Mod wasn't a speedster. He couldn't move like one, and he couldn't fight like one. But he had other tricks.
He'd brought a small building's worth of nanites with him to New Venice. He'd left half of the swarm spread out across the block, in case the rest of the team needed support. The rest, he brought to bear against Velocity.
She launched toward him from a standstill, and the air cracked in her wake. One moment, she was a figure twenty feet away—the next, a blur of motion carving toward him like a silver-edged arrow. If Mod had needed to blink, he wouldn't have missed her entirely.
But she didn't slam into him again. Not this time.
Velocity stopped short—just inches from his chest—and the world detonated into movement.
A flurry of punches struck like a hail of bullets. Blows came so fast they blurred into one another, each one hard enough to shatter stone. The first punched into Mod's shoulder, the next two into his chest, another clipped his side. Impact shockwaves stuttered over one another. Mod stumbled back under the onslaught. His armor weathered each hit, nanite layers flexing and redirecting force. Even in those first few milliseconds, his outer layers were unconsciously adapting.
He weathered the first ten blows like a boxer in a storm—twisting just enough to bleed momentum, staggering to hide his preparation. Every hit hurt, but he didn't brace for them. He rolled with them.
Velocity was one of the top supers in the Summit of Heroes for a reason, but Mod's body was made to go toe-to-toe with heavy hitters like Lock and Golden Boy. He was pretty sure he could take eight seconds worth of a beating from Velocity.
But Mod didn't want to survive. He wanted to win.
His head jerked to the side from a punch that never quite connected. The air displaced by her strike hit with enough force to make his neck torque.
One second had passed.
Mod didn't have time to counterattack. So he didn't bother.
He deployed his first countermeasure. Mod's outer nanite layer changed. It became slick, like a layer of oil atop his armor.
Velocity's next punch hit square against his shoulder, but instead of crunching against him, her fist skimmed across his armor. The force dispersed into the air like a snapped whip. She followed up with a quick jab to the ribs, but the same thing happened. Her knuckles grazed across his armor, and Mod twisted with the motion, letting the blow carry past him.
For a fraction of a second, Velocity hesitated. Then her eyes narrowed. Her weight shifted, and her rhythm changed. Instead of throwing as many punches as she could in a second, she slowed down.
She darted sideways with a blur of footwork. Then she struck with surgical precision—instead of a hail of bullets, each punch became cannonball. And with Velocity's fast cognition and experience, she aimed each punch so that they struck with sniper-like accuracy.
The first of such punches hit Mod so hard, it sent him skidding across the street. The impact rippled through his frame. Warning signals flashed in his mind, but Mod quickly suppressed them. If he had lungs, the air would've been knocked out of them.
It felt like he was a newbie cyborg again, fighting for his life against Lock.
Two seconds had passed.
Mod deployed his next two countermeasures.
The same oil-slick nanites that coated his armor now coated the soles of his feet. Velocity's next cannon-blow slammed into his side and sent him flying again, but this time Mod leaned into it. His feet slipped across the nanite-coated ground like skates, and the punch's energy bled off into distance instead of damage.
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Mod Superhero
Science-FictionFor this cyborg, power is just an upgrade away. Emmett was used to being caught between college and his engineering internship, but when he gets caught between a powerful hero and an even stronger villain, he becomes collateral damage. Instead of d...
