I propped Blaine up against the far wall of the break room then ran back to lock the door. "That's not going to work," he said, barely loud enough for me to hear across the room. Hell, it would've been quiet in a monastery. I took a seat at the single, round table in the center of the room and tried my best to slow my breathing. I knew the door wouldn't hold for long. We needed a way out. In the corner of the room was a mop and bucket, nothing that would stand up to that psychic armor. Materialized imagination. Complete bullshit. And no way for Blaine's mind-control to get to him with that helmet.
"Why'd you come back?" Blaine wheezed with every syllable, confirming the broken ribs theory. But he still asked, knowing how much pain every word caused as he uttered them. One of his arms held his side as he spoke. His ceramic mask was cracked and parts of it had already fallen off so I could see his bruised and swelling cheek. There was blood on his shirt and coat though I couldn't tell where the blood was coming from.
I looked at my left arm, still hanging at my side and throbbing with pain. "Because you're an asshole." I paused and shook my head. "Why do you think I came back." I stared at the floor. I really should've just ran away. Now I was stuck hiding in the break room with a half-assed supervillain and the cops would probably be charging me with aiding and abetting if I got the chance to get out of here without being killed by the possible sociopath that the League sent. All because of Blaine. Would a friend force you to break your own arm? Would a friend put you in a possible life or death situation? Would a friend rob a bank you work at without telling you to at least take the day off?
Blaine reached up, slowly, and took off the mask. Underneath, his face looked a lot worse than I thought: a mass of swelling and bruising and bleeding. That Red Armor guy had turned his face into a Picasso painting.
But he was smiling. That fucking asshole. Reluctantly, I smiled back.
"Come on out, little piggy's." One knock. Two knocks. The third felt like it shattered my eardrums as the sound echoed throughout the room. The force of it shook the shoddy cabinets and even shifted the table a couple inches. Have you ever felt shock? That moment when everything stands still and your body and brain aren't even sure what to comprehend, can't seem to figure out what just happened? Because I think that 's how the door must've felt. Hell, from the sound alone, I thought the door was going to fall off its hinges. Instead, it just stood there, steady. For about two seconds. Then it exploded. Splinters spread like shrapnel across the room: lodging into the cupboards, the table, and three in my legs and roughly a dozen in my arms.
There he was, standing where the door just was a couple seconds ago. A thin red line ran across his forehead and down the side of his face and his red coat was slightly singed and ruffled. Pretty good for just getting blasted across the bank lobby with a bolt of lightning. "So, you fuckers think that was funny, huh." He cracked his knuckles and started forward.
I fell off the chair and crawled on my ass back to the wall where I had leaned Blaine. I was up against the wall now, literally, praying that I might be able to just slide into it and disappear - either into the wall or even through it. Last resort time, I thought as I saw the red gauntlet start to materialize around his fist and forearm. "I think we all know that you've got us beat so let's just call the cops in here and we'll surrender." Better jail than dead, after all.
He let out a laugh and brought his right arm back. I looked over at Blaine. He was either pretending to be asleep or he was unconscious. "Actually, I don't think anyone's gonna mind if we have a little fun together first." The red knuckleduster formed, perfectly as before, and he swung.
Even as I threw my hands in front of my face out of fear (as if that would protect me from something that could vaporize a door) I couldn't take my eyes off of the gleaming red, shinning bright and bathing the room in the same glow. And, as I stared, my eyes began to burn. No, not my eyes, but that area just behind your eyes. A searing pain, like a migraine on steroids, traveling, no blazing like an avalanche of fire across the rest of my skull, my brain. I tried to shut my eyes, thinking it would help, but I couldn't get them to close. No, looking back, I think I just didn't want to close them, not with his fist so close. And just as it approached my outstretched hands, it appeared.
It was red, too. The same tone and tint, identical. It was small, square, about the size of a quarter. Yet I couldn't see any of this from the other side of my hands, but I could feel it, sense it, just on the other side of my palms. Another wave of pain scorched my skull and the red square grew, doubled, tripled. It continued until it was twice the size of my hand.
Then the fist connected. And it stopped.
The fist - covered in the epitome of what every gauntlet dreams of growing up to be from the time the iron is first poured until the blacksmith pounds in the final details, that same gauntlet imagined into reality by a Super who could create weapons from merely his psychic thoughts - collided with the red square - a red tile stolen right out of a checkerboard or from the toy store's colorfully-patterned floor, manifested through some unknown, almost deus ex machina means, while a scalding wave of pain burned over my brain - and it stopped.
I stared at the two red objects, the gauntlet and the tile, frozen in the air. The gauntlet didn't advance and the tile didn't give an inch. I exhaled a little, but didn't dare drop the hands in front of my face. Red Coat's eyes were wide. Psychic armor was notoriously hard to stop. Strength only played a small factor in its power, the rest coming from its user's mental will and desire.
His eyes narrowed and he released a roar that made me cringe, a roar that I would hear in my nightmares for the next month. Obviously he was mentally focused on crushing me. He strained his fist forward and I watched tiny fissures crack into the tile.
I screamed. Not a yell or a shout of surprise. No, I'm not proud of it, but there's definitely no use lying about what it was. And as my voice hit notes I thought I'd lost after puberty, the space in front of me erupted.
No heat or fire, just pure, concussive force. Tears ripped through the plaster walls like a chainsaw through thread. The glass cabinets exploded, raining shards everywhere. Though the force of the blast should've been enough to fly me through the wall, most of the energy went into a psychic wave that curled me into a ball on the ground, withering in pain as a brush fire engulfed my mind. Imagine the throbbing, constant pain of the worst migraine you've ever had. Introduce him to a ladle-full of wasabi and that scorching sensation she delivers as she moves from your mouth, through your nose, and eventually up behind your eyes. Now supervillain-style meld the two beings into a single creature with all of their abilities and none of the weaknesses and bathe it in a vat of radioactive goo until its power level increases so far that the overdose of Tylenol would not only kill you but you'll be the only person in the afterlife still asking God if he's got an aspirin. So yeah, I screamed again. Don't judge me.
In a minute, the pain eased up just enough that I could open my eyes to a squint. Red Coat was already on all fours, panting, but starting to rise to his feet. I tried to move and instead felt like I was going to puke. I heard grunting. I coughed, phlegmy. I heard the sound of boots scuffing the floor. I rolled on the floor trying to stand, like an eighteen-year-old at his first college binge trying to right himself, and something stabbed me in the thigh. By the time I finally got to a seated position against the wall again Red Coat already managed to get to his feet and was standing over me.
"I don't know what the fuck just happened, but I'm gonna beat you til my head stops pounding." With one hand, he grabbed my chin and steadied my head. The other hand reared back. His eyes tightened and the thin line of blood from his nose darkened slightly as he concentrated on what I assumed was the last of his energy into his fist. The red light of his psychic helmet flickered and dulled slightly as he focused more on the gauntlet. A faint red glow enveloped his hand. Unrefined, it looked more like he had pulled his hand out of a big blob of red Jell-O. In my daze, I reached into my pocket to find the source of the stabbings. Inside I felt tiny pieces of glass and some sort of grainy powder, like sand but slightly finer. My vision blurred slightly as I started to lean. I remembered Blaine, still against the wall next to near me, probably waiting and waiting for an opening to use his mind control once his helmet faltered. Red Coat yanked me back upright before I hit the ground. The sudden jerk sent another stabbing pain in my leg and I smiled. His fist flew forward.
I smiled wider. "Fuck you." I pulled my hand from my pocket and flung the mixture of glass and black pepper into his face. It was enough. His fist stopped and the glowing red light surrounding his hand and head disappeared as he let out a series of sneezes.
My vision blurred again and I started to slide to the floor but I didn't care. I only wish that I had said something more clever than just Fuck you. I'll work on that later. "Now, get him Blaine!" I shouted. Just before I blacked out, I managed to turn just slightly and saw Blaine sitting on the floor against the wall. He was unconscious.
As promised, part 6 of The Sovereignty within the week. Sorry, its a little longer than I would normally like these parts to be but, as you read, there really wasn't a part that I felt comfortable stopping at and leaving the rest for part 7 (I'm still not sure if they actually count as chapters so I'm not going to call them that). Besides, this finishes all that I have written and actually planned for the story. It has a lot more potential (I think, anyways) but I'm not sure yet how to continue the story. I've got a couple directions to go, but I've also got other stories I'd rather be working on. I will also have another post hopefully within a week as well (as I promised last time, the new format calls for a, non-fiction-story post).
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