A red blur burst through the unbroken door, sending splinters of wood flying everywhere. Dylan turned, startled, and jumped back as he heard a loud crack. The red figure came to a stop, before letting out a yell and falling to the floor.
It was a man, wearing a red and white striped super suit. Dylan recognized him as Dynamis, a rookie hero. What was he doing here? And why was he on the ground?
It seemed like Puncher had also been startled, but seeing the hero in distress, he walked over, likely to offer aid. Dylan, meanwhile, started scanning around the room, trying to find the source of the crack.
He saw his drone, hovering above one of the shattered skylights, the barrel of its weapon smoking. Oh… shit.
Dylan watched as Puncher tumbled past him. That was why the hero had fallen. His drone had shot Dynamis.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few minutes earlier
Detective Hasborough flinched back when the top floor of the building that the hostage situation was going on in seemingly exploded. A large boom rang out through the air as all of the windows shattered, sending shards of glass raining down to the street. A few other officers shouted in alarm, some scrambling for cover behind their cars.
Hasborough wondered just what the hell was going on in there? While he didn’t know who the first vigilante to enter the building was, the one dressed in blue, the other two supers shouldn’t be able to do anything like that. In fact, most of the supers in the local area wouldn’t be able to manage something like that.
Maybe Dynamis could, if sufficiently motivated, but he wasn’t here right now. A deep frown crossed Hasboroughs face. Could it be the Crimson Blade? That was a worrisome thought.
The old detective doubted it, though. The Crimson Blade, despite his supposed retirement, was also supposed to be dealing with the Calamity that was occupying the city's normal protector, Overgrowth. Plus, the Crimson Blade was one of those supers with a very… recognizable fighting style.
Whatever it was that had caused the blast, it didn’t re-emerge within the next five minutes. Something else came out of the building, however. A group of thugs, about 4 or so of them, came scrambling out of the building. Likely Kasha’s men, choosing to preserve their safety instead of helping their boss. Hasborough couldn’t blame them. Nobody wanted to be in the middle of fighting supers. People tended to get splattered that way.
Despite the reasonability of fleeing the situation, seeing a bunch of would-be terrorists running at you was alarming enough that almost all of the officers present raised their rifles. The criminals, seemingly expecting this, dove onto the ground immediately, placing their hands on the backs of their heads.
Officers then had them inch forwards, one at a time, ensuring there was nobody hiding the abandoned building waiting to pick them off. It went without incident, but from the gunshot that was heard from around the back of the building, Harker guessed that other officers hadn’t had quite as easy an experience.
For his part, Hasborough paid as little attention as he could, choosing instead to let his fellow officers do their jobs. He wasn’t here to make arrests. He only had two purposes. To ensure the safety of the hostages, and to serve as a contact for Dynamis.
It was for that reason that Hasborough let out a breath of relief as the hostages scrambled out of the front door in a panic. The officers behind him tensed up, but hasborough raised a hand, waving them off.
“These poor people have been through enough, already. Someone get them some blankets, and thermos’.”
At his command, a younger officer approached the group of frightened civilians, speaking gently, urging them back to a tent that had been set up some 50 feet behind the blockade of police cruisers.
While they seemed resistant at first, it soon proved to be a shallow sort of stubbornness, as all of the former hostages were convinced to head back to the temporary shelter within a minute of conversation.
Hasborough let out a deep breath. Well, that was one thing solved. He looked from head to head, and a frown crossed the old detective's face. That didn’t bode well.
Just to be certain, Hasborough did another headcount. There was a missing person. Hopefully, they had gone out the back, or were hiding on the first floor. If they were still up top…
Hasborough winced as he heard the sound of shearing steel, a harsh report that set his ears ringing. Well, hopefully they weren’t on the top floor.
It was only a minute or so later that Dynamis arrived, but it felt far longer. The sound of a car engine announced his arrival. It was a police cruiser, one present at the other emergency the rookie hero had been assisting with. That wasn’t a good sign.
Indeed, when Dynamis stepped out, he looked tired and battered. His suit was covered in concrete dust and abrasions, and blood had trickled out from somewhere under his mask, leaving a rust red streak dyed down his face.
The hero looked around wearily, starting towards Hasborough once he saw him. The detective, for his part, was walking towards the Hero already, unwilling to make someone who was so clearly fatigued come to him.
Dynamis stared at him for a bit, before speaking.
“What’s the situation? Are the hostages out?”
Hasborough took a moment to think of how best to summarize the situation.
“All but one of the hostages are accounted for. I radioed over to the back, they have no clue where the last one could be. The sounds of fighting have trailed off, so it’s probably been resolved. I think the two unofficial supers are behind it. Be careful, regardless.”
Dynamis nodded.
“So that armored one is here? Maybe you were right, and he is just an amateur trying to help. As long as he doesn’t resist, I’ll go easy on him, and bring him to my agency, to get tried out. The other one as well, I guess.”
With that, Dynamis walked towards the abandoned building. When he got within 15 feet of the door, he crouched down, before leaping into the air, quicker than any normal person could. He reached about 30 feet into the air before he slowed enough that he should have started to fall. Instead, Dynamis kept going, his momentum continuing despite being implausibly slow.
He floated through a window on the fifth floor, disappearing from Hasboroughs sight.
The detective hoped that everything would work out. If another fight broke out, there was a pretty solid chance that somebody would die. There should be three hero aligned supers in there, which should hopefully mean a peaceful resolution.
From the rapidly intensifying pain in his head, Hasborough figured that a peaceful resolution wasn’t in the cards tonight. He sighed. Supers were always such trouble.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Puncher’s rolling tumble was interrupted when he hit the edge of the room, a wall arresting his momentum and drawing a pained grunt from the teen. Dylan barely noticed, the buzzing static in his head, an almost electric feeling, was drawing everything else out, even his thoughts.
Dylan slowly turned at the sound of uneven footsteps behind him, taking sight of someone who should have been his ally.
Dynamis, despite his limp, looked threatening. He was a tall man, at least 6 feet, and quite well muscled. The hero was unexpectedly worse for the wear, covered in scrapes, dust and blood. If anything, the battered appearance made him look more threatening. Dynamis must have already been responding to something when this whole situation went down.
Dylan backed up, towards one of the walls, putting his hands up non-threateningly. One of his feet lost traction, sliding briefly, and he looked down to try and find the source.
Under his foot was one of the slices of hostage that had been cut up earlier. Dylan felt queasy. He had forgotten about the tired looking hostage. He heard a growl, and looked up.
Dynamis looked even more pissed than he had before. Dylan gulped. When the hero spoke, it was quiet enough that Dylan almost didn’t hear it.
“Despite my initial misgivings, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But it turns out that you really were nothing more than a piece of shit.”
The hero pushed off with his good leg, shooting towards Dylan, flying straight through the air as though he was unaffected by gravity. Dylan launched himself away from the wall, right as the hero arrived.
Fuck. Dylan wasn’t prepared for this. He had just been in a fight, his back was kinda fucked up. He wasn’t ready to fight someone like Dynamis. He was technically still a rookie hero, but anyone they’d left in charge of a city, no matter how small, would be strong. An unlike his predecessor, Dynamis was relatively new to the area, meaning Dylan had no idea what his powers were.
Dynamis, for his part, didn’t seem to want to let Dylan evade him. When he reached the wall, he reached out and touched it, a light tap from one of his red suited hands. Instantly, the direction the hero was going changed, sending him straight towards Dylan.
Shit. Dylan could try and dash out of the way again, but it would leave him woozy, and if Dynamis could change his direction like that again, he would just catch right back up anyways. No, Dylan had to respond. Besides, maybe if he could stalemate Dynamis, they could talk it out.
Dylan cocked back his fist. Dynamis continued towards him, unfettered by the threat of attack. He pushed forwards, launched off towards the hero, fist lancing out and catching Dynamis' face.
Dylan’s hand felt weird. It was as if he’d punched a concrete wall, unarmored, but without the pain which would normally accompany such an action. Instead, it was like all of the power of his punch had been stolen.
Dynamis’ hand crashed into Dylan’s helmet a moment later. It didn’t stop during the initial impact, either, continuing on its course as if his head wasn’t there.
Dylan’s head snapped back, and he was sliding across the floor. His head rang, and his vision was blurry.
Dynamis stopped floating through the air, landing unsteadily as he tried to put weight on his injured leg, which drew a wince from the hero. Dylan scrambled to get back onto his feet, as Dynamis flew towards him in that weird, weightless way again.
Dylan knew then that he couldn’t hold back. He would have to hit Dynamis as hard as he could, and hope the hero could take it. He didn’t have any other way to ensure a hit could connect.
Dylan crouched down, and took a deep breath. He took a good look at where Dynamis was going, and pushed off against the ground as hard as he could. His vision immediately went black, but Dylan knew exactly where Dynamis would be. He lashed out, punching as hard as he could.
It was the mightiest blow Dylan had ever delivered, backed by the full strength of both his suit’s arm and legs. His vision just started to come back as his gauntleted hand reached Dynamis’ face.
Suddenly, his vision went black once more. When it came back, Dylan didn’t quite recognize where he was. Everything looked familiar, but off, somehow, like he was in a dream. It took Dylan a second to realize why. He was looking down at the room he had just been in from above. Darting his eyes to the left, Dylan saw why. He was embedded in the concrete ceiling.
Looking down, Dyamis was standing underneath him. The hero still looked beat up, but there was no indication that Dylan’s second blow had ever landed. Shit. Was Dynamis invincible? Try as he might, Dylan didn’t seem to be able to harm him. It was unlike anything else the teen had encountered before.
Both the man in the gas station and Kasha seemed to feel all of his attacks, even if they weren’t particularly successful. With Dynamis, it didn’t even feel like his hits connected. Dynamis was saying something, but Dylan’s hearing, unlike his sense of sight, had not returned to him yet.
It came back, gradually, and with it came the pain. His back hurt, worst of all, a blade of concrete sticking into his back. It was a searing sort of agony, of a magnitude that Dylan had never felt before. It hurt incredibly badly. So badly, in fact, that it would have taken his breath away, had another source of pain not already done that.
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Dylan’s ribs screamed at him, and it felt as if his chest had been crushed in. He couldn’t take a full breath, the pain spiking sharply whenever he tried. Dylan let out a despairing gasp. What was he supposed to do? In just two blows, Dynamis had completely beat him. Dylan doubted he could fight at even a quarter of his normal capacity right now.
He felt tears form at the corners of his eyes. Was this really how it was going to end? He was supposed to be a hero, dammit! He had tried so hard to help. For fucks sake, he had just saved all of those hostages. And now, he was about to be arrested or killed by this hero, a hero that was much stronger than Dylan, but couldn’t even be arsed to show up until everything was already over? It wasn’t fair.
Dylan was still looking at Dynamis. The hero was still talking.
“For doing what you’ve done, in a time like this? You’re going to be put away for a long, long time. That is,if you survive the rest of this. Going around, killing people, getting in fights, causing serious injury to a hero, in a time of crisis? The courts won’t look favorably on this.”
It was all so damn unfair. He had just wanted to help. He had put his body on the line, his life on the line, to save people. So what, if he messed up once or twice. So would anybody else, in his place. He didn’t have a power that made things easy, that made him invincible, or able to perceive and act far beyond human ability.
No, he in, in his small, scrawny, weak body, had to trek miles to a scrap yard, because his parents couldn’t afford to get him supplies. He had to put his suit together, by himself, and go and fight people, dangerous people, with nothing but some metal in between him and them.
And for all his hard work, Dylan was going to be put away. Not in a normal prison either, most likely. He would be put in one for superhumans. If he was lucky, it would be one of the ones where sentences were in the decades at the minimum. If he wasn’t, they’d lock him somewhere that nobody left.
It wouldn’t be surprising for somebody like Dylan to die in a place like that. He couldn’t defend himself without his inventions. Someone else with a power could easily kill him. And, they’d likely want to. It would take them a while to find out the things he did, but they would, eventually. They’d probably still consider him a hero.
Dylan felt despair, because his future had been stolen from him, because he was going to be punished for trying to help. But more than that, he felt angry. Angry that he would be punished, despite his good deeds. Angry at how unfair this whole thing was, that someone who had a power that made heroing easy was judging him, condemning him to die in a cell. Angry that nobody seemed thankful for all of the work he did.
Dylan couldn’t stand to look at Dynamis anymore. He was still talking, monologuing to Dylan. The teen tuned him out, determined to give the hero as little satisfaction as possible. Instead, Dylan looked off to the side, out one of the broken skylights.
And what he saw wasn’t the empty blue sky, as he expected. What he saw was hope. Because Dylan’s drone was still there. In all of the chaos, he had forgotten about it. It hovered out there, unmoving, awaiting an order.
Dylan felt a brief flash of anger at it. It was, in a sense, the drones fault that he had gotten in this situation in the first place. If it hadn’t shot Dynamis, maybe he wouldn’t have come to the assumption that Dylan and Puncher were villains.
Dylan dismissed the feeling, though. It was his creation. If it didn’t act right, was that not his fault? He had known that the drone wasn’t behaving normally. It had also shot the man when he had jumped out at Dylan earlier. Before that, it had followed him here, despite him giving no order for it to do so.
Why had it done those things? Making it didn’t feel any different than making anything else, and everything else that Dylan had made performed perfectly well. Was it the drone he had found, the one that had made up its base? Was it flawed, had another person with technology based powers hijacked it, sabotaged it so if anybody else tried to make something with it, it would turn against them?
That train of thought didn’t seem right. It seemed like far too much effort to go through, to then deposit the drone in a random Junkyard. Besides, there weren’t any villains with powers like that around here, as far as Dylan was aware.
The drone had seemed perfect, at first. Dylan really had been quite proud of it. For one, it looked cool. Plus, it seemed like it had an almost supernatural ability to interpret his orders. He would give it complex instructions, and it would just follow them, as if….
Wait. How did it follow his orders, in the first place? Dylan had assumed it had some hidden microphone, to detect the sound of his voice, or some other super technology that worked to the same effect, but he certainly hadn’t had anything like that when he built it.
Besides, the drone seemed to act up only when… he was feeling a particularly strong emotion. First, it had followed him here, while he was feeling the fear, excitement and panic that came with the announcement of the hostage situation. Then, it had shot that thug when he jumped out in front of Dylan, surprising him. Finally, when Dynamis came barreling in, it shot him as well.
Dylan continued to stare at the drone. He felt a sense of familiarity. He stared some more, focusing on it, with as much intent as it could muster.
It was a sudden thing that flashed into Dylan’s mind. It was always there, but forgotten about, like when you remember your breathing,a normally automatic process. He had a connection to the drone. Perhaps to everything he’d made. That was how he could control it. It never had any way to detect what he was saying, or some advanced computer inside of it to interpret and apply his words. No, it simply had been reacting to his intent. It had moved to protect him, when he was startled, a sort of instinctual lashing out.
Dynamis seemed to understand that Dylan was no longer paying him any attention, and started winding down his speech. Dylan felt a brief flash of fear. He knew that, should he fail to stop Dynamis, he was in for a very severe beating.
So Dylan did the only thing he felt he could, at that moment. He called on his new found connection to the drone, the one he had been subconsciously using for so long, and gave it a new order. Without speaking, without even making a sound or gesture, he gave it a new directive.
‘Shoot Dynamis’. It was a simple order. Dylan was confident that the drone would be able to pull it off. Hopefully, it would distract Dynamis long enough for Dylan to come up with a better plan, figure out a way for him to take the hero down. He would have to go get Puncher, to try and secure his help. The other teen was in the same situation as Dylan was, so he would have to throw aside his allegiance to the heroes for-
A sharp crack interrupted Dylan’s thoughts. The drone had obeyed, as expected. What was not expected, however, was the sight of Dynamis staring down in shock at the new hole in his torso. It was empty, for a second, a dark pit in the hero’s body, before bright red bubbled up, like a sort of morbid spring. The blood flowed out far faster than Dylan would expect it to. It wasn’t as much blood as someone with a smashed head would produce, but it still looked like far more than was healthy.
Dynamis wasn’t looking at Dylan any longer. His gaze trailed past Dylan, out of the skylight. The drone. He mouthed something, the words barely audible.
“I … forgot about… that.”
With this final pronouncement, Dynamis’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the floor. Dylan started in shock. That was not the result he had expected. He turned to look at the drone. Just what the hell sort of weapon had he made, to be that powerful.
Dylan felt his heart hammering in his chest, and his adrenaline temporarily drowned out the pain of his wounds. Had he just killed Dynamis? That wasn’t good at all.
He pushed his arms deeper into the ceiling, dislodging himself. Dylan hit the ground flat on his chest, the metal of his suit letting out a loud, resonant bang as it collided with the floor.
Dylan nearly passed out as he felt a fresh resurgence of pain. He let out a soft cry, all that his injured chest would allow him, and laid on the floor for a few minutes longer, trying not to throw up.
He only started getting up when he heard a voice, coming from one of the sides of the room. It sounded scared.
“What the hell did you do?”
Dylan looked over, to the source of the voice. It was Puncher. His face was pale, and it was sporting a panicked expression. Dylan tried to respond, but he couldn’t breathe in deep enough to form any words.
Instead, Dylan pushed himself to his feet, slowly, trying to avoid aggravating his wounds any more.
“I said what the hell did you do!”
This time, Puncher was shouting at him.
Dylan took a step forward, wishing he could speak. He was still trying to find his voice when Puncher yelled again.
“Stay the hell away from him, and stay away from me!”
Putting his hands up, Dylan backed away from Dynamis’ body, which was still steadily leaking blood. His steps were unsteady, his suit unable to completely disguise the weakness of his body.
Dylan finally managed to force something out of his mouth.
“I didn’t m-”
Puncher cut him off, tone aggressive.
“I should have known, from the moment that you killed that man, earlier, that you were no good. You used me. I trusted you, trusted that you were a hero, and you used me. I helped you defeat Kasha. If I hadn’t, maybe he would have killed you. Maybe Dynamis wouldn’t bleeding out on the floor. I don’t know why you did it. Frankly, I don’t care. Just know this, whatever your name is. The next time that I see you, I’m going to kick your ass. You’re going to pay for this, mark my words”.
With that pronouncement, Puncher lunged forwards, scooping up Dynamis in his arms, before running out of the room. Dylan just watched him go, too shocked to say anything. He tried to yell after Puncher, to explain himself, but the words wouldn’t come to him. When they finally did, they wheezed out of his mouth, weak, pathetic, barely audible.
Dylan didn’t know how long he stood there, but eventually, his despair spiked into panic. Puncher was going to run out of the building with a critically injured or dead Dynamis, and when he explained what happened… the police might come storming in. They generally wouldn’t risk confronting a villain, but with Dylan as obviously weakened as he was, they might think it worth the risk, especially considering what had just happened. Or even worse, they might send Puncher back. If the teen could deliver a blow even a quarter as strong as the one that he had hit Kasha with, Dylan would likely die.
The anger returned, crashing over Dylan like a wave. Fuck! What the fuck did he do to deserve this! It was all so fucked.
A faint noise drew his attention. Turning to investigate, Dylan spotted Kasha, laying against the wall, where he had been for the entire fight with Dynamis. It looked like the villain was still unconscious, but was starting to stir.
Dylan stalked over, as quickly as he could, unsure of what he was going to do until he got there. Drawing his foot back, Dylan kicked Kasha in his head, sending a spray of blood out of the villain's nose, one that splashed all over Dylan’s armor. That made him even angrier, and he kicked Kasha in the face again, harder, this time, embedding the villain's head in the concrete wall.
Dylan probably would have kicked Kasha again, had the pain in his back not stopped him in his tracks. Dylan shut his eyes and let out a steady stream of swearing until it passed. With it went most of his anger. It was still there, sitting in the back of his mind, simmering, but it was far more manageable right now than it had been moments prior.
With the absence of his anger, the fear started to return. Puncher could be back to arrest him, any moment now. Dylan needed to flee, before someone showed up to take him in. As fast as he could, Dylan started down towards the stairs at the back of the building, panic and fear enabling him to push through the agony he felt.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hasborough watched as a lanky man, dressed in a blue supersuit, burst through the front door of the building, a figure dressed in red and white in his arms. The detective almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Dynamis, limp, and cradled in this unknown supers arms, blood seeping from a wound on his chest. Hasborough froze, all of his knowledge of what should be fighting with the reality in front of him.
“He needs medical attention! Someone please, he needs help!” shouted the lanky super. One of the paramedics on standby burst forwards to assist, jumping over a police cruiser, while another ran back to the ambulance, no doubt to retrieve supplies.
Hasborough was still frozen as the first paramedic directed the super to lay Dynamis on the ground, where he pressed his hands against the bullet wound, attempting to stop the bleeding. With just his hands, it was mostly ineffective, the blood seeping through and splattering the paramedics previously immaculate white uniform red. He kept at it though, despite how little it seemed to be doing.
It was when Dynamis was wheeled away in a stretcher, Gauze shoved into the bullet wound, into the back of the ambulance, sirens already wailing and waiting to head to the hospital, that Hasborough felt his feet moving.
They brought him to the super, the one dressed in blue, who was now covered in blood, the bright red marring his suit. Hasborough would have initially thought that the man was an adult, but upon closer inspection, he couldn’t have been any older than 18. A teen, then. Just what the hell had happened in there?
The teen, for his part, was staring down at his bloodstained hands, shock written across his face. Hasborough had seen that expression before, the type of face people make when they’ve seen something horrible, something they were unprepared to deal with.
Normally, it was best to be comforting, to give them time to process what they had just witnessed, or been subjected to. Unfortunately, now was not a time where Hasborough could afford to do that. He tried to be gentle, as gentle as he could be, anyways, but he needed to know what was going on.
“Son, I need you to tell me two things. First, what’s your name? Then, I need you to tell me what happened in there. Can you do that?”
The teen looked up, his shocked reverie broken by the sound of Hasboroughs voice. The glassy look in his eye faded a bit, although there was still an undercurrent of panic there.
“My name’s Puncher. And there’s a villain in that building. One who helped me beat Kasha. The one who killed Dynamis.”
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dylan crouched behind a window, on the ground floor of the abandoned building. His plan to sneak out the back had been derailed by the police blockade present behind the building. Now, he was watching, waiting for an opportunity.
One of the officers standing in front of his car turned his back, saying something to one of his colleagues. There.
Dylan burst out the window, sprinting as fast as he could towards the officer. His chest and back were in agony. He ignored it.
The officer turned around just in time to see Dylan hit him like a truck. The policeman’s limp body was sent flying away. Dylan didn’t want to kill the man, but he didn’t have time to be careful. The officer would just have to hope luck was on his side tonight.
The other officers on the scene shouted and ran for cover. Dylan ignored them, ignored the cries for him to surrender, and leapt over the hood of one of the police cruisers, which sent a fresh wave of red hot agony down his back.
He stumbled, before breaking back out into a run. His speed only increased when he heard the cracks of gunfire behind him, and the occasional pinging of bullets off of his armored back.
Dylan sent an order to his drone, mentally commanding it to fire warning shots at any officers that tried to pursue him. He directed it to shoot their cruiser's engine blocks if they tried to chase him with vehicles. Finally, he ordered it to shoot the officers themselves, if none of the above steps deterred him.
The shouting and gunfire eventually faded as he got farther and farther away. Dylan kept running anyway. He ran until he felt like he was going to pass out. He faintly recognized that he was in a bad part of town. Dylan looked around, eventually spotting a tight alley between two buildings.
It was littered with trash, the dumpsters present in it overflowing, as if they hadn’t been cleared out for months. It would have to do. Dylan positioned himself behind one of the dumpsters, the one deepest into the alley, and pulled some of the trashbags on top of himself, covering his body and armor as best he could.
His vision kept getting darker, and he was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. He tried to stay awake, but there was no fighting his exhaustion, and eventually, Dylan passed out, mostly covered. He would have to leave the rest of his worries for another day.