by Logan Jacobs
Instead, I could test out the upgrades of my new suit against a huge, ugly monster.
I also couldn’t think of a better way to test out my new web-slinging gauntlets. If they were strong enough to subdue the Bogdan, they’d be strong enough for anything else in Grayville.
We changed into our suits and headed out toward the Grayville Bridge.
Chapter 3
I wanted to make sure we knew exactly what we were up against before we arrived, so I had Aileen pull up every bit of information we had on the swamp monster Bogdan as we sped toward the bridge.
I’d already formulated a quick plan in my head about how to stage our rescue on the bridge, but the information from Aileen would definitely help us to be more informed. I hated when I didn’t know absolutely everything before I barged right into the middle of a situation, but in this case, we didn’t have a lot of time to plan.
“He is a mutated creature of the swamplands where Grayville industrial waste used to be dumped illegally,” Aileen’s sultry voice came through the speakers of my van. “What he lacks in cunning and intelligence, he makes up for in raw strength and endurance. His body is covered in vines and tendrils that hide his core underneath.”
“So we’ll have to cut away the vines to reach the core,” Elizabeth said as she flexed her newly fitted gauntlets.
I hadn’t improved much of Elizabeth’s suit beyond basic power upgrades to her gauntlets and a few adjustments to make them fit her hands better. Even though her powers were more in the realm of raw strength, a little bit more dexterity never hurt anybody. Elizabeth’s suit was different from mine and Norma’s in that it was mostly made to enhance powers that already existed, rather than to provide new powers or even just to provide protection.
I had added a few slight power enhancements to Norma’s suit that I hadn’t told her about, but since I was pretty sure her power was just based on her own perception of herself, I doubted my enhancements would do too much. It was more about how she felt in the suit.
And now that I glanced in the rear view mirror, I saw that her suit already seemed to fit her better than before. She hadn’t pulled on her hooded mask yet, so she still wore her oversized glasses, but her tight black jumpsuit was made from the same protective material that I used for the suits that Elizabeth and I wore. Of course, Norma’s suit also had enough straps, holsters, and belt loops to carry every kind of sword, gun, grenade, and dagger that she could ever want, so in spite of her glasses, she still looked pretty threatening.
I hoped that would help improve her confidence.
“Okay, so we cut away the vines to reach the core,” Norma said as she leaned forward from the backseat. “Do we know how fast the vines will grow back if we cut them away?”
“Slowly,” Aileen answered after a quick moment of calculation. “They will grow back after a while, but it isn’t immediate.”
“It’s a good plan,” I said, “but let’s not forget that he is using his vines to hold up the bus.”
“Okay, so we won’t be able to cut them off until we figure out how to rescue the bus,” Elizabeth replied.
“But how do we rescue the bus and get Bogdan away from it at the same time?” Norma asked.
“I’ve got a plan,” I said.
“Of course, you do,” Elizabeth said with a smile.
“Okay, so Elizabeth and I will make the bus our top priority,” I said. “I’ve upgraded my suit with some tech similar to Tarantulator’s powers, so she and I should be able to pull the bus back to safety.”
“Wow, you already finished?” Norma gave a little whistle.
“Of course,” I snickered. “It seemed useful, after all, and now it’s going to save the lives of everyone on that bus.”
“But I’m guessing that you can’t hold up the bus on your own, right?” Elizabeth asked.
“Right.” I nodded. “So you’ll need to help me by grabbing the webbing to hold the bus and then pull it back up.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to lift an entire bus, Miles,” my superpowered girlfriend warned.
“It’s only perched on the edge of the bridge,” I said. “It should be easy for us to pull it back as long as it doesn’t drop off the bridge entirely, since you won’t have to lift the entire thing. I can also stabilize it with the web, so the point of tension won’t be on one single area. If we distribute the weight properly, you should have no problem pulling it back up.”
“That could work.” Elizabeth nodded.
“But what about Bogdan?” Norma asked. “He isn’t going to just let us pull up the bus if he’s trying to keep it hostage until his silly demands get met.”
“That’s where you come in,” I replied with a confident smile.
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Yes, you,” I said. “You’ll need to go up against Bogdan on your own and hold him off while we get the bus to safety. Once we do that, we’ll join you.”
“I guess I can try,” she muttered as she pulled her mask down over her face to try and hide her nervousness.
“You’re skilled in every style of sword fighting there is, and that’s more than enough to keep his vines away from us,” I said. “Besides, you just have to give us a little time, so you don’t actually have to try to take him out all by yourself.”
“You’re way more capable than you think, Norma,” Elizabeth said as she gave the other woman an encouraging smile. “Just don’t cut the vines that he’s using to hold the bus until after we have a hold on it.”
“Um, I’ll t-t-try!” Norma stammered.
“I’ll give you a signal once I’ve webbed the bus enough that we can hold it up ourselves,” I told her. “So until then, just keep him distracted.”
“Got it,” my fully-masked assistant exhaled. “Okay. I can handle it. Don’t worry. I’ll do it.”
“Good,” I said.
I wasn’t exactly relaxed, but I did feel better now that we had a solid plan in place, and I felt quite confident in the one that I’d come up with. If all the pieces came together, it should be pretty easy to defeat the swamp monster and rescue the bus.
As we approached the end of the bridge, I glanced up to see all the news helicopters as they circled the bridge to compete for who could get the best footage, and I was actually glad that there was already so much coverage of the situation. I hadn’t planned for this part, but now that I saw the helicopters, I knew that Bogdan would be a really good way for us to reveal our existence to the citizens of Grayville. We’d taken care of other supervillains before, but we’d never done it with so much live coverage, and I had to admit that it would feel pretty good to show up the Shadow Knight in his own city.
Still, that reminded me.
“Aileen,” I said, “keep your trackers alert for the Shadow Knight’s movements. There are enough news reports about this for him to show up.”
“Understood,” my robotic assistant acknowledged.
I didn’t think that Slade would be petty enough to interrupt us while we saved an entire bus full of people, but I didn’t want to underestimate him.
When we reached the end of the bridge, I saw that all the abandoned cars on the road blocked our route onto the bridge itself, so I skidded our van to a stop and hopped out as soon as it was parked. As soon as my feet were on the ground, I clicked my new devil-horned mask over my face, adjusted my vision to the screens inside it, and glanced at the two girls.
“Ready?” I asked.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, gave an appreciative glance at the design upgrades to my suit, and then nodded.
“Oh, wow,” Norma said when she saw me. “I like it. Looks badass. Like you are a cyber-devil or something.”
“Thanks,” I said with a grin. “I thought it was appropriate.”
“We can all stand around and admire Miles later,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s get moving.”
The three of us turned and ran onto the bridge, while civilians fled in every direction around us. Of course, most
of them ran toward us as they attempted to escape the swamp creature, so we had to dodge their panicked movements and move around all the cars that they had left behind.
As we made our way across the bridge toward the swamp creature, I could hear sirens from both ends of the bridge, and that meant that the police had arrived to set up barricades on either side. That was good news for us, since it would help funnel the civilians off of the bridge and out of our way.
We ran past a few bodies that had been crushed by cars, but it was only confirmation of what we already knew: not only was Bogdan a mindless creature, but he was also plenty strong enough to fling cars around like they weighed nothing.
It was a good reminder to be careful about our approach.
We were far enough along the bridge now that we could see Bogdan right up ahead. He still dangled the bus over the side of the bridge, but the creature now also slashed his vine-like limbs at the news helicopters and drones overhead. He looked ugly and vicious, but more importantly, he looked like he was distracted by all the drones in the air, so his attention wasn’t focused in our direction.
“Okay, hold on!” I ordered as I came to a sudden stop.
“What is it?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Well, we can’t just barge in there,” I said. “You two need to stay back and let me approach first, so I can secure the bus with webbing before he notices. Then I’ll pass the webs off to you, Elizabeth.”
“How close do you need to be?” Norma hissed.
“I can shoot from pretty far away,” I said, “so I don’t need to be right up next to the bus or anything. I just need to be a little closer.”
“Then we’ll follow you,” Elizabeth said.
“Good,” I replied. “Stay close, but make sure you stay behind me.”
I crouched and began to slink from one car to the next as cover, while both girls followed right behind me. Bogdan didn’t pay any attention to us as we got closer, so we kept approaching until I knew that my webs would be able to reach the bus.
Half of Bogdan’s vines were coiled around the bus to keep it from completely falling into the river, but I wondered how long his distracted attention would be able to keep it from slipping over the edge. I also wondered if we would draw his focus too fast if I tried to attach the webs from here, but we were just as likely to attract his attention if we moved closer before I shot my webs.
I came up with a better plan on the spot.
For it to succeed, we would all have to work quickly, and we would all have to work together. I had more than enough faith in Elizabeth and Norma’s individual abilities by now, and since I knew that we worked incredibly well as a team, I thought it was a pretty solid plan.
“Alright, I know what to do,” I said as the swamp-vine monster roared up ahead. “You’ll both need to follow my plan to the letter, or the bus will tip too far over for us to pull it up.”
“Understood,” Elizabeth replied.
“Just tell us what to do,” Norma said.
“We’re going to do everything at the same time,” I explained. “So when I fire the webs at the bus, you need to engage him right away, Norma.”
“Got it,” my mousy assistant said.
“You’ll just have to keep his attention off of us until I signal you, and then as quickly as you can, I’ll need you to cut off the vines that he’s using to hold up the bus.”
“Okay,” Norma exhaled. “Okay, I can do that.”
“Elizabeth, I’ll need you to grab each web I attach, and I’ll need you to grab it as soon as it latches onto the bus,” I said. “There’s no way I can hold up the bus by myself, and if it pulls too hard, I won’t be able to keep my balance.”
“I’ll take care of it,” my superpowered girlfriend assured me.
“Good.” I breathed out and rubbed my hands together to warm them up, but that wouldn’t do much considering the gloves I had on, and I made a mental note to add in better climate controls into the next iteration of my gear. “Then we move on my signal.”
I flexed my gauntlet and ran my thumb over the mechanism to fire out a strand of webbing. The entire plan hinged on this new creation of mine, but I had complete and total faith in it. After all, it was the brainchild of both Aileen and me, and I knew that between us, we hadn’t made a single mistake.
I raised my gauntlet, looked at Norma and Elizabeth, and then brought my hand down in a sharp movement that pointed straight at Bogdan.
Norma shot forward toward the monster at the same time that I fired a strand of web at the bus. It connected solidly to the back corner and clung on when I pulled to test the tightness of the hold. Immediately, I passed off the thick coil of webbing to Elizabeth, and she slammed her heels into the asphalt so she was rooted in place as she gripped the webbing.
“Keep him engaged, Norma!” I instructed my weaponized assistant.
Norma drew two of her blades from their holsters against her back, and then she collided with the swamp monster. She brought one sword down on one of Bogdan’s thick vines, and as dark green sap oozed out of the opening, the vine flopped to the ground and the creature turned all of his attention on the mousy woman.
Norma rolled away before he could swipe at her, and when another one of the creature’s vines slapped the ground where her body had just been, my assistant turned around and severed it with another clean cut.
The monster roared, and more tendrils appeared from its dark swampy body, but Norma dodged an average amount of hits. One vine knocked into her and sent her flying backward, but she caught herself midair, flipped around, and landed firmly on her feet again.
It was an advanced technique for a martial artist, but average for a gymnast.
Norma was starting to use her powers better.
I wanted to know if she had made that reaction consciously or if it was just a natural defense mechanism, but there was no time to think about that right now, especially since Norma seemed plenty capable of keeping the monster distracted on her own.
Bogdan still hadn’t noticed us, and I didn’t think he would for as long as Norma went after him. Of course, if he decided to use all of his vines to fight her, then he might just let go of the bus before we could get a solid hold on it.
We would just have to move quickly to avoid that.
I fired off several more quick strands of web to connect to the side of the bus and handed them off to Elizabeth. As I shot more webs at the back of the bus, I started to hear the panicked screams of the people inside, and between my webs and Bogdan’s vines, the bus started to rock back and forth.
“Norma, keep him busy, but not too busy,” I told her through her earpiece. “We don’t want him to let go of the bus yet.”
“Got it,” she said. “I won’t be too competent, and I’ll try not to cut off any more vines, so it won’t have to take any away from the bus to use against me.”
“Good girl,” I said with a smile. “How’s the bus feel, Elizabeth?”
“Solid enough that I can probably keep it in place once he lets go.” She adjusted her strong grip on the taut bundle of webbing that I’d given her so far.
“Just hold it in place?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she replied. “I don’t think I have enough strength yet to pull it back up completely. It’s tipped pretty far over the edge.”
“I’ll attach some more and pull with you,” I said. “I might not be as strong as you are, but my suit is strength-enhanced, so we probably have enough power combined to be able to pull the bus back to safety.”
The bus shook, and Elizabeth dug her heels into the street hard enough to crack the pavement a little more.
“We better hurry!” she cried.
I risked moving a little closer to the swamp monster to get a different angle on the bus, but Norma noticed what I was doing and immediately shifted her position so that Bogdan didn’t turn toward me at all.
I fired off several more strands of web at the opposite side of the bus and grabbed on, but I felt myself
sliding under the weight of it. I didn’t have the solid stance that Elizabeth had, and now that I held the webs myself, I could tell that they weren’t strong enough to hold the bus without some additional support.
I thought about trying to loop the strands of webbing around the structural supports on the opposite side of the bridge, but I knew that if I pulled any harder, the webs would probably just snap.
And from the corner of my eye, I could tell that Norma was beginning to get tired in her fight with the swamp monster.
She still moved with the basic, average agility of a gymnast against the monster, but she was taking more vine-whip hits than she had been. Her suit would hold up and protect her from any serious damage, but that wouldn’t matter if she got too exhausted to continue fighting. If that happened, Bogdan would just be able to pick her up and rip her in half, so we had to hurry.
“Elizabeth, how’s your hold?” I asked as I attached several more strands of web to the bus to try and distribute the weight a little better.
“Miles, I think the webs are unraveling!” She sounded a little panicked. “Norma needs to go ahead and cut the bus free so I can pull it up!”
“If she cuts it now, the webs will snap and the bus will fall into the water,” I said. “Hang on, I’m thinking.”
I held onto the webs still in my hands and made my way back over to her. It would be hard for her, but I knew that between her super strength and my supersuit, Elizabeth should be able to handle all the strands at once.
“You have to take these!” I handed them off to her.
Elizabeth held her arms wide as she struggled to keep her grip on the bus entirely by herself, and I could see what she meant about the webs. The strands of the webs that I’d given her earlier were all starting to come undone, and pretty soon, they would be completely unraveled.
“I’m going to tell Norma to cut the vines,” I told Elizabeth. “As soon as she does, you pull the bus back up. One really good tug should be enough to get it back up onto the bridge.”
“I trust you, Miles!” Elizabeth said through gritted teeth.
