The sky was clear and blue and from the top of their perch, it felt like they were standing within its endless vault. As before in the Metro, Avenger was at Farsight’s side, directing her fire at those Thralls which posed the greatest threats. The first six of his guesses, naturally, were completely unfazed by her gunfire. They were simply too tough. Even as the thunderous cracks of the rifle went off, it took the crowd of Thralls some time to realize what was happening and start their approach. That gave Avenger plenty of time to work down the list, headshot by headshot until they started thinning the herd.

The enemies were more than a mile off from where the Heroes stood, and a shock went through their undead crowd. Like a light being turned on, every one of them seemed to stagger back to life. At once, they’d gone from statues standing idle, perhaps for years on end, finally into attack mode. They roared with fury, and the sound could be heard all the way across the sky.

“I’m going to run up and try to stall them,” Ironbolt said to his comrades. “Try not to hit me.”

Farsight nodded tightly. She had two other long-range Heroes with her, and she chided them, “Keep it tight, boys. We’ve got friendlies on the field.”

“Be careful,” Avenger warned.

After a few quick and deep breaths, Ironbolt had psyched himself up enough to go barreling on ahead "Will do!" He was all alone, then. It was not a new trick for him to pull with how fast he was. Yet, in any battle, it was always the riskiest move he made. There’d be no one to save his ass when things went south.

His internal well of energy kept him from ever being properly tired. Not unless he tapped it for something far greater than running. But his bones could ache from the impact of his sprinting and his nervous system could buzz with the lightning of his Power. He’d been going nonstop since all of this started. From the very first moment that they got back from Seraph Headquarters. And it was starting to wear on him.

He was nearing the limit of his output. Which only made the strength he had left all the more frightening. 

He didn’t hesitate to put the Technicist’s gun straight to the test, drawing from such a deep well. He came as a blur up onto a distant rooftop, just in front of the violently approaching first wave, and let loose. A modest blast of a few billion joules pumped straight through the channeling coil and into a Thrall.

He’d targeted one of the same Thralls that he’d seen Farsight fail to put down. A bulletproof bastard, but not immune to raw and violent energy. The two-headed freakshow was rendered instantly to a burning husk, then, and the rest of the beasts halted. Their eyes raced, the eternally rotting grey matter in their skulls working quickly to reassess the problem.

They're smart, he thought. Nothing but killing machines.

The first wave consisted of nearly thirty flying Supers, among which were a handful of Frankenstein’s monsters. They decided rapidly not to slow, but to regroup and hit the speedster all at once. All in the span of seconds, he charged up another bolt and fired again, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to halt their counter-attack.

So, Ironbolt dashed backward in a single leap. Just fast enough that he dodged the instantaneous strike they levied. It was a light show of their own energy weapons, drawing out black and purple fires that charred and rotted the concrete of the rooftop. He was glad he’d dodged such a strike.

Doing good, he thought, firing again and moving back once more. Now I just have to keep this up.

Right at that moment, he felt his body jerk. A flare of Power spiked in his veins. In the corner of his eye, a shadow had moved dangerously close and without a single thought, his body had reacted. It must have been Dupe’s boost because, in that flash, he’d moved faster than even he thought was possible. His whole body, it seemed, had phased into pure energy as a knife whiffed inches from his nose. His thread, nearly cut. 

The attacker was on him again and he realized what it was as he was forced continually to dodge and weave its slices. It was moving just as fast as he was. Another Speedster Type.

It was unrecognizable as a human. Just a shadow, vibrating through the air, knife in hand, coming to kill. More a ghost than a zombie, really. And it had him immediately on the ropes with this Power.

Ironbolt had fought Speedsters before in the past. He wasn’t exactly the fastest himself. With his Power’s other advantages; electricity and a backward form of super-intelligence, it wasn’t his real focus. But as long as the differences were marginal, he could keep up. Just like any other human in a fight where they were outmatched in one metric, he could compensate. Only, the inequality wasn’t marginal. It was considerable.

Ironbolt cried out in pain as the first slash raked across his bicep where he was forced to raise it in defense. The rusted knife cut through his skin, leaving a spray of blood in its wake, and the Hero stumbled down to the ground. Already, it was going in for the kill and he was forced to make what should have been his finishing move.

Where his foot contacted the shadow, he willed his energy to flow. Such a lancing arc of energy overwhelmed its incorporeal form, rattling through with a terrible hiss. It bounced around inside the shadow, like a caged animal in the smoke.

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This bought Ironbolt the precious seconds he needed to get back on his feet and hop over the building’s edge. Once relocated to the next rooftop back, he caught his breath and watched the first wave moving in slow motion towards him. He couldn’t fight both the flyers and the speedster, not even as they were being meticulously shot down from afar. And there was no damn way Farsight could help him with something she likely couldn't even see.

He noticed the shadow coming up the building's ladder, and his stomach dropped. 

I can’t let it get back to the main squad, he realized. The only one who might possibly stand a chance was Avenger. The rest would be dead before half of them could blink.

“Fuck!” he shouted. The shadow had thrown its knife, letting out an audible crack as it did. The twirling blade ripped across the distance in a blinding whirr, and he felt the pain as soon as his brain could catch up.

Through the agony of the icy steel in his shoulder, Ironbolt still managed to raise his gun and fire. He was almost knocked off his feet by the force. Almost stopped dead in his tracks. Now, he didn’t care how fast the Thrall was. He had it in his sights.

No Speedster would be outrunning the pace of lightning. The path of least resistance, guided by the channeling effect of the weapon, made the shot a sure hit. And this time, it wouldn’t be bouncing back.

He saw the shadow-effect cancel around the undead Speedster, revealing its true form. The shadow dissipated and an emaciated female struck the ground, twitching and writhing. Not clothed or truly naked, she was a skinless wireframe of muscles and bones, exposed to the harsh sunlight.

Ironbolt ripped the knife from his body and absently chucked it at one of the oncoming flyers, putting them down. His metabolism was fast enough to stop the bleeding from killing him, he knew, but the wound would not be healed. Not any time soon.

The fight wasn’t over yet.

He'd defeated the Speedster, but the remaining Thralls had gotten too close. One of them was swooping down at Mach speed to try and body Ironbolt. Its unyielding frame probably would have ripped through him like tissue paper. But he didn't wait around for that to happen. 

Ironbolt returned to his procedure. Dodging, firing, and moving back. Before he knew it, he had been pushed all the way up to his teammates again. The moment of truth came and, when he looked back, his eyes flared with triumph. The first wave of attacking Thralls had been thinned almost to nothingness.

His method had worked.

Just one of the most powerful demons remained now. It possessed multiple limbs and heads, and it stalked through the air without urgency. Certain of its own threat.

We take this bastard down, he grinned, then reset and take the next wave. Same as before.

Just moments ahead of the remaining Greater Thrall, Ironbolt rushed up to Avenger and shouted, "We need to take him. Then we rinse and repeat!"

Avenger's eyes widened. Now that the two of them were closer, his Power shook him with a vision of what was about to happen. The things that this beast could do.

Ironbolt knew that look in his friend's eyes, and he did his best to change the future it had seen. He practically tackled the three long-range Heroes that were on the roof, throwing them down to the ground. The broken bones they suffered were nothing in comparison. Meanwhile, he trusted Avenger to handle himself.

Using a standing backflip to move out of the path of the attack which came next, Avenger cried out, "Scatter!" to the Heroes below. Those who had stayed in place from the beginning were now in the line of fire.

One or two attacks were cast up from different Heroes, but they did nothing to the foe which had arrived.

The hell which the Greater Thrall unleashed did not stop with the rooftop. It came as a stream of super-compressed air, blasting through everything in its path. It tore a trail of carnage through the city, visible as a plume of vaporized buildings on the sky.

Ironbolt lay on the asphalt thirty feet down from where he jumped, holding the groaning Heroes on top of him. Farsight was barely conscious, but she seemed to be healing. They were still under the effect of the team's backline of support, thankfully.

Avenger came running up, still on his feet. He only stopped to tear the three of them up from the earth. "Keep moving! The line is broken! This is hit and run now!" Once he had them up, he didn't stay. He was off around the next building's corner.

"How did this happen?" Ironbolt whispered, his mind still dazed from the fall.

Forty feet up in the air, the Greater Thrall had its eye out for him. It found him standing still, then. He had seen it searching and he decided to serve as a distraction. To play the part of the nuisance and buy the others time to escape.

Not a sacrifice play, he told himself. Just dangerously close to one.

The arm which it had raised to let loose its blast of air was glowing red-hot, like a sword off the forge. Clearly one and done. But it still had three left, and it kept them in rotation. There was no telling what Power would come next, so the Speedster simply ran. Just fast enough that it could track him but not catch him.

Next up on the list was a series of sparks. They sprayed out as a dazzle of lights from its hand, harmless until they touched the ground. Only then did they explode. A rapid expansion that happened in the blink of an eye, ballooning two and three feet in diameter, and then collapsing once again. All the matter it encompassed was swallowed. Eaten by the void.

Where they hit, they were like shocking, grasping hands, threatening to tear chunks off of him. Ironbolt was forced to dodge and weave. 

Only once he was sure his teammates had gotten away, he made sure to lose the Thrall's eyes. He didn't think he wanted to keep testing his luck. But instead of trying to regroup with the other Heroes, he looped back around to the rubble of its first blast. He searched high and low to make sure no one was hurt and if there was anyone he could help. There was bound to be at least one man down in such a devastating attack.

What he saw made him stop cold.

Limbs were tossed about in the piles of concrete and wood. Blood caked the area along with the dust, creating a miasma of death. There was no telling how many had been killed by that one attack alone. Or... who had been among the dead.

If the Technicist was dead, then all was lost. There'd be no hope of opening the Rift Gate.

The Wards, he thought, his heart skipping a beat. 

He could still hear gunfire and the blast of Powers going off. Rocks were being thrown high in the air, he saw, and flashes of strange light littered the field. Whether the mission was lost or not, his people were still fighting. The hope was still there, among them. But he needed to see for himself.

They'd under-estimated the kinds of Powers the Lich had stationed at this outpost. It didn't matter how clever they were, or how tough. In all of the Heroes ranks, there wasn't a single heavy hitter who could square up with this grand creation of the Lich. His Ultimate Thrall.

If Ironbolt could get his hands on it, he might be able to stop it. But it'd be a death sentence...

He had to try. They couldn't give up.