Protectors- Wrath of The Stranger

Chapter Seven: The God Returns

Grayson dove to the side, barely avoiding the vacuum wave that Noctum sent out. It pulled him in quickly, but he wasn't going to lose to a mere absence of air. Grayson turned, so that the vacuum had minimum grip to pull him in, and stood his ground. The attack failed to harm the man, and as the vacuum dispersed, he was able to avoid the flurry of attacks from Noctum, emerging from the barrage unscathed,

"You need to get a hold of yourself, Noctum," Grayson said, "I remember you at school, always so dark, so moody. Most teachers just thought you were an edgy teenager, but I always knew the truth,"

Noctum began to walk, very slowly, toward Grayson,

"I used to talk about Noctum all of the time, just to try and gauge a reaction out of you," Grayson continued, "you gave it all away, threw me your identity. I wondered if you could be another superhuman, one that I could share my experience with, one I could teach,"

Noctum's face grew closer to Grayson, and the fire disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a calm fury. He lashed out at Grayson's gut, but the man made no attempt to dodge,

"You didn't even attack," Grayson noted, 

Then he felt the sensation, the movement of something inside of him. Then a tiny prick, barely even that of a needle. Noctum moved his hand upwards, pointing at the sky, and Grayson felt his insides squirm as the thing inside of him moved upward, popping right out of his shoulder with a bloody burst,

"You will pay," Noctum said, his eyes glazing over,

Grayson's organs hadn't been torn to shreds, they had moved around the tiny piece of Aura, using similar powers to that of the man they were inside of. Before the fight could continue, Grayson leapt backwards, just as something sped right where he was, straight into Noctum. The vigilante was not pushed back, but neither was Kinetic, who stood so close to Noctum that a fly couldn't have fit between them,

"I am beginning to regain my speed, Noctum," Kinetic smiled, "care for another round?"

Noctum's fists hit Kinetic a hundred times in the space of a second, yet none of the attacks left a mark. Kinetic hit back, five times the speed of an average human, but without enough strength to hurt Noctum,

"It seems we have a stalemate, once again," Kinetic's smile grew, "I wonder what happened to Bjorn,"

Noctum was unable to come to his senses. He gripped Kinetic by the neck, flipping him over his back in a backbreaker attack, then flew up,

"You cannot harm me," 

"Want to test that theory?"

Noctum came back to himself, but the rage he felt never lowered. If anything, in that moment, he became more angry, more violent, more powerful. Kinetic's spine was unbreakable, so Noctum dove straight for the ocean, holding Kinetic under while he hovered above. He knew that this time, he was going to kill the God of Speed, once and for all. The explosion blew him away from Kinetic. Jones pointed with his finger guns again, from the relative safety of the helicopter, as Kinetic ran across the water, jumping into the helicopter,

"I thank you, Jones," Kinetic laughed, "I might have died,"

"What happened to Bjorn?" Jones asked,

"Noctum killed him, he may have even had time to open the Cryo-Chamber,"

The High Priestess became rigid, but grabbed the other two and teleported away, far from the place where Noctum rose from the water, blowing up the helicopter with an angry glare. He headed straight for Mongolia, where he would corner and defeat his foes, once and for all. Little did he know that the High Priestess, and her generals, had gone back to Paris, to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Samantha looked down at the heroes, using a pair of binoculars to spy on them,