"I told you I wasn't conspicious," Bloodhound says triumphantly. There's a chill to the autumn air, and I stuff my swollen fist into my hoodie pockets as I stand eyeing my surroundings suspiciously. This place is as desolate as I remember it- and that stupid neon sign is still flickering above us. It uncomfortably makes me remember the illusion I created to subdue Crimson that one day.
"Where is your 'backup?'" I ask tentatively. My broken fingers meet the amulet that I had forgotten was tucked into my pocket. The stone is smooth and unblemished and sends a chill up my spine at the touch. I quickly pull my hand back out and shiver.
"They're coming. We have to wait for Ivory to show, first," Tate reminds me. "You did send the email, didn't you?"
"Of course. And just for your information, I'd rather impale myself in the eyes with a smoking fire poker than date him," I inform him darkly. His dark lips twitch up in a smile, but he doesn't say anything. There's a single black feather clinging to the side of his plain black windbreaker, and his eyes look so dark they're almost black, like he's more crow than human at the moment. I just hope he doesn't fly away when I need him here at my side. As much as it kills my pride to admit it, I do need their help- even as annoying and love-struck as they both are.
"He's here," Bloodhound murmurs urgently. He takes a step back, shoulders squared. I look around but I don't see or hear anybody in the empty ruins of this borough, which makes me wonder what abilities exactly Bloodhound is hiding. Perhaps his name isn't so far off.
"Your friend is quite talented, isn't he?" I hear his voice seemingly coming from nowhere, and it makes my blood freeze. I watch, muscles tense, as the white-suited man slips out from the dilapidated pizza parlor, looking like he just stepped from a movie set with his perfect facial hair and easy smile.
"Did you bring Dominic and Taylor?" I ask through gritted teeth. I want to tear him apart in the most painful way possible. I want to watch him bleed for what he's done. But I have to stand here and watch him leer at us like he thinks he has the upper hand.
"Reggie," Ivory snaps over his shoulder into the darkness of Giorgi's. My heart nearly stops when I hear his name come from the super-villain's lips.
My psycho ex-boss comes from the doorway beside Ivory, dragging with him a very frightened Dominic and a listless Taylor. I want to scream and cry and smile all at once when I see them both alive, but once again I am forced to stand and watch helplessly.
Taylor and Dominic are both deposited onto the crumbling pavement, and Taylor crumples like she has no bones left in her body. Dominic immediately crawls over to her and begins to shake his mother's shoulders.
"Get up," Ivory growls down at his ex-lover, looking disgusted. Taylor doesn't say a word and doesn't move, so Reggie roughly drags her to her feet. Her normally bright eyes look dead, her dark curls tangled and dusty, her face looking hollow and gaunt. Dominic swallows hard and hangs onto his mother's hand like he can bring life back into her eyes with his touch. Taylor meets my eyes, but her face still remains chillingly blank. I recognize that look on her face because I had it on mine for the longest time and it makes me want to hurt someone.
"What did you do to her?" I ask, my voice trembling. It's taking every ounce of self-restraint I have left not to go Kamikaze and fling myself at Ivory in a desperate attempt to take him down.
"That's not important," Ivory replies with a self-assured smirk. Bloodhound's fists clench beside me. "Show me the amulet," he orders instead. I look over at Tate and he nods imperceptibly. I grab the cord from my pocket and pull it out, dangling it before his eyes like a hypnotist's pendulum. I can see the hunger in his expression when he catches sight of it. He takes a big step forward, and I reciprocate by taking a step back.
"Nuh-uh. Hand over Dominic and Taylor first," I warn him and tuck the amulet back in my pocket. He doesn't look prone to listening to anything I have to say, because he keeps on striding forward. I meet Tate's eyes, and I can see worry in his face.
"Hey, um, Everett? You got that backup we talked about?" I smile through gritted teeth as I keep on stepping backwards. Bloodhound responds by giving a ear-splitting whistle with his fingers in his mouth. Ivory startles and glares at the medieval mercenary, but before the teleporter can make another move there are costumed figures thumping down from crumbling rooftops onto the cement beside us. I recognize a few as Birchwood's neighborhood superheroes. You have Thunderpunch and Rocket and good ol' Wolf Spider amongst others. This is freaking cool. Like action-movie cool. (I'm a bit obsessed with relating movies to everyday life, aren't I?) They silently stand beside us, forming a wall against Ivory's advances toward the amulet. The super-villain scowls.
"Well, you weren't lying," I say to Bloodhound, stunned. All of these superheroes agreed to help us? Well, I bet Bloodhound can be very... persuasive, to say in the least. I suppose my video helped some, too.
"We have a few tricks up our sleeve, Ivory," Tate explains in a cool, even voice. I look over to see where Bloodhound is and find him creeping over to Taylor and Dominic. Dominic is crying quietly, tears running down his dirt-stained face. Taylor just looks like she doesn't know or care what's going on. It makes my heart tug painfully, and it reminds me of who exactly is standing before me.
"I'm going to kill you," I tell the white-themed villain calmly. His eyes dart around, and I can almost hear the gears spinning in his head as he evaluates our line-up.
"No matter," Ivory finally speaks. I hear a pained grunt come from where Bloodhound was trying to make his way over to Dominic and Taylor. My heart jumps as I register the arrow planted in Bloodhound's armored chest. I watch, frozen, as the mercenary staggers and crumples to the ground, blood already leaking onto the cracked pavement underneath his cloaked form. A black-clothed figure holding a crossbow not unlike Bloodhound's leaps lightly down from the roof of the pizza parlor and joins Reggie. He grabs Dominic's arm roughly and the boy whines in protest. "I brought a little team of my own." Similar forms like the figure holding Dominic slip out of the shadows beside them, so synchronized in their catlike movements that I don't doubt they're actually trained ninjas.
This is actually happening. My very first team battle... except I'm not on the side I thought I would be on. A month ago, if someone told me that I would be fighting side by side with the heroes I used to make fun of, I would've punched them in the face.
"Everett..." I croak, my mouth suddenly feeling dry. There's too much happening at once and I don't know which disaster to address first. Tate grabs my elbow and meets my eyes. His own dark eyes are grim and determined.
"Bloodhound can handle himself. Get Taylor and Dominic to safety," he orders me calmly. "Don't let him get the amulet. I'll have your back. We all do." I glance around me, at the stone-faced superheroes standing beside me and our black-clothed adversaries. At Dominic in the enemies's clutches, and Taylor... Taylor, who doesn't even seem lucid. At the bleeding, unconscious Bloodhound. Then at the man who started this all- Ivory, with his cat-like smirk and his perfect white suit and his neatly trimmed facial hair. Maybe it's crazy to think we can stop him. After all, he is the world's most powerful teleporter and infamous super-villain. But I'm not about to give up now- not with Taylor and Dominic's lives at stake.
"Go," one of the superheroes beside me murmurs. He has thin brown armor and his trademark chilling ruby-colored eyes. He goes by the name of Wolf Spider, and he used to be as popular as Crimson in her prime a few years ago. He sort of dropped off the face of the earth, and newspapers had speculated that he was killed. I suppose hearing about the resurrection of his long-time nemesis gave him reason to come back.
At Wolf Spider's command, I take off sprinting past Ivory and towards Dominic and Taylor. As soon as I move, I hear battle erupt around me like someone pressed resume on an action movie after taking a popcorn break. I almost have to remind myself that this isn't a movie and that whatever happens here tonight, lives are going to inexplicably changed.
"What do you think you're doing, chica?" The black-masked man holding Dominic asks with amusement in his voice. From what I can see of his face, he has smooth caramel-colored skin and humorous brown eyes. He'd look handsome if he weren't holding a six-year old hostage and standing over the half-conscious body of the woman I was too late to save.
"Kicking your ass," I tell him politely. Before he can make a move, I plant my fist in his gut and send him crashing backwards against the crumbling brick wall of the old pizzeria. Dominic scrambles away, tugging his mother with him. Reggie glares at me balefully as I engage with his little minion. I know he's too afraid to do anything to stop me- that's why he has little ninjas like these to do the dirty work for him. He doesn't like to get his hands all bloody. If he had any powers whatsoever, I'd put my chips on mind control.
Luckily, the broken bones in my fist have healed some, but it still makes me wince when my knuckles collide with his face. He makes a low guttural sound deep in his throat like he's a deranged pitbull and his cold fingers scrabble up to wrap around my neck. Now, this isn't the first time someone's tried to strangle me, if that wasn't obvious before- but this time's different and I know it. The moment the skin on his fingertips touches the bare skin of my neck underneath the hoodie... I feel like I've been plunged into an icy lake. My limbs instantaneously go numb like I've been sitting in a weird yoga position for hours on end. My teeth chatter and I feel the coldest I've ever felt before in my life.
The black-clothed man has me pinned down on the ground before I can even register what's happening.
"Right now your body temperature is dropping rapidly. Once it goes below 95 degrees, you start to slip into hypothermia. You want to know the worst thing about hypothermia? It's not the dying. The dying is easy- it's like simply falling to sleep, succumbing to the cold. As your body temperature drops, you start to lose your vital functions. Too long and you'll suffer permanent brain damage, loss of limbs. Your pulse drops. You eventually stop breathing altogether. But the worst part is always coming back," he murmurs softly, his soft brown eyes boring into mine as he leans over me with his hands still touching my neck. I open my mouth to reply but I find that my mouth doesn't seem to want to form words. I can't feel anything except cold- and that's the worst part. I can't stop shivering.
My lungs grasp desperately for my next breath, but it's like the air around us has turned to cotton. I feel so tired. I want to sleep. What am I doing here anyway? My head lolls to the side and my slowly blinking eyes catch sight of Dominic, who's staring at me with terror in his hazel eyes.
Why does he look so afraid? Can't he see that it's easier for me to sleep?
Inexplicably, a word pops into my mind. Cryotherapy. It's the use of extreme cold in medical treatments. But the man grasping my neck is no doctor. He's not trying to heal me. He's trying to stop me. But from what I can't seem to remember at the moment.
"Sleep," he urges me. His eyes are hungry, his hands so cold. I can feel the numbness spreading inside of me like a disease. I can almost hear my heart thumping softer, my lungs pumping slower, my pulse dropping as I begin to slip away into the grasp of the cold. My eyelids, heavy like lead, begin to close. My shivering begins to subside as my body stops fighting the cold. My eyelids slip closed and it may be hours or only seconds that I lapse into a dreary unconsciousness before I feel a warmth begin to spread back into my bones.
"C'mon, Maya!" A watery voice speaks above me, sounding out of focus like it's in a completely different world. "Your illusion's gone," it tells me, panicked. "And we need you out here. Please don't die on us."
My illusion? What illusion? ...Oh. That's right. I can make illusions. What illusion is he talking about, though?
Fact: I'm... fighting against somebody... a team of super-villains...? Yes. That's right. I'm a superhero... and my mask... is my illusion. That means somebody knows who I am. Who knows what I really look like? ...Reggie.
I gasp in a ragged breath and my eyes snap open. As they finally focus, I realize that the voice is coming from Bloodhound, who's tan face is gorily smeared with blood. There's also another face hovering beside his, who's slender hands are warming my skin, her tangled curls hanging in my peripheral. Taylor. She doesn't meet my eyes, and it reminds me even in my scrambled state to quickly mask my face: brown eyes, stubby nose, darker hair. It might be too late, but I'm praying it's not. If Taylor recognizes me from my little talk with her outside of the bar after our fight when I was in my civillian form...
"Wh-wh-" I want to ask so many questions, but my mouth is too frozen to cooperate. I swallow painfully and try again. "You... dead," I address Bloodhound, wincing as feeling begins to blaze like fire back through my fingertips, a hundred times worse than pins and needles.
"I've got a few secrets left, Maya," he says with amusement. His pale eyes skitter behind him, and when I shakily follow his gaze I see the black-clothed man lying on his back with his neck snapped at an unnatural angle. Bloodhound has a blank look on his face that makes my stomach squirm. Around us, an intense battle wages on between Tate and his hired supers and Ivory's gang of ninja-wannabes. Reggie isn't anywhere to be seen.
"Can you stand?" Bloodhound asks me, and offers me a gloved hand. His gloves are shredded and spattered with blood. Taylor's hands drain of their glow and she kneels back out of the way, her hair still hiding her face from my view. Dominic watches us with rounded, scared eyes.
"Get them... Out," I stammer, raising a leadened hand to gesture limply at Taylor and Dominic. Bloodhound helps me sit up and looks over expectantly at the Latina superhero and her son. He seems oblivious to the chaos being wreaked around us. Taylor's head slowly turns and I feel my heart seize when she meets my eyes. Her own unnaturally amber-colored eyes are blazing defiantly, no longer blank and emotionless. What happened when I was unconscious?
"No. I'm staying here. I want to kill him myself," Taylor snarls, her lips peeling back in an animalistic expression of pure hatred when she directs her gaze toward the back of her white-dressed captor. "Get Dominic out of here."
"You're hardly in any position to fight-" Bloodhound starts to protest, his brow furrowed. He moves to block her from her path towards the melee. A tremor of glowing heat starts to wrap itself up Taylor's arms, shining under her skin and through her clothes like some ethereal internal light source. I've never seen such anger on her face. It rivals even that of the deadly anger she showed toward me in our fight in this very spot so long ago, after I kidnapped Dominic and she saw the ransom video Reggie filmed.
"Move out the way or I'm going to burn the shit out of your pretty little face," Taylor growls. "Protect my son." Bloodhound stays silent and still as Taylor shoves roughly past him and charges toward her ex-lover, her skin glowing so bright it's like her insides are on fire and her skin is the only thing containing the flames.
"Where's my mom going?" I feel a little grubby hand tugging at mine and look to see Dominic staring up at me with tear-filled eyes.
"She'll be back soon," I assure him, hoping I don't sound too uncertain, watching Taylor as one of the ninja people tries to intercept her. She grabs them by their hood and sends them crashing violently against the brick wall. They don't move after that. Taylor continues on her warpath. "What happened? To Taylor?" I ask Bloodhound, trying to get to my feet. A sharp pang of heat spikes its way up into my numb legs and I hiss out through clenched teeth despite all attempts not to.
"She was put in a trance of sorts by one of Ivory's pals. To keep her subdued, I presume." He flinches and continues, "Wolf Spider took care of him, and... well... she's herself now." He grabs my elbow and pulls me to my feet, steadying me when I tip dangerously to the side.
"I wouldn't say that exactly," I remark, and then it comes to my sudden realization that we're not being attacked... and the whole reasons for this fight are standing right here. The amulet's tucked safely away in my pocket still, and Dominic's huddling next to me. He looks dirty and tired and overwhelmed, but unharmed. Taylor is another story.
"Let's go, little guy," Bloodhound says to Dominic. There's a hole ripped in the chestplate of his armor from where the arrow struck straight into his heart. I hesitate and slowly turn to Bloodhound, feeling a sense of dread starting to settle in my bones, replacing the heavy ice.
"Why isn't anyone attacking us?" I ask him softly. He meets my gaze evenly, a slightly confused look on his face.
"Just another trick up my sleeve?" he offers. I shrug his arm off, feeling a tenseness seizing my heart. I turn slowly and face the fighting, ignoring when Bloodhound tries to pull me back towards him.
"Hey, assholes!" I shout into the chaos, blood rushing in my ears. There's a stutter in their actions... fists once raised now frozen in midair... heads turned toward me with identical deer-in-the-headlights looks...
Suddenly, the scene around me winks into complete darkness and I hear a familiar female voice say, "Damn it."
"You're not as good as you think you are, Gia," I say calmly, even though I can't see a thing and there's enough adrenaline spiking in me to get me through a marathon. "You forgot one thing... how important I am to everybody here," I add, voice layered with irony. "If I was really about to rescue Dominic and get away with Ivory's amulet, I wouldn't just be on a peaceful timeout on the sidelines because I lost consciousness for a while."
"You're right. You bring the fight right to you," she replies with distaste, her voice faintly tinged with a haughty German accent.
"Are you going to keep the lights out on me like a coward, or do you have the guts to actually meet my eyes?"
"I have to admit, I never pegged you for the superhero type. Guardian Angel? Such a far cry from Eris, goddess of chaos," Gia's voice continues like a disembodied narrator's in the shadows around me, like she never even heard what I said. "Wouldn't the whole world like to know that their guardian angel isn't so much as a has-been devil?"
"I can certainly fool people better than you can," I retort back evenly. There's a momentary flash of blinding pain cracking across my face as Gia presumably punches me, and when I open my eyes again my sight has returned. My old rival is dressed in the same black as all the rest of Ivory's army, and she has me cornered against the brick wall of the pizzeria. Her hair is now raven-black and flows down her shoulders in waves, but she's kept her signature sapphire-blue eyes and her severely heart-shaped face.
I look away from Gia, knowing it'll piss her off, and take the opportunity to look around at my real surroundings- assuming I'm not in another one of the German thief's illusions.
I draw in a deep breath as I see Bloodhound still crumpled and unmoving, the arrow stuck in his chest and a pool of blood spread out underneath him from where I left him before losing consciousness. Taylor is out battling in the melee, much to my immense surprise. I had figured that to be one of Gia's illusions to mess with my minds. But Dominic is still being guarded by Reggie and a new ninja-wannabe. Tate and his hired help are being beat down by Ivory's army. Shockingly enough, the white-clothed villain himself is going hand-to-hand with Wolf Spider. I never took Ivory to be anything more than a face who hired everyone to do his dirty work for him, like Reggie. Unfortunately, it seems that he's not so shabby at dealing a few blows himself.
I pat my hoodie pockets and of course, they're empty. I pull myself up into a sitting position and finally meet Gia's eyes.
"Taylor pulled me out of my hypothermia?" I inquire conversationally. For as crazy and hopeless as this situation is at the moment, I don't feel anything but a restless and grim determination. I'm coming for you, I vow to Dominic, watching where he's being guarded by Reggie and Cold-Hands's replacement.
"I had to keep it believable, and sometimes the only thing believable enough is the truth. After Wolf Spider killed Elixir and snapped your little girlfriend out of her trance, she insisted very persuasively on... thawing you out. I only let her for the sake of messing with your head. Once you were all better, she rushed into battle to throw herself on another heroic pyre."
"Of course," I say condescendingly. "You know, you let her go not because she can kill you in two seconds flat or anything. Nah. The power is always in your hands, isn't it?" She saved me, is what I'm actually thinking. Taylor probably saw my face, but she still saved me. Yeah, and then left you in the clutches of a psychotic German illusionist.
"It's hard to believe your confident trash-talking when just a few minutes ago you were dying of hypothermia and a lame ex-superhero had to thaw you out with her glowing hands and you then fell for my illusion... and now you're kneeling at my feet," she steps closer, her perfectly pink lips curling into a feline smile.
"Not for long," I reply. My hands shoot out to grab ahold of her ankles and with all of the strength I can muster I pull her feet out from under her and whip her into the side of the building she previously had me cowering against. She yelps in surprise and rolls to the ground with a stunned expression on her painted face. I scramble quickly to my feet, feeling like my bones have been replaced with boards, like I'm one of those posable wooden mannequin people artists use to draw the real thing. Just as Gia also rolls to her feet, I snap a quick kick into the base of her ribcage.
"You know what people fear most about us?" She darts backwards and gives me a sidelong gaze, her fists raising up protectively. "When they're around us, they can't tell what's real and what's not." I draw my own fist back but before I can punch her, there are hands grabbing my shoulders and sending me hurtling onto my back on the crumbling pavement. I stare up, dazed, at another Gia. She flashes me a brilliant smile, and the copy of Gia previously standing in front of me dissolves into the air. A shiver runs its way up my spine. "You really don't know what we're capable of, do you?"
"I don't know if you've heard, but I'm kind of giving up on being a bit like you for a while," I reply coldly, scrambling back to my feet and not tearing my eyes off of her.
"Why else do you think we've been making your life miserable?" She rolls her eyes and bats her mascara-coated eyelashes. "Deserters don't get off easy." Her eyes stray over to Bloodhound's still body sprawled on the pavement, his normally tan skin as pale as snow. My heart tumbles a little bit in my chest.
"I should thank you, really," Gia continues, dodging another punch I throw at her. I'm still shaking off the lingering effects of the hypothermia, courtesy of Cold-Hands as I've so creatively dubbed him. I'm pretty sure that's his body half-hidden in the shadows of the entrance of the pizzeria. I hope it was Taylor who killed him. "Thanks to your little stunt, I've replaced you and then some."
"You enjoy being Reggie's pet?" I laugh and a tiny spot of blood dribbles its way out of the corners of my lips. "There's one way we're not similar." She flashes forward again to send another punch my way, but I grab her fist and use her momentum to send her crashing to the ground beside me instead. While she's distracted and unable to conjure up another illusion to sidetrack me, I send a vicious kick to the side of her head. Her body goes limp and her head lolls to the side. Her illusion ripples dangerously and slowly begins to melt off her face like too much makeup in the rain. She's not dead, but she's going to wish she was once she wakes up to find out how exposed she is now. Because underneath all of the fake beautiful illusions, she's blandly ordinary-looking. She has straight auburn hair, a soft face, and a long nose. She looks almost innocent. Looks can be deceiving, I think. That's our motto, isn't it?
I kneel down, brush her hair over her imperfect face, and stand up and walk towards the chaos of blood and flashes of the extraordinary and screams of pain.
Taylor and Tate are teamed up against Ivory, Taylor's face an epitome of rage. She parries blow after blow, raining merciless punches and kicks at her captor's face and stomach. Ivory tries to land a few blows of his own, but Tate can phase the villain's fists right through his body, and Taylor's skin is burning so hot that the moment Ivory makes contact, he makes a cry of pain as his own flesh burns. The amulet is dangling from Ivory's neck, but it doesn't seem to be helping him any.
The rest of Ivory's army is a bit preoccupied with fighting back against our team of superheroes. Wolf Spider is sinking his fangs into one of the black-clothed figures, and the person is flailing desperately and screaming against the venom wracking his body. When the person stills and Wolf Spider lifts his head, blood drips from his mouth. I look away and hurry faster towards Reggie and Dominic.
"Come back again for more?" Reggie asks me with amusement as I charge towards him, my hood dangling over my eyes. "Guardian Angel? Or should I say... Maya?"
I don't reply, not wanting to feed his ego at having figured out my identity. He played dirty, and so am I. I'm going to play with him like Gia played with me. I'm going to make him feel the pain I felt when he slowly destroyed my life like it was nothing more than a game.
I conjure up an image of myself over my own, and carefully cloak my own form instead. The copy of myself keeps stalking towards Reggie while I hang back and circle around.
Dominic's other guard, one of the ninja-wannabes, surges forwards to my copy when I don't stop walking. I crouch down and creep closer to Dominic while my copy parries with the black-clothed man. He has some brilliant ability to manipulate energy blasts and fires them at me repeatedly, but I'm not exactly paying attention because I'm so close to Dominic that I could hug him if I wanted to. And I want to, but the first priority is obviously getting him out of here without attracting the havoc of Ivory and his gang. I owe that much to Taylor... It's all my fault, all of this. If I hadn't kidnapped Dominic to begin with, Ivory wouldn't have gotten a hold of him and Taylor wouldn't have gotten kidnapped.
"Don't freak out, kid. I'm going to get you out of here, but I need to follow my instructions, ok?" I whisper in his ear. His frightened eyes widen and he turns his head toward me, but obviously doesn't see me.
My copy throws a few punches at the energy-manipulator, and he curses loudly when he fires a blast at me and it does nothing. It's hard to maintain this illusion and seem realistic when all I want to do is focus on getting Dominic out of here. Reggie hangs back, distracted by watching my copy battle Dominic's guard.
"You sound familiar," he whispers, his lips barely moving and his gaze straight forward. He's good at this. "Do I know you?"
"Yeah, yeah you do. My mom wants me to get you out of here, ok?" I look down. You know me, alright.
"How exactly do you plan to do that? I can't leave here," he says with a frown. "Especially now that he has the amulet." He waves his little freckled hand towards Ivory, who is currently getting his butt kicked by a furious Taylor. Tate has fallen back to let Taylor wreak her revenge and only throws a few punches when there's an opening.
"What do you mean?" I make my copy fall to the ground because she's getting seriously Mary-Sueish by taking all of these energy blasts like she's invulnerable to them. The black-clothed figure stands over the copy's body triumphantly, and it makes me smirk. The snarky look quickly falls from my face once I realize that's probably how Gia feels when she tricks someone with her own illusions.
"If I leave, he'll know. I'm a teleporter, too, and he can track teleporters- especially now that he has the amulet, which makes his powers..." He mimics an explosion with his tiny hands and gazes in the direction of my voice. "Understand?"
"So the only way for you to get out of here without raising any red flags is to..."
"Kill him," Dominic finishes simply, sounding surprisingly content for a boy talking about murdering his father.
"I think your mom is doing a good enough job of that for me," I tell him wryly. I hear a confused grunt from the direction of where my copy had fell, and I see the black-clothed man standing over the copy and nudging its head.
"I think she's dead," the man tells Reggie, his eyes wide.
"Oh, crap," I hiss under my breath as Reggie gets up to investigate. "Listen, are you sure he's able to track you?" I whisper quickly to the six year-old. He nods solemnly and I curse softly under my breath before easing myself into a standing position. "I gotta go kill a super-villain, kid. I'll be right back," I tell him grimly.
"Wait a minute- I know you," he protests, his hand groping out blindly and catching ahold of my pinky finger. He can't see me, but he stares at me like he can look straight into my eyes. "You're the one who tried to save me," he says, his eyes like identical pools of calm. I look away.
"You're wrong," I snap back at him. "It's my fault that you and your mom are in this mess. Listen, you need to let go before Reggie looks over here and notices you grabbing at the air," I tell him sharply. I don't mean to sound so harsh, but fear seizes hold of my voice as I watch them prod at my copy's still form. Tate glances over his shoulder and his eyes widen when he sees my copy lying broken on the pavement. I swear I see his fingers twitch and the tip of a feather peeking out of his shirtsleeve. It's not me, I want to scream. Don't freak out. I feel Dominic slowly let go and the moment Reggie makes a move to flip my copy over onto my back, I run forwards and tackle the villain syndicate leader to the ground. He yells crossly as his back smacks painfully against the ground.
The ninja-wannabe startles beside him and looks around wildly for Reggie's invisible aggressor. Reggie struggles under my weight, looking more pissed than afraid.
"You can't hide forever, Maya," he spits as I press his skull further against the dilapidated concrete ground. He doesn't try to fight back, just lays there. As soon as Reggie and Black-Hoodie are both glaring in my direction, I fade out my copy and surge to my feet, using Reggie's stomach as a launching pad. He grunts and sits up immediately, an immense scowl warping his rat-like features.
Black-Hoodie offers him a hand up, but Reggie swats him away dismissively and scrambles to his feet. Black-Hoodie continues to flail his arms blindingly in Reggie's direction, as if he'll suddenly feel the cloth of my own hoodie underneath his fingers. I stay out of his range and instead creep around to his back.
"I don't see the person," he's saying. "Maybe he left." He? Is that your excuse for letting me get away? That only a man can best people like you? What a misogynistic asshole. Needless to say, I don't feel that bad for him when I clock him upside the head with my fist and knock him out cold, his body falling with a thump onto the ground where Reggie had previously been lying.
I debate whether to take out Reggie or not, but before I can make another move a sudden piercing pain strikes its way into my shoulder. I hiss in shock and pain and look down. There's an arrow sticking out of my skin, blood already staining my grey hoodie sleeve an ominous dark red. I look up and see a flash of black on the roof of the pizzeria amidst the dusky darkness. The sun has completely left the sky and night is quickly falling. Taylor lights up her surroundings like a Christmas tree in a dark living room.
"Shit," I whisper under my breath. I should've known there would be another sniper like the one that hit Bloodhound- I don't put anything past Ivory and his creepy little ninja army. I wrap my fingers around the arrow and tug it out of my skin quickly. The pain that follows as I rip the arrowhead out makes my vision darken temporarily and my knees buckle. I can feel myself losing my grip on my illusion. But how did they see me? I think back to the masquerade ball and remember the guard with the infrared vision. Damn it. Gets me every time.
Reggie catches sight of me once my cloaking begins to fade, and he chuckles darkly when he sees the bloody arrow clutched in my trembling fist.
Thwick! This time I hear the arrow before I feel it, but I'm too late to dodge out of its way. Another one plants itself into my stomach, and I'm knocked down onto the ground with blood immediately trickling out of my mouth and onto the ground beside me. I need a little speech bubble above my head like I'm a character in an old '60's comic. No, no, no! This is not good, the speech bubble would say. (Obviously.) It's not like internal bleeding has ever been a good thing. But I never imagined the pain.
"Maya!"
I'm so damn tired of people having to save me. I'm so damn tired of always being the one people shoot at. (Even if I deserve it....) I need to keep my eyes open, I need to stay awake... I need to take that white-clothed asshole down. I need to finish this mess that I started. I'm not...
There's hands grasping my head and good shoulder, sweaty fingers and a panicked voice telling me to stay with him. Stay with me, Maya. I'm trying.
"Tate?" The word comes out in a bubble and a gasp of blood, a red stain blossoming across my already ruined costume. It hurts. So. Freaking. Bad.
"Damn it, Maya! Stay with me!" It's not Tate's voice. It's higher-pitched, more like a teenager boy's. I know that voice... I know that voice because...
"Sebastian?" I sputter. My eyelashes feel sticky when they finally split open. Ow. I can't... I can't feel my shoulder anymore because all that's there is fire and pain. First ice, then fire. Hah hah, world. You win the award for the Worst Cruel Joke Ever.
"Dear God, Maya. I get here five minutes ago and you're already dying," he attempts to laugh, but it just comes out like a strangled whine.
"I'm fine. Quit your whining. Just... give me a moment." My brain continues to sputter horrible curses as I ease myself up into a sitting position once more. You're insane, I can imagine my common sense saying. I quit!
"Maya..." he murmurs. I can feel my skin in my shoulder start to repair already as my healing factor kicks in at last, finally being proactive for once in my life. I grab a hold of the arrow in my stomach and brace myself. Just like a knife through butter... "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sebastian shrieks. Schhlloop! "I'm going to throw up."
"You're such a baby," I reprimand him, laugh shakily, and toss the arrow aside, focusing on my snarky comments rather than the fact that I think I just destroyed half of the nerve endings in my stomach. My hand won't stop shaking. "Help me get up."
He sits there unmoving and watches me with a look of petrified horror illuminated on his face. I must look like a mess, I know. But a little blood never killed anybody. At least, not anybody with a healing factor. I haul myself to my feet and whisper a steady string of curses under my breath instead of the screaming I want to do instead.
"Why are you here anyway?" I glance over at him, drawing in a ragged breath; that's when I catch sight of Reggie, who lays unconscious next to my BFF, Black-Hoodie. My eyebrow raises skeptically and Sebastian shrugs casually.
"I'm not just a genius of the mind," he says mysteriously. I shake my head and continue forward, my heart stuttering with every sharp twist of pain from my stomach and my healing shoulder. The sniper is evidently still on the roof, but I reckon that he won't risk taking a shot at Sebastian even though the hacker's gone rogue. Nobody touches Reggie's dolls and gets away with it.
"We gotta take Ivory down," I growl through clenched teeth. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in-- #&$@! Breathe out. You're not dead... yet. "It's the only way Dominic gets to go home."
Taylor's still fighting him, unyielding in her anger. He looks like he's starting to tire. Tate's moved on to another one of Ivory's crew, who fires crackling bolts of electricity at the shapeshifter. This is some crazy-ass fight, huh?
"I think they can manage," he pleads with me. He runs up alongside me, his jaw jutted out defiantly. "There's a gaping hole in your stomach that's possibly pierced some vital organs- I don't exactly think you're fit to fight."
"Damn it, Sebastian! You don't get it. This isn't their fight, it's mine. I'm not going to just stand by and watch them risk their lives for me when I'm the reason this whole mess started in the first place," I snap. I beg my small intestines not to start falling out of my stomach because that would be really gross and disturbing, and continue to march forwards closer to my target. Breathe fricking in. Breathe out. Try not to die.
A giant tremor starts to make the concrete underneath everyone's feet tremble. A few falter in their exchanging blows, but most ignore it. Slowly, the pavement cracks, with thin lines spreading out from one focal point- the parking lot beside where Taylor and Ivory are battling. Nobody thinks much of it... until the concrete completely splits and a giant serpent rips and twists its way out of the ruined pavement. It's head alone is taller than I am, its fangs the length of my arm. Green scales each the width of a phone case ripple down its massive body which is almost thicker than that of a trunk of a Redwood tree. Its eyes gleam black and narrow, its tail lashing angrily as it searches for its next meal. I've always been a fan of overkill.
Sebastian whistles low in appreciation from behind me. Ivory and Taylor both stop and turn towards the monster with identical looks of shock on their faces. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Try not to die. You got this.
"It's not real!" There's a shout from the rooftops of the pizzeria from the sniper with the infrared vision. Nevertheless, heroes and villains both scatter and flee when the serpent's head races towards the pavement with fangs bared wide. Taylor surges up into the air and out of the way, her face not revealing anything but her insatiable rage towards Ivory, while the white-themed super-villain himself quickly teleports a few dozen meters away. The serpent stills right before Ivory, eyes nothing but slits.
Everyone freezes and gapes up at the mammoth serpent as if in a trance, waiting and watching for its next move. Breathe in. Breathe out. Just a few more minutes.
The sniper on the rooftops is not amused. He screams at his fellow ninja-wannabes that they're all idiots, but his colleagues pay no heed to his words. Why would they? The serpent is obviously right there, ready to tear someone's head off. Seeing isn't always believing, though. Isn't that some quote from a cheesy kid's movie about Santa Claus or some crap?
I cloak myself once more and race over to where Ivory's standing, ignoring the screaming pain gripping my stomach and the way that my vision flickers dangerously like a lightbulb in a creepy abandoned building. One of the people standing in the mob of heroes and villains is clutching a ridiculously large sword that glistens under the rising moonlight. It gives me an idea.
The serpent opens his mammoth jaws, exposes his giant fangs, and before anybody can do anything at all, has Ivory's body clutched in its jaws. His army gasps in unison and yelps in surprise as Ivory's blood dribbles from the serpent's closed jaws. Now for the hard part.
Obviously, I can't very well lift up Ivory with nothing more than an illusion, even if his mind believes that it's actually there. I'm no miracle worker.
So I cloak Ivory's actual form and make a copy of him to send up into the air, and while everybody's gaping at the super-villain dangling from the serpent's jaws, I dash forwards, grab the random dude's sword right from his hands, and plant the mammoth blade straight through the real Ivory's chest before he has a chance to recover himself and teleport away.
Breathe in. Breathe out. You did it.
I can't breathe, though. Not anymore.
As my illusion shatters and Ivory's bleeding body is revealed to the crowd, I think I yell something to Dominic about getting away. But that's the last thing I remember before my stomach gives a final firework of pain and I crumple to the ground.
YOU ARE READING
Super?
Adventure"Stop pretending to be an idiot, idiot." Ouch. It burns. "You're starting to sound like a dear old friend of mine," she adds, her tone implying that her "friend" isn't so much of a "friend" as a mortal enemy who she probably also dragged into an all...
