The Bionic Bombshell

The Android Girl part 6

"Albino Warlord." The name was etched in my brain. The question being; who, what, when, why, didn't care where. I wasn't familiar with drug abuse aside from the stories I heard on tv and in the news.
I couldn't stop thinking about what happened at school earlier. The assault caused school to end early for the day. Parents were frantic with picking up their children from school early and the other students were all in a fritz. As I walked through the halls of school on my way out, I couldn't help over hear the other students.
"Aw man! Thank God for those guys! I was out all night every night this week and didn't do my homework and had a report due in economics. Thank God for this second chance." Said a boy.
I didn't understand how other kids could be truants or just out right not do their schoolwork. School came easy to me... but then again, I suppose if everyone had a brain practically on a quantum level then school would come easy to them as well. I was in the prelude of blowing my stack at the boys shamefulness when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around sharply and there was Dan, big jocky smile on his face, firm stature. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh thank God you're ok!" I said, tilting my head slightly.
"Saturday night is the homecoming dance, don't forget!" He said in a cheeky tone.
Immediately I began internet searching "homecoming" in my head. My brain swam in a sloshing sea of data. I picked up something: 'dates should match' and multiple pictures of couples smiling while wearing dresses and suits that were the same color.
"So, what color are you wearing?" I asked.
"How about blue?" Dan replied with a smile.
I felt as though I could get lost in those calm and assuring eyes of his. He held his hands out to take my books and the two of us walked out of school together.
That night, I transformed into my battle suit and decided to go on patrol around the inner city of Portaville. I was hell bent on finding this "Albino" gang. Earlier, I used mom's main computer, I wanted a bigger view of the whole situation. I plugged my forehead into the computer using a diagnostic cable I had created as a way of helping the computer out. I felt it was my duty to find out who these Albinos where, who the Albino Warlord is and what their motive was for attacking a school. I scrolled through all of the different drugs ever invented.... nope, nothing I found matched what I saw earlier today. The chemical make up was something I had never seen before in any drug. All the more reason for it to be stopped.
I hovered in place over the city, masking my presence from the people below. I scrolled through the news in my head. There were numerous articles about the assault on our school today. None of the articles mentioned anything about the drugs the boys were hopped up on. The articles all said that the boys had been tested, but nothing had been found.
'Intriguing.....' I thought to myself.
'A drug that enhances the body but leaves no trace? No doubt a narcotic that isn't just a mashed up plant of some sort... This has to be man made...'
BOOM! BANG! CRASH! PAK! PAK! PAK!
Noises from the streets below. I followed my ears down to where the noises eminated, screeching like a fighter jet. I landed in front of a drugstore in town with a mighty THUD! I readied my arm cannon and gauntlet respectively. All of the commotion seemed to slow as peoples eyes took me in. I could hear the mumbling amongst my fellow citizens.
"That's the girl from a while ago..."
"Oh no, more trouble..."
"She the ring leader..."
"Where are heroes when you need them..."
That last one left me a bit puzzled. Were there others like me?
In front of me were five boys dressed like the ones who attacked school earlier. Same weird school-like uniform, multicolored mask, etc. I scanned them. Nope, different from the five before but the same drug. I pointed my cannon at them and brought up an orbiting pylon shield.
"That's fine, but I'll take it from here." Said a mature, female voice from the crowd.
A green haired woman in her late twenties walked beside me.
"It's Nightwatch!" Exclaimed someone from the crowd.
"Thank God, we're saved!" Exclaimed another.
I scanned this "Nightwatch" up and down thoroughly. She had a very complicated looking bow, yet no quiver, her outfit had a very elvish, forest like feel to it with a green chest plate and mail made from animal hyde and forestry. Her knees, shoulders and elbows had protective leather padding and she wore somewhat of a cloak.
She looked over at me as she drew her bow, a mysterious green arrow made of energy appeared as though she pulled it out of thin air. She released her hand from her bow and her arrow flew, pinning one of the boys by his shirt against a pillar. she then leaped in the air with a front flip and a spin, closing the distance between herself and two of the other boys. With a spinning kick to both of their jaws, they dropped. She drew a green dagger out of thin air and threw it at another at the exact same moment her feat touched the ground. It was though I was not necessarily watching someone fight, but rather dance majestically, with magic and sway.
There was one left and I wasn't about to be upstaged. I lunged at him, clawed fingers on my gauntlet flared. I hadn't noticed "Nightwatch" lunge at him too, until it was too late.
"I'm so, so sorry," I began, "I was so focused on the thug that I-"
"Listen, I don't care who you are, where you're from or where you got those... Weapons, but I'd surely-no, STAY OUT OF MY WAY!" Yelled Nightwatch, a small creek of blood trickled down from her forehead from my gauntlet whacking her in the face.... I got her good.
"Look, my bad. New to the whole hero thing, still getting used to it." I fired back.
"Sigh, another one... Listen kid, go home to your homework!" She yelled. I noticed the thug taking advantage of our quarrel to make a break for it and pointed a giant metal finger in his direction.
Nightwatch took off after him, jumping from building to building.
"Homework is boring!" I yelled as I flew after her.
I flew next to her as we tracked the thug around downtown.
"I'll go apprehend him, you call the authorities!" I yelled.
"No! Wait, we must remain in pursuit, I have been tracking these thugs for an entire month with little to no leads, let's see where he's headed and we'll cut the weed at it's source." Said Nightwatch.
"Not a bad idea." I replied.
"Stick with me kid, you might learn a thing or two."
"Weren't you just telling me to go home?"
We got to the edge of town by all of the abandoned factories and facilities.
The thug ran straight towards one of the larger buildings.
"That's far enough." Said Nightwatch. She ran ahead and with a spring, leapt into the air and landed with her knees on the thugs shoulders. I could hear the crack from his clavicle and shoulders. She tilted his head back, snapping his neck. It all happened so swiftly. The thug fell to the ground like a rag doll. Nightwatch got off of his back. I quickly shot him with an EMP pulse from my finger.
"That'll short out any kind of technology on him he could use to send alerts or call for help." I said as my feet touched ground next to Nightwatch.
"Oh wow, the edge of town. I had my hunches but didn't want to go for the cliché. Time to see whats behind curtain number one." Said Nightwatch.
"Like a lair straight from a comic book." I said, turning both of my fists into gauntlets and taking a wide, strong stance.
I was interrupted by Nightwatch's arm thrust in front of me before I could rush in.
"You've got alot to learn kiddo. Rule number one of the hero code; never rush into enemy territory or bases, always be on the stealth and defensive."
I slowly called off my attack. Nightwatch gestured to the side of the building and I followed.
"I'm letting you assist me since you seem to have some sort of talent from what I've seen on the news and we stand a greater chance of taking these guys down together than we do going at them separately." Nightwatch said, pointing above our heads to an opening on the side of the building.
"With me." Nightwatch said as she leaped up, into the opening.
"I cannot get a read on her..." I said to myself as I followed.
I climbed into the opening and followed Nightwatch through a chute or shaft of sorts.
"I should have probably done this before hand..." I said as I began to scan the building for any potential dangers. Sure enough, a bunch of thugs probably injected with that same drug but the drug not appearing on my senses.
"Well this confirms my suspicions..." I told Nightwatch.
"What are you-" Nightwatch began, but I swiftly interrupted her.
"There are about a good... Hmmm... Hundred thugs in this building... They seem to be working, picking, packing this... It must be... the drug... It's apparently able to be found in different forms. I'm getting readings of powder and liquid states.... And they're harvesting it from some kind of... Rock???"
Nightwatch crawled ahead of me. I picked up two energy signatures that felt different from the others. Both of these signatures were human, one was a lot bigger than the rest and I could sense some kind of enhancements of a mechanical nature. The other signature...
"No, it couldn't be..."
I hurried after Nightwatch. I created sound dampening padding on my legs, feet, hands, and arms to avoid premature detection. We got to where the chutes ended and peered out of a vent that gave us a good look of the foul operation at hand below us.
"That's gotta be him," Nightwatch began, pointing to a towering, muscular figure below.
"The Albino... Warlord..."
Albino warlord was a towering terror of a figure that I couldn't help but gulp at the sight of, even from a distance. He towered above all of his other henchmen and was easily over seven feet. He wore some kind of silver, metal helm or mask that covered the majority of his face. Both of his forearms and fists were encased in heaving brass gauntlets. He wore a metal chest plate that appeared to be binded to his pectorals. His skin and hair, a chilling albino white. He stood tall with a mafia menace as he oversaw the operations of his henchmen.
"Our suspicions at H.O.M.E.N.E.S.T. were correct, the Albinos base of operations is here in Portaville." Nightwatch said with a cold tone.
The warehouse was pretty barren and plain, as though it had been stripped with obvious outlines where conveyor belts and other machines had originally been placed. There were a few laboratory tables with a host of chemistry equipment. There was a giant door back by where the Albino Warlord stood. With barely a heave, he lifted the door by a latch revealing a truck that was backing into the warehouse. He opened the trailer and his henchmen began to unload crate after crate, passing them down from person to person like an assembly line. The final crate reached the end of the line and one of the thugs eagerly opened it.
"JACKPOT!" He said cheekily. And pulled a pistol out of the box. The pistol then morphed into a katana, nunchucks, and them finally a Billy club.
"With these, we'll run the streets!"
I sensed the drug in his body.
"That's it, the drug must activate the weapon and allow it to change shape!" I said.
I began to sense that familiar heat signature again amongst the crowd of thugs and I didn't want to believe it.
Albino warlord walked over to the trailer, reached inside and with a mighty heave, pulled out a big, powdery white rock. He walked to the other side of the warehouse and placed it next to the rock that was being harvested from. He dug his clawed, metal fingers into the rock, creating a shriek worse than nails on a chalkboard. He spoke in a deep, grizzled tone.
"Ahhh, Madam Sylvia.... You can have your underground drug circuit.... But with this you are supplying my men and I the means to turn this city upside down from the underground."
"Alright, time to roll in, you ready robo kid?" Asked Nightwatch. As she readied smoke pellets.
"Thought you'd never ask." I said, with a grin on my face, all to eager to get a crack at the warlord himself.
Nightwatch dropped the pellets  through the spaces in the vent, to the floor of thugs below us. BFFT! The pellets hit the floor, creating giant clouds of smoke.