose, someone fought.” He engaged the suit’s boosters one last time, watching the power drop below twenty percent.

  Counsel shouted from the crater as he grew smaller and smaller with distance, “You’ll burn! We’ll all burn!” His maniacal laughter trailed off as Dwight landed on the edge of the chasm.

  TEN

  Each step forward was agony. His vision blurred as he limped through the fresh snow, back toward the burning star soaring over the bay growing brighter by the second. The deserted streets of New Haven reminded him more of Sierra Grande or Void’s world than his own home. Hundreds of abandoned vehicles filled the street, not a single living being in sight for miles around. His armor grew heavier by the second as the suit reverted to minimal power levels.

  “I am administering emergency measures to stem the blood loss,” Alice reported, “This will hurt for a moment.”

  Dwight felt icy tendrils of foam plug the wound at his side. He screamed in pain, but continued pressing forward, unable to rest while the ball of light grew larger with each step. The compound meshed shut the hole in his armor, forming a seal over his injury.

  The A.I. reported her success, “The bleeding has been stopped. I am not detecting any vital organ damage. Medical assistance is still recommended within twelve hours.”

  He grinned to himself within the suit, “Great, Alice. I’ll remember to do that if we survive the next five minutes.”

  “I could administer painkillers, if you want,” she offered.

  He desperately wanted to accept. “Don’t. I can’t yet,” he immediately regretted those words as another stinging wave ran up his side.

  “Understood,” she replied and went silent.

  In the distance, Dwight saw the star clear the water, coming over land for the first time. It crested the bay with a powerful blast, stirring up enormous waves that crashed against the pier. Between them, the front parkway leading to StarPoint rose up to the building itself. The star roared into the courtyard. As it passed fifty feet from the ground, the trees beneath it ignited spectacularly. Their spreading flames in the midmorning snowfall illuminated the entire park and cast bizarre shadows over the ruined face of the building.

  Dwight continued forward, leaving the blocks of city streets and stepping into the highway that ran in front of the dark tower. He climbed over the median, forcing himself onward as the star hovered before him. An intense gale radiated from the entity, fanning the flames of the blaze throughout the area. Smoke filled the sky, dropping ash along with the falling snow.

  “Alice, can you get specs on the Referee Armor’s heat tolerances?” he asked, staring into the inferno.

  The A.I. took a moment to respond, “Nothing like this, Mr. Knolls. I’m afraid your emergency treatment remains exposed as well.” She anticipated his next move, “I advise against your immediate actions.”

  “Noted,” he answered, taking a step forward into the burning park.

  The trails leading to the tower had always been Wulf’s pride. Now, their edges lined with flaming spires, the park transformed into a burning hellscape. The armor’s display brought up the rapidly climbing external temperature. Every step, the gauge rose as he drew closer to the blazing Power at its center. By the time he reached the rows of golden statues at the central walkway leading to the building’s entrance, the suit’s meters showed only fifteen percent of life remaining in his armor. He gazed up at the End, surrounded by the dissolving effigies of New Haven’s fallen heroes. Their golden shells ran like wax onto the scorching concrete surrounding them.

  Dwight raised a hand to block the overwhelming glare coming off the being before him. Its radiance poured out in waves, blasting him with gusts of superheated air. It remained stationary, hovering over the firestorm.

  “Alice,” Dwight called, “Take a temperature reading of that thing.”

  She processed the request, flagging it in a corner of his visuals, “I am reading its core at over three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. There’s no way the suit can resist those temperatures.”

  “I don’t intent to,” Dwight unlocked his suit’s missile system, “Continue actively scanning its heat.”

  His visor flipped through several lenses, finally stopping on an ultra-violet filter of the creature. Within the superheated mass, a humanoid shape floated in the air. Its head tilted, glaring up at the destroyed peak of the building before it.

  Dwight held an arm up to the creature and triggered a single rocket to fire at the core. It jetted away with a thin wisp of smoke from its afterburners. It detonated before reaching the heart of the inferno, overwhelmed by the heat.

  The End shifted, rotating slightly to face its attacker. Dwight turned to run, firing the thrusters of his armor at maximum power. He rocketed up and over the burning park, leaving the trail as the star roared to life. It pursued him over the forest, intensifying each spreading fire as it passed
overhead. Dwight fought to see through the all-encompassing smoke pouring upward. As he cleared the cloud, he entered the city proper, gaining altitude as he jetted between the rows of abandoned buildings.

  His pursuer followed close behind, the rays of energy melting the structure of each building it soared past. Glass ran like water over their sides. The pair raced through block after block, destruction following the star every inch of its airborne pursuit.

  Dwight watched his power levels drop to ten percent, “Alice, update!” he shouted into the suit.

  “I am detecting a five hundred-degree decrease in temperature since the End entered the city. I am unable to pinpoint the cause at this time.” One of the suit’s boosters shorted, its systems overloaded by the stress of the chase. “It is still too dangerous to approach any closer.”

  “Got it!” he banked higher, heading toward the city center. Pushing the remaining jets further to compensate for the lost one, he ignored the dozens of warning lights filling his view.

  Block after block passed beneath them, the star chasing the armor through New Haven’s sky. Even in his frantic state, he spotted ruins of places he’d been: the deep craters cut into Meteor Park, the two Cape towers’ shattered faces in front of him. He twisted the suit’s flight path directly in line with the Justice Guild’s deserted headquarters.

  “Alice, this thing’s remote mines still working?” he asked the A.I.

  She responded immediately, “Yes, Mr. Knolls.”

  He aimed at the center mass of the building, a line of dark glass surrounded by concrete windowless levels. Accelerating further, he braced himself as the suit’s power consumption increased. The levels fell to five percent as he crossed over the courtyard where Zhu had given his life to avenge his world. He glanced back at the End still blazing behind him, its heat threatening to instantly incinerate him.