“Go,” Josiah ordered and without a word Marcus turned and ran from the scene disappearing into the city streets.
Josiah pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialled a number. After several moments he began shouting.
“Matt! It’s Versette. I got jacked by some super powered creep! I was bringing back a perp to the station when he appeared outta nowhere. My squad car is toast and the perp got away!”
“What am I doing?!” Metalcore awoke as if from a dream. “How long have I… wait what?” He struggled to regain any kind of thought process as he hovered hundreds of feet above the city, starving, soaking and freezing. Instinct told him to lose altitude towards the slight residual heat of the city.
“Elaine… Elaine and the wrestler… the wrestler… what was it?! Manning?… Elaine… fly in circles… the wrestler said to fly in circles… Elaine!” Metalcore shot off towards Elaine’s apartment at full speed. He had no time to change, warm up or eat. He knew Elaine was in some form of danger. Flying only just above the cities building he didn’t care if he was spotted. After a minute he made it to Elaine’s apartment building but he instantly knew she wasn’t there. Hovering outside he saw there were no lights on. Banging on the windows received no response.
“That wrestler… that wrestler son of a bitch! It must be him!”
It felt different. There was a strange feeling in the air. Cold. Nightfall closed the door to his apartment and took a few careful steps inside. He placed his hand on the radiator which was on full blast and should have been for some time now, but the place was still cold.
He slowly stepped further and further towards his living area to collapse on the sofa when it hit him. The girl.
“Where are you?” he quietly called out. There was no response.
The air became even colder. Nightfall could see his breath. Colder. Silence.
“Elaine come out at once!” he yelled, grabbing his own head. The shouting made his brain feel like it was bouncing off his skull. No response. Colder. Nightfall was shivering now. He watched as the large panel windows slowly began to freeze over, obscuring the view to the city outside. The floor began to shine as ice stretched across it like locust over a field. Finding the cold unbearable now Nightfall made for the door.
“Enough of this woman!” he muttered before he opened the door. His heart skipped a beat. A massive, hulking figure was blocking the way. A man in a tight black long sleeve shirt and a strange green combat helmet stared down at him. Nightfall stumbled back a few steps. The man in the doorway said nothing and did nothing. He simply stared at him. Lunging forward Nightfall slammed the door closed but upon contact it shattered. The strange man stood his ground. The ice had crept into every corner of the apartment now. The air was suffocatingly cold. Nightfall felt like hands were squeezing every inch of his body it was so unbearably freezing.
“Show yourself bitch!” he yelled as he stormed towards the living area of the apartment. He was suddenly stopped in his tracks by a shuddering thud in his chest. It was the strongest punch he had ever felt, but no one was in front of him. Looking down he saw the large, jagged icicle protruding from his right lung. Spluttering he made it to the sofa to sit down. He desperately tried to pull the frozen dagger out but it was no good. He could not get a grip tight enough to force it out. Panic began to set in as he began to look around his apartment for something, anything that could help him when suddenly he saw her. Standing confidently at the far end of the apartment was Elaine, more beautiful and terrible than he had ever seen her before. Walking forward toward her victim she personified confidence and hatred.
“I’ll… I’ll kill you!” Nightfall yelled at her. Another ice blade punctured his stomach. “Yaaarh!” he yelled in agony as he slipped off the sofa and onto the floor. He desperately crawled away from his slowly approaching attacker towards the windows, a trail of blood freezing the moment it touched the floor. The man in the doorway was now inside the apartment.
Nightfall reached the window and clawed at it as if he would be able to escape from his high rise apartment.
Metalcore soared as fast as he could, only at only one hundred feet above ground level across the city. This was no time for discretion. Every fibre of his being knew Elaine was in danger. Nightfall’s building was only five blocks away now. Four, three… suddenly and explosion of glass soared out of his building and into the night air. A body was among the shards of glass! Metalcore sped up to the utmost top speed he could muster. The body was falling closer and closer to the ground with every second that passed. Hurtling himself towards the ground Metalcore reached his arms out, seconds away from hitting the street.
He was not fast enough. The body hit the ground with an awesome force. Metalcore landed beside the dead man and inspected him. Blood spewed out of the body from head to toe, mangled and… frozen? Elaine!
“Elaine what have you done?!” he thought, panicking.
Metalcore took off in flight towards the broken window. It only took seconds to be hovering at eye level with Elaine and Ronan who stood staring at him, the cold night air blowing all around them. The apartment inside was covered in ice. Metalcore landed just inside and looked back down at the body on the street. A small crowd of people had begun congregating around it.
“We need to get out of here,” said Ronan.
Chapter 21
The crowds never seemed to die down outside the Skyborn building. Press hounded security every day and crowds of people opposed to or in support of Kennedy argued on the sidewalk. Eco warriors demanded an answer to the source of the power. The beam of light was now the most photographed image on Earth.
None of them knew where the rumbling was coming from before it was too late. Two police cars were flung into the air with such a force that they dented inwards on themselves, one landing in a fountain outside the Skyborn building, the other smashing through a decorative support column at the main entrance of the building.
Mastadon stopped in the lobby and let Deadvolt get down from his back.
“I did not like that,” Deadvolt said bluntly finding his balance for several seconds.
“I could bring you back outside to wait?” Mastadon responded condescendingly.
“Not on your life, let’s fry this asshole. Go to work!”
Security were now surrounding the two intruders but they were no challenge for Deadvolt. Mastadon ran off in one direction through three guards who slammed against the walls like rag dolls. Deadvolt raised both hands and cast out two electric bolts. Crossing his arms at the wrists quickly they closed in on each other like scissors. Three heads rolled on the floor leaving spattered blood trails. Onlookers in the lobby panicked. A woman screamed at the sight and hysterically tripped over her own feet, falling on the floor.
“That’s… hilarious…” Deadvolt said to himself. Grinning he set off on his search for Vincent Kennedy.
With a camera strapped to his chest Mastadon smashed through every door, wall and guard that came between him and his prey. It was an extra middle finger to Kennedy, broadcasting the destruction and search live to social networks. Already several thousand people were watching, having seen the violent entrance into the building.
As many crews were already outside the Skyborn, local news channels were beginning to broadcast live as well, only speculating as to what was actually happening. After several minutes the channels would begin to have Mastadon’s camera streaming in the corner of their own broadcast, commentating and speculating as he tore his way through the building.
Deadvolt wanted no such pageantry. Instead he opted to walk slowly around the lower levels, frying anyone that appeared to be a threat to his mission. He blasted his way through a heavy security door into one of the experimental labs and spat at what he saw. Laying on twenty tables were men and woman of all ages and races, all of them hooked up to wires, tubes and machines. The ten scientists in the room immediately stopped what they were doing and just stared at Deadvolt. They all knew who he was and that this v
isit would not be a social one. Something snapped inside of Deadvolt. The calm approach was now giving way to unbridled rage.
“Yaaahh!” he yelled as the first scientist burned to ash in from of him as he thoroughly electrocuted the man into oblivion. It was overkill but in his eyes, these people deserved it. One by one screaming employees of Vincent Kennedy burned to death or were shot though the heart or face with a bolt of pure electricity until Deadvolt stood over the final woman, cowering under a table crying and covering her head. The table was flung on its side to uncover the terrified victim. She was ripped off the ground and held upright by two forceful hands on her collar.
“Please! I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me!” she pleaded.
“Where… is… Kennedy?” Deadvolt asked through gritted teeth.
Mastadon was levelling wall after wall and paying no attention to whomever he ran over or through. He wasn’t interested in interrogation. The destruction was the most fun he had had in a long time. One room, however made him stop in his tracks. Standing alone in a large lab he looked around him. Slowly walking over to a corner of the room where a large empty tank stood he breathed deeply. Behind him several members of security ran into the room and opened fire on him. He ignored the bullets as they either bounced off him, stuck in his massively thick skin or hit the walls around him. Staring at the tank he began to flashback to his early twenties, writhing and drowning in the purple water with tubes coming out of his skin every few inches. Kennedy looked on as his creation took shape. The Mastadon.
Turning around and looking the guards in the eye and took a deep breath.
“Where is he?!” he yelled as he charged at them, blasting through the wall while taking two of them with him. Running through the hallway he flung the two men off him and through the thick glass windows looking out over the New Belfast skyline. The men fell twenty-eight stories to their deaths on live television.
The reporters were now speculating with all but certainty that Deadvolt and Mastadon were looking for Vincent Kennedy. Despite the danger the crowd outside the building had grown. Police cars arrived by the dozen. More windows broke in the building and more bodies fell. Every now and then bolts of electricity could be seen blasting victims through windows and walls, falling already dead to the ground. NBPD officers forced the crowds back and set up a perimeter around the building, deeming it unsafe to be standing outside. Suddenly a massive metal cylinder, twenty feet in length, flew out of the building and smashed two police cars, injuring the four officers who had the misfortune of arriving just seconds ago.
Elaine sat across the breakfast counter from her brother Daniel. Daniel had taken off his mask revealing what remained of his disfigured face after Nagra’s attack. Ronan was trying to stay out of the way as the siblings tried to communicate, cleaning the rest of his apartment with the TV on quietly in the background. Now that he was clear of mind and slept an uninterrupted nights sleep, it dawned heavily on him just how horrific this must all be for Elaine. The things he saw Nightfall do with her made him want to kill him again and again. On one hand he understood Daniel’s disapproval, but on the other he felt in his heart of hearts that it was wholly justified.
Daniel scribbled on a notepad for Elaine to read.
“You can tell me. Please tell me,” he wrote
Elaine had a single tear rolling down her cheek. She almost laughed at how ridiculous it all was.
“He… he made me… go to bed with him,” she answered, looking only at the table, unable to look her brother in the eyes. Daniel dropped his head slowly.
“He made Ronan watch sometimes. He wouldn’t let him sleep or anything… made him stand over the bed all night, even after… he was done… and we slept,” Elaine continued.
Daniel looked over at Ronan who was tying a large bag of trash closed at the top.
“He suffered too, Daniel,” Elaine said, watching the wrestler tidy up.
“I still don’t think killing him was right,” Daniel wrote and turned the page to Elaine. She didn’t say anything, looking off to the side. Daniel began scribbling again.
“But I understand why you did it,” he wrote. Elaine read it and couldn’t hold back any longer. She spluttered and began crying uncontrollably.
“I didn’t want it to come to this!” she cried. Daniel stood up and held his sister close. She was now struggling to breathe she was crying so hard. Ronan couldn’t act like he wasn’t in the room anymore and walked over to comfort her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“If we didn’t stop him he would have just done it again! He controlled us with his mind! There was nothing we could do,” she sobbed.
“It’s true Daniel,” Ronan put in. “You have no idea what it was like to not be in control of your own body.”
Daniel gently relaxed his hold of Elaine and took the note pad again.
“Actually I do,” he wrote. Ronan and Elaine read it and looked at Daniel as he continued to write. “I’ve been flying high above the city for days without rest or food. I came looking for you and when I approached him about it at the arena one night he told me to fly in circles a mile above New Belfast until I dropped to the earth dead.”
Elaine put her hand on Daniel’s.
“I’m so sorry,” was all she could say.
“Sorry man,” Ronan added. Daniel began writing again.
“Actually I’m sorry. I raided your cupboards while you were sleeping,” he wrote.
Ronan gave a small smile. “That’s quite alright.”
“The fridge too. You have like… no food left at all dude,” Daniel wrote.
Elaine and Ronan both laughed. Elaine was wiping her eyes and nose dry. Something across the room caught Daniel’s attention. There was a breaking news bulletin on the television.
The dining hall at PATMOS was in utter silence. The inmates looked up at the large screen broadcasting the live breaking news. The audio was never on during meal times, instead the inmates had to read sub titles and the news text. The crawling title across the bottom of the screen read ‘Terror attack on Skyborn. Several New Belfast blocks cordoned off. Witnesses say two super powered individuals are behind the attack. Multiple fatalities and injuries…’
Manning and Greyfall sat like everyone else, in silent, terrible awe.
“Any idea who it is?” Greyfall asked.
“No idea. No way any of our boys would be killing people.”
Mastadon held the man by the top of his head with one hand, his feet kicking desperately below him but reaching nothing.
“I don’t know where he is I swear!” the man cried. “We never see him here! I’ve got like eight bosses but it’s never him actually here!”
Mastadon threw the man aside who crashed into a table which collapsed spilling stationary and pages everywhere. Running again he smashed through several walls into empty rooms until suddenly he bounced off something, falling back on his backside and holding his head .
“Son of a bitch! What was that?!” he said out loud. Looking up he saw that the plaster had smashed away to reveal a sheet of metal. Standing up he walked over to it and began picking off chunks of the plastered wall. More and more of the metal was revealed with every piece he tore away. There were no markings, no joins, no doors or gaps of any kind. Mastadon began smashing his fists violently against it to shake off the plaster which was now falling to the floor in large chunks. Once he had stripped the entire wall of the room he was in of its plaster he smashed through the wall to his side to repeat the process in the next room. The next room had three women in it who were hastily leaving through the door with their laptops but Mastadon took no notice of them. His curiosity was peaked by the metal within the walls.
Deadvolt was now climbing the emergency stairwell. The elevators were not in use due to the attack and people were trying to exit the building by flooding down these stairwells. Upon seeing Deadvolt ascending the steps the employees turned and ran out of the nearest door and into the floors to hide until they felt is was safe
to descend the stairs again. Somewhere around the thirtieth floor a dozen guards armed with automatic weapons appeared out of a doorway and began pummelling Deadvolt with bullets but each one fried on impact with his body. Raising his arms and charging towards them he turned his own body into a ball of electric charge. The first few were electrocuted to death as they fell backwards through the door onto the floor in the hallway. Still shooting, the rest received individual bolts through the head, falling limp and dead to the floor.
‘That was a good sign.’ He thought to himself as he began to explore this floor. It appeared empty as he bounded through the hallways, searching room to room for Vincent Kennedy. Most were empty, some had people cowering under desks and behind machinery. Ignoring them, he continued his search.
Mastadon had now revealed sixty feet of uninterrupted metal, bursting through room after room to rip down the walls revealing more and more of the structure behind.
“What the hell is this?!” he yelled.
Jumping in the air he slammed his body downwards, smashing straight through the ground and through to the next floor below. Landing two stories down in an empty windowless room he began smashing the wall here too to the same effect, more metal that even he couldn’t smash his way through. Repeating the process through four more stories Mastadon found himself smashing back into the lobby of the building which was now swarming with police officers.
“Freeze!” a number of them yelled as dozens of guns were raised and pointing in his direction. Mastadon quickly turned and punched the wall with all of his might and a large section of it fell off revealing yet even more of the metal. A number of gunshots rang out as bullets fell to the ground around the human wrecking ball having no effect on his massive body. Still unsatisfied Mastadon smashed through this floor too, punched the wall, smashed through another floor, punched the wall and continued for several floors underground. A policeman ran forward to peer over the edge of the hole to watch his destruction. Some of them inspected this newly revealed metal wall.
The Hade War Page 20
