Blood Obsidian

Issue 5

"Well, however you want to live your life is fine by me. I only want you happy and safe." And she meant it, too. Perhaps a little too earnestly. "I made a promise to your mom and dad and I will always worry for you. Always."

It had started to creep in a few years before, almost as soon as Caitlyn had hit puberty. Along with the usual bodily changes, mood changes came too. Caitlyn hated it, not feeling as though she had any control in how she felt, but hated it more because it had caused arguments with Aunt Mary. Mary had started to feel she was losing Caitlyn, and she wasn't, she could never lose Caitlyn, but she tried so hard to accommodate her that she ended up trying too hard. Sometimes, she just wished Aunt Mary would put her foot down and be ... a mom.

The car slowed down, coming to a rolling halt and Aunt Mary swayed this way and that as she tried to see why the cars had backed up. At this time of night, it could be anything, or it could be nothing. People involved in road rage, arguing outside their cars. Broken down lights, an accident. Maybe just someone dithering about which way to turn.

Silence had fallen between them and Caitlyn tried to force herself to speak. Not in that 'teenager' way that she knew that she used around her aunt, the exasperated, weighed down by adult expectation, gasping for freedom, desperate for closer parenting and more distant parenting kind of way. She wanted to talk. Like real, live people and not some kind of high school drama stereotypes. She finished sending another text to Alaina and cleared her throat.

"Aunt Mary? I ..." She tried to cough again. Even she could barely hear the words that had come out of her mouth.

"What is all the commotion?" Aunt Mary wound down the window, leaning out, and now Caitlyn heard the noise coming from up ahead. "I hope everyone is okay. Lord knows, there's been enough going on today."

There was definitely something going on. People had started running past the car, heads turning to look back. Fear-filled faces rushing past. Aunt Mary began to open the car door and Caitlyn pulled her back. She had seen this kind of panic before. In this city, pretty much everyone had. It was the kind of panic bred from some kind of super-villain attack. It seemed like the madness of the day still hadn't ended.

Something inside her stirred and Caitlyn pushed the thought away. It felt familiar. Just like when Professor Halstrom had attacked. A primal urge. A calling. As though something whispered in her ear, telling her to prepare, to be ready. To let loose what she had only moments before wished away. She couldn't do that again. Her hand automatically moved to her side where she knew she had broken a rib earlier. Only now, it didn't feel broken at all.

"Don't get out, Aunt Mary. Whatever it is, someone will deal with it. We just need to sit tight." Her stomach twisted, as though something fought to free itself. All she had to do was call for it and it would be there for her. "Don't leave me."

"Okay, sweety. Okay." Aunt Mary rubbed Caitlyn's arm, closing the car door and winding the window closed. "I'm sure it'll ..."

Caitlyn saw the car flying through the air towards them and reacted without thinking. The seat belt broke as she leaned over, pushing Aunt Mary down, covering her with her own body as the car spun, end-over-end, clipping the poor old hatchback's roof, smashing the windshield, and continuing on behind them.

The black shield, mottled with threads of bright red, covered both Caitlyn and Mary, holding the roof of the car up and away from them, protecting them from the little blocks of shattered glass. Had she not released 'it', the top of the car would have crushed them both. She leaned back, checking Aunt Mary, only to find her eyes closed, unconscious and Caitlyn's blood boiled. She had about enough of these supers, flying around, tossing cars, putting everyone in danger.

She checked Aunt Mary's pulse and almost collapsed in relief when she found it strong and regular. A quick check showed that no bones were broken, that she could find at least, but that did nothing to quench the anger she felt. The mere thought of anything happening to Aunt Mary brought out a fury in her she had never felt before.

With a single kick, she sent the door off the battered hatchback tumbling away and stepped out. She hadn't even realised she had wished for it, but that skin-tight suit had appeared, covering every inch of her body, thin streaks of red running in various directions along the surface. People ran past her without giving her a second look, but that was okay. She only wished the suit wasn't so tight.

Even as she began to run toward the disturbance, she noticed a change in the suit. It stopped looking silky and skin-tight, becoming thicker, more blocky, giving her the appearance of muscles in places she never thought she could have them. Putting that aside, she saw something happening ahead, upping her pace until, a couple of car lengths away, she jumped, soaring through the air to land in a crouch on top of a busted taxi cab.

She knew the guy. Not personally, but through news reports. A big lug of a man that called himself Blockchain. Not because he had anything to do with digital currencies, or data protection, but because he had a block of concrete with a long, thick chain attached. The idiot probably thought it was ironic. If he thought about much at all.

A low-level super that Black Staff had sent to Stormfield Island prison so many times, he probably had a season pass. The man himself wasn't, strictly, a super, but that block of concrete and its chain were, somehow, enchanted. They never broke, no matter what Black Staff did to them. But Black Staff was dead, Blockchain was causing mayhem, for whatever reason drifted through his dumb head, and the only person that stood in his way was a young woman that still hadn't finished her essay on geology. Not that there was any school to hand the assignment in to.

It had been a long day and Caitlyn was tired, hungry and her Aunt was unconscious in her little car. Blockchain deserved a good beating.