Blood Obsidian

Issue 30

The unbearable weight of waiting ... - Part 6

Even as Kyle's grapple cord retracted, Caitlyn fired hers. He had brought them back to the roof and now she needed to get them as far from the building as possible. Only, as the grapple caught hold and began retracting, the explosion caught them in its wave of destruction, sending them both tumbling through the air. Caitlyn couldn't keep hold of the young hero.

Sparks fired behind her eyes as she collided with the side of the next building, the cord continuing to retract, dragging her along the surface of the brick work, but she needed to stop it. Kyle had fallen below, into the cloud of dust and dirt thrown up by the collapse of the building they had escaped from. Bracing her feet against the wall, she tried to pull against the retracting cord but whatever powered it was far stronger than her. But not as powerful as her own suit.

It had sat there, beneath her skin, in her blood, recuperating, healing, but she needed it right now. It could heal and feel sorry for itself later. In her mind she screamed at the suit, pleaded with it, begged it, but it remained hidden inside her. Then she remembered she had wanted to get rid of it, to burn it and yet it had still sacrificed itself to save her. A thought crossed her mind.

"I'm sorry. I really am. You saved my life so many times and I just wanted to get rid of you, and that was wrong of me." Her boots scraped against the decades old bricks, sending pieces of it and dust down to mingle with that of the collapsed building. "I should have given you a choice and I give you that now. Help me and you can decide whether you want to leave or stay with me."

She glared down at the still rising cloud. Down there, Kyle could be injured or dead. She had no way of knowing. If she could wrest herself from the retracting grapple cord, she could at least try to find him. Removing the glove would only take away the only thing keeping her aloft, too. She could only allow the grapple to carry her upward, but then it may be too late for Kyle. He could already be dead.

Her upward momentum stopped and she almost began to cry. Not as fast as usual, the suit sloughed over her, covering the clothing Kyle had given to her, the gloves and the boots. Everything. Leaving only Blood Obsidian. With a laugh, she pushed against the wall, the grapple ripping from its anchor point and the cord whipping and disappearing beneath her suit. Her suit. Her legs arced over her head and she began to fall, but that was fine. In this suit, she could survive the fall.

Infrared took over her vision without Caitlyn needing to ask for it and she looked through the fluttering wisp-like cloud of dirt thrown up by the building's collapse. She wished she hadn't. The building used as a base by Fiend had no-one living there, but the brownstones around it did. Fires had broken out, walls crumbling and Caitlyn could see a number of warm bodies needing help.

If Kyle was among them, she would find him, but she needed to help everyone, not only the person she knew. It was the right thing to do.

-+-

High above ...

At this height, few people would bother to look. Only certain supers ever reached up as high as the clouds and, even then, they were almost always on their way from one place to another. They would never see someone hovering amid the clouds, high above the devastation of that collapsed building. A pity, really. Having a lair in the deprived areas of Market Town seemed quite apropos.

The new platform performed as per Fiend's expectations. Vezzpa, or whoever had supplied her, knew what they were doing but lacked vision, focussing far too much upon Vezzpa's gimmick than in taking the technology to its logical outcome. An urban weapons and personnel platform capable of entering the most difficult areas and delivering death-dealing ordnance in practical silence.