Super Powereds: Year 2 (92 page)

Rich was bound and blindfolded, Nick was smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and Vince was on nothing short of a rampage. They’d brain-jacked his silver-haired opponent. Chad didn’t know the how or the why; however, the evidence that it had happened spoke for itself. At the year’s inception he would have ruled out such a theory, deeming it beyond Nick’s capacity to execute. That had been before their team’s match-up. Now Chad knew better than to discount Nick’s ability to scheme. None of which changed the objective before him; it only informed on it.

The orb had to go into the depository. He’d taken it back from Julia to ensure its delivery. Vince was his obstacle. For a moment Chad had been certain Mary would join in the fracas as well, but she’d peeled off and focused elsewhere. They weren’t underestimating him; this team was far too self-aware for that sort of folly. No, they sincerely believed Vince could challenge him one on one. That wasn’t supported by what Chad knew of Vince’s previous fights; however, that didn’t make them wrong. The electricity that hit Stella had been perfect, center mass and with more than enough stopping power. Fire was raining down on Chad with such ferocity that it was all he could do to regulate his body temperature even when avoiding the main thrusts of the flames. No, this Vince wasn’t fighting to win: he was fighting to end his opponents.

Chad increased his speed as he drew closer. A strange sense of happiness filled his brain just before the conflict began in earnest. Here, at last, was the potential for a decent challenge.

* * *

Roy sank his fist into another Julia clone, watching it dissolve into energy. Spinning on his heel, he caught some sort of energy blast from Jill in his shoulder. There was a sizzling sound as his uniform and body hair were disintegrated at the spot where it struck. There was no pain beyond that, thankfully, only a sort of greasy feeling. Jill changed weapons, but Roy didn’t give her the chance to fire again. Bounding toward her, Roy seized the bracers on her forearms and squeezed until he heard the soft popping of breaking electronics. Before she could respond, he grabbed her helmet and pulled it in opposite directions. He split the complicated contraption like a pistachio, revealing a sweaty face and spilling blonde hair in all directions.

“Hey!”

“Don’t bring toys you don’t want broken,” Roy replied, hurling the pieces of helmet in different directions. He didn’t know if this would really mess up her system or merely be an inconvenience, but in truth he was okay with either. There might have been more gloating if not for the massive grip that seized his leg and lifted him into the air.

Roy found himself dangling from the clutches of an exceptionally large tree. Credit where it was due: Agatha had definitely stepped up her animation ability over the course of the year. This was far more useful than some paper dolls. From the corner of his eye, Roy noticed an orange streak blur past his position. Oh hell no, there was no way he was missing out on a chance to finish things with Thomas.

“Sorry, Mr. Tree, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to make this gentle.” Roy reached out, grabbed the thickest part of the branch curled around his legs, and went to work.

* * *

Vince seemed to realize he couldn’t hit Chad with ranged attacks; the other Super was just too quick on his feet. Rather than keep pounding away with useless tactics, Vince retreated several steps until he was directly in front of the depository. The air in front of him became thick and hazy as he blasted it with heat, creating a barrier no being of flesh could safely pass through. He lanced the ground with fire for good measure; however, this he was more careful with, lest some accidently spread to the depository he was defending. It was a good plan, and against a great many opponents it would have been effective.

It was only through misfortune that Vince’s opponent was Chad Taylor.

The wall of heat struck him suddenly, grabbing at his skin and prickling across his lungs. It would have seared him instantly; however, Chad began releasing moisture at an accelerated rate. The water evaporated as quickly as it came, but it created a buffer that offered some protection. Small fires broke out across his uniform as bits of it spontaneously combusted at the slightest friction. Chad quickened his step and his senses. He needed to make it through soon; not even his bodily control could counter so much heat indefinitely. Bursting forward, he came within arm’s reach of Vince, who had turned down the outpouring of flames in favor of creating his heat barrier.

Chad sidestepped a punch aimed at his head and stepped over a sweeping leg meant to take his footing out from under him. He could see the hole in the depository meant to receive their orbs; it was almost in reach. He used a quick-step movement forward, extending his right arm and dropping the orb into its final destination. Vince was attacking during this, of course; Chad used his left arm to deflect a few jabs aimed at his torso, then spun it around to intercept the head-shot he was certain was coming. It was a solid assumption, one built on years of training against a variety of martial styles, and against a great many opponents it would have been effective.

It was only through misfortune that Chad’s opponent was Vince Reynolds.

The punch connected with Chad’s ribs, and Vince poured every last bit of kinetic energy he still had stockpiled into it. For the span of a heartbeat, it seemed like there would be no effect. Then, almost at once, Chad was airborne as the unexpected force lifted him from his feet and blasted him toward the false sky.

He would be more or less okay once he landed, although that would not be for quite some time.

186.

Shane had been approaching quietly, trying to get in range to take down Vince once more. He wasn’t certain how the silver-haired student had gotten free: likely with help from his teammates. Still, he’d put Vince down once and he would do it again. That had been the plan, at least. As soon as Chad was sent rocketing off into the horizon, Shane found himself locked in a moment of indecision. There was still time to act; Vince was still vulnerable. Yes, the cloak of flames would impede Shane’s shadow attacks, but parts of Vince were still unprotected. It wasn’t fear or lack of strategy that stalled Shane’s advance. It was friendship.

Logically, he knew Chad was okay. This was Chad, after all. No one knew him better than Shane; they’d spent the last two years working out, training, and generally hanging around with one another. Of course he would be fine. There was no tactical reason to go scurrying after him just because he’d taken a solid blow. A solid blow that had blasted him beyond the distant tree line.

“Goddamnit,” Shane muttered under his breath. He shifted trajectory and tried to estimate where his only friend had landed. It was all manner of stupid, but he supposed that was part of the bargain one got with friendship. Oh well; it wasn’t as if he were holding an orb anyway.

* * *

“Holy crap,” Mary said as she watched the blonde figure go sailing off. “I didn’t expect that.”

“I doubt Chad did either,” Alex chuckled. His mirth was cut short as a sudden piercing wail sliced past his eardrums and began carving up his brain. He didn’t have time to deflect or react, only to fall to his knees in pain. Through bleary eyes he saw Mary do the same, then noticed most of the combatants in his line of vision dropping one by one.

The exception was Amber, walking confidently forward with her lips puckered in what appeared to be a whistle. There was no cheerful springtime tone, only this hellish audible assault tearing through them. It didn’t take a brilliant intellect to make the connection, but many of the students were in too much pain to spare the brain cells it would require.

One exception was Alice, floating above the crowd with an excellent viewpoint for what was about to transpire. Amber’s ability was good, but it had limits. If she’d tried to cast her painful sound all the way up to Alice then it would have been weakened in the area as a whole. Instead she allowed the supposedly useless girl go unaccosted and focused on her perceived threats. This would have been a vital mistake had it ever had the chance to become one.

The sound reached Vince and at first it seemed it would affect him just like the others. His fire nearly extinguished as his knees began to buckle. The ground loomed before him and a collapse looked inevitable. He glanced at his attacker, undisguised hatred etched in his face, and made a motion with his hand.

The sound, all sound, in fact, was immediately gone. Instants later the crackling of wild fires and general din of battle reasserted itself; however, for one brief instant their world was completely and utterly quiet. It was for that reason that no one heard the stretching of muscle or creaking of bone as Vince pulled himself back to a standing position, eyes locked on the woman who’d tried to bring him down.

Amber was stunned, both figuratively, then moments later literally as she was struck by a high voltage of electricity. A fireball on its heels smashed into her shoulder, burning her left side and sending her rolling back several feet onto the ground.

* * *

Thomas slowed his approach. His energy armor had protected him from Amber’s noise, after he’d taken some damage before he reoriented it to keep out sound. The energy was malleable by its nature; however, in the middle of a fight there was usually no advantage in stopping sound. In fact, such an action would be detrimental. It was because of this protection that he didn’t notice the shock of quiet, nor did he understand the implications of it. Instead all he saw was Vince momentarily succumb to the pain then rally his strength and fire back at Amber, ending her attack and taking her out of the fight. This was strange, but Thomas had known Vince for years. The silver-haired boy had shown impressive depths of strength and resolve before. These actions still fit within what Thomas considered possible.

This mistake, unlike Amber’s, would very much come back to haunt him.

* * *

“Did you know Vince could absorb sound?” Camille asked as they hauled themselves up from the grass.

“Not specifically, but I never saw any reason why he wouldn’t be capable of it,” Nick replied. He picked up Rich with as much care as he could; their captive was having trouble reorienting himself after Amber’s attack. “There’s not much principle difference between sound and some of the other energies he uses. Once we found out kinetic was on the table I assumed there were other things Vince either didn’t know about or wasn’t using.”

“Would have been great in his fight with Selena.”

“Agreed.” Nick looked at the recovered form of his friend. The flames had increased back to their blinding point, making him hard to look at directly. “Still, I was expecting more.”

“More than this?”

“Yes, actually. This exceeds what most people would have considered possible from Vince, but not me.”

“Why would you expect something beyond what you considered possible?” Camille asked pointedly. Nick almost forgot that the small girl had honed instincts where Vince was concerned. That was good: the big dope needed looking after, and once this was done she’d have more of it to do.

“Never mind that for now,” Nick replied. “Follow me. There’s one last thing we need to do before this is all over.”

Camille didn’t like it, but she followed anyway. She’d come too far to turn back now.

187.

While the bright orange glow enveloping Thomas would normally have made stealth a distant impossibility, the downside to Vince’s outpouring of flames was that orange light didn’t exactly stand out in his field of vision. In fact, given the circumstances, Thomas’s energy armor was quite possibly the best camouflage he could have asked for. That was why he was able to close the gap and draw near his opponents without having to waste too much energy diverting fire or electricity. The area around him still required dealing with; however, Vince offered no direct assaults before Thomas got in range for his own attack.

He wasted no time, slamming Vince with a fist of orange energy, then immediately enveloping the silver-haired student in a cocoon of the stuff. Unlike during their fight freshman year, Thomas did not grab only his opponent’s torso. This time he wrapped Vince from head to toe, with a few open spots beneath the feet to allow air flow. Thomas had been taken by surprise when Vince fired from his eyes once before; it was a not a mistake he was eager to repeat.

It wasn’t until Vince was entirely imprisoned and suspended ten feet above the ground that Thomas allowed himself any sense of relief. This hadn’t been how he wanted a rematch with Vince, but his friend was causing too much damage and firing too indiscriminately. If no one stopped him there was a good chance he would really hurt somebody. Deep within Thomas’s core, he might have been willing to admit that part of the reason he’d undertaken this fight was as a test to see if he had what it took to bring down the man who had so far deflected all challengers. Call it hubris, pride, or simple curiosity: Thomas had wanted to test himself, and he was rather pleased with the results.

A crackling sound filled the air, originating from the cylindrical sphere that was currently encasing Vince. The next thing Thomas knew, a strange sensation was filling his body. He would struggle for months to accurately describe it, never quite managing to put into words how it felt. Many would suggest it was a sense of being drained, but that didn’t fit with what he’d experienced. Thomas would ultimately land on the word ‘peeled’ to encapsulate the sensation. It was like someone were peeling apart the layers of his very existence. It didn’t occur to him until after the fact to wonder where those layers were going.

Vince fell to the ground, landing carefully on his feet. He’d ceased the barrage of flames, yet he still glowed with an orange light, a strange effect from the arc of energy flowing to him from his former captor. Thomas’s armor dissolved, swept into the transfer before he had a chance to even think of some attempt at salvaging it. Then it was over; the arc had vanished and Thomas found himself staring across an all-too small distance at his friend, who was still glowing softly from the cascade of stolen power. He stared into those eyes, seeing the absolute malice naked within them. Thomas was never proud of his next action; however, he refused to be ashamed of it either. Given all that had happened to him in less than a minute, it was a perfectly sound tactical decision.