Fifteen: Ashes of Freedom

Phantasma had the sense to look sheepish as she quickly knocked out the female guard before she could make any more trouble, and tossed her rifle onto the roof of the nearest bunkhouse. Gauntlet, Grandmaster, and Teresa raced to join her.

“Who are you people?” Teresa asked, amazed.

“Dat was tres bien, Betta,” Gauntlet said to her sarcastically.

“Er…okay,” Betta conceded. “That could have gone better.”

“You t’ink?”

“So, what now?” Teresa asked urgently.

“First order of business is to get you out of here,” Grandmaster replied. She tipped her head to the side, and her eyes dimmed in concern. “You’re sick,” she realized, and with a wave of her hand, Teresa found that her ailments had disappeared–the ache in her stomach subsided; her fever reduced to nothing; and the creaks in her bones disappeared. She felt better than she had in months.

Before Teresa could even say “thank you” or ask any more questions, Grandmaster was pushing her friends together with them.

“What are you doing?” Teresa asked.

“Getting you out of here,” Grandmaster replied.

“But, but, what about you?” she questioned.

“I’ll catch another ride,” Grandmaster said. “She looked at Gauntlet. “Go. I’ll handle this while you get the others.”

The handsome man did not hesitate. “You’d better bring us back.”

A burst of power, and then the three were gone.

“Take your time,” Grandmaster said to the empty air as the sound of heavy boots striking the ground reached her eyes. “I have other things to occupy myself until you get back.”

She smiled grimly and raised her arms, red and gold and orange flames dancing on her skin in waves of brilliant flashes, like sheaths of energy, as a half a dozen armored soldiers came charging at her from across the main yard. All of them were carrying the same dueling staff-rifle weapons, and began to fire.

As the bullets tore through the air, Grandmaster began to feed. She used a consume technique to tear the heat and energy from the air, making herself stronger and stronger. Her phoenix dragon rose up around her, flaring with pure, raw power. This kind of potency was the kind that could tear through realities, make the elements of water and fire flash through her.

With the roar of a dragon and the flaming screech of a phoenix, she ran to meet them.

…

Phantasma, Gauntlet and Teresa reappeared on the edge of Elm Road. Taking the point, Sparks led the other members of the Star Legion across the road to meet them. Teresa inhaled sharply as she glanced around, looking slightly confused–not just by the growing number of costumed characters in her life, but by the fact that she was actually outside of the camp for which she had been imprisoned for over two and a half months.

“Maggie…” Betta gasped between breaths; the teleportation sometimes made her sick. “We had to…she…”

“We know. Astra told us everythin’,” Riven said, reaching her side.

“Give me another minute…” Phantasma wheezed.

The night air was suddenly filled with the sounds of gunfire bursts, the clash of steel on steel, the ringing bellow of flames igniting, and the pitiful screams of the injured as the camp erupted into chaos.

Grandmaster’s power blasted over the Star Legion like a gust of winter wind and her voice washed over them. Riven, Gauntlet, and Phantasma–get in there. Take out the guard towers–I want their high-ground advantages eliminated. Kill the spotlights and the radio transmitters, too.

“What about you?” Gauntlet asked.

I can take care of myself for the moment, she replied. Now go!

“You got it, boss,” Riven said. She carefully slung an arm around Phantasma’s waist and supported Gauntlet with the other hand, then shot into the air to zoom into the cam.

Tempest, Cryo, you both are on elemental control. Work in conjunction and do whatever you can to disrupt the soldiers–but don’t kill them, Grandmaster said. Shadowstalker, come here and give me a hand. Sienna, you’re with Sparks. Try to free the prisoners by taking down the fence.

Shadowstalker nodded. “Easier said than done, Grandmaster, but I will try my best.” He raced through the shadows of the moonlit road and disappeared. Cryo created an ice track to slide on, and Tempest summoned winds to levitate her. Both of them disappeared into the camp.

Sparks and Astra began to head toward the fence, but Teresa interrupted them. “Hey, what about me?” she asked.

Sparks stared at her for a long moment, as though he was just focusing on the fact that she was standing there. You stay here, he said, and gestured toward her emaciated frame; while Grandmaster had healed her sickness, she was still thin and weak from malnourishment and days of confinement. You’re in no shape to help out.

“The hell with that! You think that, just because I don’t have a flashy costume or powers like you do, that I’m going to miss out on the opportunity to pay back those animals and burn this place to the ground?” Teresa challenged him, her cheeks glowing red with anger. “Man, not. A. Chance.”

Sparks considered his possible choices, and there weren’t many: he could have Teresa join them and help in some limited capacity in liberating this prison camp, and try to keep her out of harm’s way; but the more likely thing was that she would just go back to the camp on her own and run the risk of getting hurt or killed.

All right, he conceded to her. Just stay close.

Teresa nodded in agreement, and with that, the trio began heading toward the battlefield.

…

Riven made quick work of the facility. She circled the perimeter from high above, holding tightly to Phantasma and Gauntlet as she zigged and zagged through the air, evading the gunfire that was now being directed at them from the guard towers.

“Do it, Riven,” Phantasma said, and Riven nodded before releasing Phantasma. The phaser had grown adept at landing without a parachute and swimming back up from the ground. The ghost of the Star Legion sank through the muddy ground, vaguely aware of the crust of rocks and the heat of the mantle, as well as the creatures burrowing beneath, before she leapt back up through the ground and rotated, spinning a kick to take down the first of the gunmen that blasted her with plasma shots.

Phantasma went through the dozens of shots that they aimed at her as the guards of the Eternity Corporation’s camp cocked their rifles and blasted her with plasma and thermal-ceramic ammunition, but Phantasma bolted across the yard.

She had made a point of getting up every morning at six o’clock and running the length of the Academy’s grounds, and that training came through today. She dashed toward a cluster of trees, then willed herself to go through them to hide as the soldiers who chased her stopped, looking around in confusion.

She waited for a few seconds, before pulling herself out–though continuing to stay as incorporeal as a ghost–but her arms stayed solid. She dodged, rolled over, and ducked under the hail of bullets that the soldiers fired at them, and came within enough distance to grab their guns. She snapped them out of the men’s hands and broke them into pieces with a loud crack and took each half, stabbing them into the legs of the two soldiers. They howled pitifully and their hands scrabbled at their bloody mounds of flesh. Phantasma kicked them to the side and moved on.

On the other side of the field, Gauntlet was battling more soldiers. For a brief moment, he closed his sunset-colored demonic eyes and concentrated. When he opened them, the hues of red and brilliant gold pulsated through his retinas and irises, the different shades colliding together and swirling, as though his eyes contained a galaxy of red and yellow suns. A bright aura of energy patterned the air around him. Powerful blasts of energy–stellar light and photon blasts–formed in the apex of his fists, and he blasted the constructs at the nearest guard towers.

The results of his technique were staggering: as the energy blasts struck the metal, they exploded with the force of a howitzer shell, disintegrating the walkway and flinging its occupants high up in the air. Small bits of twisted metal and mangled wires rained down on the camp; Gauntlet charged those with kinetic energy, mistings of red energy that exploded even further.

“Nice goin’,” Riven commented as she watched the guards tumble to the ground. Though the impact still produced some broken bones and torn ligaments, she was glad to see that none of the guards had been killed by the explosion. “Are you ready for more?”

“Let’s get to it,” Gauntlet said. “I’ve got a good hand and I’m not ready to fold. I still got a full deck, chére.”

“That’s your opinion,” the southern belle said wryly.

Before Gauntlet could come up with a witty comeback, she hauled him onto her back and headed for their next target.

…

Amidst the sounds of flame-tipped claws clashing against steel blades and slicing through rifle barrels and body armor, Grandmaster was running through the field of the camp, her avatar of power writhing in the sky as she opened and closed her fists.

The air rippled iridescent around her, as powerful as the wings of a dragon, and it became a shield to protect her from the plasma and the bullets as she rained down lightning and fire from the sky. Before she had put up the shield, Grandmaster was bleeding from entry wounds that had slipped past her guard and into her–high-caliber bullets, judging by the gaping holes in her body, as well as thrusts from knives–but she ripped them out of her and let her instantaneous healing factor take over, allowing her to remain at a peak deviant condition so she could fight without missing a beat.

She had been tortured for months in Blackstar’s kingdom known as Beneath the Mountain, where the mind-controlled brother of the Teacher had kidnapped deviant children and humans alike, using his own species as weapons and keeping the humans as slaves. When she had been broken apart physically, she had sunk into the burning sea of her power for three months before erupting with power–and as a result, she was almost impossible to hurt. No drugs could affect her, no bullets could wound her, no knives or blades could pierce her, no limit of air could make her stop breathing. She had to have been the hardest being in the world to kill.

She had become more dragon and phoenix than woman now–a fearsome creature reveling in the throes of a feeding frenzy as she swooped down from the sky. Below her, a quartet of guards had their weapons blown up in their hands with just a single thought from Grandmaster, and tried to get at her with bayonets, but the thin steel of their blades were no match against the most powerful deviant to ever walk the face of the Earth.

“Bozhe moi,” Shadowstalker whispered; his eyes widened in shock. Just because she was as powerful as she was did not mean she was going to hurt them, he knew. Grandmaster was not going to kill them or even hurt them beyond knocking them out, despite the vast amounts of people they had hurt with their actions in the past. He watched as she bound them out of reality, freezing them past the fabric of reality with ropes of ta’lien and different energy techniques. She was going to imprison them until, hopefully, they could be arrested and justice could be served–not on human or deviant terms, but on the terms of those who had been wronged.

From out of the corner of her eye, Grandmaster spotted her teammate standing off to the side. “Come on, Arkady! Jump on in!” she joked. “There’s enough hurting to go around for everyone!”

He grimaced with a smile at her awkward joke as she leapt into the sky and threw herself at the guards, who now looked like they were more interested in saving their own skin and running for their lives rather than defending their place of employment. Not that they had any choice, though; Grandmaster was not about to let anyone escape.

But one when one of them came out from behind her, Shadowstalker raced through the shadows of the field and caught Grandmaster mid-leap. The guards immediately lost no time in vacating the scene before shadows reared up from the ground like striking serpents and brought them down.

He then realized he was holding Grandmaster in his arms, close enough to smell the sweet scent of her hair and the beat of her heart as he brushed her hair aside.

With a howl, Grandmaster leaped to her feet. Shadowstalker rolled off her and approached her, unable to stop staring at her. Maggie Bawa looked gorgeous in the night, terrifying and magnificent inside the heart of the flaming aetherstorm around her, the phoenix dragon. Her dark hair flowed like ribbons of earth, and her brown eyes watched everything–inquisitive, brilliant. She took a step closer to him and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

He wondered how he would ever be able to paint her right, to capture all this ethereality and gloriousness.

Some used words. Some used songs. Some used their bodies and their hands for violence and love. But a painting was how he got what was hidden inside him to the outside. And right now, it felt like there wasn’t enough paint in all the world to capture her brilliance.

Like any artist, he required a muse, a focusing agent–something or someone–to study from every angle and know them better than he knew himself. Then and only then, was when he was content to paint.

If he truly connected to it then, it was like a stroke of inspiration, like plugging into a current. Then ink and paper could become as real as blood and bone.

She is made for fire, all crimson and gold, he thought, or fire is made for her.

They were in the middle of a battle, some rational part of his mind told him. They ought to be fighting their opponents, liberating the prisoners. He should not be imagining her back home in Russia, silhouetted against the vast whiteness of the tundra back in the icy lands of Khabarovsk, bright as the gushing blue rivers and glittering like the moonlit snow.

Except that if she even set one foot anywhere near his family’s home, someone would probably kill her. No matter where she was in the world, actually, if they had any idea about how Shadowstalker felt about her.

But he would never, never let that happen.

Grandmaster broke away from their stare, her lips parted. Without another word, she spun around and released a torrent of rain and fire at the nearby soldiers; they screamed as their body armor went up into flames and lightning cracked their weapons to pieces.

Shadowstalker spun around and threw a punch, catching a soldier in the right temple, before streaking into the shadows and reappearing atop another soldier, bringing him down as he drove his elbows into the nape of his neck. But he was only half-focused, as he was watching her fight.

The Grandmaster took up so much of his headspace. He constantly found himself staring at her like he was now, hoping for a glance that would hint she might feel the same way. Shadowstalker wanted to be near her, always–today, tomorrow, forever.

But she’s the Grandmaster, she’s the Grandmaster, she’s the Grandmaster, thudded in his head like a hurried heartbeat. She was everything that he wanted and loved, but he could not deny that she was the greatest deviant who ever lived.

And when the soldiers finally cleared out and they had finished their battle, Grandmaster finally looked up to him. The phoenix dragon avatar was gone. She seemed dazed, disoriented.

Utterly human. Utterly mortal.

“It is so quiet,” she said, her voice a soft lilt; and despite the chaos around them, the world had become quiet, shrinking down to embody just the two of them.

Shadowstalker’s mind was filled with unspoken words: can I tell you a secret? he wanted to ask. I have never told anyone this, but I’ve carried it inside me every day since we met and I think of it every day. Would you want to be together with me? You and me, giving ourselves into the world with all our hearts?

Instead, he just sheathed his thoughts and smiled at her. “Come on,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulder. She smiled back at him, and together they walked over to the other Legionnaires.

…

It was all falling apart because all hell had broken loose.

Guard towers were exploding and the watches were falling to the ground, aflame with blasts of golden-red energy, courtesy of Gauntlet and his constructs of energy that he had created. Armored troop transports rumbled through the compound. Somewhere deep on the grounds, gunfire erupted, only to be silenced moments later by Riven and Phantasma.

Cryo lunged forward and whipped up an ice wall behind Gauntlet and Shadowstalker, and kept replenishing it as the Eternity Corporation’s pawns blasted the wall away with his left hand. With his right hand, he fired rains of hail, knives of icicles, and bursts of snowballs to disarm as many soldiers as he could reach. Towers of ice erupted out of the ground and captured the guards, burying them up to their necks. The best he could do was see that the other Legionnaires didn’t get injured.

Tempest created a gale-force wind that sucked the soldiers out from the back of one of the troop transports and threw them into the trees beyond. All she could see of the fight was a trembling in the air as her visions whitened with the constructs of weather. She was using her winds to battle the soldiers’ blasts of plasma, softening them to nothing before they could fire. Wind rushed past them, through them, breaking heat like breaking bread, shoving the warriors into each other. Bolts of lightning struck the empty transports, which exploded into white-hot flashes of fire, and the soldiers scrambled for cover as her winds whisked the shrapnel away.

And in the midst of all this chaos, the inmates were beginning to stream out from the bunkhouses, awakened by the chaos. While some joined the battle, attacking their keepers and whatever guard was nearby, most stampeded over in the opposite direction, only to be brought to an abrupt halt by the high fencing buzzing with electricity designed to keep them inside.

Maggie, we’ve got to get the prisoners back! Sienna’s thoughts were brimming with concern, matching the chaos on the other side of the fence, but she managed to keep her emotions in check.

I’ve got this, Sparks replied. He turned to the chain-link fence and the wave of depowered human mutates and deviants that were surging against it. If he didn’t act now, the people in front would be crushed against the links by those in the back, who were too panicked to realize they were not accomplishing anything or going anywhere.

STAND BACK! Sparks bellowed over the din, but either no one heard him or they weren’t paying attention to his plea. Raising his hands, he touched the layers of skin-tight sweaters that swaddled his lower face and chest. Immediately, he undid the top, and in the upper half of his body, his bareness was exposed, but only for a few seconds.

But it was time enough for beams of bright red energy to lance forward from the energy that coursed through him instead of blood, to strike the ground in front of the fence with all the force of an exploding missile.

Sparks’ display of his sheer power got their attention. They froze, clearly uncertain to make of what had just transpired. As one entity, they stared, wide-eyed, at the red-and-orange garbed Legionnaire standing before him.

Move back from the fence! Sparks ordered. I’ll have you out in just a second!

The prisoners did what they were told this time, and the deviant’s body gleamed red again, growing too bright to look at, and instantly, an entire section of the fencing came crashing down. Before the broken metal had even touched the ground, though, the prisoners began pouring through the hole, frantically climbing over one another in their haste to be free.

“Single file, people!” Teresa barked. “One at a time! Plenty of fresh air and freedom to go around!”

This joyous occasion, however, was soon disrupted by the screams of terror from the back of the line. Using her awesome psionic powers, Astra pushed herself off the ground and gently floated across the night sky. Her eyes narrowed in anger as she spotted a dozen armored soldiers stomping across the yard in the direction of the crush of prisoners. The air was soon filled with the sounds of laser weapons cycling up to full power.

“This one is mine,” Astra said. Her electric-blue eyes flashed with a deep silver, and with nothing but a thought, she telekinetically grabbed ahold of the collapsed fencing and flung it at the guards. In seconds, they were securely pinned to the ground, and remained a threat no longer.

Sparks turned to Teresa. Help the other prisoners come through, he said. Sienna and I have to get inside. Teresa opened her mouth, probably to argue about being left behind, but Thomas gently placed a hand on her shoulder before she could say anything. Please? he added. You know these people better than I do.

Teresa seemed to briefly consider this for a moment, then nodded.

Sparks tipped his head at her. Thank you. He glanced at Astra, who was still floating above them. Her eyes flashed silver again, and with a tendril of power, he rose up to join her. Together, they flew over the inmates and into the camp, as Teresa struggled to create some sort of order in the midst of hysteria.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

…

Riven had completed a bombing run with Gauntlet. She had dropped the wily Cajun on the roof of one of the barracks to help Grandmaster and Shadowstalker, who were both probably in the thick of things, and had taken to the air again. Below her, the camp was in chaos as fires burned, shots rang out, and prisoners turned against their captors, attacking them with whatever weapons they could find–metal bars, wooden folding chairs, utensils, even their bare hands.

A group of armed men and women came running out of what appeared to be the warden’s office, followed by someone who was more than likely to be the man in charge. There must have been some slim pickings down at the employment center for the Eternity Corporation, Riven mused, because this man had the physique of a toddler: wide eyes, unkempt hair, a uniform in dire need of pressing, and a face still round and softened with baby fat.

“Now Ah get t’have some fun…” Riven said aloud, a malicious grin spreading across her face.

Forming a double line across the main yard, the soldiers raised their weapons–rifles and pistols and knives–and took aim at the flood of inmates that were beginning to overwhelm them–clearly intent on using deadly force to stop the prison break.

Not if Ah can help it, Riven thought grimly. With a burst of speed, she bore down on the firing squad.

“FIRE!” yelled the warden.

Twenty-five fingers squeezed on twenty-five triggers to begin the massacre–only to close on empty air.

Time around Riven had slowed as she raced forward like lightning, plucking each weapon from the guards’ hands and gathering them up on her own. The world flashed and both the guards and the commanding officer stared at their hands, obviously wondering what had become of the weapons they had just been holding.

“Y’all lookin’ for these?” Riven asked. She serenely floated twenty feet above them, a Cheshire Cat-like grin on her face. As they watched in astonishment, the skunk-haired deviant crumpled the guns into a ball with her gloved hands, then, like she was delivering a fastball, wound up and threw the oversized paperweight into a nearby lake.

“Lemme ask y’all somethin’,” Riven asked, standing in midair with her hands on her hips. “Without those peashooters, how y’all think you’d do in a fair fight?”

“Against a freak like you, who can do something like we just saw?” the warden replied with a sneer. “How is that a fair fight?”

Riven wagged a disapproving finger at the man. “Now, there’s no need for name-callin’, sugah. Y’all don’t see me climbin’ up on my high horse and callin’ you a turd-sniffing cat with delusions a’bein’ a man, do you? Course not.” Her grin widened. “ ‘Sides, I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout me.” She pointed over her shoulder. “I was talkin’ ‘about them.”

The warden and his men looked past her to see the very prisoners they had been targeting now rushing toward them. Before the warden could bark an order, the inmates were upon them, knocking them to the ground and giving them a not-so-healthy dose of their own medicine. Riven chuckled to herself as she saw the warden scramble to his feet and run away screaming as a group of inmates chased after him, hot on his tail.

“Ah love this job…” she said with a dreamy sigh.

Her work, however, was far from complete.

A flash of moonlight off green metal off to one side struck her below the collarbone, near her sternum, knocking Riven out of the sky. Semi-conscious, she soared across the yard and slammed hard into a truck parked in front of the main entrance, crashing into its container with her indestructible, nigh-invulnerable body and collapsing into a heap upon the cold metal floor. Dazed but unhurt, Riven groaned and slowly sat up, just in time to see a quintet of airborne soldiers surrounding her.

“Kill that freak!” one of the soldiers screamed. As one, the guards raised their hands, palms held forward. Riven ducked their blasts by rolling to the side, only to realize that the flashes of energy that erupted from the center of each hand as the laser generators built into their armor released deadly energies–she wasn’t their target.

Because the truck that was behind her…the energies made contact with its gas tanks and exploded.

…

Gauntlet only saw the blast from a distance.

The last glimpse he’d had of Riven and his other teammates came just before a green-armored guard had swooped down from the heavens of night to backhand him into the side of one of the men’s dormitories–if it could truly be called a dormitory–an exploding photon blast that had connected with his boot jets had shorted out the men’s flight systems and sent him wildly careening over the fence and into the lake. He had joined forces with the hordes of angry prisoners to finally turn the tide against the seemingly endless swarms of armed guards that opposed them.

Now the ground suddenly shuddered as a new explosion rocked the camp–one that was not his. Flames and thick black smoke shot up from a transport truck standing at the camp entrance. Gauntlet frantically looked into the night, then gazed at the burning vehicle and the armored figures swarming around him.

“Chére?!” Gauntlet yelled, panic rising in him. “RIVEN!”

Creating three energy constructs like fireballs, he hurled them at a trio of guards clad in body armor. They exploded on impact with the steel plating, the force of the released charges throwing the now-unconscious men across the yard. Gaining a small respite, Gauntlet raised to the burning truck. He consumed energy from the forces around them, his body glowing with golden-red energy, flickering with the power of the universe’s most primal forces: gravity, radiation, heat and light.

The soldiers were touching down upon the muddy field, forming a rough semi-circle around the truck. The smoke was thickening into columns of blackness, fueled by the melting rubber tires; it was difficult to see the wreckage. One of the armored figures turned to glance at the others.

“Okay, that one’s down,” the guard said. “Let’s spread out, find and eliminate the frien–”

BOOM!

Her order was cut short when there was the sound of another explosion and the ground rippled. The earth erupted into riven tides of stone and mud beneath the guards’ feet, knocking them onto their backs.

Gauntlet charged into the field, his eyes glowing with the fire of his soul. The guards managed to rise to their feet and aimed their energies at him. The blasts from their guns struck Gauntlet in the chest, causing him to stagger back; but he did not fall over.

His mouth curled into a smile as he glowed brighter and brighter. Gauntlet resembled something like a miniature star now, aflame with the most primal energies of the universe that danced and flickered like tongues of flame on his body, emanating an intense heat and photon particles that threatened to catch fire.

“You can’t hurt me,” Gauntlet said. “I am a star of flesh and blood. Energy is my life. And what is yours…is now mine.”

Gauntlet lifted his fists and blasted the guards with energy and they were thrown backwards, slamming into the metal gate at the front of the prison compound. Their shock armors flickered with sparks as their electronic systems short-circuited, and their bodies collapsed to the ground as they were rendered unconscious.

Waves and waves of soldiers rushed out of the guards’ barracks and surrounded Gauntlet on all sides. They cocked their rifles and fired at him. Bullets ripped through the currents of the air, but the intense heat that radiated off Gauntlet melted the shrapnel to bits and they thudded to the ground with a plink. Gauntlet dashed forward when the guards switched from ceramic ammunition to plasma bursts, absorbing their blasts and forming energy constructs that he hurled at the guards.

“Go, go, go!” one of the guards screamed–the same one who thought she had taken down Riven. “Move, move, move! Take him down! Take him–”

The order was cut short by the scream of metal scraping against metal. The guards and Gauntlet both paused and watched as the pile of debris from the truck shifted, then fell to one side, and Riven staggered out.

Her white-and-auburn hair was in complete disarray and her uniform hung in tatters. Her ears were ringing like the splashy toll of a bell from the explosion, and she was covered from head to toe in oily smut. But she was still alive–and very, very angry.

“Now,” she said, glaring at her attackers, “it’s my turn.”

…

The warden of the Eternity Corporation’s detainment camp crept around the corner of a bunkhouse at the far end of the camp. He pressed himself against the wooden slats of the wall, checking to make sure that he wasn’t being followed. He had somehow managed to evade the prisoners who had bolted after him, taking a well-memorized series of twists and turns to finally put some distance between himself and his former captives. The series of explosions from the front of the complex had also helped buy him some time to hide. For the moment, he was safe.

This was the fault of those deviants, he thought bitterly. It was all the fault of deviants.

From the moment since the Emergence, when the sun’s solar flares had triggered a newfound resurgence in their population from zero to a million overnight, they had drawn the battle lines in the sand, set the stage, and lit the match to start the war. From the moment they were born, they were destined to take the place of humanity.

And the terrifying thing was, they could be anyone, waiting for the time for their sheep’s clothing to slough off. The little baby who lived down the street might develop a sonic scream that could level your house. Your boyfriend might develop energy beams that could kill you. You didn’t know how they were or what they wanted. It was scary. They should not exist.

If this was a war, then humanity was losing.

“Do you know what it’s called when someone is born and you tell them their very existence is a mistake? That you lock them up and throw away the key?” a cold, lilting female voice said from behind him. The warden turned, about to cry out for help, when a blast of bright light threw him through the wall. He crashed to the other side of the wooden bunkhouse and slumped to the ground, senseless.

“It’s called hate,” she said.

“No. No way,” the warden gasped, struggling to his feet. “Nuh-uh. No way you’re pinning this on us. Ever since you freaks came to this planet, the moment you were born, human lives became bargaining chips. You’re trying to force us to accept this new world where you think you can dictate policy, but we won’t accept that! The Eternity Corporation is working in the best interests of humanity! The greatest good for the greatest number of humans, no matter the cost.”

“Enough!” Grandmaster thundered. Her phoenix dragon rose up around her, her wings spread and her talons curled, flashing open. She lunged forward and wrapped her white-hot claws around his throat, trapping him in a vise-like grip. The warden opened his mouth to issue a cry for help, but Grandmaster’s grip tightened viciously and four wings spread from her back, her thumb and forefinger pressing down on his Adam’s apple. A low gurgling sound issued from between his lip and his skin became tinted to an unhealthy shade of blue.

“I am not a killer,” the Grandmaster snarled. “But there are some moments I wish I was for people like you–people who have hearts of hate and crucify anyone else who is different. And if I am not mistaken, based on how popular you were with the inmates, that you are the piece of trash that is running this pit of hell. Am I right?”

“I see you, Robert Hynes. I see you hurting us, the humans and mutates in this camp. I want to make you understand the cost of your actions. I hope you know that you have hurt countless people,” the phoenix dragon Legionnaire said. “The only reason you are still breathing is that you are more useful alive than dead. But if you try anything that will trigger me in the slightest way, you’ll be wishing I had let your so-called guests climb all over you. Understood?”

Though his eyes were beginning to flutter shut, the warden frantically nodded his head. “Good,” she said, and Grandmaster released her grip and the warden fell to the ground. When his breathing seemed to have stabilized to an even rise and fall of his chest and his skin tone returned to its natural tone, Grandmaster grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and hauled him to his feet. His eyes were wide and round with fear; the warden stared open-mouthed at the Legionnaire, clearly afraid of what might happen next.

“Don’t worry–I’m not going to kill you,” Grandmaster said. “But here is what is going to happen: you are going to order your men and women to stop fighting and lay their weapons down and surrender.”

All her life, there were people like this warden. People who painted a target on others’ backs just because of their differences. Even when she tried to avoid them, even when she stayed out of their way, even when she kept to her introverted self, they went out of their way to find her…and ruined her life.

But even if one more person–human or deviant–was hurt by this man, she would not hold back. Even if she had to spend the rest of her life in a pit of exile, a hellhole like this one, it would be worth it, because no one else would be hurt by him.

“A-a-all right,” the warden stammered.

“Then you are going to free the rest of the prisoners. I know you might have gotten a little confused with everyone else running around, but I am sure there are more people locked up in other places–whether in a vanishing box or solitary confinement, or whatever else you sick animals use to break a man or woman into pieces.

“Y-yes, ma’am,” he stammered again. “Immediately.”

“Then you are going to let me wipe this place out of reality for good, and integrate the prisoners back into the real world. Now, go get to work,” Grandmaster said. She shoved the warden forward, directing him to the center of the camp.

“Oh, did you also know this?” Grandmaster added a beat later; the warden reluctantly turned back to her. “Your leaders of the Eternity Corporation, the Inner Circle, are all devils themselves. How do you think he created this other dimension for this camp? You claim to be serving the greater good of humanity, but you are actually helping them to become monsters who want to destroy the world. You may not be the ones pressing the triggers…but you are the gun.”

“You shouldn’t think you’ve won some sort of victory here,” the commanding officer choked out in desperation. “You’re lying. You have to be lying!”

“No, I’m not lying,” Grandmaster replied. “And deep down, you know that. And knowing that there is one less place of hurt and death and trauma in the world…I would call that a victory.”

…

Riven and Gauntlet fought the Eternity Corporation’s soldiers together.

Riven had exploded up into the air, almost breaking the jet streams, and was now tussling with a man in heavy metal body armor, riddling his armor with fist-shaped dents. Her strength was so great that his flight systems crashed and were rendered inoperative, and he soared across the camp and crashed head-first into what must have been a mess hall. The roof buckled, hung suspended into time for a moment, and then the entire structure collapsed atop him.

The invulnerable deviant looked worse than she felt. Riven happily cracked the soldiers and broke into their armors like cocktail shrimp, reaching into their armors with their fists to pluck them out of their protective shells of iron armor, leaving them only clad in camouflaged-hued undergarments. She struck them in their stomachs with her fists, throwing them into the rain-soaked earth, depriving them of their weapons, their armor, and their egos.

Gauntlet kneeled down and pressed his hands to the ground, his fists glowing a bright red, almost magenta to a point. The earth began to ripple like a footstep in water, and then exploded into shards of concrete and mud and steel, turning the ground into cracked plates. Dirt and rock erupted from the ground, and Riven hoisted Gauntlet in the air just in time to avoid stepping on the uneven surface.

A soldier fumbled for her gun from her holster and fired, but Riven quickly dodged the bullet by flinging Gauntlet in the air, then darting forward to catch him as he acrobatically flipped and knocked the woman to the ground. Riven stuck her right leg out, hitting the soldier into a mound of her thigh muscle. She cried out and tried to shoot again, but a heat blast from Gauntlet melted the weapon in her hand and a punch to the jaw from Riven sent her flying, and the soldier crashed through a window of the nearest bunkhouse.

Riven touched herself down on the ground. “Thank you, sugah,” she said to Gauntlet, but found that she couldn’t gaze into his golden-red, sunset-filled eyes. She felt a pang of guilt as she remembered her conversation with him in the mansion back home, and what he had said to her. I’m willin’ t’ take de risk for you.

“I am sorry,” she murmured, and looked down at her feet guiltily. “For what Ah said back at the mansion. Ash, Ah didn’t mean–”

“It’s fine,” Ash said, stirring in acknowledgement at her words.

“But what Ah did, what Ah said…”

“I understand where you were comin’ from, chére,” Gauntlet said. Riven was retreating back into herself. She tried to put on her mask, about to reveal another barrier, another obstacle he needed to overcome to get through to her, but found that she could not. “But I do care, despite de the barrier o’your powers. I want you to know that, Riven.”

It was like what Grandmaster had said, back on the Celestial: did she really want to be alone, or did she think she deserved to be alone, because she was just so used to the feeling?

And had she not been alone? It had nothing to do with the places she was in, but everything to do with the people around her. Even her closest friends did not dare to make physical contact with her if they valued their safety and health. For their sake as well as her own, she held the world at arm’s length, creating a barrier between herself and the rest of everything and everyone. But truly, deep down, she craved human contact.

Riven felt herself becalming, her dread and worries and fears fading to a sense of pellucid solace. She had heard this feeling described in so many dramatic ways over the years, but she never realized it was like this: drifting across the world, unsure of what awaits you, but knowing that you won’t be hurt because you are safe with the person whose comfort only they could give.

It was being unafraid to take the plunge because you had someone next to you. It was the missing piece of your heart clicking into place.

You always had a choice, Riven thought. She could lament the cards she had been dealt in this game of life…or she could try to change the game.

Riven sighed and placed her gloved hand on Gauntlet’s back, pulling herself closer to him. Gauntlet started at the unexpected touch, flaring star-bright. His aura of energy pulsed for a moment, then faded away as Riven nuzzled herself in his warmth.

“Ah’m fallin’ for you and Ah want you ta know that,” she murmured.

Ash pressed her hands over Riven’s and squeezed them tightly before breaking the contact and brushing her hair out of her face. “Dis is about us. No one else. And we have time, chére.”

This simple, gentle touch exploded through Riven, burst through her veins like fire, ignited heat in her bones, as if his touch was red-hot energy. The heat of his touch rippled over her, tentative and as beautiful as her soul stealing. The words echoed in time with her thumping heart, a steady rhythm. She thought those might have been the most beautiful words she had ever heard. We have time.

“You’re right,” Riven whispered, and pressed her face into his chest. She looked up at him and smiled, then wrapped her arms around his waist, inhaling his scent of musky cloves and whiskey. Their steps hastened to their friends, their hearts filled with the fragile thread of love, which grew stronger through their connection, of honored experience and shared trust.

…

Phantasma went through the dozens of shots aimed at her, her tail flicking back and as she leaped over and dived under trees until she finally landed on top of a troop transport. She sank through it and appeared on the other side.

“Deep breath!” Betta said cheerfully. “Three…two…one…”

The transport exploded into flames.

The soldiers in the vehicle scrambled away, out of breath and desperate to escape the fire. Phantasma was about to go after them when she saw a pile of debris near Shadowstalker that started to crackle, and the hem of a soldier’s uniform was smoking. Arkady would not be able to hold back the fire on his own.

Betta scrounged the ground for anything to throw. Her eyes settled on a metal slat and she picked it up, hurling it with all her strength; it struck the soldier in the face. He staggered back, shocked, and then all the guards’ eyes turned to Phantasma.

She dove for the ground as the soldiers fired their weapons. She found herself surrounded on all sides, the guards shooting at her with ammunition and plasma bursts. She dropped low and ran, phasing through them in a circular motion, and watched as they fell to the ground, stunned.

On the other side, Shadowstalker had pushed himself to the limits of his power, soaking in the shadows of the compound and blasting it in hard constructs of darkness around the soldiers, extending them as a punch to the jaw here and a kick to the groin there.

Tempest had flown in, drenching the soldiers with rain and striking them with brilliant lightning. Cryo traveled through the compound on a trail of ice, creating walls of organic ice and trapping them in giant blocks. Luckily, the guards seemed to be out of bullets, or they had crazily decided to settle the matter with knives or their bare hands.

Arkady broke into a huge smile as he spotted the team’s telepath floating overhead. Sienna! he called out to her telepathically. Nice of you and Thomas to join us. You’re cutting it a little close, though.

I thought you liked it that way, Shadowstalker. That was Sparks speaking; Astra had linked their minds together for easier communication. A bold cliffhanger and a close rescue.

There is much more anxiety to it than in real life, Shadowstalker admitted. I prefer to restrict those kinds of last-ditch efforts to fantasy novels or the television screen. He summoned a skein of inky blackness and hurled it at a guard within striking distance.

Sienna’s blue eyes flashed, and the guards in the back of the horde suddenly found themselves to be airborne. Their indignant cries of protest were soon drowned out by the loud splash they had made when they were dropped into the lake at the edge of the compound.

Sparks raised his sweater up and he fired a series of short, powerful bursts of energy that scattered the soldiers, tossing them high up in the air so that Astra could telekinetically grab them and send them to join their compatriots in the chilly waters.

“You four all right?” Astra asked the other Legionnaires.

“Better now that we’ve seen a friendly face,” Phantasma said, flashing her a smile as she looked up at her two teammates.

Around the Star Legion, the few guards who had not been sent to the lake moaned as they laid on the ground, most of them semi-conscious. Tempest and Cryo descended from the air to join them. Tempest and Cryo generated ice and lightning constructs that struck them and buried them up to their shoulders with blocks of ice. Arms folded across her chest, Astra stared down at them.

“If any of you are planning to get up to try this again,” she said cooly, “don’t.”

Wisely, they heeded her advice.

“Well, well, well,” a bright-toned voice said behind them. “Looks like I’m a little late to the party.” The Legionnaires turned in its direction, to see Grandmaster still pushing the warden ahead of herself, entering the main yard.

Tempest gazed down at their leader’s calm, composed appearance. “Seems like you’ve done enough for one night,” she replied.

“Who’s your friend, Grand Maître?” Gauntlet asked.

The Grandmaster grabbed the warden. “This is the man responsible for running this camp. We just had a little heart-to-heart chat about how he is going to be making some changes around her. Isn’t that right?” she asked, glancing down at the warden.

The commandant’s nervous head-shaking seemed to be the only answer he was capable of giving at the moment.

Astra gazed at Grandmaster and took a step closer to her. “Maggie, are you...” she asked quietly, struggling to find the words. “I mean, are you...”

“Later, Sienna,” she responded, some heat creeping into her tone. Her expression darkened, making it perfectly clear that she was worried about herself, having not forgotten about her earlier actions–or her words.

“Could you all give me a hand here?” the Soulstealer asked as she walked over to join the group. “I’m feeling a little...well...” She gestured towards the remains of her uniform; most of it hung in tatters, though some parts, like her gloves and leather jacket, had survived more or less intact. Not exactly a scandalous appearance, given some of the other costumes worn by her other female peers in the superhuman community, but the fact that any of her skin had become exposed to the night air seemed to make her incredibly nervous as she approached the Star Legion and their charges.

Now, exposed as she was, and as nervous as she seemed, based on the small, furtive glances that she stole at the prisoners who stared at her behind the other Legionnaires, it was painfully apparent that Riven was afraid of the nightmarish memories she might have to “relive” if she came into contact with any of the poor unfortunates they had just rescued.

“Here you go, chére,” Gauntlet said, stepping forward and removing his duster. He draped it over Riven’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t want you t’ catch your death.”

“Th-thanks, Ash,” the Soulstealer, surprised and grateful, pulled the warm leather around her body.

Grandmaster’s phoenix dragon flared up. She shot into the air and the cosmic energies roiled with infinite power, humming in her ears as all the colors on the spectrum flickered. She reached out towards the cosmic filaments and mended them with a stroke of power, then lowered herself to the ground. The air pulsed with multicolored light as the camp was erased from existence.

The Legionnaires stood together, turned around, staring up at the heavens. The rays from the rising sun glinted into Grandmaster’s eyes, casting a lustrous orange glow, and she imagined that the earth was weeping with joy when they healed the bruise that the camp was.

Grandmaster gazed around the area and saw the fright that was evident in the eyes of the former prisoners; they didn’t seem to know what to expect or how to react to these costumed men and women standing before them.

“Thank you,” Grandmaster murmured, “for all your help.”

Some of the prisoners murmured responses, but most of them just stood quietly. Maggie…Astra’s mental voice sounded clearly in her mind. I just ran a quick scan of these people, just to see if anyone knew what the Eternity Corporation was doing with them. Don’t worry–I’m not going to get caught off-guard again. But we do need information, and what I found so unusual is that none of them seem to recognize us.

How could that be possible? Grandmaster thought back. I know we’ve tried to keep a low profile and secret identities–but considering some of the situations we've been involved with, and the way most people just react to us, I would think that at least some of these prisoners would be backing away from us, even if the majority are deviants.

I thought so, too, Astra said, but that might explain why Teresa doesn’t recognize us, despite her history with Riven. She gestured towards the prisoners. All I can get from their thoughts are confusion and worry and intense fear.

Bozhe moi, Shadowstalker's thoughts interjected. Why is Phoenix doing this?

Astra stared at her teammates, her features darkening with anger as she provided them with an answer: because of you, Grandmaster.