YOUNG AND RECKLESS

Part IV: Let’s Kill Tonight

By Brian Hamilton

“You know, I always imagined dying an old man surrounded by my grandkids. Not here and definitely not like this!” Hardball, along with Red Ronin and Ember, took cover under a dome of energy he raised. The lab’s armed security fired round after round down on them to no avail. “I don’t know how long I can keep this up!”

“Let this shield down so we can kill these fuckers already!” Ember said, chomping at the bit for a fight.

“Unlike you, we’re not all bulletproof,” Hardball replied. “Besides, Namie is second in command. Any ideas, fearless leader?”

Namie hated to admit it, but Roger was right. It may have been his fault they were in this mess, but it was her responsibility to get them out of it. “Divide and conquer. On my word Hardball, drop the shield and scatter. We’ll meet up in the park later.”

“What about the girl?” Hardball interrupted.

“No time! Take out any guards in your way get out. I’ll take miss purple rain over here.” Red Ronin nodded her head in the direction of the lead security guard; a sword-wielding woman dressed in purple, “Alright on three. Three!”

Hardball dropped the bubble of solidified energy leaving the trio of Young Masters exposed as they ran for cover in opposite directions. Roger ran for a back door that opened up into a bigger room. The walls were lined with what looked like hyperbaric chambers. The bodies floating inside the fluid filled chambers gave Roger pause. He came there with the intention of helping one mutant, but the dealers were stealing the DNA of dozens more.

Roger instinctively erected a bubble of energy around himself at the sound of gunshots. A group of guards filtered into the room behind him, but dropped their weapons upon realizing they were useless against his powers. Two of the guards rushed forward brandishing electrified batons. Hardball responded in turn by creating two balls of energy around his fists. The first guard swung and missed, but the second’s baton made contact with Roger’s knee.

Hardball yelled out in pain. He fell to the ground, but managed to roll out of the way of another strike. The last of the guards who followed him into the back room dog piled on top of him. Roger’s squirming underneath their collective weight became increasingly frantic as he each breathe became harder to take.

“Get..off…me!” A bubble of energy generated inches from Hardball’s body and expanded outward with enough force to send the guards flying off him in all directions. Guards smashed against walls and doors knocking them unconscious upon contact. One smashed into a chamber destroying its tempered glass.

The automated doors of the tube opened letting the body inside fall to the floor. Kneeling beside her, Roger felt her neck for a pulse. She was alive, but barely. Printed across the medical bracelet on her wrist was her name. Regina Sinclair.

He took a moment to study her face. She was nearly nude, save for a black leotard. The dealers’ attempts at modesty? Her skin was pale and ashen, no doubt a result of the blood the MGH dealers took from her, but almost completely covered in tattoos. A swirling blend of reds, blues, and purples covered both sleeves and legs. Along with the tattoos, Roger’s eyes were drawn to her facial piercings. There was a stud in her chin, one in each cheek, and a golden hoop through her nose.

“Well, not exactly what I was expecting,” Hardball muttered to himself. He scooped Regina into his arms and made his way for the nearest exit.

When Hardball’s energy dome went down, Ember didn’t run for cover. He had no reason to. The guards’ bullets ricocheted off his rocky skin. The teenage pyro mockingly yawned at the group of guards that stepped forward to confront him.

“As fun as this is, I have things to do.” A plume of fire sent the guards running off in different directions. Using the momentary distraction, Ember turned and ran in the opposite direction toward the steel door Hardball pointed out upon their arrival. He swung it open to find a massive freezer. The shelves were filled with bags of blood. Ember had never seen the inside of a blood bank, but if he had to guess it would look similar to this. “Bingo.”

A guard slammed the butt of his rifle against the base of Ember’s neck sending him tumbling over the threshold into the freezer and on the floor. “Spare the rod,” the guard taunted as he slammed the door shut. He straddled Ember’s chest, shoving his rifle against his neck, choking the life out of him. “Spoil the child.”

Ember flailed wildly against the guard to no avail. The mercury in the thermometer began to inch higher slowly at first, but then by leaps and bounds. Distracted by choking the young man, the increasingly hotter room went unnoticed by the guard. Drops of sweat began to form on his brow as he struggled to keep Ember down. Without warning, the guard leapt off the Young Master nursing his hands. The stream of obscenities he shouted would make the most hardened criminal blush. Lying discarded nearby, the discarded rifle he was using to choke Ember glowed bright red.

Ember picked himself off the floor of the freezer. He bent over to pick up the rifle, not bothered by the hot steel. “I guess now would be the time when I make some fire pun,” Ember said, swinging the rifle like a bat knocking the guard to the floor unconscious, “but I’ve never been good at that kind of stuff.”

The temperature in the freezer continued to rise. Within seconds the DNA samples on the shelves began to boil and the bags melt and warp. With Ember at the epicenter, a final explosion destroyed the freezer’s contents. Fans sucked out the smoke to reveal Ember looking around at his handiwork. The burnt remains of the guard who tried to choke the life out of him stood out.

“Sucks it had to be you guy. Next time keep your hands to yourself.”

Closing the door behind him, Ember saw another group of guards approaching and moved to confront them.

Namie stared down the woman standing across from her. In a movement too quick for her opponent to register, Red Ronin’s eyes scanned the women in purple up and down. From her jet black, pixie haircut, to the pair of swords holstered on her back, or the tensed muscles in her leg itching to move, nothing about her went unnoticed.

The two super strong women collided with the force of two speeding trains. Blows were exchanged, but neither gave any quarter. Namie stepped forward putting all her strength into her punch. She missed as her adversary side stepped and used her momentum to throw her across the room. The Young Master crashed through a wooden table and onto the linoleum underneath.

“You can call me Delilah.” Finally with her hands free, Delilah brandished her swords as Namie got back to her feet, “What would you like your tombstone to read?”

From the silver bangles on Namie’s wrist red energy blades appeared. “Red Ronin, sweetie, and you’re not the only one who can work a sword.”

Delilah leapt into the air and brought her swords down onto where her opponent stood but they clashed against Namie’s energy blades. Pushing Delilah off her sent the purple-clad swordswoman into the air where she twirled expertly and landed with the grace of a ballerina.

“Or should I say a pulwar? I wonder where you found an antique like that in Los Angeles. Bought it with the blood money you get from kidnapping mutants? Or did you steal it?”

Delilah smiled. “You know your swords. Impressive, but childish. You heroes are so black and white. I don’t care about those mutants. I’m only in this for the money. Speaking of which, I bought this sword myself. Let me show it to you up close and personal.”

Delilah took the offensive. She swung one blade toward Delilah, but it was blocked expertly. Eyes constantly scanning Delilah, Red Ronin’s mind and body moved instinctively analyzing her body cues and muscle twitches to block or avoid attacks.

“Heroes?” Namie chuckled to herself. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

The two continued their dance of attacking and counter attacking. Many of Delilah’s attacks were blocked or dodged, but a swift kick to the chin sent Namie shuffling backward. Delilah continued her assault by delivering a flying kick to Namie’s chest that knocked her off her feet.

Using her swords as a pair of scissors, Delilah straddled Namie’s chest, the blades flush against her neck. “Your friends are either brave or dumb, maybe both, but you shouldn’t have come here.”

Driving her knee into Delilah’s back knocked the “sword-for-hire” off Namie. Rolling quickly, Red Ronin straddled her and plunged the energy blades into Delilah’s chest. There was no blood or screams of pain. Delilah gasped and lost consciousness as the energy blade scrambled her body’s nervous system, momentarily disrupting her brain’s synapses.

Hardball didn’t know how long he had been running, but, looking over his shoulder, he could tell he hadn’t made it far. He could still see the MGH dealer’s compound. The sound of gunfire and the occasional flash of light, he assumed a result of Ember’s powers, were still visible.

In his arms, Regina stirred. Still weak from the blood the dealerss stole from her, she struggled to keep her eyes open. “What’s going on?” Her voice was low, just barely above a whisper, and strained.

“We saved you,” Roger answered, smiling.

Regina cuddled her head against her savior’s chest. “No. Have to go back.”

To say he was confused would be an understatement. He stared down at the woman in his arms, vulnerable as a newborn and completely dependent on him, asking to return to the building where she was held hostage. She was kept unconscious and robbed of her genetic material to make a drug that gave baseline humans mutant powers.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Roger stated bluntly. “For one, they have guns. Lots of guns.”

Unnoticeable in the dark, Roger’s pupil’s dilated as a stream of endorphins flooded his bloodstream. The sudden firing off of neurons in his brain caused his heart rate to speed up and his palms to start sweating. Regina reached up to caress his cheek. “Please? For me.”

Roger was too nervous to make eye contact. Of course he would go back for her. Anything she wanted she could have.

“And don’t worry about getting tired. There’s enough adrenaline rushing through your body to lift a truck of a baby,” Regina said casually.

Hardball turned and began running back toward the same gunfire he was trying to escape.

“Ms. Fujikawa. You have a phone call.”

Fuyumi Fujikawa looked at the flight attendant over her sunglasses. Her staff was well aware of her preference to travel without interruptions. Whatever was wrong for them to call her midflight must be big. Although, after the mishaps over the past months, everything that went wrong was big. She moved a strand of black hair out of her face before taking the phone into her hand.

She didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Yes?”

The voice on the other end was all too familiar with Fuyumi’s curtness. “A group of supers broke into the lab designation theta. Delilah and her guard team responded but communication with her has gone dead. Next course of action, ma’am?”

The daughter of the former CEO of Fujikawa Industries placed the phone down on the tray in front of her. She let out an audible sigh as her fingers massaged her temples. Irritated didn’t even begin to describe the word. She picked the phone back up and the conversation continued.

“Any identification on the supers?”

“None,” the voice replied. “They managed to disable surveillance. We don’t believe it’s the Avengers or Champions.”

“Well get the tech division on enabling it. And send in reinforcements. Delilah is durable. She’ll bounce back quickly.”

On the other end of the phone, Hajime Sato wrote down Fuyumi’s orders. Sending in more guards wouldn’t be an issue thanks to their teleportation tech. repairing the security cameras, however, would be next to impossible. A localized EMP pulse was used to disable the cameras. If they somehow managed to get them back on, any footage they managed to recover would be nearly impossible to use. He chose not to share this headache with her today. “On it. And the heroes? What should we do about them?”

“Destroy them. Move the subjects in lab designation theta to iota and continue the MGH production. And don’t interrupt my flight again. I’ll be in the states within the week.” Fuyumi closed the phone and placed it back in the hands of the flight attendant. With a casual flick of her wrist, the attendant was dismissed. She walked past the empty seats in first class leaving Fuyumi to finish the rest of her flight in the peace and solitude she requested.

“Is it just me or do these guys keep multiplying?” Ember yelled over the fighting.

Red Ronin hadn’t noticed, but there didn’t seem to be a dent in the building’s security no matter how many the two of them cut down. Namie had her hands full with Delilah. The hired muscle recovered from the damage to her nervous system faster than anyone Namie had seen. If she had to guess she had some type of healing factor.

“Why don’t you pull that little exploding trick again?” Namie asked.

“Can’t.” Ember answered in between taking out guards, “I’m having a hard enough time fighting these guys as is. Doing it again this soon would put me out for a while.”

BZZT!

The sound of electricity crackling through the air caught the two Young Masters’ attention. Dim green lights flashed around the warehouse and where there once was nothing materialized out of thin air more guards armed to the teeth. The newly arrived reinforcements cocked their weapons and aimed them at Ember and Red Ronin. Laser pointers highlighted their major organs

“Look at that. They were multiplying,” Ember said, dumbfounded.

Seconds passed, but no one, not even Delilah, made a move. Through the front doors of the laboratory walked in Hardball and Regina, her arm was over his shoulders to keep her standing up.

“Don’t mind me. Just saving your lives. The guards here have a nasty habit of showing up uninvited.” Regina was slowly gaining her strength back. The fact that she was able to use her powers and stand up, albeit aided, was an accomplishment.

Ember asked suspiciously, “Who are you?”

Roger answered that she was Regina Sinclair. On his way out the building he came across the room she was being held captive in and decided to do the right thing. Now here she was using her powers to save them. “Turns out she’s an empath.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means I can do stuff like make that bitch in the purple go all She-Hulk on the help.” No sooner than the words were out of Regina’s mouth, Delilah erupted into a violent rage, attacking the guards that were still standing. The guards, consumed by their own sudden anger, fought back without regard for their own well-being. “While we blow this treehouse of terror. Speaking of which, I hope you guys have a good hideout. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

“Girl, you have no idea what you’re in for,” Ember said, smiling, as the group of Young Masters, plus one, made their way towards the Invisible Manor.

Lab Designation Iota – Unknown Location, Three Days Later

Fuyumi Fujikawa watched the screens replaying the little, albeit scrambled, footage from attack from days earlier with a look of contempt on her face. Even though bits and pieces of the security footage was salvaged, what she was able to discern from them left her more than angry.

Hajime, her second in command, began his debriefing. “From what we can tell it was three different supers. All teenagers.”

One screen paused on the first intruder. He was wearing a red and black mask. The footage went on to show him creating and manipulating force fields. The second teen made no attempts to hide his face. His molten lava skin made him easily identifiable.

“We believe this one destroyed the mutant gene samples. We have footage of him fighting the same kid who’s been taking out our dealers from an attack on a separate MGH warehouse just days before this attack. We have people looking into that connection. Now our supply can be replaced, but with one of our biggest warehouses down it’ll be a while before it is back on the street. Luckily, there are always mutants like Nekra willing to sell their blood. And all the subjects in the lab are accounted for except for one.”

“Except one?” Fuyumi asked. “Who is missing?”

Hajime continued. “Ironically, Regina Sinclair. But that’s not the most interesting part.” All the screens flashed the image of the last intruder. “Look familiar?”

There was no overt physical reaction to the image, but inside Fuyumi was furious. “Red Ronin. Is she working with the little one?”

“We have reason to believe so, but, if they are, he wasn’t present that night. Per your orders, Theta Lab is being shut down and subjects have been moved. We have buyers requesting product, which has been slowed and others demanding results on other projects. What should I tell them?”

“Tell them we’ve run into unforeseen circumstances, but they’ll get what they’re paying for. That brat has cost me a substantial amount of money and he had the audacity to steal more of my property. He doesn’t know who he is dealing with so let’s remind him. Accelerate Project: Egghead.”