by Wyatt Kane
Yet it wasn’t pitch black. The sea of neon and holographic lights that made up New Lincoln cast its reflection upward, giving the cloud cover hints of crimson and blue.
“Have you got everything?” Tempest asked.
Ty checked to make sure. With his head pounding as it was and his brain still feeling like mush, he didn’t want to take anything for granted. His device was attached to his wrist, but the power supply for his shield was not. It would be more than embarrassing to reach the scene of the most recent event only to find he couldn’t activate his technology.
Fortunately, Ty had remembered to put on the pouch when he got dressed. He still carried a trio of EMP grenades hooked onto his belt. And by either good luck or good management, he had remembered to put on his shirt and trousers as well, and even grabbed one of Zach’s less ostentatious jackets to complete his outfit.
“I’m good,” he replied, even though he really wasn’t. The nap and associated activities had restored only some of his flagging energy. Ty couldn’t help but wonder if the drug had been worth it at all. Sure, when it was active, he could do amazing things, but the after effects were worse than he would have liked to believe.
“Then let’s go,” Tempest said. She reached for him in the same way that Lilith often did, wrapping him up in her arms. But this was different. Ty couldn’t bring himself to enjoy Lilith’s mode of transport. For him, being jerked out of reality and dragged through that awful place between worlds was the embodiment of all of his fears.
Flying, though, was altogether different. It had quickly become one of Ty’s greatest pleasures.
With Tempest’s warm, strong body pressed close to his own, the blonde superhero leapt into the sky, and before he knew it, Ty was already starting to grin.
Tempest was apparently in no mood to dawdle. Within moments, they were traveling faster than Ty had ever experienced before. He knew the blonde superhero could go fast, but this was exceptional. He felt and saw a collar of cloud forming around them, like it sometimes does at supersonic speeds, and couldn’t help himself. He let out a laugh of pure adrenaline-fueled joy, even as he understood Tempest was flying too fast to hear it.
The blonde superhero could withstand blaster fire at close range. She could fly faster than the speed of sound. Leap tall buildings, and carry the weight of fifty people with ease.
Yet for all her power, she couldn’t help the Architect. In this, she would need a skill like Ty’s, or something different altogether.
Tempest had taken her anger and frustration at this out on Spit Bitch, but this was different. Ty sensed that she was flying fast not just to express her frustration, but to reach the next scene as quickly as she could.
She wanted to help whoever needed to be helped, and perhaps atone for her earlier actions. Either way, Tempest flew as hard and fast as she could.
Perhaps the sheer speed of it all would have terrified Ty before he put on his device. But now, he trusted the blonde superhero with his life. And anyway, he reasoned, if something unexpected were to happen, he could always activate his own shield.
Because of this, despite the horrendous speed, Ty was able to relax in the blonde woman’s grasp.
The city of New Lincoln was monstrous. How many millions of people lived within its borders, Ty couldn’t guess. There were buildings so big they could house more than a hundred thousand people all by themselves, and these were often dwarfed by the mega-corporation headquarters that pierced through the sky.
And there were hundreds of them. Thousands. So many that if the clouds ever let up, they would stretch to the horizon and beyond in every direction.
Yet at Tempest’s speed, even a city the size of New Lincoln could be traversed fairly swiftly. While not as fast as Lilith, Tempest reached their destination quickly enough, and slowed down to hover in the sky above a major highway junction made up of numerous loops of concrete that directed traffic in every direction.
Even from half a mile out, Ty could see that the traffic was snarled. Completely stopped, and that wasn’t all. As they drew closer, Ty could see people running away, abandoning their cars and just leaving. Yet some weren’t quick enough. There were charred corpses on the ground, still caught in poses of terror.
Both Ty and Tempest could see the cause.
It was Sparkles. A small man, at the time, he had been dangerous enough, sending out sparks of energy in every direction like an overly excited Tesla coil machine. But that was nothing to how he appeared now.
“Holy shit,” Ty said. Tempest said nothing, but he could sense her agreement.
Below them, the man was lit up like a beacon made of blue fire and buzzed like a transformer about to explode.
19: Cyber Assimilation
Ty could barely believe what he was seeing, and from Tempest’s reaction, neither could she.
“How in the world…?” she began, but never completed her sentence. At the same time, Ty thought he knew the answer. In his mind, this third superpowered villain confirmed it. Ty knew of only one thing that could provide such a boost in power.
AZT-407. The wonder drug that had worked so well on Ty himself, but which had left him with the hangover from hell.
It was the difference between a forty-watt bulb and one rated at more than a hundred. Ty couldn’t access Sparkles’ character sheet, so he didn’t know how many levels the man had managed to bypass. All he knew was that it must have been plenty. The villain they’d faced before had been dangerous enough, but this man’s power looked truly insane.
He gave off so much energy Ty would have bet he could have powered much of New Lincoln all by himself.
Ty’s and Tempest’s arrival didn’t go unnoticed. Sparkles peered at them from within his private conflagration and a sneer appeared on his face. He may have said something, but if he did, his voice was drowned out by the noise of his sparks.
As Ty and Tempest watched, Sparkles reached out a fist made of pure power toward one of the cars trapped before him. Ty experienced a moment of terror, fearing that there was still someone inside it, but the doors were all open and he could see nobody through the windows.
With a surge of energy, the villain picked up the car and hurled it toward Ty and Tempest.
Ty couldn’t believe it. The last time he and Tempest had faced Sparkles, the man had been able to do little more than cast bolts of lightning about. Now, he could create energy constructs with form and substance. The man could form shapes out of power that had weight behind them, and use them with great effect.
If the energy fist had been green rather than blue, Ty would have looked about for a lantern. As it was, he couldn’t help but wonder if he could replicate the man’s power somehow.
Tempest, however, had a more pragmatic response. She dropped Ty without hesitation.
◆◆◆
At first, he fell like a rock. Then, as his shield caught him and lowered him gently to the ground, Ty turned to watch the unfolding drama. Instead of dodging or somehow ducking for cover, Tempest had surged forward to meet the car in midair. She let out a grunt of effort as she took the full weight of the vehicle, then swung it around and hurled it back where it came from.
Her actions didn’t please Sparkles one bit. It was all he could do to raise his huge, energy hands up to protect himself, batting the car off to the side. Still muted beneath the buzz of his own energy, the man raged, clenching his fists and shaking them above his head. His power pulsed in sync with his fury, and he picked up another of the cars.
Ty cursed under his breath. He wasn’t close enough to use his EMP grenades. He looked around, searching for options as Tempest circled the villain like a moth around a flame. But once again, there was little he could do. This was a battle between Titans, and Ty was no more than a bug down at their feet.
A bug with the ability to take Sparkles’ power away. He just needed to get closer.
Sparkles heaved the second car at Tempest just as he’d done with the first, but this time followed it up with a
blast of power like that Ty produced with his shield cannons.
“Tempest!” Ty cried, but he needn’t have worried. Tempest caught this car as well, and used it as a shield until Sparkles’ energy blast was done. Then, as if they were playing a perverse game of dodgeball, she again threw the car back.
Sparkles batted the car aside as easily as he’d done the first, and changed tactic. Instead of reaching for another, he charged toward Tempest, toward Ty as well, by using his enormous energy hands like the King of all apes, planting them in the ground and swinging his feet forward. It was an odd way to move, but it was effective. In less than a heartbeat, Sparkles had traversed twenty yards and showed no sign of stopping. He shouldered cars away left and right, and in moments, he would be too close for comfort.
Perhaps Ty’s shield would protect him from Sparkles’ power. Perhaps it wouldn’t. Either way, it looked as if he was about to find out. For just an instant, Ty forgot that getting closer to Sparkles was exactly what he needed. He stood there, his hangover-befuddled brain hesitating, unsure what to do. Images of his dream returned to haunt him, although now it was Sparkles bearing down on him instead of Bain.
Fortunately, Tempest saw the danger, and she was swift. She landed lightly beside him.
“Now might be a good time to use one of your grenades,” she said casually.
It was all Ty needed. His focus snapped back into place, and his hesitation was gone. With a snarl of anger, he pulled one of the grenades off his belt and released the pin.
If he’d been thinking his clearest, perhaps he would have given it to Tempest to throw. She would have been sure to hit the target. But Ty didn’t even think. In his judgment, hampered by the remnants of the drug in his system, he thought he could do the job well enough. He took aim at the energy monster before him and threw with everything he had.
The grenade went wildly off target. Ty couldn’t believe it. For some reason the grenade had stuck to his hand for fractionally longer than he intended. Instead of hurling it into the face of the villain, the grenade ended up twenty feet to the side.
It went off, detonating with a pop and a complete lack of reward.
Even so, Sparkles paused. The villain had seen what had happened. He knew what Ty had tried to do. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt the effects of an EMP grenade.
But, by the man’s actions, he intended it to be the last. Over the ongoing buzz of power, Ty heard Sparkles laugh. Then he let out a roar of pure energy, a blast that shook the cars all around Ty and Tempest, and charged forward again.
Ty caught a strong whiff of ozone as he plucked a second grenade from his belt and handed it over.
“You’d better do this one,” he said, the forced casualness in his own voice as he tried to match Tempest belied by the irritation he felt at his failure.
Tempest agreed. She took hold of the grenade without a word, pulled the pin and let fly.
Sparkles was ready for it. To Ty and Tempest’s surprise, just like he’d done with the cars, the superpowered villain used his power to bat the grenade away.
It exploded harmlessly, further away from its target than Ty’s had been.
Ty grabbed the final EMP grenade from his belt and turned to Tempest. “Last one,” he said. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if this one failed as well. He didn’t know if his shield cannons could touch the man, and didn’t know how Tempest might defeat him. Yet he still hesitated. “Too close,” he said.
Tempest didn’t need to be told twice. As fast as thought, she scooped Ty up and launched into the air, backpedaling away from the energy monster before them.
It was a sudden move that caught both Sparkles and Ty by surprise. Ty’s head snapped back at the unexpected acceleration, and he clutched at the grenade with everything he had, willing himself not to let go. For just a moment, the pain behind his eyes grew exponentially worse. It felt like a cannon had gone off in his head, he felt like he was about to be sick, and his vision went black around the edges.
“Ty?” Tempest said, her voice filled with concern. “Ty, are you okay?”
Ty fought to steady himself. He shut his eyes against the sudden nausea and pounding in his head.
“I’m okay,” he said, even though he was not. He just needed a moment for the nausea to fade...
“Ty?” Tempest repeated.
He forced himself to open his eyes and noted randomly that in her concern for him, Tempest had remained rooted to a single spot in the air. It was hard to focus, but he saw that Sparkles was getting closer. The villain was an ongoing burst of power, his body hidden in a ball of blue lightning crackling out in every direction. It was like they were being stalked by an elemental being of raw power.
“Ty!” Tempest snapped.
With a supreme act of will, Ty focused. He knew what he needed to do. The last grenade. He needed to hand it to Tempest, and she would do the rest. Dangling in midair with the blonde superhero, he tried to do so, only to see that the grenade had merged with the flesh of his hand.
Ty wasted precious moments staring at it. He was completely dumbfounded. This was what had happened with the device on his wrist. It was his new skill, responding to his need of a moment before to hold onto it with everything he had.
Tempest had seen it as well. “Ty?” she said once more, this time her voice filled with confusion.
“It’s my new skill,” Ty managed as Sparkles launched himself even closer. “I can’t control it,” he said.
When the device on his wrist had sunk into his flesh, he’d simply willed it to emerge, and it had done so. Same with the nanites he’d tried to give to Jason. But this time, the nausea combined with his headache made it more difficult. He tried to will his flesh to give up its prize, but it stubbornly refused.
Tempest was getting anxious. “What do we do?” she demanded.
At first, Ty didn’t know. His brain was no more than mush. He thought they would have to retreat, that he would be the cause of their failure against this overpowered villain.
He thought about contacting Lilith and getting her involved in the fight, or at least using her to take Ty to safety while Tempest continued the battle.
Then he had another idea.
It was crazy. Insane, even. Completely desperate. But he knew it would work.
It had to.
Ty looked hard at Tempest. “Throw me!” he said. Then he reached for the pin on his grenade, one of the few parts that hadn’t been absorbed into his flesh. As Tempest looked at him in confusion, unsure what he was going to do, Ty pulled the pin.
Tempest understood. She looked at him in horror. “But the grenade will take your device out as well!”
“There’s no time to argue! Do it now!”
He’d left her no option. If she did nothing, the grenade would take out both of their devices and they would be helpless. So she did as he asked.
Tempest spun around once in a circle, then twice, three times very quickly, accelerating Ty to an extraordinary speed. Then she let go and he sailed through the air toward the electrified villain.
He was moving too fast for Sparkles to dodge. Too fast for the villain to bat him out of the way. All Sparkles could do was erupt with power so that Ty caught the full force of it on his shield.
All at once, Ty knew that his shield was better at protecting him from Sparkles’ power than that of Steam. Yet it was a long way from perfect, and he felt the pain of it all over his body. It was like he’d stepped into a furnace, and Ty couldn’t help but let out a scream. Then, barely slowed by the man’s power, Ty and Sparkles collided with a resounding crash.
Burned and in pain, Ty did his best to hold on, and moments later, the EMP device in Ty’s hand went off.
20: Aftermath
The EMP grenade wasn’t designed to blow apart. It was designed instead to emit a single pulse of electro magnetism, which would take out anything electronic within range.
But it was far from pleasant. The detonation sent a wave of pa
in and shock throughout his whole body. It was like being hit in the chest with a bowling ball. Ty felt like his heart skipped a beat, and was very relieved when it started again. At the same time, his brain started to vibrate like it might if he’d stuck a finger into an electrical socket.
Yet those were just the first, immediate results of his grenade going off. An instant later, the device clicked open and dropped off his wrist, and the withdrawal symptoms kicked in.
A cold sweat broke out all over his body. He’d already been feeling nauseous because of the AZT-407 hangover, but this was infinitely worse. He had to clamp his jaw shut to avoid throwing up. At the same time, there was a sickening pain in his lower abdomen.
It was as if he’d been kicked hard in the balls and he couldn’t help himself. Still holding onto Sparkles, Ty crumpled until he was kneeling on the ground. But even that wasn’t enough. He was winded, his guts were cramping, and his world was going dark at the edges. He let go of Sparkles completely and collapsed, his whole body trembling from the impact of the sudden lack of the device on his wrist.
Nor was he the only one to suffer.
As soon as the grenade went off, Sparkles display of raw power disappeared. It was like turning the man off at the switch. Ty heard him suck in a breath of air between his teeth, and he crumpled as well.
This was the first time Ty had seen him up close. When last they had battled, Sparkles had always been at a distance. Ty knew him to be a small man, wiry and thin, but hadn’t really got a good look at his face.
Now he did, and he didn’t much like it. Up close, Sparkles could have been a poster child for the concept of hate. He had gone in for spikes in a big way, replacing his eyebrows entirely and decorating his cheeks and chin like a pincushion. He wore a ring through his nose, and had tattooed red eyeliner around his eyes to make himself look fierce. Even as his power flickered and died, he glared at Ty with an expression of loathing.
