Count Pyre’s District
Fortress of Doom
Act One, Scene Five
There were two loud thumps as the guards hit the door to the warehouse one after another, and then a gesture from the man in the hooded sweatshirt wrenched them and the door out of the warehouse, hurling it into the street, deserted but for one woman who happened to be invisible and was watching with some interest. His face was concealed by a ski mask and his hands by leather gloves, and he had a large, full backpack hanging from his left hand. One of the guards managed to get up and run (to the sound of alarms blaring) but the other would never stand up again.
Cameras turned towards to the open door and the hooded man in front of them. With his first gesture he crushed the cameras into themselves, with his second he tore the shrieking speakers out of the walls and, expressionless, stepped inside. He tossed the backpack onto the ground, unzipped it without his hands moving and from it pulled a neat stack of iron serving trays already laden with cloth bags. In a moment they hovered by the long shelves that filled the warehouse and its storage boxes broke open to fill the bags with their contents. When that was done they returned to the man in the hooded sweatshirt, hovering behind him. He was done in three minutes.
Booted feet sounded against concrete, and a figure blocked the doorframe. The hooded man’s opposite number had arrived, cape flourishing in the breeze. He didn’t wear a mask - he had nothing to hide.
“Captain,” said the man in the hooded sweatshirt, slipping his hand out of one pocket. There was a box of roofing nails in it.
“Hood,” said the Captain. “Surrender and I won’t hurt you.”
The man in the hooded sweatshirt flipped the top open, and, with a crack, a dozen improvised bullets sped towards the Captain.
The Captain raised his hands, back of the right pressing against the left, and a disc of the deepest black extended from them, deflecting the nails as easily as it deflected light. The nails ricocheted across the warehouse, metal clattering as they struck walls and floors, and then the field surged forwards, the Captain advancing behind it. One step, then a second, then a third -
- And then it was blocked with a metal tray. In a moment it flattened against the force-field and then it pushed back, driving the Captain’s field back, the metal flattening out against the sheer pressure but still holding together. The Captain took one step back, then another, as he strained against superior force -
“You can’t win,” said the man in the hooded sweatshirt. Without breaking his focus, he scooped the nails back into the box and put it back into his pocket.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Not by myself,” said the Captain, “but I’m not by -”
His focus broke and the tray smashed through the force-field, hit him in the chest, and physically hurled him back towards the door. It wasn’t a straight-on-hit, as the Captain clipped the doorway with one arm, sprawling half-inside and half-outside. The man in the hooded sweatshirt flicked his finger upwards, the tray turning in midair to show its deformed side, thinned out to razor sharpness, and then one of the walls fell in.
The man who’d knocked it down strode over the wall. In his full steel suit he was seven feet tall; bulky, slow, impervious to normal weaponry, and with more than enough firepower to level a building or two. The man in the hooded sweatshirt choked on a syllable of laughter and flicked his hand upwards and the armor and the man inside went straight up as though strapped to a rocket.
The invisible woman blinked from place to place, seeing the cordoning tightening in outside the estimated range of the new vigilante’s powers. Cars unloaded men with rifles and walking drones that didn’t need them, other drones with energy weapons in the air, and, a long way away she could spot the a constant blaze hurtling down the street at too high speeds and hear a roar of thunder barely audible -
“You can give up,” said the Captain, standing and raising his field.
She’d done enough watching. Time to take this into her own hands. She Blinked behind the Captain, delivered a swift kick to his crotch then tossed him out of the way to see (to her unspoken satisfaction) the expression behind the hooded man’s mask crumbling.
“Luminosa - you’re here too?”
“No time,” she said. “Pyre and his last knight are getting closer. It’s time to get out.”
“I can’t ditch this.”
“Of course not. Drop it off over Just’s district. MREs can take a ten-foot drop and Pyre will never get it back from him. Going to leave through the roof?”
“That’s the idea -”
“Let’s manage this without anyone else dead. Close your eyes.”
He did and she raised her hand. The tip of one of her fingernails was the slightest bit shorter, and an invisible laser vaporized the roof before returning to the visible spectrum just in time to explode, blinding every open-eyed human within half a mile.
“Now you get out of here,” she said. “I’ll catch up.”
He accelerated upwards, MRE-loaded trays following.
Metal undershirt. He’s a fun one... Six teleports to down the nearest drones before they noticed they were in a fight and then it was back to Pyre, striding down the street, or, increasingly, through the street. His feet left bubbling footprints in the asphalt, his toes kicked up flakes of molten rock. Buildings burst into fire as he passed, wood and plaster igniting at his merest presence and steel softening around him. The Count wore baggy, tough clothes, woven of asbestos which would not burn, and the golden circlet on his forehead was softening but not yet melting while his skin glowed red and black and orange, his long hair strands of flame running down his shoulders. His face was twisted with rage and Luminosa - why waste a working strategy? - teleported behind him and kicked him in the crotch, too.
The Captain wasn’t superhumanly tough, but Pyre was and his armor was, and he spun, flaming fist snapping out straight into her nose, which did not move. Her next punch was to his gut - again useless - which was why she went for his nose with the third, since there was no way he could be wearing armor there. Pyre’s heat was building, his circlet boiling down his face, his rage as he screamed washing over her as buildings spontaneously burst into flames all around him -
Which was when he fell through the newest pothole in his district.
“Bye!” Luminosa wiggled her fingers at him, and then went invisible again before teleporting off. A count humiliated, a hero met, the hungry fed...
It was looking like a very good day to be a superhero in Novapest.