A four hundred meter long, emerald-class container ship Eternal Sunshine, operated by a Russian shipping company Vladivostok-Maine appeared in the sky above the little town of Saint Mary. The normally sea-bound ship didn’t have very long to contemplate its fate as it plummeted down onto the town from ten thousand meters in the air at nine meters per second, flipping to the side and releasing a rain of twenty thousand shipping containers.

It was quite lucky that the Catastrophe-barrier shield was still active. The shield caught the rain of containers with its embrace. The containers bounced with horrid booms, warping and bending and smashing against each other as they fell. Eternal Sunshine slammed into the barrier shield after the containers, two hundred thousand metric tons of steel impacting into the Catastrophe-barrier, making it buckle and ripple with arrays of colors.

“Why the shit does this tiny ass town have a Barrier shield?! It's not an Acadian citadel like New Toronto!” Magnetron growled. He stood on the bridge of his Soviet fishing trawler base ship Magnitogorsk-Central along with a hit team of thirty villains under his command. He held Magnitogorsk in the air with his power. One member of his team had teleported it here along with Eternal Sunshine.

A techie drew his attention with a yell.

Something was pinging on the radar. Magnetron turned his head and saw a Yakuza submarine floating in the air a few thousand meters to his right, held aloft by electromagnetic engines. A small nuclear warhead rocket flew from the submarine, detonating against the Catastrophe-barrier shield. It vaporized half of the shipping containers in a blinding, fiery explosion.

"The damned Japs are after our contract!" Magnetron growled.

He focused on his power trying to redirect a flying container at the submarine. The submarine shot the incoming container with laser gunfire.

"Multiple incoming targets!" The techie yelled.

Magnetron swore. He saw a variety of weaponized mundane transit and actual war machines flashing into existence all around, all attempting to take down the same shield, to destroy the tiny town with gunfire, rayguns, sonic weapons and even giant rocks.

A 400 tonne Komatsu 2290Z giant haul truck full of rocks stood on the ground. A small man in a silver suit picked up enormous rocks from the back, flinging them into the shield.

A 16 tons, CH-53 NUSA Super Stallion helicopter wielding a a155mm howitzer buzzed down from the clouds to pummel at the shield.

A Ruskadian Lun-class 100 tonne ekranoplan flew from the direction of lake Eerie, launching several surface to air missiles at the shield.

It seemed that numerous villain groups were all after the contract on Alexa and all had the same idea of attacking the town from afar.

The shield held on.

It didn't take a very long time for the supervillains to turn against each other with righteous fury.

Magnetron screamed as a giant rock punched right through the bridge of his ship, turning four of his men into pulp in seconds. He could stop metal rockets or bullets, but not boulders or lasers.

"Tally ho, chavs. This contract is mine!" A jolly, British voice came into existence on the bridge of Magnitogorsk. “I see you’ve partaken in redecoration. Say, that’s a rather nice boulder!”

Magnetron recognized that voice! It was Lord Burgundy, a famous headhunter.

Burgundy teleported right into the bridge, standing atop the boulder, wielding a musket. The musket turned towards Magnetron's head.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Bugger off, Burgundy!" Magnetron yelled as the musket fired. "This is my contract!"

The steel balls fired by the musket froze right in front of Magnetron's face as he applied his power to them.

Another boulder punched straight through Magnitogorsk, turning the ship sideways.

"Did you hear the good news, Maggie? They shut down Tartarus due to that bigly explosion!" The British hunter reloaded his rifle. "Anything goes!"

Magnetron was pissed. The damn boulder had taken his teleporter man. He wouldn't be getting away from this place. He flung several containers in the direction of the Polish truck that was bothering him with rocks.

"Bet I'm going to get her first! Tallyho!" Lord Burgundy vanished just as several Russian supers shot the spot where he stood, managing to damage the bridge even further.

"You fucking imbeciles! Useless!" Magnetron yelled.

Enraged, he took control of dozens of shipping containers, making a sphere out of them around his ship, straining his power. A few missiles from the ekranoplan struck against the containers, shrapnel raining all over his ship.

A laser ray suddenly fired from a pink, flying minivan, cutting Magnitogorsk-Central in half, going straight through the ship as if it was made of butter. Two more of Magnetron's men died, divided by the ray.

The Russian supervillain screamed, struggling to hold his ship together as one piece.

. . .

Mr. Canard stood on the street, watching the shield buckle under attacks of multiple supers. He didn't think he would have to fight villains so soon, but here he was, directing people out of the streets into doomsday shelters beneath the hero-owned businesses. He didn't know how long the shield would hold. For some reason the heroes weren't showing up. Maybe they were pissed off at Alexa and chose not to protect the town anymore.

. . .

The cathedral’s stained glass windows shook as powerful wind swept across town created by the wobbling shield overhead. Sounds of explosions resounded in the distance.

“Uh? What’s going on?” Martin perked up, listening to distant gunfire.

[Not much. Just some villains duking it out,] Alexa shrugged, stretching her legs onto him. [Everybody wants a piece of me these days! I’m popular. We should be fine, unless they got a very specific shield-busting...]

A screeching explosion resounded from overhead as a SUSA shield buster bomb dropped from a giant bomber plane that joined in the fray.

“Yeehaw! Get her, boys!” A Texan villain yelled from the bomber plane, waving a cowboy hat at the constantly increasing gathering of angry villains.

The catastrophe shield shimmered and shattered, as the anti-shield bomb did its job.

“Yes! Finally!” Magnetron flung a few containers at the gothic cathedral in the center of town where he knew Alexa's base was located thanks to the exceptionally overpriced information he purchased from darknet.

A new, blue shield suddenly came into being, growing outwards from the cathedral. The container along with a few rocks immediately bounced off the new shield. A ray of light shot out from the central spire up into the sky. The ray unfolded into an enormous hologram of Alexa.

“Sup, fellow villains?” She grinned. “Thanks for coming to my Hero Academy acceptance party! I know you’re all excited to be here, but do be careful in vaporizing my mundane citizens and minions. They’ve very fragile, unlike me. Also there’s about a gazillion super-designed hydrogen bombs buried in town, so try not to aim for the ground.” Alexa held up a metal nuclear bomb suitcase. “See? Just like this one.”

Magnetron froze.

Was the girl lying? Was she really capable enough to make that big of a kill switch?

Alexa brought Cottie into the holo-projection.

“Here’s an Equalizer. She’s been assigned to watch me because I have way too many bombs for reasonability! You know these guys don’t dick around. Tell them exactly how many bombs I have buried around town, will you Miss Enforcer?”

“I am Verse 24-19. Alexa has eighteen quintillion thermonuclear bombs buried around town,” Cottie spoke without an expression on her face, a silver Equality pin glittering on her gray lapel. "If she dies, they will detonate and kill all of you. All villain and heroes targeting this town will be hunted down by the Order of Equality for the violation of the Accord."

"Check her credentials!" Magnetron barked to his techie. "Make sure it's not a random teenage girl cosplaying an Equa..."

"Facial recognition confirms it. This is Enforcer Verse 24-19! Darknet data confirms it too, she's the Equalizer assigned to monitor the town of Saint Mary by Eminence Equality!" The villain tech read quickly, interrupting her boss.

“Fuck me,” Magnetron choked.

He felt that he was losing control of the situation.

For a brief, tense moment, the gunfire from all of the villain vehicles ceased.

"Those of you who bought 3D-o data from darknet about my powers, weaknesses and secret base location, thanks a lot," Alexa said with a grin. "I'm afraid there will be no refunds."

Magnetron's knuckles turned white.

This was a setup, a honeypot operation and he fell for it like an idiot in a desperate bid to recoup his S-credit losses!