As
another round of missiles slammed into Augmento’s chest, the giant metahuman
staggered back but steadied himself on an adjacent building. Despite being
sixty feet tall, the constant barrage of attacks from the ground and air
military had taken its toll on him, causing pain and slowing him down. Still he
battled on, determined to destroy this city and bring the Eagle crashing to the
ground. Taking a breather, Augmento looked around the Eagle for signs of Volt’s
engine sabotage. He didn’t see any smoke, nor did it seem like the Eagle was
starting to fall from the sky.
He better not have bailed on me,
Augmento thought as he swung his fist into another building. I’ll crush that bastard like a bug if he
did.
From
the jet formation, a single plane broke free and flew straight towards
Augmento. Augmento lashed out and swiped at the plane, but it skillfully evaded
the attack. The plane launched its four missiles at close range, two of them
exploding on Augmento’s face. Temporarily blinded, Augmento roared and swung,
managing to hit the plane and sent it spiraling to the ground.
Unbeknownst
to the giant, the pilot had ejected after firing the missiles. As the pilot
flew through the air, he tossed a tiny device on the shoulder of Augmento.
Landing on the roof of a nearby building, Alex walked to the edge and looked
straight at Augmento.
“I
don’t know who you are,” Alex shouted over the sounds of a city in chaos. “But
you have done enough damage to my city!”
Augmento
heard Alex’s shouts and looked over. Alex was wearing his Frontier uniform, the
golden cowl over his face, and his gauntlets were crackling with electricity.
The dramatic effects of the setting sun behind him made the Electric Eagle glow
with radiant light, and for a moment Augmento was stunned.
It only lasted a moment however,
and Augmento retaliated with a swing of his arm. “I will bury you in your
city!”
Alex jumped back, avoiding
Augmento’s arm. He pushed a button on a tiny pad on his gauntlet, and Alex’s body
began shimmering in white light. Alex felt a warm sensation spread throughout
his body and took a deep breath. Teleporting was not something he did often,
and despite solid test results and experience, each time it worried Alex a
little that not all of him would make it to the destination. In a flash, Alex’s
body disappeared from the rooftop. Augmento was briefly confused until he felt
a warm pressure on his shoulder. Another flash of light, and Alex stood on
Augmento’s shoulder, gauntlets buzzing as he prepped for an attack.
Not wasting any time, Alex
pulled back and punched Augmento in the side of his neck, letting the gauntlet
empty its electricity into the giant. The resulting force made Augmento’s knees
buckle as the electricity flowed through his body. Alex was not pulling any
punches; the amount of electricity that came out of his one gauntlet would
easily have killed a normal human. Given Augmento’s size however, the attack
merely made his body limp for a spell, causing him to crumble.
By the time he had regained
control, Augmento was on his knees. As he tried to recover from the shock, Alex
jumped and delivered another amp-filled punch to Augmento’s head. This time the
giant fell, his body twitching from the electrocution. Alex wasn’t directly aiming
to kill the metahuman, so he was partly relieved to see the giant’s chest still
rising sporadically. However he’d be lying to say he would have felt remorse if
he had felled the giant for good.
Alex had never felt so much rage
at a given individual. In less than an hour’s time, Augmento had besieged the
city and destroyed over half of it. Hundreds of innocent people were either hurt
or dead in the rubble due to his attack. It would take months to clean up and
rebuild the city. Alex took some deep breaths to calm his anger. The time to
rebuild had to wait. As the emergency workers swarmed over the area, two
squadrons of Eagle Men stood guard by Augmento, who was slowly decreasing in
size since slipping unconscious. Confident they could handle the metahuman from
this point out, Alex listened intently to the chatter over his earpiece. With a
fast growing dread, he heard reports of Volt heading towards the center
generator. Alex jumped into a nearby hovercraft and sped toward the center of
the city, hoping with all of his might to reach the generator in time.
“Well we are certainly moving
towards something important.” Mind Queen stepped over the body of a guard she
subdued with a mental blast. These were trained men and women, but their
helmets provided no protection from psychic attacks. However she was feeling a
bit drained from the constant offensive push. “There’s many more guards here
than anywhere else.”
“The metahuman must be nearby.”
Ever since Volt had discovered the small size of the engines, the idea of a
metahuman holding the Eagle up took root in his mind. This idea continued to
grow stronger as they fought their way towards the center generator. The
perfect place to position a power source would be in the direct middle, and the
large generator situated there seemed to support his theory.
However Mind Queen was a little
skeptical. “If there really was a metahuman doing this, why hide it? I mean,
it’s not like they don’t have metahumans onboard. In fact this metahuman would
probably be a superstar, seeing as they would be the reason the Eagle exists.”
“How am I supposed to know what
goes on in this crazy cult?” Volt snapped back, forcing a door open. “But I
know I’m right. I can feel it. Why not scan these guards’ memories and check?”
“I have been, before knocking
them out. They know nothing except they are guarding the largest generator of
the Eagle. They are under the impression if this generator is destroyed, most
of the Eagle will lose power. Plus come on, don’t you think if you could see so
quickly the engines weren’t holding this up, the engineers onboard would know
too? They can’t all be in on it.”
“Like I said, I don’t know the
reasons. Why not scan ahead to check? See if anyone further along knows about
it.”
Mind Queen glared at Volt. “It’s
a little difficult to scan ahead for minds while I’m busy knocking out all the
guards. I didn’t know I’d be the muscle here.”
Volt laughed, “But you do it so
well. Besides, I believe you called yourself the strongest psychic super
villain in the world. Let’s see some of that power now, huh?”
Mind Queen ground her teeth but
kept quiet. Volt knew nothing on how a telepath’s powers worked. As the sounds
of more guards approached, she backed into a niche. “You take care of those
guards. I’ll ‘scan ahead’ while you do.”
“That’s more like it.” Volt ran
off towards the approaching guards while Mind Queen calmed her mind and began
searching the minds of those people in the area of the generator. There were
dozens of minds, and every few feet she encountered another. Stray thoughts
assailed her, and the powerful internal screams of the guards Volt was beating
made it difficult to focus. After a while though she found her rhythm and
didn’t even hear Volt walk up to her.
“Any luck?”
Mind Queen either didn’t hear
him or ignored his question. The look on her face was one of pure
concentration. Suddenly her eyes shot open and a quiet gasp escaped her lips.
“I don't believe this.”
A couple of moments later the
two metahumans were running towards the generator, a horrible smile adorning
Volt’s scarred face.
Alex wasted no time getting to
the central generator. As he ran down the hallways, he barely registered the
unconscious bodies of the fallen guards. His mind was intent on reaching the
generator and stopping Volt at all costs. As Alex entered the generator room,
he found it empty. The few guards in the room were knocked out cold. Alex’s
heart leapt into this throat. On the far wall, a normally locked, unassuming
door was standing ajar. Alex moved trancelike towards it and entered.
The tiny room was quiet, with
only the low hum of machines to be heard. In the center of the room was a metal
cylinder with some tubes going inside of it at the top. Alex sighed, relieved
that the cylinder was still closed.
“You’re a real monster, hero.”
The voice came from behind him,
but before Alex could react his body gave out underneath him and he fell to the ground, his world going black.
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