Gunfire split the night air as the ridgeline lit up with flashing blue lights.

  “Shit it's the cops!” A goon screamed as he unloaded on the approaching vehicles. Several more turned and started to fire, while even more took cover behind the black SUVs parked at the end of the long dirt road.

  The white painted SUVs slammed to a stop as uniformed officers piled out and took cover and started to fire back, but it was far from an even match. The police were outnumbered and outgunned.

  “Multiple suspects armed with automatic weapons! We need SWAT!” Sergeant Onishi screamed into his radio as he ducked back behind the engine block of his vehicle and reloaded.

  “SWAT 10 minutes out,” the dispatcher replied calmly over the radio.

  One mag left. He desperately wanted to grab the rifle from the back of his shop, but getting to it meant getting out of cover, and that was a death sentence. “We don’t have 10 minutes,” he yelled back.

  “Reloading!” Officer Kanakoa yelled as he ducked down next to him.

  Onishi liked the kid. He was steady and reliable and didn’t back down from a fight. Brave. He had a bright future ahead of him if he didn’t burn out or get killed doing something needlessly heroic or flashy. Like so many officers and superheroes did. Damn fireflies. Standing back up, Onishi fired back with his pistol. Seventeen. Fifteen. Twelve, he counted as he pulled the trigger, ducking back down as a man screamed out in pain a hundred feet away. His vehicle shuddered as bullets repeatedly slammed into it at over 2,000 feet per second. Weird the kind of things you remembered when death was just inches away, he thought to himself. Counting down the seconds, Onishi waited for a lull in the gunfire before he popped back up and returned fire. Eleven. Eight. Four. He didn’t think he hit anyone in the darkness. Fuck. Swapping to his last fresh mag, he saw Kanakoa drop back down beside him and do the same. “How many rounds you got kid?”

  “Last mag plus 7,” he said hoarsely. “We’re not gonna make it out of this are we sarge?”

  Onishi saw the determination and acceptance in the kid’s eyes. Something that didn’t belong on a 20-something kid that still lived with his mom. Sweet lady, one of his classmates from highschool. Fuck, he could practically see the wheels turning in the kid’s head. He was going to do something idiotically heroic. Damned firefly, shit was for superheroes that at least stood a chance, not baselines like them.

  “You’ll get home to your momma kid. Cover me,” he ordered as he stood in a half crouch and rushed to the rear wheel. Turning around, he looked at Kanakoa and nodded. “Now!”

  As Kanakoa sprung up to start firing, Onishi rushed around to the back and popped the door open, grabbing every case and bag he could before turning back. Something heavy struck him in the shoulder as he turned back around the side of the vehicle, turning his rushing steps into a stumbling fall. He felt strong hands grab him drag him across the ground, while gunfire ripped through the night around him. Looking up, he saw Kanakoa looking at him with worry as another officer moved forward from the vehicles behind them and started firing.

  “Sarge, you’re hit!”

  As if his body was waiting for Kanakoa’s words, Onishi felt pain ripple out from his left shoulder. He could feel something wet and warm leaking down his side. That wasn’t good. Whatever it was, it penetrated his vest. “I’m fine kid, grab the rifle and shoot back!” he ordered with a grunt.

  Quick to follow orders, Kanakoa nodded and rushed to one of the plasticine cases and quickly opened it, pulling out a sleek black assault rifle before he started returning fire. More officers rushed forward to return fire, some carrying their own rifles and shotguns from their vehicles. Dimly, Onishi felt someone roughly wrapping something around his torso.

  “Stay with me Sergeant!” A man yelled, but it sounded so far away.

  “Ugh…” Onishi groaned tiredly. His eyelids felt heavy. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  “Sergeant! Sergeant!” Someone yelled at him, but they sounded so far away. He was too tired to deal with them right now. It was time for a quick nap…

  ***

  Pinpoint ran through the forest along the ridge, cutting a straight line as she headed for the location Erika sent her. As she ran, she heard gunfire break out ahead of her. Damn it, PD beat her there.

  “Dispatch, shots fired. What do we know?” she subvocalized as she vaulted over a bush and contorted herself through the trees.

  “HPD is on scene now. They’re pinned down and requesting SWAT. Unknown number of suspects, automatic small arms fire,” a woman’s voice said calmly into her earpiece.

  “Casualties?”

  “Three officers down, conscious but stable. HPD is transporting them out now. EMS enroute.”

  “Got it. Alert HPD I’m arriving on scene.”

  “Already alerted. New casualty reported. Ranking officer down, reported losing significant amounts of blood.”

  “Understood.” As Beth dove through a thin gap in the trees, she saw the flashing blue lights of several police SUVs stopped on the road ahead, while gunfire echoed throughout the night like a war was breaking out in the jungle. It reminded her of another, darker time. All that was missing were the explosions from artillery.

  Not that there wasn’t any artillery present. That was her job. Vaulting over one of the police vehicles, Pinpoint darted forward over the stopped column until she landed with a thud behind several officers huddling behind one of their SUVs turned sideways. Eight sets of eyes and weapons whipped towards her in suspicion, only for the spooked officers to stop as they recognized her outfit. Not the uniform of a paramedic she normally wore, this time she was there in her full hero gear.

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  She wore a form fitting black body suit with a white tone that extended from her neck, across her shoulders, and down the top of her arms and hands, her face and head covered by a full mask and hood that hid a thin but well-padded protective layer for her head. Her mask was featureless, all black with matte black lenses covering her eyes. Though form-fitting, the outfit made her seem bigger than she truly was thanks to the thin layers of nanite gel armor hidden under several layers of advanced super science fabrics. Around her waist she had a utility belt with several pouches and canisters, while twin holsters strapped to her thighs had clearly visible pistols and attached to her back were a pair of heavy looking tonfa, and in her hand she carried a large orange duffle bag.

  As the officers relaxed at her appearance, one of them started to approach her, but she held up a hand and hurried over to the downed officer. Someone had stripped off his shirt and vest and tried to bandage a wound on his upper left shoulder, but it was clear that despite the pressure and several layers of gauze, the bleeding wasn’t stopping. Putting her fingers against his neck, she didn’t feel a pulse. That wouldn’t do. “Move,” she said to the man desperately applying pressure to his wound.

  “But ma’am, Sarge will bleed out if I—”

  “I’m a paramedic and a hero, I’ll handle him. Move.” Before the man could move, Pinpoint dropped the duffle bag and pushed the man away as she grabbed a thin metal canister from her belt and stabbed it into the wounded officer’s neck, injecting half the emergency nanites there, before pulling the bandages away from the GSW and injecting the rest right next to it.

  “No don’t—!” the officer she pushed aside gasped, only to stop as fresh blood gushed out of the wound, followed by a bullet. Several officers watched in shock as the wound started to close itself, leaving nothing but an angry looking scar on the surface.

  But Pinpoint wasn’t done. As soon as the scar formed, she easily flipped the downed man onto his back and checked his pulse again, already knowing what she’d find. No pulse. “Defibulation mode,” she subvocalized to her suit as she placed her hands onto his chest. “Stand clear, shocking,” she said, giving the hovering officer a second to get clear. Pinpoint watched the man’s body jump as she sent a jolt of electricity into his heart. Once, twice, three times she shocked the man, before finally her suit registered a pulse and his chest started to rise up and down. Nodding, she pulled her hands away and looked at the hovering officer.

  “He’s been injected with an advanced nanite emergency healing item. It’s normally meant only for metas, so there may be side effects. I had to restart his heart. There’s more in the duffle, if anyone gets hit, inject them near the wound immediately. Got it?” Pinpoint stared at the officer until he nodded shakily. “Good.”

  Standing up, she looked at the officers around her, some taking cover and reloading, while others shot back at the men who’d ambushed them. “Everyone take cover, I’ll handle the rest.” As the officers began to drop behind the vehicle again, Pinpoint vaulted herself up onto the roof, feeling a bullet slam into her chest only for it to bounce off. Between her C-Class resilience and her super suit, it might as well have been a toy. Nothing short of heavy weapons would do anything to her.

  Before the goons ahead could do more than start to aim in her direction, she sprung forward, accelerating like a cheetah as she closed the distance between them in a second and pounced upon her first target, a man in heavy black tactical gear pointing an assault rifle at her. Before the man could pull the trigger, she landed feet first on his chest and used him like a springboard to launch herself at another man, her hand extended to grab him by the neck. A quick discharge from the contact plates in her fingers was enough to drop the man before she moved on, dancing from goon to goon as she dismantled the opposition in a flurry of brutal punches, kicks, or quick discharges of electricity designed to incapacitate. In a matter of seconds, twenty goons lay on the ground, some unconscious, others screaming in pain with their bones shattered. Eyeing the goons for any further opposition, her eyes flicked to the open door in the mountainside lit by fluorescent lights. No more goons were coming out.

  “Suspects down,” she subvocalized into the police radio channel. “Move in and secure them. I’m heading in.” As she headed towards the open door, she saw the lights begin to flash red and a familiar mechanical voice made an announcement.

  “Three minutes to self-destruct. You’ll never take me alive heroes! Muahahahahahaha!”

  Shit. “Pinpoint to Dispatch. Confirmed base and goons belonging to Professor Panic. Self-destruct activated. Three minutes. Prepare for a mass casualty event.”

  ***

  Erika and Mary ran through the hallways, frantically trying to find the way out. A loud explosion rocked the hallway behind them as something exploded.

  *Ding!* You have defeated Power Armor Goon (Class D) x1! You have gained 2,500 EXP! Congratulations!

  Erika blinked away the notification and shoved down the unsettled feeling in her stomach. She had a good idea what that explosion had been.

  “Just a minute left heroes! You’ll never take Professor Panic’s secrets! Muahahahahahaha!”

  Erika glanced at the signs as they got to another intersection. Infuriatingly, the only things not labeled were the exits, and she had long lost track of where they were in the base. Fuck, this was bad. Something told her standing in a supervillain’s lair as it self-destructed wouldn’t be good for her health.

  “There you are!” A woman’s voice yelled.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Erika noticed a black shape speeding towards them and whirled around, raising her fists up as she got ready to fight. In the flashing red lighting, she saw the shape moving towards them was a woman in a form fitting outfit, obvious by her curves, though her face was covered by a mask and hood, almost like a ninja who’d gotten into street fashion. As the woman got close, Erika threw a punch at the approaching woman’s face with all of her weight and strength behind it, only to yelp as the woman smoothly ducked the blow and grabbed her wrist before putting her in an arm bar. Fuck, she was good. She really missed the knife she’d left stuck in the power armor. And the shotgun.

  “Thirty seconds before you’re all dead, unless you’ve run like cowards! Muahahahahahahaha!”

  “Calm down, it’s me, Pinpoint!” the woman said quickly. “There’s no time for this, we gotta go!”

  Erika yelped as she felt herself get scooped up over the slight woman’s shoulder, Mary on the other side, and then they started to move. Pinpoint’s shoulder ground painfully into her stomach as the wall panels blurred by. As they moved, Erika saw piles of what looked like broken suits of power armor littering the path, and soon they were out of the lair and back under the dark night sky.

  “Everyone take cover, it’s about to blow!”

  Erika gasped and Mary yelped as Pinpoint dove behind a black SUV and dropped the two girls onto the ground and covered them with her body. She couldn’t help but fidget awkwardly as something soft smothered her face, making it hard to breathe as intrusive thoughts darted through her head. But all of that was drowned out as a loud boom split the night and shook the ground. A few seconds passed before Erika heard rocks begin to rain down around them, slamming into cars with metallic thuds or the sound of shattering glass. Erika felt a few stinging cuts on her arms as shards of something grazed her skin and she shrunk in closer to Mary as Pinpoint shielded them both with her body. She wasn’t sure how long they huddled like that before the hero moved her body away and let out a long breath.

  “Well that was fun,” Pinpoint said brightly. “Now girls, mind explaining what the fuck all of that was?”