by Matt Cowper
Sam formed a dense flame around his right fist and flew down to the woman. She saw him coming, though, and turned to face him. Sam saw cleavage, and a firm belly, and…gah! Nightstriker would have him cleaning the Beacon’s toilets with a toothbrush if he kept this up.
The woman fired a blast at him, and Sam spun in the air, dodging it easily. He counted off the seconds: one, two, three, four…here came another blast. Again, he dodged it. Now he was within striking distance, but instead of hitting her head-on, he roared by her so he could strike from behind. The sudden change of direction had the woman tripping over her feet in her desperation to turn around, giving Sam time to connect with a fire-enhanced right cross.
“Ow!” the woman said, touching her face. “That hurt! And you burnt me!”
OK, so she was tougher than she looked, or Sam was weaker than he thought. Probably both. The details didn’t matter at this particular moment. What mattered was she was ready to fire another beam, and Sam was only about five feet away.
Nightstriker had theorized that her attacks couldn’t penetrate his Fire Shield, but the rune guy had already nearly ended him. Sam wasn’t going to take any chances. He raised his fist and formed a white orb of fire: the Galileo Ball, his special move meant to blind an opponent.
The woman yelped and covered her eyes with her hands. She shot her beam at where she thought the fiery hero had been standing, but Sam had floated fifteen feet to the right, and the beam did nothing but cover him with dust from where it ripped apart the pavement.
Then something rammed into the woman’s stomach, and she let out an “Oof!” and doubled over. It was Metal Gal – she’d morphed her arms into a cylinder-like battering ram and used her thruster-legs to propel her into the rogue superhuman. Another savage blow from her ram-arms, and the woman was unconscious, blood dribbling from her mouth.
“How was that for a tag team?” Metal Gal asked. She morphed out of the thrusters and battering ram, and held out a human-looking hand to Sam in a high-five move.
Sam slapped skin – or her metal, he had to remind himself – then looked over to his teammates. Buckshot and Slab were still struggling with the muscleman. Nightstriker had engaged the rune guy, and looked to be doing fine – he was far too quick, and the rune guy was clearly getting frustrated. He kept sending out a swarm of runes, hoping that the sheer numbers would overwhelm Nightstriker. But Nightstriker remained unscathed, and the rune guy was panting just like his comrades.
“Let’s help the others,” Sam said. “Nightstriker said he could handle that guy.”
“Okie-dokie,” Metal Gal replied. “My analysis says that guy is outta Nightstriker’s league, though. Still, I think our dear leader needs to learn he isn’t invincible. When he starts losing, he’ll be begging for our help, you’ll see.”
Sam didn’t think he’d see any such thing, but the last thing they needed right now was more arguing. He flew towards his teammates, and Metal Gal followed on her rollerblades.
Chapter Seven
Nightstriker
The new Elites were performing as expected. That is, terribly.
Nightstriker cursed Beverly Gillespie, he cursed Slab, he cursed Metal Gal, he cursed Buckshot, he cursed Blaze. If he’d come here alone, these rogues – whoever they were – would’ve already been beaten. Yes, they were new enemies, but he’d adapted under similar circumstances before, and could do so again. Instead, he’d had to babysit his teammates and watch them struggle against superhumans with weaknesses that any superhero with half a brain should’ve been able to detect.
No, he shouldn’t curse Blaze. Blaze did some boneheaded things, and was clearly starstruck by his teammates, especially Nightstriker, but he was listening and trying to do the right thing. The others thought they were infallible. Had they not been paying attention during the briefing? He’d detailed their shortcomings, but his words had gone through one fleshy, rocky, or metallic ear and out the other.
He’d rectify all that later. There would be training sessions, intense ones, where even Slab would end up vomiting up the entire cows he had to eat to prevent himself from withering away. Right now, though, this strange rune-slinger was the top priority.
Nightstriker had been silent throughout the encounter. He’d dodged the runes easily, which only made his opponent more determined. For all his determination, though, he was clearly an amateur. Having trained with the Guild of All-One, Nightstriker knew their magic could do any number of things, from creating a thunderstorm to summoning various faeries. This man, however, was mainly shooting out runes like bullets, much like his now-unconscious friend with her purple projectiles.
“How have you come by these powers?” Nightstriker asked as he landed on a smoldering car. “I know you haven’t trained with the Guild.”
Hearing this relentless hero talk now, after so much grim silence, shocked the man so badly he stopped firing runes. He stared at Nightstriker, his fingers working madly.
“How do you know about the Guild?” he asked.
“I make it my business to know these things,” Nightstriker responded. “I ask again: how have you come by these powers? And why are you creating such carnage in this city?”
“The Giftgiver gave me these powers,” the man said proudly. “And we’re doing this to make a statement: corruption will no longer be tolerated.”
“Corruption?” Nightstriker looked around. “I see a torn-apart section of Midtown. I don’t see corruption.”
“Look closer, Nightstriker.” He seemed proud that he knew the hero’s name, like he’d been proud when he’d mentioned the Giftgiver – whoever that was. “This area has the offices of no less than ten hedge funds, one bank that’s known as a money-launderer, and one predatory home mortgage lender. They operate right here, in peace, sucking the treasure from this country like bloated parasites – and nobody does anything about it. In fact, they make laws to protect these assholes! Well, we don’t care about regressive laws like those. They won’t stop us. We have the power, and we have the will – we will raze this entire country to the ground if we have to, and rebuild it into a fair and just society.”
“I see,” Nightstriker said. “A utopian – I have fought many of those. They’re just authoritarians in disguise. This is not how to change the system, young man.”
“Don’t patronize me!” He let fly a black rune that trailed shadows, but Nightstriker flipped off the car well before it hit. “You so-called superheroes are all the same. You fight supervillains, yeah, but then where are you when Congress passes a bill stripping unions of power or curtailing women’s reproductive rights?”
“We’re right there, involved in the process,” Nightstriker replied. “If you did any research, you’d know this. But research, I assume, is not something you’re keen on. It’s much easier to believe in your self-righteousness, to believe you know the one true path, and that everyone else is a deluded, lazy fool.”
“Again with the patronizing!” He clenched his fists, and runes of various colors circled around him like insects. “You know you protect those in power! You know you’re scared of reformers like us! But enough talking! You can’t defeat me, Nightstriker. If you could, you would’ve done so already. You know I have shielding runes around me, and that your little karate kicks can’t hurt me.”
“That’s true,” Nightstriker said, “but I’ve mainly been delaying because I was reluctant to use magic again. I was hoping you would tire and present a weak point, but your shield runes hold. That’s the one point you get in your favor.”
“Use magic? You? Don’t make me––”
A white rune the size of a pickup truck crashed into the man, scattering his multi-colored runes like confetti. Nightstriker had traced it in the air quickly, and sent it before the man could react. He likely couldn’t have stopped it even if he’d had time to prepare a counter-rune; Nightstriker had used a rune called the Ultimate Counterspell. As its name implied, it neutralized every other rune it came in contact with. It also drained the user; Nig
htstriker felt his fatigue increase twofold, something he didn’t think possible.
He staggered over to the man, who was rising slowly to his feet. “Forgive me, All-One masters. You surely felt me use that rune through the aether. I did not want to, but it was the most expeditious way to defeat this enemy.”
“What are you babbling about, old man?” the man said, shaking his fist like a comic book villain. “And what’s wrong with my rune powers? Tell me, or I’ll––”
Four punches in quick succession sent the man back to the ground, this time out for good.
Nightstriker reached into a pouch, pulled out some cord, and quickly tied up the man. He also blindfolded and gagged him; if he somehow woke up, he wouldn’t be able to create more runes, unless Nightstriker was completely mistaken about his abilities – a rune-user of this type had to be able to see what he was tracing to be effective.
Now, to help the others.
He jogged to where his teammates were fighting – or where they should have been fighting. Instead, they were standing or floating there, pointing down the street and arguing. The powerful black man and the attractive energy-projecting woman were nowhere to be seen.
“What’s going on?” Nightstriker asked, his harsh voice cutting off the arguing. “Where are the other superhumans?”
No one responded.
“Where are they?!” Nightstriker shouted.
“They, uh…ran away,” Blaze finally replied. Admitting this failure caused his flames to dim.
“Ran away?” Nightstriker said. “How?”
“That Negro was too damn strong,” Buckshot said. “He was even givin’ Slab what for. When he saw you take down the magic guy, though, he got scared. Slapped his giant paws together, created a shockwave that knocked us all down. When we un-discombobulated ourselves, he was gone, and he’d grabbed that fine little purple-energy girl and took her with him.”
“He was an African-American,” Metal Gal said, “not a Negro.”
“What’s wrong with Negro?” Buckshot asked. “At least I didn’t use the other n-word.”
“Oh, that’s so progressive of you,” Slab said, shaking his rocky head.
“Which way did he go?” Nightstriker snapped.
“We…didn’t see,” Blaze replied. His flames dimmed even more. “Sorry, sir.”
“This is unacceptable,” Nightstriker growled. “To allow a…why am I wasting my breath? You’re not listening, and we may still be able to catch him.” He pulled a device from a pocket in his spandex. It looked like a walkie-talkie, and that was essentially its purpose, except on a far larger scale. “Beacon, this is Nightstriker. Do you have eyes on the superhumans we were just fighting? My teammates have seen fit to let them escape.”
“Negative, Nightstriker,” came the reply. “We tracked them for a few blocks, but then they pounded or blasted their way underground and we lost them.”
Nightstriker stared at his teammates. Some of them valiantly tried to return his stare, but none lasted for long.
“Get to the Sirens,” he said. “We return to the Beacon. This has not been a total failure – we have the rune-user in custody, and I will interrogate him thoroughly. Before I do that, though, you will all be debriefed – and you will listen and learn, not bicker or gloat. Understood?”
Mutters all around. Nightstriker didn’t expect them to suddenly become obedient, but at least they seemed chastised. That was something – it showed they cared, if only a little, about being superheroes.
“Let’s go,” Nightstriker commanded.
Chapter Eight
Blaze
Sam lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Like just about everything else on the Beacon, the ceiling was high-tech: he could command it to change into a real-time image of the sky, or of outer space, or any other thing he could imagine. The Beacon’s holographic and hard-light tech was astonishing.
But there was no relaxing image above him. Only cold gray metal, with rivets running down the seams. He was not in a mood to relax or meditate, not after the tongue-lashing Nightstriker had given all of them.
The moment they’d returned to Briefing Room One, Nightstriker had laid into them. The analysts had recorded the battle, both via satellite and the security cameras in the area, so they could review their failure from any angle they wished. Blaze would’ve chosen to review it from no angle at all, but Nightstriker, his voice as hard as Slab’s rocky arms, went through everything in detail.
Most of his points were valid. The team had rushed headlong into battle, and had gotten humiliated. They’d ignored their opponent’s obvious weaknesses, and failed to follow superheroing best practices. Why hadn’t they simply contained the black guy, for example, instead of trying to duke it out? Blaze could’ve created a wall of fire around him, Slab could’ve wrapped him up in steel beams or used rubble to corral him, Metal Gal could’ve morphed her body into a cage. Buckshot was ostensibly the least effective in this situation, but Nightstriker suggested he could’ve used explosive rounds to blind and distract the man, as Blaze had used the Galileo Ball.
Then Gillespie, that icy woman, had appeared on the video screen and laid into them even more. She then laid into Nightstriker, saying things like “it’ll be a real morale boost for the country to see this on the nightly news,” and “the failure of a team is a failure in leadership.” Nightstriker curtly reminded her that he’d wanted to go alone, but Gillespie had insisted that the entire team deploy to Z City. Then he cut the feed in the middle of one of Gillespie’s sentences.
Blaze thought that would be the end of it, but then Buckshot, in his infinite wisdom, stood up and started barking at Nightstriker. If their team leader was so infatuated with teamwork, why had he fought the rune guy alone, instead of linking up with everyone? Yes, the bad guys had escaped, but didn’t the Beacon have drones and droids and “robot tracker things,” as Buckshot put it, to ensure this didn’t happen? Why hadn’t these been used?
Instead of answering these questions, Nightstriker had stormed out of the room, saying he was going to interrogate the rune guy. He did not want to be bothered. There would be a training session at six AM tomorrow morning. He expected everyone to be there. There would be consequences for those that weren’t.
So everyone had meandered out of Briefing Room One and headed off to do whatever they did in their spare time. Sam had walked to his quarters, laid down on his bed, and stared at the ceiling.
He understood Nightstriker’s anger. They’d performed terribly. But Nightstriker was just as willful as any of them, and his brusque manner did not inspire any of his teammates. Some people performed well under a drill sergeant-like leader; others excelled when there were more carrots than sticks being used for motivation. His teammates fell into the latter category. Listening to them talk and seeing how they reacted during the debriefing, it was clear that browbeating them would only make them retreat into themselves, or quit the team entirely. Well, it was clear to Sam – and that it was clear to an inexperienced, eighteen-year-old kid and not, apparently, to the great Nightstriker was troubling.
Maybe he should go train, instead of lying there in a funk. That was probably what Nightstriker would’ve done. But did Sam really want to emulate him? He was still in awe of the man’s accomplishments, but he was beginning to see some chinks in the hero’s proverbial armor….
His room door opened. Sam bolted out of bed and reflexively activated his Fire Shield. He’d forgotten to set the lock protocols on the door. Stupid! He didn’t really feel he was in danger, here in this floating fortress with its countless security measures, but he still didn’t want just anyone to barge in on him.
Metal Gal was standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind her back. Her body now had a silvery radiance, like the well-polished silver of some English nobleman’s dining room. And what a body it was…there he went again! She was a teammate, not a swimsuit model! But when she refused to wear clothes, or morph her body so it appeared she was dressed….
&
nbsp; “Hiya!” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Uh…sure,” Sam replied, turning off his Fire Shield.
Metal Gal skipped into the room, then spun around, checking everything out. For someone so powerful and, yes, sexy, she sometimes acted like she was still in kindergarten.
“Hmm. Haven’t decorated yet, I see,” she said. “You gonna brighten up this place, or is it gonna be a monk’s cell?”
“I’ll unpack…sometime,” Sam replied.
“Well, better do it soon, because leader man is gonna put us through the ringer, I just know it. You’ll barely have time to brush your teeth once these training sessions get underway.”
“You think so?”
“Of course. It’s Nightstriker. You think we’re gonna train for two hours and then he’ll pat us on the head and let us go play? No way, Sam.”
“I guess so….” Wait, she’d called him Sam! He’d forgotten to put his mask on when she entered! Now she’d probably scanned his face, matched it to a database in her mind….
“Chill out, Samuel Johnson Boyd,” Metal Gal said. “Your secret identity’s safe with me. You wouldn’t have been able to maintain it anyway, not with all the stuff going on. You’d forget to put your mask on, like you forgot just now, or you’d let a clue slip out. It’s better to just get all that out of the way now instead of worrying about it for weeks.”
“Well…listen…don’t tell anyone else, OK?” Sam said. “You’re right, it’s probably wise to just let everyone know, but…I’m not quite ready. Nightstriker already knows, of course, and…just don’t go gossiping to Slab and Buckshot, please?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” She moved her hand across her chest, and Sam was surprised to see furrows appear on the silvery skin. An X appeared over where her heart would be, then it faded away after a few seconds.
“That’s…pretty cool,” Sam said. “You can transform into stuff, right? I haven’t really studied everyone’s abilities yet….”
