Skybound (Aviary Issue #1)

Prologue

“I have to give it to you, hero. You tried.”

Talon let out a feeble cough as the pain in his abdomen shot through his core and spread upwards, leaving him gasping for breath as his eyes caught the shadow of shoes passing in front of his blurred eyes. The room he was in was nothing but a blur of white and red through the tears that obscured his vision. No, he couldn’t allow himself to cry in front of this man.

“That was a really good attempt, Talon,” his opponent, Vortex as he called himself, laughed with a slow clap of his hands as his light footsteps echoed closer to Talon, coming to a stop just next to Talon’s curled up form on the carpet, the glass and wood splinters digging into his skin through the holes in his suit. That wasn’t even the worst of the damage. His wings had to be broken in a couple of places. Even if he could move them, he wouldn’t be able to fly for months. “I just have one question to ask you.”

A hand touched the sensitive skin on his head where the same man with that sharp look in his eyes had smashed into the ceiling above him a few minutes ago, running their fingers through Talon's blonde hair as if he was comforting a child.

A shiver ran through his system at the sensation. He could swear he heard snickering somewhere else in the room as the tears welled in the corners of his eyes, started to spill down his cheeks. No. Talon didn’t want to react to this. He didn’t want to be in this situation, yet he couldn’t control his body from wanting to react to it. This was wrong. This man was messing with his head. Trying to break what willpower he had left to fight with his memories but…

This gentle touch against his head felt almost nice. It reminded him of nights at his home with Dee where she would sit on the couch with his head on his lap after they had come home from a night out on patrol around the city. Sometimes one of them would gain a new scratch or bruise, leaving the other to patch them up and they’d end up like this.

But for this man to be doing this to him almost made him want to toss up whatever was left in his system.

“See, I’m not so bad, am I?” The man mocked him with a smirk. “You even seem to like it when I treat you like this, like a real pet.” Talon could have sworn he felt a bucket of water wash over him in that second, his insides running cold at the very thought of this man doing anything like that to him again. The way he said the word pet even made him sick to his stomach all over again. He had to get out of here.

As Talon tried to jerk away from his opponent’s hand, it grabbed and yanked on the braid he had tied in his hair, pulling him back towards his old position, pinning him down with a new weight on his back that felt much too heavy to be the man himself or any of his cronies standing around the room watching them. It was almost even more unbearable as they pressed down on his wings, forcing them tight against his body painfully. “Now why would you want to run away? I thought we were bonding.”

Talon could just picture the smirk on the bastard's face as he said that. Vortex seemed to revel in moments like this. The snickering around the room seemed to increase at his helpless struggle. As much as Talon want to move, he knew nothing would stop the smug son of a bitch from ripping his braid right out of his scalp and everyone in their city knew how much Talon loved his hair. Damn his fame sometimes.

“Now that I have your attention, tell me something. How much does your team mean to you?”

His team? Talon blinked the moisture from his eyes, focusing his gaze and looking around the remains of the mayor’s office. Whatever had survived of the furniture was scattered all over the place in pieces and there were definite signs of fighting with the various dents and cracks that spread all over the walls like a spider’s web. However, that didn’t answer the question. Where was his team?

His eyes went up to the man crouched next to him, the pointed features of his face observing him with a victorious smirk, that hand still holding onto Talon’s hair with little care for the rage that started to fill the hero’s chest with a burning passion.

“W-where…?” Talon tried to get out before the pain caught the rest of his sentence in a coughing fit. It felt like his chest was on fire and nothing was able to put it out for now as his body seized with each contraction. The red on the carpet below him didn’t bode very well for him. He had to get back to base. Back to safety.

Anywhere not here.

“Where are your friends, you ask? Well, I know the big one is still lying in the roof of a car somewhere outside, not sure about the other two left you behind. The only exception was that pretty little speedster of yours. What did the others call her before they ran off… Dart?” The man removed his hand from Talon and placed his beneath his chin with a smirk on his face that made Talon feel like he swallowed a boulder.

“There’s no point looking at me like that. You can’t do anything in the state you’re in right now.” Vortex straightened himself to his feet and put on a mask that covered the top half of his face like he was pushing a pair of glasses that had slipped down his nose.

“I won, Talon. You and your little team, along with all the other people that called themselves heroes. You’ve lost the city, and this is just the beginning. With the rest of the state's borders locked down, it’ll be like my own little nation. Perhaps we can even go further soon enough. Wouldn’t that be nice? Living in my world?”

No, he couldn’t allow this. Not when he knew what Vortex wanted to do. Not after what he had seen on the man’s system before they had come here. His plans for not just the heroes but all people that developed powers like he did. Like his team did. It would be a hell. There was too much at stake to allow this man to run anything.

Talon placed his palms on the floor, the debris digging into his skin once again, and tried to push himself up. His wings could take care of the rest if he could just gain the energy but the muscles in his back were the only things not screaming in pain. There had to be something he could do. One final stand. That was all he needed.

Vortex tutted loudly, making the other men and women in the room laugh as they watched the hero’s feeble attempt to get to his feet. The masked man stood with a sigh and shook his head at Talon's struggle. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you? You moron. Did you forget? One snap of my fingers and you’re down again. Just give up.”

Talon knew. That didn’t stop him from trying. Once he was on his knees, he even tried to open his wings for a second to give him extra force to his feet but the pain shooting through the muscles was excruciating. He could even feel the bile building up in his throat as he tried with an exasperated groan.

Talon had gotten to his knees before he heard a sigh from his opponent. “This is pointless.” Vortex raised his hand and just waved it down as if swatting a fly away from his food, and it was if something had dropped an elephant on top of his muscles once again, flattening him against the carpet with a scream. Even his wings were splayed out against the carpet below, faltering against the pressure.

Vortex waved forward a couple of men, carrying a large steel chest between them and dropping it in front of Talon’s eyes. He lifted his gaze to see Vortex opening the chest and pulling something that made his eyes widen and his heart feel like it stopped.

No… Please. Anything but that…

“Looks like before you’ll listen to me, we’ll have to take care of those wings of yours.”