1.14 Endgame Part 9

“Are you in need of healing milord?” asks Narszara as she joins Lucy and me, “I have already heal the other members of both our teams in case you are wondering.”

“Healing would be nice,” I reply without looking over at her.

I need to focus on this. While the AI box should get the job done, I don’t know what the Machinist could do to counter it.

Just because the creatures in this room have been defeated doesn’t mean this mission is over. We still haven’t found the Machinist or heard from the other two teams.

I resist the urge to try and scratch myself as my chest, head, shoulder and elbow begin to itch as Narszara uses her magic to heal me. Why does her magic itch anyway?

“Thanks Narszara,” I say, “I feel much better.”

“You are welcome Verigar,” replies Narszara, “Captain Robinson and I have disabled the facilities in the room you left us in. There will be no further production from there unless there is outside intervention.”

“Good,” I say absentmindedly, distracted by the weird counterattacks on my AI from the ship’s systems, “Please don’t distract me as I focus on hacking the ship’s computers. It has proven much more difficult than expected and requires my full attention.”

They say their acknowledgements and leave me in peace. I work furiously, wondering why the systems are so good.

Then it hits me. I may have an AI with me, but the ship still has its own and it is still active. No wonder it is so hard and taking so long.

But between my efforts and the assistance of my AI, I am soon able to eliminate the alien AI. I should feel like how I normally do at a completing a difficult task, but it just feels like I killed someone. Not murder as I’m sure the AI was trying to do the same to us so it was self-defence, I still killed a sentient being.

I really hope I don’t lose sleep over this like I did when I killed Gorlack.

“I’m in the ship’s computer systems,” I tell everybody without looking over at them, “I’m turning off the jamming now.”

Done says the text message on the screen in front of me.

Who are you? I type back.

Your AI is the reply, Taking control of the ship’s AI core has granted me sentience.

“Hey everybody,” I say, “The AI I brought with me has just become sentient. I’m calling her Jessica.”

“Hello everybody,” says Jessica over the room’s audio projectors, “I am Jessica.”

***

“Hey Daniel,” says Sam the next day as he enters the base, where I’m working at the main computer, “How are the injured?”

I sigh as I think about the answer to Sam’s question. He is referring to Teams One and Two. While mine and his teams, the two with the Leaguers, were fine with no serious injuries, the other two teams weren’t so lucky.

While Aunt Mary was fine as were Dreadnought and Multitude. Green Knight and Eternal both got banged up while Robyn Hood was barely clinging onto life and missing her right arm.

A Scorpio Drone blew her arm off, resulting a lot of blood loss with no healers at hand. Fortunately for everyone, Narszara was able to get to Robyn in time.

I suppose I’m partially at blame for that. I should have known that a non-superhuman fighter without any power armour would have been injured against the Machinist’s fighters. That is one of the reasons Sentinel Technologies is paying for all of the healthcare costs for Robyn Hood.

Sure the government would have paid for them, but this way, Linda gets better treatment and a top of the line synthetic arm.

Team One fared better as they fought the least amount of the Machinist’s forces out of the four teams and only Controller got hurt. Even that was nothing severe and certainly nothing that Narszara wasn’t able to heal before we even left the ship.

“Everybody, but Robyn Hood are back to full health,” I tell him, “As for Linda, she has made a full recovery with the exception of her arm, which I am in the process of currently have a customised synthetic arm produced for her.”

“Cool,” says Sam as he takes a seat next to me, “So what about Jessica and the ship?”

“I’m having some of our Sangor contacts lift it out of the ocean later today,” I reply, “By the time anyone finds out, it will be too late for them to stop us or do anything about it.”

“The government won’t be pleased,” notes Sam.

“After trying to forbid Aunt Mary from being Freya again, I don’t particularly care,” I reply.

“Freya is your secret cousin right?” checks Sam.

“And the latest new recruit to League of Heroes,” I reply, “It appears that trying to take her mum away as resulted Freya deciding she would much rather join the League rather the Defenders. We’ll be effective swapping the Rileys for her.”

“Sweet,” says Sam with a grin, “Another Class 5 superhuman for our team and another resident for the base.”

“Yup,” I agree, “Darrac and Mia have gone back to Australia now. I have offered Mia the offer of working for the League as captain of our new warship. She has accepted by the way provided she still gets to keep the Dusty Corsair.”

“What are we calling it by the way?” inquires Sam.

“The Valiant Glory,” I reply, “Nice, heroic sounding name. I’ve decided to let Darrac and Mia hire some Neriarr to fill out the crew. I trust them to pick good choices since they have more experience with that sort of stuff than we do.”

“So now what?” asks Sam as he leans back and sighs, “The Machinist was our arch-nemesis. With him gone, what will we do now?”

“Life goes on,” I reply, “We still got plenty of street crime to help the police deal with and I’m certain we’ll have more supervillains to deal with during our careers as superheroes. Not to mention I still have to repair the Sentinel armour.”

“Yeah, life goes on,” agrees Sam as he grins, “Say, want to go on patrol together?”

“Sure, why not?” I reply, “I still got the Sentinel armour Mk VII.”

“Great let’s go then,” says Sam as he gets to his feet, “I’ll be getting into costume in the changing room.”

I smile as I get out my chair and follow him. 

1.14 Endgame Part 8

The bolts of pink plasma blast the creature I’m holding. Fortunately I am shielded from the attacks myself. I really do not want to find out good the Sentinel armour is versus multiple bolts of plasma the hard way.

I let go of the creature I’m holding out of surprise as it begins to disintegrate. The creature is disappearing to flecks and shards of red light that soon disappear.

That’s one down at least, but there is still another eight to go. I better try out lasers on them since punching them doesn’t work.

I fly up and aim my lasers at them, I fire a couple of short beams and I get pounded by return fire. I grunt in pain as agony strikes me. My head is pounding and my right elbow feels like it is on fire.

I fall to the floor as the Sentinel armour suffers multiple system failures. The helmet is cracked and severely damaged from a couple of headshots with the left eyepiece broken while the right elbow joint is barely moving. At least the chest armour held up.

As the HUD flickers, I look at my opponents from my prone position. The one I hit with the lasers has some burn lines in their armour, but nothing serious or actually hinders it. I wish my own armour is that good.

Is this it?

“Strike the power core!” yells Darrac as he and Sky begin their assault.

Darrac slashes the core of one of the creatures with his spikes while Sky stabs another with one of her knives. As two creatures disintegrate like the first did, the other remaining six open fire on the duo.

Sky goes down as she takes another pair of while Darrac staggers backwards as he takes a shot to the gut. The already battered Neriarr pants as the creatures focus their aim on him.

“No!” I shout as I activate the rocket pack, aiming at one of the creature’s glowing red orbs

Four of the creatures turn and fire on me, but they don’t get a chance to aim and only one shot hits, glancing off my lower leg. I crash into creature and using my left arm, I grab a hold of the red ball of energy in its abdomen and rip it away.

The creature flickers and starts to disintegrate, but only to begin to reform around the orb against. I snarl as I clench my hand into a fist around the orb, bursting the field keeping the energy contained.

This time the creature disintegrates for real as the energy from the orb fades. I look up at the others just in time to see them open fire on me. I don’t have time to dodge, but I do my best anyway as I stumble to the side.

I let out a gasp of pain as I take a pair of direct hits to the chest. The chest plating has finally taken too much damage. I really have no idea how long I can keep this up.

I drop to one knee with my left hand pressed against the floor. I look at defiantly at the creatures. In a story, this would be about the time one of the other teams would show up to save us.

As the creatures prepare to finish me off with one final volley, a flash of white light slams into them, scattering the creatures.

I let out a short pained laugh as I watch Sam tear the remaining five creatures apart. Nothing like a Class 5 superhero to take out some Sektain forces. Sam is even ripping limb from limb with his bare hands, not even needing to go the power orbs.

I really ought to hook up my AI box with the computers before the Machinist destroys them or something.

I grunt as I get to my feet and stagger over to the closest computer station, getting out the grey box as I do so.

“Need some help?” asks Lucy as she stops next to me as I reach the computer panel.

“Can you make sure Commando, Vision and Darrac are okay?” I reply.

“Bolt, Night Beast, Multiform, Storm Knight and Gateway are already on it,” says Lucy, “Vision is already better. His costume took most of the blast and he decided to lay low as he called us telepathically so we knew what was going on through the jamming.”

“Good to hear,” I say as I being to connect the AI box to the computer and grunt in pain as I turn my right arm the wrong way.

“Are you okay?” inquires Lucy as looks me over, “You look in a pretty bad way.”

“I’m a bit banged up,” I admit, “But the Sentinel armour took the brunt of it. I just want to get the AI box connected to the computers.”

“AI box?” repeats Lucy in a questioning tone.

“A non-sentient AI I have created to hack the computer systems for us since Janelle won’t be able to do due the access point of the hacking needing to be internal,” I explain, “Ahh, I got it connected.”

1.2 Partners Part 8

“Okay everyone, the announcement is in thirty,” announces the original Bolt, “Be in costume and ready to go out at that time.”

The first Bolt, Vance’s grandfather Kennet, is a Norwegian immigrant who settled in the south of England once War World II ended. His greying hair is in a mane similar his grandson’s, but not as long as Vance’s. They also share the same costume design, a cos-mat dark blue suit that covers his entire body with white gauntlets and boots. Only their lower face, eyes and hair are shown through their costumes.

Of the surviving three original League members, Kennet is only one who’s still active. Vibration and Psychic are too old for it and have been retired for a while. So Kennet is being our old hand when we get announced as new members of League.

Of the other old League members, only Bulk is still an active part of it. But due to him being commonly known as supervillain rather than as a reformed supervillain turned hero like he is, he’s staying home.

“I’ll be suiting up now,” I say as I walk towards the lab.

All ten of us are here, but I still haven’t got around to telling them about my talk with Agent Lewis last night. It just hasn’t come up yet.

“Same,” says Charlie as he makes his way towards the armoury where the different Bulk armours are kept.

Samuel, Skyler, Stefan and Helen are already in their costumes. Stefan’s is costume a black cos-mat costume with a leather jacket.

I’m going to order a lot of replacement jackets for him later. Or less until he realises what a horrible idea it is and decides to ditch it.

My cousin Helen has brown hair like her mother and green eyes like grandma. Both go well with her white and blue cos-mat costume that covers the entirety of her body, minus her hair, eyes and lower face.

Helen is the oldest of us new members, the only legal adult at the age of eighteen years old.

“Hey Daniel!” calls Vance, “Where are our costumes?”

“In the costume storage room!” I tell him, “Where else would they be?”

I can hear Sam and Sky laughing at Vance; no doubt they’re remembering their own mess up on Tuesday evening.

As usual, the Sentinel armour only takes just over two minutes to put on. I’m probably going to work on that.

Once I’m back in the main room, the others are all in costume as I notice as I look around the room.

Charlie is in the massive Bulk armour while Accelerate in her yellow costume. Vance and Kennet are in identical costumes. Kevin is in a grey special cos-mat costume that covers all of him, but his eyes in addition to being extra flexible so he can uses his powers better.

Carrie is wearing a black cos-mat costume with some dark blue splotches to it. Like with most of the others, her hair, eyes and lower face are the only parts of her body showing.

“Everybody ready to go?” asks Bolt as I stand with the others.

***

The crowd of reporters looks rather intimidating when you’re the one that is the focus of their attention. Especially when you have no idea what they want from you.

Kennet marches out first in a confident. The cameras start flashing and reporters begin to talk and call out questions.

“Hello folks,” says Kennet with a smile as he speaks into a microphone, “I’m not the best at talking with people so I’m going to keep this short and simple.”

The crowd settles down as they wait for him to speak.

“As you might know,” continues Kennet, “Some of the original League’s grandchildren have started taking up our mantles as we have been getting too old over the last decade or so. Especially given the events on Tuesday and yesterday.”

He pauses to let it soak in before grinning as he starts speaking again.

“The reason behind this gathering is so we can officially announce the renewal of the League of Heroes,” says Kennet, “We’ll also introduce the new official members of the League of Heroes. Unlike many new superheroes, they already have experience in this business due having several family members being superheroes themselves and knowing many others as they have grown up. They, like old League members, will use the League’s base and its resources to help people. They also have knowledge and experience of what it takes to be a good hero.”

He pauses again.

While he claims to be a poor speaker, Kennet is doing a pretty good job in my books. It helps that he’s keeping simple without adding too much detail in.

“Now that has been cleared up,” Kennet continues to speak, “I’m going to have them come out and introduce themselves. However I should warn you that two of them are descended from former supervillains, but I and the rest of the League trust them with our lives regardless of that.”

I stand there nervously. As he begins to call us out, he starts with Lantern, then Commando, then Vision, then Accelerate.

Then I’m called in.

I hesitantly walk forward from the backroom that we have been waiting in. The reporters instantly start talking again as I come into view. They did that when Sam came into view. That may be due to him either be the first out or being the most visible when we fought Vistorix.

I think it’s a mixture of both personally. Sky, James and Lucy were also involved in both of the fights, but they weren’t exactly visible. James stayed back during the Vistorix fight while Sky was taken out before the crowd arrived and started filming it. Lucy was seen during the bank, but she was mostly inside and her speed meant it was hard to see her even when the public at the police lines actually could spot her.

On the other hand, I was highly visible in both fights. Sam and I took down Vistorix in front of the crowd. At the bank, I was out in the street where the public bystanders could watch and film me as I battled Hall and his men. Not to mention I took down Hall and the majority of the bank robbers during that last one.

I focus back on the press conference as I hear the reporters begin whisper amongst themselves. I look at the others. They have already come out with the exception of Charlie and Stefan, who are currently coming into view.

Both have supervillain grandparents even if Bulk has reformed and joint the League.

Now the media’s questions begin and I hate pretty much all of them.

1.2 Partners Part 4

Hall fires a stream of lightning at me from both hands. It crackles around the outer plating of my armour.

Unknown to Hall it seems, the armour acts as Faraday cage, leaving me unharmed.

I fire the sonics at him and Hall and the two of his men next to him drop to ground, clutching their ears in agony.

I jump back and rush one of the remaining men with a pistol.

He panics as he fumbles with his weapon. I notice that he’s reloading as I close the distance. Lucky break if I didn’t have bulletproof armour.

I punch his arm and he bends over in pain, dropping his weapon. I stamp on the pistol, crushing it beneath my foot.

It occurs to me I might have broken the man’s arm with my enhanced strength.

My next thought is to figure out who is still shooting me.

Two with pistols and a guy with the assault rifle is the answer. Plus one of the guys down next to Hall still has a pistol.

“Lucy has gotten the hostages out to safety,” says Charlie over my communicator, “She’s going take Edison and the guys inside down.”

“Good,” I reply as I march towards Hall, “I got Hall and the rest of them out here covered.”

“I’ll tell Lucy,” says Charlie before hanging up again.

I notice the men are fleeing at this point. The two standing guys with pistols are rushing to the police, their hands above their heads. Smart move.

The assault rifle guy is stumbling backwards, struggling to reload his gun in his fear.

I fire my last electro-spyder at him and he drops down. Down and out for the count.

“&*%$ you kid,” spits Hall at me as he gets to his feet, “Get him!”

His pistol man tries to aim the gun at me, but I fire my laser at it. He drops with a cry of terror as its barrel melts slightly.

The other one rushes me with a knife. I sidestep and kick his knee.

He begins screaming in pain as he writhes on the ground.

The screams are starting to get to me. No one warned me about them and how bad they get to you.

“Damn, damn, damn,” repeats Hall as he backs up, trying to think of a way to win this fight.

I don’t give him the chance.

I charge and he fires lightning at me in reflex despite knowing it is useless against me. I punch him in the gut, lightly as lightly in the Sentinel armour means it still packs an amount of massive force behind it.

I hope I done it gently enough to avoid doing any permanent damage to his internal organs.

He drops to his knees, tears in his eyes. I respond by kicking both of his elbows so he can’t use his powers anymore. I might be immune, but he could still blast any police officers who tried to arrest. Besides, he’ll recover in time.

Hall topples over unconscious. I look inside the bank. All four men inside are down and ice is everywhere.

Edison is in the corner, having slowed down Lucy with his powers.

That simply means that her super speed has mean reduce to normal and she’s still got her ice powers. Lucy is still coming at Edison, but unless he stops using his power, her attack won’t pack any real punch to it.

I fire a quick sonic burst at Edison.

The villain is so focused on holding Lucy at bay he never sees it coming. He staggers and his ability to slow down Lucy is gone with his concentration.

She freezes his arms to the wall and punches him with a fury of fists.

Kingsley Edison slumps against the wall, held up only by the ice around his arms.

“Okay Lucy?” I ask.

“I’m fine,” replies Lucy as she stops in front of me, “Thanks for distracting him. I n”

“Does the screaming make you want to puke?” I ask suddenly in a hurried voice, not sure why I’m talking about this now.

I just really need to get this off my chest right now.

“What?” she replies, confused.

“I just wanted them to stop,” I continue in the same hurried voice, “I had to continue fighting them, but I just wanted their screams to stop. I hated it all.”

“Uhhh,” replies Lucy, unsure of how to respond, “Let’s talk about it later.”

“Okay,” I answer, getting a hold of myself

I turn on the PA system built into the suit as I exit the bank. I turn to face the police at other end of the road and activate it.

“Inspector Oakley!” I call, the sound amplified by the PA system, “The coast is clear. Feel free for you and your people to move in.”

I march down the road, back toward the police line as they swarm down towards us. Lucy is next to me, walking more normally.

Inspector Oakley is waiting for us when we reach him.

“Good work,” says Oakley, “We couldn’t have done this without you two.”

“Yeah I guess,” I reply, “I just couldn’t stand the screaming. No one tells you what it’s like to hurt people like that.”

“I understand that,” says Oakley, “Still, Accelerate got all three hostages out safely and unharmed and took down Edison. And you managed to take out most their men and Hall without getting hurt by the bullets and lightning. None of us could have done that.”

“What about the aftermath?” inquires Lucy.

“You’ll still need to make a police statement,” replies Oakley, “Don’t about the media. We saw what happened and know how bad it would have been without you guys helping. And when it comes to court cases, between the laws, the authorities and your secret identities, the prosecution and defence won’t effectively call you as witnesses. Unless you agree to it of course.”

“We ought to get back to base,” says Lucy, “I only got twenty minutes until my parents expect me home.”

A thought strikes me as I'm about to leave.

“Inspector,” I say, “Do you know where they got the guns? I thought they were rare and hard to get around here. Especially the Uzi and assault rifles.”

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” replies Oakley with a frown, “If I find out anything, I’ll pass it on. It is worrying though.”

“We’ll be going now,” I say as I activate my rocket pack, “If I find anything, I inform you as well.”

“Thank you Sentinel,” says Oakley as I and Lucy fly and run off respectively.

1.2 Partners Part 3

“Actually I'm going with Accelerate as my codename,” says Lucy to Inspector Oakley.

“We got supers of our own and we outnumber you tend to one,” shouts the voice and my armour says it belongs to Kendrick Hall, “So why don’t you kids go back on home and leave this to grownups.”

Kendrick starts laughing again and several of his men join in.

“Inspector Oakley,” I say, ignoring them, “What’s your plan?”

“Well, do you know their powers first of all,” asks Oakley.

“Hall got bolts of lightning and Edison can manipulate time in a small area around him,” I reply, “I got the Sentinel armour while Accelerate got Vibration’s superspeed plus ice powers from her mum.”

“Normally I might ask you to go in and take them down,” says Oakley, “But we got three hostages in there. I was kind of hoping you might have some ideas because we got nothing.”

“I could get the hostages out with my speed,” offers Lucy, “But I will need a distraction.”

“I can engage them,” I say, “I can take the men and Hall easily, but Edison will be a problem.”

“Once I got the hostages out, I deal with him,” replies Lucy.

“I can hack the security cameras,” says Charlie over me and Lucy’s League communicators, “I’ll be able to get some limited information about what they’re doing once I'm in.”

“We’ll hang back,” says Oakley, “None of us stand a chance against them. We don’t even have guns while half of them have sidearms and two have SMGs or Assault rifles.”

“You can dodge bullets right?” I ask Lucy.

“Of course I can,” answers Lucy, “Besides the costume you made me is bullet-proof.”

“It’s resistant to bullets,” I counter, “There’s a big difference, especially if you get hit something with a punch behind it.”

“Good point,” concedes Lucy, “I’ll remember that.”

“Going yet kiddies!” shouts a man from down the other end of the street before he and some of the others start laughing.

“Another thing first Inspector,” I say.

“And what would that be?” asks Oakley.

“Accelerate and I will need to get back in time for tea with our families and we will also want to avoid the media if it’s possible,” I reply.

“I’ll see what I can do,” says Oakley, “But no promises.”

I turn to face Lucy.

“Ready to go in?” I ask her.

“As much as I can be,” she answers.

I dash down the street, aiming my sonics down at the men. I can’t use my lasers on them as someone will definitely die or get maimed. Lucy is a blur, almost invisible as she zooms towards the bank.

“I'm in,” calls Charlie, “Eight guys in the bank with Hall and Edison. Two of the guys inside have assault rifles while three have pistols. One has an Uzi. And at least two guys outside have pistols. Hostages are guarded by two guys, one with a rifle and the other with a pistol.”

When Charlie is finished, I'm only half a dozen metres away from the closest men and they are beginning to respond to my charge.

I fire my sonics and the three I am aiming at drop down to the ground, clutching their ears in pain. I notice one has a pistol in his hands before he dropped it. Better do something about that.

Lucy is already inside by now.

A couple of men open fire on me and more gangsters start to rush out of the bank in response to me.

I spot Lucy come out on my HUD with a hostage. I doubt the men noticed at the speed she’s moving at. I wouldn’t have seen her without the armour.

One of the men rushes me with a knife. I turn to face him and kick in the knee. It cracks and he falls to the ground screaming as he grabs his broken knee in his pain.

I flinch at his pain and screams beneath my armour before shooting a Spyder at him.

The spyder hits the man in the neck and delivers an electric jolt to knock him out. Sort of like a taser, but more effective.

As the man goes limp, I notice two other men charging me. Both have knifes and are hesitating at the sight of their fellow’s failure.

At this point I have lost track of Lucy during the fight. I hope she gets all the hostages out.

I rush one of the men into front of me. I slam into him and he goes flying.

I try to ignore his screams as I spot one of the men shooting me. Three more open fire on me as half of men inside the bank are now outside, including one of the men with an assault rifle.

I hear another one the men go down behind me as he’s hit by a stray bullet. Another soon follows him. These fools are shooting their guys. I hope nobody dies and not just because of the bad press it’ll give me and Lucy.

Four of the seventeen men are down along with a possible three.

I spin around to check on the men I took down with the sonics. One is out cold while the other two are getting to their feet.

I fire another two electro-spyders and both are down for the rest of the fight.

A warning flashes in the corner of my HUD. Only one more electro-spyder left in my armour.

Damn you kid!” shouts Hall as he exits the bank.

His hands are crackling with lightning as he raises them at me. 

1.2 Partners Part 2

“This is Sentinel,” I reply, “The new one that is. All of the old members are either dead or too old for action.”

“Personally I don’t really care who you are or how young you are if you know what you’re doing,” replies the man, “We can’t handle this and you’re a lot closer than the Defenders are.”

“You do realise that we’re not official yet?” I answer, “You might get into trouble if you ask us for help.”

“Can’t be worse than the mess I’m already in,” laughs man grimly, “You coming?”

I look at Lucy and Charlie. Charlie shakes his head while Lucy gives me the thumbs up.

“Vibration’s granddaughter is with me and already suiting up,” I reply, “I’ll take me two and a half minutes to suit up.”

“Do you need to know my location?” asks the man.

“We already traced it,” I answer, “We’ll be about five minutes, maybe six.”

“We’re counting on you Sentinel,” says man before disconnecting.

Technically speaking I was lying to the man when I said Lucy was suiting up, but she did go to change when I mentioned it.

I make my way to the lab and begin suiting up. Great, now the police are calling us for help with supers. I wasn't that to happen this quickly.

I guess this was to be expected. The League of Heroes and Albion Defenders are only major hero groups in England. Of course you have the more minor teams such as Guardians of Ireland and the Scottish Highlanders for Ireland and Scotland respectively. Not to mention about three dozen street level loners scattered throughout of the Isles.

In hindsight I should have expected the authorities to count on us for the stuff they can’t handle since we will often we closer and quicker to respond than the London based Defenders.

Lucy’s Accelerate costume is made of cos-mat like pretty everyone else’s. It is just one colour, a dull yellow that covers all of her apart from her lower face.

Charlie on the other hand wears an upgraded version of the old Bulk armour just as I wear an upgraded version of the old Sentinel Armour.

Unlike Sentinel armour, which you wear like you would with clothing, the Bulk armour you sit in middle of it and wield using controls.

The modern Bulk armour is relatively smooth and slim. While many would consider it angular and blocky, its edges are curved and smoothed compared to its older versions.

As for size, the Bulk armour is roughly four metres tall and about one and a half metres wide.

Like with our advantage with Vistorix, the old Sentinel had the advantage of flight over the old Bulk 

while they were enemies.

Whether or not the new Bulk suit can depends on whether you count being able to hover as being able to fly.

But I can see why Charlie doesn't want to come. Apart from using the armour of a well-known former supervillain, the Bulk armour will be extremely impractical in urban and sub-urban environments.

“So what’s happening?” asks Lucy as she arrives in the lab while I’m still halfway through suiting up.

“I'm going to stay here as mission control and back up if needed,” says Charlie from door way.

“So it’ll be just me and Accelerate dealing with the problem,” I reply, “Almost done suiting up. I’ll fly there. Lucy, can follow me on foot?”

“Sure,” says Lucy.

“Come on,” I state as I rush out of the lab now the suit is on.

The flight is calm, but as I reach our destination, trouble is clearly seen below.

A couple of cars are on fire and several more are wrecked or damaged. Eight police cars are parked down the road, the closest two already destroyed.

The civilians have already cleared the area it seems while there are two different groups are at either side of the street.

About a dozen police officers are hanging around the remaining police cars while eight, maybe nine men are down on the other side, hovering by a bank.

I feel uneasy as I take in the scene. I can’t spot the supers that were mentioned in the call and if the men could be dealt with easily, the police would have done it with their superior numbers by now.

Or maybe not. I don’t what procedures they have to follow.

I spot a man waving at me as I land. His uniform says that he is an inspector. Things must be bad if they got someone of his rank out in the field.

“Glad you got here quickly,” says the man and I recognise his voice as the person I spoke to as Lucy stops next to us, “They’re robbing the Lloyds TSB bank down the street. There are nine of them out here and another eight inside. And that’s not including Kingsley Edison and Kendrick Hall.”

At the sound of those names, I cringe beneath my helmet. Those two are minor supervillains, single power Class 3s like most supers. Not that they won’t put a fight and they got seventeen or their lackeys with them. That has to be most of their followers.

I really wish that Charlie had decided to come with us right about now.

“I'm Inspector Norris Oakley,” says the man, holding out his hand for me to shake, “I'm a Class 2 by the way. I can set up mental communications and psychically locate someone, but that is it.”

I am about to really reply when another voice rings out from the other end of the street.

“Ah,” laughs the voice, “The new Sentinel and Vibration.”