The Meta Corps: Dream of the Youth (Part 12)

  Chapter 15

Lora froze up. Her vision skewed and sudden exhaustion overwhelmed her dread. Tench felt her weight drag him down and he turned around to see her fade. He grabbed her before she could fall.

“Oh no, Pink, don’t pass out now!”

 Lora’s eyes rolled up in her head. She took a deep breath and went limp in his arms. Tench looked back at the thing with a sneer.

 “Clive Ogden, the Electric Beaulieu, the Lecherous Lad of London.”

 Clive put his hand to his chest.

 “That’s cute, yes. After a show of my distortion, I’m introduced to a fourth wall that exists in the knight in spandex armors head as he holds his elegant prize, just like in the comics. It’s quite distinctive, actually.”

 Tench glanced at Lora, the tension from Clive mounting on his shoulders.

 “What do you want?”

 Clive waved his hand.

 “Oh, I was watching you turn your back on me before striking and wondering why some new Pink Lemon, it looks like, would lose her shit like that. I assume that it’s to make your life more difficult.” Clive chuckled.

 Tench bit his lip. His training brought to mind a tactic for planting seeds in the enemy’s head.

 “Well, maybe you aren’t attacking because there’s some sort of compassion in you.”

 Clive huffed.

 “Oh come on. You clearly weren’t paying attention to what I had done to poor Crimson Cherry. Honestly, some sort of compassion? You sound like that cow, Florence.”

Tench frowned.

“There is a thing that you could do—-”

“Nope, denied.” He stretched out and punched Tench in the chin. The two heroes went spiraling to the ocean.

Clive smiled and looked at his hand. He flexed it and it pivoted back into his wrist while letting a reserve hand come out the other end. He flexed his new hand.

 “Cake.” He watched the duo twirl for a moment, and then dove down for the kill, bowing his hands to build electricity.

 Lora’s eyes fluttered open.

The earth climbed up to her at a blazing speed with an oil tanker directly below. Lora gasped, now fully awake. She flailed for a moment in a panic, and then she tried to gain control of her momentum. She tilted her head up and curved her back to emulate an airplanes nose being turned upward. She closed her eyes and held her head up with a protesting back.

Lora made a wide arc above the ship’s bow, inches from grazing the deck. Her stomach dropped as she sought clearance back into the air. She flew parallel to the deck and a cabin sprung up in her path. She screamed and continued her arc while rolling a few degrees to the side. Lora jerked back at the last second and swore that her stomach had barely brushed the corner wall. She had passed the ship, but hadn’t gained any more control.

Lora nearly gave a celebratory vomit for her aerodynamics, but it was cut short. Her trajectory made her set to collide with a large, land-mounted crane.

 “No, no, no!”

 Lora’s speed was dropping, but she was still a bullet on a set straight path. She felt as if she was riding an invisible rail toward the crane. Lifting her nose again would result in a head on collision with one of the four pillars. Lora closed her eyes and winced. She entered a center opening and was set to leave, but she did not have a chance to relish in enjoying her luck.

Lora’s shoulder pressed on a pillar on her way out and scratched a protruding bolt. The friction burn and resulting tear burned worse than a dry California summer. The slight change in momentum was enough to send her spiraling out of control. She screamed as the both force of gravity and velocity took her elsewhere. She never had the chance to gain her bearings. She collided at a full stop with a faraway brick wall, her other shoulder was imbedded in enough to hold her in place.

A moment passed with Lora’s mouth in a painful and silent scream. She squeaked. Both of her shoulders burned in agony, one more than the other. She was still dizzy and feeble. She reached up to try to inspect the damage, but she paused when she felt herself being dislodged.

 “Oh no! Please!”

 Lora fell from the impression. She tried to grab the edge on instinct but her arm screamed and her voice wasn’t too far behind. Lora plummeted to the parking lot, and flew up in a successful arc. She heard herself breathe and she stole a glance at her burning shoulder. It was soaked with blood.

 Lora saw Tench fly up to her with Clive not far behind. Lora sighed with relief, but a gleam in the distance caught her eye.

Sarra.

Lora took a detour and flew past Tench. He called out to her, sighed and followed.

 Sarra lay flat as a puddle of silver, frightened with her recent experience. In the entire dome of the earth above her, she saw her sister flying up followed by Tench, and… Sarra was not sure of what she did, but it equated to squinting, and she got a better view of Clive. …That thing! She felt herself literally boil and ebb.

 Lora landed near her sister. Before Lora could execute any sort of care, Sarra shot up, immediately resuming her form without color, and screamed to the sky with a terrible fury. Lora jumped and backed up several steps.

 Sarra’s mirror sheen vanished, and her color returned, a little oversaturated. She gritted her teeth and flew up at Clive, creating a boom that sent Lora onto her back. Lora squealed in agony and almost passed out again.

 Sarra rushed at her assailant. Clive stopped, impressed with the tenacity, and threw his arm out to attack. Sarra wanted that thing dead. She paid attention to the arms course and covered it in ice up to the shoulder at the last second. Clive looked at his frozen appendage, puzzled. Sarra shot up to Clive’s head, wound her arm back, and let her ice charge.

 “Hey Hot Dog, here’s your own brain free—”

 Clive grabbed Sarra’s face with his other arm. Sarra didn’t feel any pain after the literal shock of being blinded, but she did feel that she had lost control of her body. Sarra wanted to scream with rage, but nothing came of it. Clive parted his fingers so that Sarra could see.

 “I’m sorry, love, who’s the hot dog?”

 Sarra’s amber eyes blazed with hatred.

 Clive smirked and threw the hero away. He studied his frozen arm, and caught sight of Lora following Sarra. Tench noticed the frozen twenty-foot appendage, and decided to finish the job. He charged up his ice. Before he was ready to release his snowstorm, Clive smacked him with his free hand. Tench lost control and writhed in midair. He screamed.

 Clive pushed him away and hauled his burden off to follow the sisters. The frozen arm hit Tench, and he tried his best to keep hold. While his body was limp, he forced himself to generate some ice and affix himself to the block. Clive looked down at him and tried to shake him off as he flew.

                               Chapter 16

             She was in agony. Anne Redford has always had a modest grip on her power, but this ascent was an overload. It was too much, too overpowering … too painful. Anne cried out, in over her head over the lack of control. Her tummy hurt, her knees hurt, her fingers hurt, her eyes hurt and even her toes hurt; but her head… and feelings hurt the most.

 Anne had trusted William Garner, she trusted Florence Sanders, she trusted her parents, and she had the heart to take a chance and trust those who were nice to her. Morgan le Fay, though, was not a person to be trusted. She was a bad person that could not be trusted, and she wished that Dr. William Garner had been able to see that.

 Morgan sat at the console, watching Anne’s power levels rise and reading the information that she desperately sought.

 “Rise, rise dial, it is imperative that you meet my demands, rise. Rise! Time is of the essence!” A smile peppered with frustration graced her blue hued lips.

 Garner ambled in from outside. He was disheveled and tired from dealing with Crimson Cherry. He had an awful, awful headache from Clive knocking his head against the wall, which did not help the matters any. He looked at Anne, and then turned away when she started screaming again. Her wails were like tens of thousands of hot, poisonous needles pressing into his chest.

 Morgan watched the levels rise on psionic capacity, electrical current, and the likelihood of a one-one genetic lineage being passed on. All things seemed to be perfect, but… they were also too perfect.

 Morgan had all the data needed, so she decided to evaluate the lot and see if her hypothesis was correct. She read the data and felt hot wax run down her throat as she read. The meta power and genetic code were two different things linked together, working together to pass each other on to the next generation. A terrible virus attached to human DNA to allow meta powers. It was not a normal mutation; she was sure of it. Morgan looked up at Anne and swallowed the lump in her throat.

 “That’s it, Walter. Do you see? … All of them… Leon is building his army… and I was the first…”

 Anne screamed for her mother. Garner felt his chest burn hotter than his already massive headache. He had had enough. He drew strength from inside himself and plodded up.

 “Morgan, I’m not usually a violent person but—” A piece of concrete fell in his path.

Garner lost his focus and shrieked. Morgan caught sight of him and looked around. There were cracks in the drywall, and shelves of computer parts had fallen to the ground, unbeknownst of Morgan’s knowledge.

 Anne growled, trying her hardest to compress her unrequited fury, but there was a surge coming; she could feel it. She screamed again as her head felt like it was being ripped in half with a white-hot saw. The whole building rumbled and Morgan’s machine exploded. She shielded her face and stepped back, pulling her wand out.

 “Stay close to me William.” Morgan waved her wand.

 “You need to bring her down from this rush! You could kill her!” Garner yelled.

 “I can neither stop her, nor do I care to. I have the data that I need from her.”

 A bubble materialized around them both; a meta human force field. Anne’s screams became hoarse, and her silent sobs were lost among the rumbling. Garner was about to retaliate, but he heard a crack above. He looked up to see that the entire roof had collapsed and that he was in the line of fire. Garner screamed as Morgan escaped, the bubble splitting into two. Garner bent down on his haunches and protected himself.

 He had several thoughts run through his head, he had regret for mistreating Anne, his jumping the gun, and wondering why he cowered down and did not run. He also thought that the concrete was taking a while to land. Garner looked up from his hands; no excess rubble littered the floor.

The impact had not come.

He looked up to see that the roof was breaking apart, and swirling into a small point in the cloud… as were the walls, the rogue shelves, pieces of equipment, furniture, and the heroes. 

If you would like the whole book, a souvenir of the experience, check it out at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87111 

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