“Come on Kevin we have to go!” Keirah whispered.
“Ugh Keirah, it's two in the morning!” Kevin complained.
“Yeah well it's noon in New Washington, so you can go ahead and tell them you are too tired to deal with Megaton’s bomb threat.” Keirah loved to be sarcastic.
Kevin was up the moment. She knew that any mention of a super villain and Kevin would be ready to go, that didn't mean she like teasing him any less.
In the superhero seen Kiera was known as Archon and Kevin was known as Roadrunner.
Archon could teleport, and she was gifted with the greatest healing abilities. She could produce a golden aura to surround her body, and was a powerful telepath. Her telepathy was not so helpful offensively, she could glean thought from people head, but her strength lay in defense, healing the mind and discerning the truth.
This did not mean she was powerless in combat. She carries a stave that is used as a weapon, and with her mastery of the body she could make life difficult at a distance, or impossible with a touch.
Roadrunner’s powers were less complicated but much more effective offensively. He was fast, very fast, his top recorded speed was 80% the speed of light. His dad forbid him from going faster, the potential consequences were too great.
When the Blue Wave hit people received powers based on what they were doing or thinking at the time, but only if there thoughts were strong enough. It lead to anybody who did not think of any real powers could glow blue. With intense training it could be harnessed as a weapon or a defence. However there were some cases of people gaining random powers.
Roadrunner was one of those people. His other power was the ability to use his hands to make simple hard light constructs, like a force field, or he could shoot golden beams of energy. Kevin quickly dressed in his Roadrunner suit. It was primarily black with a five inch wide, gold chevron that started at each shoulder, meeting just below the sternum with two gold “R”s on his chest.
It was in contrast to Acons suit which was gold with a black chevron, whe had no symbol on her chest, however she wore a black cape with a golden border, and in the center of the upper back was a golden caduceus with large wings.
Many people scoffed at their costumes, using imperial colors could be seen as traitorous. It was ironic considering the suits were worn by the children of the Emperor.
Roadrunner felt the fuzzy feeling when his sister wrapped him in her power and teleported. When they landed in New Washington Roadrunner hit the ground running, literally, searching for Megaton’s bomb while Archon searched for Megaton himself. It was how they always worked, one of them would distract the bad guy while the other took care of problems. She found him at city hall.
“Megaton!” She projected her voice.
He turned around, Megaton was huge, standing at 8’5”, and 380lb, he was no joke. Megatons powers were Level D invulnerability, Level D strength, and the ability to turn anything he touched into a combustion device. He was Clad in an all red suit with white gloves and a white mushroom cloud on his chest. He also wore a red centurion helmet. “Archon, so nice to see you, I'm pleased you could join us, the show is just about to start.”
“Where are the bombs Megaton? There is no reason to hurt innocents.” Arcon spoke in a concerned tone, she was trying to see the surface thoughts of Megaton when she felt a powerful telepathic force, the most powerful she had ever felt. She immediately looked for her father The Judge, but she couldn’t find him.
The force disappeared and Archon was hit by a truck. “You should pay attention Archon, otherwise you could miss the show.” Megaton let out a belly full of laughter, which was cut short by the truck suddenly skyrocketing into lower orbit.
Archon didn’t know what was dazed, she could barely focus on healing herself, che had Class E invulnerability, which only helped with things like thrown rocks or manmade explosions, unfortunately getting hit by a flying truck thrown by a crazy demolitionist did not constitute, manmade explosions. Healing herself took much greater focus, and it was hard to focus with a pickup on your forehead.
She was relieved when the truck came off of her, then a weird energy filled her…
+-----+
“Don’t hurt my father!” Keirah said to a strange woman in dark purple robes. She knew this woman as Arcana, she was a sorceress. Suddenly a bookshelf was being hurled at her. Keirah closed her eyes and teleported away, eight feet to her right so she was directly in front of Arcana. As soon as Keirah opened her eyes, another bookshelf was in flight, this time it was too late, she was hit with enough force to break her arm, leg and seven ribs.
She lie there on the ground writhing in pain, trying to heal herself. The bookshelf was eased off of her and Keirah could hear, “No! What have I done!” A strange energy filled her and in a moment she was in perfect health. Kneeling above her was a beautiful woman with violet eyes, staring lovingly at her.
Keirah thought for a moment it was her mother, a tear fell from her eye, but she soon realised it was actually Arcana. She should have been scared, but the love and worry emanating from those eyes made it impossible. “You are the Emperor's daughter?” Arcana asked, Keirah could see that Arcana already knew the answer so she remained silent. “I see we have made a grievous error.”
We? Keirah thought, then she immediately was worried, then she heard Arcana speak though her lips were unmoving. Cole! We must abort this endeavor the Emperor is not the head of the snake, as we thought.”
Another person's voice permeated her mind. “I have drawn the same conclusion, the real head has decided to use our attack to remove the Emperor, we are at his daughter's chambers, but she is not there”
“She is with me, I will come to you.” Arcana looked to Keirah once more, “I have a suspicion you heard all that, do you think you can take me to your room? I would love to see it” Keirah nodded as she took Arcanas hand. Archna had expected to walk, and was startled as her environment changed in an instant.
+-----+
Arcana? The Archon thought, for this was the same energy that had filled her on that day. She sat up quickly and looked around, there was no one besides her a Megaton in front of city hall. She didn't even see the gray pickup that decided to hug her. All she saw was Megaton looking straight up into the sky. She looked up and saw nothing, instead of dwelling on it she took the opportunity to teleport behind Megaton. She touched him and he fell, paralysed from the neck down, she blocked all the nerves relate to the motion of his limbs without affecting his other organs. She immediately teleported him to a bed in a cell, a prison she had built with her father and brother.
The Arcon composed a message to her brother, but she compressed it as a single impulse, it was the only way to communicate to him when he was running so fast. As soon as she sent it she received a response, she opened the compressed message. “Still looking sis, It might take a while, wait a minute, there is a buzzing in my head, it is like when you tried talk to me while i was running before you figured out how to compress messages. I will stop to check it out.”
The Archon paused, the mind she felt earlier could not have been a coincidence. She believed in her brother however and she trusted he would make the right choices.
Roadrunner stopped to listen to the voice trying to talk to him. Go to Conway Park. Readrunner was confused that was one of the first places he checked. It took him a tenth of a second to get there. Phase through into the statue. The statue in conway park was forty feet tall and sat on a podium at about eight feet.
“I cannot phase through the wall!” Yes you can, it is an ancillary power to your speed. Put your power into your body, without speeding up your perception, you can do this while running but let us start with walking. Do not activate your movement, just energise the atoms that make up your body, then walk into the statue. Roadrunner was doubtful but the excitement of this new ability got to him. He followed the strangers instructions carefully and sure enough, it worked.
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Inside the statue was a huge bomb, Road runner reached out to the timer, but his had just passed through it. The timer fizzled and died, defusing the bomb. Roadrunner was surprised but he quickly recovered. Archon I got the bomb, it has been diffused can you teleport it? Roadrunner sent an image to Archon.
Archon teleported inside the statue. “Where are we?”
“Inside the base of Captain Conway”
“How did you get in here?”
Instead of telling her, he just walked out of the pedestal through the wall leaving the bomb and an open mouthed Archon. When he got outside he saw a man in a black trenchcoat, he looked to be slightly younger than his sister, but older than himself. Roadrunner sped his perception up to mach ten and casually walked to the man. The world slowed to a crawl, in fact the only thing that seemed to be noticeably moving were the cars on the superhighway, traveling at twelve hundred miles an hour, they only seemed to be going about a hundred and seventy.
Ones he was in arm's reach of the man, he did something surprising. His head looked straight at Roadrunner, brandished a smile and then the man zipped away.
“What are you gawking at?” Archon asked her comrade.
“The man, the one who helped me, is as fast as I am.”
“Well we have to find him, he has a connection to Arcana. We need to find out who he is and what he knows.” Archon held a scowl. Arcana was a mother to her and her brother, or at least the closest thing they had till she was killed.
+-----+
Ryder did not know how to introduce himself to the world, he had planned to show up and single handedly defeat a supervillain, but it seemed heros had a sort of gentleman's agreement on jurisdiction. And the only ones allowed to break it were teleporters, and even then only on occasion. Though he could teleport, he was terrible at it and would almost never end up where he wanted to be.
He felt oddly satisfied though, teaching that young speedster something new. He wanted to do more like that. He knew no one would come to him to learn if he could not prove himself though. He asked Saul for his thoughts. Saul was 94 if you counted the forty years instead of ten. His entire family was full of wisdom. They loved the pocket dimensions that added time on their lives, but not for powers sake, they only wished to learn and philosophise.
Saul told him “Son with all your knowledge, gadgets, and abilities, people are going to be threatened by you. There is no way you can reveal yourself without stepping on someone's toes. It will get a lot worse before it gets better. Stick to this planet, don't go flying to America, yes I know about your little jaunt. Start small, stop store robberies, and purse snatchers, lower the actual layman crime rate.”
“Your opening to the super crimes will come, but try not to rush it. Remember good judgement comes from experience, and you can gain experience in two ways, bad judgement, or smaller tasks, where the stakes are low.”
Ryder always could count on Saul, and the rest of his family. Each member was an expert on one topic or another, Saul being their jack of all trades. He would go to Gabriel for advice on making friends, Xin for meditation, Alex for finances, Charles for literature, Samantha for art, Terry for cooking, and so on. All of his family played a role, and they knew what their role was. There was only one member of his family, one whom he did not know where her wisdom lay. Her name was Rose, she was a beautiful woman with amber red hair, and emerald green eyes. When he was eight asked her where her specialties lay, she said with a laugh and a smirk that he was far too young for that. When he asked again at sixteen she said, “one day he would need advice on something and it will not fit with anyone else’s path of wisdom, then, you will know to come to me.”
Ryder took that to mean her path of wisdom was the sloth, but he was fine with that. Two weeks into his layman crime fighting spree, he came home to a surprise. His family had came together and made a suit, it was made of frictionless cuben fiber, the color of dark purple velvet, the same color as his mother's robes. The suit looked like a combination of his mother’s robes and his father’s suit of armor. Like medieval space kingdom attire. The chest was armored, silver in color, so were the shoulders.
It was not skin tight, but it definitely wasn't bulky it came with a cape and hood, which would retract when I entered superspeed. There were two separate head pieces, a helmet which looked cool, but the goggles were more my style. The whole thing was designed to be functional and aesthetically pleasing. Jezebel, who loved fashion, and Robert, who was the tech guy, had obviously worked hard on it.
“Guys I, I do not know what to say!”
“Ah, you were never good with thank you words, only actions, and that is enough for us.” Gabriel said.
“Alright Robert I know you are dying to tell me the capabilities, give me the specs.” Ryder was speaking to a man who seemed ready to explode with excitement. He was small man at only 5’5”, but Robert would say that's an advantage when working with technology.
“The armor is made out of duranium, which means it will hold up to almost any kinetic attacks, the belt is fitted with quick access cylinder pouches, with all you could possibly need, from explosives and tactical equipment, to bugs and medical nanites. The four cylinders on the back of the belt are shield generations, the outside two are for groups the inside two are for individuals”
“It also comes with a neural interface, there is a little pain when the system connects, but you should be fine. The goggles are based on your design to work with your enhanced vision, no one else will be able to use them properly though. Finally there are ion plates on the back, hands and feet for advanced flight maneuvers.”
“Well Robert it looks like you thought of everything.” Robert blushed a little, and looked over at Gabriel. “I thought you said he was bad at thank you words.” Gabriel held his hands up with a shrug, like he did not know what happened either.
“You didn't tell him the best part.” Jezebel pouted then with a sultry sway of her hips walked up. Jezebel was a slightly lewd individual. “Why don't you go change, come back, and I’ll show you.” I took the pieces of clothing and the goggles, and reached for the belt. Jezebel was quicker, “ah ah ah, you wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise now would you?”
I took the clothing, and just to tease her I changed right there, but in superspeed, just barely fast enough that nothing could be seen, even with the sped up perception her amulet gave her. “I have a feeling you are gonna make someone very happy.” Rose said, she had a knowing smirk and a mischievous glint in her eye. As usual, Ryder had no idea what she was talking about.
“Mo-ou, teasing like that isn’t very nice.” Why Jezebel used the Japanese word for no was because she found it was cuter, and if anything she strove for cuteness. But she was also an adult, and cute often meant something entirely different for adults. She wrapped her hands around Ryder’s waist,and ever so slowly brought the around, fastening the belt around his waist. “Nanites keep the suit clean, and if you turn the center dial, three times to the left four to the right and two to the left again, then press it inwards.” There was a click and an interface appeared in my goggles, as she this. “You can choose any outfit you want, I designed all of them.”
“Robert, Alexander, and you mom and dad’s AI worked with your discoveries in combining magic and technology for many weeks trying to get this to work.” She stepped away, her provocative attitude was only a game, and Ryder knew that, but it did not make him any less uncomfortable, and she knew that.”
“Wwee hhaadd mmaannyy ttrroouubblleess, iitt wwaass mmeeaanntt ttoo bbee aa ggiifftt ffoorr yyoouurr bbiirrtthhddaayy, bbuutt wwee rraann oovveerr sscchheedduuaall.” Alexander spoke, he took his magical studies really far, and adopted a way of speaking where every word was drawn out to twice its normal length, but still seemed to be the same.
I spun the dial and pressed an outfit, suddenly I was wearing flip flops, white swimming trunks with orange exotic flowers, and a an orange beach towel around my shoulders. My goggles turned into aviator sunglasses, and my belt became just a rope tied together with a bead that was looped through loops on my shorts. Everyone groaned and used their datacomps, Gabriel was the only one grinning.
“Everyone else thought you would pick the outfit you were wearing first, but I knew you would chose the beach wear, the only people that didn’t bet were Saul, because he is Saul, and Jezebel who was secretly hoping I was right but didn't want to put money on it.” Jezebel was eyeing Ryder predatory, Ryder quickly changed his outfit to his prior trenchcoat.
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Alright chapter two is done! I will try to keep pace, at least three chapters a week. Please comment on any mistakes you find. Thanks for reading! ^,..,^