The road had cleared out; Jason was able to go from over just over a hundred weaving through traffic to well past 150 on his path to intercept Clone and the machine; while there wasn't another vehicle on his side of the road other than that truck for over a mile, he could hear a siren in the distance. And spotted a helicopter in the sky. He glanced up at the helicopter as it approached... well, fuck. That wasn't the locals. That was the feds.

Were the feds seriously going to catch him and force a fight before he could take out this damned machine? Did this Apollo character tip them off about him?

Well, fuck that. He pulled the grenade revolver from his left holster, aimed carefully; and the projectile slammed into the helicopter cockpit, sending it almost immediately into an uncontrolled spin. It ended up slamming into the pavement, sending burning debris scattering across the ground... but Jason neatly avoided it, going offroad for a few moments, barely controlling the bumping of the vehicle as he swerved back on.

He would go back and deal with them later. First things first. Putting those clones out of their misery, and destroying a robot.

He was getting closer. Almost within rifle range of the van... when his foresight told him everything was about to go black. He quickly cycled through options.... and with a grimace, dropped off the bike onto the pavement, sending it flipping up into the air... and starting a long slide off the side of the road, tumbling into a set of bushes the size of a small house.

Something flew over the spot where he'd just been... A piece of helicopter debris. Good god, that thing was going fast. Looking forward with a bit of hope... no. Didn't hit the fleeing truck. And his bike... Damnit. His bike was totaled.

As he pulled himself from the brush, he felt himself over. He'd gotten so much friction on his back that it had actually worn into the rifle stock, but it still seemed functional; it'd shoot without a problem. Some of the grenades strapped to his back were now unusable. Some minor bruises... considering he'd only had a few seconds warning to slow down and dive while going over a hundred, this was pretty much miraculous.

He stepped back onto the highway, looking in the direction of the wreckage... and saw him. Spike. Tall, thin. Wearing a black and green armored uniform; mostly armored so that he didn't come out of every fight naked. Looking a bit beat up, covered in soot, his clothes currently on fire. But yeah... that was the -other- Titan the US government had working for it. Currently marching in his direction, looking extremely angry.

Jason cycled through his weapons. EMP, useless. Acid grenades? Useless. Incendiary? Useless. Armor piercing? He wouldn't even flinch. He could nail Spike right in the pupil with the heaviest thing on him and it might as well be a unicorn fart.

Nothing he had could hurt the man. If he was even bruised, it was because he'd deliberately lowered his density to make it easier on the helicopter. And now, on the pavement? No such limitation. This guy could become so hard, so dense, he'd start affecting the tides, or even destroy the planet, if things got bad enough.

He looked around at his surroundings. The nevada desert. Cacti here and there. If this was water, maybe he'd stand a chance; Titan could literally hold his breath indefinitely, but he'd just sink right to the bottom if he were dense enough to be bomb-proof. The sand... would help, a little. But would it help enough?

Jason waved at Spike, a friendly gesture that was drastically out of place, then turned, walking towards his bike; conveniently off on the sand beside the road. If he started running, Spike might start throwing things; like giant chunks of pavement, or boulders. And he could definitely throw things big enough, and fast enough, no amount of prediction would help him dodge.

When he reached the bike, he checked it out. The front wheel was bent out of shape. The frame twisted. There was no way in hell he would catch up to the machine anytime soon.

Standing there in the sand, he thought about how ironic it was that the feds, probably having been desperately looking for him since the moment he killed Lightning, had finally gotten a squad in during a moment that, by interrupting him, they were potentially dooming the world to some sort of robot apocalypse.

He started laughing; the voice synthesizer in his helmet had jarred a bit in the collision and was breaking up the sound, giving it a strange, distorted effect. He could see Spike stepping off into the sand; at first, sinking in down to his knees... before adjusting back up. His next step only sank in to his ankles; he probably had himself set to weigh a ton or so now. There we go. Still not a kill shot. But if he hit the man's eye, it would actually hurt him now. There were possibilities. He might get out of this.

Spike crossed his arms, stopping about a dozen feet away, glaring at him. "And what the hell are you laughing at? That pilot was a good man. The strike team were men and women I'd worked with for years. Even if you hadn't done anything before two minutes ago, you'd get, best case scenario, life in prison for what you just did. Assuming I feel charitable enough to let you live."

Jason looked at the highway, at the van that escaped. "In the truck I just tried to intercept, there are four russians being controlled by soviet-era cyborg implants, with a sentient machine bent on ending the american way of life commanding them, trying to get somewhere secluded so it can build a robot army. I already killed the first one, and about ten seconds after you arrived, I would have ended the threat. Now? He knows he's being actively chased. That, somehow, he was being tracked. He might even think you're after him, as the feds. I suspect any chance of a good ending to this just died with my bike.... he'll probably remove the means we tracked him as soon as he stops."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Spike looked confused for a moment; glancing down the highway. By now, nothing was visible except other military craft, still flying in; identical black helicopters with DMA logos on the sides; likely carrying other metahumans, and other strike teams, just in case Eyeball evaded the one carrying the Titan.

Jason looked at the helicopters. Hmm. His only way out of this.... would be if he were able to stall Spike long enough to hijack one of those and escape. If he got a helicopter, he could probably dodge anything Spike could throw long enough to get away... then ditch the copter, steal a car, and maybe, just maybe, stop the machine.

"Are you expecting me to believe that you've been moonlighting as a hero of some sort, trying to stop threats to national security? You killed Lightning. A personal friend, and the greatest asset we had. I'm scary, sure, but if I were to wipe out China I'd risk wiping us out as well. Lightning could have dismantled every nuke on earth tomorrow. Rumor has it he may have done exactly that already. No. You're either going to die, or you're going to prison. The only options here and now are how badly broken you are when you arrive in a cell."

He'd done this plenty of times before. Charging into an impossible situation, probably going to get killed. Often ending up hospitalized. He might be a bit smarter now than he had been. But... no reason to stop the pattern now, this far into the game.

Right now, to make himself better able to walk on sand, Spike had made himself just solid enough that an AP grenade wouldn't kill him. But maybe, just maybe, he could take out his eyes... which would drastically change this situation. But.... no. In the time between grenade launches, he'd change his density enough only the first one would really hurt.

Still.

Jason abruptly yanked his rifle down off of his back, the grenade revolver out of his holster, and fired them both; one fractions of a second before the other; before starting to sprint away.

The first one impacted Spike's left eye; the terrible shock designed to penetrate the armor of a light tank merely rupturing the tiny orb, as the second, fired from the revolver and traveling just a bit slower, splattered uselessly off of his face.

Spike sank several more feet into the sand, screaming in pain and rage as he clutched the bloodied left eye... and turned, glaring at Jason. "You goddamned little bitch!"

Jason was running; cycling the foam grenade into place on the revolver, and when Spike leapt up out of the hole in the sand like a living projectile, with more force than any human should be able to give off, he smashed into the grenade... and when he landed beside Jason, he was covered in foam, rapidly expanding, spreading across his body, giving Jason a few more precious seconds to...

He felt it. The sand shifted. A sudden sense of vertigo. For just a moment, in mid-leap, Spike had increased his density so far that, here, his gravity had exceeded that of the earth. There was nothing Jason could do. No options that sent him anywhere else.

As the effect ended, Spike resuming a more normal mass, Jason could see the helicopters struggling to stay in the sky, the massive shifting of the sand as dunes had collapsed, the clouds, the road... if this had been in a city, that few moments would've killed millions of people. For Jason, though... he'd just slammed into Spike, and was now buried in the foam he himself had launched, just a few minutes before. Firmly glued to the strongest living meta, in arm's reach...

The only options he could see right now ended in his own death. He... was fucked. He could only really move one arm, even. Now that the shock was wearing off, he could feel just how badly that roll off the bike had effected him. He sighed. "Okay google. Text Clone. I'm gonna be in federal custody for a few, but don't worry, I'll be out soon enough. Get operations started, I'll be up to run things when I can. Send message. Wipe helmet."

As Spike pried the helmet off of Jason's head, he could see the distorted screens displaying the 'Erasing content' message, as Spike tossed the helmet away. "Titanslayer, huh. Looks like that was just a one-time title. Good."

***

"This is Tina Lamarc from Headline news! Breaking news from Las Vegas, the supervillain known as Eyeball, or Titanslayer, after his recent killing of the hero known as Lightning, was finally brought to justice today. A strike team led by the metahuman Titan known as Spike apprehended him attempting to flee the city earlier today. Shortly after the takedown, when reporters arrived at the scene of the incident, Spike had this to say."

An image appeared, of Spike. Tall black hair that he'd often kept gel in the past now partially burned off. dried blood on his face, wearing an eye-patch. "While a criminal can get lucky, now and again, he always gets caught. He -always- gets caught. This one will be spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison. Without his equipment he's a non-threat; his real name is Jason Bennet, a former soldier whose brutal and unprovoked assault on a police officer was only the beginning of what I'm sure will prove to be a long string of mindlessly aggressive crimes we will discover he has committed. His only metahuman ability; a short-range ESP; was apparently put to use in determining the best place to shoot his victims. A tragic misuse of a power that might have allowed him to serve our country searching for terrorists."

"How many agents were lost in the incident?"

"We will be relaying the circumstances of the agents lost to their families before releasing any information in that regard to the public."

The image returned to Tina. "You heard it here first, folks; the Titanslayer has slain his last Titan."

***

The men and women at the table had been staring at the screen. Ripper leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "Jesus christ. Did you see Spike's face? He looks like he's been through hell. I think Eyeball almost notched a second Titan on his kill count there."

Emerald shook her head. "I have to admit, I thought Lightning was a fluke, luck. But... after seeing that video, I'd be a bit wary of going after Eyeball unless I were at least as strong as Spike. How long do you think til he's out of prison?"

Ripper laughed. "I don't think he ever makes it to prison. Either they kill him, or he escapes before he's found guilty."

Nicky glanced at Ripper. "Oh really. And what makes you so sure of that?"

"Well. Tell you what. I'll bring him a lockpick and a knife once they've got him settled in place. I'll bet you ten million dollars he'll be a free man with nobody knowing where the hell he is by the end of the day."

Nicky looked thoughtful... and shook his head. "As much confidence as I have in Eyeball's abilities, I'll have to take that bet. The kind of security they'll have around him... it'd take an army to get him free. There's no way in hell he could escape on his own."