The sirens blared through the
Frontier mansion and the team assembled in the command room. They all had their
uniforms on, and Matt was surprised by his honest envy. Marian caught his eye
and smiled. “I’m sure you’ll have one soon enough if you keep showing up like
this.”
Matt returned the smile and then
Steve announced what was going on. “One of the escapees decided to show
himself. It looks like Land Slide, and he’s tearing up a section downtown. I
say we all go out there and put him down fast; he alone can cause a lot of
damage.” Steve looked at Francis who was standing in the doorway. “Any sign of
trouble, you get out of here, understand?”
“You don’t need to tell me
twice, Steve,” Francis said with a grin. “I’m no fighter.”
The team left the mansion in
haste, with Tony, Matt, and Natalie racing to get there first and stop the
chaos Land Slide was causing. Tony arrived first as usual, and ran right up to
Land Slide, aiming to knock him out and end it quickly. However Tony had never
battled this villain before. Tommy Goodman was very skilled with his powers,
and sensed the approaching speedster through the vibrations in the ground. Just
before Tony reached him, Tommy caused a rock to jut up in front of his body, shielding
him from Tony’s attack. Tony managed to avoid running straight into the rock,
but found himself smashing into a store front in the process.
Natalie and Matt arrived next.
“I’ll distract him!” Matt yelled and released an energy blast at Tommy. The blast
destroyed the rock shield Tommy had created around him, and Natalie grabbed
hold of Tommy with her telekinesis. She picked him off the ground, rendering
him powerless.
“Not so tough in the air, are
you Tommy?” Natalie taunted. Tommy glared at her and struggled against her
grip, but she was not letting him go. “You destroyed three city blocks in a
matter of minutes. I really hope it was worth it, because this is the last time
you’re getting out of jail to do it.”
Tommy started laughing, a
frightening laugh that belonged to a madman. “Oh, it was, bitchface. Bye bye!”
“Look out!” Matt yelled, shoving
Natalie to the side. The bullet struck Matt in the abdomen, knocking him
spinning to the ground. The surprise attack caused Natalie to loosen her hold
on Tommy, and a blur of rockets flashed by, snatching Tommy and disappearing
with him into the night sky.
Natalie dropped to the ground
next to Matt, who was propped up on his elbows. “I’m fine,” he replied to her
worried looks, downplaying the pain he felt, “I sensed the attacker’s energy
before I saw him. As for the bullet, I absorbed the kinetic energy, stopping it
before it went through me.” Matt pulled the bullet out of his abdomen with
bloodied fingers, leaving a hole less than an inch deep. “I’m still working on
stopping it before it goes into me, though.” He smiled at his joke, and Natalie
relaxed a bit.
Steve and Marian pulled up at
this point, worried and wondering what had happened. Natalie briefed them, and
Tony appeared next to them. “I chased after them, but he must be cloaked or
something cuz I lost sight of him. They just disappeared in the dark.”
They all gave a look to Matt,
whose wounded expression was from more than just the bullet. “Dammit, Jasmine,”
he whispered.
Five Years Ago…
“This
is incredible Matt!” Jasmine stood on an outcrop overlooking a snow-topped
forest. The sun was shining, but despite it being late summer the wind had a
chill to it. As far as she could see, there was nothing but untouched forest
and mountains. As she watched, a flock of birds took off from the forest canopy
and flew towards the horizon. Jasmine drank in the beautiful scene for a long
time, but soon started shivering. Walking up behind her, Matt wrapped his arms
around Jasmine and slowly emitted a low heat to warm her up. Jasmine snugged
back against him, enjoying the view and the comfortable of Matt’s body.
“I
come up here every now and then. Sometimes to train, other times just to get
away. It’s my secret spot.”
Jasmine
sighed, “It’s beautiful. A little cold,” she jested as she tried to cuddle
closer, “but I love it. And there’s no one here but us.” Jasmine turned and
went up on her tiptoes to give Matt a kiss.
“That’s
the point,” he said brushing her windblown hair out of her face. “No
monitoring, no agencies, nothing but isolation and open space to do whatever we
want. I’ve learned so much about my powers here doing things that can’t be done
in populated areas. It’s the perfect spot to learn more about what you can do
with those shadows of yours.”
Jasmine
smiled broadly as she cupped her hands. In the small space in between their
bodies, she began focusing, and soon a small orb of darkness formed in her
hands. Slowly tendrils starting coming out of it, reaching for them and
swirling around her arms.
“It’s
like a living thing,” she breathed, mesmerized by the shadows.
“It
could be,” Matt said as he watched, making sure to keep his absorption to a
minimum. They already knew he could absorb her shadows, meaning it was a form
of energy. Beyond that, however, they were clueless as to how she created this
shadow energy.
Jasmine
closed her hands and the shadows slowly dissolved into the air. “I hope I’ll be
as good as you with my powers one day, Matt. Then just imagine what we could
do!” She clasped his hands and stared into his eyes. “We’d be unstoppable! We
could do anything we wanted and have everything we’ve ever wanted!”
Matt
smiled back, but did not like how she kept bringing this up. “Or we could do a
lot of good for this world. What you’re talking about wouldn’t go over very
well with the rest of the world, and I’d rather be anonymous and unknown than
stuck in a cell in the Metalock.”
“But
if they couldn’t stop us, what would it matter?”
As
Matt looked into Jasmine’s eyes, he could have sworn he saw a darkness
momentarily overtake her normally brown eyes. But it must have just been his
imagination. “They would find a way, Jasmine. Even if I could absorb the sun
and you could darken the planet, they would still find a way. That’s why it’s
best we do this in secret, until we both have complete control over our powers.
Then we can decide what to do with them.”
Jasmine
sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Fine, you win this time. But
eventually I’ll convince you we deserve more than what we have.”
Matt
smiled and gave Jasmine a kiss. “And I hope when that times comes, you’ll have
learned more from me than just how to control your powers, Jasmine.”
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