A Beast with a Smile
Chapter 6 (Scavenger): Gravity

I teleported to the middle of the cafeteria. I could see through Clooney’s eyes that there were sixty or more guards surrounding him. His armor had been torn to shreds. The couches around him in the corner waiting room looked like swiss cheese, the bullets were never ending, and the walls were barely intact.

Clooney would occasionally pop up to shoot randomly around to clear some space. Atom’s men moved closer and closer; when one group ran out of bullets they switched with the team immediately behind. They were in ten groups of six and formed a wall, shoulder to shoulder, marching through the hallway.

Clooney would shoot for the bullet proof vests, but one would always shoot back before he could aim. Every time he shot, the soldiers would not even flinch. They must be extremely confident in Atom’s signature armor that is supposed to be impenetrable from bullets. They wore full body, head to toes, suits that project a magnetic field around itself to protect the wearer from injury. Atom has made a fortune from his design, but he keeps the best versions for his own personal army. Clooney only has a bullet proof vest that Atom also created but is vastly outmatched to sixty well-built soldiers in bullet deflecting suits.

I ran over to the corridor where Clooney was facing off with everyone. I hid behind a pillar just before the war ground and focused on the vent above them. The roof began to shake, and ceiling tiles feel to the carpeted floor. The shaking got faster and more powerful until all of the soldiers were looking up. The pipes began to come loose and fall through. They fell but bounced harmlessly to the ground. Soldiers began to shoot at the vent, but realized it wasn’t a person making it shake.

I pulled as hard as I could, and the top floor merged with the first. I heard screams and saw nothing but smoke. Through Clooney’s eyes I could see the sun going down, leaving red and orange clouds in the light blue sky. I could see the vast nothingness of green fields of and small hills for miles.

Clooney looked down at his leg and I could see bullet wounds covered his entire lower body. I tried to tell him to stand, but every time he tried he would fall. I took a couple steps into the room and felt like every bone in my legs had just gotten sawed in half. I grabbed the wall and tried to convince myself that I had not been hurt. A few moments later I regained my strength.

“Clooney, I am coming for you. Just hang in their buddy,” I said in the back of my head.

He responded with a thumbs up. I walked over the rubble that the hospital had become. Although a large portion of the roof had fallen through, there was still a few rooms intact on the floor above. I continued to gaze up and saw a few heads peek out from behind their doors. Their fear was tangible. I waved and mouthed sorry to them.

I stalked off to the waiting room where Clooney was perched on the arm of demolished couch. There was blood everywhere. The floor was covered, and his body was shot from head to toe. He looked at me with the face I must be giving him.

I touched his shoulder and said, “You’re a man of many words, aren’t you?”

I gave him an awkward smile and he gave it back to me. I see how Scarlett hates it. I’m not sure if you can die, but if you can these might be your final moments. He looked at me and nodded.

He took my hand and put it on his. Our palms touched, and his image flickered and turned into light flowing into my hand. My vision became one again, but the blood that Clooney had spilt was still covering the floor. It didn’t look like normal blood. It was shinier and had a black hue to it.

As the sun fell and the night drew closer I could hear the ruble moving behind me. Before I could turn around a bullet zoomed by my head. I dropped to the floor; my ears were ringing, and the pain was unbearable. The explosion took away all of my ability to hear.

I looked up to see soldiers surrounding me. They were all covered in dirt and dust from the second floor. I looked at their fresh tomb to see the ruble moved away from the center. The suits must be made of magic. Who survives a literal building thrown on them?

A rifle muzzle creeped into my view and shot again next to my ear. I screamed in pain and curled into a ball. I could tell that they were laughing and having a good time with seeing me squirm. Who would have thought that psychopaths loved to torture people?

Blood began to leak from my ears, dripping all over the floor and on some of the leader’s boots. One of the boots soon met my face and it wasn’t friendly. The blow knocked the breath out of my lungs. My head hit the piano tiled floors and my front tooth flew out, hitting the open wall next to me. At this point the blood flowed from my mouth and ears. Great. I probably look like an actual hillbilly now. I definitely didn’t look very pretty.

The ringing in my ears still halted my ability to hear anything, but I didn’t need to hear to know what was going to happen to me. The soldiers formed a complete circle around me and began to take turns kicking me and stomping on my body parts. I heard the sound of my arm breaking way before I felt the pain. My ribs shattered like glass and my face was getting to the point where blood was dripping into my eyes and mouth.

Everything that could bleed, bled and anything that could break, broke. I didn’t think this would be how I died. I always thought that it would be some crazy stupid way like getting run over by an ambulance. Didn’t think it would be by psychopaths beating me to death inside a hospital.

I was in too much pain to teleport; there was not a possibility that I focus when I was at the point where I couldn’t even move.

I closed my eyes and waited for the end. One hit after another: never ending waves of kicks and stomps. I heard crying, but knew it wasn’t me. I would have cried blood because at that point there was more blood than human. Another spiked boot hit my face and I knew my nose was completely shattered.

The crying got louder. I could hear a heartbeat and it was racing. SCARLETT. What little blood I had left boiled. The blood outside of me did too, except it actually caught on fire. All of the soldiers that stood in my blood pool turned to ash immediately. The others were far enough away to catch only a few flames before they fell out one of the broke windows.

The flaming blood swirled around me and started to form a hard shell around my body. The blood Clooney left behind joined the pool around me. The shell began to glow, and I began to float. My spine was broken, and I wouldn’t have been able to stand without supernatural forces.

Everything was still broken, and the pain did not disappear. My rage was the only thing keeping me alive. Outside I heard, “Open fire,” followed by the sound of a firing squad shooting at my shell.

The bullets hit the cocoon and traveled inside where they harmlessly floated around with me. The bullets melted and added to the blood. The glow got brighter as more bullets hit it and strands descended all around me, encasing me like a second skin.

The glow then flowed down the strands and hit me. I was charged up like a battery. Clooney had been in the lake with me. His blood must’ve absorbed and stored the power somehow.

My bones began to mend themselves back together. The crackling noises didn’t help the weirdness of what was happening. The metal from the bullets flowed up my limbs and body. Parts of the soldiers’ armor were pulled in along with the bullets.

The metal formed around my entire body. It began to harden, and designs carved themselves into the liquid metal. The body was a mixture between blue and black, the chest and legs were both black with a blue stripe going along the middle of the chest and around the legs, and the helmet floated in front of me. It was colored half black and half blue.

I watched as the helmet opened by itself and moved onto my face. The suit turned on and I no longer felt any pain; I only felt the same type of power that the water had given me the other day.

The helmet projected what was happening in front of me on a screen in front of my face, like a virtual reality headset minus the glasses. I couldn’t see out of the eye holes and it seemed like this way would be better. The screen had a motion detector and everything with a heart was outlined in red. It must have copied it from the soldiers that were destroyed by my blood.

The suit attached itself to me even further and tightened to perfectly fit my body. The light began to darken, and the shell began to fade. I stopped floating and landed on my feet with new bones and a new suit. The shell flowed into my body and when the last bit hit me there a massive explosion of light shook the room.

The pure power of my blood was strong enough to throw men across the building. The two men still standing looked at me like I was the devil. One tried to shoot but I was too fast. I grabbed the barrel of his gun and twisted it upward, leaving him with more of a candy cane than a gun. The other started shooting and the bullets couldn’t get close. The suit had copied Atom’s perfect designs. Mine was only better because it had a super powered teenager with acne issues behind it.

The two soldiers decided their fists would work better than their rifles. One punched high, the other went low. The kick took my legs out from under me and the elbow slam that followed sent me crashing into the floor. The impact made a crater in the already destroyed floor. The armor absorbed most of the impact, preventing any serious harm, but nothing could stop the air from leaving my lungs when my body hit the ground.

The two came at me again, giving me no time to recover. They jumped for me, both trying to pin me to the ground. I reached out my hand and tried to focus, but they were too quick. These two were clearly smarter than the six other guys I fought: they attacked in unison instead of one by one.

They landed on me with a bang and I could tell that all the magnetic field distortion from the suits was messing things up. The closer they got, the harder they got pushed away. They also clearly didn’t understand how magnets work. I threw a punch and the power from my rage and the help of the negative polarity sent one of the soldiers through the skylight I had created. He flew to the roof and beyond.

The second watched his friend’s flight and was not prepared for his. I hit him in the chest and he flew down the hallway towards the rest of his unlucky predecessors. He crashed into a six-man party that had just found the strength to get up. They all quickly found the ground again.

Looking around at all the soldiers passed out on the ground or dazed to the point that they are utterly useless made me realize what had happened. The blood wasn’t the only thing that juiced me up; it was the energy in the soldiers too. I had stolen the energy that was in their blood. They became weak and I became strong.

The ash pile that a few soldiers were transformed into was still glowing with the red and yellow tint of my blood. I touched it and it absorbed into me. The ash dissolved around my body and the armor’s blue stripes began to glow.

Clooney’s blood was completely gone now; it was all absorbed back into me. He must’ve been affected by the pond water too. It must have stored itself in his body. It’s probably the only reason that he stayed alive for so long. No one could survive that many bullets alone.

A weird feeling in my stomach gave me the chills. I watched myself die today. Even though I didn’t feel any pain, I watched my blood be spilled and my body be torn to shreds. How many people can say they watched themselves die today? A couple actors on TV who acted their character’s death. I don’t think anyone can say they ordered their clone to fight and lose. I’ll figure out my powers and bring you back Clooney I promise.

I stared at that spot where I absorbed my friend into my body until the gunshots broke my focus. The seven leftover soldiers had regained some strength and were trying to take me out. Most of the bullets bounced harmlessly away off of the armor’s magnetic field, but some stragglers came through and bounced off of the chest. They fell to the ground smoking and destroyed. The armor was the hardest metal I had ever seen. I wasn’t sure if it was Atom’s or my own magic super powers that created the invincibility aspect.

I teleported behind them and smacked the heads of two soldiers together. The sound made a loud crack as the helmets bent together, attaching the two. The remaining five spun around fast, but two more felt my fist slightly faster. They flew down the hallway and out of the window.

The butt of a rifle came into focus. I narrowly dodged it before smacking the gun out of his hand. He threw a punch, but my focus stopped his assault. I held him there while I focused on the other two. One charged at me while the other pulled the pin on his four grenades. He threw the first grenade when the first punch flew towards my new helmet. Time slowed. Everything around me seemed to be moving in slow motion. New power or adrenaline? I didn’t have time to think about it. I had to act quick and not just because of the grenade.

I could only imagine the army that’s about to roll up to this hospital to protect their overlord. I have to get to Atom before they get here. I need a plan, but that’s why I have Scarlett. She tells me her plan and I follow through. She’s the brains and I’m the muscle (if you count being paper thin as muscle).

My demise was getting closer, ticking and clicking. I looked around my surroundings, looking for anything to help. My eyes did not stick to the solution but to another problem. This hallway, what was left of it, was the children’s ward and lucky me there was still a couple of kids in the rooms. I’ve been too reckless, and I left a mental image in some that they should have never seen, I thought in disgust.

The grenade was inching closer and closer. These men were heartless. They willingly shot up the children’s ward like it was a warzone and now they are willing to blow it up to kill me.

I knew my rage was about to take over and I wasn’t going to stop it. My blood grew warmer and my body began to glow again. Time began to speed up and the grenade bounced off of the soldier closest to me. It flew towards one of the doors with a child looking out of the tiny square window. The soldiers didn’t show any fear for the child.

“You cold blooded murderers!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

I focused on the grenade and pulled it to me. I grabbed on to it and pulled its owner and its brethren to me. I yanked him by the neck and held him in the air. He laughed and dropped the three remaining grenades. The fire inside of me exploded; my armor was engulfed in flames.

The grenadier’s laughter turned into agony. His skin was burning wherever I touched him. The suit around him had burned away, leaving him completely vulnerable to the punishment him and his fellow soldiers were about to receive.

I shoved a grenade into his mouth, then focused two to fly into his ribs, one into his chest, and the last into his rear. I pulled every soldier in the room to me. I pushed them all together making a giant ball of “invincible” suits.

“You will all pay for your sins,” I promised them.

“You’re the devil. You’ll kill us all,” a voice shouted from the pile.

“Good thing we are already in the hospital,” I smiled.

I focused the ball out of the skylight that I had created. They flew so high that the ball looked like a lost balloon. The grenades detonated, and the ball went from balloon to bloody rain with armor hail.

“Scavenger?” Scarlett said, horrified.

I spun around and looked at her, realizing I was wearing a full body armor suit.

“No, it’s another person in this small town with super powers,” I said sarcastically.

“You just killed all of those people. How are you not fazed by all of this?” she questioned, holding back tears.

“They were going to blow up the children’s ward, Scarlett. I did what I had to in order to save lives.”

“The hospital is empty. Atom moved everyone,” she said, letting a river flow from her eyes.

“That’s not true. Look. There is a boy in that window. Look.”

She looked at the door with the kid in the window.

She began to cry even more, “Scavenger, that’s not a person. That is a sticker for windows.”

I opened the door and hoped that she was wrong. She wasn’t. It was an advertisement for bedtime diapers plastered to the tiny window.

My heart sank, “I messed up, Scarlett. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

I sat down on a chair in the room and looked into the mirror on the other side of the room. I looked at the monster in the room and his new devil armor. The blue was now replaced with red. I sat and thought about what I just did. I let my rage take over before I even considered the facts. I should’ve known that no one can be that heartless and willingly kill little kids.

I looked at the mirror and watched my suit fold up down my body, each link snapping as they connected. The suit retracted into a watch on my wrist.

“You’re just full of surprises today,” a familiar voice said.

“Atom.”

He had a huge glowing pistol pressed up against Scarlett’s head. Her eyes were still dripping from crying and she couldn’t stop the flow with the threat of death being three inches away from her.

“Let her go. I’m the one you want, not her. You already shot her today.”

“Eh. Allegedly shot her,” he smirked, knowing he could always get away with anything.

“If you hurt her...”, I stated with a threat on the tip of my tongue.

“You’ll do what? Kill me?” he cut me off.

“I’ll make sure your boy never uses that pretzel of an arm again,” I smiled back.

Scarlett had never looked more terrified. I wasn’t sure if the dark expression on her face was because of Atom or her best friend.

“You know, it’s never a good idea to threaten a parent’s child,” his smile faded, and I had clearly made him mad.

“Come with me little Freddy. Let’s go see your daddy. I’m sure he will be glad to know about his son’s psychotic adventures.”

He walked to the other side of the building where Tyler was being treated. His eyes never left me, and his fingers never moved away from the trigger. I was walking into a trap, but I had to rescue my best friend and father. I walked through the door in pursuit and the last thing I heard was loud trucks pulling up in front of the building.

Atom’s army had finally arrived.

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