“Hmph. Like tryin’ to cut through steel...” Skull-Thasher grunted. He had been sawing at the widow’s webbing with his combat knife for a good two minutes and he hadn’t gotten anywhere. “Yo, Sky! Can I get an assist over here?” He shouted, his voice barely carrying over the sounds of intense conflict. May O’Reilly sped past the pair of battling sorceresses and landed next to her friend and ally, Jeremy. The two hadn’t known each other very long; only a little more than a month. And yet, May had never felt as close to another human being as she did to Mahers. The two had fought side by side in the direst situations more times than she could count. Now here they were, ready to die once again in the pursuit of defending the world from a mad scientist and his army of animal men. “What’s wrong?” She asked, her eyes darting across the battlefield. “The spider bitch covered my guns in her webs. Can’t get the crap off.” He explained, showing the useless weapons to her. Skyquake glanced at the strange substance before taking a handful of it in each hand and tearing it off in one swift pull. “Thanks, doll.” Skull-Thrasher made sure the barrels were clear and then turned to rejoin the fight. “Just don’t die, okay?” May called after him. Jeremy looked over his shoulder, cackling like a madman under his helmet. “I’d like ‘ta see them try!”
Not far from the Vanguard team, Thunderbolt busied himself side stepping all of Black Widow’s attacks.
“That last one almost hit me.” He mocked, moving his head to the left to avoid a ball of webbing. The spider woman leapt forward, intent on smashing Harvey’s head in. All her fist found, however, was concrete.
“Gotta be quicker than that!” She howled in anger, launching another string of web at Thunderbolt’s feet. The speedster hopped over the front of the string and landed on the rest of it.
“Gotcha.” He giggled. The woman smiled, tugging on the string. To Harvey’s horror, he discovered that his foot was, in fact, stuck to the web.
Not my brightest move. He thought as he went hurtling through the air toward the deadly arachnid. Moments before Widow could get her claws on the young police officer, a flash of lightning zoomed past, grabbing hold of Thunderbolt and dragging him away from danger.
“I totally had that!” Harvey complained, cradled in the arms of his young, badass of a sister.
“Stop messing around and take her out. This isn’t a game, Harv. Or did you forget the world was ending?” Boom dashed toward the drider, running circles around her mass of legs and huge abdomen. The speedster unleashed a flood of powerful blows to the spider’s joints, dodging all of her attempts to counterattack with expert ease.
“Okay, first off, I know. Second off, the world is not ending. The domes are only affecting a handful of cities and Iron Knight probably already has a plan for curing everybody. Besides, how can you not have fun looking at that thing?” Thunderbolt waved his hands toward the abomination of a woman/spider hybrid. “I mean, come on. How do you do anything looking like that? Buying groceries must be the worst.”
“Villains don’t buy groceries, Thunderbolt.”“They could. Hey, do you buy groceries?”“Only when I don’t eat out.”
“Really?”“No, you idiot! I don’t buy groceries!” The frustrated villain shouted. Boom sprinted away from the drider and stood next to her brother once more. The two looked on as the drider’s legs collapsed under her, unable to bear her weight after such an excruciating beating. “I’ll kill you both!” Black Widow attempted escape the two by attaching to the ceiling using her webs produced from those spinnerets of hers, but was stopped when Radiance appeared to assist the speedsters in taking her down. The electrokinetic wasn’t quite ready to fight the spider, it seemed, since the drider managed to capture Radiance in one of her webs. The speedsters looked on, unable to help; what with being flightless and all. But the siblings should’ve had faith in their teammate, who managed to electrocute her attacker into unconsciousness. Radiance lowered the villain to the ground and checked her pulse. After seeing that she wasn’t dead, the heroine decided to clock out and passed out on the floor.
“I’ve got her.” Harvey announced, running to the woman’s side.
“Be right back.” Thunderbolt picked up Radiance and held her carefully in his arms, sprinting away at top speed. He was out of the state in seconds. The speedster caught his stride somewhere in New Jersey, hitting his maximum speed. He fired past the ‘Welcome to Lost Haven’ sign and dropped off Radiance right next to Iron Knight.
“ShesnotdeadshesjustunconsciousiguessherpowersoverloadedorsomethinganywayIdidn’twanttoleaveherwithstrangerssoIbroughtherebackhereifthatscoolwithyouokaythanksbye.” Thunderbolt spewed at super speed before taking off to get back into the fight.
Harvey returned just in time to catch the tail end of White Witch’s epic duel with the Silver Sorceress. He watched in fascination as the young heroine blasted the woman with enough force to send her crashing into a wall, knocked out.
“Nice going!” He yelled over to the girl. His comment was followed by Witch stumbling backwards into a corner, collapsing herself.
“Just great.” Harvey sighed, hand on his face.
“I’ll be back. AGAIN.” Thunderbolt zoomed over to his teammate and picked her up as delicately as he could manage. He raced back to Lost Haven, hitting full speed half a millisecond sooner than last time (Witch was slightly lighter than Radiance) and running up the Tower, where he laid her down next to her compatriot.
“TellmewhentheywakeupandIcangetthembackintothefightinaflash.Okaythanksbye.” Thunderbolt vanished once more, pumping as much juice as he could out of the Lightning Effect.
Everything stopped. Thunderbolt could count the time that passed between his foot falls as he entered the factory at full speed. The only thing that appeared to be moving at all was the light, which, despite being far and away faster than he was, was still within his visual range. He looked around at everyone in the room, getting a handle on the situation at hand. The Silver Sorceress and Black Widow were standing once more, seemingly at full power. Sharknado was in the middle of slamming his oversized fists against the ground, sending shattered clumps of concrete in all directions in his attempt to smash Lyger and the defenseless Bast. Suffice to say, the two street tier vigilantes weren’t going to last long against someone as strong as the shark man. Boom seemed to have a handle on the spider as she whipped past Black Widow in slow motion. She was the only one in the room still moving; at least in Harvey’s perspective. The Sorceress was performing some kind of spell, a ball of light forming in her hands. Thunderbolt watched in fascination as the light particles around the huge room flowed toward the energy ball and into the woman’s hands, leaving complete blackness in their wake. Thunderbolt had to prioritize. Now. Things were definitely not looking good here…You heard Laura. The whole world’s at stake. Can’t hold back. I won’t. Thunderbolt’s gauntlet-covered fist began to glow bright blue with energy. Lightning danced between his finger tips as he charged toward Jaws, his kinetic energy flowing into his fist. The super charged punch slammed right into the villain’s nose, his weakpoint, at mach 600.
In real time, it would look like the giant shark hybrid had suddenly gained the ability of flight and went soaring backwards at massively hypersonic speeds. The creature crashed through the facility, none of the metal and concrete able to slow him down before he reached the outdoors. Thunderbolt struck the monster over and over. He used his most powerful punches in rapid succession, not giving the beast a chance to so much as blink.
“You’re strong. I’ll give you that. Hell, you might even be strong enough to give Icon a fight. But that’s the problem. I’m not Icon.” Thunderbolt was moving so fast that there was no way anyone could hear him. By now, the force of Harvey’s barrage had carried the hybrid to somewhere in Kansas.
The shark came crashing to a halt in the middle of a cornfield, very unconscious. Harvey slammed his feet through the dirt, kicking up a ditch behind him as he tried to slow to a halt. Crops went flying in all directions as Thunderbolt finally managed to stop moving, half a mile from where he left Jaws.
“Hell yeah.” He panted, sweat dripping from his every pore.
“Now...where am I?”Meanwhile, back in West Virginia, the Vanguard and Boom were hard at work trying to beat the rest of Doctor Giraffe Neck’s team. Skyquake grabbed a hold of one of the vegan’s giant plants, ripping it out of the ground and tossing it away. Another pair of plants popped out of the ground nearby, firing a trio of poison-tipped spines at the Irish girl. The normally deadly blades bounced off of Skyquake’s hyper durable skin. In response, May clapped her hands together at super speed, using a thunderclap to destroy the two attacking objects. Skull-Thrasher rolled past the verifiable jungle defending Sumac, firing at her with one of his glocks. A wall of vines appeared in front of her, so dense that they stopped the rounds in their tracks. Jeremy flipped past the vines and swung at Sumac with his baseball bat. The mage ducked the blow, throwing a fist in Maher’s direction. “What’s that supposed to-“ Skull attempted to taunt the weak maneuver that hadn’t even hit him, but was soon shut up by a huge tree mimicking a fist knocked him backwards. Supercell approached Sumac from the other side, a dark cloud hovering over his head. He launched a pair of lightning bolts in the woman’s direction, which were soon stopped by a wall of trees. Aban Ali Sahar dashed to the left and opened fire past the wall. Sumac spun away from the barrage and into the cover of her home made garden, raising up a couple of Venus Fly Traps to deal with the Syrian.
“Okay. We gotta end this. Mercenary!” Skyquake shouted in an attempt to get War-Pulse’s attention. “You ever heard of the fastball special?” She asked, holding her hands together and nodding toward the Silver Sorceress.