Chapter Eighteen
Blackout
If there had ever been a more suspicious group of individuals, Erik would need evidence to believe it. His red Hummer was already big enough to stick out like a sore thumb but coupled with the vials of blood sticking out of his back, Titania covered in enough metal jewelry to choke a whale, and Hugo's mild-mannered appearance, and none of them looked like they had belonged together. To avoid any more suspicion than was necessary, Erik decided to wait in the car until the time was right.
That time happened to be at six-thirty sharp — which just so happened to be just before sunset and well before the fireworks show.
"There." Hugo points to the sky above the fairgrounds where a US Military tandem rotor helicopter slowly approached.
"Disgusting." Erik remarks as he lays his eyes on the camo-wrapped helicopter.
A crowd begins to form as everyone points and begins to take pictures, anticipating the event that would soon follow. Erik has a similar feeling of excitement, though for very different reasons. In time, the chopper eventually stops far above the crowd, and they all back away, forming a clearing for it to land.
Erik reaches into the seat behind him to retrieve a large gun along with a mask to conceal his identity, though he wasn't exactly sure how far it would get him — he wasn't exactly inconspicuous as it was. Titania does the same, masking up and readying her hand on the car door handle.
Everyone watches as the rear cargo door of the chopper opens, revealing the purple and black super suit belonging to Blackout. Naturally, the crowd cheers.
"Time to go." Erik says as he exits the car, Titania following. Neither the crowd nor Blackout notices them as they approach, which leads to the superhero showboating and leaping from the helicopter, nailing a three-point landing and throwing a considerable amount of dust and dirt into the air.
Erik and Titania walk towards Blackout's trailer completely unnoticed thanks to everyone being distracted. Titania punches the lock off and the pair slips inside as they wait for Blackout to finish her show. The first thing Erik notices upon entry is a large bouquet of roses on the counter of the kitchenette. There is a card below them, which Erik takes the liberty of reading.
Kick some ass!
Love, Adrian
Erik briefly feels a pang of guilt.
Very briefly.
Erik tosses the bouquet into a garbage can so that we would feel no need to look at them again and leans against the counter, silently waiting for the hero to arrive.
For hours, Erik and Titania hear fireworks, cheers, and Blackout over the microphone hyping up the crowd. All things Erik had expected. Now and again, they see blasts of energy followed by flashing lights set to music, presumably from Blackout's quirk.
Eventually, the pair hears Blackout sign off, meaning that it was only a matter of time before she would be heading back to her trailer.
Click!
The door opens and Blackout freezes.
"Hello." Erik greets the woman. Blackout glances to the left, eyeing Titania in the living area. "The name is Bloodshed. It's nice to meet you."
Blackout stays silent as she closes the door behind her.
"I'm guessing you aren't fans." Blackout says, leaning against the door. She gestures to the large gun behind Erik. "And I suppose you're here to kill me."
Erik chuckles before going eerily silent.
"Titania." Erik orders in a stern voice as a portal opens on the door Blackout is leaning on. She gasps as Titania reaches in and traps her in her arms, locking her in place as she turns to metal. Blackout doesn't stay trapped for long, quickly throwing Titania through the thin wall of the trailer and into a crowd of fans, who quickly begin to scream and run in all directions. Blackout quickly jumps toward Erik, but a portal opens and Blackout is outside the trailer.
Erik picks up the gun and fires it at Blackout, who is instantly ensnared in a large metal net. She attempts to break free, but Titania fires her gun and sticks Blackout with a small disk that immediately begins to electrocute her. Erik tosses his gun to the ground and hops out of the trailer, walking slowly towards Blackout, who was trying to reach for her utility belt.
"Mission accomplished." Erik says to Titania. "Inform Hugo."
Good work, my boy.
Titania nods as Erik kneels before Blackout. He chuckles at the sight of the woman as she convulses and writhes in pain.
"Earth's mightiest heroes." Erik whispers to himself, drowned out by the screaming and ruckus surrounding him. He taps his index finger gently on the small disk electrocuting Blackout, pausing the shocks and letting her take a breather. Erik grabs her face with one hand and removes her domino mask with the other, revealing her face to him. Blackout is clearly out of it, her eyes unable to focus on Erik, but Erik reaches to his face and removes his mask. "Remember this face. It will be the last you'll ever see."
Erik takes a deep breath and revels in what he's about to do. He places his hand on Blackout's face and begins to drain her of her blood, causing her to once again convulse. The machinery on his chest spins up, whirring happily as the vials on his back begin to fill with blood.
"Take your hands off her!" Erik hears from his left. His eyes shoot open, but before he can react, he's hit in the side of the head with a large metal object that sends him to the ground. Erik hears Blackout gasp multiple times, which sends him into a fit of rage. Erik roars as he gets to his feet, immediately meeting the eye line of a man holding a large metal pipe.
Twenty-two. Quirkless.
"Another one of you." Erik snarls in a fit of pain and anger.
"You picked the wrong day to mess with her." The man says as he raises the pipe like a baseball bat. Erik sees red. He takes one step forward, causing the man to swing the pipe as his head. Erik easily dodges and grabs the pipe from his hands, tossing it to the side. The man's eyes instantly fill with fear, much to Erik's delight. The man throws a punch, which Erik catches with little effort, twisting his hand until he hears a satisfying crack. The man howls in pain.
Erik grabs the man's face, gripping it like he was trying to crush his head, and begins to drain him of his blood. The man tries to fight Erik off, but he doesn't budge. Slowly, the man loses his strength and his skin loses its color until eventually, he becomes a gray husk of what he once was. Erik tosses him to the side, where he rolls once and stops in front of Blackout. Her eyes widen as she sees the man's lifeless face. Her eyes dart between him and Erik as if she was piecing together what had just happened.
"You guys are dead." Blackout says with determination in her voice. The hero curls into a ball and a guttural roar erupts from her throat as a wave of energy spreads out from her body, deactivating the disk on her neck and causing every light and every vehicle nearby to fall dead. Before Erik can react, she pulls a knife from her utility belt and slices her way out of the net, and lunges at Erik. He sidesteps, just barely dodging the blade as it comes towards him, but Blackout anticipates this and swings the knife around, stabbing it directly into Erik's stomach, lodging it into a group of gears. Erik grunts as he grabs Blackout's wrist and shoulder, using his body weight to throw her to the ground and place his knee on her chest.
Blackout screams in pain, but retrieves the knife from Erik's stomach and sinks it into his forearm. Erik recoils in pain, momentarily losing focus and allowing Blackout to regain her footing and kick him away.
"Titania!" Erik hollers to his associate as Blackout sprints toward him, jumping and driving her heels into his face. Blackout reaches into her utility belt once again and retrieves a magnetic set of handcuffs and manages to get it around one of Erik's wrists before he opens a portal below himself, causing both him and Blackout to fall through. The portal spits them out onto the ground in a heap, allowing Erik to back up and break the handcuffs, kicking the remains away. Blackout huffs and pulls a small object from her belt, throwing it towards Erik.
Erik quickly opens a portal, just in time for the small object to appear behind Blackout. The object explodes, sending thousands of small rubber pellets flying in every direction. Blackout yelps as she takes the brunt of the force, but quickly sprints at Erik once again, who opens yet another portal. This time, Blackout is sent to Titania, who acts as a solid wall of tungsten. Blackout slams into the woman and is immediately thrown to the ground. Titania attempts to stomp on the hero, but Blackout rolls away and tries to sweep Titania's leg. It predictably doesn't work.
"Give it up, darling." Titania says as she reaches down to pick up Blackout by the hair. Blackout screams in pain as she does, but doesn't fight back, instead reaching once more into her pocket and throwing a smoke bomb down. Erik opens a portal to Titania to pull her out, but as Erik grabs her arm, Blackout punches her in the stomach, shocking her with a taser built into her gloves. The electricity sends both Erik and Titania to the ground quickly, but they were back up just as fast. Erik begins to wave the smoke away to get a visual on Blackout, but she appeared behind him and slapped another pair of magnetic handcuffs on him, pinning his hand to his metal associate.
"Calling for backup, two hostiles considered dangerous." Blackout said as she tapped an earpiece.
Time is running short.
Erik's head twitches as the voice rings throughout his head. Blackout looked triumphant, but she hadn't taken into account that Titania wouldn't stay metal for long. As Titania returns to her normal form, Erik spins to gain momentum and clocks Blackout in the head with the handcuffs, who falls to the ground. Blackout growls, ready to pounce at Erik once more, but Erik stays still. As Blackout is about to attack one more time, a loud boom rings out and another net traps her.
"Took you long enough." Erik says to Hugo, who tosses a large net gun to the ground.
"Well, I was personally trying not to die." Hugo says. "Grab the quirk and go. Blue Cyclone is on his way, forty-five seconds ETA."
Blackout screams one more time and sticks her hand out of the net, which Titania steps on.
"I've got just enough time, then." Erik kneels on Blackout's chest and places his hand on her face, finally finishing the process he had started. Memories begin to flood in as Erik learned the ins and outs of her quirk.
A kiss.
A wedding.
A child.
Erik's eyes shoot open shortly after. Blackout is only a corpse now. Her lifeless, gray face still contorted in a mix of anger and sadness. When Erik takes his hand away, her head falls to the side, the same direction her hand was grasping at. Titania removes her boot from Blackout's hand and marches back to the car with Hugo.
Erik looks at Blackout's hand and spies a golden wedding band on her ring finger. He then follows her line of sight to the body of the man from earlier, who similarly had a gold wedding band on his finger. Erik stood up and brushed off his suit jacket, straightening his collar as he walked back to the car.
Hugo starts the engine that had been protected by three layers of Faraday cages and they drive away, narrowly avoiding an encounter with Blue Cyclone, who lands at the fairgrounds not seconds later, followed by choppers and squad cars.
Erik looks back and closes his eyes, calling upon his new EMP quirk, and releases a wave of purple energy, disabling every vehicle in the vicinity. Explosions soon begin to ring out as helicopters begin to hit the ground.
Erik opens his eyes and smiles devilishly.
"This will work just fine."
Hey! I feel like I should start replying to reviews so I'm gonna start doing that right now starting with one from MBS41:
Is the setting in Japan and if it is I hope he goes to U.A
The story actually takes place in America, which I feel I should actually elaborate more on. I don't think I've ever stated it, only alluded to it with context clues. There are some things that I don't explicitly state because I feel it would sound too clunky, but as of now I think I'll be more forward about some of those things.
As for if he'll go to UA, I guess you'll have to keep reading!
One more thing I want to say is that I could absolutely use a beta reader for this story, so if you want to be that for me, send me a PM and we can talk it over.
Thank you to everyone who reads this and if you have any thoughts yourself, leave a review and I'll reply to them after the chapters!
