Super

Aftershocks

Chapter 24: Aftershocks

Day 8 - 3:00 AM

I stumbled off the elevator and onto the tiled floor of the base. The lights flashed on and I snapped my eyes shut.

Eight days and nights of complete and utter chaos raged across Vaulding; bank robberies, armored car high jackings, gang shootings, and murders- it was the same every day. Crimes committed by super humans skyrocketed. Supers with no records and no listing in Ashley's system just appeared overnight, all of them collectively deciding to strap on their masks and tights to raise hell.

I stumbled into the meeting room and sat down, a nerve in my back pinching as I do. Sitting up straighter, I tried to alleviate the pain- but nothing. Sighing, I leaned back into the chair, letting my weight tip the chair back into a slightly more reclined angle.

At first, the chaos was manageable. That first 24 hours was long but the results at the end of the day made it satisfying. I took down that first armored car, Nathan got the second, and we got the third car handled lickety split. Then Nathan poofed us over the bank hostage situation where we took care of the armed thugs in three minutes flat and poofed out again before the cops could put a bullet in us. We went home that night tired but happy. At first, we thought it was all connected, after all the armored car robberies were. But day two and three showed us how wrong we were. That first day was just a prelude, a movie trailer that only showed us a brief glimpse of what was to come. Every 20 minutes there was another emergency, another crime committed. And for first five days, with every day that passed the violence seemed to escalate. It became clear then that only thing between the city and the roaring fire seemed to be Rebel and Telex, the new supers on the block, and the VPD.

I forced my eyes open and did my damndest to ignore the stinging as I looked over at the time readout on the holo board. 3:18 am. He was late.

At first there was lot of contention between us and the VPD. At the very beginning of the crime wave we were no different to them than the other new supers out there causing the chaos. Our little good dead of catching Dolly was old news and quickly forgotten. When we showed up to stop a super and law enforcement saw us, we were free game. Thankfully only two policeman we encountered had itchy trigger fingers and thankfully both were poor shots. But that doesn't mean that the rest were friendly. Long story short, it ended up being a lot of time wasted playing "cops and robbers" when there were people that needed help from both of us. On day six things changed. It was nothing anyone said, there was no official spoken truce but it was a change demonstrated through action. When we encountered law enforcement, they looked the other way. At first it was startling and unbelievable, I even remember asking Nathan how in the world they missed us when we were right in front of them. But he caught on to what they were doing right away. From that point on they didn't help or work against us. On some level they knew, weather they wanted to admit it or not, that we were trying to help. And with The Last Defense or TLD out abroad with more important things to do we were all the help the city had.

Familiar heavy foot steps woke me. Nathan walked into the room looking a little worse for wear, but hey that was our new normal. He sat across the table from me in silence, kicking his feet up on the table and letting out a sigh. And for a half hour that's how things stood. Both of us too tired to do anything more than sit in each other's company. It was nice and sure as hell beat being tired and sad alone.

"Are you hurt?" Nathan asked, breaking the silence first.

"No"

"Did you find any more communicators?"

"No, but I haven't looked since yesterday. I'll check again." I stood up and sharp pain zipped up my side and I slammed my palm on the table before I can fall over. Nathan was next to me in a fraction of a second.