by Hayes, Drew
If Roy was worried about losing his fight with an army, it didn’t show as he leapt toward the nearest group of Sims, raining down blows that shattered artificial limbs and sent more than a few Sims limply to the ground.
“Maybe y’all think this is a voluntary thing, but you’re wrong. I’m here to fight each and every one of you fuckers, so fight back or don’t, it’s all ending the same either way.”
Whatever momentary shock had rippled through the Sims, it wore off as they watched Roy ready for another attack. The three nearest him lurched into action, two taking swings while another’s hands glowed with electricity. They all connected, although the ones who got into melee range paid for it with their limbs. It was enough to push Roy slightly back; as he came to a stop he lifted his bat and gave them the widest smile he could manage.
“That’s more like it. This might be fun after all.”
216.
The first blast came seconds after Vince stepped into view, striking nearby concrete and exploding on impact. It was easy enough to avoid, but the closer he got, the tighter his windows for dodging would be, especially since he had to focus on offense for at least the start of the attack. If he didn’t make himself look like a credible threat then the Sims wouldn’t focus on stopping him, and that would make things harder on Chad. Fire danced along his hands, building as he dashed forward, ready to burst out with a single thought. Vince drew as close as he could, dodging more and more frequent blasts until he finally caught sight of a Sim peering out from around a corner, visibly taking aim.
One moment, one shot. Vince didn’t hesitate; in his mind part of him was already back at Lander East, trying to strike full-force in the span of seconds. His hand whipped upward in a blur, and the column of heat that burst out from his palm was as thick as an arm. It roasted through the air, hitting the Sim dead on and melting through most of its head before the body fell backward, out of view. First Sim down, countless unknown to follow.
Another volley of shots rained down from the second floor of the orphanage, and Vince realized with a shock that not all of them were energy-based. Rubber bullets bounced off the concrete, flipping through the air and throwing some sort of liquid from their tips as they spun. Poison, probably, something meant to paralyze and replicate the loss of a limb when struck. Were some of the Sims supposed to be human, and this was their defense? Maybe, or maybe not. Supers could use guns too; there was no reason they wouldn’t give them to some Sims without ranged powers. Either way, Vince had a hunch he didn’t want to take any of those bullets.
Scanning the top floor to make sure there were no children near the attackers, Vince swept a torrent of constant flame across the windows, forcing the attacking Sims to either pull back or get burned. A few caught fire, their clothes going up even as they jerked away, but most seemed unhurt. He needed to do something faster, something that would buy him enough time to really work in.
Mentally tallying his energy assets, Vince ran through his options. He had plenty of fire left, as well as a good deal of kinetic, but his electricity was running low after the last fight. There were a few bits of Thomas’s energy from the last time they sparred, though that was running near empty, and a good deal of light he still had absorbed. Another flash bomb might be the best way to blind them, but to pull it off he had to get as many of them looking at him at once as possible. It wouldn’t do to burn his stockpile and only stun half of the Sims. He couldn’t just spray fire into the building either, not without risking the lives of the kids.
But then again… they didn’t know that. Although he wasn’t confident in his skill with it, there was a technique he might be able to use that would get the Sims’ attention and give him the chance to blind them without risking a single civilian in the process. It was a new method, for him anyway, and knowing he was on unfamiliar ground made the idea scary. Then again, it was nowhere near as terrifying as the idea of burning a bunch of children. Vince set his resolve. He was going to do it.
Vince was going to try and bluff.
“You cowardly assholes hiding in a building with a bunch of children? You think that’s going to keep you safe? Well, news flash: I know what you’re doing in there. I know that if I don’t stop you those kids still die, along with every other person on the planet. So if I have to choose between one smoldering orphanage and an entire world being annihilated, I’ll take the first.” Vince was a touch surprised to notice how much lying had led to him emulating Nick, although upon reflection he realized it wasn’t that much of a shock. After all, Nick was the best liar Vince knew, and he really wanted to sell this fib.
The fire around Vince’s arms was intensifying, growing brighter by the second. They had to see it, to feel the warmth from all the way over there, to believe he was serious. “The good thing for us is that I don’t have to set foot in there to stop you. That Armageddon Sim of yours needs ten minutes to focus, right? I wonder how well he’ll focus with an inferno coming down on top of his head. Last chance, you bastards. Come out peacefully, or I’ll roast the lot of you. You’ve got until the count of three.”
Bold as his voice sounded, Vince was actually shoving down his nerves as fast as he could. This was going to be the hardest part. He’d been working so hard on switching energies, on building up power in the span of seconds. If he were trying this with fire, it wouldn’t have worked. Ditto for electricity. They both demanded too long to gather and concentrate. Kinetic he could have managed, that much he knew. Light… light was among Vince’s newer tools. He didn’t know if he could pull this off or not using light, but it didn’t matter. Vince would make it happen, force it too with every ounce of determination he had, because failure wasn’t an option. He had to succeed, that was all there was to it.
“One.” Vince fired off a few rogue blasts, missing the orphanage by a decent margin but making his presence felt. The counter could come at any time; he had to start dialing off of fire. This was his last bit of theater to make sure they took the threat seriously.
“Two.” From the windows, Vince could see twitching, hurried movements of Sims getting into position to stop him. Any moment now. He took a deep breath, let the fire recede, and pulled up every bit of light he could muster.
“Three.”
Many things happened at once. The criminal Sims sprang up out of hiding, almost all of them holding smaller, child-sized Sims up in front of them as cover. Bastards. They’d known he was planning something and were using kids as shields, trusting he wouldn’t attack. Trouble was, they still wanted to shoot at him, which required aim, and all Vince needed was for them to glance in his direction at the right time. All of that fired through Vince’s mind in the split-second of the Sims rising up from their hiding spots, and he came to an instantaneous conclusion.
Vince would probably never be the kind of man who could burn down an orphanage, even if the entire planet hung in the balance. It was just a step too far. Temporarily blinding a few children, on the other hand, was a price he was willing to pay if it meant saving the world. Vince released all the light that he’d gathered in a massive flare, one that lit up the entire block. Instantly the sounds of clattering guns and cursing Sims filled the air, he’d gotten them, or at least most of them.
There was no small amount of satisfaction in Vince’s expression as he lined up a shot on a second-floor Sim, one that had dropped its child-shield in surprise. He’d managed to pull off his bluff, now it was time to press the advantage. If he was quick and precise, Vince could cut their numbers in half before their sight recovered.
217.
The approach was the hardest part. Between the nearest building and the orphanage was a ten-foot area without cover, and crossing it meant being completely exposed, if only momentarily. Given enough time and materials, Chad could have created some alternative methods of entry; however, with the clock bearing down on them, his only choice was to sprint across the open area as fast as possible. The chance came when Vince started yelling about burning the place down.
Several of the Sims repositioned themselves, bracing for an attack from the front while letting their focus toward other directions wane. In their moments of distraction, Chad took his shot.
His legs were a blur as he bolted along the concrete, moving as fast as he physically could without causing unwanted noise. In seconds he was across the gap, through a window and in the orphanage. He’d done a good job with the timing, but not a perfect one. A lone Sim had spotted him, more by chance than skill, so Chad didn’t slow down as he entered the room. Bounding across it, he struck the Sim in its neck before it could make so much as a peep. Two more blows and it was down for the count; Chad’s focus on speed and stealth had lessened his capacity for delicate work. This Sim would definitely be counted among the dead. Chad had a hunch it wouldn’t be the last before their work was done.
Artificial voices spat out yelps of simulated pain as Vince let off some massive attack. Peeking out into the hall, Chad saw the majority of Sims near the front of the building rubbing their eyes and stumbling about. A light-based attack then, and what a perfect choice it was. Distracted enemies would have been enough – with partially blinded ones Chad would encounter virtually no resistance. He slipped along, steps no more than a whisper, listening closely to chart the locations of everyone inside the building. The majority of bodies were clustered together near the front of the orphanage, split fairly evenly between the top and bottom floors. Two rooms farther away were filled with Sims. The room on the ground floor seemed to contain most of the orphans, corralled to keep them out of the way until they were useful. The room on the second floor housed four bodies, with one standing and three pacing.
A Sim, still rubbing its eyes but slowly recovering, turned around to look at the stairs. A moment earlier and it would have seen a flash of white as Chad vanished from view. Instead, it found only an empty staircase. With no concerns from the rear to defend against, the Sim followed the lead of the other units and turned its attention to the silver-haired Super who was holding fire in his hands again.
* * *
Stealth had not been as integral a part of Camille’s training as one might have expected. True, since her ability worked best when she had the element of surprise it seemed like a natural fit. The problem was that no matter how good she was at sneaking around, sooner or later someone would spot her, and if all she had in her skillset was the element of surprise then she’d be sunk. So it was that Camille had made stealth a secondary concern in favor of working on her melee skills. Knowing how to fight, dodge, and land a blow meant she was useful whether or not she got the drop on her enemy. All of that said, she found herself extremely grateful for the time she had put into working on moving silently: it was paying huge dividends in this fight.
Pressing two fingers to the neck of a Sim, she watched as it powered down seconds before getting off another blast on Thomas’s dome. Some ways off, on another rooftop, she saw Alex make a brief gesture with his hand a second before the nearest sniper Sim slumped over in a heap. It was going slower than she might have liked, but they were definitely making progress. One by one they were taking out the ranged threats. It felt good, like the class was carving out some progress. She just wished it was half as showy as what was going down on the ground.
Between Shane and Roy, the Sims were taking a beating. They outnumbered the humans – and considerably at that – but that was actually working against them at the moment. Shane, tucked behind his alley entrance and shredding any who dared venture close, could only be reached by means of bottlenecking down to individual attackers, while Roy was bounding and leaping around the battlefield too erratically for the Sims to take any sort of formation. The bulk of their bodies blocked any of them from getting a line of sight on Roy as he smashed about, not to mention that the chaos made it hard for them to tell where he was at any given moment. Then again, even if they did manage to get close to Roy, it wasn’t like the hard part was done. His bat swept through the air freely, tearing through any Sim who dared get within reach.
What was all the worse, at least for the Sims, was that Roy kept driving and leading bits of the mob toward the alley, where Shane’s shadows made quick work of them. Camille genuinely wondered if those two could win this fight on their own, numbers be damned. If they had more time, she might have gotten to find out, but she could see more white uniforms appearing at the edge of the group of Sims. Brittany, Selena, Adam, and Rich had finally made their way across the battlefield to help, and with four more Supers, the fight was about to take a decidedly sharp turn against the Sims.
For now, all that mattered was holding out and keeping Will safe enough to work. Camille made her way down the fire escape, choosing speed over silence this time, and moved toward the nearest sniper’s building. It might not be as impressive to watch, but she had a job to do, one that people were counting on her to accomplish. Flashy or unseen didn’t matter: the only way they were going to win was by everyone completing their tasks.
That was how teamwork was meant to function, and that was how they’d try to win.
* * *
Chad was nearing the door, hand outstretched, when Will’s voice caused him to stop in his tracks.
“Chad, where are you?”
“Second floor, approaching the back room with several Sims lying in wait.”
“Shit, I was afraid of that. I think it’s a trap, Chad. They’re trying to bait you in. I just had a drone catch sight of two Sims sneak out a side door of the building. One was carrying the other in her arms, and the man being carried was throwing off some high-level energy. They’re trying to trick us again.”
“How far and how fast are they moving?” Chad asked.
“Quick, but not impossibly so. From where you are, I’m not sure you’ll be able to catch them.”
“Then that only leaves Vince.”
“You want him to try and chase those two with most of the Sims from the orphanage attacking him?”
“If you have any other ideas for how to potentially save the world, I would love to hear them.” Chad waited, shifting his position back toward the stairs. He wouldn’t be as eye-catching or scary, but he could still try and draw some attention to help Vince escape.
“Give him all the help you can,” Will said. “Something tells me this one is going to get messy.”
218.
As a general rule, Vince liked to think that anything was possible. It was a philosophy of hope, one that he considered important, especially in a job like Hero work. However, he found that optimism tested as Will handed down the order to abandon the fight he’d picked and take off after a pair of fleeing Sims. Maybe if he still had enough light for another flash, but he’d burned out his whole supply and taking time to gather more was too risky, especially with his target getting further away with every step. Still, turning his back on a bunch of pissed off Sims wasn’t really an option; it was taking all his skill to dodge their attacks as things stood.
Most of the Sims had come pouring out from the orphanage once the light cleared from their eyes, trying to take Vince on in close proximity. At the time, he’d been glad to see them charge, it meant less Sims for Chad to sneak past. Now, it was an issue, as anywhere he ran they’d be able to follow. Not to mention that several Sims were still in the orphanage, peppering him with ranged attacks when he showed an opening. Surviving this was hard enough, escaping it skirted the lines of impossible. But if he didn’t succeed, then the world ended, or it would if this were real. So Vince asked himself, if it was a probable death for him or a certain doom for the world, which would he pick?
Summoning as much fire as he dared next to an orphanage, Vince released a blast of flame that went out in all directions from his body. Several Sims got scorched, others darted back in time, but the bottom line was that they all gave him a few feet of breathing room, and that was all he’d really wanted. Vince took off in a dead sprint, following Will’s directions to where the escaped Sims had gone. He gritted his teeth, preparing for the barrage of ran
ged attacks to rain down on him. Surprisingly, the few that came were wild and half-aimed.
Vince risked a glance over his shoulder to see what was going on. It was hard to make-out precisely, but from the chaos inside the building it looked like Chad was tearing his way through the Sims that had been shooting, a blur of bone and circuitry as he felled Sim after Sim. It was a heartening sight, which Vince dearly needed in light of the other development he noticed. All of the outside Sims had recovered from his bout of flame and were on his tail, gaining ground faster than he was comfortable with. He could throw more fire to stall them, but that would slow him as well as take away his ability to absorb any shots they fired, and he was already fighting to catch-up. Speed was the best option, so he pumped his legs for all they were worth.
It was a valiant effort, however the pounding footsteps made it clear that the Sims were gaining ground. He was going to have to do something, or they’d overtake him. Vince scoured his mind, and hit upon a thought. The only way to get clear and catch up with his target would be a strongman-leap, but between higher buildings and longer blocks he'd have to go higher than he'd ever dared try before. Usually he risked a broken leg or ankle from a botched landing; if he messed this one up he'd be out of the fight for sure. An all-or-nothing situation probably wasn’t the best time to test something else new, then again, this way he’d go out trying. That beat accepting failure by a wide margin.
Just as he was gathering his concentration, Vince heard a familiar yelp of excitement fill the air. It wasn’t coming from the Sims, though, nor was it from the orphanage, or even the street. That noise had come from above, and Vince temporarily shelved his plan in favor of running as hard as he could for the next several seconds. He was going to need some distance on this one.
“Violeeeeeeet Bomb!” That was all the warning the Sims got as Violet, her density cranked up to incredible levels, came plummeting from the sky like an avenging comet. She slammed into the center of their group, crushing several and sending the rest flying through the air from the force of her landing. Violet herself was unharmed, hopping to her feet and wrapping those dense hands around the nearest Sim that was still moving.
