The Fall of Awesome

Chapter Six

Lindafollowed as Freedom clumped back into the control room. Kevin wasnext to her and Amanda behind. She hadn’t known the amulet would doanything other than the slight magics it had always provided.Shielding her and Amanda from the explosion had been new.

Butperhaps it would have always done that. Before today she would nothave noticed that blast. Amanda wouldn’t have tried to save her andrisked getting herself blown up too. If she hadn’t called Kevinback, if he hadn’t repaired the amulet.

No.Then she would have been in the briefing rather than out ‘gettingsome sun.’

Kevintook her hand. He had known the amulet would protect her. Since thealarms hadn’t gone off it he probably sent Amanda. Speed-Girl was ahero and they took chances. To be honest, she had almost pulled itoff. Given the nature of her powers next time she might.

Freedomturned around. The rest of them found chairs. Linda saw Amandalooking downcast and reached out a hand to her shoulder. When she metLinda’s eyes there were tears.



“I’msorry. When I got outside and saw the explosion I just…I’m sosorry. I didn’t know what to do, it was only a moment. I justdidn’t know what to do.”

Lindahad a hard time understanding but got it sorted in her head. Amandausually slowed her words so people could understand but she was soworked up it came out as a high-pitched whir. “Don’t worry aboutit. New situation. You did pretty well, actually. We might need toget a new speed test on you.” She noticed Roger, his face platestill open, looking at her a little oddly. Then he turned to Kevin.

“Awesome?”He asked.

“Waslistening.” Kevin answered, then shrugged. “It was unlikely thesituation would have remained secret from him much longer. If he waspaying attention at all he would have already figured it out. Heisn’t unintelligent, even if he frequently does underachieve inthat area.”

“Whatdoes it matter?” Amanda asked, more slowly and with only a smallsniffle.

Lindagave her shoulder a squeeze. “It doesn’t. Not really.” Sheanswered. Then took a deep breath, she had to say it now.

“No.”Kevin said.

Shelooked at him in surprise.

“No,you aren’t allowed to step down, or quit.”



“What?”Roger asked. “Who said anything about her doing that?”

“Shewas about to.” Kevin answered, nodding his head towards Linda.

“Becauseof me.” Amanda said, her face downcast again.

Lindalooked at her. Amanda’s mind moved so fast she realized why Lindathought she should leave seconds after Kevin mentioned it. Evenbefore Roger, who was a genius, figured it out. Speed-girl neededfresh ability testing.

“Itisn’t just because of you.” Linda said. “But you are part ofit.” No point in lying. “Without the amulet, which neither of usknew about, you would’ve gotten blown up trying to save me.”

“Whichwould be different from getting blown up saving a random person onthe street only because I know you and know you are worth saving.”Amanda answered. “No, that isn’t a valid point.”

“Howabout this then.” Linda said, steeling herself to say it. She tooka deep breath just before Mystic walked through the doorway.

“Irealize this is a private team meeting but I think there is somethingyou should be aware of.”

“Goahead.” Freedom said, eager to change the subject. She couldn’tblame him. She didn’t want to talk about it either.



“CountCobra has just dumped sixty thousand poisonous snakes into downtown.”

Angelswept around the edge of a building southwest of the Tower. Sensorshad been placed when this building went up linked into the Tower’searly warning and alarm system. The sensors and wiring were intactfrom what he could see. His eyes were very good. People compared themto a hawk or eagle’s eye. He had looked that up and thought hiseyes better.

Helooked towards the Tower. LL was no where to be seen, probably on theother side of the Tower. Above the Tower he could see Awesome talkingto someone. Angel frowned. He could clearly make out Awesome, hewasn’t more than a thousand yards away, but the other figure wasblurry.

Angelhad to bank to check the next set of sensors. When he looked backAwesome was alone. It was probably nothing. Mystic hid herself fromAngel’s eyes from time to time. Perhaps Mystic or Kevin needed totell Awesome something and hadn’t wanted to be seen. There werealways pedestrians around the base of the Tower hoping for a glimpseof the Super Squad. The Golden Guardian had those too.

Witha loop and roll Angel started for the next building. One more and hecould head back to the Tower and Mystic. He didn’t expect to findanything wrong. Whatever Ruler had done to the Tower’s defenses itwasn’t external.

TheLighting Lord spotted it first, breaking off from his circuit ofsecurity systems to investigate. Four semi trucks driving right forthe federal building north of the Tower. There was surprisinglylittle activity in this area, most of the action was petering out asTeam Justice and the other members of the Guardians worked with theindependents to restore order.


Streettraffic all over was reduced and a convoy like that would haveattracted some villain’s attention. No villain had made any effortson cracking into the federal building since it locked down.

SuperCity had a lot of Super Heroes. It also had a lot of Super Villains.Those two groups meeting tended to be hard on buildings. Super Cityhad an large and efficient construction industry and a governmentwhich was very proactive in making sure the new buildings better werethan the old ones. LL wasn’t sure how old the oldest part of thecity was but most of it had been rebuilt in the last twenty years orso.

Somebuildings went beyond the standard shelters and alarms and escaperoutes to develop some sort of lock down. The building went turtle.All entrances and exits sealed, windows closed and locked, importantthings lowered underground if they weren’t there already. Placesparticularly worried about the attentions of villains had somethinglike this and tried to be close to one of the three Super Teamheadquarters.

Ofthose teams, the Super Squad was considered elite. Yeah, theGuardians did form first, but the Squad was the first team recognizedby Super City. It was THE Super Team. So a lot of important stufftended to get built near the Tower when space became available. Thishad resulted in the downtown area drifting closer and closer to theTower as buildings between the two were destroyed.

LLkept his altitude, checking down side streets for other traffic or anambush. Nothing. Odd. He looped around and made another pass, lower.That was when the shooting started.

Thebullets were nothing special. The magnetic field he generated whenflying handled them without his putting more power into it. Therewere two shooters firing from the cabs of the rear two trucks. Hesent enough electricity into both cabs to render anyone inside atwitching wreck.


Bothwent out of control, crashing into a different side of the street.The first two came to a stop. LL passed over the top of them andlanded in the street in front of the first.

Therewere two people inside, driver and someone in the passenger seat. Thepassenger was holding a weapon but wasn’t pointing it at LL.

Thenhe saw the snakes, hundreds of snake, pouring out of the semis andonto the street. With a curse he sent a burst of electricity into theground hoping to stun them, but there were too many. Every one of thefour trucks must have been stuffed.

LLwanted to handle this on his own but he didn’t know how many snakeshad already gotten away. He took off again, gathering more power fora larger stunning burst. That was when he saw Count Cobra on top ofthe second semi trailer. That figured, he could control snakes. Getthem into the sewers and he could call them up anywhere in the city.But he was in the blast area LL was already blocking off in his head.There would be civilians in there too but this would be non-lethal.

Rulerappeared right before him. Just popped into existence. Before LLcould even open his mouth Ruler hit him over the head with a woodenbaseball bat. The Lightning Lord was unconscious long before he hitthe ground.

Freedommanaged to get it on screen. The semis, two crashed into buildings,the ground covered with snakes. Count Cobra on top of one, laughing.The Lightning Lord was on the ground, surrounded by snakes,unconscious and bleeding from the head.



“Youhad better keep Angel clear of the area.” Kevin said. “Whatevertook out LL, it wasn’t a snake.”

“I’mhaving Awesome do a fly over.” Freedom said.

“Anyidea what sort of snakes those are?” Speed-girl asked.

“Theyare a mix of Taipans, some of the Coastal variety, and some of thePapuan. It is difficult to get an exact ratio or number as some haveentered the sewer system.” INDEX chimed in.

“Andwhat are Taipans?” she asked.

“Poisonous.”Linda said darkly.

“Theyare in fact, some of the most dangerous snakes in the world. Withoutanti-venom their bites are 100% fatal.” INDEX said.

“Howmuch anti-venom does Super City have on hand?” Kevin asked.

“TheTaipan species is not native to North America. There is a small stockat Thomas Memorial for accidental bites at the zoo.”

“Figures.”Freedom said.

“Mystic.”Kevin said. “You will have to get to Thomas Memorial and startreplicating the anti-venom and quickly before they use it all. Ifthey do…”


“ThenI will have to open a portal to somewhere they have greater stocks,”she said. “I will need items from the Golden Guardian. This,” sheheld up the cane, “wasn’t designed for such tasks.” Shevanished.

“Speed-girl,you shouldn’t be in too much danger from the snakes.” Kevin said.

Shesnorted. “None really, unless they are a lot faster than normalsnakes.”

“Still,approach with caution. If you feel it’s safe try to get LL out. Heis pretty much ground zero and if he hasn’t been bitten it is justa matter of time.”

“Gotit.” She said, and was gone before the words were finished.

“Wheredo you need me?” Freedom asked Kevin.

“Youand Awesome are the only two who are really immune to the snakes.”

“Andyou.”

Kevingave a small smile. “I know it’s easy to forget, but if one ofthe snakes actually bit me I would be just as poisoned as anyoneelse.” The smile changed a little. “Perhaps a little lesspoisoned, but I am betting they can’t bite through your armor.Awesome is made of even sterner stuff. The two of you need to focuson clearing out civilians.”



“Andwhat are you planning to do?” Freedom asked.

“Ithink I know where something is that might be useful. I’ll going tofetch it and then meet you in the area.”

“Giantsnake killing swatter?”

“Nothinglike that, sorry.” Kevin walked out the door and vanished again.

Lindawatched him go. She would have been getting the civilians out but nowshe was just as vulnerable as they were. Perhaps more vulnerablesince there was no way of knowing if her metabolism would accept theanti-venom. She saw Freedom looking at her, then felt the amulet growwarm. The warmth filled her, the despair that was creeping in faded.She could feel Kevin’s arms around her, feel the kiss in his rooms.She smiled at Freedom. A real smile, unforced.

“Go,you have stuff to do. I’ll keep an eye on things here and let youknow if anything goes wrong.”

Therewas something like a nod. Then Freedom headed out leaving Lindaalone. She didn’t feel alone at all.

Speed-girlwas at the edge of the snake pile in less than a minute. Sheremembered Kevin’s caution and stopped to look at the snakes for afew seconds before heading closer. They seemed like normal snakes,dark brown and in a boiling mass. She could see LL. He was wellinside pile’s area but uncovered. Count Cobra could be heard,crooning to his snakes. The whole mass was five blocks from thefederal building. Speed-girl wasn’t sure what the Count’s planwas. The building was locked down - the snakes couldn’t do anygood.