Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 9: No Plan Survives First Contact

Perry and Heather were crouched in the rafters of the warehouse, right beside a melted hole in the roof, where some supers had presumably been in a slugmatch.

If things went wonky, they’d fly up through the hole and escape.

Things got dull fast, and eventually, Perry just laid down on one of the steel ceiling beams, tucked his arms behind his head and started thinking about his next spellframe.

Once he figured out the perfect ratio of fruit to horn and figured out the exact frequency he needed, then the next part was just engineering.

Rather than a large silver bowl that made peoples entire bodies into puddles, maybe he could make a concave silver disk with a shallow curve, a little bigger than a silver dollar.

Then he could-

“What are you doing?” Heather asked.

“Being patient. If you wanna crouch the whole time we’re waiting, enjoy the cramps.”

Heather watched him for a moment then untucked her legs from under her and leaned back against a beam.

It felt like forever, but the weapons dealers and the gangsters showed up precisely on time.

Heather tapped him on the shin, dragging his attention away from his mental designs for a paste applicator.

Heather held a finger in front of her helmet, and pointed down.

Perry nodded and turned over, crouching as the rumbling sound of a truck grew audible, his heart rate skyrocketing. We’re actually doing this.

Wait. Does Heather know how to drive a stick-shift? Perry thought as the large trucks rumbled into the oversized building. Pretty sure those are manuals.

I guess we’ll worry about it when we get there.

Heather’s dad hopped out of the left truck, and Perry’s hackles rose. Karnos had bright blond hair cut military style, a black button-up shirt with the collar popped and half-unbuttoned, and a gold watch on his wrist.

It was a strange cross between minimalist professional and villain chic. He pulled it off, though.

Heather spread her fingers wide and lowered her hand slowly.

Wait. Calm.

That’s right. We’re not robbing her dad. We’re robbing the guys her dad supplies. Way less dangerous.

“I’ve got lookouts in the rafters. Engaging.”

?Que?

Perry glanced over his shoulder and spotted a young man in sky blue spandex floating down through the melted hole in the ceiling.

Crap.

“Is that – is that cardboard?” he stammered upon getting closer to the two of them.

***Jetset, fifteen minutes ago***

Four supers sat in a semicircle, regarding their leader.

“Okay, Here’s the plan.” Titan said, rolling out the maps.

“Ugh, we’ve heard the plan a million times.” Warcry groaned, beating her head against the wall, neon purple shimmers reflecting her frustration.

“You’ll hear it as many times as necessary,” Titan said. “We got word that the Razors are doing an arms deal tonight. They’re gonna gather up a huge amount of money, and leave their base in a box truck here.”

Titan pointed at the Razor’s base on the map.

“We’re going to park Hardcase’s mom’s car here.” Titan pointed at a spot several blocks further west, the mousy Tinker girl nodding as her name was mentioned.

“While the rest of the team waits in the SUV, Jetset will-“

“Can we call it something cooler than SUV?” Manic asked, glancing around. “Like the combat ground vehicle, or Transport. Anything but SUV.”

Titan waited until the speedster ran out of gas, withering under his stare.

“Jetset will follow the truck from high up, and we will follow Jetset’s instructions, until we reach the meeting point.”

“Got it,” Jetset said, nodding.

“Once we’re there, Jetset will infiltrate from above, with assistance from Hardcase, while the rest of us will hit them at street level. First thing we’re gonna do is disable their vehicles. Warcry, you make sure their escape vehicles don’t run, Manic, you catch runners and subdue whoever you can with those zipties.”

They nodded as Titan pointed each of them out one at a time.

“I’ll keep my eyes open for any supers they might have, and engage as soon as I spot one. Warcry, you back me up against any cowl as soon as you’re done with the cars. The rest of you guys should only have to worry about regular gangsters.” Titan finished.

“And remember, if we pull this off, we’ll have enough resources to finally do this full-time.”

Jetset nodded to himself. Everyone was aware of Nexus’s finder’s fee on recovered tech, money, and cowls.

15% for capes unaffiliated with Nexus, and 35% for those officially employed by the Organization. Fifty thousand and up for capturing a super, depending on their notoriety.

The Mechanaut had a three-million dollar bounty on bringing him in alive, for example. Jetset practically drooled at the thought of being set for life off of one arrest.

Of course, superheroing was expensive work. If you were working for Nexus, any collateral damage you caused could be withheld from your reward, same if you were unaffiliated, although it was harder for them to prove. If you messed up bad enough, you could get Drafted.

So tonight they were aiming to earn fifteen percent on two trucks full of cash and weapons, maybe capture a cowl, and earn some points toward being noticed by Nexus.

Jetset could picture them driving the truck straight up to Nexus and watching with glee as the technicians unloaded crate after crate of high-tech weapons, driving their reward higher and higher.

I guess we’ll actually be calling Nexus in to take the stuff away…still exciting though.

It was a big night for them.

In Titan style, Their leader quizzed each of them on their role. Once he was confident they’d memorized their parts, they all piled into the soccer-mom car, with Hardcase’s armor barely fitting in the back, even collapsed as it was.

Jetset activated his power and climbed up into the cold night air, thankful for the hyperweave. The stuff had ridiculous insulation powers, keeping him a comfortable seventy-two degrees whether he was flying up in the stratosphere or sitting in a sauna.

He flew straight up into the sky, disappearing into the black of the night sky. Jetset threw a habitual glance over at the wall, like he did every time he flew up high. Bright Green lights every five hundred feet or so, as far as the eye could see.

Beyond…nothing but the black of the ocean, with the occasional glitter of light as the water caught the moonlight just so.

Reassured, Jetset flew over to the Razor’s hideout, opened up his GPS with his team’s location on it.

“You guys read me?” Jetset said.

“We read you.”

“I’ve got your location. Stand by for directions.

“Standing by.”

Only a few minutes later an oversized truck began rumbling away from the Razor’s safehouse, and Jetset began following it, directing his team to parallel its route.

It only took a few minutes for the truck to reach its destination: An abandoned warehouse on the northeast side of the city, where a second truck was pulling in at nearly the exact same time.

This is it. Jetset thought his heart pounding.

Jetset waited for his team to pile out of the SUV, with Titan unloading Hardcase’s armor before the brown-haired girl took off her glasses, threw them in the car, and climbed into her machine.

Once Hardcase was up and running, Jetset pointed her towards a rather large hole in the roof of the warehouse.

“I’ll go in quiet, then you jump in right behind me? alright?” He said on Jetset’s channel. The powered armor nodded and gave him a thumb’s up.

Jetset spotted Titan and Warcry aiming for the two giant entrances on either side, while Manic leaned up against the SUV, knocking energy drink after energy drink.

We need to get him some real speedster bars one of these days. That can’t be good for him, Jetset thought with a frown.

“Alright, we’re good to go.” Titan’s voice came over their comms.

Here we go, Jetset thought, swooping into the opening from above.

As he descended, the light barely caught two armored forms lurking in the rafters. It seemed as though one side of the equation had brought in some extra muscle to make sure everything went smoothly. Or just launch a double-cross. Either way, they were going down.

“I’ve got lookouts in the rafters. Engaging.” Jetset said into his radio. One of the lookouts must’ve heard him, because he turned to look at Jetset, shock radiating from his posture.

In fact, now that he’d turned into the light, it looked like…a carboard cosplay armor? It was ridiculously thin, smaller than Hardcases. There was no way it could actually function as armor.

What am I looking at? Is this some kind of joke, or…

“Is that – is that cardboard?” Jetset asked, forgetting himself for a moment.

There was a loud whine as four tubes on the side of the cardboard armor began to rattle and the strange armor launched itself towards him, fist first.

***Perry***

Crap crap crap! Perry thought as he launched himself towards the flier. Okay, what do we know. There’s a flier, he’s part of a team, and likely has responsibility for checking the roof, which blocked our escape route. Going down will flush us into the rest of his team, so our best bet is to go through him and fly away.

Perry’s fist impacted the dumbstruck flier in the chest, knocking him back and smashing him into one of the beams that stretched across the ceiling, discombobulating him.

“What the hell was that!?” once of the gangsters shouted moments before all hell broke loose.

Three supers entered from ground level.

One energy type who controlled sheets of flickering purple energy which sliced through engine blocks with ease.

One bruiser, who scanned the room for something.

One brownish blur that seemed to be tackling one gangster after another and zip-tying their hands behind their backs in the blink of an eye. A speedster.

“I think now’s a good time to bail,” Perry said, motioning towards the opening in the ceiling. This was a mess, and not the easy score that they’d been hoping for. Plus the super team who’d just arrived would assume they were cowls.

They’d already punched one of their teammates.

“Right you are,” Heather said, and the two of them aimed for the hole.

The scream of jet engines was the only warning as a metal body filled the hole in the roof, smashing down into the two of them, rupturing through the metal ceiling beams like they weren’t there.

“Ooof!” Perry had the wind driven out of him as the giant metal foot tried to crush his midsection into the pavement, jets in the mech’s foot scorching his exterior plating.

“Is that cardboard?” The mech’s modulated voice carried above the general mayhem, cocking its head as it peered down at him.

“Turtle!” Perry said, grabbing the Mechsuit’s leg on his chest.

Heather followed suit.

Together the two of them threw the Mech off of them and onto it’s back.

Mechsuits were notoriously difficult to stand up once they were on their backs. It was what separated a veteran Tinker from an amateur. The turtle problem.

The mechsuit flew backwards for a moment before ports on its back opened and blasted backwards, pushing its upper body to a standing position.

Huh, I guess this guy did his homework.

At least he was off of the two of them.

Perry and Heather scrambled to their feet, taking in the situation. The bruiser was running towards them, his gaze locked onto what was presumably two cowls.

“This could’ve gone better,” Perry said, bracing himself and triggering Blades.EXE

RRRRR. The printers connected to the spell-disc began making identical marks on Perry’s skin and the rice-grain sized blades, triggering the spell and connecting him to the forming floating armaments.

They appeared in Perry’s mind, like limbs he’d had since birth, but only remembered just now, floating behind his back.

Five of them.

They were…unimpressive. Each of the floating armaments was about the size of a finger, blunt on one side with a single bladed edge on the other, bluish, slightly glowing and partially seethrough.

What they lacked in showmanship they made up in utility.

Perry sent two blades toward the mechsuit’s cameras, and two to jam themselves into the suit’s joints, keeping the metallic lug busy.

“Incoming!” Heather shouted.

The bruiser was bearing down on them, the ground itself shaking as he approached.

On a hunch, Perry sent the last blade to hit with its blunt side against the guy’s skull.

Clink! The floating armament stopped cold at the approaching bruiser’s skin. I suspected as much, Perry thought sourly. “Evade!” Heather shouted, her suit’s fans whirring to life as she floated away from the big guy.

It was never a good idea to tangle directly with a bruiser. Power armor was nice, but it never seemed to beat natural supernaturals.

Plus bruisers tended not to hold back as much against armor.

Perry dodged backwards and tried to get some distance when a brown blur tackled him to the ground and whipped his hands around behind his back.

It felt like someone was zipping a straightjacket up behind him as zipties manifested themselves all the way up from his fingers to his shoulders, clamping his arms securely behind his back.

The bruiser was stomping towards him, readying a kick at his face.

Perry summoned the blades keeping the mechsuit busy and used their flat edges to scrape himself off the ground and fling himself out of the way, the unnatural movement causing the bruiser’s kick to whiff.

Perry pressed four of the blades flush against his armors while the fifth began sawing through the zipties on his hands.

Of course, now the mechsuit was free to act.

“He’s an energy type!” The mechsuit shouted, indicating the ethereal blades helping Perry bob and weave faster than his inertia should allow.

“Well, then what’s with the cardboard!?”

“Other one’s a Tinker!”

“Tinker and an energy type!”

The mechsuit rushed forward towards Perry, which was when Heather launched herself down from the ceiling beams and did a textbook drop-kick to the mechsuit’s face.

The results was unimpressive, because Heather plus power armor weighed a little over a hundred pounds.

The mechsuit was substantially heavier.

“Dangit!” Heather cursed as the mechsuit’s armored fingers seized her leg and slammed her into the ground.

Crack! Perry winced as he heard something break. Whether it was pavement, armor, or god forbid, Heather, he didn’t know yet. He was kind of busy.

“I don’t suppose we can convince you guys to let us go?” Perry asked. “We’re obviously not with these guys.”

“We can get this all sorted out in the Nexus,” The bruiser said. “Warcry, you think you can cut their armor off without hurting them?”

“Sure!” the energy-wielding girl said, with a malicious tone that Perry was distinctly uncomfortable with.

This is NOT how I want to be introduced to Nexus, Perrythought. Getting dragged in wearing cuffs and booked on your first outing was unacceptable. Even if they were cleared of involvement with the Razors, first impressions meant a lot.

He’d always be that ‘cardboard kid’ that got his ass kicked on the first night out. And likely liable for damages.

The world was not kind to the loser.

Perry shot himself up into the rafters, redirecting his blades toward the energy wielder – Warcry, they’d called her – who was currently advancing on Heather’s prone form.

“Ack, hey, cut it out!” Warcry shouted as the blunt side of his knives darted around her, beating any opening they could find past her scintillating sheets of purple light.

He succeeded in driving Warcry back from Heather, but now Perry couldn’t dodge as easy, hoping he’d be safe up where the ground heroes would have more trouble reaching him.

A dull impact crashed against his chest, sending him tumbling back down. Perry could make out the blue-spandex flier from the very beginning, already back on his feet.

Shoot! Perry thought, spinning faster than he could hope to control, and smashing into the ground head-first, his armor creaking from the impact as his neck was violently twisted.

HP:1

I just took lethal damage!

Perry went limp, dropping his floating armaments to the ground with an artistic tinkle.

“Oh gosh,” The mechsuit said, stepping forward. “Is he okay?”

“Okay or not, get that armor off him first. We can sort it out when we’re done here.” The Bruiser said, seemingly the leader of the group.

Damnit! Perry pulled the blades back and pushed himself forward, skittering across the pavement towards Heather as fast as he could.

A single immovable foot slammed down on his chest, putting an end to that idea.

“See, some of the smarter cowls will play dead to create an opening. Always restrain them first, then check for injuries.”

“I’m not a cowl,” Perry said.

“Could’ve fooled me,” the green-eyed bruiser said, lifting Perry up with an iron grip. “You messed Jetset up pretty bad.”

“Hey, he came at me first,” Perry retorted. “Besides, shouldn’t you be more worried about him?” He nodded to the left.

The bruiser’s green eyes widened as he glanced over at Heather’s dad, his limbs contorting out of the zipties with the casual ease of a man taking off hat.

He was standing next to the back of his truck.

“Don’t mind me, kids,” Karnos said with a grin before unlatching the massive doors. “Keep doing your thing.”

“Manic.” The bruiser said.

The brown blur impacted against Karnos, and suddenly it came to a stop, revealing a man wearing some thick brown biking leathers, his fist caught in Karnos’s jaw like flypaper.

Karnos backhanded the speedster with enough force to send him sliding across the concrete, his eyes rolled back in his head.

Karnos was a particularly nasty shapeshifter. His transformations were unusually visceral, and he fought dirty.

“That’s Karnos! Engage from range! Warcry, stop whatever he’s doing!”

Warcry stepped forward and unleashed a plane of crackling purple force, removing the outside of the truck in a blink of an eye, revealing the contents.

That is not a weapons shipment, Perrythought.