Lightray's Duel 7:32 pm, Saturday
Downtown Phoenix, Arizona Ok so this was not going well.
I was alone and trying to bring down a very dangerous Meta. If I had not broken my earpiece I could call in some help. As it is I hope someone on Olympus notices what is happening here. Pretty sure some TV cameras caught my first attack.
That did not go well either.
I do not have any of my gear. Usually I have a nice selection of weapons and tools to use. My favorite is a simple telescoping staff. My gloves are heavily padded and it works really well when I swoop down on someone and whack them with it.
They call me Lightray. I am a MetaHuman and I can fly.
Pulsar says that I create a very unique force field around myself. It interacts with the photons that make up light. Somehow this allows me to fly. I do take him at his word, he is Pulsar after all, but all I know is that I can leap into the air and go like a bat right out of hell.
My field protects me against friction and some against impacts. I also wear a fairly well padded uniform most of the time. Now and again I have landed kinda hard. The suit helps believe me.
So I was on a little break. Downtown Phoenix doing well nothing at all. It was great.
Then I heard a huge KABOOOOOOOM from at least a few blocks away. People freaked out a little but nothing else followed so they slowly went back to whatever they were doing. I was looking for a place where I would not be seen. The area I was in did have some medium-sized buildings but it was pretty open.
After about 2 minutes of looking I manged to get around a corner where I did not think anybody could see him. I launched straight up and flew along the side of the building. It was about 10 stories tall so I quickly reached the top and dropped onto the roof.
The column of smoke was easy to spot. It was well over 10 blocks away. I could not tell what was burning. As I stood there cursing myself for not having the most basic of gear I saw a figure shoot through the smoke. That had to be a Meta.
I picked a much closer and taller building and rocketed through the air to land on it.
From that vantage point I could get a much better look at the scene of the action. There was some action as gunfire had been added to the mix. The person I had seen was flying hard now obviously attacking those on the ground. Smaller explosions sounded a lot like grenades.
There was a building with a gaping hole in one wall. Looked like men shooting out of the rubble. A police station? I knew something about Phoenix. Something had happened here not that long ago. The place had a very low potential threat rating that much I knew. That was one of the reasons I picked it for a little break. As far as Olympus was concerned the city was pretty safe.
Oh. Damn. I remember why now. It has such a low rating because about 2 weeks ago Nike brought her team here to hunt down some criminal Metas. One of them died but two others had been captured. Their powers were not too extreme so they were handed over to the local authorities.
Looks like they had a friend. I bet he is trying to get his buddies out of jail. That would be bad.
I looked at myself. No gear, no uniform, no mask. That won't do. Most of my family was at Olympus now but not all of them. I had to keep my face covered if I was going to go into action. I had already taken a huge risk flying around like this.
Reluctantly I pulled over my green shirt. I had a tank under it so at least I would not go into battle topless. I had to do a little tearing for eye holes and then to get it to tie securely. But after a little work I had a mask of sorts. It would not stand up to close inspection but I would try not to slow down much.
Ok. Now a weapon. I looked around the roof. Felt a little bad when I used my Meta strength to rip part of an antenna out of the roof. It was solid steel and about 3 feet long. That would work. I wrapped the last bit of my shirt around my right hand. A little padding at least would help. The steel rod felt a bit heavy in my hand but it was all I had.
I walked to the edge of the roof. The hostile was still swooping but the small explosions had ceased. Still a smattering of gunfire to prove the cops had not all gone down. They did not have much time and I knew that.
Couple of deep breaths.
At times like this I like to have Apollo around. He is so steady and confident he makes me feel invincible. Plus he always seems to know when I need him to stiffen my spine a bit. Hell I even like it when he yells at me. I may be 19 but I know when to listen.
But he is not around right now. People were probably dying. More would do so if the caged ones got out. I was here and that would have to do.
I launched myself into the air.
It is still a thrill to fly. Life moves so fast when I am flying.
I made a good approach. My target had just made a run across the front of the Police Station and was into his turn as I came off the building. Building up speed hard I angled myself to intercept him.
It is hard to move my arms when I am really moving fast. But I brought the steel bar up and used my momentum to deliver a powerful blow.
WHAMM
He spun out of control but was good enough to go mostly up and not down. He would be back. My first close look at him showed me a face without a mask. He needed a shave and looked surprised to see me. I liked that look.
Turning hard and braking I headed for the whole in the building. Hovering was not easy for me but I managed to come to a jerky stop about 3 stories up. Cops were looking everywhere but at me.
"HEY! CALL OLYMPUS!" I shouted.
A large man in blue yelled back from the second floor.
"WE DID. THEY HAVE NOBODY CLOSE. THEY ARE SENDING HELP BUT NO IDEA HOW LONG. YOU FROM THERE?"
"YES. I WILL TRY AND TAKE HIM DOWN. TRY NOT TO SHOOT ME GUYS."
I got a salute from the officer which I returned. My opponent was screaming down out of the sky and I dodged hard to avoid his attack. Altitude seemed like a good idea so I climbed.
BANG BANG BANG BANG
Bullets zipped by well below me. This guy was not playing fair.
He was behind me so I went into fighter pilot mode. Lots of speed and make him chase. We dove and looped through the sky. He would gain a bit and I would push harder to speed up. Eventually we had to have been moving nearly the speed of sound.
My opponent was either out of bullets or just tired of missing. My shield would probably stop any hits but I did not want to find out. I know if the bullet was big enough it would get through without my uniform to slow it down.
Our chase had been going for nearly 3 minutes now. Probably does not seem like a long time to you but when you are fighting that seems just this side of forever. But he had gotten used to being behind me so it was time to get tricky.
I dove. Not sure how high we were but the clouds were far below us when we started. Our speed increased as we headed down. The clouds below the line I had taken were fairly thick. As soon as I was inside I pulled up hard. At that speed all I really did was alter my flight path a bit. But it was enough to kill a lot of my speed. I felt more than saw him flash past and I followed.
A moment later I saw him below me. I could see him looking around trying to spot my position.
More speed. I extended both arms. I could not grab his clothes but I could wrap my arms around his waist. We collided hard but I managed to get my arms around him and keep driving downward.
When I started this little maneuver I had hoped for open ground below me. Instead I got a 4 story apartment building. I probably should not have done what I did next. But it is not like I knew he was going to punch through the roof.
I let go and pushed off his body. This drove him down into the roof and helped me clear the building. Ok so he plunged down through the roof. Then through the top floor... and the next before stopping. No one was hurt but a lot a people were terrified.
Once I had lost most of my excess speed I returned to the building. I figured I would wait for a bit to see if he came out on his own. We fliers are made of fairly tough stuff you know. What I did should have rung his bell pretty hard but I did not think it would kill him
It didn't.
He came flying up but very unsteadily.
I kept about 50' between us. No idea what tricks he might have left. But he seemed pretty banged up and he landed on the undamaged portion of the roof.
"So what the hell is your problem?" he snarled out when his eyes focused on me.
"My problem? You blew a hole in a police station." I threw back.
"I know what I did you ass. Why do you care? They have a couple of us locked up in that dungeon."
"I know that. We put them there." That was fun to say.
"We? What do you mean we? Who the hell are you?"
"Olympus. That we. I'm Lightray. Ready to give up?"
"What do you think punk? Since you people like the fancy names you can call me Vulture."
With that he launched at me. I made him veer off with a swing of my steel. What I did not notice was the flashbang grenade he dropped on the way by. It went off with a huge
B A N G
The burst of light did not blind me but in twisting away from it I careened out of balance.
BUDA BUDA BUDA BUDA BUDA BUDA
How many guns did this jerk have? That was some sort of small machine gun. A couple of slugs pinged off of my shield as I got myself under control.
A burst of speed got me out of his sights long enough to turn towards him. A rip of gunfire flew right over my head as I angled down to swing at him. This time I missed but ended up in pursuit of him.
He would point the gun back in my direction now and then but you cannot aim that way. We were both trying to get the advantage and we almost crashed into each other more than once. This went on for some eternity of minutes.
My problem was that I just could not hurt him enough to get control. If someone is standing on the ground I can use my speed to deliver massive blows. But against someone moving through the air it just does not work that way. If he ever ran out of bullets and grenades maybe I could get him.
The end happened fast.
Our fight had spiraled down to where we were dodging buildings again. Vulture was ahead of me when a blur of motion leaped off a nearby building. The figure impacted solidly with my opponent and I watched as they became a tangle of motion. Hundreds of blows landed in seconds as they began to tumble down towards the ground.
Quicksilver!
He was now looking at me as they two of them were falling.
Oh yeah!
I dove hard and caught my Speedster buddy's arm in an aerialist's grip. My hand on his forearm and his gripping mine. Our landing was not pretty but everyone survived. Vulture looked pretty bad but he was breathing and not spitting blood anyway.
"thanks for the save buddy I was not sure if you were going to figure it out before I went splat man this guy was a dick wasn't he I checked on the two prisoners they are still secure. I am going to medivac the injured people now good work guy oh and here someone wants to talk to you"
As usual with the Speedsters that came out without inflection or pause. I had to think about it for a moment to remember what all he said. What he had tossed me was an earpiece. I put in in place and paused.
Deep breath. Hope I did everything right. Pulsar would have been watching at least since Quicksilver had arrived. The fast guy would have brought a small drone with him to launch. That would carry a few cameras and other simple sensors that fed back to Central.
Tap.
"Lightray to Central."
"Central online. Good of you to call Lightray." said a very familiar male voice.
"Yes sir. Hostile captured. 2 Meta prisoners still secure. Quicksilver is doing medical transport on the injured."
I thought he would appreciate a sitrep right off the bat.
"Well done. Why didn't you call for back-up?" he asked in what seemed to be a neutral voice.
"Ummm. I accidentally broke my comms sir. I am on an official short vacation and it was in my bag. Sorta well forgot that and I set a TV on it." man I hated having to tell him that. Sounded sooo stupid.
Surprisingly. He chuckled. Pulsar. Just a little but that was at least a chortle.
"Ok. Happens to the best of us. The best of us however have learned to carry a back-up or two. How about you adopt that little habit?"
"Yes sir. With pleasure sir!" I was relieved.
"Good. You fought well today Olympian. I hope you get to enjoy the rest of your time. Clear the area now. Pulsar out."
I launched into the sky with a "YAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHOOOOOOO"
My name is Lightray and
I
Love
To
FLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYY!!!
Lightray, Vulture, Quicksilver