Fear response - Part 5

Below ...

"Do we know which supers are duking it out?" Chief Watson stared up toward the abandoned building, hands resting on his belt. "Never mind, get the usual cordon in place and be prepared to widen it if it's Principle level supers, okay? Evacuate everyone from the immediate area."

Officers rushed around and Watson couldn't take his eyes from the building above, hearing the crashes even from here, dust clouds puffing outward where walls were never built. Including the two incidents involving that new super, this made it twelve super incidents within the last few days. Ever since Black Staff's death, and Watson always knew this would happen as soon as New Hastings' resident hero either died or decided to retire.

Watson had warned the mayor, but no-one ever believed Black Staff would ever leave. For certain, no-one expected him to die. The man had fought crime since Watson was a child and had never seemed to age much. Unlike Watson himself. They needed a super, one they could rely on, or the super-villains would trample this city to the ground.

-+-

Caitlyn fought through the fear that wormed its way into her brain and launched herself toward the monster that had killed Alaina. She wasn't going to let him get away with it, or allow him to disappear between the blinks of her eyes again. In fact, she wasn't even certain she had blinked since the moment that fountain of blood had exploded from her best friend.

Her first punch smashed right through the concrete pillar behind the man. Her second missed his chin by the tiniest fraction of an inch. The man in the fright mask ducked and dodged everything she threw at him and now she started to believe he may have some superpower after all. Not the thing with the fear, something else. Something physical.

He wasn't strong, she had felt as much from his previous attacks. The reason he had cut through the Black Staff suit was because of those metal claws a kind of metal she had read about in her geology book. An alloy, first created in ancient China, the recipe lost and found so many times over the years, Synonium. The toughest, strongest metal in the world, said to make everything else seem blunt by comparison, and so expensive to make, few people had ever even seen it.

That was the only explanation for this man's ability to cut through a suit that Caitlyn had witnessed suffer harder hits. So, not strong and not particularly fast. Caitlyn could see him moving, only he seemed able to anticipate everything she did. But he was agile, possibly super-agile, jumping and bouncing around, twisting in ways Caitlyn hadn't even seen dancers twist. Bending so much only gymnasts could compare.

It infuriated her, making her even more angry. She hadn't connected with a single strike and now she wished she had the length of that staff to give her even a tiny advantage. It appeared, expanding from her palm. Three feet from one side, three feet from the other and, with a wild swing, she struck the vile monster a glancing blow on the jaw. That caught him and now Caitlyn knew she could and it added an entirely different dimension to the fight.

The man in the red-eyed fright mask reacted in a way she could never have expected to the strike. He nodded, as though giving props to his opponent. As though he hadn't viciously and callously taken the life of a teenage girl to goad Caitlyn. To taunt her. And now he taunted her again, in a different way. Treating the fight like a gentlemanly duel. Caitlyn almost screamed at him for that.

Half-blinded by her fury, she launched herself at the man again, only this time, she anticipated him. Every time he moved to avoid her punches, she adjusted herself to attack where he would go. Her attacks still didn't hit, neither with her fists or the staff, but she had her attacker stumbling in random directions, arms flailing until he lost his footing, falling back into another of those holes that dotted the building.

Caitlyn knew he would land on his feet and dived, head first, into the hole, trusting her floating ability to arrest her fall. She landed where the man should have fallen with a thunderous stomp, sending clouds of dust cascading away from her in several concentric rings. He had avoided her again and she howled out her frustration to the air.

"You are clumsy." That eerie voice once again, like the last, rattling breaths of a dying man rising from a casket where he should have already been dead. "Brutish. You have no skill. No control. If I wanted this fight to end, it would have ended long ago."

"That's easy for you to say." This time her ears had worked out the direction of the voice and even now she wondered if she had the suit to thank for that. "You're the one who keeps hiding. You're the one who won't stand and fight."

"You wish to face me as an equal?" The man appeared from behind a concrete pillar. "Then Fear the outcome."

The pillar disintegrated under Caitlyn's attack, even though she knew she had aimed at the villain before her. Pieces of that pillar bounced and flew away, out through the open walls of the building to the parking lot below. Undeterred, she continued her attacks, alternating between using her fists and the staff, changing it to a baseball bat once more, for another attack and then back to the staff, never using the exact same attack twice.

The man avoided them all. Not only avoided them, but avoided them with the tiniest slivers of space between Caitlyn's hits and his body. He wasted no energy, hand rising and lowering, sweeping from side-to-side, tapping away her attacks as though they were nothing, only annoyances. Unworthy of his attention.

He fought with one hand behind his back. Except, he wasn't fighting. He hadn't even aimed a single blow against her since he had killed Alaina. It had all come from her side. Her attacks. Too late, she realised he had been testing her, watching how she moved. Her speed, her strength, her accuracy, and she had given him everything he had wanted from her without him wasting a single movement. Only walking away with one, glancing injury.

The punch caught her in her stomach, not as strong as the strikes from Professor Halstrom, or Blockchain, but strong enough for her to flinch. With that flinch, a kick came from nowhere, catching her in the temple, turning her aside. The sweep of the kick continued, around in an arc and down, the man spinning, crouching on one leg and connecting the kick into the back of her legs, dropping her to the floor.

She rolled backward, away from the man, but he followed her, catching her with punch after punch, kick after kick. Each strike doing enough to force her backward, the suit cushioning the blows but not enough. Her vision began to spin and she found herself striking out wildly, blindly, at nothing as the man moved in random directions, never giving her the chance to steady her feet. He wasn't giving her any time, any space.

One of her wild, flailing strikes hit a pallet of broken cinder blocks, sending them flying away, over the edge of the building and separating, becoming a wall of shattered missiles that rained down like thick, brittle, sharp snow. Still the attacks continued and, in a daze, she had a strange thought. Why hadn't he used those Synonium claws? He could have shredded her to pieces by now, but he hadn't. Wanting the pain, the humiliation to last, no doubt.

-+-

Outside ...

The cinder blocks rained down upon the parking lot like the wrath of god, sending Watson's officers scurrying for cover. Squad cars became battered by the debris, windshields shattering, roofs and hoods dented. Whoever was fighting up there in that building certainly had super-strength. No normal person could send those blocks flying that far and Watson wished he had eyes on the battle.

"Alright. That's it. Denton!" He called across to the officer with the best shot in the precinct and waited for her to scurry toward him. "I want you in that building over there. Observe as long as you need and see who's the villain in all this and take them out. My authority, and ..."

"Stand down, Chief." Watson had never heard a voice so commanding, so awe-inducing. "This will be over soon enough."

Watson looked up to see the cloak rippling in the wind and wondered whether this was what revelation felt like. He didn't even question the newcomer, only waving away Denton without looking at her. How could he look anywhere else when a god descended from the heavens?

-+-

It was one last, desperate attempt to save her life. The man had not only hit her a couple of dozen times more than she had hit him, but he had hit her in all the right places. Her left arm hung useless at her side, sharp pins and needles rippling up and down the length. Her lungs were fighting for breaths that they couldn't sustain. Her head throbbed and she felt certain her right leg was dislocated at the hip. She had nothing left but that desperation.

She waited for him to waft in to her reach one more time and, instead of trying to hit him, to parry his attack, to try to stumble away, she launched herself forward, barrelling into him and lifting the both of them into the air. She lifted them both as fast as her floating power could carry them, out through the open sides of the building. Out over the parking lot where she caught the flashing blue and red lights from the corner of her eye. Higher and higher she took them and the man didn't even struggle. In fact, she could swear he laughed.

Higher than she had ever gone before, she didn't care what the man did now. Any further attacks against her and they would both fall to their deaths. She let him go, only to catch him by his throat, lifting him back up in front of her face and struggled to move her other arm to try to take the mask from his face before she killed him.

No. She couldn't kill him. Not even for the memory of Alaina. She could never look her Aunt Mary in the eye again if she took this monster's life. It wasn't so clear cut. One part of her fought against that decision, but she was not going to let this maniac turn her into a murderer like him. She tried to clear her throat.

"You ... You're under arrest." The words stuck in her throat, knowing that Alaina's blood wasn't even cold yet. "For the murder of Alaina Allen. She was my best friend and you'll die in prison for her death, you dick."

"That won't be necessary, Miss." It was like the Sun had dawned all over again, brighter and warmer than ever. "We need to talk."

She almost dropped the fright masked man as she looked over her shoulder at the man that spoke to her.