Deleted/Extended Scenes from "Harry Potter And Project Genesis" Chapter 5 Fight Scene:
She took a running leap, jumped and aimed a flying kick for Threshold's head.
Seeing the danger, the blond man quickly moved out of the way. He was trained in more than just how to use his powers, he was a martial arts master and a skilled soldier. Seeing Fairchild basically bury herself up to the waist from the force of her missed kick, he took the opportunity to mock her once more. "Oh, you're gonna have to be a little faster than that, honey!" He then sent a psychokinetic wave to 'help' her out of where she was stuck.
Just before the wave of force could reach her, however, she disappeared and reappeared next to the others with the addition of one more.
Harry ran from the base with Bliss 'frozen' over his shoulder in a Fireman's cradle. To his surprise, he could still move her body, the same way he could anybody else at 'normal' speed even at his new 'super' speed and without affecting her temporal paralysis either. There was no way to say exactly what she was experiencing on her end of things given that it took her just over a minute and a half just to blink at normal speed, and that may as well be an hour for him at super speed.
Recalling his first Professional Quidditch match, given how fast things had moved, he knew that when things happen too fast for your senses to register the change, a human won't even recognize anything happening at all, and things that were registered meanwhile take a while for the mind to process so you wouldn't even know you saw or heard something until minutes or sometimes even days after the event. He hoped that would prove to be the case with Bliss here. He didn't want to think what it would be like to be paralyzed while things go on around you. He'd experienced that a few too many times himself to wish it on someone else. Even enemies.
Going off of the images and sensations he got from the psychic flash, Harry was trying to track down Caitlin and the rest of their team. It took him only a few real-time-seconds to find them and track them down. Not so surprising, they were fighting Threshold. He was currently on the ground, apparently having been knocked back from whatever they'd just done that created the psychic backlash that got his attention in the first place. Caitlin was in the process of running at him from where she'd left Roxy and Grunge by the riverside. To be fair though, it wasn't strictly speaking a river, more accurately it was the runoff from the base's drainage pipe into a pond of watery sewage that was right across from the dumpsters where all the trash was thrown out.
While scouting for a place to put Bliss down for a bit, he came across an unconscious Burnout, and a hiding Sarah, though it was clear she wanted to get into the fight she was smart enough to realize when she was outmatched. He decided to just put the older GenActive down in a crevice that was more out of sight than truly defensible, and then hurried back over to Bobby and Sarah.
"Hey," he said after slowing down to normal speed and slapping the blond boy across the face. "Wake up matchstick! Fight's not over just yet." At that moment he heard a loud crash and Threshold shout out his taunt at Caitlin apparently. Not willing to wait on the unconscious boy to come around on his own, he punched him, twice, at super speed. That seemed to do the trick as his eyes snapped open in the next instant. Job done, Harry raced over the hill to where he'd last seen Caitlin racing at Threshold, and did not like what he saw.
Fairchild was in it up to her hips, literally seeing as her legs were buried in the earth and she couldn't pull herself free. Not in time to avoid the psychokinetic blast Threshold was sending her way, tearing up the earth and rock in its wake. Having wasted enough time, he wasted no more and pushed himself to use as much speed as possible, warping time around his body so that everything was practically at a standstill while he was moving so fast that even a hummingbird's wings wouldn't be moving from his perspective as he ran the short distance down the hill to where Kat was half-buried in the sand. It brought back the burning, hot/cold, moving-through solid earth sensations which he'd thought had gone away by now, but he got to her before the blast had covered even half the distance. Good thing too as she was really stuck in there and while he was super fast, none of that equated to super strength, and while he wasn't about to say it to her face or out loud, she had packed on some serious weight in recent hours.
Finally he just started digging, at super speed, and dug enough of her loose that he could drag her most of the way out of the hole and onto the more stable non-hole-filled ground. Once that was done, he brought her into his time frame, sharing his super speed with her as he'd done the day before after they'd left the cave.
"Harry? Harry!" she cried, hugging him tight. He certainly didn't mind, but they were still in the path of the blast so he quickly moved them past the 'happy to see you's.
"Kat, not the time," he pointed and dragged her at the same time. Thankfully she was pretty quick on her feet herself, so he didn't struggle for long. If she didn't want to go somewhere, it was plenty clear that she wouldn't be taken easily.
"So, what's the plan?" she asked as they reached the others, which had been joined by a reluctant Rainmaker by this point. She was in the middle of helping Roxy pull Grunge to his feet, so probably hoping to get them all to cover and try to ambush their attacker while he was distracted with the obvious target of Caitlin.
"Uh, give me a minute," Harry answered his co-team leader. "For now, let's play it cool, see if we can't make this guy mad enough he starts making mistakes. Ready?"
"Would it change anything if I said no?" the redhead whimpered.
"Not really," he shrugged before shifting things back to normal speed and addressing the aggressor.
"Fast enough for you, Callahan?" Harry Potter, aka Wizard, asked pleasantly.
"Potter!" he snarled.
"Present!" he smiled and waved like a student in class.
"So there are six of you now, it won't change your odds of survival," he laughed.
"Don't count us out yet, muggle," Harry shot back. "Rainmaker, get to Burnout, help him out. Roxy..."
"It's Freefall now, Wizard," she interrupted.
"Freefall," he nodded. "You're with me. Grunge, Fairchild, hit him hard. Remember pizza night?"
They all, except Threshold, stopped and shot disbelieving looks at their teammate. "Please tell me you're kidding?" Fairchild begged. "That this is your way of making us laugh when things are dire and we need to keep a calm and steady head instead of panicking and letting our fear get the better of us. Please!"
"Nope, sorry," he shrugged, unapologetic.
"That poor man," Rainmaker said with pity as she made her way over to Burnout. "He has no idea what is coming. Pity."
The night in question happened about a month after they'd all gotten there and acclimated to pretty much everything they were being put through. Leaving out a few stories that had happened between them as they were getting to know one another, the team had finally come together the day before after Sarah Rainmaker finally broke down and asked for help. Tonight they were celebrating, of a sort, with a group study session.
"Dude," Grunge said around a mouthful of food, "how'd you get pizza in here?"
"I have my ways," Harry replied, using a similar line to what the Weasley Twins always said whenever they got back from Hogsmeade in the middle of the night. "Besides, you lot said you wanted pizza, so I got you pizza. Stopped the whining, didn't it?"
"Can't fault you there," Sarah agreed, before taking a bite of her own slice.
"Mm," Caitlin started to ask, quickly swallowing her own mouthful of delicious gooey melted cheese oven-toasted crust and pepperoni-sliced goodness, "I've got a a question. Where did you get this from? This has got to be the best pizza I've ever had!"
"I'll say," Roxy moaned in equal appreciation. "I'd almost say it's better than a New York slice. Almost!"
Harry just smiled at them, his eyes twinkling merrily as he kept the origin of the pizza a mystery.
"All right everybody, we need to focus, otherwise the pizza party doesn't have a valid excuse and it will be taken away faster than Grunge can make yet another disgusting body noise," Bobby told them. As though he were proving the point, the shortest member of the team (though only by a half an inch) let loose with a rather loud and smelly belch that had all of them waving the air in front of their noses. "Let's get some actual work done, for once maybe?"
"Sorry," Grunge apologized, already reaching for another slice.
"Bobby's right," Harry said. "All right, first question of the practice test." They all, except Grunge, reached for their books and notes.
"You are faced with overwhelming odds with limited provisions, weapons, and numbers," Bobby read from the workbook they were studying out of. "Your objective is to escape. Explain your strategy, tactics, and method of escape. Cite reasons and page numbers and source material for your answers."
"... Are they kidding?" Roxy blurted out after an uncomfortable silence.
"Read the third question," Harry pointed out to her.
"Third... Same scenario, objective is to eliminate target for assassination? What the...!" she screeched.
"Let's just take it one question at a time, all right guys?" Caitlin suggested, her pen already to paper. "I think I saw something in the workbooks that might be acceptable..."
"Running and hiding isn't a valid strategy?" Grunge asked, cleaning some earwax out with his pinky.
"And the scenario, it's rather vague," Harry added. "Overwhelming odds? Clear as mud. Bloody scientists and their bloody tests!"
"Whoa, don't go all English on us, Wizard!" Roxy laughed. "The scenario stats are on the back of the first page. We're supposed to use our own 'team' as our forces, and it lists what we're up against and everything. In this case, over a thousand troops based out of a remote location camp, all armed with the latest infantry tech, no snipers, but SpecOps intermingled with Mercs and new recruits. They got... lets see here, ah! Ten tanks, two choppers, a fleet of jeeps and humvees, and sufficient supplies to outlast us on any engagement. Huh, that's all it says. Harry's right, this doesn't tell us anything! We're making wild guesses here!"
Harry snorted, recalling that his Divination homework used to work the same way. He paused for a moment, considering. Well, why not? It worked for Trelawney and whoever else graded his and Ron's homework, it could work here.
"All right, let's assume we're talking about this base, and it's a thousand Keepers plus other goons. Objective is to escape, how do we do it?" Harry prompted them.
They spent the next couple hours playing out scenario after scenario, strategy after strategy, Caitlin writing down the better of their ideas and then all of them copying from her, since it was a group effort after all. Eventually they got to the last question.
"You are faced with an SPB of unknown power level and ability. How do you respond?"
"Heh, I'll tackle him while you guys figure out a way to take him down, duh!" Grunge crowed, excited since it was the last question.
"That's your big plan?" Sarah rolled her eyes at the surfer-jock. "Be a distraction while the rest of us try and figure out a way to save you and stop something with unknown powers? That is idiotic!"
"Nuh-unh," Grunge rather maturely replied. "Besides, you guys could like, what was that word we used five questions ago? Oh yeah, you guys could like bracket him, sort of ambush him one after the other while I keep harassing the dude, or babe, or whatever."
"With what?" the Native American argued.
"Uhh..."
"Standard Keeper equipment, it says here," Bobby pointed out.
"Oh, I'll just take all the grenades and stuff 'em down my pants before rushing the guy!" Grunge answered proudly. "He won't see 'em coming! And I can like use my totally bad ass madcap skills to stun him before stuffing the grenades down his pants! Hah!"
"That... actually isn't a bad idea, especially if we use stealth instead of relying on Grunge's cunning in the field," Harry said before the argument could further escalate. "Attack with standard capture and detain procedures, then have Grunge 'break protocol' and go all out, and while the SPB is dealing with an insane berserker, Roxy or I stealth our way and tag him, or her, or it with explosives and then Sarah and Bobby go at the SPB with long-range sniper and demolition barrages. Kat can pull Grunge out, or any of us that get targeted while whoever is available goes in to collar them, taking them out after they're down. Sometimes the simple things are what work best."
"Yeah, but simple isn't what they're looking for here," Caitlin said, gesturing to the workbook. "They want a, literally, by the book answer to this. But who knows, maybe one day we'll actually be faced with an SPB we have to take down and we can use your strategy then, Harry."
"Yeah, OK, but still it's a nice idea," Harry shrugged.
"Dude," Grunge nodded and shared a brief high-five with his teammate.
"We're up first," Wizard whispered to Freefall.
"Wh-whu-what?!" she screeched.
"Ah, Miss Spaulding," Threshold laughed as he stalked closer. "Where did we leave off upstairs?"
Reminded of one of the worst experiences of her life, made all the more raw by just how recent it was, Freefall quickly got over her fear and began concentrating, activating her powers intentionally this time. Wizard shot her an appreciative look as it was the first he'd seen of her powers. The appreciation raised as she was surrounded by an electric-blue glow, covering her entire body and flowing like the flames of a fire. Threshold actually stopped, stunned and a bit taken aback as the last he'd seen her she still had yet to manifest.
All the loose debris and rocks around them soon took to the air and decided gravity moved in a new direction; toward Threshold! Seeing the projectiles moving, Threshold quickly took to the air, dodging them. She kept up the barrage however, managing to land some glancing blows that tore at his cape. Seeing this, he scowled and shot a blast of energy at her, unlike the previous this was clearly visible as a beam of light! Of course that could be because it was traveling at the speed of light, but fortunately there was someone nearby that could match that, or at least come real close.
Wizard moved Freefall out of the way right before Threshold's attack would have hit, and while she had her guard up and her gravity powers might have protected her, he reasoned that it was better not to take any hits at all in a fight, even if you could take them. He put her behind the flying menace, just out of sight, his finger on his lips before pointing at a pile of very sharp rocks he'd piled up right beneath their adversary. Nodding, Freefall reactivated her aura and focused on those rocks perforating Threshold like moldy Swiss Cheese!
"Whoa! What's goin' on here?" Roxy exclaimed as Harry grabbed her and started dragging her away from Threshold's target area. The punk-haired girl looked around at everything, in particularly the still quickly moving—just more like a baseball than a bullet—psionic blast of Threshold, and finally at her teammate who was quickly dragging her away from the attack and toward the rocks beneath their flying opponent. "Wow, so Wizard got some nice bonuses with his powers, huh?"
"You could say that," Harry laughed as they ran and jumped, narrowly managing to get behind cover as the blast impacted. It was quite fascinating to watch really, like a slow-motion capture except for real instead of on TV. They covered their eyes and ducked their heads when it got too bright to look at, only looking up when the sound of the explosion reached them a full 'thirty seconds' later.
"Whoa," Roxy stared at where they'd just been standing. "Thanks man, for saving my life. I don't know if I could've blocked that after all."
"Oh, I'm sure you could have, but lets not test that right now, eh?" he gave her his most charming smile. Well, she and Kat had both called it his charming smile, to him it was just a smile and that was it.
"For now, I've got to help the others and set up the ambushes, think you can..." he stopped talking as he brought them back to normal speed and put his finger on his lips before pointing at a pile of very sharp rocks he'd piled up right beneath their adversary. Nodding, Freefall reactivated her aura and focused on those rocks perforating Threshold like moldy Swiss Cheese!
Somehow, probably because he was just that good, Threshold sensed the threat and dodged out of the way, in the process catching sight of Freefall standing alone and unharmed. He thought he'd atomized her with his last blast, but there must be more to her powers than the obvious. "Very impressive, Roxanne," he laughed. "Given a little time and experience, you might prove to be a worthy adversary. Too bad you'll never get that chance!" He brought his hands together and began to focus his power between them.
Right as the orb of glowing light began to form, however, he was assaulted from a new direction! A firestorm of plasma assailed him, losing his concentration on the psychokinetic attack as he shifted to defense. Looking past the flames, he saw Rainmaker and Burnout, just outside his range, pooling their powers, his plasma blasts and her wind tunnel, and focusing it against him. "Hah!" he laughed again. "Impressive! Most impressive! But not nearly good enough!"
Harry ran over to where Rainmaker and Burnout were just out of sight to check on them.
"You guys OK?" he asked, pulling them both into his time frame with hands on either shoulder.
"Uh, yeah," Burnout said, a bit unsteady as he shook his head to clear out the cobwebs.
"I'm fine, I don't need your... your..." her rant about not needing help trailed off as Rainmaker finally took notice of what was happening around them. Specifically how everything was practically frozen, from falling rocks, clouds of dust, and more importantly their friends and Threshold.
"Whoa," Burnout remarked after noticing the same thing. "I guess we don't have to ask what your powers are, Wizard."
"Heh, yeah, we'll talk about that later," Harry said, a bit uncomfortable at his new 'name'. Not that they had time for that particular discussion in any case. "In the mean time, you two need to combine your powers! Rainmaker's wind can strengthen the fire of your plasma blasts, enough to actually get past whatever he's using to protect himself!"
"We're not close enough for that!" Rainmaker argued, right before things kind of went blurry for her and the next thing she was aware, the three of them were behind Threshold and just over a football fields length away. "What just happened?"
"What's going on isn't me stopping time," the messy-haired youth told her, "It's actually me speeding us up. I just stopped speeding you two up for a couple of... well, to me it felt like minutes, but it was probably only a few nanoseconds, while I half-dragged, half-ran the two of you to this vantage point. Start with the firestorm already! I'll keep you, er—accelerated works, I guess—for as long as I can. But then I have to move Roxy again. I also need to get Grunge ready for his part in all this."
"We're seriously going with that plan?" Rainmaker sighed, focusing on her gift to conjure up a wind funnel, aimed right at Threshold. Burnout beside her was also starting up a fireball just as they'd done it before. To their surprise though, the moment that the effects of their powers started to really pick up, it kind of, well, froze in mid-air. Though, not entirely, it just started moving as slow as everything else.
Harry just shrugged, making sure to keep a hand on the both of them. "What can I say? New powers, new rules. Apparently I can accelerate you, just not your powers. Or at least, not the effect they have outside a certain range. Let it build up, and keep it on target. I'll have to go move Roxy by the time he fires that blast."
"That's OK," Burnout said. "If we let this thing build up too much, it would blow up in our faces. Right now, it's just going to be extra hot."
"I'll..." Rainmaker grunted, beginning to sweat a little, "... see if I... can't... get a bit... more... wind... speed... out of this! But if I get it going too fast... it will tear the skin off our bones and level the base with the force of a bomb!"
"Right," Harry nodded, and then noticed that the orb of energy had finished forming and Threshold was making to push it forward. "Looks like time is up! Good luck you two, keep it going as long as you can, I'll come and move you when he notices you!" And with that, he let go of them and raced around to move Freefall, noticing that as he did, the firestorm his teammates had created between the pair of them was moving like a lightning strike towards Threshold. IE, very fast, fast enough that he could see the progress of it through the air even as he ran at close to top speed to get to Freefall.
As soon as he reached her, he didn't bother slowing down, merely grabbing her in his arms and then making for where Fairchild and Grunge, dropping her off along the way in another of Threshold's blind spots. As soon as he reached the two he was aiming for, he took the time to actually deactivate his powers and rest for a few seconds. Fortunately, the more he used his new-found powers, the quicker he seemed to adapt to them. At first, when he ran it was difficult to even move and he remembered binge-eating in the kitchen not even a full day ago, and he'd had repeat performances since then. Luckily each time he consumed less, meaning he needed less or was burning through his energy more slowly, at the very least not as quickly as when he'd first started. Still, it didn't mean he wasn't getting tired.
He watched, as time sped up for him again, as Burnout and Rainmaker's firestorm reached and swamped Threshold in mid-air. They even managed to keep it up, even after it became obvious that he was still able to protect himself from it all somehow. Freefall started a new barrage from her different position, but the bastard still managed to protect himself, though he wasn't counter-attacking as effectively as when they'd first started. Seeing this, Harry figured now was the perfect time for the next phase of their plan.
Looking over at Grunge and Fairchild, he nodded and said, "Bombs away!"
"Awesome!" Grunge laughed and reached down to absorb/transform his body into a stone golem again.
Fairchild nodded, keeping her comments to herself for the moment, and then easily picked up the multi-ton Grunge and after taking a moment to carefully aim, launched him straight at the defending SPB attacker. Seeing the plan coming together, Harry nodded to himself and decided to step back for a bit, see how things would play out. Hopefully get a couple of real-time minutes to rest.
He focused his powers in pushing back the fire attack as he had the previous. To his shock he found that it wouldn't turn back! The most he seemed to be able to do with it was keep it at bay! How...? Before he could contemplate too long on the impossibility of their combination attack, he found himself dodging a new flurry of projectiles from Freefall. Those he could redirect, but in keeping up his defenses he could not spare the attention to send it back to its source. Besides that, the girl seemed to disappear and reappear every time he blinked! And worst of all, he'd lost track of Fairchild and Potter amidst all of this!
"Here's mud in your eye!" a voice screamed from right behind him.
Turning, he only had a moment to see a stone golem version of Grunge flying through the air right at him, screaming, "YEEAAARGH!" He hit with the force of missile strike. They both went flying off towards the larger rocks, the firestorm exploding in their wake.
"I'll crush you like an insect!" Threshold screamed into the stone-Grunge's ear, but before he could make good on his threat, he was, almost literally, between a rock and a hard place as they crashed into the mountainside of the Genesis Compound. They both rolled and fell and slid all the way back to the desert floor, Grunge not really getting hurt by the experience as he was solid stone at the time, but Threshold definitely came away with a few more bruises than before.
Grunge, of course, was the first one back on his feet and immediately charged the psychopath. "Enjoy the view while you can, Threshold, cause I'm the man who's about to rock your world back to reality!"
"You must be suffering from delusions of grandeur!" Threshold growled, getting to his feet as he psychically held Grunge in his grasp. "I'll admit, I underestimated your powers earlier, but you are still an insect, Chang! One I believe I promised to crush!" He psychically broke off and then disintegrated the stone being's right arm, and then sent him flying, no doubt to bleed out as soon as he reverted back to human.
Harry witnessed all of this from the cliff face closest to the base, but still within line of sight of the battle, the still immobilized Bliss standing frozen next to him as he sat cross-legged, attempting to center his energy and prepare for what was to come. Threshold was right up there with Voldemort or any of his top Death Eaters, only instead of dark magic, the man—villain was a master of his Gen Power, and he had years of experience at using it. Though they outnumbered him and had more diverse powers, it was all they could do to keep him off-balance.
Harry recalled, even at the end, the Final Battle of Hogwarts, when it was just him and Tom, it was only after all the Horcruxes had been destroyed, and the both of them had been up for days by that point. Harry certainly hadn't gotten any sleep, having broken into Gringotts, stolen from the Lestrange Vault, escaped from Gringotts, and then immediately gone to Hogsmeade and broken into Hogwarts, during which the next thirty-six hours were spent identifying, locating, and destroying the remaining Horcruxes before going into the Forest to 'die' and be brought back in Hagrid's arms moments before the Final Battle truly began. The only sleep he'd truly gotten at the time was during his 'death' and being carried by Hagrid while pretending to still be dead.
Now, here he was, in a remarkably similar set of circumstances, just with a different enemy.
God his life sucked!
… And he's been spending way too much bloody time around American teenagers...
Grunge and Threshold falling down the mountain gave Harry at least a solid two minutes rest, which he took full advantage of. One thing that he'd been forced to notice about his GenActive powers was that they 'recharged' as fast as he did. In other words, they were just like any other physical ability. With magic, which had its own limitations, it was mostly a matter of mental discipline, but then nobody can concentrate on just one thing and only one thing for an extended amount of time. With his speed, or time manipulation powers, whichever it turned out to be, they worked perfectly fine when he was rested and fed, but then started to fail or be more difficult to use when he was tired and hungry. Thanks to Project Genesis' constant physical training they'd put him and the others through, he was in the best shape of his life. That, he truly believed, was the only reason he hadn't already collapsed and slept for a month already.
Seeing Threshold get back on his feet and powering up before charging full-speed towards where he'd left Burnout and Rainmaker, Harry got to his own feet, break over. He briefly glanced at the still frozen Bliss and nodded, confirming that she wouldn't be going anywhere. Then he 'accelerated' himself and as quickly as safety would allow (despite the time distortion he gave off, from his point of view he still fell at the same rate as always when jumping from the rocks), he made his way down to where Fairchild and the others were standing and quickly pulled her to his 'speed'.
"Harry!" she exclaimed with a wide smile after he'd taken her hand in his. "I think it is going well, don't you? Where did Grunge end up? I saw him flying off, I assume you caught him."
"Uh..." Harry blinked and actually slapped himself on the forehead. "Right, sorry. Let's go, shall we? Threshold is at least five seconds away from Freefall, Rainmaker and Burnout here. That gives us plenty of time to go check on Grunge."
"What were you doing instead?" she yelled at him as they ran in the direction Grunge was still falling in.
"Resting, if you must know," he snapped back, doing his best to keep up with the girl's longer and stronger legs. "This isn't exactly easy, and like the rest of you I'm figuring it out on the fly. I have to 'slow down' to 'normal' time here and there. Fortunately, a few minutes seems to do the trick, and Threshold and Grunge falling down the side of that mountain wasn't exactly instantaneous, so I was a couple kilometers away, watching from afar. Oh, there he is," he stopped and pointed at their falling friend. It was kind of like looking at one of those fake birds or fish in dioramas really, given that they couldn't even register him as moving at all.
"Oh thank god," Fairchild breathed a sigh of relief. She pointed, saying, "Look, his trajectory takes him to the pond over there. He might have some bruising from the massive belly flop, but the water landing will cushion him enough to survive."
"Not to mention," he added, "fix his arm. Take a look. Whatever Threshold did before throwing him, his arm is just gone. Provided that Grunge doesn't need to revert to human before metamorphing into a different element, there shouldn't be any trouble."
"Shouldn't?" Fairchild asked, the stress clear in her tone.
"Well, why don't you go pick up a mountain and crush the bastard with it?" Harry shot right back. "We don't know what has happened to us, Kat! We're dealing with the unknown! These powers could all go away tomorrow, or in a year, or even after we die our bodies would still be using these powers! There is no way to know exactly what will happen to Grunge. But if we were to jump up and catch him, at the speed we're moving at compared to him..." he trailed off, knowing that she already knew the answer.
She sighed and nodded her head, calming down. "We would kill him," she acknowledged. "The force alone, even if we were as gentle as could be, from his arrested momentum would shatter the rest of his metamorphed body. If he were still flesh and blood, we'd break most of the bones in his body. And the only way to get to him would be to jump, at super speed... So. He should be OK then?"
"Once we pound on Threshold a bit more, giving Grunge enough time to drop a bit more, I'll check on him. Maybe get to him right before he hits and let him consciously absorb the water element instead of after he's drowning in it," he promised.
"All right," she nodded and together, hand in hand, they turned back towards the still charging Threshold. "Let's finish this."
Allowing her to cover the majority of the distance, Harry just held on for dear life as Fairchild jumped and ran back the way they'd come and positioned them a couple meters in front of the glowing human meteorite that was their enemy. Once in position, they briefly contemplated how to continue their assault on him.
"So, uh, how do we do this?" she asked. "Doesn't his shield protect him from my hits? Especially when he's like this?"
"Like with any defense, there has to be a limitation," he pointed out. "He's not just shielding himself, he's flying, and then there are probably a couple dozen other things he's simultaneously using his powers on the we're not even aware of. Leaving him with a finite amount of energy to use in his defenses. Remember the basics they taught us about ballistics?"
"You mean basic Newtonian physics?" she deadpanned.
He smiled, recalling their study nights where he'd struggled to comprehend something that she claimed to have known since the 5th Grade. He nodded and answered, "Yeah. Specifically Ek ½ mv2. Kinetic energy of an object in motion is equal to one half times mass of the object times the velocity of the object squared. Increase the numbers, and I'm thinking our velocity, and we increase the energy we can unleash. Enough velocity, enough energy, and perhaps, just perhaps, it will be enough to overcome the energy he's putting towards his defenses."
"Is there a reason that we're just standing here talking about this instead of getting a running start?" she asked.
He shrugged and answered, "It takes a bit for the brain to process visual input, right?" She nodded. "Well, not that I want to tell him what our edge is, but I rather like the idea of him starting to think he's seeing things, such as us just standing here holding hands while he charges right at us."
"Yeah, about that?" she inquired.
"Be grateful I'm not Grunge, Fairchild, otherwise I might make some crude comment," he laughed. "I've tried, multiple times in the past couple hours to accelerate somebody without touching them. Hasn't worked yet. Even to er, decelerate someone, like I did with Bliss, it requires physical contact. Unlike decelerating though, if I want to keep you at my, uh, 'speed' I guess will work, then I have to keep up the contact. Best I can figure is that with decelerating, I'm somehow draining energy from the target, whereas what we're doing here, I'm either sharing or giving you extra energy. Then again, maybe I'll be able to do it eventually, but I need more experience or more energy than what I have available right now."
"OK, fair enough," she shrugged. "How do we do this?"
"Running start?" he suggested.
"Hm," she said thoughtfully. "That, and maybe a bit of centrifugal force, and I'll have to hit him just right. Where do we want him to end up anyway? Should we pinball him around a bit, or what?"
"Let's send him over to where Grunge will land," he said. "That way I won't have far to go in order to get everybody in place. Hmm..."
"What?" she asked, taking a few steps back and coiling her muscles in preparation.
"Just a thought," he answered, "about what we can do with him once we get him where we want him. Anyway, he's already gone two and a half feet since we first got here, that should've been enough for his eyes to catch a glimpse of us. Ready?"
"Are you?" she shot back at him. "You're the one that will be doing half the work."
"Right," he nodded. "OK, a couple more steps back, let me accelerate things a bit more..." From his point of view he was now holding onto a rather lethargic Fairchild, and from hers he was now vibrating with energy, both literally and figuratively, and Threshold's progress, which was already a crawl, became practically non-existent. "NowImgointospinyouaroundrealquickkeepinthingstightandwhenIletgoofyourotherarmletitrip!"
Despite the high-speed-chipmunk voice it was delivered with, Fairchild was still able to decipher the gist of what Wizard was telling her, so she gave a short quick nod, and the next thing she knew they were running right at the still-glowing Threshold and Harry was picking her up and spinning her in a tight circle by both wrists, and right as they were about to hit the still-form of the deranged GenActive, he let go of her right wrist. That was the signal she was waiting for and with every fiber of her being, she unleashed the hardest, fastest, most devastating punch she had in her life to date, right at his unguarded side, angling so his trajectory would take him in the direction of the pond. She felt her fist dig in a bit to his body, and any resistance was momentary if there at all. The most amazing thing, she thought, was that he was already moving despite the speed the two of them were moving at. He had to be going almost half as fast as they were moving, so while it was certainly incredibly fast at normal speeds, it still looked like he was actually moving rather than the slow crawl they'd seen before.
"Whoa," Harry commented, standing beside her, still holding tight to her left hand. "Did you break something? I hope you broke something."
"Nah, got him in the soft tissue," she replied with a self-satisfied grin. "Kidney shot."
"Owch," he winced.
"Shall we?" she gestured.
"We shall," he laughed in reply and they quickly outraced the flying/falling Threshold.
Now officially pissed off, Threshold made his way back to the rest of the insects, his aura a glowing corona of power about him as he broke the land speed record in a matter of seconds. Too bad there was somebody there that could break it in nanoseconds.
Threshold thought, for just an instant, that he saw Potter and Fairchild right in front of him, holding hands of all things, the next thing he knew, he felt like he'd just been hit by the Hulk in Extreme Pissed Off Mode! He might have even passed out as he was flying through the air. He came to a rather rude awakening, finding himself still flying through the air, over the river in fact, where a water-Grunge was hosing him down with the entire lake's worth of water in an unending geyser of force! The force of the water was so strong that it was keeping him aloft more than his own powers were!
Then Freefall, Burnout, and Rainmaker were there and the next thing he knew he was drowning in mid-air as Freefall did something with the water's gravity that kept it around him, Rainmaker did something to keep it flowing and moving around him so his powers couldn't get a grip on the molecules, and Burnout of course just shot flames at it, setting it to boil him alive!
Threshold hadn't had this much fun in years!
Taking a moment to concentrate, ignoring the pain and heat and desperate need to breathe, he put his hands to his temples, and basically set off a psychokinetic bomb all around him. They fought it of course, Rainmaker and Freefall showing the greatest strain to keep the prison going, but they could not hold one such as him back! The watery prison and flames dissipated in the wake of his bid for freedom, but unfortunately it took everything he had, even what he'd been using to keep himself aloft!
Falling to the rocks below, he struggled to keep breathing, coughing out what felt like maybe a gallon or two of water in the process. Talented kids, he mused to himself.
They picked up Burnout, Freefall and Rainmaker on their way, which slowed them down a bit, leading credence to Wizard's theory of how his powers worked, not to mention it was just awkward them all holding onto a piece of him like that. Thankfully, during the initial confusion of trying to walk across rocky terrain as a huddled group, they quickly figured out that they could just hold each others hands and whatever it was that Wizard did to them passed through the ones he was actually holding on to. Single-file line went much quicker than playing at hiding under the Invisibility Cloak with five instead of three.
Once at the river's edge, just off from the pond where Grunge was only now splashing down, they stopped to take a break. Apparently Harry wasn't the only one having to deal with the stress of moving at hyper speed as, aside from Fairchild, they were all a little winded from a short trek that shouldn't have even raised their pulse rate.
"OK, everybody catch their breath," Harry said as they reached the edge of the water. "And maybe brainstorm a few ideas on what we can do next."
They all sat down, still holding hands, Wizard in the middle, Fairchild holding his right hand and Freefall holding hers, Rainmaker holding his left hand and Burnout holding hers. The redhead was the first to start spouting off ideas.
"We need to find a way to contain him, keep him in one spot long enough for us to bombard him from all sides, wear him down," she said.
"Great, how do you suggest we do that?" Freefall asked with no small amount of sarcasm. They all knew from experience that it was mostly her exhaustion talking.
"Perhaps a combination of our abilities?" Rainmaker suggested after a brief silence.
"What do you mean?" Burnout asked.
"Well," the Native America explained, "while it is clearly not the same, Roxy... sorry, Freefall's powers seem to be more effective against Threshold, probably because it is a different energy than what he can manipulate; gravity. Knowing Grunge, the second he gets back on his feet, he'll be hitting Threshold with everything he's got. Maybe try and drown him in water, and then have Rox—Freefall pull some gravity trick and trap him in a sphere of water so there is no way for him to get to the surface. Then... I can drop the temperature, buffet it with cold winds and perhaps even freeze the outer surface into a shell of ice. If we do it right, could even have... Burnout set the water to boil."
Harry's and Fairchild's eyebrows went up at the suggestion. They glanced at each other, silently asking if it were even possible, as well as working it out for themselves.
"Hm," he mumbled. "Would be tricky."
"Given the principles of thermodynamics and the matter-state transition of water," Fairchild was also mumbling.
"Have to heat it from the bottom," Harry nodded.
"And freeze it from the top," she agreed. "Things would get... volatile in there."
"That would definitely disorient him," he said. "And protecting himself from boiling while trying to build up the power to overwhelm Freefall's gravity powers, it would drain him even more than the punch did. Wouldn't beat him, but it should knock him down for a bit. And Kat and I can be wherever he falls the instant before he lands to keep up the barrage. All right then!" Harry nodded firmly and got to his feet.
"Caitlin, stay here with Freefall, who should be ready the moment Grunge starts to deluge Threshold," he ordered. "I'll get Rainmaker and Burnout in place so they can start their bombardment the moment he's in the bubble. I'll also make sure that Grunge is ready and can actually do what we need him to in time. Anybody have any reservations about this? Now is definitely the time if there are any."
"I've got Freefall's back," Fairchild nodded her head determinedly.
"I'll be ready, Wizard," the bi-color-haired GenActive assured him.
"Just say where we need to be," Rainmaker agreed.
"Uh, Grunge is in the middle of the pond by now," Burnout pointed out. "Are you sure you can get to him in time? I mean, will you be swimming, or do you think you can run on water like in the comics?"
"It will be an interesting experiment," Harry admitted with a shrug. "OK, Kat, Rox, here's where you go back to normal time, so make for the rocks to hide yourselves until Threshold is in position." With that said, he gave them one last look of encouragement, and then let go of Fairchild's hand, allowing 'normal time' to take hold of the two of them once more.
"Burnout," Harry turned to the blond, "You'll need to be on the other side of the lake, and as soon as the bubble forms, just aim everything you've got at the bottom and give it your all. Rainmaker, up for a climb?"
"Where?" was all she said, already scouting the nearby slopes and hills, and even the (still under attack) base behind them.
"There," he pointed at the one he had in mind. "Gives a good vantage point and offers plenty of cover. Do you need line of sight, or just a general idea of where the target is going to be?"
"Line of sight helps, but once I know where the winds need to be focused, I can do it with my eyes closed, or in this case, hiding behind some rocks," she told him.
"Right then," he said, starting off, "let's get into position then."
From their perspective, it took them five minutes to get Burnout in position, and then another fifteen for Rainmaker, since they couldn't fly at hyper speed, the effects that would have allowed for it were just too slow from their current perspectives. Also, the energy would build up, so that by the time they *did* get aloft, the fires, or winds, would be so strong that it would be like a bomb exploding or a tornado touching down respectively. So, they had to go the 'normal' way.
Once everyone was in position, and Harry took note that Threshold was still reaching the apex of his parabola, but Grunge was nearly submerged. By the time he got back down to the pond, the last of his team had fully submerged, but at the same time, he could see that the metamorph's powers were already taking effect, without having to revert to human form in the interim!
Seeing everything in place, he decided to sit back and watch the show. So, he quickly 'raced' back over to where he'd stashed Bliss and moved her a bit closer and then finally returned to 'normal speed' watched as their plan unfolded flawlessly. Once Threshold was where they wanted him, he ran and got Fairchild and 'appeared' before the fallen SPB, where she proceeded to restrain him in the most efficient method possible.
Next thing he knew, Potter and Fairchild were in front of him again, and she had her hand around his throat, holding him up easily. "I could twist your head off right now, you know that?" she threatened him. "Give me one good reason not to!"
"I'll give you two," Wizard said before Threshold could even get the breath to try speaking. "One." The black haired green eyed GenActive vanished and then reappeared on the redhead's other side, with... with his sister beside him! She was frozen, not moving at all, as though in the middle of blinking at an unbelievably slow pace. How...?
"Two," Wizard said as he touched Bliss on the cheek and suddenly she was moving normally and jumping back, startled at her sudden change of location. She fell back into Rainmaker's arms and was immediately rendered insensate by the girl's electrical powers.
"Well, Mathew?" he asked with a great deal more menace than Fairchild could deliver, that was for sure.
"Heh, heh, *cough*, hah hah hah!" he laughed amidst his choking. "Not bad children. Not bad at all. But even if I—*hrk!*—agree to your terms, what's to stop me from destroying you before I leave?"
Almost in reply to the question, the top half of the base right next to them exploded with almost concussive force, knocking most of the planes out of the air! The only thing that saved them from the blast was that it was primarily directed up and outward while they were near the base and at ground level. So while they felt it, they weren't in danger from dying from the explosion itself. No, it was the falling debris that was the real danger.
"This," Wizard finally replied, disappearing with Bliss, leaving her up on the cliff, directly under the falling debris. By the time he'd fully processed what position Potter had put him into, Threshold noticed all but Caitlin, who was still choking him (yes, despite the explosion), had disappeared the same way Potter kept disappearing and reappearing.
"Let him go, Kat. We're done with him," Harry whispered to the girl, appearing by her side. Nodding, slowly, reluctantly, she let the psychopath go and they both vanished an eye-blink later. Not that Callahan cared, he was too busy saving his baby sister. Again!
Harry quickly shuttled the entire team outside of the blast radius of the base as fast as his powers would permit, which was pretty damn fast. While he was running back and forth, however, he couldn't stop himself from wandering, and so on his last trip, instead of 'slowing down' to join his team in safety, he went back to where he'd placed Bliss, only to find burning wreckage already falling there. Fortunately, Threshold had indeed gotten to her in time and they were flying off along the ground, dodging the debris and wreckage from the base.
Seeing that they would both be fine, he breathed a sigh of relief. Not that he actually cared if they lived or died, and he felt that it would be better for everyone, he and his friends especially, if they had died here, but fact of the matter was that he had placed Bliss in danger and Threshold was as exhausted as he was because of them. So, from a certain point of view, if they died, it would be as though he had killed them, and he never wanted to be responsible for someone's death, not if he could help it.
Just before he ran off to a safe distance, he paused and looked back at the flying pair dodging debris. Stepping closer, he just stared at them for the longest time (half a microsecond), as all the things he wanted to say to them, ask them, accuse them of, condemn them for, they all bubbled up to the surface. But he just stood there, staring as they raced for their lives. For Harry, everything was moving fish in water, pretty quick, but in such a way and at a comparative speed that it was easy for him to get out of the way of anything truly dangerous.
He turned away and ran through the debris as fast as he could, not daring to look back. Besides, he wasn't one for gloating, and making accusations—no matter how good he felt for saying them—never did him any good his whole life through. He was still rather curious as to exactly how much they knew about him. His files with IO were strictly muggle information, he'd seen that and confirmed it at every level there was. But both Bliss and Threshold were telepaths, powerful ones and they'd both been in his mind multiple times. There was no way to say what they could or couldn't know about him. But he wasn't willing to risk his or his friends freedom for the chance to find out. It wasn't worth it. Might have taken him eighteen years to learn the lesson, but he'd learned it very well by this point.
Harry rejoined Caitlin, Bobby, Sarah, Roxy and Grunge where he'd dropped them off. He sat down next to the red haired amazon and made sure to keep his powers 'off' for the next little while, no exceptions. Grunge and Roxy were sort of cuddling together on the other side of the rocks he and Kat were on. Well, Roxy was doing most of the cuddling, Grunge looked like he was sleeping, but it was hard to tell since he wasn't snoring at the moment. Sarah and Bobby were at opposite ends, both with their arms crossed, quiet. They were all just watching as the giant sky scraper built on top of a mesa finished exploding and all the aircraft attacking it scattered. None of them said a word, just... taking the time to decompress.
Until they caught sight of a couple of those aircraft making their way towards their position that is.
END.
