Domino, while not as kinetic or strong as Luke, has her own grace and beauty. She teleports around her opponents. Punching them from odd angles and kicking them when they are looking the other way. She uses a variety of weapons from Tazers, to zip ties in a Jackie Chan-esq ballet of incapacitation.
Fleet zooms around slapping his opponents with debris and shoving them into walls. He can’t punch anyone at speed without breaking every bone in his body. I can only imagine how careful he has to be. His friction field protects him to some degree, but not from punching a human at a hundred miles an hour. However, even a pebble causes serious harm if it’s going fast enough.
Mr. Perfect has several contained in one of his energy constructs, a box that shrinks in size by the second. He does all of this from his flying carpet while chanting and waving his hands… goofball.
I look for Glacier to make sure she is okay and… I can’t find her.
“Epic, locate Glacier.”
He flashes a search pattern on my HUD before it zeroes in on her. She is sliding south down the road toward the Diamond Exchange. Great, she wants to go solo against Fang. I glance around the struggle before me. Crusher and Inferno vanished the moment the fight broke out. Which means the team can handle these losers.
Either Glacier is aching to prove herself or she wants to get hurt. On the bright side, I can hear again.
“Boss, permission to engage the DE with Glacier? It looks like Inferno and Crusher are a no-show,” I ask Luke.
He kicks one of the gang members in the chest, sending him flying backward end over end to crash into a car. The door crumples and the man doesn’t get up. The car is one of those cheaply built electric jobs that cost an arm and a leg. Which we’re now going to have to pay for.
“Affirmative. Keep her out of trouble,” Luke replies.
I turn south and kick in the speed. I miss the roar my compressed fuel jets used to make. Glacier travels by freezing the ground in front of her with a thick sheet of ice, then sliding on it. She must have phenomenal balance. Once she gets going she really moves. I have floor it to catch up.
“Nice afternoon for a skate?”
The huge advantage of my new suit is the Emdrive allows me to hover without having to use my hands for balance. I can fly along at twenty-five miles an hour simply by angling myself up and letting my new maneuvering thrusters do the rest.
“You,” she sighs, “Can’t I do my own thing? I don’t need a babysitter.”
“As a matter of fact, as a probationary member, you do need a babysitter. Everyone gets one until you’re a full-fledged member. What are you doing?”
She shrugs.
“The way my… abilities work, I don’t like to use them around people I don’t want frozen,” she says as we approach the front entrance of the diamond exchange.
I read her file, she can flash freeze things but she can also rapidly build ice up around herself and others. Not to mention the tricks she can do with it, like ice skating when it’s ninety-five out.
“Epic, could we generate enough heat to melt ice if we were incased?”
Other than the minimal amount of life-support required for our eventual crack at orbital flight—no. I wouldn’t recommend being frozen.
“Thanks…” Don’t get frozen, right.
The Diamond Exchanges outer doors are the kind of roll down metal slats business use to protect themselves from vandals. These didn’t help at all, someone peeled them back like bananas.
“What is Fang’s strength rated at?”
F4 and his claws are sharp enough to shred metal.
It was a good choice of words on Epic’s part, considering the next set of doors were made of reinforced steel. Fang went through them like a can opener.
“Be ready for anything,” I say to Glacier.
Epic throws up some telemetry on my HUD. Heat sources, sound, etc. I notice he’s picking up vitals from Glacier. I’ll have to ask him about that later.
With palms toward the door, I land the suit and start in. Glacier is right behind me. She’s not tall, only five-six, which is funny because if I could stand that would be my height. In the suit, though, I’m five-eight and much bulkier than a normal person.
With the power out, I turn on the suits exterior LED’s, they’re bright enough to light up the dark side of the moon. There isn’t a lot of natural light in here. Fewer windows mean fewer entrances to guard, I guess.
Movement. Up ahead, three meters.
“That’s in the room…”
An invisible wall of force slams into me, sending me flying backward. Glacier narrowly dodges and I see her hands shoot out. Beams of blue light flash through the empty air leaving behind splashes of ice wherever they touch something.
I hear a scream as I pull myself back up. A man appears out of thin air and drops to the floor, holding his frozen hand. I try not to think about it as I zap him with an IP cannon blast. He falls to the ground convulsing as his nervous system short-circuits.
Glacier chuckles.
“Cool weapon.”
“Invisi-dork must be the rear guard. They probably know we’re here, be careful.”
I don’t wait for her to respond before I start moving again. She didn’t panic which says a lot about her.
“Arsenal, this is Force.” As if I didn’t know what he sounded like. “We’re all cleaned up out here and moving toward you. The two ring-leaders are a no-show.”
I nod to myself. Something fishy is going on here but I’m not sure what.
“Roger Dodger, meet us around back, maybe we can flush some of these guys out to you?”
The Exchange is essentially a big warehouse with cages for buying and selling precious gems. On one side they have the massive vaults and in the middle, the showroom. When we enter the open area the remaining four members of the team are busy looting one of the vaults that look like it was peeled open.
“Glacier,” I whisper, “Freeze the floor.”
“All of it?”
I give her the thumbs up as I take to the air. Her hands go out in front of her and the blue light flashes from her palms. Wherever she shines the light a thick layer of ice grows behind it. The room is instantly more humid from the sudden influx of frozen h2o.
“Attention bad guys,” I say at a hundred decibels, “You are under arrest for the crime of being stupid. Give up now and we may reconsider the charges.”
When I first started doing this I thought I sounded hokey, until I heard Luke talk.
The four gang members stop what they are doing and look back to me. I don’t expect them to throw their hands up but pointing and laughing weren't high on my list either.
“Okay, have it your way,” I say aloud, then to Epic, “IP Cannons, maxi—”
The suit bucks as something hits me. The Emdrive flashes red as my apparent weight has… no, he’s on my back. Thick spider-like legs covered in fine wolf’s fur wrap around me. Epic diverts full power to the kinetic dampeners as the thing holding me spins me around while… ew, covering me in webs. Gross.
“Particle cannons,” I yell as I spin. Epic flashes a three-dimensional schematic of the room on my HUD. With my arms trapped at my side, I need to be careful not to shoot Glacier. Fang is a lot like a real spider, he finishes wrapping me one way then spins me around to start the other direction. However, as he spins me—I fire.
Super accelerated silicon particles slice through his webbing and parts of him. He howls and drops me thirty feet to the floor. The suit bounces after it hits and I land face down.
Of course.
I can activate my thrusters but thanks to my upgrade they don’t produce any flame. I can’t burst the stuff because I’m not strong enough. That just leaves…
“Epic, unlock the sword.”
Without the kinetic field holding my four-foot long sword to my back, there’s nothing stopping it from falling off. Even a tiny bit of gravity can cause it to shift. With the edge being one molecule thick of diamond, all it has to do is
touch the fibers and it slices between their bonds like they aren’t even there!
A few seconds more and I can move. I snatch up the sword then carefully slice through the webbing around my legs. Once I’m free, I can stand. The four gang members have split into two groups, one continues to load the backpacks while the other two go after Glacier. Arrogant dorks that they are, they don’t even notice Fang retreating. I can’t say I blame him. The leg I cut off is still twitching on the floor.
The two attacking Glacier have her pinned. One is shooting some kind of focused energy beams from his eyes, while the other leaps around her like a frog on crack.
“Epic, HE in the vault when the two guys aren’t in it.”
I whip my sword around a few times to shake the cobwebs off of it before clicking it into place on my back. It’s just too deadly to use on flesh and blood people.
I hear the puff of the grenade launcher. Two seconds later the explosion rips through the vault with a deafening boom. IP Cannon’s nail leaper when he’s distracted. The energy slams him thirty feet into the far wall as if he were weightless.
Interesting.
I miss eye-beam-man and bring my hand around to refocus. Alarms sound and my HUD flashes red. Heat levels rise as the outside temperature of the armor begins to climb. He’s focused on me, the red beam burns through the air striking the side of the armor. At the rate the temperature’s climbing I have thirty seconds until the titanium-tungsten carbide outer shell softens.
Too bad he doesn’t have that long.
“IP cannons, maximum power, narrow beam.”
The targeting bracket hovers over him showing me exactly where my twin IP cannons will strike. Since he’s not moving because of the ice I take an extra second to make sure I’ll get a headshot.
The sandpaper sound of my cannons discharging fills the air. The two force blasts strike him in the face shattering his nose and sending him sprawling backward head over feet sliding on the floor until he bumps unconscious against the far wall.
“Wow,” Glacier says as she moves beside me.
“Careful, my armor is about a thousand degrees right now.” It will take a good hour for the armor to cool off. I sigh.This is going to take a hundred hours of maintenance and diagnostics to make sure nothing was damaged.
“I got it,” she says. She lifts her hand up to my chest piece and the temperature drops rapidly. Not instantly, not fast enough to damage it, but about twice as long as it took to heat up.
“Wow,” I say.
She shrugs.
“Part of being an ice elemental is the constant need to absorb heat. If I don’t absorb enough then…”
“What?” I ask.
“I freeze in place,” she says looking down at the ground. I can tell this is upsetting her so I switch lines.
“You held your own against leaping lizard and gazer beam over there, good job.”
She looks up and a smile splits her icy face. I still can’t get over how ice can move and react exactly like a person but not be one. I mean, I can see through her head. She is a walking, talking statue of ice…
So how come Epic can detect a heartbeat?
Only after I land the suit down in my workshop do I feel tired. The day started almost twelve hours ago and my arms feel like jelly. I take a step over to my right, lining up my oversized boots with the taped out squares on the floor. I keep meaning to turn them into something more permanent, but if it ain't broke…
Epic takes over and the suit shifts. While the MKI used the kinetic manipulators to detach and form, I decided with the MKII I needed a way to take the suit with me. I never want to be in the position again of having to rely on outwitting someone like Vixen who sneaks into my lab. Of course, taking the suit off and on isn’t something I can do by hand, so I had to get clever.
Each piece of the suit slides down as the plates shift and reform. It only takes thirty seconds but when it’s done I’m sitting in a shiny red and white wheelchair with hi-tech looking wheels. The chair isn’t formed from the armor, more of a storage unit for it. I can press a button and be in the suit in a few seconds, but I can only repackage and take it off, here in the lab.
I also bit the bullet and motorized it, though I try really hard to use my hands whenever I can. Upper body strength is crucial for building and operating the suit. As much as I like walking around in the suit, it isn’t real. The suit does the work and my legs are just along for the ride. Though, a nice added benefit from wearing it is the physical therapy of keeping my paralyzed parts moving.
“Arsenal, Force here. The AG would like a debrief on the Riot Boys asap,” Luke says over the comms.
Sigh. I was so looking forward to a long shower and a nap. I grab a Coke from the fridge, a bag of Doritos, and a Snickers and I am on my way. I haven’t eaten all day and my blood sugar has got to be rock bottom. Something I need to fix if I’m still going to go through with my extracurricular activity tonight. I slip my augmented reality glasses out the chair and slip them on so I can interact with Epic. They’re a stylish pair, more like fancy prescription glasses than the work goggles I’d made before. Except these have a slight yellow tint to help with contrast in the bright sun.
“Epic, run a full diagnostics and make sure we are up to snuff for our little trip. Also, make a note, we need to add a Camelback to the suit or something. Someway to take some form of nourishment with us.”
Affirmative. I will add ‘soda dispenser’ to our project list. Enjoy your meeting.
“You know me too well.”
The team’s offices take up the second floor, the third and fourth are the workout, training, and conference rooms, and the first floor is the lobby and museum. Which, up until six months ago, didn’t have a lot in it.
After we took down The Creature we experienced an influx of traffic. Luckily, it has died down since then. While the Arizona government, my team, and Cat-7 know my identity, I would rather it wasn’t public. Having civilians wondering around our HQ compromises that. I already have Epic combing the Internet for signs that my identity has been leaked. If he finds any he’ll wipe them out.
It’s weird being the object of so much admiration. We still see a dozen people a day coming and going looking at the tourist part of our little brick building.
As I roll into the briefing I hear the AG’s voice. Crap, I’m late. Oh well. I wheel in with my soda between my legs and my bag of Doritos clenched in my teeth. He’s just gonna have to deal. Sometime between returning to base and now Luke managed a shower, I can smell the old spice on him and it warms my stomach. I knew I shouldn’t have spent a half hour flying around Phoenix looking for the missing leadership. I very much don’t smell freshly showered.
I shiver as I roll up to the table, I have my own spot they keep clear of chairs, and Luke even lowered the height so I didn’t look like the kid trying to eat at the adult table at Thanksgiving. Glacier or I guess Monica since we are ‘off duty’, is across the table from me. She’s wearing a parka, which seems weird but then she has to keep warm or she will freeze solid. Still, just having her in here lowers the ambient temperature by twenty degrees. Should be good for our AC bill.
“Thank you for joining us Arsenal,” the AG says from the giant flat screen on the wall. He’s smiling so he can’t be too upset.
I smile back, “Sorry sir it takes a few seconds to get the armor off…”
Luke reaches over and touches my hand under the table. It is about as public show of affection he is capable of.
“I’m disappointed you weren’t able to capture the leaders of the gang, but regardless. Having sixteen members off the streets is pretty impressive.”
I pop the top on my soda and freeze as everyone glances my way.
“Sorry,” I say as I take a drink.
“They weren’t so much as not captured as they weren’t even there. Other than Fang, the leaders were a no-show. Any intel on where they might be?” Luke asks.
The AG, an older man with balding hair and a
well-groomed mustache shakes his head.
“No. Is there anything else to report?”
I raise my hand as I take a bite of my Snickers.
“Ms. Lockheart?”
I hold up one finger. Why oh why did I take a bite right before asking a question?
“Any idea—” I swallow, “—why several members of the gang had superpowers that weren’t in the database?”
He shakes his head and I can see a trace of a smile on his face. He’s a nice man, I’ve met him once before in person and he’s always been very respectful.
“We’re looking into the integrity of our local databases but we get all our info from the national ones. If there is a problem with the intel it is likely on a national level. Our DMHA liaison is looking into it.”
“Well that isn’t reassuring at all,” I say as I tear into my Doritos with a loud crunch.
“Job well done, Diamondbacks, enjoy the rest of your day.”
There is a chorus of ‘thank you’ as he signs off. Everyone but Monica smiles and starts talking about the day’s adventure. I try to catch Kate’s eye but she’s busy chatting with Mr. Perfect. Instead, I wheel myself over to the cold girl and park next to her.
“Hi,” I say as I chow down on the last of my candy bar, “Want a chip?”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry I got on you for staring, I forgot…”
I hold out my hand to forestall the apology.
“Me being in a wheelchair doesn’t excuse my own rudeness. I’m sorry Monica, I let my fascination with the science behind you override my common sense. I won’t let it happen again.”
I hold the bag of chips out to her again. Her eyes are like perfectly blue like old ice.
“I… I don’t eat,” she says, pointing at her stomach, “despite the fact that I look like a person, nothing in here is actually real. According to the Cat-7 doctors, I am held together by will alone.”
I nod. I’d read her file, but I trust Cat-7 about as far as I can throw them… out of armor of course.
“I can’t say I can do anything, but if you ever want to give me a shot I would love to run some tests. I picked up some odd readings while we were in the field and it gave me an idea.”
Unstoppable Arsenal Page 2
