Blood Obsidian

Issue 24

Guilt lies heavy on a burdened head ... - Part 4

The suit enveloped Caitlyn fully once more, even as she leapt forward, trying her best to reach her friend before the grenade. Her only thought, to put herself between Alaina and the deadly weapon thrown by the super that had called themselves a Fiend. She wasn't going to make it. Like watching a movie, everything appeared to slow down to a crawl, time ticking away as the light on top of the grenade flashed faster and faster.

She reached out, hoping, praying that she could catch the grenade in time and the suit responded to her thoughts, sloughing almost its entirety out, from her body, covering the grenade with layer after layer of the semi-liquid material. The maniacal laughter continued to ring in Caitlyn's ears as she felt the grenade explode within the ball of her suit, shattering it and sending pieces flying in several directions, but at least Alaina still lived.

Caitlyn's hand throbbed as she fell to the floor, inches away from her unconscious friend and she began to feel that very same blackness start to overcome her. But she couldn't fall into that black yet. Pushing her legs against the floor, she turned, protecting Alaina with her body, even though the suit now lay in pieces around her. Only for the Fiend to return, hovering in the air before her.

"No. Not yet." Long, claw-like fingers reached out toward Caitlyn and stopped and the Fiend squatted on their heels upon the platform. "Soon, though. Soon I'll make sure the whole world will see you fail. You're no hero, Caitlyn. You're a corpse waiting to happen."

Standing upright, the Fiend backed the platform backward, bobbing up and down as the thin wings fluttered and flapped in the air. Then they laughed again, turning in the air and swooping away at speed and Caitlyn could hear that cackling laugh even as she lost her fight to stay conscious.

-+-

Some time later ...

Her eyes flickered open and she tried to sit up, held back by unseen hands and a voice hushing her. Night had fallen, only vague, shadowed shapes within her line of sight and she tried to call to the suit, to get the night vision it gave her, but the night vision did not come. She sensed the suit, though it felt far away, weak and feeble. A light came on and she whipped her head around to see Alaina.

Without a word, she wrapped her arms around her best friend and clung to her so tight that she worried she could break her. The light came from Alaina's phone and, in that light, she could see black shapes on the floor. Little pools of liquid that painfully dragged themselves toward her. Even as she maintained the hug, she reached out for the puddles and, as her fingers touched them, they clutched at her skin, dissolving into her.

"I thought you were never going to wake up! I couldn't exactly call nine-one-one." Alaina pulled back, pointing the light from her phone into Caitlyn's face. "'Hello? Yeah, my superhero friend just got blowed up by a villain. Sure. I'll hold.'. Not at all arrest worthy."

"Are you alright?" Forgetting the other pieces of the suit for the moment, Caitlyn began to run her hands over Alaina's body, making frantic checks. "You're not hurt? Bleeding? You hit you're head."

"Hey! Less of the frisky inappropriate touching!" Alaina held Caitlyn by the shoulders, holding her at arms length. "I'm fine. Headache, but fine. You? You look fine. Tired. Have you been sleeping?"

Caitlyn had to think about that. The explosion had hit the suit, but the pressure wave from the blast had felt as though the Fiend had caught her in a steam press, set to 'flatten til dead'. What bothered her more was the suit itself. She could sense it, all over the place and, though she had started to give it up, she needed to find every piece. She had already seen how it could affect other people and the last thing she needed was more like Professor Halstrom on her conscience.