It took Dylan two days to find the time to sneak back out of the house again. In that time, he had gotten most of the scraps moved out from behind the shed. He had used multiple methods to get it done. He put some of them in the boxes he had initially taken from his basement, burying them beneath the remains of what he had used earlier. Some of the pieces were placed in the trash, buried beneath normal rubbish. Others he simply put in his pockets, and then went for walks, discreetly discarding them on the way. Hopefully, this would be enough that his parents wouldn’t really find anything wrong, but he couldn’t know for certain. There was still some more work to be done, but for now, it wasn’t time.
He had made sure to spend some time with his mom. He could understand her perspective, but there wasn’t much he could do about what had happened. Luckily, he doubted he’d be away for so long in the future. At least not without getting caught, which would solve the problem of his parents not being aware of his location in its own way.
His mother eventually left the house, unable to spend any more time away from her job. Luckily, she was on a later shift tonight, and likely wouldn’t be back until one or two in the morning. It was the price she’d paid for trading off shifts the last few days waiting for him to come home. Dylan, naturally, seized the opportunity. He’d been eager to leave again, even though it had only been a day or so. He felt a sort of urgent need to make things right. That started with fixing his suit. Dylan didn’t know what he’d do without it. He didn’t think it could make more drones, right now. The specific supplies and effort it had taken meant that he’d need to hit another scavenging trip, at the least. Plus, he’d found out that he had to be relatively close for manual control. He’d tried to check on the status of his drone from his home, but he got only a few brief flashes from it’s view. Other than that, it was static. He’d spent a while trying to confirm his range, but, being unwilling to venture beyond his neighborhood, hadn’t made much progress. It seemed it would be able to operate autonomously by itself, if given the order, but he couldn’t adjust it on the fly. And he wasn’t really certain how complicated of orders he could give it. Before, he had instructed the drone to remain out of sight? But by what process did it do so? It seemed to him that it had just flown high up into the sky, beyond where most people would be able to see it. An effective interpretation of his orders, but also a simple one. As it was, the drone would likely only be able to be an obstacle, rather than a solution. He was almost certain that it would have been significantly less effective against Dynamis had the rookie hero not been distracted.
He’d keep an eye out for more components, but Dylan wasn’t sure he could recreate the drone without the base he’d had. He might be able to make an inferior version of it, but he couldn’t know for certain. His power was often frustratingly obtuse. Often, it would let him make what he wanted, but there was no way to tell for sure exactly how it would turn out. He could, at most, give it a general direction, and let it work. Perhaps, with more training and practice, Dylan could grasp a tighter hold on the reins, but as of now, he had to point his power in a direction, and hope it handled the rest for him.
He found himself walking down the street, towards where he stored his armor, trying to connect with his drone. As he got closer, the flashes lasted longer, but they still were brief. Dylan had to cease his attempts when he, not paying attention, wandered across a street, and was nearly struck by a car. He ducked his head sheepishly as the driver honked and roared past. Oops.
The walk felt shorter than he remembered. He supposed that last time, he had been rather anxious about getting home safely. Which probably distorted his perception of the distance he had traveled. It also felt weird to walk around without his suit. Dylan found that he genuinely enjoyed using it. The height and strength it gave him. The feeling of security. Though, those things were stained with the bad memories. It was hard to enjoy something as much when you had so many bad memories associated with it.
Once he started to get closer to his destination, Dylan started trying to reach out to his drone, again, although with considerably more caution this time. He knew he was a little tougher than he normally would be, and he could certainly survive for longer with worse injuries than a normal kid his age could, but he suspected getting hit by a car would still fuck him up pretty badly. Or maybe not. It would probably fuck the car up too, though, and then even if he was fine Dylan would have to pay for that. And explain why he could walk off getting hit by a car.
The images got clearer, but he still experienced frequent interruptions until he got to about a block away. There, when he tried to establish the connection, it snapped into place. It didn’t dissipate, either. Dylan waited a few seconds to confirm it was stable, before banishing the link.
Well, it seemed like that was the effective range for precise control. He could probably get some basic orders through from father than that, but he wouldn’t reliably be able to exert control any farther than two blocks. Dylan wasn’t sure if the issue was with the technology, his power, or both. Being able to survey and intervene over a large area with the drone seemed useful. He mentally marked it down to look into later.
When he was close to the grouping of buildings that he’d stashed his gear in, he looked through his drone, and flew it around the building, making sure there wasn’t anybody inside. Once he was certain of that, he checked outside. The last thing he wanted was to be mugged by some thug waiting in an alley while he was unprotected.
Luckily, there wasn’t anybody waiting there, either. There was a dude who appeared to be passed out in one of the alleys farther away from Dylan. He was slumped against the wall, and didn’t move for the 30 or seconds that Dylan spent watching him. He didn’t seem to be a threat, and if he was, Dylan could probably get to his drone before the man could reach him.
Dylan was a little more prepared this time, too. He’d brought some old gardening gloves along with him. They should help with the glass. It wasn’t surefire, but it was far better than using his shirt, and to be honest, Dylan didn’t really care enough to spend the time to find something better. What he had was plenty good enough.
The inside of the building looked untouched, at least on the bottom floor. It still stank, and had a bunch of dried crud on the walls, but he didn’t spot anything overtly different. Dylan felt a little flutter of anxiety in his chest. He was hoping that nobody had tried to steal his suit. If somebody had, well, he’d probably find a dead body upstairs. He’d certainly seen bodies before, but he was almost completely sure it would be different seeing somebody who hadn’t been killed in the middle of a fight. The adrenaline and the fact that they were trying to hurt you did a lot to dull shock, as far as Dylan was aware.
But no, there wasn’t a body upstairs, either. It seemed his concerns were unfounded. It had only been a day or so, after all. Dylan looked around the space. Would this be a viable place to construct a lair? He wasn’t sure. In fact, he wasn’t sure how he would even go about that? Would making a secret door into an underground room in an abandoned building count? Could he even do that? Would it be too noticeable? It certainly seemed like something he’d struggle to hide, at least while he was making it. Should one purchase a building, and then construct something from there? Dylan wasn’t really sure. He hadn’t really had to think about this before. Most Heroes were supplied a place to use a base, often by their agency, or at least had the means to purchase them, although that normally only occurred in bigger cities.
Dylan supposed that he could be considered a vigilante, now, one who had certainly gotten on the wrong side of the law. And he really didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. Fixing his armor was an easy goal. But then what would he do? If he tried to stop crime, somebody would likely be there to stop him. Coriolis wouldn’t be gone forever, that much was certain. And it wouldn’t be feasible to clash with the local heroes every time he tried to help somebody, even if he wasn’t confident that they would probably beat him pretty easily.
At that moment, Dylan felt more demotivated than he ever had before. Shaking his head, he pushed the feeling aside, instead choosing to refocus on his most immediate goal. He could only go one step at a time. There would be plenty of time to figure out what to do next later.
He stepped into his armor, and briefly peeked out the window. Good. The sun was nearly completely set. He’d have a few hours to do what he needed to do, before he had to go home. His mother would not take kindly to not finding him home when she got back later that night.
Being careful of pedestrians, he started off towards the junkyard, slinking through alleys when possible, peeking into streets before crossing them, and taking back roads when he could. Every person who saw him was another person who could call the police. To be honest, staying out of sight and the fact that it was later at night was doing most of the heavy lifting. It was hard to be truly stealthy in power armor.
Dylan managed, however. It took him nearly 45 minutes, but he managed. The junkyard looked about how he remembered it. Last time he was here, he had encountered a guard. Dylan hoped to avoid repeating that experience. He sent his drone up into the sky. Nobody. The need to stay secret was really slowing this whole endeavor down.
He walked around the perimeter, but couldn’t find the hole in the fence he had torn before. They must have fixed it sometime after his last visit. Not willing to waste anymore time, Dylan glanced around, and then tore a new hole, quickly slipping under the gap. The links scraped against his suit, making an audible rasping sound. Dylan cringed, the sound both louder than he’d like, and uncomfortable to the ear. The grating noise only lasted a second, and then he was through.
The piles of trash seemed to loom taller in the darkness. There were a few areas that were dimly lit, mostly by the fence, and some of the lights from the road cast enough light on the whole place to be dimly visible, but it was a far cry from daylight. He wouldn’t have to worry about being blind, but his ability to accurately make out what he was looking at was going to be diminished. Night vision would have been useful. That would be one of the things he’d try to add when he was done with repairing his armor.
The drone was still overhead, following him around, and waiting for him to give it an order. Sometimes he could hear the whir of its propellers. It was a comforting sound, the presence of something else, a feeling that he wasn’t entirely alone.
Dylan walked through the rows of trash, trying to find useful items. Anything that he thought he could use, he directed his drone to grab, and pile up in a certain part of the junkyard. He wasn’t sure where he should make repairs to his equipment? Maybe he should venture out of the city to do it? His house was out, and doing it in that abandoned building seemed like it was a questionable idea at best. Plus, it was quite gross. The only location that Dylan thought would satisfy his criteria would be something far away from town, but he didn’t really have time to go all the way out there tonight. He’d probably have to do everything here, and then put his armor back in the abandoned building. He’d have to look for a better location later.
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At this point, he’d gathered a good amount of components. Dylan figured that he’d probably only need 10 or 20 more minutes of searching before he’d have everything he needed. It was a little easier to find stuff now that he knew what to look for.
The sound of someone laughing startled Dylan, causing him to whirl around. Someone was standing in the darkness, staring right at him.
Shit. Was that one of the guards? He felt a chill run over him. He couldn’t make out much detail, except that the person was tall, and thin. The silence hung thick between them, until the new arrival spoke.
“I fucking knew you’d come here. You couldn’t resist, huh? Not even after all you’ve done.”
Dylan froze. That didn’t seem like something a spotting an intruder would say, especially not one so obviously decked out in power armor. No, it seemed like whoever it was, they were looking for him specifically. He swore in his head. Of course they’d be monitoring a junkyard when one of the supers had power armor. Especially since he kept coming back to the same place over and over. That guard had literally seen him here. Fuck. This wasn’t good.
The figure stepped out into a more illuminated area. Dylan squinted. Whoever it was, they were familiar. It took him a few seconds to recognize the blue outfit. It was Puncher. He felt a little bit of the tension he held drain. At first, he’d thought it was Dynamis. Dylan wasn’t sure that he’d be able to escape with his light if that had been the case. But Puncher? They’d worked together, at least for a little, so there was a decent probability that Dylan could reason with him, or at least make himself a dangerous enough target that Puncher would have to back off. Dylan took a calming breath.
“So, this was a trap, to catch me, huh?”
Puncher paused, and then let out a chuckle.
“Hell no. My boss doesn’t want me anywhere near you. I’m the only hero the city has right now. But I can’t get over what you’ve done. How you used me. What you did to Dynamis. I knew that you’d need to repair your armor, and the police knew that somebody has broken in here a few times over the last couple of weeks. So I figured I might as well keep an eye out. Have them call me if they spotted someone. And lo and behold, it worked.”
Dylan felt conflicted. Was the fact that Puncher was acting by himself a good or a bad thing? Sure, that meant that he likely wouldn’t have police support… unless they found out he was here and had to come. That would be bad. But if he was the only hero in the city right now, then if anything happened to him, the entire city would probably be in trouble. Hopefully, Dylan could leverage that fact to get Puncher to back down. At the same time, the fact that he was here at all, even when he wasn’t supposed to be, meant Puncher was probably pretty passionate about confronting Dylan. He could be completely unreasonable.
He took a step towards the hero.
“So, they promoted you, huh? Congratulations, I guess. You’re the one protecting the city, until Coriolis gets back, or Dynamis recovers, right?”
Puncher didn’t respond. Shit. Dylan knew he wasn’t very good at this. He hadn’t had enough practice to become a smooth talker. He didn’t know what the silence meant. Was Puncher thinking about what he’d said, or was he just ignoring it all? Dylan kept going.
“If something were to happen to you, that’d leave just the police department to defend the city. Kasha, or any other villain, would basically be able to do whatever they wanted until Coriolis got back, right?”
Puncher stretched his arm, taking a step closer to Dylan.
“At first, that was true. But there’s been a development. Hasborough, my boss, was able to call in a hero from another city. She’ll be here in a day or two. And she’s a professional, like Coriolis. So, even if something happens to me, and I don’t catch you tonight, your days are numbered.”
Dylan’s mind blanked. That wasn’t good. At all. In fact, that was really, really, really bad. Dylan had to get out of here. Hell, he should probably hide all of the shit he’d made. He could barely contend with Dynamis. A professional hero would have him behind bars before he could say shit. He frantically looked for the right words, while still trying to figure out how he’d disappear.
“Alright. So then why wouldn’t you wait, then, till she gets here? No use taking the risk, right, leaving the city undefended for a day or two, when somebody who could easily catch me is on the way, right? Plus, you saw what happened to Dynamis. I’m dangerous. I doubt you want to spend the next month in the hospital.”
Puncher actually laughed, this time.
“Yeah, well, I know there's a good chance that you’re going scurry off into the woodwork when she gets here. And there’s a good chance you won’t get caught if you end up hiding like a rat. But now? I have you right here in front of me. I have to take the opportunity. Plus, I just want to catch you. Both for personal reasons, and because it’ll look good on my resume.”
Puncher cocked his head.
“Or whatever equivalent heroes have.”
Well, it seemed like Dylan wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of this one. He understood why, he supposed. That day, when he went to rescue the hostages, nothing Kasha could have said to him would have made him back down. It just felt weird to be on the other side of it, was all. Dylan let the worries about the coming days leave his mind. He needed to be focused. In a sense, this was do or die. If he lost here, it was all over. This was no time to be distracted.
Puncher talked a little bit more, but Dylan was done paying attention. He projected his mind into his drone, and directed to rise. Hopefully, this first move was all it would take.
Puncher glanced over, and saw the drone rising into the sky. He swore, and dove out of the way, just as it fired, causing the projectile to only graze him, sending a brief splash of blood into the air before it buried itself in the ground. Puncher responded immediately, picking up a rock, and hitting it at the drone. It flew through the air like a missile, striking the drone, and causing it to careen away in a wild arc.
Dylan snapped back into his body, and launched himself towards Puncher as fast as he could. He felt the familiar pressure from moving faster than his body was made to handle, as he crossed nearly 20 feet in a second. He wound his leg back, but Puncher had brought his forearms over his torso, shielding himself from Dylan's kick. The hero ended up rolling away, managing to tumble to his feet before Dylan could catch back up.
Puncher ducked Dylans first punch, and responded with a jab that felt like it nearly took his head off. As Dylan stumbled backwards, he was barely able to block the follow up strike that the new hero unleashed.
It was a stark reminder of the difference in their skill. Dylan had been doing this for less than a month, while Puncher had far more experience. Dylan wouldn’t be able to match him at his own game.
The next blow Puncher unleashed, Dylan rolled his torso away from, but otherwise didn’t move out of the way, opting instead to land a punch of his own. Dylan took a step back when the blow landed, all the air knocked out of his lungs. Puncher didn’t fare much better, stumbling back unsteadily.
Dylan certainly had the durability advantage, at the very least. But judging by the sound his suit made when it got hit, it wouldn’t be able to withstand more than maybe or two more blows. And if he lost his suit before Puncher was taken out of commission, he’d automatically lose.
While they both recovered, Dylan tried to check on his drone. It took a second, but he was eventually able to establish a crackly, unstable connection. It seemed that it had been pretty heavily damaged by Puncher's improvised projectile. Dylan swore. He’d have to hold off on using it until he was certain Puncher wouldn’t be able to dodge it or attack it. He didn’t trust it to do much more than get one shot off.
Puncher started towards him again, but this time Dylan didn’t engage. Instead, he stepped backwards, bringing him further out of range, and reached down, grabbing the first heavyish object he saw off of the ground that fit inside his hand.
He picked it up, and whipped his arm towards his opponent. The object, an old stapler, flew through the air with a sharp crack, before striking Puncher on the shoulder and exploding into thousands of little fragments. The super grunted, and temporarily stopped his advance.
Dylan turned and ran, searching for more items to throw, Puncher hot on his heels. He scooped up a rock, and launched that at Puncher as well. The hero tried to duck, but wasn’t fast enough to avoid the rock clipping him on the head, causing him to tumble bonelessly onto the ground.
Dylan stood and caught his breath, all the while directing his drone to start moving into position. Puncher still wasn’t out of it completely, and slowly pushed himself to his feet. Dylan watched wearily, waiting for his opponent to make a move.
Puncher, now on his feet, lowered into a crouch. All of the muscle on his body was visibly tensed. Dylan felt a surge of panic. He remembered that first blow Puncher had landed against Kasha, the one that sounded like a small bomb going off. He thought to run, but he remembered how the hero had swerved in the air, straight towards Kasha, even though the villain had moved out of the attack's original trajectory.
Dylan only had one idea. That might let him get out of this. He ordered his drone to shoot Puncher, while angling his armor straight towards Puncher. The projectile hit the hero, but this time, it shattered into molten hot pieces of metal, seemingly doing no damage.
His main idea foiled, Dylan had only one thing left to rely on. He lept backwards, crossing his arms in front of him before ejecting from his armor at the same time as Puncher launched forwards. Dylan’s torso was the only part that was completely clear when Puncher’s fist connected to his suit. Dylan shielded his face with his arms, hoping that it would be enough.
The impact sounded far louder, this close. A brief burst of noise, then silence, as Dylan's ears seemingly stopped working. Eyes squeezed shut, he felt countless shards of metal scrape his arms, drawing blood as they did so.
He tumbled back onto the ground, free of his armor, and lay there in a daze. Dylan weakly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the huge hole Puncher had left in his armor. What remained of its top half kept the hero obscured, which meant that he shouldn’t have been able to see Dylan either.
Dylan knew he had to act quickly. The last time that Puncher had unleashed a blow like this, he had been unable to move for a few seconds afterwards, having to recover from the strain of unleashing such a mighty attack. He desperately cast his mind into his drone, begging it to have enough in it for one final shot.
He suddenly saw everything that it saw. Puncher’s fist barely touched the hole in the armor, which was smaller in the front. The hero stood, breathing heavily, just like last time. Good. Dylan lined up the drone. He hated to shoot a man in the back, but he was out of options. He sent the command, and waited for the shot.
Nothing happened. Dylan felt a jolt shoot through his spine. What happened? Was it completely broken now? Had it finally given in? His hearing started to come back, and he thought he heard sirens in the distance. Shit, somebody must have heard them fighting, or Puncher had called for backup.
Dylan was almost resigned to his fate when the invention fired, hitting Puncher in the lower back, and causing him to collapse onto the floor. Covering his face with his hand, Dylan turned, and gave one last order to the drone. Hide. If the police try to come after me, though, stop them.
The boy turned, and unsteadily pushed himself to his feet, stumbling to the hole he had retorn into the fence earlier. He moved a lot slower, without the armor, and it felt like an eternity before he reached it. He slid through it, ignoring the scrapes the rough metal scratched into his skin, and stumbled off into the night, as the sounds of sirens got increasingly loud.