Cold-Blooded

Shard

After 10 rewrites, we have an update! I have never struggled with a single chapter the way this one worked me; this chapter alone has pushed me into several writer blocks, it's insane. I had so many ideas of writing it and it conflicted with my other ideas but it's here and I'm happy it's here. I did have to cut this chapter because it was long but we're finally getting somewhere. Enjoy.

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The explosion tore through the rooftop, knocking Max, Nightwing and Alias violently thrown off their feet as stretching fissures erupted with a huge section folding into a downwards slope. With the three of them now sliding off the tilting building, Alias had to think quickly while Rhys fell into the crumbling rubble so she gestured her hands up right as they neared the edge, ice columns shooting them towards a nearby tower crane. Max landed at the top, using his bionic prosthetic to grab onto the galvanised steel wire and allowing the momentum to swing him up and over. Nightwing used his Batclaw to swing him on top of the crane cockpit and Alias skidded to a stop beside him, the three of them in shock as they witnessed the building coming down. The defunct shopping mall folded unto itself unceremoniously, all of the Arkham Knight's meticulous planning of Batman's demise falling into the concrete abyss.

Alias glanced up at Max, "Your hunch was terrible."

"It was a hunch!" Max yelled, ripping the hood off his head and shifting his pistols into a sniper rifle. "Provoking her probably wasn't the best course of action, Al. She single-handedly destroyed Founders' Mall."

"She's irrational and acting on impulse," Nightwing noticed. "That's also affecting the control of her powers. They're unstable."

"She's charging a Shard. Whatever Sinclair did to her, it's a whole different fight now."

Max frowned at Alias, "And her charging a Shard is supposed to be bad, right?"

"Considering they are already charged, immensely."

"You think you can absorb it from her?"

"It's worth a shot." The tower crane shook with the debris and folding knocking against the structure and Alias held onto Nightwing, before Max ended up beside them just as a chunk of building rebounded in front of them. "Right now, we need to keep moving."

"Couldn't agree with you more." The trio sprinted across the platform and a figure suddenly burst through the chaos, zooming straight up before arcing across the sky. Max was the first to react, his firearm up and raining fire at the lightning missile, and Alias joined him with icy shots that were dodged easily. Rhys didn't slow down for a second and the platform was running out, so Alias leapt in the lead before running off the tower crane, adjusting her weight in the fall and motioning her hands as she did.

Arid winds surrounded the men and she brought the haze onto her freckled cheeks, a quick thought completely freezing the collapsing building in time. The debris, the construction equipment, containers, the lift that brought them there and the bellows of smoky plaster and glass fragments and bent reinforcement were halted in its descent. Not even a second into the fall and Alias didn't have time to react. Rhys grabbed the Meta Mercenary by the throat and flung her through the Lexcorp building, her growls seething, and instantly snapped her attention to the several bullets in her back and spun in the air. Max widened his eyes, almost reeling back in her gaze. "Shit."

Rhys was about to ball her fists and crush the two men inside their wind bubbles but was dragged back down to earth, with a recovering Alias gasping for air with an arm extended as she emerged from the gaping hole where the windows would be. A small splinter cracked against her jaw but she paid no mind to it as a crazy idea involving the carnage popped into her mind and she narrowed her eyes. A gust of ice shoved her allies away from the building frozen in time and the mist lit up her hair in fiery blues and purples as Alias outstretched her arms; the debris trapped in stasis obeyed the laws of physics as it plunged towards the earth and she made sure Rhys was caught in the rough downpour.