“Rampart, you’re on point!” I bark over the creature’s anguished howls, fingers flying to the comm unit nestled in the ears of my helmet. Sure, I can hear and see him just fine, but it can’t hurt if we were to get separated. “Focus on nullifying those projectiles – I’ll handle civilian evac and see if I can get through to…to him somehow.”
Rampart responds with a terse nod, already planting his feet and bracing himself as another fusillade of razor-edged shrapnel explodes outward in a deadly cone. With an almost contemptuous twist of his ankles, Rampart grounds himself in the grass, each blade and bolt and screw less bouncing off of him and more going dead as soon as it hits his skin, leaving only the tiniest nicks and scrapes in his armor. The dirt fills with a rhythmic thumping noise, faint, almost inaudible, with every parried projectile, the sound of the force channeling downward into his feet.
Leaving him to weather that metallic storm, I pivot on my heel and race towards the nearest cluster of cowering civilians huddled behind an overturned park bench. My blood sense is already spiking, a ghostly overlay shimmering in my mind’s eye with flower blooms of red. The unmistakable spectral trails of the injured and bleeding blaze into vibrant crimson relief, somewhere behind my temples.
“You three, with me!” I snap, gesturing for the small knot of terrified youths to follow as I break into a flat sprint towards the park’s west entrance. “Stay low and move quickly – we’re getting you out of the line of fire!”
To their credit, the kids don’t hesitate or question my directives. With wide, haunted eyes, they simply scurry along in my wake, heads down and limbs pumping as we make a beeline for the relative safety of the street beyond. Behind us, I can hear the thunderous cadence of Rampart bellowing out a fresh salvo of commands, his voice a resonant anchor of stability amidst the shrieking chaos.
We make it about halfway across the open killing ground before a fresh spasm of agony rips through the man, sending a hail of wicked shrapnel whickering through the air in a deafening fusillade. I hiss a warning and throw myself into a forward dive, tucking into a tight roll that allows the lethal barrage to whistle mere inches overhead. The civilians instinctively follow suit, flinging themselves prone as the storm of razors clatters off the concrete all around us in a hellish percussive frenzy.
“Keep moving!” I snarl through gritted teeth, popping back upright in a low crouch and beckoning them onward. “We’re almost –”
The words die in my throat as a fresh spasm of agony ripples through the man’s contorting form, accompanied by a noise like a dozen car crashes happening all at once. With a sound like a thunderclap, a whirring buzzsaw of flung metal, maybe a literal buzzsaw, maybe not, explodes outward in a horizontal plane, shearing through the air directly towards my semi-protected flank.
I have just enough time to whip my head around and lock eyes on the spinning, serrated wheel of death hurtling my way. Then, with absolutely zero time to spare, I hinge forward at the waist and fling myself into a desperate backward handspring, tucking my legs up and over in a blind aerial as the makeshift sawblade shrieks past within a hair’s breadth of removing my lower torso entirely, only instead ripping a fresh slice in my side. Not the deepest cut I’ve ever received, but I feel my muscles clenching up in a misguided attempt to deaden the impact, and it hurts.
The impact of my landing is jarring, reverberating up through my ankles and knees in a burst of fiery agony. But I bite down on the flare of pain, already whirling to survey the fresh wave of destruction with a mounting sense of desperation.
The disk of metal has carved a deep, jagged furrow in the concrete where I’d been standing mere moments ago, shearing clean through the bench the civilians had been cowering behind. Splinters of wood and pulverized masonry fill the air, mingling with the acrid tang of ozone and the coppery reek of fresh blood.
Blood that now stains the shredded clothes of one of the fleeing youths, a teenage boy lying crumpled and motionless several yards away from the rest of his cohort. A ragged shard of shrapnel shaped distressingly like a steak knife sans handle protrudes from his abdomen at an unnatural angle, the fabric of his jacket already soaked through with slowly pooling crimson.
“No…” The denial tears itself free on a breathless rasp, every protective instinct blazing into scorching overdrive. I surge to my feet and break into a flat sprint towards the downed civilian, fingers already scrabbling at the medical kit secured to my belt.
They teach you a lot about rescuing civilians. It’s basically superhero 101. But up until now, I have had vanishingly few times in which I’ve had to actually do it on someone.
It’s a lot different than punching someone in the face, I’ll tell you what.
Peripherally, I register Rampart unleashing a savage bellow of exertion, trying to swat more projectiles, a seemingly endless flow of metallic objects of varying sizes, shapes, angles, and velocity, like a goalie deflecting balls. But I can’t afford to get bogged down in the chaos of that particular maelstrom, not with a life quite literally bleeding out right in front of me.
I slide to my knees beside the injured teen, shrugging off my jacket with one hand while the other darts out to find a pulse point. His skin is clammy and pale, eyelids already fluttering as shock begins to set in.
“Hey, hey – eyes on me, kiddo,” I bark, giving his cheek a firm pat as I tear into the first aid equipment on my belt with my free hand. “You’re gonna be just fine, you hear me? Just keep breathing nice and steady, in and out…”
The kid’s gaze finds mine, wide and terrified but still conscious. Good, that’s good – as long as he stays awake and focused, the odds will remain in our favor. With a few deft motions, I’ve got a thick trauma pad pressed against the ragged puncture, applying firm pressure to staunch the bleeding while I get some gauze and tape to wrap it around his torso.
“What’s your name, huh?” I ask, keeping my tone conversational and light as I work. “You a Philly native, or just visiting this hellhole we call home?”
The kid’s lips move soundlessly for a moment, eyelids fluttering again. “…D-Dave,” he manages at last, voice a ragged whisper. “My name’s… oh shit, that hurts…”
“I hear you, Dave, I hear you,” I murmur, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze as I cinch the belt tight. “But you’re doing great, kiddo – just keep those baby blues open for me, okay? We’re gonna have you back on your feet before you know it.”
A fresh spasm of agony rips through the man in LOVE Park, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom that makes my ears ring. I instinctively hunker down, shielding Dave’s prone form with my own body as a fresh storm of shrapnel rakes across my back in a series of stinging impacts. Distantly, I can hear Rampart roaring out a warning, the strain in his voice palpable even over the cacophony.
“Bee, get clear!” he bellows, the words almost lost beneath the shrieking whine of shearing metal. “I can’t keep this up forever!”
I chance a glance over my shoulder, stomach plummeting at the sight of the big man trembling with exertion, his stance beginning to buckle under the relentless onslaught. Shit, he’s right – we’re rapidly running out of time before this whole situation spirals completely out of control. I knew there was no limit on single impacts, I’m pretty sure Rampart could stop a train if he wanted to, but does each one take a little bit out of him? This guy – this mutant in the middle – is more like a gatling gun than a person.
Gritting my teeth, I haul Dave into a semi-upright position, draping his arm across my shoulders as I brace to make a break for the exit. “Hang on tight, kiddo,” I growl, sparing one last glance towards the thrashing horror show at the park’s center. “I’m getting you outta here, even if I have to drag your ass every inch of the way.”
With that, I launch into a stumbling lope towards the street, half-carrying and half-dragging Dave’s dead weight along in my wake. Every few strides, I chance a furtive glance over my shoulder, wincing as a fresh volley of shrapnel rakes across Rampart’s beleaguered defenses in a hellstorm of screeching metal.
Somehow, through sheer force of will and bloody-minded determination, the big man manages to keep channeling the brunt of the onslaught away from us, buying me those precious few seconds I need to get Dave clear. My breath saws in and out in ragged exhalations, every muscle straining against the steadily mounting strain.
Just a little further, Sam, I tell myself, jaw clenched to the point of pain. Just a few more steps and you’re home free…
Of course, nothing is ever that simple, is it?
Just as I’m about to cross that final threshold out of the line of fire, a fresh, shrieking song of metal whistles through the air. This time, however, the eruption takes on an entirely new dimension, a rippling shockwave of force that slams into me like the furious backblast of an artillery strike.
I have just enough time to register a sudden, blinding starburst of agony blossoming across my lower back. Then my world is inverting in a dizzying spiral, the concrete rushing up to meet me as an unseen force detonates against my spine in a single, apocalyptic crescendo of violence.
The impact steals my breath in a strangled wheeze, every nerve ending in my body flaring into searing wakefulness for one endless, suspended heartbeat. Distantly, I’m aware of Dave’s limp form tumbling free of my grasp, striking the ground with a meaty thud several feet away.
Panic claws at my throat, a yawning chasm of visceral terror swallowing me whole as I find myself unable to move, to breathe, to do anything but lie there in stunned agony. I begin to drag myself back up with my arms, crawling by my fingertips across the asphalt towards Civilian Dave, looming over him like a blanket as a second whistling volley of shrapnel rains across me, totally unavoidable, death from above.
I feel each twisted shard of metal embed itself in my vest or crack a pad here or there. Most of them are absorbed by my costume, only leaving shallow cuts against my skin. But one of them lodges itself directly in my calf, and the other one in my side, embedding itself about an inch above the sawblade wound. I grunt, grit my teeth, and scoop myself back up, grabbing the shard in my side and ripping it loose.
Typical wisdom is to not remove puncturing objects from their respective wounds. Counterpoint: the pain is awakening. My heart thuds in my chest. “Dave, I am going to put you near a bush. This is probably the closest thing that will provide some protection. Okay, buddy?” I say, my hands shaking like I’ve been dunked in ice water, my entire body threatening to betray me.
Dave just nods weakly, uninjured by the hailstorm. I grab him and fireman carry him a couple of feet over, shoving him against the largest topiary I can find, turning my attention back towards the man in the middle of the park. Thankfully, it seems like most of the other civilians have the common sense to have cleared out, but the place is a nightmare, like that proposed nuclear architecture, blades and shrapnel dotting the patches of dirt and ripping a patchwork of scars across the concrete, several of them embedded in the fountain.
I hear a news chopter overhead. Sure. Whatever.
For a few breathless heartbeats, it almost seems like we might just manage to wrest some semblance of control over this fresh waking nightmare. Rampart is an absolute bastion, his indomitable form weathering the relentless metallic storm with a stoicism that borders on the supernatural. And while I’m still struggling to keep up, to shield the wounded and herd the civilians to safety, at least the chaos has settled into a sort of grim, grinding routine.
That’s when the hooded figure emerges from the crowd.
One moment, I’m hauling myself to the nearest cover, injuries screaming in protest. The next, I hear footsteps the size of an elephant somewhere between 1-3 feet behind me.
That’s when the hand closes around the back of my neck in an unbreakable vise, and the world turns inside out. My body whipsaws through the air in a dizzying spiral. Every muscle goes rigid in a full-body spasm, tendons straining against the crushing force of that merciless grip as my vision swims in a kaleidoscope of sickening vertigo.
For a few disorienting moments, I’m simply along for the ride, a helpless passenger in my own personal cyclone of violence. Then, just as abruptly, the motion ceases and I’m hurtling in a flat arc directly towards the thrashing, contorting form of the man writhing at the heart of this maelstrom.
I have just enough time to register the glint of metal shards and rivets erupting from the thing’s flesh in waves of agony, a razor forest of serrated edges and wicked points fanning outward in a deadly semicircle. Then, with absolutely zero time to spare, my world explodes into a blinding starburst of white-hot torment.
The impact is like being slammed into a brick wall at terminal velocity, every ounce of breath driven from my lungs in a choked rasp. I feel my ribs creak in protest as the unyielding mass of the creature’s form collides with my body, steel fangs ripping into exposed flesh with savage, merciless abandon.
I’m only dimly aware of the creature’s own hoarse shrieks of anguish mingling with my own, the two of us locked in a twisted, profane harmony of mutually inflicted torment. Its contorting mass seems to thrash against me, each convulsion driving those jagged shards of metal deeper into the very marrow of my bones as we grapple in a slaughterhouse tango of blood and viscera.
Distantly, over the thunderous roar of my own ragged gasps, I become aware of Rampart bellowing out a wordless battlecry. Then the creature’s weight is wrenching away from me in a sickening crunch, and I’m tumbling bonelessly to the ground in a crumpled heap, every shallow inhalation sending fresh lances of agony stabbing through my ruined flank.
“…Bee? Bee! ” Rampart’s voice cuts through the crimson haze engulfing my senses, his words tinged with a rare undercurrent of naked fear. “Don’t you dare check out on me now!”
I try to respond, to offer some sort of reassurance, but the only sound that emerges is a wet, gurgling moan of anguish. Panic claws at my throat, an icy knot of primal terror swallowing me whole as the realization sets in – I’m hurt, badly hurt, in a way that not even my accelerated healing can simply brush aside.
Rampart seems to sense my distress, his massive silhouette already looming over me with a look of grim determination etched across his battered features. “Easy there, slugger,” he rumbles, features taut with concentration. “I gotcha, just try and stay still for me…”
I try to focus on Rampart’s voice, on the steady cadence of his reassurances as he works with deft efficiency. But it’s like swimming against a powerful undertow, the current of oblivion tugging at my consciousness with every agonizing heartbeat. He’s saying words, but they don’t resolve into anything important, only the feeling of my own gauze getting wrapped up around me and the blooming pins-and-needles sensation of my body struggling to knit itself back together.
His voice cuts off in a sharp grunt, body flinching ever so slightly as a fresh tremor ripples through the ground beneath us. I blink owlishly, struggling to make sense of the sudden shift until a looming silhouette resolves itself from the swirling shadows at the edge of my vision.
I try to call out a warning, to steel Rampart against this fresh onslaught of violence. But my lips merely work soundlessly, every shallow exhalation sending a fresh spasm of torment stabbing through me.
Rampart, to his credit, simply tenses and rises into a defensive crouch, clearly sensing the shift in the air despite his focus being divided. “You got some kinda problem, fella?” he growls, fists clenching at his sides. “Because if not, I’d suggest turning around real slow and walking your big dumb ass right back to whatever dank hole you crawled out of before I put you through the goddamn pavement.”
The figure doesn’t respond immediately, at least not with words. Instead, it simply continues its slow, inexorable advance, each ponderous footfall shaking the ground with the weight of a small moon’s gravity. As it draws nearer, more details begin to resolve themselves from the inky shadows – the broad, sloping shoulders and thick neck, the vaguely anthropoid silhouette beneath that concealing shroud.
Projectiles whistle through the air, directionless, aimless. Rampart’s eyes flick between me and the figure and them, flicking his hands out to deflect what pieces of metal come anywhere close to us.
When the figure finally does speak, the voice that emerges is a deep, rumbling baritone, rough and grating like subterranean tectonic plates grinding against one another.
“Well, well… if it ain’t the big man himself, still playing errand boy for his government overlords,” the figure – a name resolves in my head, somewhere between my ears, and then vanishes – intones, the words dripping with an undercurrent of mocking condescension. “Gotta say, I’m almost a little disappointed. Here I was, expecting the Defenders to send their big guns to this fresh hell, and here we have the junior varsity team, clinging to the edge of life. How upsetting.”
Rampart tenses further at that, the cords of muscle in his neck standing out in harsh relief. When he responds, his tone is low and dangerous, a barely-leashed growl of unbridled menace.
“You got a hell of a lot of nerve running that oversized piehole of yours, dirtbag,” he rumbles, already beginning to shift his stance into a combat-ready crouch. “Especially considering I don’t even know who in the fuck you are, or why you’ve decided to make a bad night for these civvies even worse. You alright, Bee?”
“Peachy,” I croak, throwing him a bloody thumbs up as my bones try their hardest to push themselves back into a fighting configuration.
The hooded figure lets out a low, rumbling chuckle at that, the sound somehow sounding a little upset. Like, genuinely. “Oh, I’m hurt, you guys – you mean to tell me you don’t even recognize an old friend when he comes around for a friendly little reunion?” One massive hand whips up, fingers hooking into the concealing fabric as it tears the cowl away in a single, savage motion.
Pumice.
“Great, just what we needed. Rocky Horror Picture Show, four months early,” Rampart tries to quip, wiping a spot of blood from his nose. I hear the whistling before he does, but hear it he does, and he whips his body around to grab a sailing sawblade, bouncing it off his palm.
“Well now you’re just being hurtful, big guy,” Pumice rumbles, flexing one stony fist with an audible grind of tectonic plates. “After all the fun times we had back in the day, you’d think a little common courtesy would be in order…”
Rampart tenses further at the sight of the Phreak, shoulders squaring as he settles into a defensive crouch. “Pumice,” he growls, the word little more than a guttural snarl of disgust. “Should’ve known the stench of filth and failure in the air meant you bottom-feeders were involved somehow.”
Pumice’s sneer widens at that, revealing a maw filled with perfectly white, cuboid teeth. “There’s the rapier wit I’ve come to know and loathe,” he intones, already beginning to advance with slow, purposeful strides. “But surely even a brain-addled meathead like yourself can put two and two together here, Rampy. And, hey, Smalls! How’s your hand? Nails grow back yet?”
My breath catches in my throat at his words, a surge of cold dismay swirling through the crimson fog of agony still engulfing my senses. Rampart seems to share my sudden unease, his features hardening into a mask of grim resolution as he braces for the inevitable onslaught.
“So that’s how it is, huh?” he growls, already beginning to circle away from my prone form, putting himself squarely between Pumice and I. “Figures a pack of two-bit bottom-feeders like you Phreaks would get a hard-on for wanton destruction the second you sniffed out a chance to punch above your weight class.”
Pumice lets out another of those rumbling chuckles, shoulders rolling in an almost lazy shrug. “What can I say, big guy? We’ve got big plans. Deathgirl’s got a great head on her shoulders, no thanks to you guys taking away the one person who had a leash on her.” His gaze flicks momentarily towards me, lips peeling back in a savage leer. “Gotta give the little Megalodon some credit though – she’s the only one who ever managed to put a real dent in yours truly before tonight…”
With that, he lunges forward in a sudden explosion of motion, one granite-hewn fist already hurtling towards Rampart’s jaw in a blurring haymaker. But the big man is ready and waiting, forearms whipping up into a deft cross-guard to deflect the thunderous blow with a resounding crack of force meeting force.
And just like that, the fight is well and truly joined, the two titanic figures exchanging a barrage of crunching strikes and grappling locks in a whirlwind of savage intensity. I can only watch on in a daze, struggling just to remain conscious as the world seems to tilt and spin around me.
Rampart is giving as good as he gets, fighting with the same ruthless pragmatism and technical precision that makes him such a formidable sparring partner. But Pumice simply wades through the barrage with a contemptuous ease, not even seeming to register the impacts. Then, with a sudden shift of his shoulders, he’s powering forward and seizing Rampart in a smothering bear hug, those granite-slabbed arms encircling the big man’s torso in an unbreakable vise.
Rampart lets out a strangled wheeze as the air is driven from his lungs, body straining and thrashing against Pumice’s implacable grip. For a few heartbeats they simply grapple in a grinding, sweaty deadlock. Can Pumice sweat? Questions for later.
Then Pumice rears back, hauling Rampart clean off his feet as he whips the big man up and over in a textbook suplex. I can only watch in stunned horror as Rampart’s body cartwheels through the air, hurtling directly towards the still-thrashing, convulsing horror at the heart of this nightmare.
The impact is like a bomb going off, Rampart’s sturdy frame slamming into the creature with a meaty crunch of shearing metal and pulverized flesh. A fresh hailstorm of shrapnel explodes outward in a deadly cone, each jagged shard and twisted rivet shearing through the air with the speed of a bullet.
Pumice doesn’t even flinch, simply ducking his head to one side in a languid, almost casual motion as the storm of razors whickers past within a hair’s breadth of shearing his stony skull open. A few errant fragments patter against his stony hide in a shower of sparks, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. Rampart, on the other hand, has taken a knife blade to the gut, right past the body armor, even with all the other blades falling free from his costume, totally absorbed.
“Looks like your boy toy’s gonna be down for the count for a while there, little fishy,” he rumbles, already advancing with slow, purposeful strides. “Just you and me now, like old times…”
His voice seems to drift in and out of coherence, the words swallowed by a rising crescendo of white noise roaring in my ears. Dimly, I’m aware of my pulse thundering in my throat, every shallow inhalation sending fresh spasms of torment stabbing through my sides.
“Don’t count me out just yet!”
Rampart’s bellow tears through the fog of agony clouding my senses, jarring me back to some semblance of wakefulness just in time to witness him surge back to his feet. His body is a ruin of lacerations and embedded shrapnel, blood oozing from a dozen different wounds. But the big man’s features are set in a rictus of grim determination, eyes blazing with the intensity of someone who simply refuses to be beaten.
With a savage roar, he throws himself forward in a flat charge directly towards Pumice’s looming silhouette. The stony behemoth barely has time to react before Rampart is upon him, one massive fist whipping around in a blurring haymaker aimed squarely at his granite jaw. Rampart’s knuckles meet that unyielding hide with a crack like thunder. For a fraction of a heartbeat, I almost think he’s managed to stagger the living monolith, that he’s found some chink in Pumice’s armor that will allow us to turn the tide.
Then reality reasserts itself with a vengeance, and I watch in dismayed horror as Rampart’s entire frame shudders from the shockwave of force rebounding back up his arm. Pumice, for his part, doesn’t even flinch – he simply stands there, implacable and unmoving, taking the full brunt of Rampart’s strike like it was little more than a gentle caress.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna cut it, chief,” he rumbles, not even bothering to move “Might wanna try something with a little more oomph next time if you wanna make an impression. Be more like Smalls.”
“Rampart!” I rasp out, every shallow inhalation sending fresh spasms of torment stabbing through my ravaged flank. “Get… get the mutant into the fountain! We need to… to limit his firing arc!”
Rampart shakes out his knuckles, and glances between me and Pumice like he’s deciding what to do. I grab the piece of metal that seems to have the shallowest penetration in my arms and rip it loose – it looks like a wine corkscrew. Crazy.
“What, you think I care? Go, let the five foot seven middle schooler fight the six six guy made of literal rock. Go! Pussy,” Pumice taunts. I see Rampart’s face twisting in that annoying little thing called ‘thought’.
“Go!” I shout, and Rampart snaps onto one side like Schrodinger’s cat. He hustles behind me, and I interdict, cracking my knuckles and rolling my neck and trying not to look feeble in front of Pumice.
The mutant offers no resistance, simply howling out its torment as Rampart quite literally drags its spasming bulk across the ruined killing ground towards the fountain. New metal erupts in its wake, each razor-edged fragment ricocheting off Rampart’s battered frame in a hellish percussive frenzy. But he doesn’t falter, doesn’t slow – he simply grits his teeth and bears it, indomitable will fueling his march.
“Easy there, little fishy…”
I turn just in time to see Pumice advancing with slow, purposeful strides, each footfall shaking the ground with the weight of a small moon’s gravity.
“Wouldn’t want you going and doing something stupid now, would we?” he continues, lips peeling back in a savage leer as he draws up mere feet away. “Not when we’ve got so much catching up to do.”
Anger flares in my chest at his words, an ember of pure, incandescent rage searing through the fog of pain and fatigue. I grit my teeth against a fresh spasm, forcing myself to meet that mocking stare head-on as I brace for the inevitable onslaught.
“Catching up?” I rasp, the words emerging as little more than a breathless hiss of contempt. “Sorry, but I’m not really in the mood for a heart-to-heart right now, Rocky Balboa.” I spit a gobbet of blood at his feet, letting my features settle into a defiant sneer. “So why don’t you just take your discount Quarry Creed looking ass and fuck right off back to whatever dank hole you crawled out of before I put you down again. Permanently, this time.”
Pumice regards me for a moment, that same infuriating half-smirk playing across his craggy features. Then, without preamble, he lunges forward, one granite-hewn fist whipping around, aimed right at my skull.
On sheer instinct, I lean backwards, my spine screaming in agony in response. As I come up in a low crouch, I extend my arms in a defensive guard, baring my teeth in a silent snarl of challenge. I squeeze my fists, and teeth sing in response, emerging from the spaces between my knuckles, right where I’m used to them.
Pumice pauses at the sight, eyes widening almost imperceptibly as he takes in this fresh evolution of my powers. For a heartbeat, the two of us simply regard each other across the span of a few scant feet, the air thrumming with the weight of unspoken challenge. “Just like last time,” he mumbles.
Then he’s lunging forward again, this time leading with a straight jab aimed squarely at the center of my chest. I pivot to one side, letting the blow whisper past as I whip my own fist around in a blurring counterstrike, every ounce of my wiry strength channeled into the point of that bony protrusion.
My knuckle-spikes slam into Pumice’s obliques with a resounding crack, sinking into his solid stone hide before the sheer unyielding density forces it to a halt. Pumice flinches ever so slightly at the impact, a subtle shifting of his weight that betrays a startled wince of… not pain, not quite, but certainly discomfort.
The next few heartbeats dissolve into a whirlwind of savage exchanges, the two of us trading a barrage of crunching blows and grappling locks in a lethal dance of fists and elbows. I’m fighting with every ounce of skill and tenacity I can muster, channeling the full extent of my training into landing each precise, surgical strike. Or as precise as it can get while I’m also slowly bleeding out. You know, whatever.
But for every thunderous impact that slams home, every fresh crack and fissure that blossoms across Pumice’s stony hide, he simply shrugs it off with that same infuriating half-smirk, like I’m little more than a gnat buzzing around his head. Even when I land a particularly savage elbow spike directly to the juncture of his throat, sinking another tooth-point into his stone, he barely even registers it beyond a subtle cough and a widening of his smirk.
“Gotta say, Smalls… you’ve definitely stepped up your game since our last tango,” he rumbles, already beginning to circle me with slow, predatory strides. “That little trick with the knuckle spikes is a real doozy – almost makes a fella think you’ve been practicing in your spare time.”
I snort out a breathless chuckle at that, shifting to match his movements step for step. “What can I say?” I rasp, wiping a trickle of sweat from my brow as I settle into a fighting crouch. “I’m just a fast learner with a great teacher. Speaking of which…”
With a sudden shift of my weight, I launch myself forward in a bounding lunge, leading with a blistering feint towards Pumice’s face. He reacts instantly, hands whipping up to deflect the apparent strike.
Only instead of following through, I pivot at the last possible second and whip my leg around in a blurring roundhouse kick, channeling every ounce of my wiry strength into the point of the vicious tooth now jutting from my shin, through an exposed gap where a piece of metal tore the costume open. The impact is like a thunderclap, that razor-sharp protrusion slamming directly into Pumice’s abs, concentrating everything I have in my good leg into a single point.
This time, Pumice can’t quite suppress the flicker of discomfort that ripples across his features, a subtle tightening around the eyes that betrays the first stirrings of genuine pain. He lets out a low, rumbling grunt, almost more of an exhalation than an actual vocalization as he staggers back a step, one hand instinctively going to clutch at the wound, a fracture blooming across his body.
“Atta girl…” he rumbles, already squaring his stance as that same smirk blooms across his craggy features. “Knew there was a reason you were always my favorite little spitfire.”
I snort out a breathless chuckle at that, already circling away to create some distance as I brace for his next attack. “If you think that was impressive, just wait’ll you get a load of my other moves,” I quip, unable to resist needling him just a little. “I’ve been practicing this real sweet little number I like to call ‘the nutcracker’…”
Pumice throws back his head and lets out a rusty peal of laughter at that, the sound almost startlingly genuine. “Is that so?” he rumbles, already beginning to stalk forward with that same inexorable menace. “Show me what you’ve got, Jaws.”
With that, he lunges forward again in an explosion of force, leading with a flurry of crunching haymakers and straight jabs. I duck and weave through the onslaught, deflecting what blows I can’t evade with deft blocks and parries, gritting my teeth as every one that lands straight puts a fresh crack in my radius and ulna. Slowly but surely, I start giving ground, letting Pumice herd me back towards the streetlights as I bide my time, waiting for an opportunity to counterattack, watching Rampart wrestle the figure into the fountain.
He doesn’t disappoint. With a sudden pivot of his weight, Pumice snaps one granite-slabbed leg around in a roundhouse kick of his own, the sheer momentum behind the strike enough to punch cracks in solid concrete. I duck under it and shoot forward, swinging myself under his legs and popping up behind him, back to back.
As I come up in a low crouch, I can’t resist flashing the big lug a cheeky grin. “You’ll have to do better than that if you wanna impress me, Rockhead,” I taunt, already settling back into my fighting stance. “I’ve taken hits from actual stone cold stunners that packed more of a wallop.”
Pumice pauses at that, head cocking slightly to one side as he regards me with a considering look. “Stone Cold, huh?” he rumbles at last, lips quirking in a rueful smirk. I hear his heels grinding into the concrete before I see them, and only barely manage to avoid an impromptu People’s Elbow that leaves a series of cracks spiderwebbing across the ground. He rolls back onto his sneakers and slowly rises to his feet, wiping dust off his shoulders and arms.
“What’s the matter, Smalls?” Pumice taunts as we grapple in a sweaty deadlock, every word punctuated by the crack of stone meeting bone. “You getting a little winded over there?”
“You wish, Rockhead, ” I rasp, swiping a trickle of sweat from my brow as I settle back into my fighting crouch. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
This is what I live for.
…
Sorry, Jamila.
With that, he launches into a fresh offensive, this one more measured and controlled than his earlier berserker rushes. I brace myself for the onslaught, every muscle tensed as I fight to keep ahead of those blurring, thunderous strikes.
We grapple and feint and parry, trading a dizzying flurry of blows in a lethal dance of fists and elbows. Pumice is relentless, an implacable juggernaut of stone-forged fury weathering my barrage of precision strikes. But I can tell I’m starting to make an impact now, can feel it in the way his movements grow just a hair slower, a fraction more ponderous with each passing exchange.
Something I don’t think enough people think about is just how hard your bones are, how hard they have to be just to hold up all of your meat. They’re a five on the Mohs hardness scale!
A sudden crunch of shattering stone sends a starburst of pulverized gravel raining down around us. Pumice flinches, ever so slightly, as a fresh spiderweb of cracks blossoms across his stony brow from the force of my knuckle-spike slamming home.
“Looks like the Sixers might just have a shot at making some noise in the playoffs this year after all,” he rumbles almost conversationally, even as we continue to trade blows with savage intensity. “Embiid’s looking healthy, Harden seems to have found his groove again…”
I snort out a breathless chuckle at that, ducking under a wild haymaker, skidding three inches back and discarding my used up, broken teeth from my knuckles like shotgun shells. Squeezing my body so that a fresh set rises to the surface. A bit of metal pops out, too, around my shoulder, and I didn’t even intend that one, but all the motion combined with the weird freak shit my muscles do is just causing them all to start popping out on their own. I feel a wave of blood spurt out of me, and dizziness hits me right between the eyes.
“You’re really gonna stand there and run your mouth about basketball? ” I laugh, a little drunkenly, feeling high on the adrenaline. What weed and alcohol can’t provide, a good scrap can, apparently. Go figure. “While we’re in the middle of trying to pummel each other into a fine paste?”
Pumice lets out another of those rusty peals of laughter, seemingly utterly unconcerned by the steady accumulation of fresh wounds pockmarking his stony hide. “What can I say, Smalls?” he rumbles, deflecting my barrage with almost casual indifference. “Sports are the great equalizer.”
The world blurs and tilts around us, our lethal tango of fists and fury dissolving into a maelstrom of crunching impacts and ragged exhalations. Pumice is an implacable force, weathering my barrage with unnatural calmness. But I can feel it now – that subtle shift in the rhythm of our exchanges, the almost imperceptible slowing of his movements as the accumulated toll of our duel begins to make itself known.
Every fiber of my being screams in protest with each fresh eruption of violence, my battered body pushed well past its limits. But I can’t stop, I won’t stop – not until I’ve carved my way through that unyielding stone edifice guarding Pumice’s core and made him understand.
I reel up, and I throw.
The impact is like striking an anvil, shockwaves of pure concussive trauma radiating up through my arm in a blinding tsunami of white-hot agony. But I grit my teeth and lean into it, fighting through the pain as I feel that brittle stone carapace finally begin to fracture and splinter beneath my onslaught.
A sound escapes Pumice then, low and grinding and very much like genuine pain. Just for a heartbeat, that insufferable mask of bravado slips, revealing a flicker of raw vulnerability in his smoldering eyes. Then the moment passes and he’s rearing back, clutching at the fresh wound now marring his stony flank as he regards me with a look of grudging respect.
“Not bad, Smalls…” he rumbles, the words almost seeming to catch in his throat. “Not bad at all…”
The stalemate doesn’t last.
One moment, Pumice and I are locked in that same brutal, grinding slugfest, exchanging thunderous blows and deflecting haymakers with almost casual indifference. The next, a sudden commotion at the edge of the killing ground shatters the tension, heralding a fresh surge of chaos crashing over us like a tidal wave.
“Paramedics, get those civilians to safety and establish a triage!” A voice like rolling thunder booms across the park, cutting through the din of battle with an unmistakable cadence of authority.
I risk a glance over my shoulder just in time to see a rippling blur of motion resolving itself into three identical figures decked out in familiar crimson-and-black-and-boxing-gloves. Multiplex – the old warhorse himself has decided to grace us with his presence. Could’ve probably been here a little faster, buddy.
But any resentment I might feel is swiftly swept aside by a surge of raw relief as I take in the fresh calvary arrayed against the still-thrashing form of the metal mutant. Rampart has done a stellar job of herding the poor bastard into the dubious confines of the fountain, restricting its deadly peals of fire to a much more manageable angle. But even from here I can see the big man flagging, muscles trembling with the strain of maintaining that constant, Herculean effort while deflecting the creature’s relentless barrage.
The Multiplex clones don’t hesitate, three identical figures blurring into discorporate motion as they surge forward to seal off the remaining vectors of attack, riot shields deployed to eat any remaining projectiles, channeling the creature’s thrashing motions into an ever-tightening series of kill boxes.
A fresh bloom of agony lances through my side, the sharp sting of reality once again asserting itself over my momentary reverie. I hiss out a ragged curse, whipping my head back around just in time to deflect a savage overhead smash from Pumice’s granite knuckles. He doesn’t let up, simply using that same motion to pivot into a blurring knee strike aimed squarely at my abdomen. “Eyes on the prize, Smalls.”
I catch the next blow on my forearms in a desperate cross-guard, tendons screaming in protest as the full force of his impact detonates against them. For a breathless heartbeat, I simply hang there, suspended in the void as every nerve ending in my body flares into searing wakefulness.
Then, with an almost casual motion, Pumice shoots forward into my rapidly diminishing guard. I have just enough time to register the shift in his stance, the sudden flexing of his shoulders as he cocks one arm back for a haymaker of truly apocalyptic proportions.
I brace myself for the blow, already wincing in anticipation of testing my regeneration to its limit. Can it, in fact, put together my skull if it’s been busted open like an egg?
Which is why I’m caught completely flatfooted when, instead of following through on the fist, Pumice suddenly whirls on his supporting heel, swinging around in a blurring pivot as he hurls himself backwards in a flat retreat. For a breathless heartbeat, I can only gape after his rapidly receding silhouette, stunned by the abrupt shift and utterly at a loss as to what just happened.
Then a deep, rumbling bellow of exertion splits the night, and a veritable mountain of corded muscle and sinew barrels past me in a thunderous charge. Rampart doesn’t slow, doesn’t pause, simply transitioning from a dead sprint into a bounding lunge as he throws himself bodily at Pumice’s exposed flank in a textbook spear tackle, catching him with his shoulder and then going dead in the air.
The two juggernauts collide, the sheer force of their combined momentum enough to send a plume of pulverized masonry billowing outward in a choking cloud. No, I don’t think Rampart did anything, but slowing him down is something.
Then, with a sudden heave, Pumice simply shifts his weight and hurls Rampart aside, flinging his sturdy frame away like a broken toy. Rampart goes tumbling in a tangle of flailing limbs, rolling halfway across the plaza before coming to a shuddering stop in a crumpled heap amidst the rubble. I don’t like seeing Rampart with blooming red across his costume. It feels wrong.
“Nice try there, Chuckles,” Pumice rumbles, already skidding backwards with slow, purposeful backstrides as he casually brushes a few errant specks of debris from his shoulders. “But I think you’re gonna wanna sit the rest of this dance out before you end up biting off more than you can chew. We out.”
Then, before I can react, before I can even think to try and continue this fight, a sound like a screaming mountain lion splits the night. I turn about 30 degrees, just in time to see a looming silhouette resolving itself from the shadows of a nearby alleyway, a hulking, quadruped shape that seems to flow and heave with every ponderous step.
Pumice doesn’t hesitate. With a final, mocking salute in my direction, he turns and breaks into a flat sprint directly towards the onrushing monstrosity. For a breathless heartbeat, it almost seems like the two are destined to collide head-first.
But then, I can only watch in stunned disbelief as Pumice grabs hold of it from around the scruff, climbing onto its back like he’s mounting a horse. Then, without any further preamble, it’s whirling around and bounding away into the night, rapidly receding into the maze of shadowed alleys until only an echo of splintering concrete remains.
The sudden silence that follows is almost deafening, a palpable weight that seems to press down on me from all sides. I simply stand there for a long moment, chest heaving with ragged exhalations as I struggle to process everything I’ve just witnessed.
A low groan snaps me out of my reverie, the sound visceral and raw. Rampart – I’d almost forgotten about him in the insanity of those final moments. The big man is already stirring, hauling himself upright in a tangle of torn armor and pulverized masonry with a pained grimace etched across his battered features.
“Well…” he rumbles at last, spitting a gobbet of bloody phlegm onto the cratered killing ground between us. “I don’t know about you, Bee, but I could use a coffee.”
My answering laugh sounds almost hysterical to my own ears, a breathless peal of delirious, bone-weary mirth as the weight of the world finally crashes down around me in earnest. I’m dimly aware of raised voices and shouted commands echoing across the plaza as the paramedics and Multiplexes move in to secure the area. But it all seems strangely muffled and distant, like I’m experiencing everything through layers of thick gauze wrapped around my senses.
“You don’t know the half of it, big guy,” I murmur, sparing one last glance towards the shadowed mouth of the alley where that… thing disappeared into the night.
Elias.
The name floats to the forefront of my thoughts, crystallizing into sudden, terrifying focus amidst the swirling chaos. That’s what I recognized. The parts. The noise. The scream.
These days, it seems like there’s always another shoe waiting to drop.
I try to take solace in the fact that tonight, at least, the scales remain balanced – lives were saved, a greater evil averted. But even as the paramedics finally reach us and the first flickers of blessed oblivion begin tugging at the edges of my consciousness, I can’t quite shake the feeling that this was merely the opening salvo. That the forces we’ve unwittingly unleashed here tonight are destined to crash over us again in a tide of blood and fury, again and again, until this city is scoured away.
I wave off most of their concerns, although I do accept the painkillers. Honestly, I’m just more worried for Rampart. But, well. I’ve also broken at least ten bones, am bleeding from every limb and most of my torso and back, and probably have a concussion. I think I’ve earned my nap time.
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