Madame Repulsa cocked her head as if she’d heard Star’s thoughts. Like searing fire, she drove a menacing glare into Star’s heart as a force gushed from the woman’s fingertips and pressed Star against the wall. Repulsa turned and strode forward, lifting up Star with mental pressure until her head scratched against the damp ceiling.
“Don’t speak another word, girl,” Repulsa said. “I don’t give a damn about his orders. I’ll make this quick.”
Star choked from the pressure. “Why are you doing this?”
Repulsa smiled. “Resonance is a cancer upon this earth. It reaps lives, the same as it did for …” she trailed off, glancing behind her. “Strange,” she said with a pause. “Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything,” Star said.
Repulsa nodded. “Precisely.”
Star noticed it as well after a moment. Repulsa had eased up on the pressure, but it remained unbearable nonetheless. However, with squinted eyes, she examined the halls ahead, how they dimmed much more than the intersection the two of them stood inside. Screams echoed moments after, the sounds of reaping lives chiming in a chorus of bloodshed. Star felt Repulsa’s grip wane just before a bolt of shadow leapt across a distance and a caped man thrust his blade against her chest.
Chapter 15
Double Trouble
Subterranean Pinnacle HQ, Paris
Sir Baron Lord Knight thrust his shadow blade deep into the woman’s breast, or he would have if something hadn’t gone terribly wrong. At the moment of impact, some force erupted from the aging woman that pushed him deeper into the halls from where he came. Knight caught himself by jamming his sword into the concrete floor or else he would have flown farther back than he’d care to.
He knelt to the ground, slowly standing and dusting off his coat and cape. The girl would not have been so lucky, but he’d worry about her later. More pressing concerns loomed overhead, for an operation such as this to occur beneath the watchful eyes of the British government was unforgivable.
“Witch!” Knight shouted. “I will not allow you to leave this place alive!”
The woman took a step forward and then another. Knight watched as the dust and rubble from the blast stuck against the wall as if pushed away from her person while she walked. He took in each detail in hopes of fashioning a plan, but for now, his method would be to hit harder.
The woman spoke as she lifted her hand. “Little boy, you shall regret the day you struck Repulsa.”
A gush of force echoed through the halls, rolling off Repulsa’s hands. Knight gripped his blade and stuck it deep into the concrete, latching on with both hands. He took a knee and braced himself as bits of dust and debris struck him in the face and tore against his coat. The winds lashed and booming echoes howled in his mind until he could no longer maintain his position.
His shadow blade popped out of the crack he’d forged in the floor, and Knight flew back once more. The energies pushed him up against a wall at the end of the corridor, flattening him thinner than a slice of toast, warm buttery toast. Repulsa strode toward him until his breathing labored under the pressure, and his head was force to lie on its side, a downright unsuitable pose.
“You made the mistake of underestimating an old woman,” Repulsa said. “You are no different than the rest, and you will die just the same.”
“Excuse me, Madame,” Knight said, practically gargling the words out.
Repulsa pursed her lips. “What’s this now?”
“You … don’t believe I would come alone, do you?”
The old bat stared at him with a confused look. Was it a plea or was he actually as masterfully intelligent as she’d have suspected? He only needed to draw her attention for a while, long enough for the surprise from behind. Oh, how the mighty reap what they sow. Repulsa cocked her head and a moment later, whirled around with a hand raised full of her power.
She caught his cohort pressed inches from her hand with a fist harder than stone. It looked different, as if it were fashioned of crystal or diamond. His speed was incredible, quicker to appear than the blink of an eye and with one push, he barreled down the corridor, and Repulsa called out for her own minions.
“Pop! Locke!” she shouted. “Take care of this one. I’ll deal with the stone fist myself.”
Chapter 16
Powers Collide
Subterranean Pinnacle HQ, Paris
“Elementalists hold power over a force of nature or a form of energy. From condensation to concentration, Manipulators are the most rounded of the three primary classifications, with modestly diverse power sets and ample abilities. However, at their fault, Elementalists excel at nothing in particular, leaving them at short footing against a truly skilled adversary.” – Old UN.C. Order Knowledge Division
Caleb steadied himself, increasing the carbon density of his flesh and muscles until he could barely move his limbs. The extra weight helped him gain a foothold while the woman pushed him back. Some kind of force was coming from the palms of her hands, but it didn’t stop there. Caleb made a mental note that the ground rubble and everything she’d knocked down in the process had slid away from her following the blast.
She drove things away? What kind of resonance was that? Caleb claimed his footing and stomped his feet down some meters apart from her down a dim hall with mostly shattered lights, but he could spot her figure, a subtle silhouette in the middle of the night within Pinnacle’s underground fortress.
“You’re just like him,” the woman said.
Caleb calmly cooled down the carbon density of his body, allowing his muscles to flex and his lungs to breathe. Two figures popped into the hall between her and Knight, following a bright flash that faded, leaving only him and the hag herself. Caleb cracked his neck and walked forward.
The woman continued. “You think you can control it, bottle it up, but you can’t. We are beings of destruction and disaster, and tonight, I will prove you wrong, boy.”
Caleb maintained a modest density, rendering most of his outer body as hard as diamond, leaving the joints and motor functions intact. He did, however, clench his fists tightly before resolving them completely to the realm of Stone Keep. He wouldn’t risk underestimating a resonance user with her kind of power, especially if what he’d experienced up to now was just a taste. Caleb readied a combat stance and primed himself for a Graphite Rush, but he kept his mouth closed. The less he said, the better.
“What?” the woman said. “No witty retort? You young ones always seem to have something to say.” She stepped forward. “It should go without saying you can’t beat me, child. I am fiercer than the howling wind. My words whittle away the weak and weed out the riffraff. I am Repulsa, and I am an unstoppable force of nature.”
“You seem to be the one talking, ma’am,” Caleb said. “Let’s get this over with so I can call it a day.”
Repulsa folded her arms and shot him a glare that forced him back a step. Resonance poured from a look that could kill. She’d likely done it before to others, a subtle beam that could silently snap a man’s neck. It landed him in the chin, but he shrugged it off, hiding how much it actually hurt.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Caleb said. “You’re going to have to end this the hard way.”
Repulsa scowled and lashed out with both hands worth of force at Caleb, pushing him back with the strength of a typhoon. Waves of power lashed out against the walls and scratched grooves into the metal panels. Currents by his feet drove scars into the concrete floors. The structures around him were crumbling apart, and he hardly trusted his safety in this sinking ship of a base.
Cursing to himself, he pushed his body forward with the aid of his Graphite Rush, stepping forward meter by meter as howling arcs of power chipped away at his flesh in tiny scratches. She’d concentrated her pulses into spiraling whips, brandishing Caleb’s shoulders as he forced himself forward. He drove his arms across his face to block s
ome of the currents, keeping them crossed to disperse it somewhat. He didn’t need to see her. The woman wasn’t moving and a part of him wondered if she couldn’t while she levied her powers in full swing.
At some point, the laws of physics should come into play. Caleb groaned as he approached arm’s length. Of course, they wouldn’t. She wasn’t a normal person. Resonance users weren’t normal. Caleb reached out with his fist toward her neck. He wasn’t normal either. He toned down the carbon density in his digits just enough to move them and wrapped his fingers around her neck. Repulsa cut off her torrent. The pressure ceased and rubble dropped to the floor as the dust settled. This unstoppable force just met an immovable object.
“You call yourself Repulsa,” Caleb said. “I’m sorry it has to end this way, but rest well knowing the name of your killer. Stone Keep.”
“That’s,” she said, struggling against his grip. “That’s no name, just a damn super …”
Caleb cut her off. “It’s all I am. It’s what I run from every day, but people like you keep drawing me out. You wanted my best. You get it on a silver platter.” Caleb hardened his fingers and pressed down. “Choke on it.”
Caleb tightened his hand and waited for the neck snap, but instead, he felt a surge between Repulsa and himself, like a welling bubble pressing against him. It forced its way through his fingertips and removed his vice grip against her throat. Caleb reached forward again, but to him it was like driving his hand through steel to get to her.
Repulsa sneered at him, clutching the bruises on her neck as the force field expanded rapidly in all directions, above and below. The shockwave drove him back and not even his Graphite speed could save him from crashing into rubble as the Pinnacle base went down in smoke and ruin beneath the streets of Paris.
Chapter 17
Better Days
Paris, France
“There exists a stigma amongst resonance users based on the nature by which they acquired their powers. Primary resonance users, still by far the most common, gain their powers through a point of conflict or struggle. Secondary resonance users, on the rise in number, gain their powers gradually over time by good virtue of existing near another resonance user. Those in the primary circle see secondary resonance users as less powerful. In actuality, Secondary resonance users tend to have more focused powers. They do one thing very well.” – Old UN.C. Order Knowledge Division
Star coughed as she crawled through the rubble left in the wake of Caleb’s squabble. She pushed aside a thick piece of metal laid on a stone slab and squinted from the starlight that seeped in across her face. Midnight had ended, though it would be a few hours before she’d lay eyes on a sunrise. Ordinarily, she’d be asleep by now, but Repulsa and her thugs kept her from a restful night. Star crawled out, tearing a piece of her new blouse in the process. Darn. She liked that one.
She’d make certain Pinnacle footed the bill for that and … this ever-loving mess. Star came to her feet and tapped her loafers on the granite rubble, awestruck at her surroundings. It was as if she’d crawled out into the aftermath of a megaton bomb. A veritable crater the size of a city block dipped into the earth, revealing the inner pathways of Pinnacle’s base on the southern limits of Paris. Star had crawled out through the east edge of said crater, and she wasn’t nearly tall enough to see beyond the rim. What sort of resonance did this? Even Repulsa couldn’t have on her own, could she have?
Star scanned her surroundings. Caleb would be somewhere. She spotted Fortune Tower looming against a starry blanket in the distance. Pinnacle wouldn’t be foolish enough to plot their base construction right beneath her mother’s heel, but it would have been an impressive show nonetheless. Caleb was not present, apparently, though Star’s eyes focused on a more pressing concern. At the base of the crater, amidst the rubble and wrecked corridors, Repulsa stood no worse off than when Star had last seen her. Somehow, Repulsa possessed a passive defense capable of fending off a metric ton of concrete landing on her head. Star took a step back against the rubble, but she was too late. Repulsa had cocked her head, and the two of them locked stares.
“You didn’t,” Star said. “You couldn’t have done this on your own.”
Repulsa shot her an icy look and something behind the woman pushed, causing her to fly toward Star. Repulsa pushed off the ground and into the sky before her image became an afterthought. Star’s eyes raced to find a black bead in the middle of a starlit sky covered by thick clouds, but her efforts proved futile. She bolted in time to catch the clouds above her part, and a shockwave blitzed towards her.
The impact veered off to the side, however, landing about twenty meters from her, but the shockwaves of force were enough to sweep her off her feet. Star flailed as she flew aside and into a patch of iron pylons, snapping her left arm in the process and piercing her body. Repulsa could have killed her easily. Why veer off? Star glanced up to spot the reason for Repulsa’s error. The mad man who had intervened six days ago, a tall figure in cape and top hat drew in his shadow, the blanket he’d used to shift Repulsa’s course, if only slightly.
“Come now, Madame,” he said. “There’s no sport in hunting young ones. Allow me to sate your blood lust.”
Repulsa glared at him, and Star thought she saw hesitation in the woman’s eyes.
“No,” came a voice from behind the woman. “I’ll be your opponent.”
Star’s vision grew fuzzy, but she recognized the muscular figure and the voice enough to pin the man down as Caleb. He pushed off a boulder the size of a door and climbed to his feet. Caleb readied a fighting stance, and it seemed as if Repulsa was weighing her options. She paused in a moment of reflection before a shockwave pushed out from beneath her, and the woman took off into the night. Very few resonance users were capable of flight and being a Factor Four made her all the more dangerous.
The man in the top hat patted Caleb on the back. “That woman could have easily killed me,” he said with a grin.
“Same here,” Caleb said. “Nice bluff.”
“It helps to be willfully ignorant,” the man said, smiling with a bow of courtesy.
Star dozed off as her eyes drifted in starlight and she recalled better days.
Epilogue
Caleb wiped the dripping sweat from his brow as he stepped into an upbound elevator in Fortune Tower after a heated day of reconstruction. He pressed a sequence of coded buttons that would access the penthouse suite. The city glowed soft tones in the mid-day sun, cleared of traffic in the aftermath of a disaster for which he could never atone. The least he could do was lift some debris. He worked and toiled until his back ached and his hands blistered. He refused to do his part as any percentage of Stone Keep, rendering his body as flesh and blood as each other human.
He shoved the images in the back of his mind the best he could, but the thought of those who died in the blast, some fifty-four, let alone those injured, left him with a sagging disposition and a heavy heart. Caleb did whatever he used to in situations such as this, however. He shouldered the burden. One more to add to the pile. One thought in particular kept prodding its way back into his mind. She was right.
The elevator doors slid apart, and Caleb strode into the penthouse suite. Golden rays of sunlight beamed in through the windows on the far side, a bird’s eye view of Paris during its reconstruction. The suite was complete with a mini-bar, fridge, luxurious furniture and a healthy dose of ambient lighting, not that it needed the extra glow. He guessed the Adamsons preferred sunbathing or something less ridiculous.
Fortune, the woman Star introduced to him as Rebecca Adamson, stood beside a couch where a young girl sat. She had bubblegum hair with thin strokes of hot pink slid into the locks. That’s not possible. She couldn’t have recovered from her injuries at all, let alone in less than a week. Caleb’s attention darted to the young girl for a brief moment before Fortune pulled his eyes back with a quick gesture.
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br /> “I want you to know something, Caleb,” Fortune said. “By some fluke, you saved my daughter’s life, and that is the only reason you are still here. The damage you caused is irrelevant. I can rebuild Paris. It will just take time.”
Star spun her head around and waved at Caleb with the same energy and enthusiasm he’d known her for in good health. It made no sense. A lone black cat with white spots lounged on the armrest, and she stroked the feline’s back before she became distracted again.
Fortune sent him a scowl. “Actually, I’d still have you fired if it was up to me, but Star believes in second chances and can be very persuasive when she wants to be. Know this, Caleb. You disregarded Star’s life and almost killed her in the process of your little hero stunt. I don’t pay heroes, so let’s keep that in mind. If this happens again, I’ll see to it that you’ll never outlive the debt you’ll owe.”
Fortune eyed him. “I know what you’re thinking, Caleb. Star is a very special young woman. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
“A resonance user?”
Fortune crossed her arms and shot him a stone cold stare. “Let’s leave it.”
Fair enough. She left more questions unanswered than he’d like, but it made sense that Fortune Strongholds wouldn’t want this to go public, not with their image and especially now with the political climate. He watched the news earlier today. Representatives were actually pushing for control of Resotek. Crazy.
“What am I here for, ma’am?” Caleb asked.
Fortune placed her hand on the couch and bit her lip. “You’re a valuable asset, Caleb. My good sense won’t let me get rid of you, but we need to keep your activities on the low for a while. Wait for this to blow over. You understand?”
“Of course.”
“One more thing,” she said. “That man. Knight was the name? I just received intel that he’s working for the British government.”