Whoso comes from the dark ... - Part 5
Caitlyn thought of all the times she had sucked at softball, and hoped that this wasn't going to add to those moments of embarrassment. The suit provided her with the baseball bat weapon and she swept it outward in an arc, cracking against the grenade. Sending it tumbling away just in time. The grenade exploded against the wall of the underground facility, the pressure wave knocking everybody away. Caitlyn. Kyle. Even Fiend.
The grenade had caused a crater to appear in the wall, cracks spidering outward from the blackened indentation, but Caitlyn didn't wait to see how bad that could get. Grabbing Kyle's hand, she yanked him upright, throwing him over her shoulder and tried to get her bearings. Desperate to find the elevator and the shaft to the surface.
Black smoke, an acrid stink from burning plastic, mixed with the grey smoke, swirling around her, thicker than any fog she had ever seen. Her suit filtered out the toxic fumes, but she couldn't say the same for Kyle. Barking coughs came from him, his chest heaving against her shoulder. They had to get out, but even her suit's infrared vision failed to point the way.
Through it all, she heard the incessant, high-pitched laugh of Fiend as they hid within the roiling mass of smoke. The villain was toying with them, planting seeds of doubt in their minds, inciting fear of the unknown, but Caitlyn had battled fear before. Or, rather, she had battled Fear and that terrifying superhero had made her far more afraid than this.
Fiend made a mistake. Barreling toward Caitlyn, appearing suddenly from the smoke, their platform sent the smoke into twisting whorls behind them and, for a fraction of a second, showed Caitlyn where they were within the underground lair. Ducking, folding her legs to a squat, she allowed Fiend to pass overhead and then launched herself toward where she knew the shaft to freedom lay.
"Oh, you are a jumpy jack rabbit!" Fiend laughed even harder, their voice carrying as though coming from every direction. "You can't save him, Caitlyn. Someone has to die today and the winner is ..."
"You!" Caitlyn gripped Kyle's legs, keeping him tight to her shoulder. "You dick!"
With her free hand, Caitlyn lashed out, anticipating the arrival of Fiend and catching them in the stomach, sending the villain tumbling from the stirrups of their platform, the machine itself continuing on through the smoke. Fiend disappeared from sight, but Caitlyn didn't wait to see whether she had injured the monster that plagued her.
The elevator shaft came into sight and Caitlyn wasted no time, crouching before launching her and Kyle up toward the surface. As her upward momentum waned, she fired out her suit's version of the grapple and, as soon as it latched on, she yanked it, hard, sending them both flying higher. The smoke filled the shaft, reaching to escape as much as they were and, after another grapple and yank, she and Kyle exploded from the shaft into the warehouse above.
Laying Kyle down, making a quick check to ensure he was okay, she spun on her heel, waiting for Fiend to emerge. What she hadn't expected was a salvo of rockets flying up, from the shaft, into the rafters of the warehouse, exploding far above their heads, causing old, rusted beams to groan and roar before Caitlyn heard metallic snapping and a large section of the roof began to fall.
Three grenades looped up from the mouth of the elevator shaft, bouncing on the floor and rolling, too far away for their explosions to damage Caitlyn or Kyle. The lights blinked, then steadied and Caitlyn turned her head. Instead of an explosion, however, she heard something more like three popping sounds. They weren't explosive grenades, but gas grenades, their contents billowing outward to bring visibility, even up here, out of the facility below, down to almost nothing.
That laugh. It grated on Caitlyn's nerves as Fiend emerged at speed from the mouth of the elevator shaft, becoming swallowed by the fresh smoke from the grenades. Even with her infrared vision from the suit, Caitlyn couldn't see the villain. Somehow, Fiend didn't show up with any heat whatsoever. That would make things difficult, but not impossible. She hoped. In fact, she felt she could only rely on hope.
"Cai ... Blood Obsidian." Kyle sat up, his chest still wracked by coughing, nursing an arm that looked bent the wrong way. "You have other senses. Don't focus on seeing this asshole."
He was right. The suit enhanced all her senses, but she had soon learned to tune out most of it, especially the better hearing. It could become too much, hearing far too much. Too many city noises. Too many screeching tyres. Too many screams and cries for help. She couldn't save everybody, Kyle had said but, sometimes it felt as though she couldn't save anybody.
How could she possibly choose? Who deserved her help? Who didn't? She had learned to ignore most sounds and, up to a point, she thought the suit had learned what she needed, turning down the volume. Patrolling the city had proven enough. When she wasn't grounded, or getting beaten up by a hero 'for training', or when she wasn't trying desperately to survive attacks from some grey-skinned, bulging eyed dick with a grudge.
She closed her eyes, allowing the suit to enhance her hearing, but filtering out everything not relevant. There was one thing she needed to hear. Not Kyle's tortured breathing. Not the eerie laughter of Fiend, that seemed to echo and bounce off everything, making it difficult to hear where Fiend was. Instead, she focussed in a buzzing hum. The sound of a motor and of blades, propellers spinning and spinning. Coming from ...
"Got you!" With a jump, Caitlyn came face to face with Fiend, and those bulging yellow eyes widened even more. "Fancy meeting you here."
The platform carried them away from Kyle, looping in a wide arc and Caitlyn had to plant her feet on the platform, gripping hold of Fiend with one hand as she pulled back her other to punch the grin right off the villain's face. Something was wrong, however. It felt as though her suit recoiled in distaste from Fiend, as though only touching the villain could send waves of disgust through a suit that Caitlyn thought had only rudimentary sentience. How could a suit feel disgust?
That tiny pause, a moment of confusion, was all Fiend required. Caitlyn's head snapped back as Fiend's fist collided with her jaw. Several more punches landed in her gut and on her face before Fiend grabbed Caitlyn by the throat. The villain wasn't anywhere close to the size of Blockchain, or that Professor Halstrom became, but the strength in that grip made those two appear weak in comparison.
Caitlyn struggled against the grey, scaled hand, scratching at the long, clawed fingers, but she couldn't escape the hold Fiend had upon her throat. Wind whipped past her as Fiend moved their flying platform at even greater speed and Caitlyn lost all sense of direction. Right until Fiend slammed her into the ground, the platform coming to an immediate stop as Fiend held Caitlyn. The villain leaned down, the long, hooked nose almost touching Caitlyn's as Fiend examined her face with those yellow eyes.
"You're pathetic." The words emerged as a whisper and that ever-present grin diminished as Fiend turned Caitlyn's face to the side. "If only you knew. Things could have been so ..."
Fiend threw out their other hand, catching something without even looking. A sharp tug and Kyle came flying toward them, dragged toward Fiend by his grapple cord. An almost disinterested back-handed slap sent the boy hero flying back the way he had come, arms flailing as he disappeared back into the smoke.
"Just do it! Get it over with and leave everyone else alone!" Caitlyn could hear her own voice gurgling, Fiend's grip maintained despite their distraction. "You want to kill me? Then go on! I don't know what I did to you, and I really am sorry, but don't take it out on anyone else. Please."
"Oh, that's so sweet. But, no, you don't have to be sorry. You freed me! And I'm going to free you of all these distractions, these people that are just holding you back. Then it'll be just little old you and me dancing our dance. Which reminds me." A thundering punch almost broke Caitlyn's jaw and Fiend pressed something against her chest. "Hold this for me while I take care of our interloper."
The pressure upon Caitlyn's throat fell away as Fiend looped back into the air, their screeching laughter returning. Eyes blurred, Caitlyn looked down to her chest where Fiend had pressed something against her and began to panic. A grenade, light flashing too fast, almost steadying. She scrambled to reach it, brushing it from her chest, rolling away even though it felt as both every bone in her body felt bruised.
Her eyes returned to the grenade. It hadn't exploded. Instead, it had popped open, a jack-in-a-box puppet bouncing and swaying upon a long spring. It wasn't a grenade at all, but a toy. Or a ploy to make her think Fiend was trying to blow her up. Only, why would Fiend want to keep her occupied like that?
"They're insane. That's why." With great effort, Caitlyn pushed herself to her feet, closing her hands into fists. "Do you hear me? You're insane!"
She soon saw why Fiend had left her. As the villain had held Caitlyn, only seconds before, now Fiend held Kyle by the throat. He struggled. He kicked and punched, but he didn't have super-strength. He was only a boy with far too much bravado and the guts to lay his life on the line every night. The gauntlets on his hands looked damaged, crushed, and Fiend stood upon their platform, upright, holding Kyle at arms' length.
"Say goodbye to one less distraction, Caitlyn." Fiend opened their fingers and Kyle dropped. "Soon it will be just you and me."
The laughter began again. Fiend had dropped Kyle down into the elevator shaft, but, even without his gauntlets, he had acrobatic skills that could make the fall easy enough to survive. What he couldn't survive were the grenades that Fiend charged and dropped down the shaft after the boy. Several grenades, their lights winking and blinking as they disappeared down into the darkness.
"Pho-Boy!" Caitlyn could only limp toward the elevator shaft, wishing that the suit's healing abilities could work faster.
Fiend had disappeared, into the dissipating smoke, but their laughter still rang around the remains of the warehouse. Several, explosions erupted below, soon followed by gouts of flame shooting out from the shaft and, when Caitlyn arrived at the mouth of the shaft, she could hear the sounds of metal breaking, concrete crumbling and tumbling. Fiend had brought the entire shaft walls down onto Kyle and there was nothing Caitlyn could do.