Saving Supervillains 1 Chapter 36 (Patreon)

I ignored Liberator, my interest only in Melody.

Stepping off the second floor, I levitated over Melody, ripping free all the cords and connections that kept her attached to the surgical table. Angelina stayed behind, still holding the form of the spider woman by the door.

Metal ground against metal as panels opened all over the room as I moved. Large, haphazardly built guns slid out and aimed at me. I ignored them, continuing my work until I had Melody in my arms.

“I would think twice before trying to take something from my laboratory,” Liberator stated mechanically, as if he had lost all emotions by this point.

“Try me.” I put up a barrier as dozens of guns started rattling off bullets. Among the ammo were laser beams and even some sort of sonic resonance.

Melody stirred in my arms. “Miles?”

“I have you. Don’t mind the guns.” They pelted against my barrier. Liberator might be a mad scientist, but he had made an enormous mistake.

The firing continued for almost a minute before the guns clicked dry and the laser gun’s barrel turned red hot, needing to cool down.

Smoke drifted away.

The floor was chipped and scorched around Melody and me, except for a five-foot circle perfectly around us.

Alarms rang and a big metal door thudded down, sealing off the entrance where Angelina and I had entered. Several more metal doors echoed behind it.

“I cannot let you get away.” Liberator’s mechanical eye glowed as it raked over me with an intensity that I recognized.

He was trying to pick me apart and learn from me. He was the exact reason I had kept myself hidden for so long.

I put Melody over my shoulder and reached a hand out towards the bank of supercomputers. Electricity snaked out of my arm, hitting the computers and sending up a shower of sparks. The sparks danced between the machines, destroying them like a fourth of July display.

Liberator staggered, one of the servos in his legs whirring painfully. He was no doubt connected to that bank of super computers.

“I thought you might be using that to run your body.” Still holding Melody, I leaned over him. “You shouldn’t have touched what is mine.”

I sent a wave of electromagnetic energy through his bionic body, but it was shielded. Pushing harder, I dialed the hit up to eleven, destroying the circuits that no doubt kept him alive.

Liberator gasped before wheezing as he fell to the floor. “You should put your powers to better use.”

“Like you?” I snorted.

The man was dying, but he had still been a genius. He’d surprised me with the device that had detected me in the room. I assumed he’d figured out how to detect ki, which was far beyond what I’d seen from anybody else. It definitely put me on higher alert. If he’d figured it out, maybe others had as well.

“You could free people to their full potential, like me. But I’ve already completed my latest work.” He chuckled, letting out a satisfied sigh. Even on his deathbed, he only concerned himself with his scientific progress. This was one of the biggest dangers for mad scientists.

I didn’t care if he’d completed the world’s first ever spaceship. He had tried to take Melody, and that only had one response from me.

Shrugging, I kicked his metal ass across the room to the bank of computers. Then I surrounded the whole mound in a brick of thermal energy hot enough to melt it into slag.

“That was… anticlimactic.” Angelina wandered over. It was disconcerting to see her as the spider woman, but my brain knew it was her.

“He didn’t stand a chance against me, but I don’t think this is over, not by a long shot.” I looked at the metal doors, still flashing with the red alarm sirens.

Drawing on my power, I tried to lift the door.

To my surprise, I couldn’t break the locking mechanism. Although, strength wasn’t my top ability, and he’d been planning for the bunker to withstand supers like Rocksolid and Omnigirl.

I could level it with my bead of destruction attack, but I’d rather not release it that deep in the city underground. The fallout would likely be catastrophic. Not to mention, I’d rather not be buried alive.

So instead, I made a mental battering ram, smashing it into the reinforced door. It gave slightly with the first few hits, but remained standing. On my fourth hit, it finally crumpled in the center enough that I could peel it back with a bit of extra force and concentration.

But as I did, I quickly spotted supers flooding into the lab beyond.

“Take Melody—don’t drop her.” I handed her off to Angelina.

Still glowing blue like some sort of strange god, I stepped forward, sending ripples of electricity down the hall. “Leave now or die.”

I assumed at least a few would decide that it wasn’t worth it, but none of them budged. They continued to advance down the hallway towards me.

I decided to give them some stronger encouragement. I shot a blast of kinetic energy right down the center. The first layer of villains exploded into a gory spray before my blast stopped, resonating off the spartan shield of a muscular woman.

She lifted her shield from her crouch. “I am Antiope. Does Liberator still live?”

She stood tall and proud with a spear in her other hand. She looked strong, but what really caught my attention was her ki. Kt raged through her, possibly on par with Stella’s, or even a smidge stronger. And it looked strained.

Antiope was living proof that Liberator had successfully begun enhancing super’s powers.

She tossed her spear up, catching it in a reverse grip before hurtling it down the hallway.

I threw up a kinetic barrier. I was already thinking about my next move when the spear hit my barrier, and to my surprise, broke it.

I managed to get a second barrier up in my shock, finally stopping the spear dead in the air, only an inch from my face.

That had been far too close. Closer than anybody had ever gotten in a very long time.

I plucked the spear out of the air, spinning it. A weapon in my hand felt strange. I’d never used one before. But with Melody behind me and weakened, it felt right.

Spinning it up into a reverse grip over my head, I cocked back my arm and threw it.

I’d normally add a burst of kinetic energy to it, but after Antiope’s throw, I was frustrated. So instead, I slammed four bursts of kinetic energy into the spear, turning it into a missile as it rocketed down the passage.

All sorts of powers flew up to block it, but it still kept its trajectory.

The entire structure shook with its impact, and I turned back to Angelina.

“We need to get out of here now.” If these levels of powers started getting thrown around underground, we could bring the whole place down on top of us.

“I’m right behind you.” Angelina nodded.

I pushed a barrier in front of me as I marched down the hall.

As the dust from the latest attack cleared, I could see the damage my throw had caused. The hallway was ripped apart, electrical ducts dangled down in the enlarged opening to the spider’s lab.

Dozens of supers lay unmoving while Antiope struggled to her feet. Somehow, her shield had blocked her from the brunt of that attack as well. Her name made sense at that moment. She deserved to call herself the daughter of Ares.

I kept an eye out for Obsidian, but I hadn’t seen her yet. I was glad she’d kept her word and stayed out of the fight.

From the damage, vials from the lab were leaking onto the floor. Just to be cautious, I wrapped them up in thermal energy before scorching all the liquid. I didn’t know what had been in them, but after the bactimen, I wasn’t about to take chances.

Antiope staggered to her feet, stepping aside towards the door. “Even if you’ve killed the Liberator and destroyed his organization, his work will live on.”

I hadn’t seen her move to do anything, but the sound of two very large metal doors opening echoed around the lab. Antiope rushed out of the lab, and I turned, unable to look away from what was happening deeper in the structure.

The bottom level of the underground structure was visible, and it was opening. A deep, guttural grumble sounded below it.

The panels retracting from the floor were over a meter thick; I was hesitant to think about what sort of creature required a meter thick of titanium carbonate, but I had to know the answer.

I cast my senses deeper than I had before and wanted to smack myself for not seeing it earlier. The structure continued far below where I had thought it ended, and a mass of ki big enough to rival the Leviathan lived below.

“Oh, fuck.”

“What is it?” Angelina came up behind me, still carrying Melody.

“He made a mother fucking titan in his basement.”

A screech came from below, loud enough to cause me physical pain.

Then two massive, barbed tentacles rose and grabbed onto the side walls of the underground structure.

Melody groaned. “What’s that?”

“A mad scientist made a titan,” Angelina explained quickly.

“Oh.” Melody sounded disinterested. “Going to kill it, Miles? Big laser beam, pew.” She shot a finger gun at it. Apparently, she was a little loopy from whatever they had used to keep her unconscious.

Angelina raised her eyebrow in question to me.

“No way. If I do that much damage underground, I’m going to be buried in enough concrete that I’m not sure my powers could hold out.”

A warped, draconic face pulled itself up out of the depths, while smaller tentacles shot out and captured a super that found its way into the titan’s mouth.

“Okay, time to go.” I grabbed the two of them and wrapped light around us, flying out into the open area of the structure, then shooting up to find an exit.

As I went, I reached out with tendrils of power, stabbing into the side wall and ripping large chunks out. I was hoping I might be able to bury the beast on my way out.

“Melody, start blasting the side wall.” I focused on the larger problem of breaking through the ceiling.

Gathering as much light as I could to mimic Venus’ power, I fired off a rapid burst of concentrated light beams into the ceiling. Chunks of concrete came crashing down around us as I shielded the three of us from any debris.

The bursts of light turned into three continuous beams as I dragged them back and forth across the ceiling, tearing off larger chunks and drilling up through what I expected to be Libertech.

Unfortunately, it appeared the separation between the underground structure and the Libertech building was thicker than I’d imagined. It had to be several dozen feet of concrete thick.

“Miles.” Angelina sounded worried. “It’s distracted, but we need to hurry up.”

Down on the fourth floor it had stopped, prying open a nearby room and pulling out different creatures, stuffing them into its mouth.

“Melody, can you fly?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think.” She was still holding her head, but now she was floating shoulder to shoulder with Angelina, both of them under my own power.

“Angelina, get her to the room full of Obsidians, and try to get them out of the test tubes. Tell Obsidian I’ll break her as much as she wants if she’ll distract this thing.”

Melody looked at me, not understanding what I was saying. But she didn’t need to. Angelina understood.

“Once you’ve done that, you both need to get out of here. Melody, once you get out, find Stella. Tell her to bring the whole building down.”

Melody laughed. “She’ll fucking love that.”

“Yeah, and there’s no way BSH won’t come investigate. Once you’re out and clear, fly back to Angelina’s and get our stuff. We’ll need to play our part in the fight to come.”

Melody nodded, grabbing Angelina. I kept the invisibility over them until they got into the door leading to Obsidian's weird experiment room.

Once they were free, I turned back to my target.

Rocks continued to fall down on top of the titan, and I got a good look at it as it pulled itself further out of the pit.

It had a reptilian head, with bull horns. Past its neck, feathers sprang up on its body, while tentacles continued to pour out from below, crashing into the lower levels of the structure like a bear raiding a hive for honey.

The Chimera seemed like a fitting name for the monstrosity that Liberator had created.

The rocks weren’t doing much to it, bouncing off of it without so much as a twitch. I needed bigger pieces, but that would have to wait.

Angelina must have been successful, and my offer enticing enough, because Obsidians began pouring out of the bulkhead door, jumping off the ledge, and falling down on the Chimera.

Most of them melted into shadows on impact, but a few of them managed to cling on, making weapons of shadow as they tried to carve off pieces of the Chimera.

The Obsidian clones kept coming, like waves crashing on a shore.

I redoubled my efforts to cut through the ceiling, combining all three beams into a single blast straight up the center. This time it worked, and chunks of concrete sprayed upwards like old faithful as I shot up out of the hole.

As I rose into the lobby of Libertech, I saw Stella stopped by the security guards. They’d turned at the destruction behind them, giving her the opportunity she needed. She shoved past them.

I spoke, stopping the vibrations and mimicking them straight to Stella’s ears. “I’m out. Stella, bring the house down.”

A manic grin spread across her face as she leapt into the air.

I pushed all the ki she could take into her as her eyes glowed brightly. She soared up high in the lobby before crashing down, cracks forming across the ground.

The guards stood there dumbfounded, recognizing they were out of their depth.

“Again.” I floated off to the side, staying invisible as Stella started hammering the floor with everything she had. It cracked and caved, sinking with each hit until one big chunk fell down between her and the hole I had made.

One security guard had summoned enough courage to make his way along the side. Dozens of employees stood around in the lobby gawking.

But I was focused on the hole in the lobby. I was waiting to see what happened from the large piece that had been sent down.

It fell quietly for a moment, until a deep roar bellowed from underfoot, shaking the floor.

That roar snapped everybody to attention. They screamed and fled the building in a panic. Among them, I saw more than one villain trying to escape in the chaos.

I started dropping large kinetic hammers on the floor around the existing break, sending huge chunks of concrete raining down on top of the Chimera. It shook the floor, and that was apparently all it took. A siren went off in the distance. The city’s titan alarms were going off.

Melody appeared outside the building, and I knew it was time to switch back to being a manager.

I floated out to her and gave her a slight tug to join me in the shadow of a nearby alley. Slapping my comms on and turning my tablet back on, I was greeted with a dozen messages from Kim.

Thankfully, they weren’t too old. I could still play it off.

“Get Stella on the comms,” I told Melody before switching to call Kim.

“There you are—we need you back.” Kim appeared on my tablet, but she was in costume, just donning her helmet.

It seemed Wrath was about to make an appearance.

“I’m on site. The monster is deep underground. Demoness is currently working to collapse the building on top of it to see if we can’t buy ourselves some time.”

“Good work. But how are you already there? We just detected the titan.”

Melody landed behind me, and the shift of Kim’s eyes was obvious. She wasn’t an idiot.

“Oh look. We found Melody,” I said with a grin. “That’s not the big problem, though; there was already infighting in the villain organization.”

Kim’s jaw was set firmly enough to make her jaw muscles twitch. “We’ll talk later. Tell me about this titan.”

“I’m calling it the Chimera. It is the product of a mad scientist; it has to have hundreds if not thousands of gene splices.”

“This thing was created…” She stood immobile. “Impossible.”

“What little I gleaned suggests that the leader of this villain group made it.”

Kim nodded. “We are calling all heroes into action. Stay safe and coordinate who you can. Bring Venus in… I… I have no idea how we get this thing out of the city center without destroying half of Point City.”

I realized then that they fought most titan attacks on the outskirts of town. But here, dead center of the city, it had the potential to be the deadliest titan attack in recent history.

“Let’s hope Venus’ augmenter friend is willing to pitch in,” I commented.

Kim nodded before ending the call.

I opened up comms to my team. “Venus, report in. We are already on site and working to stall the titan.”

She sounded rushed and strained. “I’m just getting my suit on.” There was a sound of a zipper being pulled up. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Great. Pulsar, start pulling anyone still left in the building out. Go window to window and smash them, pulling people out until the building is empty.”

Libertech was built above the underground compound, and it was filled with people. It may be an evil corporation, but there were still innocents inside.

“On it,” Pulsar responded.

“Pulsar?!” Venus shouted over the comms. “What? How?”

“Keep the comms clear. We can figure everything out in an after-action report,” I tried to keep us focused on the task at hand.

Angelina appeared at my side. “Anything I can do?”

“Yes. How much control of your body do you have? Can you get me up this building? I could use your help to protect me as I make orders.”

She frowned, momentarily confused, but nodded. “Yeah, I can.”

Part of her body flowed around me before gooey strands shot upwards, pulling the two of us to the roof.

“Stay close to me. With what’s happening, the last thing I need is someone to mistake you for a villain.”

She nodded, taking another step closer to me. “I have your back.”

I realized I hadn’t thanked her for everything she’d done for me today.

Leaning over, I kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you. For that, and for everything today. When we have time, I’m going to thank you properly.”

She blushed, and I knew exactly what she wanted as thanks. And I was realizing how much I wanted it too. As I opened back up, it was like I needed to make up for lost time.

“Alright, flying out,” Venus informed me.

I switched the comms to my team back in The Spine. “Mary, I need you to work with the other analysts. Get the word out through them to the other hero teams. We are trying to bring the Libertech building down on top of this titan.”

“Miles! You’re back,” they all shouted excitedly.

“Yeah, I am. We are on site and doing what we can.”

Ben’s voice boomed in the background as he used his boisterous voice for good, relaying my request to the entire group of analysts in The Spine.

I had meant something more subtle and maybe technological, but his approach worked well enough. I looked down at my tablet, and the team's positions, working to form a plan.

It was time to take down another titan.