Blood Obsidian

Issue 17

A nest of hornets - Part 5

There were a lot of guns. So many guns. Caitlyn had no intention of getting in the way of the many, many bullets that those many guns could fire at her. Instead, she had caused a distraction, which had worked far better than she could have hoped for. Criminals may be a cowardly lot, but the fact that most of them were incredibly stupid wasn't exactly her least favourite attribute right now. If only she could untie the police officer, things would be much easier.

Except, whoever had tied the cop's wrists together really knew what they were doing. Even as the bad guys were changing magazines in their guns, Caitlyn still struggled with the cop's bindings. She heard the old man cough and she hoped he wasn't too injured. Meanwhile, she started to think that, perhaps, she should just try to break the ropes. She was, after all, really quite strong in this suit. Another cough made Caitlyn look up to check that the cop wasn't dying on her. He wasn't.

"Well. That'zz bold." Vezzpa, stood to one side of all the gun wielding bad guys, wiggled her finger toward Caitlyn and the cop. "Kill them both."

Caitlyn couldn't count how many gun barrels pointed her way, but it was a lot. Without even thinking, she grabbed hold of the old cop and jumped as high as she could, straight up, as a barrage of bullets tore up the concrete floor of the warehouse. She, and the cop, reached the rafters with a little more ease than she had expected, landed on a metal beam, and she tore the ropes from the old man's wrists.

"Don't go anywhere." She began to move and stopped, looking back. "Well, you know. Not like you can. Or anything. Like, be careful, and stuff."

She landed in the middle of the bad guys, crouching, looking around, and thought about that baseball bat she liked so much. Sure enough, it grew in her hand and she wanted to say something really cool and defiant, like 'batter up', but she had too much to worry about, what with all the guns turning her way.

A crater appeared in the floor, cracks spidering away from the centre as an enormous amount of bullets struck the concrete, but she wasn't there to see it. Another leap had sent her arching over the heads of the guys behind her and, as she reached the apex, smashed the baseball bat made from her suit into the face of the nearest guy. It cracked into his nose. Literally cracked. She heard the bones breaking as the bat hit him and he collapsed, grasping at his face.

She heard a click almost too late, but Trooper Jane had coached her for this kind of thing. The baseball bat disappeared from her one hand and, in her other, a shield spread outward. A circular shield almost an exact copy of Trooper Jane's, only in black with threads of red running through it. She had learned, early on in the training, that she could only create one thing at a time. Either the bat, or the shield. Never both. She had ideas about that, but those ideas had to wait for a time when people weren't trying to kill her.

Bullets battered against the shield, sending shudders running through her body, but she held fast and, when someone pressed a gun into the back of her head, she rolled forward, the shield disappearing, and kicked her legs up into the face of the guy that had come too close. She had wrought chaos among the bad guys and now she saw that a few of them were already on the ground, nursing bullet wounds. Ricochets from each others bullets. Idiots. Bad guys were idiots.

Now the training from Trooper Jane took effect and Caitlyn began to move, taking advantage of the extra space she had gained for herself. She had tried to listen, take in everything the beautiful legacy hero had told her, but Trooper Jane had appeared disappointed with everything Caitlyn did, shouting at her for every teeny-tiny mistake. Caitlyn didn't have Trooper Jane shouting at her now. Any mistake she made could lead to her death and, worse, the old cop's.