The Indestructibles (17 page)

Chapter 38:

Rumble

Once Titus left the Tower, following the rampaging villain was easy.

      The kid, who Titus had begun thinking of as "the bully," had smashed, thrown, or flipped over every vehicle in his path for three city blocks. Fires broke out in several places, and, cartoonishly, one hydrant had been smashed off its moorings, sending water spraying thirty feet in the air. Fortunately, the civilians along his path seemed to have taken the hint and ran away. The streets were all but deserted.

      Titus spotted the bully a block away, and slipped out of his shoes. He stuffed his hands into the oversized hooded sweatshirt he'd taken to wearing and walked up behind him, careful to avoid stepping on the broken glass that seemed to be scattered everywhere.

      The bully picked up two smaller cars and smashed them together like a pair of cymbals.

      Then Titus cleared his throat. "I bet you were the kid who destroyed other kids' toys at recess, too," he said.

      He dropped both cars onto their wheels, shocks squeaking in unison as they bounced back into place.

      "I haven't thrown a human yet," the bully said. "Wonder how far I can fling you?"

      His voice was thick, stupid, as if vocal cords and tongue worked too hard to form words. The contraption on the bully's chest continued to pump some sort of chemical into his body.

      "Like to see you try," Titus said.

      The wolf snarled in the back of his mind. Hang on, old boy, Titus thought. One more minute and we get to have our fun.

      "Who are you? The Karate Kid?"

      "Nah. Name's Titus."

      "Titus?"

      "Yeah. And I'm really looking forward to tearing you apart."

      The bully flexed his hands, his massive, deformed fingers looking like a set of vice grips. He took one step forward.

      Then Titus let the wolf come out to play.

      The rippling tore through him, a screaming pain of bones thickening and stretching. Muscles expanded and howled into new, alien shapes. His fingers screeched when claws grew and hardened. The tendons and bones in his face clicked and snapped as his jaws extended, and massive canines sunk into place.

      And then he roared.

      "What the f — " the bully started to exclaim.

      But Titus was already in motion.

      He speared the bully across the middle, pushing him into a telephone pole, the post snapped under their combined weight. Titus howled when the bully grabbed a fistful of fur. He clamped his jaws down onto the bully's shoulder, but released when he received a return punch in the gut. Those vice-like hands grabbed hold of the werewolf and tossed him down the street. Titus was able to right himself mid-air and land on all fours; the claws on his toes tore canyons in the blacktop. He roared another challenge, and the bully ran at him, twice the size of a professional football linebacker. Titus prepared for the impact and rolled with it; his ribs cracked, and he used the opportunity to dig his claws into the bully's back.

      Together, they slammed into a storefront, glass shards ripped their skin to shreds. Titus backhanded the bully across the face with one hand and steadied himself with the other. The bully landed a solid punch to the werewolf's face and the skin above Titus's eye split. Blood began to pour. They circled each other like old wrestlers.

      Titus felt more in control of the wolf than he ever had before, relying on the monster's instincts but holding him back from making impulsive decisions. He couldn't fight every movement, though, and the werewolf lashed out with a clawed hand at the bully's face. The bully countered by grabbing Titus's wrist and holding it tight; he slammed his free hand into the werewolf's elbow. Titus felt bones snap brutally. Just as quickly, though, he felt the cool, strange sensation of those same bones mending instantly, knitting back together, realigning with tendon and muscle.

      Titus reached out with his oversized free hand and wrapped his long, clawed fingers around the bully's head as if palming a basketball. He dug his claws in and dragged the bully out into the street again, feeling skin tear under the points of his fingertips. Once in the street, the grip on his wrist loosened. He squeezed tighter around the bully's head.

      Then, the world went white and filled with a high-pitched ringing sound. The bully had pounded both fists into the sides of the werewolf's head. Titus released the grip on his opponent's head and yipped in pain when the bully threw a hard punch into his solar plexus.

      Never looking up, Titus grabbed him by both legs and dug his claws in, planting into the oversized muscles there. The bully headbutted him, but they both reeled from that blow; like a drunken boxer, he landed a few feeble punches on wolf's muzzled face, and Titus lashed out with equally weak attacks across his enemy's face and chest. The bully tried another combination of punches, but Titus latched onto his forearm with his jaws; his attempts to yank his arm free were hurting more than helping, and when he punched the werewolf in the face to try to force him to let go, the bully only did more harm to himself, pushing the wolf's teeth in deeper and causing him to pull away again reflexively. He raised one foot and kicked Titus square in the chest. The blow forced Titus to loosen his bite, but when they separated, the bully's arm hung weak and loose with pain.

      The bully pounded the palm of his good hand into the disc on his chest. The gadget came alive, pumping more of the mystery fluid into his body. Cuts and tears across his body were visibly healing, not unlike Titus's own.

      "You got this one, kid," a voice said above them.

      Titus rolled his weary yellow eyes up to see Kate in full battle gear standing on a second story ledge above them. She grinned demonically. "You know what to do."

      Titus charged.

      The bully, reinvigorated, pounded away at the werewolf's body with fists like stone. Titus felt more bones breaking, an entire tooth chipped in half in his jaw and grew back instantly. The rain of punches to his face left him half blind, but with a horrible, feral energy he pushed forward, leaving a railroad of lacerations across the bully's arms and upper body.

      Then, the werewolf's claws clenched around the device on the bully's chest. Titus pulled.

      The mystery substance sprayed in the air like arterial blood, a bizarre, blue-black fluid thick enough to be syrup. Where the contraption once rested lay a set of surgical scars, ports for plugs and tubes, the burn marks of a fresh injury. The bully writhed not in pain but in frustration and visibly began to lessen in size, muscles fluidly shrinking; his face became less apelike, more human. He collapsed to his knees. Panting, he stared up at Titus.

      "You bastard," the bully said. "You took my toy away."

      Titus, still in full werewolf shape, sniffed the contraption once and then threw it aside like a piece of rotting fruit.

      Kate quietly snatched up the discarded machine and looped it awkwardly on her belt.

      "You better kill me," the boy said.

      Even with his power source gone, his injuries were healing, slower but steady, sealing up as if they never happened.

      "What do you say, big guy?" Kate said.

      She stood shoulder to shoulder with Titus, looking delicate beside the massive werewolf. The wolf's lips pulled back from his teeth as if to growl, but then those teeth began to recede, the fur disappeared, ears shrunk down to human shape. A moment later Titus — still in his strange yoga pants and a bloody but mostly whole hooded sweatshirt — stood there instead, breathing heavily, his own cuts and bruises fading as if in time lapsed photography.

      "That was a lot of fun," Titus said. "We should do it again some time."

Chapter 39:

Working out differences

Titus found Doc and Emily on the observation deck of the training room.
Below them, what appeared to be a continuation of Titus's brawl was taking place between Jane and Billy.

      He limped over to the window and watched Jane hit Billy hard enough to send him flying into, and nearly through, one of the walls. They both looked like they'd been left on an outdoor charcoal grill much too long, their costumes charred black, faces covered in greasy gray soot.

      "What's happening down there?"

      "Fight!" Emily said. "Isn't it awesome?"

      Titus raised an eyebrow at Doc, who observed the brawl passively, the combatants reflected in his red glasses.

      "We're fighting each other now?" Titus said.

      "They're working out a difference of opinion," Doc said.

      "Should we stop them?" he asked.

      "No way," Emily said. "How else we gonna know who's stronger?"

      Doc shook his head. "It's a long standing tradition among heroes. Fight first, work out the aggression, talk about it afterward," he said.

      "You gonna let them destroy the training room?" Titus said.

      A bolt of Billy's concussive light blasts bounced off the observation deck window and scattered like broken glass.

      Titus jumped.

      Emily pressed her nose to the window.

      "The room was built for this sort of thing," Doc said. "They'll be fine."

      "Fine?" Titus asked.

      Another loud bang echoed when Jane bounced Billy off the ceiling. Rather than falling, he flew straight back down, fist cocked and ready to throw a punch.

      "They'll also be easier to talk down after they've worked out some aggression. Let it pass. How did
your
fight go by the way?" Doc said.

      "You look like someone worked your face over with a tennis racket," Emily said.

      "I'll get better," Titus said. "We have a . . . We have a prisoner? I guess? We brought him in, didn't know what else to do with him."

      "Good," Doc said. "We'll call someone in to help us. The Tower isn't the place for keeping super-powered beings who've been captured."

      Billy and Jane, now tangled up, and throwing weak punches at each other, crashed into the window again, and fell arm in arm to the floor.

      "We could just lock him in there," Emily said.

      Doc pointed at Emily as if to say something, shook his head, and turned to leave. "Don't let them kill each other," he said, over his shoulder. "Titus, come with me. There's someone you should meet."

      "You were going to kill her!" Jane said, punctuating her lines with her fists.

      She struck him in the face, sending him sprawling across the training room and leaving a Billy-shaped dent in the wall. Billy-shaped dents littered the room now; although his force fields kept her punches from really doing much damage, he could not, in any way, stop himself from being tossed around like a kitten.

      "I didn't know she was going to do that!" Billy said.

      Jane moved in to thump him again and he shoved her back with a double-handed light blast.

     
Why won't you tell her?
Dude said.

      Billy dodged another punch from Jane which left a fist-sized hole in the wall.

      Tell her what?

     
That the blast you had built up would not have been enough to kill her.

      Billy caught Jane's next blow with his hand, but while his protective field could keep her from breaking his fingers, he didn't match her strength, physically, and the shock thrust him flat on his back.

      Because I didn't know it wasn't strong enough to kill her, Billy said. He wiggled his way out from a swinging kick from Jane.

     
Yes you did.

      I swear. Thought I'd kill her with it.

     
Billy, I am inside your mind. You know you could not do it. It is admirable. Tell her.

      "Jane," Billy said, interrupted by another smack to the mouth.

      "We don't do stuff like that. We can't go around . . . killing people because we don't think we can help them!" she said.

      He tried to lean back against the nearest wall, missing entirely, and flopped down on his backside. Billy scooted back so he could rest his shoulder against one of the dented areas his own body had damaged.

      "You're right," Billy said.

      "What?"

      "You're right. She thought I was going to kill her, and that's why she did what she did," Billy said. "And I . . . didn't want to, but how else were we going to save the people in that neighborhood she was heading for?"

      "We would have figured something out."

      "Then talk to me, Jane," Billy said.

      "About what?"

      "What should we have done?"

      Jane's nose wrinkled and her eyebrows drew together; Billy couldn't tell if she was furious or about to cry. Instead, she sat down across from him and anxiously pulled her hair back and away from her face.

      "I have no idea," she said.

      "Me either."

      "She was like us. Just one of us without anyone to help her though."

      "I know."

      "And someone used her. Those people in the helicopter. Used her like a weapon. That could have been any of us. Could have been Emily or me or you — just as easily as that poor girl."

      "We'll get them, Jane," Billy said.

      She looked at her feet for a few seconds, lost in thought.

      "We never even knew her name," she said.

      They stared at each other a long moment, the weight of what happened sinking in.

      Guilt gnawed in Billy's stomach.

      "You're a mess," he said, trying to break the mood.

      "So are you."

      "Let's not fight anymore," Billy said.

      Jane laughed, the sad, choking, self-conscious type of laugh that you hear at funerals. A pair of exhausted tears left lean streaks in the soot on her face.

      "But punching you was the only thing making me feel better," she said.

      Billy dragged himself to his feet and almost tipped over when he stretched to full height. He offered a hand to Jane to help her up. She stood with less trouble than he had.

      "Let's talk to Doc," Billy said. "We can find out if there's someone else you can knock around instead."