Crystal slowed as she descended. Her team was clustered around the mission entrance point: a large sewer access hatch. Jenny watched Crystal as she approached and, with a smirk on her face, made a show of looking at the nonexistent watch on her wrist. Crystal zoomed in close and stuck out her tongue, causing Jenny to laugh. She landed, took a quick headcount, and only came up with six, including herself. “What happened to Supa Fly?” she asked. “Didn’t he leave with the rest of us?”
“No,” Harm answered, “he took a detour before the portal room. Said something about getting a change of clothes.”
“Maybe he wanted to clean up his look?” Jenny speculated.
“You think so?” Crystal replied, missing Jenny’s point. “His clothes might have been a little wrinkly, and there was that one nasty burn, but they were still in decent condition.”
“What you fail to understand, girl, is that a man in my position always has to look his best!” Supa Fly strutted around a low wall and up to the group. Jaws dropped as he modeled his latest outfit: an homage to black and fluorescent purple. A bright purple shirt buttoned low practically glowed under an unbuttoned black sport coat, the sleeves of which were marked in a checkerboard pattern in black and purple. He retained the large, garish gold belt buckle, as well as the chains and medallions. A purple stripe flowed down the outside of his black slacks and pooled into a polished pair of purple platform shoes. His purple hat sported a brim large enough to shield an entire African village from the sun and made his sunglasses completely redundant.
StarDust and Thunder Dragon remained cryptically silent. Bellona broke out in laughter.
“I guess we’re not stealthing this one,” Harm muttered.
“It’s… um… colorful,” Jenny added diplomatically.
Crystal waved her hand at Supa Fly’s head. “Isn’t that… hat going to interfere with your vision?”
“It ain’t no thang!” Supa Fly shook his head around. The brim of the hat remained obediently in place and did not flop. His demonstration a success, he fixed her with a satisfied smile. “Only the primo [censored] is good enough for my bad self!”
Keeping her thoughts on that matter to herself, Crystal merely replied, “OK, as long as it won’t make trouble for you.” She turned and started for the sewer grating, leaving icy footprints in her wake. Layer upon layer of ice built up on her body as she walked. She pulled the heavy grating open, ducked low, and stepped inside; the inside of the tunnel immediately began to frost up.
Supa Fly cried out, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Nobody said nothin’ about no [censored] sewers!
“Sorry, Supa Fly,” Crystal replied, her voice echoing from the tunnel. “You’ll just have to bill the Rikti for your dry cl-EEE!”
The shrill screech goaded the supers into action. Jenny ripped the other gate off its hinges to allow easier access while Harm and StarDust barreled through the other as fast as space allowed. Harm slipped on a patch of ice as soon as he exited the tunnel and crashed to the floor. StarDust’s diminutive size served him well as he easily leapt over Harm, but it didn’t help him find a clear spot to stand on; he collided with a Rikti warrior and landed on his back.
The inside of the sewer access room was filled with a swarm of Rikti, all clustering around Crystal and, for the moment, ignoring the two Blasters. Strobe light from Crystal’s energized punches and the Rikti plasma weapons filled the room and added to the already chaotic scene. Rikti slipped, bounced off the walls and each other, and slowly crawled as a bitter chill seeped into and through their armor. Crystal hovered just off the floor and pummeled the aliens as fast as she could. It was a slow battle; she lacked a good punch to eliminate the more heavily armored ones, but the Rikti only occasionally managed to land a telling blow on her.
The grind did not last much longer. Harm and StarDust regained their footing and opened fire; the air itself seemed to shimmer and glow from the energy they unleashed. Jenny burst through the other sewer access tunnel, backhanded a Drone into the opposite wall, and finished it off with a fiery blast. Thunder Dragon shot out of a tunnel and tackled a Chief Soldier with a deafening boom. Bellona and Supa Fly joined the fight at a more leisurely pace. Tangled with Crystal, the Rikti didn’t last long; by the time they were aware of the new threats in their midst, half their number remained, and the assembled supers outnumbered and out-powered them. The fireworks only lasted a few seconds more before the sewers fell silent once more.
As was her custom, Crystal took a second to check on her team. Aside from some fresh scuff marks, Harm was undamaged. StarDust, Bellona, and Supa Fly were in pristine condition. Thunder Dragon posed dramatically on a steel platform; lightning crackled around his feet, and the platform sizzled where it touched the brackish water. Jenny was crouching on the floor, her hands clutching at her ears. Crystal powered down, flew over and knelt beside her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her concern obvious in her voice. “Are you hurt? Did they get you?”
Jenny slowly turned her face to Crystal. Tears streamed from her eyes, and her face was contorted with agony. She painfully choked out, “I can’t do this. It’s too loud.”
Crystal blinked. “Oh. I forgot about… that.” She looked over her shoulder and quiety inquired, “Harm, is there any way you can turn the volume down?”
“No can do. Turning down the volume means reducing power. No one benefits when I do that.”
Bellona laughed. “Aww, did the loud noises hurt the poor widdwe kitty’s ears?”
Crystal spat, “Firefox is my friend, Bellona! She need a solution, not insults!”
Supa Fly chimed in, “Right on! Shut the [censored] up, [censored]!”
“You do-gooders always talk tough, but you’re not as invulnerable as you think! Everyone has their weak points. Yours is your relationships with others. Suppose something unpleasant were to happen to, say, your unpowered friends, or your parents? That’d be a terrible shame!” Bellona challenged.
Crystal swallowed her anxiety and deadpanned, “Well, they’re not here, so it’s a moot point.” She pointedly turned her back on Bellona and returned her attention to Jenny, missing Bellona’s triumphant smirk.
“Go on without me,” Jenny whimpered to Crystal. “I’ll just get in the way.”
“You’ll be fine. I have an idea: hold my sleeve, will you?” Crystal turned her left shoulder to Jenny, who complied, pulling the nearly-severed sleeve away from Crystal’s body. Crystal held her right hand up, formed a knife shape with it, and then coated it with ice. The ice expanded in the knife shape and formed two sharp edges and a point. Crystal sliced the sleeve free from the rest of her shirt and then cut it into two pieces. She shattered the icy knife. “There. I’m sorry it’s not very clean, but it should help with the noise.”
“I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw you give someone the shirt off your back, but I never thought I’d be the one to get it!” Jenny playfully responded. “Thanks.” She wadded up the pieces of the sleeve and gently plugged her ears.
“Uh, my ears hurt, too,” Supa Fly lied. “You got any more shirt to give away?”
Harm snickered. Crystal replied, “You’ll be fine.”
“You don’t want to even it out or nothin’?”
Crystal smiled. “No, I might need the rest of it later.”
“[censored]!” Supa Fly grumbled. His smile showed his true feelings.
With a roll of her eyes, Crystal announced, “We’ve stayed here too long. Let’s go. Keep a look out for icy spots; there’s a lot of humidity in here, and I can’t safely turn the temperature up.” She iced up, levitated off the floor, and slowly floated deeper into the sewers, followed at a safe distance by the rest of her team.
“So what was that screaming about?” Jenny called out as she walked.
“I wasn’t screaming!” Crystal huffed. “I yelled in surprise! I looked back to talk to Supa Fly, and when I turned back around, there they were. I got the impression they were as surprised to see me as I was to see them.”
“With all the noise you make, I doubt that!” Bellona snapped.
“Then they probably weren’t sentries. Maybe they were heading out of the sewers instead of standing guard.” Harm speculated.
“What difference does that make?”
Crystal sighed. “Usually, it’s important, but this is a search-and-destroy mission, so it makes little difference. We have to defeat every Rikti we encounter in our quest to stop the Riders.” She sighed again. “This kind of work makes me sick.”
“It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it,” said Harm.
“Yeah,” Supa Fly chimed in. “Some [censored] need a righteous [censored]-kicking!”
I don’t like it. This isn’t the right way to live. They call it a cycle of violence for a reason: it never ends! We need a permanent peace! Crystal did not speak her thoughts, though; she knew these kinds of arguments had no end, especially among her fellow heroes.
The sewer tunnels curved, joined back, and dipped. It was difficult to hear, and even more difficult to see. The darkness was breached only by her magnified glow, and spray from the fetid water gushing and gurgling under Crystal’s feet clung to her ice armor, adding weight and impairing her vision. She periodically sloughed off the outermost layer of ice to keep from being blinded or dragged out of the air. The communication network carried the sounds of her team’s struggles with the environment to her ears. Each slosh, struggle, and stumble rang clear. Crystal tried to glow more brightly to help her companions navigate the lightless tunnels.
Light from her hands dimmed as the sewer tunnel bottomed out and widened into a large junction. Drips from rusty pipes overhead fell onto even more rusty catwalks and joined the stream of brackish water in a huge pool of foul-smelling liquid. Crystal paused. In a room of this size, it would be easier for others to spot her than for her to spot others. “Hug the walls,” she commanded. “If there’s something in here, don’t stand too close to me. You don’t want to be in the light.” She drifted up and into the room and away from the others.
It was when she reached the middle of the room that she finally spotted the light from the Rikti weapons; they danced and bobbed along in the tunnel opposite her, casting their own glow onto the walls and spilling out into the open room. Crystal held her ground and let them approach. The usual mix of warriors and drones were easy to pick out, even in the shadows. They marched with a determined gait. It seemed at first that this was just one more random patrol until the tunnel suddenly flooded with a bright light. The flash receded, but the light level remained high as the newly arrived source moved into the room. Crystal gasped softly; the newcomer was a Heavy Assault Suit, one of the Rikti’s newest and most deadly weapons in their campaign to exterminate humanity. Heavily armored and shielded, they also sported a fearsome array of fusion blasters, lasers, and a lift system that allowed them to fly. The suits wreaked havoc on the streets of Paragon City during the second invasion. Crystal had tangled with them before, and knew she lacked the power to take one out on her own before it burned through her ice and sent her to the nearest hospital.
“I: Live!” it boasted. “Destruction Arrives: With Me!” The surrounding Rikti clustered around their leader and raised their weapons in a triumphant salute.
Crystal flew a little closer and, in a loud voice, asked, “Excuse me, are you one of the Riders?”
“Bleed: Human!” it roared in reply. The glow from its flight systems and fusion weapons spiked as it powered up to do battle. Crystal rushed the group and surrounded them with her chilling aura; if they scattered, they would be much harder for her companions to find in the dark. Ice formed in thick layers upon their bodies and slowed their movements as the high humidity finally worked in Crystal’s favor.
The Heavy Assault Suit was more annoyed than inhibited. It rapid-fired a salvo of fusion blasts into Crystal. The pulsing energy scattered off her armor but left her temporarily blinded. It followed up with a laser beam that sliced across her midriff. Ice cracked, ablated, and melted under the beam, but did not allow her flesh to burn. Crystal held her ground.
The Heavy Assault Suit staggered as it received a blast of concentrated radiation. It glowed a bilious shade of green in the aftermath of the attack and continued to infect its fellow Rikti with sickening energies that weakened flesh, armor, and power systems. The accompanying Rikti tried to turn and spot the source of the radiation, but were interrupted by a succession of fire and sonic blasts that tore through their ranks. Some were pulled away by the alien teleport network even before they hit the ground. Others, thwarted by Crystal’s chill that locked their joints, took their frustration out on her. A few who managed to pull their bodies and attention away from the Tank found themselves easy prey for Thunder Dragon and his bloodlust.
Still, the fight was not over. Gunblades smashed into Crystal’s armor. Some skittered off harmlessly, while others hewed off sections of ice. The Heavy Assault Suit boomed, “Battle: Just Begun!” right before blasting Crystal in the stomach. The repeated hits left the ice there dangerously thin, and fire spread through her gut as ice shattered and flesh burned. Crystal groaned and doubled over, hugging herself with her arms to layer on emergency protection. “Victory: Assured!” the Rikti crowed.
“I can’t beat you by myself,” Crystal hissed, “but that’s why I brought friends!” On cue, Jenny came flying through the air and socked the hull of the suit with a super-strong punch. The only noticeable effect was a peal like a great bell. Jenny yelped in surprise and leapt away, holding her hand. Thunder Dragon flew by and raked its rear with his claws. As with Jenny’s attack, there was no obvious damage, but this time the suit pivoted to track its diminutive assailant. Crystal flew around to its front and filled what she thought was the view port with a fistful of ice. That bought a moment’s reprieve from the suit’s devastating attacks, but did nothing against the chiefs who followed Crystal and hacked at her legs with their gunblades. She quickly tucked her legs under herself, elevated out of reach, and prepared for the inevitable fusillade. It came quickly, but not in the way she anticipated; the remaining mentalists lashed out with psychic attacks that set every sense on fire. She mustered enough control to scream, “Please help!”
A green energy wave radiated from the Heavy Assault Suit. Crystal’s pain diminished to almost nothing as soon as the wave reached her. Without missing a beat, Crystal dropped back down to hover in the suit’s face. She took a moment to prepare for the damage by freezing the outside of her body. This time, the laser and fusion attacks did little more than cause a dull ache. Confident with her protection, she took a moment to survey the room. The last of the chiefs were seconds away from defeat. Jenny punted one of them halfway across the room and deep into some long neglected piece of machinery; it did not emerge to continue fighting. Harm hammered another down onto one knee with an energized punch that left it incapable of dodging a fire blast from StarDust so intense that the chief temporarily disappeared in the blinding white glare. The smaller Rikti warriors and drones were gone, victims of Thunder Dragon’s lethal attention. Supa Fly and Bellona concentrated their powers on the Heavy Assault Suit. It was weakened, and some damage was beginning to show, but it remained functional. As Crystal watched the last of its minions fall, it was time to change that. She showered the suit with ice shards that seeped into cracks and expanded, prying armor plates loose. One fire blast struck the suit, then another, then a third, followed by a sonic blast that rattled Crystal’s teeth. Thunder Dragon chose that moment to attack. He had obviously worked himself into a frenzy; unlike his earlier assault, this time his claws scored deep gashes on the armored hull, and large chunks of the suit flew away and disappeared into the darkness with each swipe of his claws. Small explosions blossomed from the suit. “Opposition: Strong!” it cried. The suit vanished with a flash, recalled away for repairs and rest before any lasting damage could be dealt to it. The room returned to darkness and silence, save for Crystal’s light and the sounds of water.
Crystal sighed heavily. She flew over to a bit of solid ground, landed, and shattered the ice covering her body. “Well, he was a handful,” she opined.
Thunder Dragon landed nearby and announced, “I do not like fighting these things. There should be corpses scattered all around the room by now, yet they disappear when they fall. I feel cheated.”
“We all have our little disappointments,” Crystal said, though she took a moment to again give thanks that her powers couldn’t actually kill anyone. “Though I can’t say I was disappointed with the support. Thanks, Bellona. That was a well-timed… whatever that was that fixed me up.”
Bellona frowned. “What the [censored] are you playing at?” she snapped.
“I’m just thanking you for your help. I asked, and you came to my aid. Thanks.”
“Yes, thanks, Bellona,” Jenny echoed as she emerged from the darkness to join the group. “I always hate to see her get messed up like that.” She stopped close, looked down at Crystal and smiled impishly. “Though it’s too bad that power didn’t fix your clothes as well!”
“Hmm?” Crystal looked down, and then groaned. Her shirt had been burned away in the front. There was no fabric left between her sternum and the top of her jeans. Condensation formed on her sculpted abdomen and glistened in the light from her hands as it trickled down along her skin. Crystal sighed again, this time in exasperation.
“Can I get you a towel?” Jenny quipped. Crystal just glowered at her friend. Jenny winked in return.
“This is why I can’t ever wear anything nice!” Crystal howled. She stamped her foot in frustration.
“Was that one of the Riders?” Harm inquired.
Before Crystal could reply, StarDust interjected, “Yes. That one was called War.”
“For real?” Supa Fly asked. StarDust nodded affirmative.
Crystal looked at him, confused. “How do you know its name? I didn’t get any personal details from Vanguard.”
“It was War,” he repeated flatly. There was nothing in his voice that indicated any uncertainty as to his facts, nor that more information was forthcoming.
Crystal shrugged. “One down, three to go. I hope the others aren’t quite as much of a hassle as this one.” She layered her ice armor on again, powered her hands to full brightness, and flew slowly off towards where the Rikti came from.
Everyone else followed at their own pace. Supa Fly sidled up to Harm. “Hey, man,” he asked casually. “You got a camera in that thing?”
Harm turned his head. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
Supa Fly grinned. “When this is over, I want pictures.”