Supervillains 2 Chapter 34 (Patreon)

“And that’s why we do the hero landing when we show up on the scene.” I finished my explanation to the trainees.

“Oh,” Amelia nodded. “That makes perfect sense.”

I smiled with her understanding and was about to take questions as my tablet began blaring an alarm. I heard the same alarm echoing outside the training room. “One second.”

Taking out my tablet, the screen showed a red flashing alarm. I tapped it and the alarm stopped, but a message popped up in the background.

“Shit,” I cursed.

North Point Prison and Gateway Correctional were experiencing a breakout.

“Deputy Director. We can help.” Amelia stood up immediately, looking hopeful. “We are ready for an emergency.”

These trainees were older than Becks when everything happened to her, but I couldn’t help but feel some similarities.

“No. You aren’t ready,” I replied.

They all deflated. I’d just denied them their dreams.

“All of you will report to The Spine. You will be in charge of dealing with ancillary damage and minimizing the loss of human life. If at any point you think you are at risk of engaging with a villain, you are to contact my team at The Spine.”

Their eyes lit up. Rescuing people was exactly what they were training for. “Yes, Sir!” they shouted and looked like they were about to rush out.

“Hold up.” I stopped them and swiped at my comms. “Stella, Mona, Melody and Emma, suit up. We are heading out in five.”

I turned back to the trainees and found the cabinet in the training room. There were usually spare comms available in them. Plucking out a box, I handed them out and pinged them with my tablet before putting them in a group, and tuning them to my analysts. “You will listen to my analysts. They will direct you to disaster zones around the city.”

“Is it that bad? Is… is it a titan?” One trainee looked terrified.

“No, it’s two prison breaks, likely coordinated. There’s going to be a lot of villains out there. Your job is to stay out of the fight and protect the citizens of the city.” I gave them one last stern look before marching out of the training rooms, and over to The Spine.

The usually orderly building was in chaos. Heroes ran to the locker room to get dressed. Some of them had completely given up, stopping in the middle of the lobby and dressing out of a duffel bag right out in the open.

No one stared or even commented.

This was serious.

A prison break could be even worse than a titan. A titan threat at least meant a single entity, but we were going to be tracking down a variety of threats, if they were able to get loose before we arrived.

My stride never slowed as I wove through people and badged into The Spine.

I came to an abrupt stop as I saw the main screens.

Everyone was watching as dozens of cancerous giants bloomed around the structure.

It was in that moment that my heart nearly stopped as only one name filled my mind. Angelina.

I’d been so distracted by the idea of the prison break, I hadn’t considered how much danger Angelina was now in.

Rather than focusing on anything else, I reached across the city. My power once again made a gray-scale world, as I sensed enough to continue in the intended direction.

Just like the images shown, huge bodies were jutting out where I didn’t remember them.

I dove my senses into the building as if I were walking to Angelina’s office.

There were two bodies in the area. I didn’t bother separating them. Instead, I caged the entire room in kinetic force and ripped it out of the building, tossing it several blocks away.

Only then did I check energy sources. One of them was most definitely my squishy lover. Giving her kinetic pat on the shoulder, I hovered only for a moment to see her moving on her own.

It wasn’t delicate and on the screen, people were reacting to the explosion I caused at North Point, yet to protect one of mine, I could do far worse than this.

“Miles.” Kim came in with a grimace on her face. “You were right. We intercepted food at the supermax that had been laced with monster fruit. By the time we tried to get into the other two, it was too late. Mutations were already happening, and then things went to shit. We’ve lost contact with Gateway. You are heading that way now. I’ll be on the ground at North Point. I also called in Pratt. He’s bringing his ‘military’ to bear and locking down supermax tighter than his own asshole.”

At least they wouldn’t be popping supermax. That would be a whole different level of fucked up.

“I was hoping I wasn’t right about this one. My team is suiting up. What else can you tell me?” I needed more information.

“They came in hotdogs. We have no idea how they got in there, but by what we can quantify, over six hundred villains at Gateway and two hundred at North Point. They rotate lunches, so only about a third of them had initial access. If even a quarter took it… we are talking about a colossal problem.” Kim shook her head. “This is going to get worse, before it gets better.”

Beatrix turned around. “We have sixty-three giants at North Point and… well over a hundred at Gateway.”

I nodded and rushed down to my analyst team. “Mary, I have some trainees connecting with you guys. They have no manager, but this is an all-hands-on-deck situation. Send them to non-combat positions.”

“Be safe out there, Miles.” Rachel put a hand on my arm. Tears were brimming in her eyes.

“Of course. Nothing is going to touch me.” I stepped back and hurried out, going over the situation in my mind. I needed to get out there with my team and get a handle on the situation.

Nearly a thousand villains were just unleashed on our city, and based on the mutations, well over a quarter had already ingested monster fruit.

I wasn’t sure whether the BSH could handle this.

Pausing mid-step, an idea shoved its way through my mind.

I decided to use my powers more when I’d visited my parents’ grave. This was the perfect opportunity.

But I still needed to keep my name clear. That was where the idea hit me. Angelina was the perfect option, once again.

“Miles! We are ready to go.” Stella shouted and waved in her super suit. She was standing with Emma, Mona, and Melody. I looked over at Melody, who was suited up with her arm still in a sling.

“Melody— “

“If you try to tell me to stay out of this, you have another thing coming. But I’ll stay out of the main fray. I’m on collateral damage duty and flying Emerald around.” There was fire in her eyes.

I smirked. “No, what I was going to say was: you are in charge. I’m probably going to be doing a disappearing act.”

“Oh. Okay.” She calmed down. “Sorry to jump you like that.”

“We can talk on the way,” Stella pushed me out the door. “Now we fly.”

“Let’s go.”

Stella crushed me to her chest as she took to the air, followed by Venus and then Melody holding Emma, who looked entirely uncomfortable being flown.

I started typing a message out to Angelina. She needed to get somewhere isolated, so that I could find her. Picking her out of the city right now would take far too long.

If she got on the roof somewhere, I could pick her up and use her as a decoy, when I needed it later.

After reaching out to her, I started contacting the other managers that would be under me for the operation.

To my surprise, Victor was already on site with Miss Point City. She wasn’t doing much more than distracting the giants, but at least she was containing the damage.

“Victor, we are inbound. How bad is it?”

“Deputy. We are in over our heads. The giants are manageable, but all the others in there are tearing the prison apart from the inside out. There are still new giants appearing; I think they are continuing to spread the monster fruit.”

“I understand. For now, all we can do is stop the destruction. Focus on the giants.”

We needed to get there immediately.

My tablet pinged, and Angelina  she had climbed up on a light pole in the chaos.

Reaching out to where I had placed her before, I quickly scanned for her, feeling her soft body atop a light pole. I smiled, wrapping light around her, and ripping her to me.

“We are going to pick up speed. Hold on.” I took hold of the others, taking my entire harem with me as I shot us across the city to Gateway Correctional.

We stopped, and I couldn’t help but gasp.

Seeing it on a screen was one thing, but in person was another.

The streets were flooded as people raced out of their homes, fleeing in panic.

Dozens of giants were moving away from the facility and leveling the surrounding area.

“Venus, Demoness, get down there, and don’t hold back.” I sped up all of their ki, and Stella’s eyes glowed as Mona shined. The others had less subtle effects.

“Yes, my fated,” Mona landed, dropping off Emma before blasting off as Demoness followed suit, dropping me too.

That left me standing on the roof with Angelina, Emma, and Pulsar. The last one looked eager to get in there but was hesitating.

“Pulsar, your job is to be annoying as hell to those giants. Try to get them to chase you back towards the facility but keep yourself out of harm's way.”

She snorted. “I’m just injured, not crippled.” She tossed off her sling and rubbed her arm. “It’ll hurt, but I’ll be fine.” Melody blasted off the roof as if to prove she was still battle-worthy.

Emma stared after her. “She’s going to get hurt trying to prove something to herself.”

“She is stubborn, that’s for sure. I’ll keep an eye on her. I need—“

“Woah.” Emma held up her hands. “You don’t expect to get right down into the middle of that, do you?”

I smirked. “Of course not. I expect you to get all the way into the correctional facility. If there’s monster fruit, I expect you to destroy it or lock it away. You have full license to kill anyone that stops you.”

She twitched. “I don’t get my claws dirty. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of a suit like this?”

“Actually, it's not too hard. They do it for Demoness and Pulsar.” At least I assumed they did, given how they showed up in clean suits every day.

Emma huffed. “Fine. But you better praise the shit out of me after this.” She took a running leap and flipped off the roof before catching her claws in the building next door and dragging them in a way that shifted her momentum and swung her around the corner.

Angelina just watched. “She’s totally your cat. Might rearrange the furniture, steal things from you and generally cause havoc. But as much as she pretends otherwise, she still wants your praise.”

I rolled my eyes and focused on only part of what she said. “Rearrange my furniture?”

“The new couch in the therapy office.” Angelina quickly answered, as she watched the situation with wide eyes. “How did it get this bad so quickly?”

Monster Fruit was a game changer. It had a risk, but for these villains in prison, it was well worth the risk. Thankfully, I didn’t think the public would be taking it anytime soon.

“Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we fix this.” I swiped away on my tablet, sending out a message to nearby managers warning of a new, possibly unknown hero on site: Emerald.

As I paid attention to Melody, I caught her flying between buildings and antagonizing the giants.

She had a few turning towards her and chasing her back to the corrections facility, which was completely smashed in.

Our job here was to protect as many citizens as we could. That meant I had to let Melody do what she had to do, while backing up Venus.

My crazy lady of light was a machine out there. She was summoning balls of light every few seconds and whittling down giants or blasting holes in their chests.

She was like a gardener trimming down overgrown weeds as they kept popping up. Venus was prioritizing cutting off arms before they could do damage to surrounding buildings.

With her power increased, she was a sight to behold. Her power was unbelievable as blinding beams of light sliced through giants one after another.

And Demoness was not one to be outdone. She was picking giants up and body-slamming them back on each other, focusing on knocking them back into the already destroyed areas.

More than once, she punched right through them, blowing their chests out in a gory display.

Suddenly, I understood the trainee’s view of Melody better.

She was leading giants away, an important job, but compared to the two S grade heroes, she was forgettable.

We’d have to work on that in the future.

Raising my line of sight, I took in the heroes, flying in from all over the city. Miss Point City was even getting into it, picking a giant up and dropping it back on a cluster of more that were growing as they left the facility.

There were just too many, and they kept coming. But if anybody could cut off the supply, it was Emerald.

I watched as two giants managed to get their hands on an apartment building. People were still visible in the windows, as they scrambled to get out.

Reaching out with my power, I put a thin wall of force between the building and their hands as the giants rocked it back and forth, trying to topple the building.

My power held the building up, but the people inside were still screaming in panic.

I needed to do more to help those people.

Given all the chaos and the host of powers present, I felt more comfortable acting amid the chaos.

I smashed a kinetic sphere through both. Although I might have put a bit too much force into it; the ground shook as they were both wiped into paste.

“Did you do that?” Angelina asked from beside me.

“That obvious?” I frowned. It had been stronger than I had expected. Maybe I wasn’t used to the boost in my power completely.

Angelina chuckled. “Not even Stella is making the ground shake.”

Scratching my head awkwardly, I laughed. “I’ll try to be a little more subtle.”

“Is it time for me to replace you, and for Void to make an appearance?” Angelina asked.

As she asked that, I watched two C grade speedsters wrap steel cable around a giant’s legs and trip it while another came in and dealt the finishing blow.

Powers were flying everywhere, but the destruction of the city was being contained.

“Not yet.” I took out my tablet and pinged the managers to get a view of where they were on the map.

Drawing a circle and a few arrows to adjust them, I worked to get them into a circular formation around the disaster area. “We can contain this. Unless there’s a big upset, I think we can get a huge win for the BSH.”

Angelina only nodded and continued staring at at the destruction.

“Managers, report. How is everyone holding up?” I asked over my comms.

They all reported one by one about their situation. Most of the battles were tense, but manageable. The giants may have had their physical mass improved, but most of them still had fairly weak powers. It was just their size that needed to be dealt with.

Creative solutions like the speedsters with the steel cables could deal with them.

There was even a hero that had completely halted the giants on the north side, with their ability to turn the ground into quicksand.

We had this under control, but I knew this wasn’t the worst of it. All we were seeing were the failed results of the Monster Fruit. We hadn’t yet dealt with the successful boosts from the Monster Fruit.

This was just round one.