2002
"FOOLS! TREMBLE BEFORE DIRE!"
My voice echoed through the hills. It was thunder, it was an unrelenting assault upon all surrounding eardrums, it was the voice of a god of the ancient eras, harsh and unforgiving and full of thou shalt nots and smiting. It was everything I had designed it for, at the specific decibel levels necessary to skip past the conscious minds of those listening to it, and alert any and all sane subconsciousnesses present that here there be dragons.
And the young team of heroes in front of me all felt the effects, showing it to various degrees.
I surveyed them as they hesitated, as they realized just what they had gotten themselves into.
The one on the left was a slip of a woman. Native american, and her black costume had a few white tribal symbols and references, with some modern accessories to boot. Those were night-vision goggles on her forehead, and the bandolier of grenades draped over her shoulder didn't seem too much like traditional tribal weaponry. I set a diagnostic program clicking away on the grenades as I turned my attention to the man to her right.
Big, muscular, a costume that revealed most of his chest. Dark brown skin and white flaring eyes as he considered me. Too big, too muscular for the average human frame. A powerhouse, most certainly.
To the right of him was another american indian, this one male. His clothes bore no tribal signs. He was wearing a raincoat over some soaked casual clothes, and water streamed down him constantly to pool at his feet. He'd made his entrance by bursting from the ground in a geyser-like jet, sending mud and water flying all around the area. An elementalist, water subtype.
The last was wearing simple white clothes, a tunic and leggings with arm and shinguards. She was tanned and carrying a metal fighting staff. I saw no obvious indicators to her powers.
My diagnostic chimed, and fed me information on the grenades in blacksuit's bandolier. Flashbang, flashbang, smoke, smoke... Every one was nonlethal. Good. My respect for the team went up a notch. I flicked the diagnostic away with a blink, and muttered a few subvocal commands to send a few search engines to work on the team.
All of that took perhaps ten seconds, or less.
Never underestimate the value of fear, properly applied. It gives you time to work.
As they recovered, I found myself musing on what they saw, how things looked from their point of view.
Oh, I'd been on the news many times before, and the Metahuman Response Bureau had some quite good stills of me if they'd bothered to do the research. But it's one thing to see a recording or photograph, and another thing entirely to be fifty-five point four feet away from my armored bulk.
Even without the voice they would have been frightened... As well they should be. I was an imposing figure!
My power armor was dull gray, battleship gray, with slightly shinier patches around the joints where the titanium gleamed through the paint due to wear and tear. It added a meter to my height, topping me out at a towering nine feet tall when suited up. Armor plating over servos and circuitry, layers of composite titanium and tempered ceramic plates, with no obvious vulnerabilities or weak points. A cowled cloak draped over my back and shoulders, red as blood and fluttering in the wind of the hillside. Fastened with breakaway ties at my neck, it would tear far before it would tangle. I'd learned my lesson years ago.
My face beneath the cowl was a mask of white. Porcelain white, with hollow black eye sockets that could light up to a hellish, searing red as the mood struck me. It much resembled the face of an ancient greek muse, smiling a small,
subtle smile at something only it could see.
Currently, my boots were flickering with a reddish glow as the magnetic repulsors set into my lower frame held me a foot above the muddy ground. I stood at the apex of the hill, between the super team and a vast array of pipes, gears, and engines that had been sunk into the hillside. They were churning away at the ground as two large tesla coils hissed and snapped with energy. Every thirty seconds or so the ground shook, and deep rumbles suggested that something apocalyptic was about to happen.
It had been a real trick smuggling all the parts into Yellowstone's woodlands truckload by truckload, shipping them out from Billings, arranging bribes, concealing the planeloads of cargo, and assembling the whole lot myself. No infrastructure out here to keep robots charged, and I was between minions at the minute. So the job had taken the better part of four weeks, four nailbiting weeks where I'd had to throw camoflage tarps over the whole lot every time some damned joyrider in a light plane buzzed through, or put on a ranger outfit to go warn people about active bears and detour them away whenever a pack of idiot hikers threatened to come up the long-forgotten logging road.
We were out in the boonies, the part of the park well off the tourist trail. God's country, called so because no one else would want the damn place.
It wouldn't be missed.
Twenty minutes ago my pre-arranged broadcast had triggered, delivering a message to every television, radio, and computer within Montana and the nearby states bordering or containing Yellowstone. The message was simple.
"IN THIRTY MINUTES, DOCTOR DIRE SHALL TRIGGER A VOLCANIC ERUPTION WITHIN YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. EVACUATE THE PARK OR PERISH! SO DECLARES DIRE!"
Yes, I refer to myself in the third person tense. It's a long story.
Now, given my experience in this field, I knew what would happen next. Yes, there would be an evacuation but at the same time, the heroes would come out of the woodwork left, right, and center. They would find me, and do their best to stop me. They wouldn't negotiate, they wouldn't stop to listen if I tried to explain matters, and they wouldn't believe me even if I did get them to listen.
So here I was, stuck waiting until the last minute when I really, really should have been far away from there. Stuck guarding several million dollars worth of finicky machinery against these do-gooders.
My search engines clicked back with results. A new team, which was why I hadn't prepared for them. The native woman was called something hard to pronounce in Siksika which translated to New Moon, the big guy was called Bison, the water controller was... Heh, his name was Yellowstone, and the woman in white was Clarity. They were a team called Plainstrike, and they were based out of Great Falls, Montana. Great Falls? Wait a minute... Great Falls was hundreds of miles from our current location. How had they gotten here so fast? I filed that for consideration later.
Clarity was stepping forward, now. My search engines clicked, but all came up with the same judgement: Powers unknown. I subvocalized a few contingency commands, just in case. A name like that might mean mental powers, and you have to take care when you deal with mentalists.
"Doctor Dire, this is madness. Whatever you're doing is triggering the caldera! Please, stand down and stop this before it's too late!" Clarity was beautiful, I noticed. Not that it mattered much.
Still, I appreciated the chance to surrender, not that I ever would. They were following the unwritten rules, and that cheered me up. It was a nother notch of respect in their favor and responsibility on that level should be rewarded. A few commands, and the deadliest of my weapons systems depowered, as I routed power to the nonlethal weaponry. I was up against true heroes, the best sort. It behooved me to see that they survived this encounter.
"ASKING A WILDFIRE TO CEASE BURNING. ASKING A PLAGUE TO SLOW ITS SPREAD. ASKING THE OCEAN TO STALL ITS TIDES. ASKING DIRE TO SURRENDER." I threw back the cloak, and Yellowstone flinched as I leveled a finger in their direction.
"EACH REQUEST IS MORE FUTILE THAN THE LAST. NO, THERE SHALL BE NO SURRENDER. FLEE BEFORE DIRE AND PRESERVE YOUR LIVES, PLAINSTRIKE! THE DRILLSTRUCTOR HAS BEEN SET IN MOTION AND YOU CANNOT STOP IT!"
They wasted no more time with discussion, and as they charged up the hill I soared down towards them at full thrust.
Bison took the lead, legs flexing as he pushed himself into a leap, arm swinging around for a mighty blow...
I rolled to the side as he swept past me, easily twenty feet away. He'd made an amateur mistake, jumped too early. The problem with muscle-powered leaping is that once you're in the air, you generally don't have much control until you land or grab something to change your course. Which is why magnetic repulsors are always going to trump superstrength, when it comes to manuverability. Without breaking speed I rolled onto my back and flexed my gauntlets, sending bolt after crackling bolt of blaster fire into his form, knocking him off his trajectory and through a nearby oak tree.
I rolled back over and slowed as I caught up to the others, stabilizing back to bring my feet hovering a bit above the ground as they scattered. A blast of water jetted up from the earth, steaming and sizzling as it hit me. The armor suffered no damage, and the temperatures were well within tolerances. Yellowstone was lost in the confusion, as my sensors had to adapt to the cloud of steam. I switched to motion trackers, and good thing I did, as that's about the point where everything went dark.
Ah. That would be New Moon.
Movement from my left, her last position, and I sent a blaster bolt her way as I slowed to a full stop.
It passed through her.
What?
BONG! Motion next to me, as something rebounded from my helmet. Servos gave slightly as I turned to consider my new assailant. Hard to tell through the darkness, but given the tone of the strike that had to be Clarity, with her metal-shod staff. I noted that the water jet had ceased, but she still had to have some well-insulated shoes to run through the hot puddles without scalding her feet. Impressive! Signs of both preparation and teamwork, good, good.
BONG!
I tracked more motion to my west, sent another bolt out. A yell, a male voice. Yellowstone? Likely. More movement, all around. The darkness rippled into different textures, and I saw strange faces looming out of it, leering. They looked like totem masks.
BONG! The staff wasn't doing much, but the strikes were interfering with my sensors. And enough hits to my helmet would eventually start damaging components that I preferred to keep intact.
I swung a fist backhand at the area of the last strike... Motion. She'd ducked it.
Water gouted up from the ground, clung to my legs like gel, started travelling upwards. I kicked a foot and splattered droplets, but the water was still attached. The faces leered out again... I blasted one and it dissipated, but another one bit my outstretched arm.
Ow!
Dark teeth had gone through my armor, scratched along my flesh. I felt blood running down my wrist. The thing wasn't strong but it had sharp teeth, and clung to me like a vicious dog until I punched it with my free hand. It scattered into wisps. I noted that my armor wasn't registering any damage from the shadow teeth, though my biomonitor registered a flesh wound, and was applying pressure to stop the bleeding. Didn't look too serious.
BONG!
Okay, that staff was getting annoying. Time to change tactics.
I waited until the armor registered movement coming in again from close range, and routed current to the armor's exterior.
BONGCRACKSZEZRERRTTTT!
Fifty thousand volts conducted through the staff, straight into Clarity's body. I'd set her up and she'd done the equivalent of tasing herself for me. How kind of her! I stopped the current and caught her before she could fall into puddles of scalding water, tossed her in the general direction of upslope. She'd have broken bones at worst, and nothing significant at best. Either way she was out of my hair for a little while.
I noted that the water around my legs was spreading out to cover my armor in a sheathe. The electricity had not hindered it in any measurable manner.
The shadow faces withdrew as the darkness faded. "IS THIS ALL?" I inquired, flexing my gauntlets. The air crackled as the blasters charged up, a few wisps of energy escaping magnetic containment to shatter stray atoms of the atmosphere around them.
"Not really," New Moon muttered as she helped Yellowstone up. The man was limping and coughing, still dazed from my bolt. New Moon smiled a little smile. "You should look out behind you."
Bison!
My motion detector screamed, but I was already in motion. Pro Tip: Any time someone tells you "look out behind you", you need to be dodging. Doesn't matter where, just move. I was already in motion the second the word was uttered, which is probably why the hit didn't crack my armor wide open.
I'd thought he would be out of the fight for at least twenty seconds longer, recovering and repositioning. A foolish mistake. I had ample time to consider it in the seconds I spent smashing through trees, plowing through the dirt, and finally fetching up against the next hillside over.
I stood, then jogged to the side, testing the suit's motivators as the damage diagnostics scrolled down my heads-up-display. Left shoulder actuator hindered, tiny fractures across the back torso, 10.5% circuitry damage, rerouting...
Wait. 19.5%... 22.5%... The hell? A cascading failure? No, no, wait. It was environmental damage, liquid in nature. Crap. The watery shell that Yellowstone had put around me was seeping through the cracks, doing a number on the components it could reach, and worming its way into the layers of my armor. The cracks were minor, but this stuff was persistent.
Hm.
Behind me a "whump!" as Bison landed from a super leap. He'd stopped to scoop up Clarity's metal staff, and I didn't want to think of the kind of damage he could do with that.
25.2% circuitry damage. Dammit. I glanced over to the far hillside, saw a bubble of darkness crawling up the slope, enveloping the crumpled, white-garbed form of Clarity.
Alright, Bison first.
I glanced back to find him closing, fast. No time to go airborne, the repulsors took a few seconds to get going. I couldn't afford to slow down for that long, he'd pound me to pulp. And on the ground, the raw musclepower of his legs beat the horsepower of my suit.
Well then, let's give him something to think about. He didn't seem to have any marks or scars from the blaster fire, so I could step it up a notch.
I set my armor to avoid trees and obstacles, and turned as he chased me. I levelled my right gauntlet as slots popped open on my forearm and micromissiles hissed out, streaking toward him and leaving trails of white vapor behind, pounding him without mercy as the explosions rocked his overlarge frame!
To my surprise and horror, he fell! His chest was a bloody mess of craters, and he shuddered in the mud of the forest floor. The armor's programming kept me running, but I started to countermand that, come around, ready the medical gel to save him... Wait. Wait, he was pushing himself up from the ground, and his wounded flesh was knitting together.
A regenerator. Oh thank goodness! For a second there, I thought I'd killed the man, but he was mending at a fast rate. In fact, it looked like his muscles were bulking out even more as he healed, though I didn't have time to examine him with any sort of care.
Well, I'd bought myself a few seconds and I used them. Slowing, I activated my repulsors and took to the air. They stuttered and hissed but caught, as my HUD flashed again. 28.7% circuit damage... All right, all right. I couldn't take Bison down quickly, and I couldn't ignore the water. So I had to take care of Yellowstone. I'd most likely have to knock him out. Dazing him hadn't stopped the water from continuing to creep up around me, so hopefully unconsciousness would do the trick. Mind you, if he was one of those rare supers whose power kept working even while unconscious, I was screwed. Still, no point in dwelling on that.
A glance over at the bubble of darkness, which was crawling up toward my machinery.
To deal with Yellowstone, I'd have to take care of New Moon, first.
Circuit damage at 32.8%.
Well dammit. No way out but through!
Hm...
I clicked my weapons computer back to the blasters, dialed up their force. Glanced backward- Whoops! Here came Bison! The motion detectors had missed him. No time to shoot, so I readied my controls systems...
...And the second before he was to impact me, I cut thrusters, dropped under the staff as it swung over my head. I grabbed his flailing legs, twisted, and threw him toward the bubble of darkness.
The bubble twitched as New Moon dove for cover, taking the darkness with her. Yellowstone was a fraction of a second too late, exposed as the darkness swirled away from him.
Less confused after I drilled him with an amped up blast. He dropped.
Bison ate hillside, skidding for about thirty feet ass over elbows before he came to a stop. He tried to stand, stumbled, put a hand on his head and took a few seconds to breathe heavily.
Hm. Blunt trauma seemed to have an effect. Something to damage the flesh without destroying it? That had possibilities.
I glanced at my circuit damage. Holding steady at 37.5%. I looked down to see droplets of water sheeting away from me. Yes, knocking out Yellowstone had been the way to go.
I looked to the right to see Clarity still down. A quick scan showed she was still breathing. Alright, probably no permanent damage.
And the darkness bubble was sprinting up the hill, toward my machines again. Dammit!
A glance left. Yep, Bison was on his feet again, but still moving a little slow.
And we still had seven minutes to go. I sighed, as I redirected power from my blasters into my kinetic impact enhancers. Bison first. I'd have to punch him down.
Close up fighting with the one person left standing here who culd seriously damage my armor. Great. Just great.
Three minutes or so of sustained slugging later, the big jerk finally dropped. He gave a good accounting of himself, but my superior mobility had let me hit and run until he was weakened, then finally come in for a finishing strike without taking any more damage beyond a few dents. By then, the circuit damage I'd taken from the water was starting to take its toll. I was getting ionic bleed from my major power channels. Not good.
I looked up the hill into the darkness. Those shadow faces she'd called up... Either they were some sort of mental effect, or they were magical. Neither of those options were fun to deal with. Not my areas of expertise, not by a long shot.
And my blaster bolt had passed through New Moon, the one time I'd gotten a shot at her. Insubstantial? Shadow form? Shadow duplicate? Hm. I thought for a second on tactics, and smiled.
She'd made a mistake with her costume.
I started moving uphill, tapping my leg as I went. A compartment hissed open, and I palmed a baseball-sized sphere in my gauntlet. My armor carried three Debilitator drones, little saboteurs and remote spies. I could easily afford to gamble one, they were quite disposable. I subvocalized instructions and dropped it, moving on without breaking stride. Behind me it rolled a few feet, then clicked open, splitting apart to deploy four segmented legs. It crawled through the scree and stubbly grass of the hillside, moving to flank the darkened area. She'd had a few minutes to examine and possibly do things to my machinery. Troublesome.
"SURRENDER, NEW MOON. YOUR TEAM IS FALLEN. THERE IS NO SHAME IN FAILING AGAINST DIRE. YOU WERE OUTMATCHED FROM THE START OF THIS."
The voice echoed out of the darkness, as if the entire area had spoken in a whispery, otherworldly voice. "These lands will burn if I fail."
"THEY WILL BURN IF YOU SUCCEED. DO YOU KNOW OF THE YELLOWSTONE CALDERA?"
"Of course I do. The big pocket of lava under the park, the reason for the geysers and hot springs. You're making it erupt!"
"IF LEFT UNCHECKED, IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO ERUPT WITHIN THE NEXT THREE HUNDRED YEARS, DEVASTATING THE AREA AND DESTROYING THE CROP VIABILITY OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. THE WORLD WILL STARVE, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS WILL PERISH FROM ASHFALL OR EARTHQUAKE, AND MORE WILL DIE IN THE MONTHS THAT FOLLOW. IT MAY EVEN REACH THE LEVEL OF AN EXTINCTION EVENT."
"If you're worried, then why are you triggering it?"
She was stalling me. I stalked around the outside of the darkness, probing it with my sensors. Motion in there, but three different signatures... Her shadow faces? Likely.
"DIRE IS LANCING THE CALDERA LIKE A BOIL. A CONTROLLED ERUPTION, DURING A TIME OF RELATIVE STABILITY, AND REGULATED BY THE DRILLSTRUCTOR'S WORKINGS AND SAFEGUARDS. THE SURROUNDING HILLS WILL BE DEVASTATED, YES. YELLOWSTONE PARK WILL BE ALL BUT DESTROYED, IT IS TRUE. AND A FEW TINY TOWNS JUST OUTSIDE THE RADIUS OF THE PARK WILL EVENTUALLY SUCCUMB TO THE LAVA FLOW, AFTER THEY ARE EVACUATED, OF COURSE. MINIMAL CASUALTIES. MINOR LOSSES. EXISTING ORGANIZATIONS, HEROES, AND INDIVIDUALS CAPABLE OF CONTAINMENT AND CLEANUP ARE CALCULATED TO BE ABLE TO REVERSE THE DAMAGE, GIVEN YEARS OF WORK."
My little debilitator moved into the darkness. She could stall me all she wanted. Time was on my side, more then she knew.
"Destroying countless endangered species? Burning one of the biggest natural woodlands left in north america? The complete destruction of a major tourist attraction for the area, not to mention the tourist deaths? You consider all of those to be minor losses?"
"YES. THIS CONTROLLED ERUPTION WILL GUARANTEE A MINIMUM OF FIVE MILLENIA BEFORE ANY FOLLOWUP ERUPTIONS REACH THE LEVEL OF AN EXTINCTION EVENT. BY TRIGGERING IT EARLY AND CONTROLLING THE RELEASE DURING THIS STABLE PERIOD, IT SHALL BE DISARMED FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. THIS IS THE ONLY WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE FOR THE NEXT TWO DECADES. IT IS BEST DONE NOW."
"You're mad."
The debilitator reported that it was searching for its target.
"YES, DIRE FREELY ADMITS HER MADNESS. SHE IS, HOWEVER, ALSO CORRECT IN HER ASSESSMENT. NOW STAND DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE DRILLSTRUCTOR."
The machinery was still working. I could hear it churning away, rumbling from inside the bubble of darkness. Good. At this point, damaging it would be bad. When you're dealing with geothermal forces, certain actions have momentum.
She made her move. There was a click from the center of the darkness, followed by another click. Followed by the dulcet strains of an amusing song, wherein the singer insisted that he was a loser, baby.
I grinned, couldn't hold back a laugh. "HMHMHMHHMHMHM!!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA!!!"
"What is this crap!"
She'd pushed the big red button on the control console. The one labelled "Self-Destruct".
It was a fair mistake. After all, I did construct a self-destruct mechanism within all of my devices. Tradition, and occasional necessity makes it a logical choice after all.
But the big red-labeled one didn't activate the self-destruct. It just activated the CD player. The actual self-destruct was the small green button two inches down from it, and six across. One of nine other green buttons, all identical.
"AH, THE OLD DECOY BUTTON TRICK. GETS THEM EVERY TIME!"
I triggered my repulsors and roared into the darkness, coming it at a westward angle from the console...
And sure enough, my motion trackers registered something moving east. Towards the debilitator.
I stopped, made a show of looking around... And the debilitator messaged my interface.
Contact. Action. Success! I readied my armor for the next step, and counted the seconds.
One second for her to flail, as the debilitator broke from its hiding place and jumped onto her shoulder. Another as it jumped away, evading her punches. A third second for her to realize what it had done. A fourth, fifth, perhaps a sixth to scrabble at her bandolier... And by then it was too late.
Around the seventh second, an earsplitting CRACK echoed across the hillside! The shadows were gone in a blinding flash, and when the lenses depolarized, they revealed New Moon lying on the ground, blood trickling from her ears, twitching and coughing.
I paused to examine her. Breathing, more or less stable. The happy little debilitator scuttled back to me, hopped up on my outstretched hand, and offered me the prize that I'd sent it out to acquire.
The arming pin to one of New Moon's flashbang grenades.
Another amateur mistake, really, carrying them in a visible place. Given all the telekinetics, magnetic controllers, and other sorts out there who can exert pressure on small objects from a distance, carrying live grenades in a visible spot is a hell of a risk. I'd schooled many a kill-happy vigilante on that lesson earlier in my career, and the world is a better place for a lack of their presence.
But these were no bloodthirsty vigilantes. These were proper heroes. And they had put up a hell of a fight, a rather enjoyable one too, for all the rough spots.
"DIRE COMMENDS YOUR SKILL," I remarked to the fallen heroes. Clarity groaned, New Moon didn't stop twitching, Bison was still, and Yellowstone tried and failed to raise a hand.
Huh, thought he was still out. Sturdy guy.
"FOR YOUR COURAGE, YOU SHALL LIVE."
Two minutes, give or take. I had to move fast... Even with the Drillstructor moderating the lava, controlling the flow and doling it out at a measured pace, the gasses and raw heat released would kill anyone standing here. Or lying here, as the case may be. Fortunately, I had a solution prepared. A few hundred feet away, I'd concealed a small transportation VTOL, a modified Dire Dragon vectored thrust craft. I'd meant it for me in case my armor was too badly damaged to fly, but it would carry these four easily.
I got about the business of gathering them up and moving them over, New Moon first. With her eardrums likely burst from the pointblank flashbang, she was no trouble at all. Then Yellowstone, and I was down to a minute thirty on the clock. Yellowstone was out of it, barely awake, groggy. Little bits of water tried to coalesce around him when I grabbed him, but nothing happened beyond that. Good. I didn't have time for shenanigans.
The Drillstructor moved into its final phase, shaking and growling. Steam billowed up from the pipes, as the ground started trembling. All within tolerances, though it had to be frightening as hell when seen through the heroes' eyes.
I stepped up my efforts to retrieve the last two.
Clarity had her eyes open when I got to her. She watched me, apprehensive as I scooped her up. She yelped... Broken bones, most likely. "SORRY. BETTER A LONGER RECOVERY TIME, THEN FIERY DEATH."
Halfway to the Dragon a thought struck me. "SO, WHAT WERE YOUR POWERS, ANYWAY?"
"No powers. Just. A good. Fighter..."
I nodded. "YOU NEED ARMOR. THAT'S THE BEST ADVICE DIRE CAN GIVE YOU. SOMETHING LIGHTWEIGHT OR A FORCE FIELD, SOMETHING THAT WON'T WEIGH YOU DOWN BUT WILL HELP YOU TAKE HITS."
"...Thanks?"
When I put her in the cargo hatch next to her teammates, she was smiling. "YOU'RE ODDLY CHEERFUL."
"Well... We just... Completed our mission..."
I stopped, hand clutching the edge of the hatch. Something nagged at the back of my head, something I'd noticed earlier, but hadn't had time to consider.
"WHAT?"
"We were... The distraction..."
The distance. That was it! The distance involved from travelling out of Great Forks to this patch of scrubland. Besides superleaping I'd seen no powers from them that permitted fast travel. I'd assumed they had some, and oh I was a fool for assuming that.
An all too familiar hum, behind me. I turned, knowing what I would see, my body shivering with anger and my eyes wide with horror as I felt my victory slipping away from me.
No, no...
Plainstrike hadn't travelled here under their own power. The worst possible people to be here at this time had brought them along! My worst enemies had used Plainstrike, used them as a distraction, used them to buy time so that they could study the situation and figure out how to stop me!
I stared up at the aircraft hovering above the hill, with no visible engines on its triangular frame. The hum had been the cloaking device powering down. I knew this vehicle well.
It was the Quantum Jet, and it carried the people I hated most in all the world.
Tomorrow Force.
"NO..."
A hatch opened, as a humanoid chunk of metal about the size of a small car dropped from it, hitting the ground with a BOOM and straightening up, all hydraulics and pistons and armor and glowing blue LEDs. Siegebreaker.
"NO, NO..." He started jogging toward me with inevitable menace, quite fast for something so bulky.
A woman in blue and white dropped, gold hair fluttering in the wind. Kinetica. Her trajectory curved midflight, and she landed by the Drillstructor's command console. She paused, tapped her earpiece, then nodded as she stabbed a finger at one of the green buttons on the panel. Speakers crackled to life.
"Self-Destruct activated! Twenty! Nineteen..."
"NO NO NO NO NO!"
And the jet swivelled to face me, turrets popping out from its wings. A voice boomed out from it, patient and firm. A kids' show host, speaking to his audience. A professor correcting a wayward student. A guidance councillor advising a youth on their future career. Doc Quantum, their leader and the second-most dangerous superhero on their team.
"Surrender, Doctor Dire. You can't win. We've had a full minute to observe your fight, and you know what that means."
I knew. I knew all too well, as I twisted aside to grab the fallen Plainstrike members, and hurl them into the woods. "THE MAGMA IS ALREADY ON ITS WAY TO THE SURFACE! SAVE PLAINSTRIKE OR FIGHT DIRE! YOUR CHOICE!"
This fight had been lost thirty seconds ago. The fourth member of their team had seen to that. He was the worst one of them all, the only one I could never truly counter. My scheme had failed, and the only thing I could do was escape.
And then Siegebraker caught up to me, his boulder-sized fist coming around fast, too fast for my damaged circuits to evade...
---
I woke to the sound of air rushing past a hull, and pain in my skull. I blinked my eyes, coughed. My armor's HUD flickered in and out around me, displaying red, bloody red damage reports in an endless cascade. The medical scanner told me I had a minor concussion.
I shouldn't be flying. How?
I flicked over to my shouldercams, as the ones in my mask's eyesockets seemed to be destroyed. I was looking at the cockpit of the Dragon. Why was I here?
I replayed my video logs, and started to laugh before a wave of pain rippled through my head.
Oh, right. Concussion.
It was simple. My anti-mental precautions. The stupid little subroutines I'd put in place against Clarity had saved me. I'd activated the programs that instructed the armor to go to autopilot and get me to safety, in the event that I was disabled. And that's just what they had done. The logs showed that Siegebreaker had knocked me out with one punch, broken critical components of my already-damaged armor. Then he'd turned back to save Bison, as the magma started to bubble up from the ground. That's when my self-preservation subroutines had kicked in, dragging the armor to its feet, and hurtling it into the Dragon's open cockpit. The drone had launched itself, escaping at top speed, and evading fire from the Quantum Jet as it went.
They hadn't pursued. Didn't have time, if they wanted to save Plainstrike and Yellowstone.
Nonetheless, I wanted to get out of the air. This vehicle was fast, but had no stealth capability. Local authorities and heroes would be too busy with the evacuation and containment of the eruption to worry much about me at the minute, but that would change.
I looked at my armor's damage reports, sighed. The flashing red message agreed with my sentiments. ARMOR CRITICAL - FIELD REPAIR IMPOSSIBLE
Well.
There went over two hundred million dollars worth of machinery.
I landed in a large field just outside of Billings. The only living things around the landing sight were some nervous cows, who gave the Dragon a wide berth. The cockpit hissed open, and I crawled out, fell to the ground. Hard. The armor ate the trauma, but my head throbbed and I embedded myself a good six inches into the soft mud.
Ah, the glamour of supervillainy.
I struggled for a bit, failed. My armor's damaged circuits were glitching every time I moved. No point.
I popped the emergency release, and the back of my armor bulged, then split open, hydraulics unfolding the seams with mechanical grace. Gas hissed as it met the outside air, and I coughed a few times, beore hauling myself out of its carcass.
I shook out my long brown hair, and studied myself in the reflection of the Dragon's cockpit. I winced at the swollen bruise on my face. Well, a little makeup would take care of that. The rest of my features were within tolerances.
My brown eyes were a bit bloodshot, my wide mouth slightly bloody from where I'd bitten my lip during the fight, and my snubby nose was unbroken. My high cheeks were unmarred, and I drew my brown hair into a ponytail with ease.
A plain face, one you wouldn't look at twice in a crowd. That worked to my advantage.
My clothes... Mm. Not so much. Operating the power armor required thin layers. I was wearing the equivalent of a sports bra and track shorts over my tall, thin, frame. The wind out here was starting to chill me, and I needed something to blend in.
It's a handy benefit to anonymity, is power armor. Your body is entirely concealed, and with proper voice modulation devices you can make yourself sound like anything, or anyone. While I was suited up, my booming, genderless growl was nothing like my regular mezzo-soprano tones. My body language and tells were hidden, or at the very least distorted past easy recognition. Hell, I was pretty sure that most of the general populace thought that I was male.
That worked to my advantage, in times like this.
Looking around, I spotted a farmhouse with a clothesline nearby, fluttering in the wind and full of today's laundry.
Perfect.
Then I looked down at my armor, and over at the Dragon. I felt my face twist into a glum expression. Much as I hated it, I knew what had to be done, here. Couldn't leave my technology behind for the wrong people to find.
I triggered the thermite charges on both of the devices, and walked away as they started to burn. My eyes stung, and not from the harsh smoke that was starting to fill the surrounding air. I hate wasting good devices. Two hundred million and change for the armor, another seventy million for the dragon. Over a quarter of a billion more to add to Quantum's bill. On his team's bill, rather. I ground my teeth as I searched the clothesline for suitable clothing, found little in the female range of things that would fit me. Not an unusual occurance. I was six feet tall and built like a rail, and the dresses on the line were for much shorter sorts. Much more generously endowed females, both in girth and voluptuousness.
I gave up and started searching through the male clothes. Well, jeans are jeans regardless so that pair would do, but the only shirt that came close to fitting was a t-shirt. I unfolded it, looked at the image adorning its front, and my eyes bulged in disbelief. Really? It was a minor indignity, but after the day I'd had, it irked me. With no other option before me, I shrugged on the t-shirt.
Three minutes later I was heading down the driveway toward a main road in a hotwired pickup truck, while my VTOL and armor sent up clouds of black smoke in the distance. I could make out people, probably the farmer and his family fighting the fire...
They'd be fine, but just in case I'd left a debit card and a post-it note with the access code in the garage where their truck had been. The card had thirty-thousand dollars on it under one of my fake IDs, so I had no guilt there. As the truck stuttered and rattled, I was in fact pretty certain that they'd gotten the better deal.
The t-shirt across my chest proudly proclaimed that YOU NEVER STRIKE OUT WITH A BIG JOHNSON BASEBALL BAT. It illustrated a grinning, nerdy man holding a baseball bats strategically positioned, while a pair of enlarged baseballs sat on the ground, obscuring his legs. Scantily-clad, well-endowed cartoon women were caressing the bat. Someone had paid money for this thing. Someone had thought it worthy to adorn their torso. Someone at some point had thought this was a good idea.
And people wonder why I feel driven to conquer the world...
Once I got to the main road, I clicked the radio on, searching through the channels until I found speech, rather than music.
"...Reporting that the notorious supervillain Doctor Dire has been defeated by the famous superteam, Tomorrow Force."
I clenched my teeth together. Such were the wages of supervillainy.
"They were assisted in this effort by the Grand Falls hero team called Plainstrike, who have been evacuated for treatment while noted physicist and engineer Doc Quantum is taking charge of an effort to avert a potential eruption, through use of his groundbreaking geothermal adjustment technology."
Wait.
What?
"Initial reports from seismologists confirm that a lethal magma erpution has been completely averted, with minutes to spare!"
How had he even DONE that?
"And this just in, Tomorrow Force has issued a statement to the press, confirming that they've had the technology to avert lethal volcanic eruptions for the last year, but kept it secret due to the potential for misuse. They were waiting for an opportunity to test it, and it seems to have passed muster, despite the best efforts of Doctor Dire to use the earth itself as a weapon of terror."
He had... He had a plan worked out all along. He just hadn't told anyone. My whole effort... Those millions of dollars, those four weeks spent shipping things in from Billings, freaking Billings! All pointless! I hadn't needed to trigger an eruption at all! My teeth ground, The muscles of my face clenched in rage, and the ripping nausea from my concussion rattled my skull as I lowered a shaking hand to the radio. I couldn't bear to listen anymore. Uncaring of my feelings, the report continued.
"The notorious, would-be world conqueror has once again been defeated by true heroes! Doctor Dire is still at large, and even now authorities are-"
Snap.
I wrenched the knob around, sending the radio swirling through stations, before my anger-fuelled grip broke the knob entirely. Once the static cleared, the radio insisted that I shouldn't touch the singer's heart, his achey-breakey heart.
Just my luck. Country. The radio was now stuck on country music.
I threw the knob out of the window, and glared at the miles of road in the distance. Passing cows watched me go, as wrath bubbled and boiled inside of me, hatred warring with pounding pain to churn my stomach and burn my blood.
"One day, Quantum. One day there shall come a reckoning," I promised myself. "One day your fate shall be Dire!"
And so, driving a stolen pickup that belched smoke and shed parts at every pothole, country music blaring through the busted radio, and wearing a t-shirt with the worst double entendre I'd ever encountered across my chest, I rode into the sunset.
