Since Arsenal started running, she hadn’t had a moment to catch her breath. Lock was the fastest super she’d ever been up against, by far. Sure, there had been others with fast reflexes or short bursts of speed, but Lock was relentless. He was moving at freakish speed and he wasn’t getting tired.
Something had to change, or he could catch her eventually—whether she slipped up or her power finally gave out.
Arsenal slipped into an abandoned store through a crack in the wall. The building looked like it had already seen more than its fair share of superhero battles. The windows were all gone, there were plenty of holes in the outer walls, and the interior walls were little more than framing.
Lock crashed through the wall a breath later. Arsenal ducked and twisted through gaps in the studs, narrowly avoiding him. The wood was little more than toothpicks against him. Arsenal had learned early on not to rely too heavily on obstacles against Lock—nothing stopped him. Some of the reinforced support pillars would slow him down, but the best she could hope for was to obscure his line of sight. While they were in buildings, the Menagerie couldn’t use multiple lines of sight, so it actually worked… somewhat.
The problem was, Lock’s other senses were too good to fool. Between his heightened sense of hearing and sense of smell, he could probably find her even if he was completely blind.
This all culminated in Arsenal bouncing around the interior of the building like a ping-pong ball while Lock clawed at her heels.
Text appeared in Arsenal’s HUD. She could barely spare a glance to read it.
Mod has a plan, but we can’t say it out loud. Follow my instructions. He’ll cover you.
Arsenal’s stomach dropped. She had forgotten about that part… If Ichabod could hear their comms, then Lock probably could. And that meant the Menagerie could, too.
She didn’t have much of a choice, but she did have questions:
If Mod wasn’t talking, how the hell was he talking to TINA?
And since when did Mod have a plan instead of her—
A highlighted route appeared in Arsenal’s display. Arsenal followed it.
She rocketed through the wall, taking chunks of it with her. Lock crashed through a moment later, taking the rest of it with him.
Mod was across the block, standing amidst the wreckage of twenty-plus biomechs. Some of it was still smoking. It was an impressive sight. For a second, Arsenal thought they might actually have a chance at getting out of this.
Then she remembered the Class 4 threat clawing at her heels.
Mod shouted, “Arsenal, over here!”
She rolled her eyes. There was no way Lock and the Menagerie would fall for that. Hopefully, Mod had a better plan than just fighting Lock outright. There was no way that would go well.
As Arsenal and Lock sprinted across the block, Mod raised his fusion rifle.
Kinetic shots flew over her shoulder and past her hip. She heard the dull thuds of impact as they hit her pursuer, then Lock crashed to the pavement and skidded to a stop.
Too close, was all Arsenal could think.
Arsenal flared her power and banked across the street. Her momentum carried her wide, and the thrust kicked up dust across the block.
TINA marked a wide path in her display that swept across the rooftops and would ultimately end at the Summit psychic. Kairon had taken cover on the roof, so there was no hope of Mod shooting him from the street. Kairon was like a Wi-fi router for the Menagerie. If they could take him out, then the other capes should regain control again.
Arsenal sailed upward, directly toward the rooftops.
Summit capes hurled attacks at her—fire, ice, magic, and beams of energy. Arsenal wove through the maelstrom, using her full-body thrusters to slip out of the way without losing speed. But even with her maneuverability, it felt like threading a needle while trying to swim upstream.
More kinetic shots. Mod’s aim followed her, charting the path in her display. He picked off three supers on the nearest building, then another super on the next building. If Arsenal had more time, she would’ve winced at the impacts—those capes would live, but Arsenal knew first-hand how powerful those kinetic shots were. They wouldn’t walk that off anytime soon.
There were still seven or eight capes left shooting at her, but Arsenal no longer felt like she was threading a needle.
Mod’s shots abruptly stopped—
At the same time, Lock roared.
Arsenal didn’t have time to look back. She knew Lock wouldn’t stay down long. Mod had punched a hole in their formation, and she needed to capitalize on it.
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Arsenal jetted up to the first roof in her wide arc. She stayed low, using the rooftops and the capes as cover. Now they were in each other’s way and only so many could shoot at her at once. She rocketed forward, not bothering to fully stop or engage. Speed was a necessity—
As much for her as it was for Mod down on the street.
The sound of battle rose from below—thuds, crunches, and, more than once, pained cries. None of them from Lock.
She had to hurry. She had to focus.
Arsenal skidded low across the roof, taking a mage off their feet. A pyromancer reached out to melt her, but she turned her thrusters and blasted him across the roof.
Onward, she threaded through a hail of ice and dodged bricks thrown by a telekinetic. Arsenal knocked the ice super off their feet, then turned to face a new threat—
A cape with super strength leapt from the far roof and was about to come down on top of her. But kinetic shots rang out from below, pummeling and disorienting the super. Arsenal jetted out of the way and continued forward.
More shots—this time from the other rooftops. Capes were shooting at one another.
Text in Arsenal’s HUD:
McGuire and Cherry are okay!
The old gang was here and helping her out. Arsenal grinned as she flew even faster.
She raced across the rooftops like a falling staff. More capes fell just in front of her wake thanks to Cherry’s blasts and McGuire’s stink bombs.
There was one last rooftop between her and the psychic. Kairon’s eyes were wide. A mage and a fire telekinetic stood between them. They stopped firing and threw themselves into Arsenal’s way. She spun around them, barely slowing, and continued right toward the psychic.
~ ~
Arsenal and Lock barreled toward Mod. The pair were a blur as they grew large in Mod’s vision. That was what Class 3 and Class 4 speeds looked like.
Mod leveled his rifle at his former roommate. The world slowed.
Before his augmentations, he never could’ve hit someone moving that fast. Much less fired around a teammate. Now, Mod didn’t miss.
A half second ticked by—a shot knocked away Lock’s hand as he reached for Arsenal. A second hit his face, blinding him for a moment. The followup shot hit Lock’s foot, causing him to misstep. He tripped, fell, and skidded across the pavement.
Arsenal flew by, arching around toward the rooftops. TINA was coordinating them both. In Mod’s HUD, he saw both Arsenal’s route and highlighted enemies. Some of the capes would be easier for Arsenal to avoid than others, so Mod took out priority targets, firing quickly and hitting them center mass. The kinetic shots from his rifle shouldn’t kill or cripple anyone, but it was enough to interrupt the control of the Menagerie.
Those capes would be in pain, for sure, but hopefully they’d be thankful not to be mind controlled anymore after all this.
A half second had passed. Lock clambered to a crouch and stared Mod down. Lock’s body was already changing. His claws grew. His skin hardens into bone plates and scales, and beneath it all, his muscles rippled with inhuman power.
“How do you think this is going to end?” Lock sneered. It might’ve been Mod’s imagination, but it wasn’t just Lock’s voice that came out. “You think you can beat all of us?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mod saw a pellet sail through the air and land across the street—near where Athena was already surrounded by smoke. There was a poof followed by the sound of a long, wet fart as green smoke billowed out. Athena started hacking a moment later.
McGuire’s doing.
Mod suppressed a smirk. For a moment, it was just him and Lock. His odds weren’t great, but they were a hell of a lot better than the last time they fought.
Mod left his rifle at his side, then pulled out his bo staff. “I don’t have to beat you. I just have to stop you.”
Lock roared and lunged forward, his claws tearing chunks out of the concrete.
It would only take a few more seconds for Arsenal to reach the psychic and break the Menagerie’s link. But seconds were an eternity between Class 4 supers.
Lock swung, bone claws slashing through the air. Mod knew it was coming—he felt like he could read every movement Lock made even before he made it. It didn’t help Mod feel better, though. Lock’s reach was so massive it felt like he could’ve reached Mod from across the block and his speed was still deadly.
Mod had one advantage, but Lock had all the others.
Mod had to capitalize on that one advantage.
He ducked under Lock’s swing and countered with one of his own. Mod cracked his staff against Lock’s elbow. He doubted it was enough to even break Lock’s armored plating, but it would be enough to knock his friend even more off balance.
Mod slipped the next few strikes just easily. Despite Lock’s strength and speed, he was still in a human body—he still moved in a human way. Mod didn’t have that limitation. He contorted around Lock’s strikes, his prosthetic arms bending backward to strike when he wouldn’t have been able to before.
Mod danced through the wreckage, using his superior maneuverability to twist around biomech wreckage and use it for cover. The air hissed as claws passed by. Errant strikes sliced through steel and took chunks out of the street.
Lock’s attacks turned into a flurry. Mod slipped some and tried to bat away others. Some of Lock’s strikes were so powerful that when Mod tried to block them, all he did was push himself out of the way. He quickly incorporated that into his strategy, which only seemed to make his friend madder.
There was something else, too. For all of Lock’s ferocity, he seemed to hesitate. Mod knew how fast Lock was. Mod probably knew Lock’s capabilities even better than his friend did. That first fight felt like it was seared into Mod’s brain, and for good reason—Lock was one of the most powerful and dangerous opponents he’d ever faced.
He thought back to that first fight at the bottom of Gnosis, and as the milliseconds dragged on, Mod only became more certain—
This wasn’t the same Lock.
This time, Lock’s muscles flexed a millisecond longer. His sneers and snarls betrayed him. He didn’t feint. It felt like he didn’t use any strategy at all—
He almost didn’t need to.
Three times, Lock’s claws connected, gouging into his outer layer of nanites.
Too close, Mod thought.
His muscles felt great, and he didn’t feel winded in the slightest, but all it took was one misstep. Then it would be over.
Lock dove toward him. Mod coated his feet in nanites, then lashed his whip to the ground. He feinted and pulled himself in another direction. Lock sailed past and through the outer wall of a building.
It bought Mod a few fractions of a second.
Athena’s coughing had stopped. She’d finally wandered out of the green stink cloud, and was glaring up at the rooftops. Her face was wet with tears and spit, and her whole body trembled.
Mod followed her gaze—she was looking right at Arsenal and the psychic.
At Arsenal.
It felt like time had stopped.
Rubble shifted—the sound of Lock already coming back through the wall.
Mod turned. Athena’s hand was already raised. Already conjuring a barrier.
Mod dropped his staff and raised his rifle.
“MOD DON’T!”
He felt the message even before TINA’s voice filled his ears. Before her words filled his HUD. Mod barely registered them in time. His finger hovered over the trigger—
He didn’t fire.
Mod turned back toward the rooftop in time to see a blue forcefield blossom. It
was centered on the psychic, Kairon. And it cut him in half from head to hip.
~ ~ ~