Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.19 - Clara 2 / Firefight

Arsenal saw the blur first. A silver flicker, followed by a thunderclap that shook the pavement. One second Mod was standing with them, and the next he'd been tackled across the block.

For the next several seconds, Arsenal could barely follow what happened as the two fought. They melded into a blur of movement and a cascade of shockwaves. Nearby windows shattered and pavement fractured beneath their feet.

It didn't help that TINA had hijacked speakers all across the block to disperse the crowds. Arsenal gritted her teeth.

Arsenal stayed cloaked and hovering in the air.

She was trying to block it all out and build up power. The air was starting to shimmer around her.

For so long, she'd been afraid of it. It felt like a pool of lava sitting inside her core. The power was always there and, therefore, always dangerous. Much of her early childhood was spent learning to build walls around it, learning to contain it.

Even when her father had finally let her train, Clara had been forced to wear an exosuit.

She'd spent the last few years tearing down those walls. Then learning how to control the power without an exosuit. The old suit had kept her safe, but it had also hindered her. It had been the world's most expensive and powerful set of training wheels. Her new suit was minimalistic while still offering a baseline of protection.

Arsenal focused on her core and the well of molten power within her. As she tapped into it, the sensation of heat expanded throughout her, like lava pulsing through her veins. Soon her whole body radiated with power. Energy built inside Arsenal until she felt like a bottled star ready to go nova.

The air shimmered around her—first like heat, then like reality itself was warping.

Meanwhile, Mod and Velocity hadn't stopped fighting. Arsenal caught glimpses out of the corner of her visor. Velocity had been wailing on him, and, somehow, Mod was still standing.

For a moment, Clara was torn between turning to help and holding her ground.

The truth was, there wasn't anything she could do against someone like Velocity. She would only slow Mod down. And that was hard to accept.

From below, McGuire screamed, "We need to get the hell out of here!"

Athena held on to both McGuire and the magic mirror. "No! We hold the line and wait for reinforcements."

In the time Athena and McGuire exchanged those few words, the battle between Mod and Velocity shifted. Something—or several somethings—slowed Velocity down. Lasers. Smoke. Nanite clones. Velocity fought back, but she was on the defensive, moving slow enough that even Clara could see something was wrong.

Then the clones dogpiled her and trapped her in a block of nanites. The fight was over as quickly as it began—

That part of the fight, at least.

Clara's gaze snapped toward the canal—where steam was already rising. The surface of the water began to tremble, then erupted into columns of steam. Two figures burst forth with elemental force, riding glowing disks of hard-light magic that looked like frosted glass.

Helion and Gideon Marclight.

Helion burned with the fury of a miniature sun. His red-and-black armor glistened with heat, the seams glowing like veins of volcanic stone. The canal beneath him boiled in protest, the water thrashing and vaporizing into a cyclone of steam. The glow from his armor bathed the buildings in molten orange, turning shadows sharp and long.