The Legion of Nothing Counterattack: Part 9

"Accelerando," I said, "They've got people on top of the ijers."

"Go," Jaclyn said. "Night Wolf, Ghost, let's head over there."

I didn't wait to see what happened. I shot across the road, weaving to make myself a less of a target, and keeping low.

The parking lot passed in blur of dark cars.

I shot upward when I had no other choice, passing the top of the roof, and then flipping over and pointing myself directly at the the three of them with the sonics wailing.

The guy with the missile launcher had it ready, and fired, but not exactly at . He fired just as I flicked the sonics on, but he'd been pointing the launcher at an angle roughly parallel to the roof, and I was above him. The missile flew into the darkness and exploded.

I hoped it hadn't hurt anyone.

I landed about ten feet to the side of them.

One of them fired an automatic rifle at while the other two ran away. Instead of running toward the back of the building, they ran westward, parallel to the road.

I knocked down the guy with the rifle, and ran after the others. It took just a few steps to begin to catch up.

Then one of them threw a grenade at . It exploded, knocking backwards.

The guy with the missile launcher had dropped it when they started to run, but he charged when I fell backward, and started pounding on my armor. The helt readout pegged his punches as having enough force to lift 800 pounds or so -- above a normal human but basically a lightweight compared to supers whose main power was strength.

The suit could take it all day -- if all he did was pound. If he'd gotten smart, and started targeting joints, I might have had a problem.

I let him hit for a couple seconds, and then hit him in the chest with a palm strike, throwing him backwards. He rolled a few tis, and then stopped about five feet short of the edge of the roof.

He groaned a little, but didn't get up. Apparently invulnerability wasn't part of his power set.

The last guy didn't stay. He kept on running.

I pulled myself to my feet, and looked over at the main fight. The suit picked out at least thirty people firing automatic weapons. When had they showed up? I ntally kicked myself for not thoroughly scanning the woods earlier. They'd probably been further in.

I didn't need the suit to see lightning flashes or hear the thunderclaps.

Vaughn and Daniel were doing a good job of forcing them to stay in the woods where our strength in stealth, and hand to hand combat would make a difference.

They stood on the golf course, Daniel deflecting bullets with a mixture of foresight and telekinesis, Vaughn blasting away.

I wished that we'd notified the police before coming here, because most of the bullets were heading in the direction of Jefferson street, and ijers' parking lot. On the bright side, the constant roar, and the massive light show might clue people in to the fact that they were in danger.

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Guessing that Daniel and Vaughn would get tired in the not too distant future, I fired up the rocketpack, and shot into the air.

As I flew higher than the trees, I realized that I wasn't the only person in the air. I'd been joined by most of Justice Fist -- no, all of Justice Fist.

I also understood how I'd missed them.

Before I'd seen Shannon manipulating darkness during the day. It stood out, as sothing outside the natural order does. That night, they weren't there, and then they faded in, the cloud of darkness around them disappearing a little at a ti.

I knew she couldn't do that the last ti I'd seen her. She could create darkness or not. I'd seen no evidence of this level of control.

More interesting than that, they faded in on radar at the sa ti they faded in by sight.

Lucas flew toward the woods, red lightning bolts firing in all directions from his hands. Camille, in her orange and white costu, flew after him, bringing the non-flying mbers of group (Dayton, Jody, Shannon, and Julie) with her to the edge of the forest.

Gray trails representing the paths of bullets appeared within my helt. So of the Cabal's n were aiming at the new arrivals.

They never reached them. When they got within twenty feet of Camille's group, the bullets simply dropped, falling as if gravity had beco heavier in that spot.

Then Sean held out his arms, closed his eyes, and bullets all over changed their paths and flew toward him, collecting in a cloud before dropping on the ground.

If only bullets had been affected, I would have been okay with it.

Even though the 80's Rocket suit didn't have as much tal as earlier versions, I still felt the pull. Worse, I could hear the distinctive popping noise of electrical shorts as bits of tal that no one ever intended to touch, touched for the very first ti.

Grandpa had retired this suit because of so bad experiences that showed it didn't handle electricity or electromagnetism as well as he wanted it to. morably, the suit had actually burned images into the vision systems, leaving only half the helt's display uncovered. He'd won, but not before shutting down almost every system in the suit.

That was why the current Rocket suit didn't allow readouts to appear anywhere but the top of the user's vision.

I decided to follow his example while I could still see, and landed imdiately on the golf course.

As I did, I heard a series of big pops, and the suit's limbs weighed a lot more than they had. The powered systems had just stopped working, leaving the ergency backup systems, the ones that amplified muscle movent. They powered all other versions of the Rocket suit. With this one, they had three tis as much suit to move.

Naturally that was the mont when the mbers of the Cabal's army that were still conscious decided to make a desperate last charge. Or maybe they were making a desperate retreat because all their cars were at ijer? I never learned the reasoning.

All I knew was that they charged out of the forest, and away from the pro shop, making for Jefferson Street.

I learned later that the mbers of the Cabal who ended up wearing armor and carrying guns had powers, but basically the powers of about half a superhero. These were the people with super strength but no special toughness, the ability to talk to fish, but no ability to breath underwater, the ability to see through walls but no other powers at all.

They charged. All their guns and knives were gone, so they attacked us with their one flaming hand, their fifty pound telekinetic push, their telepathic ability to shout loudly in sobody's mind...

I made my way to Daniel and Vaughn, both of whom were too tired to fly away. They pulled out the extendable, tal staves from their utility belts, and I stood with them, punching and kicking anyone that ca near us.

Sean, of course, was no help at all, because once they no longer had tal on them, he couldn't do anything to them. He might have started pelting them with their own guns, but apparently even he could see that might have unintended consequences.

We would have lost if we'd been alone, but after they ca out of the woods, so did everyone else.

Jaclyn and Jody ca out at a blur, and started pounding on people. Jody seed to be faster, but Jaclyn only needed one punch to take soone out. Lucas zapped several people out at once with lightning. Haley, Cassie, Marcus, Rachel and Travis took out anyone left. The other mbers of Justice Fist must have helped too, but I missed it.

What I rembered most about that fight was the leaden feeling in my limbs, and my on-going anger about how much of an idiot Sean could be.