Weeks turned into a month, then into two months. I was still working on my armour after the disastrous end my first outing had suffered. I wanted to make sure that I could take on all comers when I went back out. I had seen a few interesting things on videos Galatea had shared with me, both Captain Jackass and the Girl in Black roamed in the area around the industrial park from time to time. There were other Powered around, I even saw a few confrontations and those convinced me that I needed more preparation.

The Plasma-Cannon was a success, it was heavy, slightly clumsy but test-firing it had shown me that it packed a punch. I could scale the cold shots from ‘punch by me, without armour’ as a minimum up to ‘punch from me, with armour’. losing only a little rate of fire when I got to the higher levels. The shots themselves were quite impressive, slightly subsonic bolts, glowing with a dull, red light.

The hot shots were a whole different ball-game. The kinetic punch they packed was the same, as was their speed. But where the cold bolts caused little collateral damage, the hot shots were clearly on the ‘deadly weapons’ list. It did not quite reach the level of a plasma arc-welder but it came close, the plasma within the projectile had a muzzle-temperature of roughly 22.000°C making it ‘sizzling hot’. It was not as bad as it sounded, it would mainly scorch the surface of a target, not penetrate into it. But getting hit by it would leave a mark. Getting hit by it repeatedly? Not even my armour could stand up to that.

And if I wanted to kill, I had another trick completed. Building the rail-gun had been incredibly easy, compared to the Plasma-Cannon. The rail-gun was almost too cool to be true, I had let my inner geek out to play on that one. It looked like a slightly oversized Desert Eagle, dull silver with a magazine of 9 shots. Each projectile was a solid slug of tungsten carbide, doing away with the normal use of casing, propellant and actual bullet. making the slugs a lot heavier as a same sized cartridge. That combination of high mass and the railguns high muzzle-velocity gave it unparalleled penetrative power. After trying it, I was convinced, the thing kicked like a mule and hit like a truck.

Sadly, building and testing those weapons was a little more dangerous than anticipated and I got a few scrapes, so I stocked the base with quite a few medical supplies and built a small surgery-robot for Galatea so she could help with my treatment, if it ever became necessary.

Seeing a large chunk of concrete slam into the wall, mere centimeters from my head made me aware of the risks I was taking. My small medical station was quite well equipped to treat cuts, burns and bruises when I was done.

My load-out was rounded out by the flash-diodes I had installed at my knuckles and a faked K-bar made out of the same material the scales on my armour were. It looked like a K-bar but I went all out when it came to sharpening it. Using my power and the energy-fields I had built, I managed to create something straight from Sci-Fi, a monomolecular-blade. It was sharp as all hell and using my armour, I could easily cut through steel. I doubted I would actually use it but I had it and that was what counted to me.

I was still trying to make any form of lift or hover-function a reality and had plans to add tasers to my gauntlets when Galatea got my attention.

“Alex, you should armour up. Now.” she said without much of a preamble.

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“What? No, I’m not ready.” I answered, a small shiver running down my spine.

“Alex. You are no coward. Armour up. Now!” Galatea told me in an angry tone.

I was conflicted. The last few times she had suggested that I go out, I declined. There was still stuff to do, ideas to perfect and build in, training to do. But I did not want to disappoint my daughter. If there was one being in this world I whose opinion I truly valued, it was her.

With a frustrated sigh, I started donning the armour and asked Galatea what was going on. She just told me to hurry, so I did just that.

As soon as I put on the helmet, she added an aerial point of view to my vision, obviously from one of her drones. I saw Captain Jackass and another Hero’s League flunky face off with the girl in black. As I watched, Captain Jackass started to attack her, almost managing to take her head on. But it was impressive, she was fast and obviously a skilled fighter, able to dodge his strikes and land heavy counter-blows.

Urged on by Galatea, I climbed up the ladder, leaving the bunker and following her directions I started down the hill. She felt I should be ready to help the girl if the second League guy started to meddle in their fight. According to her, honouring my debt would be the right thing to do so I should be ready.

As I moved through the forest, the fight slowly turned against Captain Jackass, the girl in black managed to no-sell his attacks and pile up attacks. I was almost ready to return to my bunker as it looked like the girl would be alright. That was the moment the other guy chose to strike. I wasn’t quite sure what he did, but he moved his hand, grasping something in the air. The effect was rather pronounced, the girl was held in place for a moment and that moment was used by Captain Jackass to press his attack. She had no chance to dodge and was simply smacked through a nearby wall.

Seeing that, I sped up and tried to get there as fast as possible. According to Galatea, they were in the industrial park I had explored before. Soon, I was close and chose to slow down, watching the action through my drones. As I watched her getting smacked around I felt the need to even the scores a little. When I was just building away, I used my leg-servos to leap up and land on solid portions of the roof. I had to carefully pick my way as I walked over, using my ultrasound to make sure that I didn’t fall through the roof. That would have been embarrassing.

I stayed out of sight, watching the girl in black get smacked around for some time, wishing I had some popcorn. After some time, I felt that her situation was just like mine had been. As she was once more slammed into a solid wall I stepped on the edge of the roof and engaged my Plasma-Cannon, preparing a medium-strength, cold-plasma shot and aiming at the second League-guy. Wishing I had a witty one-liner, I simply shot him in the chest.

For the first time, I saw the effect on something other than a testing target and I liked what I saw. The dimly red glowing bolt burned through the night and hit him, bursting apart and transferring both the kinetic energy and the escaping pressure into my target. The effect looked almost comically, as he was bodily thrown back and slammed into a wall behind him.

Now, I was truly missing some birds flying around his head as dust trickled down onto him, then it would be the full comic glory. Maybe an anvil. Sadly, it was not to be.

Taken off guard by the glowing projectile, Captain Jackass looked from his friend to me and shouted in surprise, “What?! YOU?! What have you done to Double-G?”

“Well, I owe you a smack down, don’t I? I thought it would be nice to collect on my debt to you and clear my debt to her at the same time.” I said via the speakers, using a distortion-tool to make sure my voice was not recognizable.

I started charging the canon, knowing him, I used a full charge of cold plasma. No need to go straight to the truly ugly solutions. When he leapt up, I had to fight laughter because he sent himself on a straight, predictable trajectory right at me. I almost felt bad when I shot him out of the air, watching him fly away like a ragdoll and slam into a solid wall. With Galatea’s help, I kept him in my sights and did the easiest thing. I kept shooting, slamming him into the wall over and over again. After a few shots, it looked more like a side of beef slamming into the wall making funny, smacking sounds. Shooting him once more, for good measure, just caused a small, funny twitch after he settled back onto the ground so I knew that my job was done.

I jumped down from my perch and looked over to the place the girl in black had been last, only to see her gone. Well, I guess she was alright.

“You need to go two blocks north and three blocks east. I think she needs your help.” Galatea told me, in a worried voice.