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Captain UniIn the five years that Harvey had been on the Lost Haven Police Force, he hadn't seen a night worse than this. The skyline was ablaze. The roads were covered in tipped over cars, burnt out trucks, and random furniture. The sidewalks were littered with glass; it seemed there wasn't a window in Lost Haven that some looter hadn't thrown a brick through. Doors were broken in and graffiti painted every vertical surface in the neighborhood. The entire city had been hit, but Little Ulster had seen the worst of it. The once pristine houses created by that unknown angel were back to their old selves: broken, dirty, and hopeless. Just like the people who lived here. Thunderbolt couldn't help but feel sorry for these people. Some of them, at least, were victims of circumstance. Their neighbors were scum, and in turn those people had to become scum to survive. Harvey winced as he saw a dark shape hanging half way out of a second story window. A body, covered in its own blood. Gunshots went off in the distance. This spurred Sergeant Smith to press on the gas peddle harder, accelerating down the street as the police cruiser ran over the junk in the road, dodging the other cars that were currently inert. The radio chatter was incessant as the other officers tried to communicate to each other and make some sense of the chaos. From what Harvey had heard, all six precincts' holdings cells were filling to capacity with all of the new looters the metas and police were dragging into custody. That had created a major problem. The looting hadn't died down yet, and there were still plenty of gangs running around causing havoc. So, the commissioner made some calls and the higher ups came up with a plan.
The Lost Haven Police Department would be teaming up with county and state police authorities to transfer the criminals currently in custody to various prisons across the state. Harvey was part of a convoy that would be transferring to Main State Prison. The prison only had a capacity of nine hundred, and was already nearly full, so the prison would also be holding a transfer to other, smaller jails across the state to compensate for all the new arrivals. It was complicated stuff, most of the officers on staff didn't fully grasp the sheer scale of the operation in progress. But Harvey did, thanks to his enhanced intellect. The briefing said that this particular convoy held around a hundred and fifty of the recently captured criminals. There would be more convoys later, but this first one was the most important. Why, you might ask? Because the commissioner had decided to shove all the metahumans into the first convoy. She theorized that the first convoy was the least likely to be attacked, since the police would have the element of surprise. But Harvey knew that was total bull. The commissioner was deep in the pockets of the city's organized crime, along with almost the entire force. She definitely had something planned.
That's why Harvey brought backup. Thunderbolt put a finger up to his ear, tapping the device twice. Three taps were sent back. Good. Laura was trailing the convoy in costume, staying out of sight. When it hit the fan, and it most certainly would, she'd pop out and take 'em down. Harvey sighed internally at the thought that he wouldn't be fighting in costume like his sister. Captain Emile Hart had asked for Harvey personally when the commissioner put him and Captain Gerald Nehmann in charge of the transfer. If given the chance, Harvey would have just ducked out an joined her. He might even be able to come up with a decent excuse later. But alas, Laura wouldn't have it. They needed Harvey to keep his job, and to do that he needed to stay in character. Corporal Sal Tupp glanced over at her partner as the squad car turned the corner. "How much further to the staging area?" She asked, breaking the silence. Harvey did a quick mental check, knowing the exact answer in less than a microsecond. But he had to hold out, because answering immediately would be suspicious and awkward. Normal people didn't know the exact latitude and longitude of a random location in the middle of a street, and normal people most certainly wouldn't be able to cite that from memory the moment they were asked. "Not too far. We should be there fairly soon."
The staging area for the convoy was bustling with activity. Harvey and Sal were some of the last of the cops to arrive on the scene, and based on the radio chatter they would be leaving the city soon. "Good." Sal muttered as they listened to the radio. "The sooner this is over, the better." Harvey couldn't help but agree with the woman's sentiments. Harvey quickly tapped his ear, signaling to Boom that they would be moving soon. Sal had been looking at Harvey the whole time, and yet was unaware that he had even moved. Super speed had it's uses. Eventually the prison vans started to move, and Harvey was able to pull up behind another squad car as they started to move out. The convoy would be making it's way towards Robert D. Sherman's Airport and dropping the metahumans off into STRIKE hands before heading for the bridge leading to Brooksdale. Once the metas were out of the police's hands, they would be in the all clear. The mob was unlikely to make a hit on the convoy once the metas were offloaded. With that in mind, Harvey felt his heart crawling up his throat the closer they got to the airport. The airport itself would be heavily guarded, with STRIKE having their own metahumans there alongside potential air support. So if they would attack, it would be any minute now. Radio chatter died down as the drive continued.
"Hey, Harvey. I think I see something." Boom said through the communicator. It must be bad. Laura wasn't suppose to vocally contact her brother unless there was an emergency.
Curious, Thunderbolt tapped on his ear four times. He received his answer from the radio, however. "This is Escort-1 to Convoy, we have a problem. There's an obstruction in the road ahead." Harvey and Sal shared a worried look. That couldn't be good. "Looks like an overturned semi truck. What should we do?" The officer asked. "Hold your position." Captain Nehmann ordered. "We need to find another route." Captain Emile Hart seemed flustered by that answer. "Another route?" He raged. "We're sitting ducks! We should merge on to 83rd. It connects onto Timberwood Street a couple blocks from here, then we can take timber to 10th. We'll be back on track in-" Hart was interrupted by what sounded like an explosion. "Escort-12 is down! I repeat, escort-12 is down!" A panicked cop called over the radio as another explosion occurred. The screams of the dying officer echoed over the radio for a full thirty seconds as his squad car was engulfed in flames. "What the devil is going on back there?" Emile asked. "Escort-10, report!" Sal grabbed the radio as Harvey tried maneuvering the squad car out of the convoy to get out of the shooter's line of sight. "This is Escort-8, we're under attack! Some kinda bazooka!" Sal pulled her pistol, looking out the window in an effort to confirm the attacker's location. "Dismount and take cover! Escorts 6 through 10, converge on the final bus in the convoy! Locate the attacker and eliminate the threat!" Nehmann ordered. Harvey and Sal exited the car and moved behind it, pulling out their guns as they checked the rooftops and windows.
A blur of blue and black light raced up the side of the apartment building, heading towards the source of the attack. "Meta spotted!" Sal yelled into her personal radio. Boom reached the lip of the tenement, tackling a dark shape to the ground. "Friendly?" Emile inquired. "Shoot it!" Nehmann cried, and the police opened fire in the general direction. Boom disappeared after dropping off the unconscious thug at the feet of the police. Harvey couldn't help but smile as he watched his sister in action. "This is Transport-4! The prisoners are attempting to leave their seats. They're getting anxious in here!" Harvey and Sal both climbed back inside their squad car and tried to get back into position. "This is Transport-1! We have a major problem. The metas' power inhibitors have gone red! Code black! Code black!" Uh-oh. The metas power bands had been remotely deactivated. Those guys would be tearing through their guards in less than a minute. Thunderbolt held in his communication earpiece, signaling his sister that the metas were escaping. The flash of light appeared again, racing past Topp and Smith's car and towards the front of the convoy. "Meta's back!" One of the officer's reported. Another explosion went off. A massive, hulking man appeared out from the roof of the prison van holding the metas. He held another figure in his hand. "What the-" The brick chucked the person through the air. Harvey watched up horror as Boom slammed into the windshield of his squad car, cracking the glass.
"Boom!" Harvey exclaimed as he unbuckled and opened his door, climbing out of the car to check on her. "Harvey?!" Sal called in confusion as she followed him out. Harvey examined his sister at the speed of lightning. A small trickle of blood fell from her mouth. From what Harvey could see without getting invasive, his sister had only suffered minor injures. She'd heal in a second or two. Corporal Topp pulled her gun, pointing it at Boom. "D-" Harvey started, but he was too late. Sal had already fired. Boom's eyes flew opened as she caught the projectile mere centimeters from her face. Boom grabbed the gun from the corporal, glaring at the officer. "I'm one of the good guys, you dumb broad!" Boom scowled before handing Sal's gun back. Harvey was about to intervene when a police car went flying towards them. Boom grabbed the two police officer, running them away moments before it landed nearby. "Gotta steal your boyfriend for a second." Boom grabbed her brother, running off before Sal could react.
Harvey scolded his sister when they came to a stop in a nearby back alley. "What was that?!" He protested. "She tried to shoot me!" Laura growled in response. "Y- W- Gah! We'll talk about this later!" Harvey disappeared for a second, before appearing again, now in costume. The siblings raced off, appearing as a pair of blue streaks as they returned to help the convoy. Officers were unloading on the metas, who seemed to be thrashing the under prepared police. It would have been a slaughter without the speedsters to help out. Even then...
"We gotta bolt, before Icon shows up!" Concrete yelled to his fellow prisoners as he peeled open another prison bus like it was made of wet tissue paper. Another nearby meta, a horned man in a red luchidor mask, responded. "El Toro never runs from a fight!" The bull-like man charged forward, slamming two police cars out of the way as he impaled a pair of cops. Bullets bounced off his dark trench coat as El Toro threw the dead bodies aside. "Yeah, well, "El Toro" is an idiot." Another meta, this one made of what appeared to be living lightning, responded. The bright yellow figure blitzed toward a squad of police officers, preparing to slaughter them with a smile on his face. "Hey! Nimrod!" The meta turned as Thunderbolt slammed into him, dragging the lightning man away from the police. "The name's Hi-Voltage. And I'm gonna light you up like a christmas tree, hero-boy!" Thunderbolt and Hi-Voltage raced around the battlefield, yellow and blue trails following behind the speedsters as they clashed. Boom appeared before Concrete and El Toro, slamming a metal pipe into the latter's face and fifty punches to the former's groin. The two bricks reeled, looking at their female attacker with vengeance in their eyes. "Nobody hits El Toro!" The bull man cried as Concrete and El Toro charged at Boom. "If you wanted to feel me up, sexy, all ya had to do was ask." Concrete joked as Boom dodged a backhand from the rock-man. "Ew. You're so not in my league." Boom called as she retreated backwards. The speedster gave it a quick thought before deciding to try and deprive the two metas of their oxygen.
Boom dashed around the two bricks at mach 300, creating a small self-contained tornado. Concrete stumbled to his feet, clutching his throat. El Toro seemed more resistant to the attack as he tried to track the speedster's movement. The Mexican criminal reached out a hand, and Boom slammed into the clothesline. Boom coughed, clutching her throat in pain. El Toro lunged towards her, grabbing at the superhero. Thunderbolt, Hi-Voltage in toe, rammed into El Toro. Harvey grabbed his sister and dragged her away from the two angry bricks and a fair bit away from the fight. Boom pulled herself together, joining her brother in attacking the criminal speedster. He was just as fast as Thunderbolt and Boom, but he seemed to have different powers. Instead of a regular human with abnormal speed, Hi-Voltage appeared to be electricity given a crude humanoid form. "You can't hurt me! I'm made'a livin' lightning!" Hi-Voltage bragged as he electrocuted Thunderbolt with a backhand. "We know." Boom returned, a hard look on her face as he dodged the scumbag's attacks. The two speedsters only had to keep Hi-Voltage occupied for another second...Annddd...There! Thunderbolt and Boom kept running as they approached a large body of water. The moment Hi-Voltage touched the water, he screamed out in pain. The thug collapsed into the pond, and Thunderbolt and Boom both circled back around and fished him out. The two shared a high-five as they returned back to the fight. Boom put Hi-Voltage inside a prison bus, a brand new power inhibitor around the unconscious man's throat.
Thunderbolt, meanwhile, had a brick to deal with. Harvey arrived back at the scene to see the police attacking El Toro, and a group of armed prisoners. Thunderbolt slammed into El Toro's back, running the Luchidor through a brick wall as the speedster and brick ended up inside someone's living room. "Give it up, Toro." Thunderbolt began. "You can't win this one." El Toro would have none of it, though. "Never!" He cried as he charged towards Harvey, horns held out. For a brick, El Toro was pretty fast. But no where near fast enough for Thunderbolt not to dodge the charge. El Toro came to a halt seeing Thunderbolt dodge the attack. The super villain turned back around and brought his hands up, preparing to fight. Thunderbolt returned the gesture as he recalled his extensive experience in the art of kickboxing. "A boxer, then?" El Toro seemed to know Thunderbolt's stance, hinting at having some knowledge of the fighting arts as well. "Close." Harvey dashed forward, unleashing a lightning fast front kick to El Toro's chin.
"Gah!" The bullman yelled as he staggered. A speedster might lack the sheer lifting strength of more well rounded heroes, but guys like Thunderbolt made up for that with superior striking power and sheer speed. El Toro, not to be defeated so easily, took to the offense. He took a step forward and slammed his fist into Thunderbolt's chest. The speedster took the air, the powerful blow sending the blue-and-silver hero flying through the ceiling. "Ow." Thunderbolt stumbled to his feet as El Toro leaped through the floor, crawling up into the room where he had sent Harvey. Thunderbolt charged, unleashing a flurry of crosses and hooks to El Toro's head. The bull brought his arms up to defend against the rapid fire attack, trying to find an opening in the speedster's defenses. El Toro broke out with a nasty uppercut; luckily Thunderbolt managed to dodge before dashing back into the fray. Harvey went around behind his enemy, side kicking the backs of El Toro's knees. The disorientated gangster stumbled, and Thunderbolt was quick to take advantage by applying his own uppercut to Toro's exposed chin. "ENOUGH!" El Toro cried. The brick, frustrated, stomped the ground as hard as he could. The blow created a shockwave that collapsed the entire house around the two battling supers.
Meanwhile, Boom and the police had recaptured the majority of the escaped prisoners. Less than a dozen men had managed to get away out of the one hundred and fifty that had been given the chance to escape. Boom would have caught them all, if not for the metas slowing her progress while those lucky few ditched their prison uniforms and blended into the populace. Laura turned as she heard the crashing coming from a nearby house, looking in time to see the rubble come following to the ground all around her brother and El Toro. "Thunderbolt!" Laura sprinted into the mess of broken building and started to dig. Her frantic searching was cut short by El Toro bursting forth from a pile of bricks and wood paneling. "Here is your partner!" El Toro grabbed Thunderbolt by the throat, hoisting him into the air. "He is fallen by the hands of El Toro!" Boom disappeared from sight, before reappearing a moment later right in front of El Toro. Laura leaped through the air, slamming her knee into El Toro's nose at high speeds. The brick cried out in pain as he was sent flying hundreds of feet away and landed a moving truck.
"Thunderbolt?" Boom held her unconscious brother in her arms, sliding down to her knees. She quickly checked his vitals. He still had a pulse, that was good. Thunderbolt's visor was cracked and his costume was torn, and Harvey had a number of gashes across his body. But nothing too serious. Laura could already see the wounds closing and blood drying. She ran her fingers over his ribs, and Harvey winced. "Broke a few of those." He muttered. Laura sighed, her feelings mixed. At least he was conscious now; but those ribs would be bad for hours. "Any internal bleeding?" Laura asked as Thunderbolt sat up in the dirt and dust. "Not anymore. Healing factor kicked in to overdrive when Toro hit me. How's the throat?" The two were standing now, brushing themselves off as the police rounded up the prisoners once more. "Hurts like all hell. I'm lucky Toro didn't break it."
Everyone turned as the sound of clapping echoed throughout the street. "Bravo. Really, quite well done. I didn't expect you to interfere with my plans." A voice distorted electronically congratulated the heroes on their victory. Boom and Thunderbolt both looked around, using their accelerated perception of reality to look for whoever was addressing them. But there was no one to be found. The siblings looked at each other nervously as the voice continued. "But I'm going to need to take these guys off your hands. So, if you'll all be so kind, die."
A bright light blinded the speedsters. Screams were muffled by the ringing out of gunshots. Harvey and Laura blinked rapidly to fix their vision, but by the time they could see anything it was too late. A figure cloaked in grey had either killed or incapacitated the remaining police officers and was making his way toward the speedsters. "You sick bastard!" Boom yelled as she blitzed the unknown assailant. The man, if you could even call him that, dodged the speedster with his own impossible speed. Boom, too stunned to react, found herself being slashed by the man's sharp claws right across her chest. "Nice, aren't they? I call them my talons. Razor sharp ends to my gloves, they can cut clean through steel. They also have the added bonus of containing neuro-toxins. You should be feeling a sharp dizziness, followed by unconsciousness." The villain gloated as Thunderbolt charged at the guy from behind. "Who are you?!" Harvey asked as the guy jumped over his punch. The cloaked figure tossed a disc until Thunderbolt's back, which drilled into his skin and started to beep. "Me? My name is a secret. But since you heroes need a name to scream when you wake from this nightmare...Call me Gray Owl." The disc exploded, and the world was covered in fire as Thunderbolt's chest blew open.
The two heroes fell to the ground simultaneously. Gray Owl looked down at the fallen siblings, smiling. "I wish I could finish you both off. Really, I do. But those pesky healing factors make that difficult, and I don't have the time. So I'm going to take my new army and leave. Nice meeting you kids."
The Lost Haven Police Department would be teaming up with county and state police authorities to transfer the criminals currently in custody to various prisons across the state. Harvey was part of a convoy that would be transferring to Main State Prison. The prison only had a capacity of nine hundred, and was already nearly full, so the prison would also be holding a transfer to other, smaller jails across the state to compensate for all the new arrivals. It was complicated stuff, most of the officers on staff didn't fully grasp the sheer scale of the operation in progress. But Harvey did, thanks to his enhanced intellect. The briefing said that this particular convoy held around a hundred and fifty of the recently captured criminals. There would be more convoys later, but this first one was the most important. Why, you might ask? Because the commissioner had decided to shove all the metahumans into the first convoy. She theorized that the first convoy was the least likely to be attacked, since the police would have the element of surprise. But Harvey knew that was total bull. The commissioner was deep in the pockets of the city's organized crime, along with almost the entire force. She definitely had something planned.
That's why Harvey brought backup. Thunderbolt put a finger up to his ear, tapping the device twice. Three taps were sent back. Good. Laura was trailing the convoy in costume, staying out of sight. When it hit the fan, and it most certainly would, she'd pop out and take 'em down. Harvey sighed internally at the thought that he wouldn't be fighting in costume like his sister. Captain Emile Hart had asked for Harvey personally when the commissioner put him and Captain Gerald Nehmann in charge of the transfer. If given the chance, Harvey would have just ducked out an joined her. He might even be able to come up with a decent excuse later. But alas, Laura wouldn't have it. They needed Harvey to keep his job, and to do that he needed to stay in character. Corporal Sal Tupp glanced over at her partner as the squad car turned the corner. "How much further to the staging area?" She asked, breaking the silence. Harvey did a quick mental check, knowing the exact answer in less than a microsecond. But he had to hold out, because answering immediately would be suspicious and awkward. Normal people didn't know the exact latitude and longitude of a random location in the middle of a street, and normal people most certainly wouldn't be able to cite that from memory the moment they were asked. "Not too far. We should be there fairly soon."
The staging area for the convoy was bustling with activity. Harvey and Sal were some of the last of the cops to arrive on the scene, and based on the radio chatter they would be leaving the city soon. "Good." Sal muttered as they listened to the radio. "The sooner this is over, the better." Harvey couldn't help but agree with the woman's sentiments. Harvey quickly tapped his ear, signaling to Boom that they would be moving soon. Sal had been looking at Harvey the whole time, and yet was unaware that he had even moved. Super speed had it's uses. Eventually the prison vans started to move, and Harvey was able to pull up behind another squad car as they started to move out. The convoy would be making it's way towards Robert D. Sherman's Airport and dropping the metahumans off into STRIKE hands before heading for the bridge leading to Brooksdale. Once the metas were out of the police's hands, they would be in the all clear. The mob was unlikely to make a hit on the convoy once the metas were offloaded. With that in mind, Harvey felt his heart crawling up his throat the closer they got to the airport. The airport itself would be heavily guarded, with STRIKE having their own metahumans there alongside potential air support. So if they would attack, it would be any minute now. Radio chatter died down as the drive continued.
"Hey, Harvey. I think I see something." Boom said through the communicator. It must be bad. Laura wasn't suppose to vocally contact her brother unless there was an emergency.
Curious, Thunderbolt tapped on his ear four times. He received his answer from the radio, however. "This is Escort-1 to Convoy, we have a problem. There's an obstruction in the road ahead." Harvey and Sal shared a worried look. That couldn't be good. "Looks like an overturned semi truck. What should we do?" The officer asked. "Hold your position." Captain Nehmann ordered. "We need to find another route." Captain Emile Hart seemed flustered by that answer. "Another route?" He raged. "We're sitting ducks! We should merge on to 83rd. It connects onto Timberwood Street a couple blocks from here, then we can take timber to 10th. We'll be back on track in-" Hart was interrupted by what sounded like an explosion. "Escort-12 is down! I repeat, escort-12 is down!" A panicked cop called over the radio as another explosion occurred. The screams of the dying officer echoed over the radio for a full thirty seconds as his squad car was engulfed in flames. "What the devil is going on back there?" Emile asked. "Escort-10, report!" Sal grabbed the radio as Harvey tried maneuvering the squad car out of the convoy to get out of the shooter's line of sight. "This is Escort-8, we're under attack! Some kinda bazooka!" Sal pulled her pistol, looking out the window in an effort to confirm the attacker's location. "Dismount and take cover! Escorts 6 through 10, converge on the final bus in the convoy! Locate the attacker and eliminate the threat!" Nehmann ordered. Harvey and Sal exited the car and moved behind it, pulling out their guns as they checked the rooftops and windows.
A blur of blue and black light raced up the side of the apartment building, heading towards the source of the attack. "Meta spotted!" Sal yelled into her personal radio. Boom reached the lip of the tenement, tackling a dark shape to the ground. "Friendly?" Emile inquired. "Shoot it!" Nehmann cried, and the police opened fire in the general direction. Boom disappeared after dropping off the unconscious thug at the feet of the police. Harvey couldn't help but smile as he watched his sister in action. "This is Transport-4! The prisoners are attempting to leave their seats. They're getting anxious in here!" Harvey and Sal both climbed back inside their squad car and tried to get back into position. "This is Transport-1! We have a major problem. The metas' power inhibitors have gone red! Code black! Code black!" Uh-oh. The metas power bands had been remotely deactivated. Those guys would be tearing through their guards in less than a minute. Thunderbolt held in his communication earpiece, signaling his sister that the metas were escaping. The flash of light appeared again, racing past Topp and Smith's car and towards the front of the convoy. "Meta's back!" One of the officer's reported. Another explosion went off. A massive, hulking man appeared out from the roof of the prison van holding the metas. He held another figure in his hand. "What the-" The brick chucked the person through the air. Harvey watched up horror as Boom slammed into the windshield of his squad car, cracking the glass.
"Boom!" Harvey exclaimed as he unbuckled and opened his door, climbing out of the car to check on her. "Harvey?!" Sal called in confusion as she followed him out. Harvey examined his sister at the speed of lightning. A small trickle of blood fell from her mouth. From what Harvey could see without getting invasive, his sister had only suffered minor injures. She'd heal in a second or two. Corporal Topp pulled her gun, pointing it at Boom. "D-" Harvey started, but he was too late. Sal had already fired. Boom's eyes flew opened as she caught the projectile mere centimeters from her face. Boom grabbed the gun from the corporal, glaring at the officer. "I'm one of the good guys, you dumb broad!" Boom scowled before handing Sal's gun back. Harvey was about to intervene when a police car went flying towards them. Boom grabbed the two police officer, running them away moments before it landed nearby. "Gotta steal your boyfriend for a second." Boom grabbed her brother, running off before Sal could react.
Harvey scolded his sister when they came to a stop in a nearby back alley. "What was that?!" He protested. "She tried to shoot me!" Laura growled in response. "Y- W- Gah! We'll talk about this later!" Harvey disappeared for a second, before appearing again, now in costume. The siblings raced off, appearing as a pair of blue streaks as they returned to help the convoy. Officers were unloading on the metas, who seemed to be thrashing the under prepared police. It would have been a slaughter without the speedsters to help out. Even then...
"We gotta bolt, before Icon shows up!" Concrete yelled to his fellow prisoners as he peeled open another prison bus like it was made of wet tissue paper. Another nearby meta, a horned man in a red luchidor mask, responded. "El Toro never runs from a fight!" The bull-like man charged forward, slamming two police cars out of the way as he impaled a pair of cops. Bullets bounced off his dark trench coat as El Toro threw the dead bodies aside. "Yeah, well, "El Toro" is an idiot." Another meta, this one made of what appeared to be living lightning, responded. The bright yellow figure blitzed toward a squad of police officers, preparing to slaughter them with a smile on his face. "Hey! Nimrod!" The meta turned as Thunderbolt slammed into him, dragging the lightning man away from the police. "The name's Hi-Voltage. And I'm gonna light you up like a christmas tree, hero-boy!" Thunderbolt and Hi-Voltage raced around the battlefield, yellow and blue trails following behind the speedsters as they clashed. Boom appeared before Concrete and El Toro, slamming a metal pipe into the latter's face and fifty punches to the former's groin. The two bricks reeled, looking at their female attacker with vengeance in their eyes. "Nobody hits El Toro!" The bull man cried as Concrete and El Toro charged at Boom. "If you wanted to feel me up, sexy, all ya had to do was ask." Concrete joked as Boom dodged a backhand from the rock-man. "Ew. You're so not in my league." Boom called as she retreated backwards. The speedster gave it a quick thought before deciding to try and deprive the two metas of their oxygen.
Boom dashed around the two bricks at mach 300, creating a small self-contained tornado. Concrete stumbled to his feet, clutching his throat. El Toro seemed more resistant to the attack as he tried to track the speedster's movement. The Mexican criminal reached out a hand, and Boom slammed into the clothesline. Boom coughed, clutching her throat in pain. El Toro lunged towards her, grabbing at the superhero. Thunderbolt, Hi-Voltage in toe, rammed into El Toro. Harvey grabbed his sister and dragged her away from the two angry bricks and a fair bit away from the fight. Boom pulled herself together, joining her brother in attacking the criminal speedster. He was just as fast as Thunderbolt and Boom, but he seemed to have different powers. Instead of a regular human with abnormal speed, Hi-Voltage appeared to be electricity given a crude humanoid form. "You can't hurt me! I'm made'a livin' lightning!" Hi-Voltage bragged as he electrocuted Thunderbolt with a backhand. "We know." Boom returned, a hard look on her face as he dodged the scumbag's attacks. The two speedsters only had to keep Hi-Voltage occupied for another second...Annddd...There! Thunderbolt and Boom kept running as they approached a large body of water. The moment Hi-Voltage touched the water, he screamed out in pain. The thug collapsed into the pond, and Thunderbolt and Boom both circled back around and fished him out. The two shared a high-five as they returned back to the fight. Boom put Hi-Voltage inside a prison bus, a brand new power inhibitor around the unconscious man's throat.
Thunderbolt, meanwhile, had a brick to deal with. Harvey arrived back at the scene to see the police attacking El Toro, and a group of armed prisoners. Thunderbolt slammed into El Toro's back, running the Luchidor through a brick wall as the speedster and brick ended up inside someone's living room. "Give it up, Toro." Thunderbolt began. "You can't win this one." El Toro would have none of it, though. "Never!" He cried as he charged towards Harvey, horns held out. For a brick, El Toro was pretty fast. But no where near fast enough for Thunderbolt not to dodge the charge. El Toro came to a halt seeing Thunderbolt dodge the attack. The super villain turned back around and brought his hands up, preparing to fight. Thunderbolt returned the gesture as he recalled his extensive experience in the art of kickboxing. "A boxer, then?" El Toro seemed to know Thunderbolt's stance, hinting at having some knowledge of the fighting arts as well. "Close." Harvey dashed forward, unleashing a lightning fast front kick to El Toro's chin.
"Gah!" The bullman yelled as he staggered. A speedster might lack the sheer lifting strength of more well rounded heroes, but guys like Thunderbolt made up for that with superior striking power and sheer speed. El Toro, not to be defeated so easily, took to the offense. He took a step forward and slammed his fist into Thunderbolt's chest. The speedster took the air, the powerful blow sending the blue-and-silver hero flying through the ceiling. "Ow." Thunderbolt stumbled to his feet as El Toro leaped through the floor, crawling up into the room where he had sent Harvey. Thunderbolt charged, unleashing a flurry of crosses and hooks to El Toro's head. The bull brought his arms up to defend against the rapid fire attack, trying to find an opening in the speedster's defenses. El Toro broke out with a nasty uppercut; luckily Thunderbolt managed to dodge before dashing back into the fray. Harvey went around behind his enemy, side kicking the backs of El Toro's knees. The disorientated gangster stumbled, and Thunderbolt was quick to take advantage by applying his own uppercut to Toro's exposed chin. "ENOUGH!" El Toro cried. The brick, frustrated, stomped the ground as hard as he could. The blow created a shockwave that collapsed the entire house around the two battling supers.
Meanwhile, Boom and the police had recaptured the majority of the escaped prisoners. Less than a dozen men had managed to get away out of the one hundred and fifty that had been given the chance to escape. Boom would have caught them all, if not for the metas slowing her progress while those lucky few ditched their prison uniforms and blended into the populace. Laura turned as she heard the crashing coming from a nearby house, looking in time to see the rubble come following to the ground all around her brother and El Toro. "Thunderbolt!" Laura sprinted into the mess of broken building and started to dig. Her frantic searching was cut short by El Toro bursting forth from a pile of bricks and wood paneling. "Here is your partner!" El Toro grabbed Thunderbolt by the throat, hoisting him into the air. "He is fallen by the hands of El Toro!" Boom disappeared from sight, before reappearing a moment later right in front of El Toro. Laura leaped through the air, slamming her knee into El Toro's nose at high speeds. The brick cried out in pain as he was sent flying hundreds of feet away and landed a moving truck.
"Thunderbolt?" Boom held her unconscious brother in her arms, sliding down to her knees. She quickly checked his vitals. He still had a pulse, that was good. Thunderbolt's visor was cracked and his costume was torn, and Harvey had a number of gashes across his body. But nothing too serious. Laura could already see the wounds closing and blood drying. She ran her fingers over his ribs, and Harvey winced. "Broke a few of those." He muttered. Laura sighed, her feelings mixed. At least he was conscious now; but those ribs would be bad for hours. "Any internal bleeding?" Laura asked as Thunderbolt sat up in the dirt and dust. "Not anymore. Healing factor kicked in to overdrive when Toro hit me. How's the throat?" The two were standing now, brushing themselves off as the police rounded up the prisoners once more. "Hurts like all hell. I'm lucky Toro didn't break it."
Everyone turned as the sound of clapping echoed throughout the street. "Bravo. Really, quite well done. I didn't expect you to interfere with my plans." A voice distorted electronically congratulated the heroes on their victory. Boom and Thunderbolt both looked around, using their accelerated perception of reality to look for whoever was addressing them. But there was no one to be found. The siblings looked at each other nervously as the voice continued. "But I'm going to need to take these guys off your hands. So, if you'll all be so kind, die."
A bright light blinded the speedsters. Screams were muffled by the ringing out of gunshots. Harvey and Laura blinked rapidly to fix their vision, but by the time they could see anything it was too late. A figure cloaked in grey had either killed or incapacitated the remaining police officers and was making his way toward the speedsters. "You sick bastard!" Boom yelled as she blitzed the unknown assailant. The man, if you could even call him that, dodged the speedster with his own impossible speed. Boom, too stunned to react, found herself being slashed by the man's sharp claws right across her chest. "Nice, aren't they? I call them my talons. Razor sharp ends to my gloves, they can cut clean through steel. They also have the added bonus of containing neuro-toxins. You should be feeling a sharp dizziness, followed by unconsciousness." The villain gloated as Thunderbolt charged at the guy from behind. "Who are you?!" Harvey asked as the guy jumped over his punch. The cloaked figure tossed a disc until Thunderbolt's back, which drilled into his skin and started to beep. "Me? My name is a secret. But since you heroes need a name to scream when you wake from this nightmare...Call me Gray Owl." The disc exploded, and the world was covered in fire as Thunderbolt's chest blew open.
The two heroes fell to the ground simultaneously. Gray Owl looked down at the fallen siblings, smiling. "I wish I could finish you both off. Really, I do. But those pesky healing factors make that difficult, and I don't have the time. So I'm going to take my new army and leave. Nice meeting you kids."
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