Into the Unknown

Chapter 5

"Every day it's a little harder, as I feel my powers grow.

Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go,

Into the unknown?"

Eight, BANG! Nine, BANG! Ten, BANG!

Alex counted in her head as bullets sank into the (thankfully) reinforced coffee table. Despite looking like glass, the prototype material had held up against automatic weapon fire in testing, but this was the first time an agent had used one in a live combat situation. At least as far as Alex was aware. Her attacker was using a GLOCK 17. She'd gotten a quick look at it before she ducked for cover, but she knew her firearms. The magazine held seventeen bullets, but if she were coming in ready for a fight, she'd have seventeen in the clip and one already in the chamber. Sure enough, Cain Johnson emptied all eighteen bullets (a bit of an overkill she thought, but perhaps her reputation preceded her) into the table. Even before the tell-tale sound of the empty clip hitting the ground, Alex knew she had a very, very limited window to act and was on the move.

He'd moved toward the window in his pursuit of Phoebe, putting him near her bedroom, so she vaulted back over the sofa, sending cushions and the fleece throw scattering in all directions as she grabbed the burning hot barrel of the gun, twisting it to the side. She bit down on the hiss of pain as her skin sizzled, blistering in spots. If she was lucky (or more to the point, if she was good at her job) she could deal with that later. Even as he slapped the new clip in with surprising speed, she brought her other fist up, around, and down onto the bridge of his nose, smashing him in the face. The force of her blow sent a shockwave all the way from her fist through her elbow, though she was sure his face fared worse. As his head snapped back, his eyes watering, she pulled the gun toward her, but his grip hadn't loosened. Rather than getting into a fight with a man whose finger was on the trigger of a loaded pistol, she pushed the clip release with her free hand and kicked the clip away when it hit the ground instead, effectively disarming him without actually disarming him. This bought her a few seconds of time, at least. In theory.

If Alex didn't already know he was a trained soldier, she'd know it now, however. He was reacting to his training, and despite her strike to his face, he pulled the gun closer as he slapped out blindly with his other hand, trying to grapple. As good a fighter as Alex was, she'd seen his record. If you added up his knowledge of jiu jitsu, judo, and the fact that he had seventy pounds of muscle on her, she knew she wouldn't win this in a ground fight. With a foe this big and dangerous, the best defense was a good offense, so she released his now empty weapon, slipped under his grip, dashed across the room, popped open the drawer on her wine rack, pulled out a pistol there that recognized and only worked with her handprint (a safety feature in case anyone else should try to use it), and placed five bullets into a cluster in his chest. She was taking no chances and would have emptied an entire clip if she'd had to. As it was, he dropped like a rock.

"Fuck."

Running a hand through her hair as she breathed deeply, one breath after the other as she tried to calm down and take stock of the situation, Alex looked around her wrecked living room. But it was a small price to pay to protect Phoebe. Things could be replaced. Life was priceless.

Her cell phone was lost somewhere in the mess that was her living room, and she needed to get someone to find Maggie as well as deal with the body that was now in her apartment, so she headed for the stairs to her bedroom. Paging Supergirl with the button on the utility belt of her suit was a bit of an overkill at this point, but it was also the easiest option. She really wasn't looking forward to explaining to her nosey neighbor, Mrs. Simpson, or her landlord why there were shots fired at her place and although she had her FBI badge in her jacket pocket, having a superhero there to explain things couldn't hurt either.