Grunt Work

Front Row Seat

You know, not everyone gets to see Elementals fight up close. I'm pretty sure I should have felt honoured to watch Kaptain Kraken and the Thunderbird go head to head, but truth be told, I was pretty scared. Still awesome though.

It started with the two square up to each other in the car park. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, of course, but I imagined it was the usual 'surrender!' 'No you!' 'I'll foil your plot!' 'Nuh uh!'. Thinking about it, I often wonder how reporters manage to hear the back and forth to report it. Do superheroes give post battle interviews? Do they have to tell the police or the oversight comittees what exactly was said? Seems a bit strange to me. Like I can't even remember the beginning of this sentence, and they have to remember, word for word, a brief exchange after having had an intense, superheroic fight? I don't get it. Unless they have a bodycam. That makes sense. Yeah, bodycam. I'd imagine I'd want to replay my fights, after all.

Anyhoo. They had a chat. The Kaptain was of course buying for time. The airship might have been taken out but we still had plenty of forces on the ground, and we grunts take time getting into position. We're just regular old people, after all. No superspeed. But after a bit it looked like the Kaptain had received the go signal from his grunts - I couldn't say who, since I wasn't sure who was still alive at that point - and started things off by calling the sea to him. This took a moment, of course, so the Thunderbird managed to get a quick first blow in, spewing a jet of flame at the Kaptain, who disappeared in a great ball of fire, but managed to save himself by dowsing the flames with his newly called water, which rushed about him in a protective globe.

From out of the bank came several squads of my fellow grunts, who started shooting at the Thunderbird. Flame can't stop bullets in the same way that water can, but it can make for a very good distraction, and the Thunderbird put up a wall of fire that hid them from the grunts, then flew off up into the air, up and over the Kaptain, using their fire whip to cut through the water that the Kaptain was calling to him, cutting off the supply so that water evaporated into a thick steam.

The Kaptain had enough for a shield, though, and he used it to fend off another fire attack as his grunts moved to get into a better position, so that they weren't shooting at the Kaptain while trying to shoot at the Thunderbird. And as they began their own assault, that gave the Kaptain enough time to disappear into the mist, and from my position I could see the water at the shore front surging up the beach and into the city - the Kaptain replenishing his reserves.

He needed his reserves because the Thunderbird was making hard work for the grunts, burning their covers, the cars and small buildings around the bank into dust and ash and I saw the grunts running from the burning wreckage, running away to safety.

Running towards me.

And the Thunderbird started to follow them, flying above them, sending them running all the faster with spurts of fire to urge them on, and I saw a couple of the slower grunts in the back get briefly caught in the fire, but the fire resistant clothing kept them safe, and only the tufts of hair that poked out from their masks caught fire, quickly dying out as the grunts furiously patted their heads, their bodies smoking from the heat.

They were saved from further aggravation as the Kaptain took the Thunderbird from behind, sending a powerful jet of water to knock them from the air and down to the ground. The mist parted - or perhaps the Kaptain had drawn it to him for more firepower - and I could see that the Thunderbird was being engulfed in a globe of water, just like the Man of Steel had, and for a moment I thought we had won. That the Kaptain had won. That the Thunderbird would be knocked unconscious and drown.

So much for that thought.

The sky lit up with a thunderbolt, so bright that I had to shield my eyes, so loud that my ears were ringing, and so powerful that it seemed like the entire world was shaking. And when I could look again, the Thunderbird was free of their cage. They were free, and no longer human. In the air was a giant red and blue bird, larger than even the Kaptain's airship, larger than a building. And when it spread its wings, it almost covered the whole seafront and blocked out the sun. Lightning sparked between its wings, sparked from its head tails and when it opened its beak, a loud, piercing shriek roared out that managed to get through even my ringing ears. Fire sprouted from its mouth and blossomed into the sky, and then at the ground - at the Kaptain.

The Kaptain protected himself by putting up a dome of water around him that kept the fire at bay, but even as I watched I could see the water boiling away, the shield getting smaller, but the Kaptain had no choice but to stand there and hold it. There was nothing he could do.

And then, soon enough, there was nothing. The water was all gone. There was just fire. He ran.

He ran towards me.

So the thing about being a spectator to a fight is that you don't actually expect to be involved. To be honest, I'd kinda forgotten that I'd even had a job to do and just got caught up in watching the fight go down. But as the other grunts ran towards me, as the Kaptain ran towards me, and as the Thunderbird flew down upon me, I realised that I wasn't a spectator. I was part of the fight.

It was my turn to go up against the Thunderbird.

Well, shit.