Travelers

Chapter 30 - The Heroes

Jacob looked satisfied with his job. He was fairly confident he had trapped Pyromancer until he could figure out what to do with him. His fire had dissipated as soon as the roof of the subway had caved on him, leaving a lingering heat and stuffiness to the air around. He turned smiling at his team, but something was wrong. He wasn't sure if Rose just wasn't powered down, or if she was gone.

"Sentinel, your comms working?" he asked Adrian.

"Yeah. Nova, where's Rose?" He got no response for a moment, then Nova came on the comms. She explained that all of their vision and audio but his were fried. She was trying to figure out where she was, but none of them said anything. She explained that Mal was on her way already. She had left as soon as their comms went out. Jacob was worried because she had no costume, only her mask, which was designed looking kind of like an Atlantean helmet.

Jacob glanced over his shoulder at the pile of rubble that now held Pyromancer. He closed his eyes and sighed, realizing what must have happened. "Sentinel, I think I know where Miss Direction is," he said, pointing to the subway, "She's in there, with Pyromancer. Luckily, she's Miss Direction." He might not have noticed her, but there was little chance that would continue to be the case. They needed to get her out, but they had no way of telling where in the tunnel she was. They tried everything. Adrian blasted the rubble with his cannon, even tried to melt it with fire. Cat tried blasting it with her power, but it didn't budge. Jacob felt like they were about to break through when Adrian decided to be the bearer of bad news.

"Nova's telling us to back out now, Miss Direction or not," he said through his armor, "A Renegade team has been deployed to investigate. It's Genissa's squad." Jacob understood what that meant. If they were found, they wouldn't be handled kindly.

"Wait, did Mal take an earpiece with her?" Jacob asked, a plan formulating in his head. Adrian asked Nova. She hadn't taken one. It would complicate things, he realized. He couldn't explain his plan before she got here. He looked at the wall of rubble, scanning for any weak points that would be able to take down a large enough section for Rose to crawl out of. He thought he found two, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't see the other side of the rubble. "Sentinel, you need to distract Clark and her team long enough for Mal to get here and help. Cat, you can go with him," he ordered. Cat gave him a look that he couldn't quite read, but he took to be concern. They headed off to intercept Frostbite and her goons.

Mal showed up a minute later. Jacob found himself wishing he hadn't had to ask Adrian and Cat to distract the Renegades. He led Mal to one of the two points he had found and explained his plan. She would put the rock through essentially a miniature hurricane. If he was right, it would wear down the rock enough on the points on which it was touching another piece of the ceiling. She focused all her effort on the water that she now had swirling around the piece of rubble. The stone seemed to do nothing at first, but suddenly after another minute or two of the intense whirlwind the rubble tumbled down. Behind it, they found only another wall of rubble. Jacob gave this wall a quick look and found few weaknesses that wouldn't take several minutes at Mal's current effort, not accounting for the fact that she would be getting tired soon. He was about to bring her to the second weak point, but something interrupted him. A large metal man slammed in the wall of rubble as if he was thrown into it. Adrian had just been tossed by Gargoyle, a prodigy with increased strength and the ability to turn his skin to stone. Frostbite's team had arrived.

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Cat had tried to hold her own once she didn't have The Sentinel backing her up. She was able to easily deal with any tremors that one of them, which Adrian had identified as Aftershock, was able to create. Stingray, who had a barbed, poisoned tail, was probably her greatest worry. She was able to blast him away whenever he came too close, but she was also focusing on shattering any ice that appeared as well as cancelling the tremors. She was glad that Adrian was dealing with Gargoyle, as he wasn't exactly someone she could deal with. The multitasking of fighting the three others at once however was taking its toll on her. She was breathing hard, while Genissa hadn't broken a sweat. Then again, she probably couldn't. She found herself finding a beat to the fight that moved with her music, which she had in the ear that Pyromancer hadn't fried.