The Distort Arc: Cape High Books 1-4 (Cape High Series Omnibus) (65 page)

"Who are you?" the camera man yells.

"Just a passer by," Nico drawls, digging out his wallet.  "Don't worry, I'm Hall."  He never thought he'd actually have to use the stupid card, but he flashes it at the camera before flipping in the air and diving straight down.  By tomorrow, he figures, the serious cape nerds will have his old name plastered all over the internet.  Joy.

He shrugs it off, focusing on the more important facts.  Double M is coming, but he's out of the country, so it might be a while.  What really bothers Nico is if Superior is alive... how long will Star Born be?  Yes, she's insane, but sometimes you have to ignore the insanity to get the important parts.  If she's caught alive, he might be able to find out how to fix the sisters that lost their powers from her.  But Superior won't care about that fact.  He probably won't even think of it.

His expression is grim as he thinks of his father.  It isn't that he doesn't understand the man.  No, if anyone understands Superior, it's Nico.  It's just that he plain didn't--no, DOESN'T like the man.  When he'd heard that he'd been killed he hadn't even bothered to go to the funeral.  Apparently neither had Superior.

The helicopter is following him, he notices, glancing back at it.  He sighs, shoving his hands into his jean pockets and landing on a roof in the middle of the city.  "Hey!" he calls up to the helicopter.  "Quit following me!  I've got work to do!"

"That's why we're following you!" the camera man calls back.

"Okay, you asked for it," Nico says, pulling out one hand and waving it at the camera.  He's jumping off the fifteen story building even as the camera man curses long and hard over his non-functioning camera.  A few pedestrians scream as they see him falling, racing to get out of the way or take pictures.  He lands on the sidewalk, glances back at the helicopter, and looks at the crowd.

"Has anyone seen a tall, skinny woman in a business suit with glowing eyes?" he asks.  They shake their heads, staring at him in befuddlement.  A young boy just takes a long drink off of his soda, making ice rattle.

"Hey," the boy asks abruptly.  "Who are you?  You don't look like anybody from the Hall."

"You know them all?" Nico asks.

"There's Mega and Mastermental and Falconess and--" the boy starts listing.  "You're a super villain, right?"

"So nobody saw her?" he says.  "I'll keep looking."

"If you're a super villain, are you gonna do something bad?" the boy asks, much to his mother's irritation.

"I'm going to do what I need to do," Nico says before walking away.  Likely, though, unless he falls over them by accident, he isn't going to do anything at all.

"Technico!"  The bellow makes him turn, inwardly groaning as Ken, in full America's Son gear, lands in front of him.  "You never told us what happened."

"The girl is fine," Nico says.  "This is personal.  Go back and check on your kid, he's had a long day."

"My boys are both tough enough to handle a little family brawl," Ken says.  "I'm more worried about you."

Nico hesitates.  Within the short amount of time he's been out of the cape cells, Ken has become one of his best friends.  He deserves an explanation, Nico decides reluctantly.  He walks over, standing next to the other man and saying, almost silently, "Superior's alive."

Ken's eyes widen and he pulls back, looking shocked.  "What?  How?"

"Not something we need to discuss when surrounded by norms," Nico says.

"And what if he is," Ken says.  "What are you going to do about it?"

A hint of surprise makes Nico look at him for a moment.  "I--"

"Go home, Technico," Ken says, dropping a hand on his shoulder.  "Go home and spend some time with your own kids."

"I wish I could," Nico says.  "But I've got to find them.  I have to keep Star from getting killed."

"What?" Ken asks blankly.  "What does--"

Nico takes off, leaving him to try and figure it out for himself.

***

There's a crack of light trying to close.  For a long moment Superior stares at it, contemplating what just happened.  The little girl was a healer.  During his entire life as a super, he'd only met one other, a woman named Mary.  She had been such a mousy little thing, the type that never stood out in a crowd, chubby and short.  He would have never even noticed her had she not been healing someone at the time they met.  Perhaps this Aubrey was related to Mary. 

He steps forward, his hand sticking through the closing hole.  He should let it close, it's past his time to live, but it goes against his very nature to give up so easily.  He slips his other hand in, catching on the other side of the hole and ripping with all of his strength.  It's the heaviest thing he's ever dealt with, he realizes, gritting his teeth and leaning forward.  Slowly the hole starts to pull open again.  He can see light, smell dampness.

Hear someone moving.

***

To say that she's panicking sounds so unprofessional, Star thinks with disgust as she looks at the tiny room she's in.  Distort is still unconscious, she's lost what few supplies she had, and now that she knows the metallic experiment she had written off as a loss is alive--she takes a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

Somehow they brought the Jack boy back to life.  They must have used Aubrey, because no one else could have fixed him.  Jack could be useful, she thinks as she starts cleaning off the rickety wooden table on the side of the room.  He owes her, she decides, owes her big time.  It was thanks to her that he's now a walking tank with super powers beyond a norm's belief.  He is an elementalist--a metal elementalist, one of the most powerful, deadly elementalists out there!  Of course he might be troublesome at first, but if she can just--

Did something move behind her?  A chill runs down her spine, one she quickly shakes off as she turns.  It's just Distort.  Her heart tries to jump as she sees him standing, and she lets herself smile.  "It worked," she says, crossing to him, her hands out.  "I'm so happy.  Distort--"

Then he looks at her.  His eyes are steel, cold and focused with intensity.  This absolutely isn't her Distort, she thinks almost numbly.  Aubrey's words come back, echoing in her mind.  "He killed him."  Suddenly they make sense.  She swallows loudly, feeling her hands grow cold and clammy.  The room starts to heat up as she takes a step back, but before her heel can touch the floor his hand is on her throat.

"Hello, Star," Superior says, lifting her one-handed off of the floor.  "I think that you and I need to have a little heart-to-heart."

The room goes ice cold.

***

"I can't find him," Liz says over the communicator.  No one else can hear them on this line, so she lets her frustration show.  "Nico--I--"

"Keep looking," Nico says sharply.

"Nico, I know--I know he's the reason you went villain," she says, dropping down on the roof of an abandoned building.  "I know you hated him--but you've got more things to live for now."

"What are you trying to say, Liz?"

"I'm saying that the time to be rebelling because our old man is a real jerk is in the past," she says.  She's wanted to say this for
over twenty years, but it's only now that she actually has the nerve.  "You've got Summer--I think you should marry her, you know?  She'd make a great sister in law.  And you've got the twins.  They love you, Nico, they really do.  And you--"

"Liz," he says.

"What?"

"Just because he's alive again isn't going to change anything."

"You said something like that when we were kids," she says, her hands clenching at her sides.  "You said you'd never leave me, said we'd be partners for life, but you just kept pushing the line--and it was because of him!  I know it was!"

"Why would I do anything because of him?" Nico asks.

"Because you wanted his attention!  Here you were, the son of THE Superior, and he never even recognized you were alive!  Don't lie to me, Nico, don't try and tell me that he wasn't the driving force behind your super villain days.  You could have been a millionaire a million times over, or been one of the best super heroes ever born--except for him," she says, staring blindly over the city.  "You couldn't beat him, not in your head."

"You're assuming a lot, Liz," Nico says.  "Where do you get off trying and psychoanalyze me?"

"Because I was abandoned for fifteen years, Nico.  But you left me behind long before that, in some ways.  And because I felt a lot of that about you," she admits, her shoulders slumping.  "I can't beat you, big brother.  Even if the whole world knows about me and has no clue about you now, I know, okay?  I know the truth.  And maybe that's why I was so willing to switch sides--to go hero.  Because I could have never beat you as a super villain."

"Liz," Nico says after a long pause.  "You know I love you, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah I know," she says softly.

"And you're right.  I've got a woman that I love, two kids I adore, and I've got you, even with all the crap in our pasts.  It seems to me that I HAVE beaten Superior, if you look at it like that."

She feels a tear trickle over her cheek even as she lets out a surprised laugh.  "You have," she agrees.  "You changed a lot in the cells."

"I--"  A crash interrupts their conversation and she rushes to it.  A woman is flying straight to her--no, not flying, she realizes as she braces herself almost too late--hurtling towards her.  She grabs the woman, twisting to deal with the momentum.

A black blur passes her and she turns, watching as her brother slams into a white haired man that looks exactly like him.  She moves the woman away from her and looks at her.  "Star Born," she says.

The woman is unconscious.  Liz checks her throat for a pulse, just in case, then turns, seeing the nearest cape and tossing her to them.  "Don't let her get away!" she says before rushing for the brawling males.

"But--"

"I have to stop them from destroying half the city!" she yells.  Even as she says that, one slams the other into a building, destroying half of it.  Saving the city is always easier said than done, she adds darkly to herself before racing forward to grab the still flying Nico.

***

Nico looks down at Liz, then twists, throwing her a good distance away right before Superior races out of the crash and slams into him, slamming both of them through three buildings.  "So you're still a super villain," Superior says coldly.  "I always knew this day would come."

"You were killing a woman!" Nico snarls as they hit the ground.  He digs his feet in, but they keep going backwards until he's buried in concrete to his waist.  "I NEED her alive!"

"I was dealing with a murderer!" Superior bellows.

"But one that's a genius," Nico says.

"Father!" Liz shouts, dropping down on the street beside them.  "We need to TALK, not have a family brawl where the entire world can see!"

"I was told you were no longer a villain, Nico," Superior says, ignoring Liz entirely.  "Yet here you try to save a murderer because of her intelligence--"

"We promised we'd give the sisters their powers back," Nico says, shoving Superior off of him and taking to the air.  "And the fastest way to do that is to use her, murderer or not.  You always were too quick to play judge and jury, you never considered the gray parts of life.  And according to Aubrey you're just as much a murderer!"

"Who have I killed that doesn't deserve it?" Superior demands.

"Does the name Distort ring a bell?" Nico says.

"Distort was--"

"Excuse me," a calm voice says from above them.  "I really think this is a conversation best played out at the Hall."  Nico looks up, seeing Mastermental in full uniform floating above their heads.  "Superior," he adds.  "I think you require a bit of... updating."

"Double M," Superior says.  "And since when have you been the one to order me around?"

"Since I took over leading the Hall, twenty years ago.  When you died."

***

Morning comes.  I stare at the ceiling, still reeling from the fact that so much happened in one day.  I don't really want to go to school, but it's not the same feeling I used to have going to my old school.  I hated my old school with a passion.  This one is interesting--I'm just exhausted.  A knock on the door makes me groan as I hear Jeanie call through the thin wood, "Time to wake up, honey!"

She's still calling me pet names, and it's no longer the first day.  Weird.  I mutter something and force myself to sit up, yawning hugely before getting to my feet.  Maybe school won't be too bad.  I get the feeling if I try and stay home I'll get dragged into something stranger by her or Ken.  I step out of my room, a bit surprised to find Ken standing in the hall.

"Morning, Jack," he says.

"Don't you sleep in?" I ask him blankly, yawning again.

"No, mornings are when I have a business meeting with my Boss," he says.  "But today I have something important to do, and so do you."