Enhancer

by Wyatt Kane

  “How touching,” he said mockingly, his tone making the words into an insult. Then he gave the command Ty had been expecting.

  “Kill them,” the monster said.

  34: Hidden Strengths

  As if it was a signal, Tempest burst into action. She gripped both Ty and Dinah tightly and launched herself into the air like she was still in control of her powers. There were the sounds of consternation and shock from below, and a few of the mercenaries fired their blasters. But Tempest wasn’t holding back and she could fly fast. None of the shots even came close.

  Such was her speed that Ty felt like he’d been hit by a truck. He felt like his body had been wrenched in all sorts of directions, but to him, it was a small price to pay to get Dinah to safety.

  In no more than moments, Tempest dropped down behind the stack of tires. “Are you okay?” she asked quickly.

  Ty nodded, then reached for the sensor embedded in his skin and pressed it hard. But Dinah had questions.

  “How?” she began, but Tempest didn’t have time to answer. Bane was already starting to react.

  “Get them!” Bane bellowed in immediate rage. “Don’t let them get away!”

  Tempest’s face flickered through expressions of hate and fury before she launched herself back into the air. “Stay safe!” she yelled, and then she was gone over the tires.

  Dinah looked at Ty for an explanation. Without her device, Tempest should have been as helpless as she had appeared.

  “She’s wearing the prototype device from the Architect’s workshop around her ankle,” Ty said, grinning broadly despite the withdrawal symptoms he was feeling. “I adapted it to fit and made sure it matched the specs of her own. It should be like nothing has changed.”

  Even though Dinah looked weak and pale, she still managed to return his grin. Yet then she frowned, uncertain. “Then why don’t we just escape?”

  Ty lost his grin. She was right. Tempest could have taken them out of the building. They could have made their escape easily enough. But that wasn’t the plan.

  “Because Bane has to be stopped,” he said. And that was what Ty had spent so much time working on the previous night.

  As he finished speaking, the first results of that work became apparent. The devices the slim man in the suit had taken from Tempest and Ty came flying through the air, called by the sensor embedded in Ty’s arm. Ty had added a miniaturized energy converter to each of them and given them the power to fly.

  It worked beautifully. To the tune of increasing shouting and anger beyond the tire wall, Ty caught both devices. He slapped one on his wrist without even thinking, and just like before, it was like a shock to his system. But this time, he was ready for it. And it wasn’t like he had been without the device for long.

  He gave the other to Dinah. “Put it on!” he said. Dinah obeyed willingly.

  In moments, the deerkin was looking much more like her usual self. “Now what?” she asked.

  The thought of Tempest facing Bane and all of his men by herself was almost more than Ty could face. He could hear her shouts of anger mixed with Bane’s bellowed rage, both punctuated by the sounds of heavy impacts. He knew Tempest would be using her powers as best she could, knew also that she was far more capable than he was in any sort of battle. Yet Ty still wanted to get out from behind the tires and help her.

  But he couldn’t. At least, not until the second part of his plan came to fruition. And by his calculations, that should be any moment … now.

  At that exact moment, the backpack he had left behind the dumpster in the alley flew in through one of the broken windows. Ty felt a moment of pure, unadulterated elation as it flew directly to him just as the devices had done.

  It had worked! Just like the devices, Ty had enabled the backpack to come to him at his call. He grabbed it and quickly took out two modified blasters, then slung the backpack over his shoulders. As well as the blasters, Ty had stacked his energy converters into the backpack. He had modified them so that they didn’t have to be connected directly to his mesh suit to power it. He awkwardly dug his hood from under his collar and put it on, then pulled the sleeves over his thumbs.

  This was the moment of truth. The moment where he would know if all his preparations had worked.

  “Activate,” he said. At the word, he was immediately enveloped in a blue nimbus of energy.

  Ty was exalted. He let out a spontaneous crow of delight and gave Dinah his best grin.

  “Stay here,” he said to the deerkin, and with that, he walked around the pile of tires to join in the fight.

  A single glance was enough to tell him that Tempest had done amazingly well. Half a dozen of the mercenaries were lying on the floor, either dead or unconscious. She was flying about, unleashing screams of anger at those who survived.

  Ty could only see a few of the remaining mercenaries. They had taken cover among the shelving units, many of them taking pot shots at Tempest with their blasters.

  The slim man with the glasses was nowhere to be seen. His portable fabricator was on its side, a smoking ruin, perhaps hit by a stray shot from a blaster.

  But Bane was still standing. He had taken center stage and was bellowing curses and insults at Tempest as he turned toward her, daring her to come down and attack him head-on.

  He was a monster. To Ty, he looked like a giant ape with Tempest buzzing around him like a plane, each of them powerful in their own right but at a bit of an impasse with neither being able to triumph.

  Ty felt his usual revulsion at the huge man. It was enough to make him sick to his stomach, and even if the monster hadn’t been hurling abuse at one of the women he loved, Ty would have wanted to hurt him.

  He felt himself filling up with hate, and, with his heart pounding to the beat of revenge, he stalked toward his massive foe.

  Bane hadn’t yet noticed him. He was facing the wrong way. Ty was able to get within fifteen feet of the brute before he suddenly spun about, still watching for Tempest, and saw that Ty was out from behind the tires.

  Immediately, the man’s wrath focused on the easier target. “You little insect!” he started, and that was as far as he got. Ty shot him with both blasters dialed up to full power. Twin bolts of plasma, far brighter and more powerful than those shot by the mercenaries, arced from Ty’s barrels and punched into Bane’s chest and detonated with the sound of thunder, the smell of ozone, and the force of a freight train.

  The huge man let out a roar of anger mixed with pain as he was blown off his feet. Yet even before the smell of ozone faded away, Ty knew that Bane wasn’t badly injured. He was too big, too impossibly strong, and he was already starting to get back up.

  So Ty fired again and stalked forward. Maybe his blasters would do more damage if he was closer.

  At the same time, he noticed that he was starting to draw fire from the mercenaries. Several shots hit him, but it was like getting hit by a cloud. He barely felt it. To the tune of the monster roaring in anger, Ty just kept his aim and fired again and again.

  Then Tempest was there. “You deal with the mercenaries!” she shouted at him. “I’ve got Bane,” she snarled.

  Her words were enough. Ty immediately swiveled, looking for targets, and shot one mercenary after another. It didn’t matter if they were in clear view or if they were partially hidden. His blasters turned shelving into nothing but twisted metal. He blew holes in the counter and even through the concrete wall of the warehouse.

  It was exhilarating. He was in god mode, untouchable. He pointed his blasters and mercenaries screamed. Nor did he care that he was taking their lives. From his point of view, they were going to murder him and the women he loved. They deserved everything they got, and then some. His only regret was that he couldn’t make them suffer for longer.

  And then, just like that, he ran out of targets. There were no more blasters firing his way. No more curses or angry outcries.

  But it wasn’t yet silent. Bane was still there, still standing, still impossibly power
ful. Ty had been focused on what he was doing but had seen the effort Tempest had gone through to put the man down. She had thrown tires at him, had smashed him with shelves, had hurled herself at him again and again. And while he was bleeding from a cut on his face and his jumpsuit now looked the worse for wear, Bane hadn’t lost his sneer.

  “Is that the best you can do?” he demanded of Ty and Tempest both.

  Tempest’s eyes were blazing with fury. She was a being of power, held aloft by the energies she controlled, and her rage was palpable.

  “Take him outside,” she said.

  Ty didn’t know what she planned to do. But he didn’t need to know. He just raised his blasters and shot Bane again and again, knocking him backward, hitting him with everything his modified weapons possessed.

  Such was the power of his blasters that he knocked Bane all the way to the wall of the warehouse and through, then followed him out into the vacant lot beyond.

  Tempest was quicker. By the time Ty climbed through the shattered, smoking hole he had created in the concrete wall, the blonde superhero had pounced on Bane, grabbed him by one ankle and shot upward, high into the air. Ty watched as she and Bane grew smaller and hard to see against the gray of the New Lincoln sky.

  He stood, waiting and watching, uncertain what was going to happen.

  For long moments he could see nothing at all. Not even a dot to indicate where Tempest and Bane had gone.

  He realized he was anxiously holding his breath as he scanned the sky, looking for any sign of them.

  Then, when he was starting to get really worried, he saw them.

  A tiny dot against the clouds growing swiftly larger.

  Very swiftly larger. Ty knew first-hand how fast Tempest could travel, but this was much faster. And all at once, he understood what she was doing. Bane was impossibly tough, far more durable than anything had a right to be. The villain had withstood multiple shots from Ty’s enhanced blasters, as well as every hit Tempest had delivered.

  It was like pounding against a block of tungsten-carbide with nothing but a bag full of marshmallows for all the damage it did.

  But this was different. This was all Tempest’s strength combined with the force of gravity to generate impossible speed. This was Tempest’s special attack, and if anything could hurt the monster that was Bane, it was this.

  Even as Ty watched, he could see a vapor cloud forming around their descent and knew that they had well surpassed the speed of sound.

  They were moving astonishingly fast. Ty had barely enough time to start worrying about what such an impact might do to Tempest herself when she veered abruptly away, leaving Bane to crash into the middle of the vacant lot.

  The impact was staggering. It was as if they had let off a bomb. The noise of it was like the loudest crash of thunder and he braced himself against the shockwave. But when it hit, it felt like no more than a puff of wind even though it shook everything else around. Ty’s shield was proof against that as well.

  Ty thought that surely Bane had sustained a critical hit. Surely, not even he could survive an impact like that.

  As the air started to clear, Tempest dropped down lightly beside him. She was grinning broadly, her anger at Bane no more than a memory when he hit the ground.

  “Let’s go see if he survived that,” she said.

  35: Reversal

  Bane had indeed survived the impact.

  They found him in the middle of a crater more than a dozen feet wide and four feet deep. He was lying on his back, covered in dust and rubble, obviously hurt, but still laughing his vile, sneering laugh. Ty immediately raised his blasters and Tempest let out a noise that mixed revulsion with incredulity.

  “What do we have to do to end you?” she muttered. Yet when Ty set his jaw and steadied himself to fire, she held out a hand to stop him. “Wait,” she said.

  Bane turned his head and spat a mouthful of blood to the side. Then he looked at Ty and Tempest with his ugly sneer firmly in place. “Is that the best you can do?” he grated.

  Ty’s blood burned within him. He stepped into the crater and stood above the monstrous villain. Ty wanted to smash the man’s face for the crime of hurting Dinah and threatening all three of them. Yet even in his anger, he wasn’t foolish enough to stray close enough for Bane to reach him, even if the man seemed too damaged to lunge.

  “You have seen what these can do,” Ty said, indicating his blasters. “If they can punch holes in concrete walls and knock you off your feet at a distance, what do you think they will do to you from here?”

  At the threat, Bane’s sneer became brittle and turned into a hateful glare. “I underestimated you, kid. It won’t happen again.”

  “No, it won’t,” Ty replied. “You won’t get the chance.”

  Bane just grunted. “So, are you going to try to kill me? Or what?” he said.

  Tempest had joined Ty down in the crater. “First, you will tell us where you got your device,” she said in response to his question. “Then we’ll remove it from your wrist. See how you like it. Beyond that, we’ll see.”

  As if remembering the device for the first time, Bane brought his arms up in front of him so he could look at it. “This thing? Unlike yours, it’s removable already. Look, I’ll show you.”

  Ty and Tempest weren’t expecting anything. Bane’s movements were slow and looked painful, as if he was broken inside. So it surprised them both when he activated his device’s communication screen and said, “Come get me,” before letting his arms fall back to his side.

  Before either Ty or Tempest could react to what Bane had done, the monstrous man started to laugh.

  “Who did you call?” Tempest demanded.

  Bane continued to laugh. “You’ll see.”

  Ty had changed much in the past few days. He had gone from a mild-mannered nobody with no girlfriend and a crappy life to being part of something wonderful with Tempest and Dinah. He had seen and done amazing things to keep himself and those he cared about safe. He’d shot people with his blaster, but in his mind, that was no more than self defense.

  This was different. Bane was no longer an active threat, yet Ty legitimately wanted to kill him. He wanted to place the barrel of one of his blasters up against the monster’s face and pull the trigger a few times, just to see what would happen.

  He steeled himself to do so, but before he could turn thoughts into action, there was a crack of thunder over his head and a flurry of movement.

  It all happened very quickly. The air filled with dust. Ty found himself turned around and gave an involuntary shout of surprise. Nor was he the only one. Tempest uttered a curse from somewhere beside him, and Bane laughed even louder than before.

  Ty didn’t understand what was happening. It was like a sudden, powerful dust-storm had appeared out of nowhere and focused on the three of them in the crater. Ty was buffeted this way and that, his shield absorbing much of the impacts but not all. It left him disoriented and confused.

  Tempest fared worse. Ty caught sight of her as she was flung away from him. It was as if she weighed nothing, and for an instant, he wondered if Bane had used the cover of the whirlwind to rear up and hurl her aside.

  “Tempest!” Ty cried.

  But it wasn’t Bane at all. At the last, the dust and flying debris cleared for a moment. Ty could see that Bane still lay in the crater, broken and laughing like a madman.

  The monster wasn’t alone. Ty didn’t get a clear view, but what he saw was enough. There was a demon in the air above him. A genetically modified woman with purple skin, demonic horns growing from her forehead, and actual wings affixed to her back. Not the wings of a bird full of feathers and light, but dark, leathery wings tipped with claws. They were the wings of a dragon in miniature, and they were functional. To Ty, it looked as if they were actually keeping the woman aloft.

  For long moments, he just gaped. He didn’t even wonder what he should do. He just stood there, disbelieving, as the demoness lowered herself to the ground w
ith Bane between her legs.

  Before Ty could gather his wits, the demoness turned toward him. The first thing he noticed was that her eyes weren’t eyes at all, but instead were blazing pits of green fire.

  The second thing he noticed was that she was wearing a device on her wrist, just like Bane.

  Dinah’s device, Ty thought. It had to be.

  That was enough to reignite his anger. Ty didn’t know who this demoness was, but she had come at Bane’s call and was wearing Dinah’s device. Ty raised his blasters and took aim.

  And then she was gone. Vanished. Winked out of existence, leaving behind a puff of dark smoke, the smell of sulfur, and a small clap of thunder. And she had taken Bane with her.

  <<<>>>

  Tempest rejoined Ty once the dust had settled. She was annoyed but uninjured, and hadn’t really been able to see what had happened.

  Ty filled her in.

  “She teleported? With Bane?” she asked.

  “It looked like it. Yeah,” Ty replied. He gave her a wistful look. “I’d like to see her device’s breakdown on that. It would be a good power to duplicate somehow.”

  “Well, I guess that’s it, then.”

  She was right. They had no clue where Bane had gone. He could have been a hundred yards away from them, a thousand miles, or anywhere in between. For all either of them knew, he could have disappeared from this plane of existence entirely.

  So they headed back to the hole in the warehouse wall that Ty had created.

  Dinah was already there. The deerkin no longer looked drawn and wan as she had done before. The device on her wrist had restored her to her usual elfin beauty, and Ty took a moment to simply admire her.

  “Is it over?” she asked, her expression a mixture of hope and concern. “Can we go home?”

  Ty glanced at Tempest, uncertain how to respond. “Bane is still out there,” he ventured. “But he’s taken a hit. He’s injured and his men are dead or incapacitated.” He shrugged. “Maybe it would be okay to head back?”