Arsenal Reloaded (Full Metal Superhero Book 8)

by Jeffery H. Haskell

“Epic, is that based on my mass driver?”

  Negative. The energy signature surrounding them is not consistent with a ZPFM. Your rail guns work because you have an abundance of power to draw from. Whatever they are using as a power source is not a ZPFM. Therefore, the tech cannot be yours. Besides, Project Nomad has wiped out all traces of your technology.

  “Well, it’s supposed to have. Still, I had to ask. At least if people are using advanced technology to kill, it isn’t my advanced technology. I guess it isn’t like I have a trademark on mass drivers.”

  I take a second to breathe and regain some sense of movement. That explosion played havoc with the suit systems and Epic needs a minute to fix everything.

  “What is going on with the suit? Every time we take a hit, it’s like the nanites fall apart.”

  I surmise it is the power surge the ZPFMs put off when they are tasked to send extra power to a system. This creates considerable electromagnetic interference localized around them. In the old suits, even the Animetal one, the effect was neutralized by layers of armor. However, this suit the nanites are the armor. Each time we are hit, the nanites breakdown and that causes a chain reaction. Right now, each time it happens the kinetic field emitters ramp up to hold the suit together for the microseconds required for it to reverse.

  “What you’re saying, scientifically speaking is, don’t get hit?”

  Affirmative. The bigger the hit, the bigger the power draw, the more EMI created, the more the nanites break down. If enough nanites breakdown, the entire suit could fail.

  “Okay, don’t get hit... in a city full of combatants wielding energy weapons and rockets. Pshaw. That will be easy.”

  Your false optimism is noted. Also, incoming!

  SIXTEEN

  The Emdrives whine as I blast out of the building mere seconds before it collapses. The Walker fires its rail gun with abandon into the husk of the once nice office. I swing back around behind it and draw the Sword ‘O Doom.

  “If we’d had more time, a range weapon would have come in real handy.”

  It is fortuitous that you did not have more time. An energy weapon would generate a considerable internal EMI and therefore accelerate the destabilization even further.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re right.” A shudder runs through me. A large power draw like the particle bean would have resulted in me losing an arm.

  I usually am.

  “Ha. Ha.” I draw the sword and zoom down toward the back of the Walker. I hit it, then magnetize my boots and one glove to hold on while I hit it with the blade. It can’t really move as the street is still a raging flood and the tether that connects it to the nearest building is all that holds it up.

  Or was. I slice right through it, then give the Walker a nudge from my Emdrive. The thing topples over like it lost a fight with an Ewok.

  “Okay, what’s next?”

  There are still over two hundred combatants in the city. However, with their main communications down it will be easier for the local forces to contain the situation. Perhaps now would be the time to locate and evacuate your parents?

  “Good call! Punch it!”

  The Emdrive kicks in and I blast through the air at a cool five hundred miles an hour. A few potshots light up the sky around me, but nothing even close to hitting. Once I’m over the parking garage I do a quick circle to make sure it’s all clear.

  All scans show negative hostiles in the garage. It is clear.

  The garage is pretty standard: six floors, takes up a city block, and maybe can park a thousand cars. I switch to hover, floating down the north side trying to scan each floor in an attempt to locate them. Epic’s last contact put them on the fourth floor. Generally speaking, when lost, it is better to not move. However, in a combat situation, movement is life. Keeping out of the fighting by moving away from it is usually a better call than hunkering down.

  Hopefully they kept moving but stayed in the relative safety of the garage. These huge, concrete and rebar buildings tend to be pretty sturdy to take all the weight they have to handle on a daily basis.

  “Epic, give me ten times voice amplification and record.”

  Go ahead.

  “John and Hope Lockheart, please signal your location.”

  Looping.

  I fly around the west side with Epic repeating every few seconds. As we approached the south side, I pick up a car alarm. “That’s them.”

  Each level is only twelve feet from bottom to top; not a lot of room to maneuver, so I land and walk in. The power is out all over the city and while it’s bright outside, once I’m twenty feet in it definitely gets darker.

  “John? Hope?” I ask. I would call them Mom and Dad, but if there are other people around, I don’t want them to know, if they don’t already. Everyone knows I’m Arsenal; not everyone knows who my parents are. I’d like to keep it that way.

  “Arsenal?” Dad whispers.

  I look over and they are peeking out of a stairwell. He’s holding a crowbar and kneeling. I jog over, metal clad boots banging against the concrete. He winces with each of my steps.

  “We’re clear, no enemy combatants nearby. Let’s get you to the roof.”

  He nods and opens door. There are about twenty people behind him, men, women, and children.

  “Are you sure? Because five minutes ago there was a great big woman here with massive claws and she didn’t look friendly,” he says.

  “Big woman... Vixen?” You got to be kidding me.

  “You remember my name. I’m touched,” she says from behind me.

  Oh crap. “Epic, I really need Carlos.”

  I am trying.

  I turn around slowly, not wanting to startle her. While I can see her, she isn’t showing up on my electronic magnification. Which means she is only visible to eyeballs, not computers... boy that sounds an awful lot like how the Th’un hid their ships. No radar or electronic footprint of any kind.

  “So... this is ARC then?” I ask as I move sideways away from my family. I subtly point at Dad and then up, so he knows to go. He shuts the door and I hope he got the message.

  “This? No. This is some merc outfit who bought all their tech from ARC and wanted a test bed,” she says.

  “Well, it’s awfully convenient it just happened to be in Vegas... today.” If she’s here, then she has to know about my parents.

  “Legion thought if your parents were in danger it would draw you out. Despite your cowardice,” she says with a grin. I only saw her from the roof when she fought Carlos. Here, with the twelve-foot ceilings, she almost has to bend her head. She really reminds me of Behemoth, the way each movement looks like her muscles are coiled to strike.

  “What did they do to you, Vixen? They turned you into a monster.” I use my eyes to signal to Epic to cut external communications. “Epic, I really need some help here.”

  I have contacted Carlos and Kate. They will be here shortly. Two minutes, he says.

  That makes me feel a lot better.

  “Do to me? They gave me the power to exact revenge. You ruined my life, Arsenal. You and your stupid armor. Always there to catch me, to stop me. You and your hero friends need to be punished. You need to learn that you can’t just treat people like animals and throw them in a jail cell when you don’t like them!”

  I had no idea she felt this way. “Vixen, the last time we met you held my best friend by the neck with your claws and threatened to kill him. So please, shut your pie hole about treating people like animals. You’re a murderer and a world-class bit—”

  She moves so fast that I don’t have time to react. Her shoulder slams right through my kinetic shields like they weren’t even on, knocking me against the concrete wall and shattering it to rubble.

  A cough escapes me, and I taste blood.

  “Yeah. Your fancy armor can’t save you now,” she says with a growl like a true cat.

  I’m on the ground, on my butt, looking up at her. The HUD is a mess of static and the only thing I can make out is the sy
stems that are down, which is virtually all of them. That impact overloaded the shields and almost all my subsystems with it.

  Nanite cohesion is at fifteen percent. If she breathes on you hard, your armor will fall apart.

  Then I hear the best sound in the world, the pop of displaced air.

  “I’m not going to beat you, Vixen,” I say with relief.

  “Ha. Like you ever had a chance,” she says as she slowly stalks toward me. She leans down and wraps one enormous hand around my throat.

  “I don’t, but he does,” I say with a nod over her shoulder.

  “I’m not falling for that trick,” she says.

  “It’s not a trick,” Carlos says from behind her. She isn’t fast enough—he’s already in the air and comes down with the edge of his shield hitting the back of her neck with a thunderous crack. She is flung forward, arms going out wide and me with them. I slide along the wall before hitting the floor on my side. It takes a second but I push myself up to sit on the cold floor.

  Cold floor? Oh no. I watch in horror as my armor literally disintegrates around me, like skin off a molting snake.

  “Kate!” I scream. Nothing like suddenly being naked in a garage while two titans battle it out to pump up my heart rate. She’s with me in a second, pulling off her own jacket. She’s not in uniform, and from the light makeup on her face they must have been on a date. She wraps it around me, then her eyes go wide.

  “Oh Amelia, what happened?”

  I follow her eyes down and gasp. There is a four-inch-long, one-inch-wide hole burned through my leg. I start choking and sputtering as a wave of nausea rolls over me. “I need Teddy.”

  “Come on, hon, hang in there. I got you.” She wraps her arms around me. I breathe in her scent and that’s reassuring even as the darkness closes around me.

  SEVENTEEN

  Carlos grunted from the impact of Vixen’s massive fist. The force of the blow sent him sliding backward into a Cadillac. Glass and aluminum shattered underneath him.

  “You can’t beat me, Protector. I’m stronger than you now. I’m stronger than anyone!” Vixen roared at him as she ran.

  The parking garage was the worst place to have a fight, especially with Amelia’s parents trying to escape to the roof. Carlos knew this and was faking taking the beating, trying to let Vixen knock him out of the garage and across the street into the park.

  Of course, that was his plan. The beating, however, wasn’t fake. She hit him like a tank. The car he was pulling himself up from exploded as the heat from her impact cooked off the gas tank. He tumbled through the air and hit dirt, rolling for several hundred feet before coming to a stop.

  He shook his head and propped himself up on the edge of his shield as he tried to regain his feet before she caught up to him.

  Regardless, he was in the open; a large park, with a small lake, decorative rocks and a few trees, but no people. He spied the Emjet coming in to hover over the parking garage and smiled to himself.

  Mission accomplished.

  Then Vixen hit the ground in front of him with an earth-shaking thump. “I’m not done with you.”

  Carlos took a second to shake the dirt out of his sandals and adjust the leather wraps over the hand that held the shield in place. Somewhere he’d lost the spear, but it would come when he needed it.

  “Listen, Clarice, right? We don’t have to do this. This fight, destroy property, possibly hurt people, it doesn’t have to go down. You can just surrender and then we can work out the details.”

  She reared her head back and let out what he suspected was a belly laugh, though it sounded more like a cat coughing up a fur ball.

  “Are you kidding me, little man? I’m going to crush you. News flash: I can destroy you. Do you know what they did to me? Why I am so much stronger than you?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t know. Of course, Vixen didn’t know who he was either. He certainly didn’t look like the scrawny kid she picked up by the throat and threatened. She had no idea she was the reason he had said yes to becoming the Protector. He didn’t ever want to be used against Amelia again. Now, he could save her.

  Carlos held his hand out, fingers open, and summoned the Spear of Destiny. It responded to his call and within a second slapped against his hand. “I don’t know what ARC has done to you, Vixen, but you can’t possibly think you can win? Against me? Against all the Protectors? How is this fight going to end any different than the last one we had?”

  She spread her feet, switching her center of balance lower while throwing her arms out wide. “’Cause last time I was told to keep you busy. This time they told me to kill you.”

  She charged. Carlos met her charge, running forward, the distance vanished in a blink. Right before they would hit, he leaped, barely escaping her slashing claws as they passed through the air beneath him. He hit her with the edge of the shield again, focusing on her neck, trying to limit her movement.

  He landed behind her. Turning around he pointed the spear at her. “It doesn’t matter what ARC did or promised you, Clarice, it’s over.”

  Vixen stumbled forward, off balance and flailing as she hit the dirt face first. She roared with rage as she punched the ground and pushed herself back up. “No, little man. I’m the strongest there is. I’m stronger than you. I don’t think it, I know it!” The ground shook from the impact of her fist.

  She piqued his curiosity. “How do you know it?” he asked as he crouched, readying himself for another attack.

  “They infused me with Behemoth’s power. I’m unstoppable.” She moved slower this time, not to be taken by surprise again. The last thing Carlos wanted was to slug it out with her. He didn’t think she was as strong as him, but she could still hurt him. The image of Chronos beating him to within an inch of life flashed through his mind. It was a stark reminder that he wasn’t absolutely invulnerable.

  “Okay, so you’re strong.” He shrugged. “You’re still going to lose,” he said with a smile.

  She growled, stepping forward and swinging her clawed hand at him. He stepped inside her blow and slashed at her arm with the spear. It cut through her clothes, but not her skin. Which surprised him. He ducked at the last second and rolled to the side to avoid her other arm.

  She grinned. “It can’t cut me anymore. They upgraded my skin with a latticework of super strong metal fibers.”

  “Good to know.” Carlos raised his hand and the spear took off into the sky. He wasn’t running, but if the spear couldn’t hurt her, it was better to have it orbit above him to pull him out in case of emergency, leaving his hand free to fight.

  She came at him again, this time he leaped back, letting her swing, then he spun, throwing the shield right at her face. He charged right in behind as it hit her nose. She snapped her head back and batted it away after it had already hit.

  The distraction worked, though. He reared his arm back and slammed his fist into her stomach with all his considerable might. If she was Behemoth powered, then he couldn’t hold back.

  The crack of the blow echoed like thunder in a valley. It lifted Vixen up and threw her back twenty feet to crash through a decorative boulder. Carlos leaped after her, coming down on her stomach with both feet. He dropped to kneel on her chest and punched her face over and over again, grunting with the strain of each blow, unused to letting go his full strength.

  She caught one of his fists in her oversized hand and punched him in the jaw. He swung backward but she held onto him like a rag doll, bringing him back to hit again.

  The blow hit his jaw again, ringing his bell and sending pain roaring through him. She raised her fist to strike but instead brought her claws down on his exposed neck. The superhumanly sharp talons dug into his skin and he screamed from the pain.

  He grabbed her wrist; using her thumb as a grip he savagely twisted her arm back in a way it was never meant to bend.

  “You may be strong,” he said with a grunt as he forced her wrist back. “But you’re no Hercules.” With a jerk
he snapped her forearm back farther than it could go. The crack of her bone was audible, but quickly replaced by her scream of pain. Carlos kicked her hard in the chest sending her tumbling backward.

  “How did they give you these powers, Vixen? How?” He roared his questions at her as he stalked her down. She pushed herself up, cradling her broken arm against her chest.

  “No! They told me I was stronger than you, they told me I couldn’t be hurt!”

  Carlos shook his head. “They lied, Clarice,” he said with a lowered voice. Adrenaline coursed through him like lightning, but he couldn’t let that make him aggressive. The fight was over, regardless of what she thought. Now was the time to find out the info he needed.

  “No,” she yelled. She swung wildly at him. He blocked the blow, effortlessly batting aside the first one, then ducking the second one as the pain in her arm clouded her ability.

  “Clarice, listen to me. I could take you down right now. Beat you into the ground. But I’m not, because I am not your enemy,” he said. The adrenaline faded as his heart rate slowed down. The wounds she inflicted closed, but they itched like crazy from the quick healing.

  Vixen dropped to her knees, her face crumbling as she... cried. Sobbed, really. “They took everything. Look at me. I’m a monster. And God, it hurt so much, but they told me I could have my revenge. That I would win.”

  Carlos came to a stop in front of her. Even kneeling on the ground, she was huge; he was face-to-face with her.

  “Who took it, Clarice? Where are they?”

  She looked up, genuine pain in her teary eyes. “I just... I wanted to win.”

  Carlos put a hard hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “You still can. No one is past redemption.”

  She sniffed and opened her mouth to speak. Her face changed to pain and she screamed. Carlos stepped back as she collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony and screaming. “No. No!”

  She let out a tremendous bellow of pain before her body exploded into a mass of dissolving nanites. Within seconds, all that was left of Vixen was the echo of her scream.