Streetbeat
Beat Feet
By Cyberwraith9
"You know the rules, Krieg. Gangs don't come into Jump Central. Ever," Jason said.
The deserted street echoed with Krieg's laugh. His nasty grin beamed as he said, "Yeah? Well, maybe the Eighty-Eights don't play by your rules no more, Hawke. Me and my new crew here are thinkin' 'bout runnin' our own game 'round here," he said, spreading his arms to the colorful assortment around him.
Jason glanced to either side of Krieg. He recognized a few of the faces: the wiry boy cupping flames in his hands, and the enormous, corpulent man who towered behind Krieg. The rest were unknowns: the little girl in the sundress, the spindly and strangely bulletproof girl, and the speedy girl who had taken their tires.
His glance didn't escape Krieg. "Oh, that's right. You don't know everybody here. 'Course, you remember Pig and Pyre," he said, waving to the bulk behind him and to the fiery boy, respectively. "An' this here is Spooky an' Rebound. You met Rush in the car, right?"
The speedster shrank under Jason's glare. Jason clenched his empty hands at his side until they ached. Seeing Krieg shouldering his sword ignited a long-dormant hatred in him. Under better circumstances, he would have charged the gang bangers that were stupid enough to set foot in his neighborhood. But with Stripwire still nursing a head wound in the Wagon, he hesitated.
"So what happens now?" he called.
A sick grin exploded from within the Eighty-Eight's leader. He glanced down, swinging Jason's broadsword, testing its weight. "Well, ol' buddy, you gonna die. That's what's happenin'. But I tell you what. If you give up and go easy, I might give your freaks a chance to run. Maybe they even wanna join up after what happens here…if they're good enough."
Magnum leaned in close to Jason from behind. His voice became a conspiratorial whisper. "You know, that's not such a bad deal."
"Shut up, Mag," Queenie snapped. She glanced at Jason, and asked, "So are we fightin' here, or what?"
Jason glanced back at the rest of his friends. They answered his unspoken question with a single look, a look that he gave in turn to Queenie. She nodded.
He pulled from his jacket a silver disc the size of a small Frisbee. The Streetbeat "S" stamped in its center was surrounded by a red ring. "Fast and hard!" he barked, and hurled the disc.
The scrawny girl, Rebound, sprinted into the flying disc. She crossed her arms and batted the disc aside. It wobbled away and struck a mailbox smothered in graffiti, which erupted into a ball of fire and fluttering envelope fragments. Rebound's pale sneer glowed hellishly in the brief blaze. Raining bits of ash drifted into her hair.
Krieg lifted the sword tip at the charging Streetbeat. "Kill 'em all," he commanded.
Drawing a knife from his belt, Jason ran straight for Rebound. But Magnum ran faster, and shoved Jason out of the way. Magnum's revolvers whirled in his hands. He willed the solid slugs inside to leap out the barrels and hole the skinny Eight. "Just how bulletproof are you, bitch?" he crowed.
The cold iron slugs bounced off Rebound without leaving a mark. She sauntered toward Magnum, grinning. One shot caught her square in the eye. She batted her lashes, sending the slug whizzing back. It caught the edge of Magnum's sleeve and took a piece of his arm with it.
Magnum dropped to his knees and skidded to a stop at her feet. "Son of a bitch," he swore, dropping his empty revolvers. He clutched his arm and his knee, both of which bled through jagged tears. "These clothes were new!"
Rebound planted her hands on her hips and sneered down at him. "Finished? There's a reason they call me Rebound, pit stain. I send back anything you throw."
Gritting his teeth, Magnum lunged forward and grabbed Rebound's chest. "Rebound this, surfboard," he snarled. Tactile telekinesis tingled in his palms as he threw enough force into her chest to launch her thirty feet.
There was a split instant in which Magnum was smugly satisfied and groping a moderately attractive girl's breasts. Then the force he pushed into her slammed back into his hands, blasting him onto his back. He tumbled across the pavement and struck the half-grille of the Wagon, which broke against his lolling head.
Rebound smirked and tugged the strap of her tank top. "'Kay," she said playfully.
Queenie broke her charge to double back and help Magnum. As she turned, she felt a vice swallow her arm with tremendous pressure. She glanced back and saw that Pig had grasped her. His enormous hand covered her tree trunk forearm. His lumpy features spread into a grin.
"Where you goin', girlie? You 'n' me are gonna dance," he snorted.
Her insides squirmed with revulsion. "Fine. Let's swing," she said. Shifting her feet, Queenie swung her arm up and over her head, clasping Pig's hand with hers to carry him along for the ride. The blimpish Eight overshadowed her in a wide-eyed moment of surprise, and then cratered the street on her other side.
Chips of pavement sprayed them both while Pig laid on his back, staring up at Queenie. He grinned. "Nice. Now break," he grunted.
Queenie yelped as the vice grip on her arm contracted, crushing her muscle. Pig swung her up and over, just as she had to him, but let go halfway through. She flew high and far, and slammed into the post of a streetlight. The light tilted, its foundation cracking, as Queenie slid down the smooth metal pole. She flopped onto the ground.
Juice gathered an electrical tempest between his arms, ready to blast it into Pig and any other Eight stupid enough to stray into his line of fire. With Streetbeat charging through the Eights' midst, he couldn't afford to just let his wattage fall where it may. "Watch out, guys! I'll cook 'em all in one shot!" he bellowed.
A fireball drilled agony into Juice's shoulder. He staggered back, screaming, his containment suit vaporizing beneath the flame. The pain drove Juice onto his knees, where he doubled over and clutched the smoking hole in his suit.
Through tears and terror, he saw Pyre approaching. The lanky Eight drew another fireball between his hands. He tossed the dancing flame from hand to hand as he quipped, "So who's cookin' now, Casper? Now, open up and say—"
"AAAAAAHHH!" Juice flung his hand out with a scream. The motion made his shoulder howl with pain. He courted the pain, and married it into the pure electricity he thrust into Pyre. A biological lightning bolt burst from Juice's palm and through Pyre to light up the sky.
Pyre danced like a marionette ten feet into the air before the bolt released him. He fell to the ground with a sickening thud, his Eighty-Eight jacket smoldering in circles on his front and back. It was only seconds later that his chest began to rise and fall with ragged breath.
Smoke rose from all over Juice, tightening his scream into a squeak. He looked down at the blue energy arcing from the burning breach at his shoulder. With his containment suit broken, the voltage inside him was loosed to run rampant through him. That familiar hot ache that he had lived with his whole life, the inner blaze that his suit had quelled, returned in full force. Juice whimpered and curled into a ball.
With a flash, Blink appeared at Juice's side. He reached down to examine the burn on Juice's shoulder, but a shock chased his hand back before he could even touch the containment suit. "Oh, man," he murmured. "We have to get you out of here, buddy…"
A telltale giggling made him freeze. He looked around wildly, and spotted a pair of almond eyes peering at him from the sidewalk. The eyes leapt forward, carrying with them the rest of the little sundress girl. Her dark hair fluttered behind her as Spooky glided toward him with her arms outstretched, an otherworldly smile gracing her features.
Panicking, Blink teleported. The world around him changed in a wash of white light. When the light faded, he was on the other side of the street, sitting atop the steps of an old building.
He watched his fellow Streetbeat fight back. Guilt niggled his survival instincts, making him feel like he should be doing more. Humiliation kicked his pride squarely in his masculinity for running away from a tittering china doll.
Then he heard footsteps and giggling behind him, and whirled. It didn't seem possible. The air shimmered and revealed Spooky. She reached for him again. Where had she come from?
This time Blink jumped backwards, refusing to take his eyes off of the little girl. He fell to the bottom step, landing hard on his butt. Spooky stood on the top step and watched him cower in fear. Then the air shimmered again, swallowing her into nothingness. Her smile left last.
Blink's eyes darted, trying to find her. He thought she might also be a teleporter, like he was. But when he heard footsteps behind him again, and felt a cool presence on the hairs of his neck, he figured it out a second too late.
Icy lips kissed him right behind his ear, making him freeze. Blink tried to scream, but an immense pressure in his chest stopped his breathing altogether. He watched in horror as a pale arm extended from his chest at the center of the pain. A titter filled his ear. The misplaced hand waved to him while he convulsed in numbed shock at the arm sharing space with his lungs. It felt like years of fear and pain before he found the will to teleport around the arm.
Jason heard Blink's ragged cry, and grimaced. From the sound of things, his Streetbeat were on the low end of this fight. He wanted nothing more than to turn and help them, but even a second's indecision at that moment would mean his death.
"What's the matter, Hawke? You don't look like you havin' fun," said Krieg. He heaved his stolen blade at Jason, cutting empty air as the Streetbeat darted back out of the swing. "This is what you're all about, right? Fightin' the good fight?"
Jason never professed to be a master swordsman. He had learned on his own by swinging the sword until it felt right. Over the years and through countless fights, he had been taught several hard lessons about handling a blade. One of the first lessons he had learned was to not swing your sword like it was a baseball bat.
New to the blade, Krieg hadn't learned that lesson yet. Jason clutched his Bowie knife and resolved to teach the lesson to him. He timed Krieg's swing and, just as the tip of the blade passed his nose, leapt forward. Krieg's eyes bugged at the knife descending at him. He could neither block nor dodge, thanks to his heavy swing of the sword.
A blur tackled Jason. He bounced out of melee with Krieg and dropped his knife. Fists he could not see belted him in the arms and face over and over in the blink of an eye. He staggered and fell to a shoe being planted in his stomach.
Rush stood over Jason. She rubbed her bleeding knuckles. An uncertain look of anger crinkled in her bruised face. She winced visibly as Krieg strolled up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder.
"Like you always said, Hawke," Krieg gloated, and drew Rush roughly to his side. "The freaks win the fight. And looks like I found just the freaks to do it."
Wheezing, Jason turned over on his hands and knees. He jerked when Krieg kicked him hard in the stomach. Half-pretending, Jason collapsed onto his front and hid his arms beneath him while he searched through his jacket by touch.
"Y'know…" Jason choked, and spat a thick wad of blood. He looked back up at Krieg, and started again. "Y'know what else I always said?"
Krieg sniggered. "What?" he asked.
"You're a loser."
Jason covered his ears and rolled away. He revealed beneath him a weaponized disc with a yellow ring on the street. The disc began to vibrate as an unbearable, shrill noise filled the area. Krieg and Rush both clapped their hands to their heads and staggered back, their screams lost in the sound of the caterwauling disc.
The disc's charge spent itself in a few seconds. By the time it quieted, Jason was back on his feet and running, dizzy with ringing after-noise that made his whole head hurt. "Streetbeat!" he shouted, barely able to hear himself. "Split up and beat feet! Back to Sanctuary!"
Even while he shouted, he took stock of the battlefield. In less than two minutes, the Eighty-Eights had taken them apart. Stripwire was still in the Wagon, and Juice was lying ominously still. Everyone else Streetbeat and Eight alike, appeared as disoriented by the sonic disc as he felt. Except for Queenie, who was nowhere in sight.
"Blink! Grab Juice and Strip and poof straight back!" Jason bellowed. Glancing at Blink, he saw the blue teleporter mouth something, and heard only ringing. Jason naturally assumed it was some kind of complaint, and said, "No arguments. Move!"
Magnum was leaning against the hood of the Wagon. Shells jingled at his feet as he tried without success to shove them into the chambers of his revolver. Several paces away, Rebound had recovered from the noise, and was coming at him with murder in her eyes. Already sprinting, Jason overtook her and tossed a white-rimmed disc in front of her without stopping.
He grabbed Magnum by the arm and yanked him into a run, spilling the shells in Magnum's hands across the ground behind them. Magnum swore and staggered, and snarled, "What the hell?"
Counting down in his head, Jason closed his eyes and said, "Don't look."
Naturally, Magnum did the opposite, and glanced back over his shoulder. The disc in front of Rebound burst into pure radiance as she came upon it. Rebound shrieked into the overwhelming light. She covered her eyes too late, screaming obscenities, as the other Eighty-Eights did the same. In the ensuing flash, they failed to notice two more that emptied the field of Streetbeat.
Magnum's eyes burned with uselessness. He had to trust Jason's hand to pull him in the right direction while he stumbled. "God DAMN it!" he snapped, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand.
"Told you," Jason said, and dragged Magnum down an alley.
The light burned a few seconds more until the disc winked out. It took another moment before any of the Eights could see. Krieg dropped Jason's sword to massage his eyes into working again. When they did, they showed him a street with an empty, wheel-free station wagon, and a collection of groaning metahumans who wore his colors.
"No. NO!" Krieg screamed at the street. His head snapped around in vain. "Get back here, Hawke! GET BACK HERE!"
Rebound staggered, blinded the worst by her proximity to the disc. Her foot bumped into something soft and groaning. Looking down, she discovered Pyre at her feet. The charred circle on his chest still smoldered. His skin glistened waxily. "Jesus," she whispered, and knelt down. She touched the burn, and Pyre jolted in his sleep as if shocked.
Stooping, Krieg retrieved the broadsword. "Split up and start looking. I want Hawke found now," he ordered them.
"They really messed Pyre up. I think he needs a hospital," Rebound said.
"Get him on his feet and get looking." Krieg stalked toward the side of the street where he had last seen Jason. There were at least two alleys down which the Streetbeat could have retreated, assuming he hadn't let his blue freak poof him away.
Rush jogged after Krieg. She split her attention between his back and the sight of Pyre struggling to breathe. "Pyre is hurt," she insisted. "We should—"
His backhand spun her around. The bruises on her face barked in pain. As she staggered, Krieg caught her face in his grasp and squeezed her cheeks until her lips were pursed shut.
"You should shut the hell up. You should do what I say. You SHOULD get your speedy ass out there an' run until you find Hawke, or until your little chicken legs fall off!" he spat. His eyes blazed, scorching her with manic hatred that chilled her very bones. "Nothing else matters, got it? Find Hawke. Find him and take him down!"
Rush managed a very weak nod. Krieg tossed her face aside, throwing her to the ground. He shouldered the broadsword and marched into one alley, leaving his Eights to look among one another.
Rebound began slapping Pyre awake while the rest drifted apart, picking different directions. Faster than them all, Rush lingered the longest. She could not break her stare from Pyre until Rebound's insistent glance chased her away.
Rush turned to run, and then jumped back in surprise at the sight of Spooky standing before her. The little girl grinned at Rush's startling as she held up a silvery circle she had found on the battlefield. Rush hesitantly took the device. Turning it over in her hands, she began to understand what Spooky had found, and realized how valuable it could be to their effort.
"The Uptown region has become a scene of chaos and panic as the Titans' battle with the Tyrants continues to migrate," Hank McCoy said, gripping his microphone with white knuckles while the world behind him fell apart. People ran through the street, screaming, pouring between abandoned cars in the middle of the street. Smoke belched from the sides of skyscrapers through jagged grins carved into their sides. Beams of red and blue crisscrossed the sky overhead. Horns honked. People screamed. Glass shattered.
Hank shouted into his microphone to rise above the din. "Police are scrambling to evacuate the area. But as the battlefield continues to shift, it becomes increasingly impossible to anticipate where this carnage will next—"
A streak of black and copper crashed into the ground behind Hank. The earth quaked hard enough to knock the reporter to the ground. His camera operator remained standing and, trembling, captured the sight of Mammoth rising from the crater.
The enormous Tyrant caught sight of Hank and his crew. Gruesome intent glistened in his smile. Then he lost interest as a second streak, this one green, smashed a row of abandoned cars behind him.
A stegosaurus roared shrilly, tossing its spiked tail back. Its glossy green spinal plates rippled as it charged Mammoth. Mammoth grasped its head and tried to wrestle it to the ground while it drove him back, digging a trench with his planted feet. The stegosaurus then blurred and melted out of Mammoth's grasp to become a pterodactyl, whose claws grasped and threw Mammoth out of the camera's sight.
Safe inside Sanctuary, Patches watched the shaking webcast with his knees drawn to his chest. He sat at the command center's computers only because Jason wasn't around to chase him away. He watched the news because he was afraid, and because he wanted to see his guardians in action against the terrible Tyrants. Even in Patches' young mind, the plight of those metahuman menaces remained fresh.
Flashing light tore his eyes from the computer monitor. He saw Blink appear in the middle of Sanctuary amidst a shower of blue lightning. One of Blink's hands was wrapped in Stripwire's prosthetic, while the other touched Juice's containment suit. Blink's scream, already in progress, killed the ominous silence and drowned out the webcast.
Blink fell away from Juice's still form. The lightning vanished as soon as his fingers left the containment material. He hit the floor hard in a twitching heap, his eyes closed and his face fitfully blank.
Stripwire let go of him immediately. Aside from a bruised cut on his forehead and a mess of dried blood on his face, he appeared fine. It was hard for Patches to tell, as he had never seen Stripwire as anything but calm, aloof, and disinterested. Stripwire knelt and tested Blink's vitals as Patches dove from his chair and ran toward the arrived trio.
Without looking, Stripwire cautioned Patches, "Do not touch Juice. His containment suit has been breached. The natural voltage produced by his body could kill you."
Patches panted, looking between Juice and Blink. "Is—?"
"Blink survived contact with Juice long enough to teleport us back to Sanctuary. My arm insulated me from the current. I believe Blink will live, but I cannot ascertain the extent of the damage done to his body by the electricity, nor approximate when or if he will regain consciousness," Stripwire said brusquely. He let Blink's wrist fall limp from his grasp as he stood.
"What—?"
"We were waylaid by a group of metahuman Eighty-Eights. They disabled our vehicle and defeated us in combat. Jason ordered a retreat," explained Stripwire.
Tentacles protruded from his metal arm. They wrapped around Blink, leaving their ends loose to push him up from the floor. Stripwire walked the mechanical cocoon to the nearest bunk, where he laid Blink as gently as he could. Blink fidgeted and twitched as the cold metal unwrapped from his body.
Patches' eyes welled with tears as he examined the burn on Juice's shoulder. "Who…?" he murmured.
"The Eighty-Eights are a gang with chapters in many different cities throughout North America. The chapter in Jump City possessed a controlling interest in this territory prior to the formation of the Streetbeat."
The little boy stood at Juice's side, looking confused and afraid. He tried to hide it beneath the bill of his cap as he watched the pale Streetbeat struggle for breath. "But—"
Stalking back toward them, Stripwire said, "Please cease all further inquiry until such time as I have stabilized our situation."
He knelt by Juice's side, his tentacles already extending. Patches' soft sniffles made him pause and look up. He found fat, wobbly tears descending from underneath Patches' downturned cap bill.
Softening his tone by sixty-eight percent, Stripwire added, "Please see to Blink. I believe he would benefit from your attention. I will help Juice."
Nodding tearily, Patches ran from them, crossing the room with a stubby sprint. He knelt by Blink's bedside and grasped the blue boy's hand, holding it tightly with both of his.
Stripwire cocooned Juice in insulated tentacles and brought him to the workshop area in the corner. There, he cleared all of his half-finished projects with a sweep of his free arm, sending delicate electronics crashing to the floor. He laid Juice upon the stained wooden tabletop and carefully unwrapped him.
A momentary wave of dizziness almost made Stripwire fall on top of Juice. As this would have fried his cybernetics and killed him instantly, he resolved to ignore such impulses, no matter how concussed he felt.
He pulled from the workbench drawers some basic first aid supplies, as well as an old, crusty, brown leather glove with a lightning bolt markered on the back. He pulled the glove over his fleshy hand and then set to work on Juice's burn. His metal finger became small shears that cut the edge of the containment suit from Juice's skin. Antiseptic gel blurped from a tube, looking like blue honey and smelling like a hospital. Stripwire carefully spread the gel over Juice's burn.
"This sudden resurgence of Eighty-Eight activity is highly irregular," Stripwire mused aloud as he dressed Juice's wound. "They attacked without provocation in a location that appeared to be arbitrary, neutral ground that offered no intrinsic advantage. Nothing was gained from their victory, save for our potential demise, which could conceivably have been achieved more easily by targeting us as individuals. The only advantage to attacking us en masse at an undetermined location is that—"
Sanctuary's heavy doors rattled with impact. Patches screamed and cowered by Blink's beside, still holding Blink's hand. Without pausing in his efforts to treat Juice, Stripwire shifted his attention to the doors just as another blow struck from outside. The blows developed into a slow, rhythmic pounding that shook the doors. Other impacts joined the rhythm as rocks and bottles struck the lowest of Sanctuary's armored windows.
Unfazed, Stripwire wirelessly connected to the network controlling Sanctuary's unseen higher functions. His sight stepped aside as he fed some of their precious generator power into the security camera network outside, which provided him with a dozen vantage points of the grounds.
None of what he saw improved his take on the situation. Sanctuary was surrounded by a young army clad in Eighty-Eight colors. Some carried guns. Others, bats or clubs. Still others, knives, long and wickedly sharp. A quartet of Eights had chopped the top off a telephone pole, and were ramming it into Sanctuary's doors.
Stripwire shifted his vision back into his eyes. He paused, staring down at Juice while the sounds of the siege struck Sanctuary over and over. Their generator was only meant to power the lights and amenities for a short while, and did not possess nearly enough energy to fuel the defensive measures Stripwire had designed for just such an occasion. Without power, it was only a matter of time before the Eights broke in.
Suddenly, Krieg's strategy made more sense. And Stripwire was the only Streetbeat left to protect Sanctuary.
"This is an unwelcome predicament," he noted.
"You suck," Magnum said. "I can't possibly say it clear enough or loud enough. You really, really suck."
He followed Jason through Jump Central's back alleys. The teens paused at each street, making certain that there weren't any Eights waiting for them. Though the noise of panic and the glow of fire grew in the distance, Jump Central remained eerily silent. Its denizens knew when to duck and cover. This unfortunately made the two Streetbeat stand out, particularly with Magnum's carrying voice.
Jason hugged the corner of a building to check outside the alley. So far as he could tell, the long shadows hid nothing that would hurt them. He wasn't taking any more chances, though. "Let's hole up here for a minute," he said, and slid back into the alley.
Magnum leaned on the wall next to him while he rubbed his face. "You know why you suck, right?" asked Magnum, reloading his revolvers. "You suck because when Krieg shows up out of the blue with his little Wannabeat squad, you freeze up like a schoolgirl at a spelling bee. You're a little schoolgirl in a frilly little dress. That's why you suck."
Face cradled in his hands, Jason sighed out his frustration. It came right back as he sucked a breath through his fingers. "Shut up, Mag," he growled.
"Seriously, way to go. I wouldn't expect a brave strategy like 'run away' from the guy who single-handedly cleared these jokers from Central in the first place. And way to keep Strip and Juice out of the line of fire, by the way," sneered Magnum.
Jason's punch knocked Magnum's jaw three feet back. Magnum's body was forced to follow, and fell to ground with pinwheeling arms.
Magnum lay on his stomach until his eyes uncrossed. The first thing he saw was Jason's shoe tapping the ground by his face. Looking up, he found Jason's disgruntled expression waiting above him.
"You know you had that coming, right?" Jason asked. He extended his hand, which Magnum took with a grumble, and helped him up.
Silver flashed between them. Magnum's revolver barrel pressed into Jason's throat. Its chamber whirred, blurring as it spun. A light tremor of kinesis buzzed against the soft skin beneath Jason's chin.
Cold, furious detachment burned in Magnum's face. Jason returned it in kind as Magnum told him, "You don't punch me."
The whirring chamber filled the stillness of their shared glare. Then, slowly, Jason lifted his hands. "Okay," he said. "Sorry."
Nodding and smirking, Magnum lowered his rusted gun. Its chamber quelled. "Good," he said. "Now—"
Jason's punch knocked him clear across the alley and slammed him into the opposite wall. He bounced off, staggered back, and then was shoved back into the wall from behind. The stars in his eyes sucked the strength from his legs as those shoving hands threw him to the ground.
When his vision cleared, Magnum looked up from the ground. Jason loomed above him with the revolver clutched in his whitened fist. Apoplectic gravity hung in Jason's tight features. "If you ever pull a gun on me again, you're out. Period," Jason said, his voice low and steady.
The throbbing pain in Magnum's jaw reminded him that he still had another revolver. But Jason's smoldering words made him reconsider. This time, when Jason offered him a helping hand, Magnum took it without incident.
They stood and glared at each other a few seconds more for machismo's sake. Then Magnum asked in a cold and clinical tone, "So now what? Do we go back and fight, or did you also lose your balls when Krieg took your sword?"
Jason drew his communicator with a grunt. "Blink got Strip and Juice back to Sanctuary," he said. There was no way of knowing for sure if they'd actually managed to get away, but he had to hold out hope in their deteriorating situation. "That still leaves Queenie missing. We find her first, and then we double-back to Sanctuary to meet up with everybody else."
"So you can get the tea party ready for Krieg?" cooed Magnum.
Flipping the communicator, Jason quipped, "Yeah. Tea, crumpets, and a boot so far up his ass that he'll taste my athlete's foot for a week."
"Refreshing."
"Shut up for a second." Jason frowned and smacked the side of his communicator. The device's display showed their signal and three others at Sanctuary, with a depressing amount of distance between them. A fourth signal sped across the map so quickly that it must have been a glitch. But Queenie's signal was nowhere to be found. "I can't find her. See if you can pick her up, I think mine is going screwy."
Magnum patted his pockets, frowning. "Huh. Where did I put…?"
The speeding signal ghost on Jason's communicator's display blinked at a blinding pace toward their location on the tiny map. Realization hit Jason too late as he looked up. "Mag—"
A hurricane slammed between them, knocking them apart. Jason fell back against the wall as he watched the hurricane blur into a tornado around Magnum. Invisible blows batted Magnum to and fro faster than he could react. By the time Jason regained his balance, the tornado let battered Magnum drop and turned its attention to him.
As the black wind engulfed him, Jason threw his foot out wildly. He felt a jarring impact hammer his leg, transforming the wind into a flailing girl that crashed face-first onto the ground. She skidded and gonged the base of a garbage dumpster with her face. Groaning, she fell limp, and let a clutched communicator roll from her hand.
Jason scooped up the rogue communicator and examined it. With a scowl, he tossed it at Magnum. It bounced off the groaning teen's chest and into his lap as he sat up. "Found it," Jason said caustically. "Now let's move. If Speedy Gonzales here found us with that trace, you can bet she's not alone."
A wide shadow swallowed Jason's. As he turned around, he felt the ground pulsing beneath him. The tremoring grew as Pig ran at him from behind with his massive arms spread wide. "Solid bet, pipsqueak!" gruffed Pig.
Instinct guided Jason's hand behind his shoulder, where he grasped at empty air. He looked back and saw the top of his empty sheath. With Pig all but on top of him, he could only roll his eyes and mutter, "Good one, idiot."
Pig's arm hammered his chest with the force of a small truck. The blow lifted Jason off his feet and into the wall, where he donated his inertia to the bricks and received a full-body bruising as thanks. Pig caught him against the wall with a hand that engulfed his chest. His ribs creaked as Pig grinningly pressed his sternum toward his spine.
Fetid breath spilled over Jason's grimace as Pig leaned close, pushing his grin upon the struggling Streetbeat. "Wanna lay odds on how dead you'll be in the next second?"
The last of Jason's breath escaped in a venomous hiss of, "Two to one!"
Jason's hands fell back into the long sleeves of his denim jacket and pulled the shivs hidden inside. He shanked the sides of Pig's arms, twisting the stumpy blades in the Eight's fat flesh. Pig had rolls of fat and muscle protecting him, but he still had nerves in his skin. He squalled and dropped Jason, clutching his bleeding arm.
The bloody shivs arced as Jason leapt up. He clapped the taped, blunted handles of the shivs together with Pig's temples in between. The impact rolled Pig's eyes back into his head. He dropped as Jason landed, piling into a mountainous heap at the Streetbeat's feet.
Panting, Jason braced himself on his knees. His chest ached, and his back felt like a knotted minefield of bruises.
Then, above the ringing in his ears, he heard Krieg's voice, and looked up to find him standing at the mouth of the alley. "Look at you. Kickin' girls, stabbin' freaks. It's just like old times," Krieg said. He leaned on Jason's broadsword like it was a cane, grinning madly.
Jason shot a glance over his shoulder. Rush had gotten back up, and was woozily standing between him and the other end of the alley. Magnum was only now getting back to his feet. He looked worse for wear than Rush. And Pig was already stirring , shaking off the blow to his head.
Surrounded on all sides, Jason swore at himself and made a bitter choice. He grabbed the scruff of Pig's neck and pressed a shiv to his throat. Pig stiffened at the sharpened metal puckering the puffy skin of his neck. His eyes ballooned as Jason snarled, "Not another step, Krieg. Call your guys off, or I swear I'll stick him here and now."
Tenuous bravado held Jason's face together. He used all of his concentration to keep his scowl and his hand steady as he stared down Krieg's unyielding smile. With a wave, Krieg said, "Go ahead. But you an' me both know that you would've done that years ago if you had the stones for it."
"I'm not playing, Krieg!" Jason bellowed. He pressed harder. Blood dribbled from beneath the tip of his shiv. Pig gasped and trembled.
Jason's bluff fell to pieces as Krieg sauntered forward, swinging the sword to and fro. "You want some help? He don't matter to me. Always plenty of freaks in Jump, right? Rush," he called to his Eight behind Jason. "Take him down."
"Krieg!" Pig howled.
Rush hesitated. She glanced first at Krieg, and then at Pig. Her lip trembled as tears wobbled in her eyes.
Krieg drew closer still. Jason gritted his teeth as he chewed himself out for getting himself into such a stupid situation. Now he only had two choices. He had to either give up or make good on his threat, and either way would end in his death.
Pain exploded in the back of his head, making the decision for him. His shiv fell, forgotten, as he tilted forward and fell next to Pig. Pinpricks of light burned Jason's eyes as he rolled over and saw his attacker.
Magnum tapped the butt of his revolver into his palm and grinned down at Jason. "Say, Krieg? Is that offer still good?"
Rage cleansed the ache and fatigue from Jason's body. He leapt up with hands grasping for Magnum's throat. His fingers fell short when Krieg stepped on his chest, stomping him back onto the ground, where he struck his head on the pavement. He rasped and lolled, coughing a scream as Krieg's boot pressed down upon him.
Krieg and Magnum exchanged identical grins. Behind them, Pig and Rush approached, reluctant to cross the fury twisting in Jason's face. "See?" Krieg asked, slapping Magnum on the shoulder. "What did I tell you, Hawke? Always plenty of good freaks in Jump."
"Magnum!" Jason snarled hoarsely.
His treacherous friend shrugged. "Sorry, Jase. Like I said, it sounds like a pretty good deal. Hell, the price is right."
And then Magnum's shoe crossed Jason's face, kicking his world out of sight.
To Be Continued