Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (25 page)

Blind, bound, and stuck up in a tornado. He had to hand it to Gale: this was a damn good way to neutralize a strongman. Any single one of these could have slowed one of Titan’s kind; all three together was going to bring down almost anyone with that power set.

“According to the rules of this trial, if Titan is immobilized for a consecutive minute, the assessment is over,” Gale announced to the cameras and the world at large. She didn’t bother saying words like “win” or “lose” since no one technically won an assessment. Besides, there was no need to. If he hung in the air like a trussed pig for all the world to see, there would be a very clear winner here, and it wasn’t him.

“Feel free to struggle,” Gale said, the wind carrying her whispered words directly to his ears. “It will make for a better show. Fair warning, though: that cloth of Spring’s was taken off a tech-genius, and it can hold back a charging elephant. Even if you slip free, you’ll still be blind and suspended in the air. You’ve lost, Titan.”

“You know, if I’m being perfectly honest, I really wish I could just let it be at this,” Titan said. “I’ve got nothing against you all, really I don’t. Sadly, I can’t roll over today. Too many criminals out there, watching, waiting to see if they should still be afraid of me or not. And however small the chance might be, there’s also the possibility that my boys will see this. Sorry, Gale. Really I am.”

Titan didn’t know if the words would reach her; he had no power that let him transmit speech through tornados. All he could do, all he’d ever been able to do, was hit harder than everyone else.

Of course, that didn’t mean he hadn’t picked up a few other tricks about how to do that well.

First and worst was the cloth. He really hoped Spring had a way to repair it, because otherwise he was going to feel downright guilty about what was necessary. That’s what happened when you brought tools into battle, though.

Titan stretched his limbs, slowly spreading the fabric apart. He was as gentle as he could be, but the sound of a metallic ripping still reached his ears once or twice. There was definitely some angry shouting coming from the ground as the cloth fell away from him, that much he could tell.

Next came the wind. If it were an advanced mind he was facing, he’d have been in a much worse position, but tornados were easier to handle. Gale couldn’t just grab and hold him up like someone with telekinesis. She had to buffet him with wind, a force which was inherently imprecise. Sure, if he were constrained it was doable, but once he was free it was different ballgame. Titan stuck out his limbs, catching different parts of the winds that sent him spinning about. His rotation increased as his stability fell; he was jerking and dancing about in the tornado, bobbing up and down rapidly. Gale struggled to maintain control, to keep him centered, but after a few seconds the inevitable happened: Titan’s hand made contact with the ceiling. As soon as he felt the rough concrete, he punched, sending him hurtling through the air, across the room, and out of Gale’s tornado.

Though he hadn’t planned on it, this surprise thrust also had the added bonus of moving him faster than Misdirection’s illusion could keep him blinded. Titan landed hard and quickly scanned the room. The large black orb that had been wrapped around his head was making a beeline for him. It was as fast as thought, just not fast enough. As soon as Titan saw Misdirection, he reared back his right arm. He’d filled his grip with debris when he first dove to the ground, which he now threw it at her. Its impact would be hard enough to bruise and bleed, but he hoped he’d held back enough not to seriously injure her.

Misdirection let out a yelp of pain as the rocks struck and her focus was shattered. The rest of Elemental Fury faced their opponent, uncertainty creeping into their faces for the first time since he’d stepped in the room. The man who was supposed to already be out of the fight was standing there, unharmed, with his eyes unwaveringly trained on them. Despite the politeness he’d shown them, each felt a kernel of fear form in their gut.

These five weren’t the first to find themselves sensing their mortality as they stared down a man who was called unstoppable. It was instinct, the kind that lived in the primitive part of their brain and told them when they’d drawn the attention of something far more dangerous than them. That kind of instinct was old, it was impossible to ignore, and most of all it was correct. They were right to be afraid.

Titan’s counterattack had begun.

46.

Elemental Fury was caught off guard, but recovered quickly. They’d seen too much action to let one thing going sideways break their focus. Unfortunately for them, Titan was no rookie either, and he knew how to capitalize on small windows of opportunity when they appeared. At this point, it all came down to dealing with the threats in order of their importance, and the top spot on his list was set long before he’d even managed to punch free of the tornado.

Bracing his feet against the cracked wall he’d slammed against, Titan shoved off, firing himself through the room at speeds only Spring could have matched. This assumed, of course, that she was dumb enough to get in front of several hundred pounds of super-strong Hero, which she wasn’t. He cleared half the cell in one bound, landing only a few feet from his target. The sound of crackling energy and rumbling steps filled the air as Birdsman’s summons and Granite tried to stop him, but neither was quite fast enough.

“You’re down,” Titan said as his mighty hand wrapped around the mask-hidden skull of Misdirection, who was still pulling herself off the ground after his rubble assault. In assessments like this, most Heroes were willing to play by the honor system, acknowledging a situation where they would have been knocked out or killed and removing themselves from the fight. It was proper etiquette and saved on accidental injuries, but Titan still kept his grip until he heard Misdirection’s agreement.

“Looks like you got me.” Misdirection finished pulling herself up and jogged back toward the protection offered by the clear barrier. “But the others won’t be so easy.”

A streak of avian-shaped electricity descended from the air as soon as Misdirection was clear, grabbing onto Titan’s face and attacking with all its might. Damage-wise, the technique was a waste of time, but it did succeed in obscuring Titan’s vision and hearing, which he assumed was the real point. They’d clearly formed a backup plan to keep him off-balance in case Misdirection was taken down; Titan’s respect for this team was growing by the minute.

Granite slammed into his back, sending Titan sailing across the room. The electric bird maintained its grip, pecking and slashing at Titan’s face. Through the crackle of lighting, he heard the wind whipping as Gale prepared for another attack. Getting out of her tornados was doable, he’d already proved that, but getting bound up in one would give the rest of the team time to regroup. That was something he couldn’t afford, not at this juncture, so Titan steeled his resolve. It was time to do some damage.

He grabbed the summoned creature in front of him, ignoring the shrill screech that tore from its beak. Like he’d explained to Hexcellent only weeks before, for something to be able to touch you, you had to be able to touch it. Bouncing around the room like a pinball during the defensive phase hadn’t been fun, but it had given him the chance to verify that these creatures were making contact with him; they weren’t just bird-shaped energy. They had a physical presence, and while he was barred from countering during that part of the exam, no such restriction existed anymore.

It took a lot more effort than he was expecting, but Titan managed to keep a grip on Lightning Falcon and tear it in half. They was a boom and a burning crackle that washed over him as he landed, so loud it nearly drowned out the painful yelp that Birdsman let break through his lips. Summoners had it better than a lot of Supers in that they didn’t have to get their own hands dirty; however, their power still had a risk. Destroying one of their summons caused mental feedback that hurt like hell; it could even knock the weaker Supers out entirely. Birdsman wasn’t quite that frail; he shook off the pain and focused on the other two circling birds, planning his next attack.

Bad as he was, Birdsman wasn’t the next target in Titan’s list of priorities. That honor fell to Spring, the super-speed Hero who’d tried to wrap him up like an early Christmas present to her team. Her attacks wouldn’t do anything to Titan, but she wasn’t functioning as offense in this battle. No, she’d clearly been given the same task as Misdirection: field control. Just because wrapping him had failed didn’t mean she didn’t have other tricks up her sleeve. In fact, after reading up on her reputation, Titan would have been genuinely offended if that was all she brought to the party.

Granite had reoriented from his charge and was barreling toward Titan, just as Gale unleashed a blast of wind that would no doubt take him off his feet and send him hard into a wall. The attacks were good, clean and focused in a way that theoretically left him nowhere to go but back, which was a delay at best. In fact, it was how polished the maneuver was that tipped Titan to what they were trying. At this point in the battle, things should have been more chaotic. Any tactic that clean was rehearsed, which meant the real goal wasn’t to hit him with either; it was to pressure him in to making the move they wanted. Titan had no idea what was waiting for him if he stepped back; he just knew it wouldn’t be fun.

At the last moment, Titan made his choice, breaking left, away from Gale’s attack and right into the massive stone monster know as Granite’s crushing path. The Hero’s rocky eyes widened as he realized Titan had caught on to their plan, but no amount of realization was going to stop the momentum of a charging creature whose weight measured in the tons. He tried to defend, but it was already too late. Titan slammed his fingers into Granite’s chest and flipped the stone monster over his shoulder, right onto the spot where he would have stepped if he dodged their attacks per the plan.

No sooner had Granite hit the ground than he was knocked a few feet upward by an explosion that coated his back and the floor in green goop. He tried to free himself, but whatever the substance was, it seemed to be difficult to break away from.

“If it had been you, that would have been enough force to stick you to the ceiling,” Spring said, suddenly behind him. “Pretty smart, realizing it was a trap. Course, you did leave yourself open during that throw.”

Titan barely had time to register the explosion that came from a small device stuck to his back before it sent him stumbling headfirst into a far wall. In the brief time he spent with his head smashed against the concrete, he felt hands moving impossibly fast, placing more charges against his body.

“This is for tearing my capture sash. Mending that thing is a bitch.”

This time Titan barely even heard the explosion; his ears were filled up too quickly with the green goop as it cascaded over him. One of these bombs had been enough to lift Granite’s massive body off the ground and stick him to the floor. The five that Spring had stuck on Titan drove him half a foot deep into the wall and coated his back from head to toe in the stuff.

Even for someone like him, it was a less than ideal situation.

47.

              Titan couldn’t hear what they were saying on the other side of his gooey tomb, but it was no doubt Gale re-explaining the one minute rule to those watching, maybe adding an addendum about the limitation being for his own good, lest he suffocate. He tested the goop carefully and found it stronger than he was expecting. It was well-designed, a material that was both flexible and tough. Spring used the charges freely, as if she weren’t concerned about the supply. These were probably either made in house by some retired team member or purchased from a freelance tech-genius. One of the countless benefits of having a legacy team and a budget.

Of course, even if it were the most powerful binding goop in the world it still had a fault: it might be indestructible, but the material it bonded with almost certainly wasn’t. If they’d caught him in midair with this stuff, it very well could have been a different story, but they’d trapped Titan against a solid wall, and that gave him leverage.

He began pulling himself backward, keenly aware of the resistance that the goop was imposing. It was strong stuff, no doubt about it. Pity the same couldn’t be said for the concrete it was fastened to. When he’d gotten far enough away to move his arms, Titan pressed his hands carefully against the surface in front of him and gave an open-palmed shove.

A tremendous cracking sound filled the air as Titan tore himself and a considerable chunk of concrete free from the wall. Spring was nearby, glaring at him with a mix of shock and annoyance, Birdsman seemed focused on keeping his summons ready to act, and Gale was flat-out glowering. That last expression told him he’d made it before time was up, though he doubted it was by a lot.

Titan didn’t waste a second now that he was free. What he had at the moment was just a hunch, but it was better than nothing in a situation like this. He charged through the room, goop on his back and concrete stuck all over him, on a path straight for Birdsman.

“Cocky.” Birdsman made a quick motion. Plasma Hawk soared through the air, putting itself between Titan and his target and lashing out with a beam of energy. Titan barely had seconds to act: only the fact that he’d been counting on the interruption let him move in time. He quickly twirled around on his heel, a move more graceful than many would have suspect the large man of pulling off, and turned his goop covered back to Plasma Hawk. He drew his left arm in to his chest just as its beam hit.