Amy heard a hissing sound come from behind her. She stood and spun around. A hidden door, which blended in perfectly with the office's rear wall, slid open. Two men dressed head to toe in black body armor stepped out. They reminded Amy of her cop friends in their SWAT gear, but more high-tech. Both men had rifles pointed right at her.
"The hell?" Amy said.
The men fired. A lot went through Amy's mind in the second that the rifles went bang. Her first instinct was to dodge the attack, but she knew Todd was right behind her. So she struck her best hero pose and braced herself for the bullets bouncing off her chest.
Instead, the bullets stuck to her.
Amy saw the "bullets" were small silvery blobs. One was stuck to her chest right at the top edge of her sternum and the other on her right collarbone.
In an instant, Amy pulled both little blobs of her body and tossed them aside, leaving shiny, silvery stains on her uniform. The two men cocked the rifles and raised them, but they were too slow for Amy this time.
She flew forward, barely aware of knocking her chair out of the way as she did. She grabbed the tips of both rifles and lifted upward, so the rifle barrels smacked each man in the face.
Amy grabbed the man to her right and pressed him against the office wall, embedding him in plaster and wood. Her fingers dug into the second man's body armor as she lifted him off the floor through the no-longer-hidden door. On the other side was a dimly-lit room lined with surveillance equipment and weapons of various sizes. She picked up the second gunman again and tossed him at the surveillance screens, filling the room with sparks and smoke.
There was a "blam!" followed by the feeling of something small hitting the back of Amy's head. She pulled another sticky silver blob out of her hair, leaving sticky bits of it still clinging behind.
Amy spun around again and saw Todd, still standing behind his desk. He now had a large handgun pointed right at her.
"Sinner," he said. He fired again, but this time she was ready. She caught the bullet in midair. This was not the first time she had caught a bullet. This one, though, squished apart in her palm, turning to sticky goo.
Amy heard Todd's gun click. He didn't get off a second shot. She flew at him and swatted the gun out of his grip faster than he could pull the trigger.
"Ow!" he screamed. Amy fractured his finger when knocking the gun away from him. This often happened when she disarmed trigger-happy crooks. They all lived.
"What are you..." Amy began.
The windows inside the office blew inward, to the sound of gunshots and shattering glass. There were three windows in the office, one in front of her and two to her right. The glass covered Amy. She knew it wouldn't hurt her, or even tear her costume, but several more silvery blobs shot through the windows, sticking to her, all over her body.
"What the hell is this crap?" she said, trying to peel the shiny slime off of her.
"It's a highly advanced form of ibuprofen," Todd said, still clutching his mangled finger. "It's one of the most powerful muscle relaxants ever created, sinner."
Amy didn't like the sound of that. She flew out of the nearest window, easily breaking through the glass and into the open air. Outside, hovering in midair, with high rise buildings all around her and the busy street far below, Amy grabbed a hold of her American flag cape and held it close to her body. She closed her eyes and spun around in place as fast as she could, ignoring her hair whipping around her head. As she spun faster and faster, she felt the bullet blobs breaking away from her body.
One benefit of being able to fly was that Amy never got dizzy. After spinning in place at high speed for several seconds, it was easy for Amy to float up the nearest rooftop and check herself. Her clothes, skin and hair were still stained with the silvery goop, but a lot of it had flown off of her.
She walked over to the roof's edge and peered over it, wondering if there were snipers in neighboring buildings.
Amy heard a hum. She spun again, getting sick of being surprised by strange sounds behind her. Five men, wearing the same body armor as the two men in the office, hovered in the air, with the sound coming from large rectangular packs they wore on their backs.
Amy couldn't help but smile. "Flying jetpacks? Good for you guys."
The men held rifles aimed at her, which she assumed were loaded with more ibuprofen bullets. Amy's smile widened.
The men fired, and Amy flew off to the side as fast as she could. She made a sharp turn in the air, and by the time the bullets blasted past where she just stood, she was already speeding at the five of them from the side. Her fist was just about to smack into the nearest one of them, just as he noticed she had apparently disappeared from right in front of him.
That's when Amy's powers cut out.
At first, she didn't understand what happened. She wondered why she wasflying straight down, but then realized it wasn't flying, but falling.
# # # #
Next: The fall.