The Suns of Liberty: Legion: A Superhero Novel (34 page)

     And then the world went black again...

Von
Cyprus readied the chamber.

     He’d held his breath when they first tested it. A
small-scale test. Nothing so large as to draw the ire of the Fletcher girl. She’d
only intervened when they had run a full test of the chamber. They’d been
producing luminescent ammunition for months now, nearly around the clock, with
no sign of her.

     But something that could reproduce her own power? Oh,
she’d be showing up for that. So, he got ready to face the Fire Fly for a
second time.      

Half
a world away, on her latest mission, Fiona dove into the deep jungle canyon.
Beneath her, the majesty of Africa’s Congo rainforest spread out as far as the
eye could see.

     The deep greens of the Congo basin mixed with the
light emerald lushness. Clouds hung low over the canyon like fog.  Somewhere in
this beauty, in this paradise, lived a devil.

     And she was going to find him.

Von
Cyprus hit the switch, and the familiar deep hum of power droned out of the
chamber.

     The bright yellow-green laser streaked to life once
again, searing across the glassed-in enclosure. The beam blasted out from the
powerful cylindrical gun-like device in the center of the far chamber wall. A
brilliant beam of luminescent energy enveloped the suit that encased Commander
Michael Crustac and charged across its mass in pulsing fingers of chartreuse
lightning.

     The suit energized. The luminescence rode the currents
of the armor into Crustac’s central nervous system. The Krill was born. A
moment of joy for the entire team of engineers. Followed by an instantaneous sensation
of dread as the entire room awaited a brilliant flash of light. They all braced
for the impact.

    
And nothing happened.

    
No Fire Fly.

Fiona
felt the disruption of the spectrum. Just a ripple. She’d felt them for months
coming from the Trenton facility. Nothing to be concerned about. She’d decided
she would not bother with the small-scale weaponry that the Council produced
from the chamber. It kept the Revolution from getting what he wanted, evening the
playing field. That was fine by her.

     But as she flew further over the jungle, she could
feel the ripple grow. She was, after all, not a continent away from the Trenton facility now, like normal. She was on the other side of the planet.

     And just as the realization hit that this was a major
test of bioluminescence—she saw her prey.

     A platoon of Marines led by a rogue lieutenant who routinely
ordered his troops to kill unarmed civilians. The girl Arcadia had chosen from
the crowd that day had asked Fiona to help her older sister, who was stuck in
the platoon even though her tour of duty had been over for more than six
months. The lieutenant was not letting her return home, fearing what she would
report when she did.

     Fiona had seen a picture of the sister and a picture
of the lieutenant. And there they were, trudging through the jungle below her.
She floated there above them, torn between justice and the most dangerous
weapon on the planet.  

CHAPTER 35

T
he
beam finally fell dark. The Krill glowed nearly as brightly as had the Fire
Fly. The power pulsed off the normally copper-colored armor.

     “Krill,” Von Cyprus said, giving the command phrase
that told Crustac’s remotely controlled mind that an order was forthcoming. “Step
forward.”

     Crustac, in the machine, stepped out of the case and
onto the laboratory floor. Von Cyprus leaped with joy and clapped his hands.
“Weapons check, please,” he said, and the Krill’s right-side helmet laser
glowed doubly bright, showing it was ready for use. The talons on the end of
the Krill’s armored gloves also glowed.

     The machine checked out, all systems operable.

     A flash of light to his left caught Von Cyprus by surprise. In his excitement, he’d almost let himself forget what was coming next.
When he uncovered his eyes, Fiona Fletcher was once again standing in the
center of the chamber.

     “I thought you might not come this time,” Von Cyprus said.

     “It’s a jungle out there,” she quipped. Inside joke,
but she thought it was pretty good.

     Von Cyprus wasted no more time. “Krill, kill her.” He
had the element of surprise and he could not afford to waste it, or allow her
to figure out what she was up against.

     The machine blasted her with the helmet laser, and she
was flung across the compound.

     But she regained her control and stopped, midair.

     The Krill fired again.

     This time she teleported out of the way and flashed
right in front of Crustac. She plunged her hands into the armor—and realized
she was dealing with more than just a man in armor. This was a man in a
machine.

     Her hesitation was all he needed. Crustac energized
the talons and ripped them across her face. She could feel them tear into her.
He stabbed them into her chest, and she screamed out in pain. Luminescent blood
ran into her eyes. She shook it away with a toss of her head and let the machine’s
talons sink deeper into her chest.

     She simply relaxed, closed her eyes. She’d learned how
to deal with machines. Logic dictated that the path of least resistance was
simply to absorb it. The pain would be intense, but it would fade. As always.

     Fiona opened her eyes. Something was wrong. The Krill
was not struggling. It wasn’t perplexed like the Man-O-War had been. It seemed
to be...waiting.

     So she fired a massive beam of energy from her eyes
directly into the large visors of the machine. She retained her hold, so the
push and pull of both her grip and the beam was enough that the Krill should
just rip in two, or overheat trying to resist. Either way, this thing was
toast.

     The Krill shook violently, but instead of ripping
apart, it just stood there, withstanding the massive assault.

     Nor did it try to resist.

     Von Cyprus chuckled gleefully. “You can’t overheat it
like Man-O-War! It has a luminescent engine right at the heart of it, so blast
away all you want, it will just regenerate.”

     “Then I’ll rip out his heart!” And with that, she
plunged her hand into Crustac’s chest, just before the commander could activate
the full-body luminescence to protect himself. Every cell became saturated with
the energy, and for the first time since he regained consciousness he felt
pain.

     Inside the Krill armor he screamed.

     Fiona smiled.

     As she reached for the engine, the energy hit her full
force. Light against light. It was clearly supposed to act as a barrier, a
force field.

     But Fiona was much more powerful. Her energy was pure,
and she pushed through the Krill’s resistance.

     She found the engine.

     But as she grabbed it, something odd happened. A
peculiar sensation she couldn’t place. Her vision probed though the Krill’s
armor to see what it was. Black spots were forming all around the engine. Some
kind of protective barrier.   

     They formed over her hand.

     Fiona felt something she had never felt before, like a
black void of nothingness. Nausea swept through her.

     “I call those the Black Shards, my dear. They feel
unholy, don’t they? They can kill even you.”

     Fiona pulled her hand away. It writhed in pain. Across
it were two large black holes. As if a vampire had sunk enormous teeth into her
glowing flesh. She grasped her wrist in shock. Nothing had ever affected her
this way.

     “It’s a most lethal cocktail of dark energy and
antimatter,” Von Cyprus cackled, like he was showing off his comic collection.
Then without pause, he pressed a button on the console and the wall mirrors
adjusted their aim directly on Fiona. Her power was absorbed in their
reflection and blasted back out at her in a millisecond.

     She screamed.

     “Krill. Finish her.”

     Crustac, inside the Krill exoskeleton,
felt
the
command as much as he heard it. The servos deep in his central nervous system
responded, and he struck the girl with an almighty blow. The uppercut lifted
her from her feet, and she slammed against the floor, shattering the concrete.

     Von Cyprus ducked as chunks pulverized the glassed-in
enclosure of the chamber and flew past him. None hit the console. He breathed a
sigh of relief. “Time to take this thing remote,” he said into his com.

    
“Yes sir,”
came back the reply.
“Going
remote...now.”

     With that, the control of the Krill was digitally
transferred to a bunker deep inside Freedom Rise. The same room the Man-O-War
had been controlled from three months earlier. It didn’t matter how much damage
they caused now, it wouldn’t harm their ability to steer the Krill.

     He could still command Crustac verbally, though, and
he took full advantage. “Krill, blast her!” he yelled. 

     The Krill responded by firing the helmet beam into her
splayed-out form. From New York, someone rotated the mirrors so they again focused
on Fiona. Both sets of energies reflected in the mirrors and slammed back into
her.  She writhed in pain and spasms consumed her body. The force was
overwhelming, even to her.

     Von Cyprus took this as his cue. He stepped out from
behind the console, rolling up his white shirtsleeves to reveal their metallic
replacements. With a thought-command, he activated the metal sleeves.

     And opened fire. The black lightning streaked out and
crawled, with an ebony static straight from hell itself, all over the stricken
girl.

     The combination was too much. Fiona’s arms fell to her
sides, and though her body continued to spasm, she fought no more.

     Von Cyprus did not call off the dogs, nor did he cease
firing. Instead, he aimed the energy from his right arm at an odd needle-like
device to his right. The needle-like device was called an anti-laser and ended in
a large black tank that took up most of the wall. It was the most powerful, unique
anti-laser on the planet. Five clear glass bubbles were lined up across the
crown of the tank. That they were clear meant the tank was empty. For now.

     His left hand stayed aimed on Fiona, bathing her in
the unholy lightning. Weakening her by the second.

     The black bolts from his right arm struck the needle
of the anti-laser, and it sprang to life with a glowing ebony energy of its
own. A beam of eerie darkness fired from the needle and sought out its own
energy across the room, finding the bolts of electricity that were still cracking
and popping over Fiona.

     “Painful, isn’t it, Ms. Fletcher?” Von Cyprus couldn’t tell if she could hear him, but he didn’t care. His plan was working. He
was defeating the Fire Fly.

     “It’s called a Coherent Perfect Absorber. Except none
of them have really been perfect until this one!” He giggled at his power. She
was truly helpless. “It absorbs light. Even your light!”

     One of the remote controllers in New York signaled the
Krill to cease its attack, and Crustac complied. With now only the black energy
crawling over Fiona, her glow began to fade.

     Fiona’s power and the black lighting were sucked into the
needle with a loud
FRUP!

     Then silence.

     The naked human form of Fiona Fletcher lay unmoving in
the dirt and rubble.

     Across the room, to his right, Von Cyprus saw the large black tank that attached to the large needle-like anti-laser. The series of
bubbles across the top of the tank were glowing with the power of the Fire Fly.

     “Look, Pinocchio, you’re just a regular boy again!” he
cackled with delight. “Cinderella has left the ball!” A team of his assistants
slowly peered into the room from the long hallway. “Yes, it’s safe. Come get
her. Take her to her room and strap her down. Make sure she stays out. I want
her under general anesthesia twenty-four-seven. Understood?”

     They did. They knew the drill. He’d made sure.

     He just liked barking orders.

     The team came and hauled the unconscious, barely
breathing teenager away.

     Crustac, inside the Krill exoskeleton, turned to the
scientist. He had to fight to speak on his own. “W-what is she...now?” he
grunted, barely able to form the words. 

     “Why, she’s just a regular teenage girl, my boy. The
fly without the fire. That’s why we make sure she stays out. If she were to wake
up, she might be able to reconnect with the fire. As it is, it’s locked in a
permanent darkness.”

     Crustac said nothing. He just stared at Von Cyprus
like he wanted to speak, but nothing came out.