Zeus

The night is dark at the outskirts of the city, where the lights don’t reach. The abandoned industrial area is a great place for criminals to hide. For years now, Zeus has been telling the city council to just tear the whole thing down. But it’s too expensive, they say. And they’re still hopeful there’s going to be a time when investors will return in great numbers and bring not only the money to buy the land but also the infrastructure to defend it from thriving gangs that definitely won’t give up their turf without a fight.

It’s routine at this point. The strongest team of superheroes turns the stone to squash the ugly little worms underneath. It’s not hard, usually, and it makes for great press. But really, it doesn’t solve the problem. They’ll just come back. They’re still crawling underneath every stone they left unturned. It’s a Sisyphus task. And he still does it, because with great power comes great responsibility. It’s all he can do to keep the dark parts of the city from taking over, hoping that the higher-ups will finally decide to really do something about it.

He’s thought of destroying the warehouses himself. It’d take a while, yes, but he’d manage. But the problem is that the warehouses are only the tip of the iceberg. There are tunnels underneath. A whole system, spanning probably the entire city. They never go there, though. Even for them it’s too dangerous. Being the fucking elite of superheroes doesn’t make them invincible, unfortunately. And his powers will protect him from neither booby-traps nor tons of stone falling on his head.

The others are currently taking position by the fence as he hovers high above them, looking down at the large parking lot, full of dead machinery that provides just fabulous cover for potential enemies.

In situations like these, heroes with infrared sight are really useful. But they don’t have any. They’re very rare and something about their ability makes them very likely to turn bad. Maybe the fact that they’re very good at moving in the dark without being seen.

“Nobody there. Not in the open, at least,” he whispers. There’s no need to be louder, the intercom is sensitive at this stage of the operation.

“Roger. Starting breach,” Viktor replies. That’s another problem. They don’t have anybody with powers that are good for breaching. Or, well, it would be a problem if they didn’t have Viktor. He’s good at literally everything. Stealth, melee combat, ranged combat, tactics, running, diving, even language learning.

There’s barely any sound as the silent soldier cuts the fence with a wire cutter. It barely takes a minute and the hole is large enough that they can squeeze through without making any noise.

Now comes the interesting part.

If the worms know of their arrival, they’ll start defensive measures right about now, which is usually what costs them their lives. Because they never manage to come up with a plan to take out him.

Snipers just don’t cut it. No matter what Hollywood tries to tell you, hitting a flying target that knows it’s being shot at is near impossible with a sniper rifle. You’d need an anti-aircraft canon to take him out, because even at a distance, Buckler’s shield is too strong to hit him with a normal machine gun.

Because we’re the fucking elite of superheroes.

He shakes his head lightly, tries to shut away the memory. Once again, he finds himself wholeheartedly agreeing with Elsa on the matter. The guy’s an absolute dick. But they can’t afford to throw him out because he’s just too damn useful.

He’s really sorry for the boy. Even at the moment, he was. The calm boy and the angry girl. Two innocent souls caught in the crossfire of clairvoyant children, principals trying to protect their school and plain old bad luck. He’s sorry, but there’s also something else. The girl was right. They are scared and they have every right to be. If the boy turned out to be a villain, not even the fucking elite of superheroes could stop him. Hell, they don’t even know if the bracelet, made from a very expensive and rare combination of artificially created metals and polymers, is going to keep him in check. But they better hope it will, because if it doesn’t, he has every reason to have a go at them. They might get lucky. The principal said he was a very nice person and might even understand. The girl definitely wouldn’t, though. If she had the powers, she’d probably have long killed them all. The weird thing is that he’d understand. Because she’s right, isn’t she? It’s cowardly to lock him up with his powers.

That’s the problem with prevention. It’s all about evaluating risks. They could’ve gone either way, but the option would’ve been to decide that they didn’t believe in that little boy’s prophecy. Which every single one of them did, apparently.

He’s glad somehow that he didn’t have to make the call himself and at the same time he hates himself for not having intervened.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Not every choice can be a simple one.

Everybody at headquarters is talking about the boy. Ezra Campbell, formerly known as Zoe Campbell. There are even voices that demand to kill him straight away. But that’s obviously not an option. Even though the result is probably the same and it has less risk of anybody else being harmed. Even though it’s probably better for even him.

He really should take Atlas up on the offer. Paid vacation… didn’t they say he could bring someone along? He could ask Elsa. Maybe she’d like to go to the beach with him.

For just a second, he imagines himself flying close to the water surface somewhere warm and sunny as she surfs alongside him on a sheet of ice.

He shakes his head once again.

Focus.

He lets himself sink a little as his team approaches the officially abandoned warehouse. They expect people to be inside. They expect a fight, even though they don’t expect it to be a hard one.

Another critical moment is that of entry. When they walk blindly into an enclosed space, hoping that it won’t be the last time.

Noise to his left. Not much, just… movement. He turns.

“Stop. Take cover.”

They follow instantly. “Where?” Elsa asks.

“Three o’clock. Other end of the parking lot. I’ll go investigate, get ready to fight.”

“Understood,” says Viktor.

It’s always amazed him how composed the guy is even in situations like this. But then again, Zeus doesn’t think he’s ever not this way. Pragmatic, broody, keeping mostly to himself.

Slowly, he flies closer. A shadow moving along the fence. He can’t have seen him, otherwise he wouldn’t be moving so slowly and outside of cover.

A flash of memory. The Atlas facility at the other end of the city. Dark figures on the roof. It can’t be, can it?

When he’s close enough, he raises a hand – like anybody’d see in the dark – and shouts, “Atlas police force!”. Or, well, he means to shout it, because he barely makes it past the ‘Atlas’ before two bullets hit his shield at chest-height and send him tumbling backward.

He hadn’t even seen the gun in the shadow’s hand. Where? But now it’s perfectly visible.

So it is the speedster. But where are his companions? Not here, apparently. A perfect opportunity to take out yet another criminal and maybe ask a few questions while he’s already at it.

Gunshots sound from behind him, but Zeus doesn’t expect them to hit. Not even Victor’s near-perfect aim can keep up with a speedster that knows what they’re doing.

And this one certainly does. Bam! Right at the head, this time.

Adrenaline soars through his veins. Even before his brain has properly processed the information, he’s fired a massive bolt of electricity in the figure’s direction. Usually, he’s very good at taking out speedsters, simply because he can modify his attacks to have a very large area of effect. But not this one, apparently. Because another shot hits him only a split second later. A low curse follows. The attacker must’ve realised that he can’t kill Zeus through his shield.

“Surrender!” Zeus shouts, but another shot is the only reply. Then Zeus realises that the shadow is nowhere near him anymore, instead whizzing past the warehouse towards the other end of the estate.

There’s procedural code for nearly all situations they could encounter in their line of work, fleeing speedsters included. It’s advised to just let them go, most of the time. Because almost nobody can keep up and if they let you get close, it’s probably because they want you to. And yes, even though he can keep up, it’s a really stupid idea to just follow him, he’s aware of that. Somewhat, at least. Because what he really does, is follow the shadow at top speed, throwing tons of electricity his way.

“Zeus, for fuck’s sake!” he hears Elsa hiss. “Let him go! We’ve got an operation waiting.”

“No,” he tells her. “By now they know we’re coming. Retreat, follow me in case things go south. Leaving shield.”

He’s got a GPS system built into his gear to keep track of where the rest of his team – especially Buckler – is. Through extensive testing, they found out that his shield can reliably protect them at a range of up to two hundred yards. And now he’s leaving that reach.

“This is-” but the connection is interrupted because mere seconds later, he also leaves radio reach.

He has to catch him.

It doesn’t take long and they leave the estate, cross the next one and the one after that. It’s difficult to keep track of him, difficult to keep up. He’s wicked fast. But Zeus is, too. The problem is that he has to catch the figure before he can reach the forest at the far end of the industrial area. The speedster would easily lose him in there. But in between him and the forest is a large scrapyard. A great place to catch up and fire away.

He raises his efforts one last time as the shadow vaults over the ten-foot-tall fence and enters the scrapyard. Electricity crackles in between Zeus’ fingers as he slowly draws closer.

He’s about to throw a momentarily paralysing amount of lighting at the shadow, when suddenly the ground beneath them rises.

It happens at the snap of a finger. One moment, everything looks normal and the next, the earth tears open and forms a wall, shielding the speedster from his vision. He tries to change direction, but something hard hits him in the side and suddenly he can’t breathe. It’s like his throat is suddenly blocked by something hard that’s moving, slowly crawling up past his mouth and in direction of his brain.

All at once, he lets every single bit of electricity in his body explode outwards. There’s a deafening crackle, a clap of thunder that’s got to be audible throughout all of the city. But he doesn’t know if he hit anything because he’s gone blind. He can’t breathe, can’t see, and suddenly, Zeus is very aware that he’s descending uncontrollably, knows that he’s going to crash soon and he wonders whether Elsa is going to cry at his funeral.

SeptemberMorgan

What a lot of people seem to have forgotten about when going on about how Ezra and Hope are going to kill those superheroes, are those secret players that always seem to lurk in the shadows :))