Chapter 200 Win.

Chapter 200: 200 Win.

"How long we got?"

"Ten minutes, tops," Rhea said, her keyboard clacking frantically in my ear. "But knowing the federal response times when the golden boy’s bio-monitor flatlines? Probably more like five. They’re probably calling heroes from close cities now."

Shit. Well, I could swing it. There was only one thing left to do on this ruined plaza anyway.

I pushed off the pavement, rising into the air once more and floating toward the smoldering crater where the MPD lobby used to be.

Glacia drifted after me on a localized updraft of freezing wind, coming in close to watch my back.

As we moved over the steaming ruins, scattering thick clouds of ash and pulverized concrete,

I let my magnetic field stretch out over the blasted shell of the building, seeping deep down into the foundation.

As I’d expected, the orbital kinetic strike hadn’t penetrated the sub-levels.

It had completely vaporized the superstructure of the precinct, but the bunker beneath it was more or less unscathed.

Through the massive piles of rubble and the collapsed corridors that once housed the statues, my powers brushed against a thick, reinforced dome of military-grade steel buried deep in the bedrock.

Excellent. The absolute last thing I’d wanted to do was accidentally cave the roof in on Psyren after coming all this way to bail her out.

But I also did not have the time to fuck around with whatever bio-metric security doors, laser grids, or automated turrets Micheal had installed down there to keep out unwanted guests.

Dealing with his coterie of S-class heroes had eaten the clock.

I descended, landing lightly on a sheared-off slab of the ground floor. I held both my hands out, palms facing the dirt.

I compelled my magnetic field downward, forcing it through fifty feet of solid rock and concrete.

I let it seep around the hidden sub-structure, wrapping my invisible grip around the heavy iron walls, the titanium reinforced beams and the giant machine I assumed to be the Array.

Alright. Time to bring him up to me.

I pulled.

I grunted loudly at the sheer, impossible weight of it.

I wasn’t just trying to lift a multi-ton bunker, I was trying to lift the thousands of tons of packed earth and concrete sitting directly on top of it.

The ground violently trembled. Glacia stumbled backward, throwing her arms out for balance as the rubble around the crater began to aggressively crumble and shift.

I felt the concrete slab under my leather oxfords spiderweb with deep cracks, but I kept pulling.

My shoulders burned. The muscles in my arms felt like they were actively tearing right out of their sockets.

I didn’t have my Iron Polaris suit to artificially brace my spine or hydraulically assist the lift. This was just raw power pushed to the absolute breaking point.

But I lifted. I groaned through gritted teeth, blood trickling from my nose as the strain peaked.

Because whatever the science-fiction movies said, gravity was a harsh mistress, but gravity was just magnetism’s weaker little brother.

"Hrrrr!" I roared, heaving my arms straight up.

With a deafening, localized boom that sounded exactly like shifting tectonic plates, the earth violently broke open.

The pavement tore apart, and the massive, steel bulk of the underground lab lurched up out of the crater like a breaching metallic whale.

The bunker slammed down onto the surface of the ruined courtyard, crushing the remains of three police cruisers beneath its immense weight.

I let my arms drop, panting heavily, my chest heaving as the strain radiated through every single fiber of my body.

Ohhh fuck, I was gonna feel that one tomorrow.

"Sir!" Glacia gasped, staring at the massive steel structure in sheer awe.

"Keep an eye out," I wheezed, rolling my shoulders as I slowly made my way toward the side of the metallic mass I’d just ripped out of the ground. "Who knows what else he—"

The steel wall in front of me suddenly violently ruptured.

There was no flash of light, no fiery explosion—invisible force that blew the heavy iron outward like wet tissue paper.

I threw my arms up, jerking myself backward, but I still took the hit.

The concussive wave smashed directly into my bracers strapped to my forearms, sending me spinning backward through the air.

I caught a magnetic current just in time to right myself, floating fifty feet away and looking back down at the breach.

Out from the ragged hole torn in the metal, Micheal Carter stepped into the freezing night air.

He was still wearing his dull, immaculate gray suit. There wasn’t a speck of dust on his lapels. Only his wire-rimmed glasses appeared to have taken any damage, a single, deep crack fracturing the left lens.

He looked around the smoking ruins of the precinct.

He looked at the massive crater, the calcified foam shell containing Cloudfire, and the unconscious bodies of his invincible meat-puppets scattered across the battlefield.

Then, he casually popped his jaw, tilted his head, and looked up at me with a tired sigh.

"You have been incredibly annoying, Polaris," Micheal stated, his voice completely flat.

"Yeah? And whose fault is that?" I shot back, trying to put a lot more cocky bravado into my voice than I currently felt.

My forearms were throbbing. If he hadn’t had to punch his way through the reinforced steel wall of the lab first, that telekinetic blast probably would have snapped both my wrists.

"Sir!" Glacia said, icy mist swirling around her as she began to rise into the air beside me, preparing to strike.

"No. Get Psyren!" I barked, not taking my eyes off the bastard. "I’ll handle this."

I had to admit, it was genuinely encouraging to see Glacia barely hesitate.

She looked between me and the telekinetic, gave a single, firm nod of absolute trust, and flew directly into the ragged hole leading into the ruined lab.

She really believed I could take him on.

Micheal completely ignored her. He reached up, took off his cracked glasses, examined the broken lens for a brief second, and then carelessly flicked them aside.

He casually adjusted his suit cuffs, then reached down and tapped the face of his silver wristwatch.

Instantly, a stream of liquid, gunmetal-gray poured out from the watch’s bezel.

It flowed rapidly up his arm and across his chest like a living, metallic oil, meshing and hardening over his tailored suit.

In less than two seconds, the genius was entirely encased in a sleek, featureless, high-tech suit of power armor, the faceplate snapping shut with a hiss.

I didn’t wait for him to test the servos. I thrust my hand out, attempting to violently magnetically crush the armor against his ribs before it fully set.

Nothing happened.

Alien alloys. Just perfect. Now I understood why superman got all the kryptonite he could—it was just annoying at this point.

The air around him simply rippled as he effortlessly levitated off the ground.

He ascended to my eye level, and as he did, chunks of pulverized concrete, shattered glass, and debris began to silently hover in the air all around him, caught in his telekinetic grip.

"You have caused me a statistically improbable amount of trouble tonight, Polaris," Micheal’s voice modulated smoothly through his suit’s speakers. "And even so, I genuinely regret this. Really, I do. But you left me no other choice."

"You mean aside from, I dunno, not kidnapping my telepath?" I said.

"Aside from that," he agreed with a minor, dismissive nod of his head.

He chuckled. "This truly is a shame, Miles. You could have done so much good with your capabilities. You and I could have accomplished truly great, optimized things for this world."

"You kidnapped one of my girls," I told him flatly.

I began to slowly circle him in mid-air. I couldn’t manipulate his armor, but the plaza was still a junkyard.

Beneath us, hidden in the shadows of the rubble, I let my powers resonate with thousands of jagged steel shards, snapped rebar, and shredded car parts.

I silently lifted the shrapnel into the air, keeping it low to the ground.

Micheal just shrugged, his posture completely relaxed inside the alien shell.

"It was entirely for the greater good. Can you even begin to comprehend it, Polaris? How much good I’ve done from behind a desk? And for what? The organic variable always ruins it.

"Evil still flourishes because heroes are allowed to have egos. Villains still rise and challenge the system because the system is fractured. Crime dips, but it always violently autocorrects.

"The Bureau inspired millions, and yet, statistically, it is never enough. Because free will ensures it will never be enough. Justice must be standardized. It must prevail in the end. The people need the good guy to win, even if I have to force them to accept it."

"I get it," I said, stalling for time as my magnetic field carefully, silently aligned the massive cloud of lethal shrapnel below us, pointing every single jagged steel edge directly at his spine. "Honestly, on a corporate level, I completely understand the logistics. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you walk away from this."

"And I applaud you sticking to your outdated mercenary principles," Micheal said, the pressure in the air violently spiking, causing the hovering concrete around him to slowly orbit his armor like a planetary ring. "It’s quite admirable in a primitive sort of way. Still, I am going to greatly enjoy killing you. And I will, Polaris. Because in the end, the hero always wins."