Saving Supervillains 1 Chapter 33 (Patreon)

“Nothing yet. It’s quiet across the city. But it’s eerily quiet. There should be more happening,” I reported over the comms.

It was like the villain organization had somehow brought all villains in Point City into their plan.

Venus floated nearby with Pulsar. I had yet to learn Venus’ real name. She kept her identity secret even from the rest of us.

Meanwhile, Stella hung close to me. I wondered if Venus’ stunt earlier was making her protective. But overall, they seemed to be working together well enough.

“I don’t like this.” Stella squinted past the glare of the skyscrapers. “Something feels off. Like we are on the edge of something going wrong.”

“Don’t say things like that.” Venus turned around, floating back over to us. “You are just tempting fate.”

I wanted to learn more about Venus. “You believe in fate?”

“Not particularly. But I think there are things that are meant to be,” she replied.

“Like what?” Stella asked.

“I believe I’m meant to find this augmenter, and together we can do a great good defeating titans. We can restore humanity to much of the world.” Venus smiled at the prospect.

“Uh huh.” I was unconvinced, and not only because I knew the augmenter wasn’t really into that vision. “Doesn’t seem like he has much choice in the situation. What if he disagrees?”

But my words found no purchase. “He’ll come to me, eventually. Even if he disagrees, it’ll work out in the end. Then we’ll live happily ever after.”

“Holy shit,” Melody laughed. “You read too many romance books.”

Venus’ face turned bright red. “I do not.”

“No shame; there aren’t enough men to go around,” Stella tried to appease the embarrassed super. “Melody and I share Miles; it’s great.”

“No, thank you,” Venus quickly corrected herself. “Not that anything is particularly wrong with it, but I’m ready for my prince charming.”

Stella, as stealthily as she was capable, rolled her eyes at me with more than a little mirth tickling at the edge of her lips. We all knew who Venus thought was her prince charming, and sadly she was in for a surprise.

My tablet pinged. Multiple villain incidents were reported at once all over the city.

“It’s starting,” I warned my heroes, adjusting the comms so that I had a direct line to Rachel. “Any activity at the high-profile targets?”

Dozens of contacts were flagging all over the city.

“We are checking through now. There’s noth— wait.” There was some chatter on the other end that I couldn’t make out before Rachel uncovered her microphone. “22nd and Marshall. There’s a high rise that just got smashed in. The top floor is owned by a steel magnate, who also happens to own a forty-million-dollar ring.”

“Alright, thank you. Keep me updated.” I slid my comms back to me and the girls, but leaving a line in to Rachel in case she had more information. “High rise at 22nd and Marshall. We have a forty-million-dollar ring to save.”

Stella snatched me off the roof, and the others took flight as well.

“Who the fuck needs a forty-million-dollar ring? It isn’t like bejeweling your man does anything,” Stella groaned.

“I think, at that point, the man in the relationship is just a trophy husband,” Melody inserted herself.

“He’s well taken care of. That’s what the ring means,” Venus said, receiving odd looks from the rest of us.

I’d never be a trophy husband, though they were becoming far too common for my tastes.

“Cut the chatter, the high rise is coming up. Stella, put me on the roof. Melody, I want you going in from the lobby. Venus, I want you outside these windows. If you spot somebody, you cut a hole for yourself and Stella to enter and stop them.”

They all gave a single word acknowledgment of their tasks. It was game time.

Stella swooped over the top of the building, dropping me off among the antennas as she dove back over the side to join Venus.

“We have several injured in the lobby; the assailant went up the elevator,” Melody reported in.

I started swiping on my tablet, noticing that Ben and my team had me patched into the building’s systems.

“The elevators are all down.” I frowned, looking at my tablet.

“No, they didn’t use the elevator car,” Melody clarified. “They went up the elevator shaft. I have a car here at the bottom with the ceiling removed.”

“We have contact. Breaking the glass,” Venus said sharply as a bright flash went off on the side of the building.

Even with the support of the BSH, I didn’t have access to any of the systems in the penthouse itself. Whoever owned this had pull to block even the BSH.

“Melody, get up there and guard the elevator. The goal is to contain this thief,” I ordered.

“On it.”

Staring at the tablet in frustration, I opened up my senses, feeling the room below. I recognized Stella and Venus’ powers below me, but there was a third that seemed to slip and slide around the room.

“What sort of power are we dealing with?” I tried to understand what I was seeing when suddenly the bundle of power that was the thief split in two, then three.

“Shadows and replication,” Venus stated; I felt her power expand rapidly. Light shone out from the windows below. “I’m trying to prevent her shadows. Stella, I need you to catch them.”

“Which one?” she asked.

I felt the thief multiply many times over. Dozens of them were suddenly in the room below. I scanned through them, but they were all the same. At least as far as their power was concerned, there was no original to target.

Changing my comms to speak to the analyst team, I sought help. “We have a super with control of shadows and able to multiply themselves. I need more information.”

“On it boss,” Mary confirmed, and I could hear her fingers scrambling over the keyboard. “Obsidian. She’s an S class super… wow.” Mary paused. “She’s slippery as fuck. If even one of those clones gets away, she’s gone.”

I spoke to my heroes. “Sounds like each clone is independent and able to get away. But that means we can kill them too. Use lethal force on the clones.”

“Contact!” Melody shouted before screaming and cutting off.

“Mel, what’s wrong?” Stella was distracted.

Melody sounded like she was struggling with someone or something.

I looked down at the building, and I could see that something was binding Melody. Given Obsidian’s powers, I figured it was a few more of her clones and their power over shadows.

I cursed. The elevator was dark enough that she’d have a lot of shadow to use.

The operation was going south, and I needed to fix it.

Luckily, I had an idea. “Venus, I need you to get to the elevator shaft and help Melody. Banish the shadows if you can.”

“But—”

“Now.” My tone brooked no argument.

I knew that she thought I was asking her to leave Stella alone, but I was really asking her to not be in the room when I assisted Stella.

As soon as Venus’ tracker left the room, I pushed out with an electromagnetic pulse, frying anything that would have been in the penthouse. Then I floated around the building, moving down from the rooftop.

All the windows were shattered, so it was easy to move inside.

The penthouse screamed of wealth. This man was not afraid of showing off; I wondered what he was compensating for.

Everything was decked in gold, but Obsidian was ignoring all of it. Some of her clones were dogpiling Stella while another set trashed the place and a final group of three were working on a safe in the corner.

Raising my hand, I wrapped up three of them in spheres of kinetic energy, then obliterated them. I needed to contain the explosion range to not harm Stella or the building.

Like some sick bubble popping game, her clones started rapidly disappearing under my power. And that definitely got the attention of the remaining clones.

Several of them looked up from what they were doing. The black leather-clad super licked her black painted lips before sinking into the floor and ghosting across it as a shadow.

But as I became the target, Stella was able to get free. She threw a frustrated punch at one clone that painted the walls a gory red.

“Miles, she just keeps multiplying.”

I knocked the ki out of the clone coming at me, forcing the shadow form back into a physical body before killing her too. I sighed. It was tedious work, and there were a number of them. This was going to take a heavier hand.

“Hold this one for me and drain her enough that she can’t move.” I tossed one of the Obsidians across the room with my powers, right into Stella’s waiting arms.

Stella kissed Obsidian’s neck, and I saw the powerful replicator sag in her embrace.

“Now the rest of you can die.”

I sent a sharp slice of kinetic energy through the home. Over half of them were bisected at the waist.

I was done with finesse.

They all tried to run, but I wasn’t about to give them that opportunity. I reached out with my power, taking away their ki before popping their heads with direct blasts of kinetic energy.

As they died, their bodies dissolved and bled into the floor, disappearing into the shadows.

Pausing, I frowned. I’d expected Venus to report in by then, and the comms were eerily quiet.

“Venus, report.”

“Trying to chase.” She sounded out of breath.

I raced to my tablet, picking it up.

Sure enough, Venus and Melody’s trackers were racing through the city.

“Melody, report,” I demanded, even as my heart was sinking.

“She’s not going to,” Venus said. “They have her bound.”

“Damn it,” I cursed, my eye twitching as a bookshelf next to me exploded into wood pulp and fluttering scraps of paper. “Get her back.”

“I’m trying, but Obsidian had reinforcements and more clones waiting at the bottom of the building. I don’t even know if I can keep following her.”

“Get her back,” I growled into the comms as a lamp next to me burst into dust.

“I can’t,” Venus said, her breathing more stable. It sounded like she’d stopped.

“Can’t or won’t?” This wasn’t the time for her to give up. My head was about to explode.

“Can’t. I’m truly sorry, but they just put someone in my path that I can’t deal with quickly.”

Stella was holding onto the last Obsidian clone in the penthouse, and her concerned gaze drew me out of my conversation with Venus.

I locked onto Obsidian, ripping her out of Stella’s arms. “Where are you taking her?”

“Miles, what are you—”

I turned off Venus’ comms and my own before turning off the tablet.

Obsidian floated before me, her limbs spread wide. But she just looked at me and smirked. “Hey there, handsome. I’ve never heard of you.”

She’d already seen my powers, and if those clones shared information back, she’d felt them, too.

I’d need to deal with that, but first I needed to get Mel back.

Wanting to wipe the smug look from Obsidian’s face and get her to talking faster, I cracked her bones.

Obsidian screamed while laughing and throwing her head back.

When I finished, she just dangled there in the air. “Oh, honey, that felt lovely. You know when somebody hugs you and it cracks your back? I’ve been needing that along with a man who’s not afraid to play rough.”

“Where did you take Pulsar?” I repeated; there was no time for games. I had no idea what they’d do to Mel once they got to their end location.

“Come on, I want that big, powerful cock of yours to sink inside of me. Oh goodness, I’ve never felt so helpless. It’s intoxicating.” Obsidian gave me a throaty laugh.

Sex was the last thing on my mind.

Her feet crackled as I broke more of her bones to the point that she was convulsing.

“Hit me more,” Obsidian panted. She was seriously demented.

But with other clones out there, she didn’t need to fear death.

“This is tricky. But you are useless to me. I’ll just put this clone down.” I raised a hand first to see if she would give me something now if I threatened to take the game away.

Instead, she just strained against the bindings to show me her neck. Accepting the offer, I snapped it. The clone bled into the nearest shadow, leaving Stella and me in the wrecked billionaire’s penthouse.

“At least we saved the ring.” Stella pointed to the wall safe that was still intact.

I reached out with my power, crumpling the door. I had to focus on ripping the locking bars out of the side of the reinforced titanium, but it was entirely doable.

“Fuck the ring.” I picked a velvet ring box from the safe. “Melody is worth a thousand of these.”

“What are you doing with that?” Stella asked. There was no judgment in her voice, just curiosity.

“If this is what they wanted, then I’m more than happy to trade it for Melody.” I confirmed it was the ring and tossed it into the air a few times before stuffing it in my pocket.

Stella came over and leaned on me, her fingers running through my hair. “We’ll get her back.”

I picked up the tablet to look for her tracker, swiping all of our comms back on, but Melody’s didn’t ping.

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I turned on comms, speaking to my heroes and the analyst team.

“Obsidian managed to steal the ring, along with abducting Pulsar. Venus is busy with her own battle. Demoness and I cleared the penthouse of Obsidian’s clones. We managed to capture one, but she killed herself.”

There was a quiet moment on the line.

Ben spoke with a somber tone. “I’m so sorry.”

Taking a deep breath, I moved forward. “All resources we have are to be focused on identifying where they took Melody. Scan through every CCTV camera in the area where her comms last pinged and let’s see if we can’t find her.”

I paused, knowing we were already well through the day. “I’m sorry; this might be a late night.”

“No, don’t worry about that. For Melody, we’ll get this done.” Ben was full of conviction. “Miles, this isn’t some stupid project. This is Melody’s life. We won’t sleep until we find her.”

“Thanks.” I meant it from the bottom of my heart.

There was a ping on my tablet as Kim asked to join the call. Accepting it, I waited to see what she had to say.

“Miles, I have multiple reports of Pulsar’s capture. I’m sorry, but you need to come into the Bureau.”

Quickly swiping everyone else off the call, I answered. “Like hell I am. They have Melody.”

“Which is why you need to come back, calm down, and approach this with your head on straight.” Kim’s tone was even. She sounded like she was trying to coach me, not order me, and that was the only thing that kept me from raging at her.

Squeezing my eyes closed, I wanted so badly to just unleash my powers onto the city, demand her release as Void, and solve this.

But as much as I hated to admit it, Kim was right. My anger was making me rash. I didn’t even know where she was yet, and Void could easily scare the villains into deeper hiding.

“Fine. But once we know where she is, I’m leading a team to go get her.”

“You’ll have my full support,” Kim confirmed.

Letting out a heavy breath, Stella pulled me back, tightly embracing me.

I realized that I was standing at the ledge of the penthouse, my shoes crunching on the broken glass.

Stella rubbed my back, trying to calm me, but not much was going to be able to do that until I had Melody back. I hadn’t realized the extremes I’d go to for her or Stella until that moment. Nothing was off the table in order to protect them.