A New Face (Open)

Russett roamed the streets with nostalgia. It’d been a long time. Towering buildings had been erected in her childhood city. Streets ran rampant with the bustling citizens that were too wrapped up in their lives to the lone rosy caramel haired girl. She didn’t mind much. Even amoung superhero’s Russett had always been a bit lackluster in her abilities. In the famous words of Gunny though, “Just do whatever good you can in whatever good way there is to do it kid.”

Truthfully, Russett had become content with being James Bond instead of Superman.

‘Everything depends on how I use my powers, not how magnificent they were.’ She reminded herself.

For the first time in a long time, Russett felt just a little bit needed, even if the city didn’t know it yet.

The familiar garage where she first began tinkering with mechanics when the chop shop had been abandoned came into view. Smiling like a giddy fool, Russett sprinted into the shop and clambered up the familiar shelves to her hiding place. She ran her hand gently across the cool wall, searching for the telltale slit that gave away her stash. Sure enough, her fingers hit the groove. Giving a small inward cheer, Russett opened up the safe with a nail file, and surveyed her familiar lifeline; a tool box full of lost or stolen equipment. Never had she ever taken this bag out of the shop and today was no different. Instead she fished around for a small circular device that had been her first functioning invention.

Another cheesy grin hit her face when Russett found the device. It was good to be home.

The device activated with the simple press of a button. A blue line of light raced along the ceiling of the room and the hum of working machinery rose into life. The once dead and abandoned chop shop now fizzled with life and energy. The blue line at the top of the ceiling functioned to syphon energy that was wasted in the city power grid. The other function was to detect intruders. Russett had a little secret that kept her hidden away from any heat sensors. All the better to keep her castle.

Retrieving her goggles and short boots from the crafting table, Russett threw them on and quickly locked up the place. With one last glance to her old home, Russett readjusted the bag on her shoulder and set out into the city.

From today on forth, everything was going to change.

((Sorry for terrible post))

Alex sighed as he walked along the crowded streets. His mind was heavy with thoughts, wondering what he had become. He slipped his hands into his pocket as he slowly strolled along towards his destination. His eyes saw happy faces and electronic screens. News Casters telling people that the next savior of the day was going to protect them from the monster of tomorrow.

If only they knew the monster of tomorrow was walking right next to them. Sighing he began to hold up his phone in order to look at his GPS. He wasn't sure where exactly he was. Alex grimaced. This meant it was going to be a lot harder for him to even come close to his destination: His apartment. Lifting his phone into the air to get a better signal, he sighed. There was so much weird interference, it was weird.

"Damn, seems I need to change my phone service... More money down the drain" Alex cursed

Little did he know that his phone service wasn't the problem. Machines weren't temperamental like humans. There was always a logical reason for such a thing. This was one of those things. Suddenly televisions began to explode and sparks began to fly from the phone lines. One of the sparks surprised Alex and he fell on his butt.

Alex's eyes watched in horror as the scrap metal from the television and the electricity formed into a being. This amalgamation of metal and electricity began to grow larger and larger as it began to join and attract every mechanical object in the area. Next to this ever form changing creature was a man in a lab coat. His face was plastered with a sly grin. Raising his arms into the air he called out. "BEHOLD MY CREATION!!! A LIVING BEING OF TECHNOLOGY, THE NEXT STAGE IN THE EVOLUTION FOR TECHNOLOGY.... E-BOT!!!"

Alex could only watch in fear as the creature continued to form. It let out a large roar which caused everyone save Alex and a few others to run in fear. If it wasn't for the fact that Alex was so shocked that he would have wet himself in fear. The creature lifted his Newly formed tail and smashed it into one of the buildings. The creature at the moment seemed to look like a T-Rex.... an T-Rex made of electricity.

A strange pull suddenly yanked Russett’s right arm backwards voraciously. Her feet skidded against the pavement as she grasped the arm that was pulling her backwards. A static, loud and disorientating, screeched inside her mind, the nervous system receptors connecting her brain to the arm going haywire. Cursing, Russett latched onto a nearby light pole. A chilling groan of metal roared behind her, screeching and moaning. The passerby’s on the sidewalk began to shriek in terror and scattered blindly to wherever their horror enveloped minds directed.

Booming across the hectic town square, a gravelly voice rang out through the clearing, "BEHOLD MY CREATION!!! A LIVING BEING OF TECHNOLOGY, THE NEXT STAGE IN THE EVOLUTION FOR TECHNOLOGY.... E-BOT!!!"

The magnetic force began to pull Russett so tightly that her feet rose off the ground. Irritated, she glanced back to the cacophonous noise to find a massive structure of sloshing technology in a sea-like blob of horror. Her left arm began to scream in pain from the strain of holding on, and the light pole began to bend and creak under the pressure.

She cursed. This arm was supposed to be a secret. Half a day back in her home city, and already an evil hunk of junk had shown up and threatened to expose her. Life never got any less frustrating.

‘Fine,’ she decided, ‘You want a fight you got one!’

With great effort, she leveled her sneaker clad feet against the warping poled and launched off in into the force tugging her along. She sailed through the air, red stained caramel hair flying behind her, towards this abomination. A lone angel in the air, Russett spun in the air to face the now appearing grotesque face of the creature. Large bands of electricity wrapped around the monster. The fool.

Just before coming in contact with the electric field, Russett crossed her arms in front of her and summoned a thick layer of silicon to encase her form. The sting of heat still leaked through the coating, but at least she had not been electrocuted. The moment the searing heat had passed, Russett shed her skin, and it floated away in crumbs. The face of the monster was inches away.

“You wanted my arm?” Russett energetically called out, “Take it!”

Raising her right hand, Russett clutched the face of the monster, watching the metal crumple and contort under the immense strength of her hand. Once the metal had been twisted into her fisted, Russett let out a burst of hydrochloric acid. The acid greedily devoured the metal beneath it, corroding away the monsters face rapidly as gallons of the substance shot out from Russett’s hand.

When there was finally nothing left of its torso, the pull reactivated even stronger than before, pulling her down into the bowels of the monster.

Alex watched as the monster was being fought against by the young girl. Alex wasn't particularly surprised at what was going on. He knew first hand how scary a woman could be, so seeing one attack a large metal monster wasn't a stretch of imagination.

The scientist however was quite interested. As far as the man was concerned he was getting a paid vacation. A show and free data collection; what could be better? The scientist's crusty lips formed into a smile as he watched the girl turn his creations face to acid. He wondered what secrets the girl held to do such a thing. He slowly moved away from the battle that ensued. From his data, the experiment was far from over. In fact it had just begun.

As the monster's torso began to melt, electric sparks flew off his body burning if not electrocuting everything in the vicinity. Once it was open, it revealed nothing but an empty cavity. The Scientist smirked as his eyes widened in amazing. "Seems like E-bot is sentient. . ." he whispered. The pull resumed, but it was much stronger than before. It was so strong that it began to draw in cars and parts of buildings into it.

Watching the cars float toward the girl and the monster Alex's mouth opened wide as he realized what the monster was planning to. The creature was planning to crush the girl in an attempt to reform itself. Clenching his fist, Alex looked around. He needed to think of a way to not watch a girl get crushed to death by a few tons of metal. A surge of adrenaline began to surge through Alex's veins as he tried to think, and then he felt a familiar pain in his stomach. His eyes fell upon a tire shop's sign. "Crap... Perfect timing"

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The scientist couldn't believe what he was seeing, the creature is evolving even while it was in the middle of combat. He couldn't help but wonder in the new form it would take. In his opinion there was nothing that could top the sight of the creature crushing a foolish supe who decided to interrupt the man's experiment. Or at least that's was what he thought.

Then flying through the air was a giant highway sign size tire that smashed into the creature. His eyes darted at the thrower. While the creature's electromagnetism was strong, there was no way it should have pulled in a giant rubber tire. Darting his eyes back he looked to see the thrower. In blue armor was a being standing with it's arm out was... Breakthrough. Without another word, a beam was fired from Breakthrough's finger tips and attempted to blast the monster. After being hit by the tire, the pulling was interrupted. As Breakthrough fired upon the monster, Breakthrough yelled. "If you can hear me, now would be a good time to get out of there I can't hold this for long."

My Right arm was now solidly cemented to the creature. No matter how hard I tugged I could not release myself from this invisible force. Over the commotion I heard a voice call out for me to get away from the monster lest I wanted to be crushed.

“Easier said than done!” I shouted back, a tinge of humour in my voice, oh the irony... This thing was using magnetism through electricity to pull me in. I needed to counteract this. Quickly.

‘Think….think Russett think…’ I struggled between recalling my knowledge and the distraction of being crushed to death.
Charges! Charges, I remembered, were the main force of magnetism. My arm had to have a charge opposite of the monsters pull to be able to be sucked in. Therefore, if I could reverse the charge in my arm, I would be repelled. Quickly, I will a long line of copper wire to fizzle into existence, and then with my feet planted firmly against the monster, began to wind the copper around my arm.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I pleaded.

In the peripherals of my vision, more cars seemed to be well on their way to assist my demise. I finally managed to wrap the wire around both my arm and the monster. Copper was conductive so it would pull in the electricity from this creature. This would be my battery. But, all things come with time.

To whomever was down there attempting to save my life, I shouted, “I need thirty seconds!”

Hearing that the girl needed 30 seconds Breakthrough sighed. "Well don't blame me if you get crushed." He said turning his attention to the cars about to collide into the monster. Lifting his palms he began to fire on the cars, blasting each one to pieces. While it didn't stop the monster from pulling in the cars, they were small pieces.

The monster remained where it was taking as much metal as possible into its body. The hole that was once there was beginning to get filled and patched up. If the girl did not leave soon, no doubt she'd get crushed and swallowed by the beast. Breakthrough continued trying to make the pieces smaller so the cars wouldn't crush the girl, but it looked to only be slowing down the process.

The scientist merely watched in bemusement. It seemed that his experiment will be a rousing success. There was no telling just how much of a discovery there was here. After seeing this, he began his escape. E-bot far exceeded his expectations and not only that two could-be new test subjects had shown their faces he couldn't afford to be captured.

Breakthrough continued to fire down energy onto the now being pulled in cars and didn't stop until they were broken down pieces of scrap. Once he did he attempted to fire back onto the monster. If the girl didn't hurry she'd be smothered by scrap metal... sharp scrap metal.

To my horror the monster had begun to rise again, pulling in larger chunks of metal that were blasted just a few feet away from me. While counting down in my head, I released an even larger burst of good ol’ HCl. The acid that poured from my left hand slowly started to eat away the monster faster than it could rebuild, but it was an egregious process.

Finally, my count reached thirty. Sharp pieces of metal whizzed around, and whatever hadn’t been blasted away from me has sliced through my skin, leaving gouges in my skin that varied in depth. Each one hurt like a bitch. The second I disconnected this wire from my arm, I was going to be blown backwards with an incredible force. I hoped there was something soft to land on.

Quickly I stopped emitting acid with my good hand and unwound the copper. With every coil undone I could start to feel the hesitation of the bond keeping me glued to this freaky thing. When there was only one coil left attaching me to this monster, two things happened. First, I raised my hand and began spraying acid everywhere again, and a particularly large piece of metal decided to find a home in my right shoulder blade.
I cursed the pain and yanked my arm free of the wire. It felt I had stood in front of a jet engine while it broke the sound barrier. The breath was pushed from my lungs and I went sailing far higher in the air than I had planned. This superhero thing was harder than it seemed.

Making good use of my time, I tore the metal out of my shoulder right as I reached the apex of my repulsion arc. I quickly began to build up as heavy a layer as carbon to land on. If unrefined it would give me a softer landing. Not by much, but it might save me a couple broken bones.
When people claim that being shot with a gun feels like slamming into cement from ten feet in the air, they were right. I never thought that the pain of falling would be this bad. Wheezing, I struggled to my feet, searching for the boy who had saved me.

Breakthrough watched as the girl freed herself from the monster and had begun to come to feet. His attention turned toward the monster. No longer was it releasing electricity from every orifice but it was still repairing itself by pulling in lesser metals. It seemed the girl hadn't melted the core that held the entire thing together. Breakthrough sighed as he began to walk passed the girl toward the monster. The girl would never see the face of the boy that had saved her considering Breakthrough looked like another other worldly creature.

Though she'd might recognize his voice. As he walked passed the girl he gave her a thumbs up. "Good hustle! I'll handle it from here." Breakthrough said cracking his knuckles, it was only fitting. The girl had done the hard work, now it was time for Breakthrough to take out the trash.

"Now lets see if you are really living technology." Breakthrough said as he let his signal reach out towards the monster. Breakthrough was met with initial static, which was normal. He tried to push further into the monster's programming. In there he felt resistance but in the end he was able to get what he wanted to see.. or more like what he didn't want to see. Words popped up on Breakthrough's screen along with a picture of a core. He shuttered reading aloud what they said in a voice that wasn't his, "KILL ME!"

Nodding Breakthrough's fist began to grow as he rushed toward the creature. They grew to the size of a mini-fridge. Lifting them he punched at the monster's torso, without the powerful magnetic force keeping the monster together the pieces flew apart at Breakthrough's two ton punch. Within was the same cavity that the girl found in front of her when she was in Breakthrough's position. Before the creature could initiate the same sort of pull that had ensnared the girl, Breakthrough smashed his fist into the cavity pushing the creature back. Parts flew from the creature's body as it flew back.

Breakthrough didn't let it end there. He had to finish it before the creature became to unstable for him to touch like he was prior to the girl's intervention. Diverting power to his rocket his hands returned to their normal size, in seconds he caught up to the creature in mid air. The creature swung it's large tail at Breakthrough. Breakthrough clenched his teeth as he grabbed the creature's tail and with his immense strength he threw the creature in mid-air higher into the air though this time the tail ripped off. Seeing that the creature was tearing apart at the seams. Breakthrough aimed his open hand at the flying creature.

A beam left his fingers passing blasting the creature apart. Falling through the sky were pieces of metal. One of which caught Breakthrough's eyes as the pieces of metal were slowly moving toward it. Flying toward it, Breakthrough grabbed the piece of metal and continued to hold it. He crushed it light on it went out. Sighing he looked around to see what the damage looked like. Seeing the destruction the creature and breakthrough had caused along with the fact the police cars were coming, Breakthrough decided that it would be a good idea to leave now. Lest he wanted to get blamed for property damage.

I watched as this boy proceeded ahead, blue skin glimmering amidst the metal and raised his enlarged fists to combat the monster. He smashed with terrifying strength. The monster flew into bits and pieces, groaning each time. Amazingly, the boys punches kept up with the regeneration rate of the monster even better than my acid did. Admiration and respect struck me. So this is what it was like to see a real superhero in action.

Suddenly, I felt like a silly girl playing a game. Sure I had extensive martial arts training, but all that I could do on the levels of superhero’s was make rocks. Who was I to enter the scene as one of their kind with such a puny and pathetic power?

Perhaps it was time to give up the game. Superhero’s and supervillains were out of my league. From the beginning I should have known the only place I could be successful with was in ordinary crime management.

As the boy turned away to leave, I dashed over to him. I kept my fist heavily clenched so that the diamonds would come out clean and of high quality when I compressed them. When I finally a couple feet away from the guy, I shouted.

“Wait!”

Hearing someone call out to him, Breakthrough turned around. He saw it was the girl who had chosen to fight the monster instead of running away like a normal human. Breakthrough decided to wait to hear the girl out before he fled. Though he wasn't sure how long he would stay around. He could hear the sirens.

To my relief, the boy turned around, deciding to give me the time of day. Even though I knew every superhero had means for funds, I still wanted to give him the diamonds as a thank you as well as a back up plan just in case a witness pinned him at the scene and he needed bail or something.

“Here,” I extended my hand out as a gesture for him to do the same, “Thanks for saving my life.”

Breakthrough looked as the girl attempted to hand him something. It looked like diamonds, instead of taking them the Cybertonian shook his head. He didn't need money, in fact he should have been offended that someone would offer him money. Turning back around his once again diverted power to his rocket and flew away right as the cops arrived. Surely they would attempt to capture him if he stayed... So he didn't.

Breakthrough wasn't afraid of getting pinned down by the cops due to a nosy witness, mostly because no one had seen him transform. And even if they did, who would believed a young boy would turn into some kind of alien creature to save the city from a giant electrical dinosaur that shot could fire EMPs... Whoever said that would earn themselves a express ticket to the loony bin. But just to be safe, Breakthrough using his powers went through the multiple media devices on the scene and erased his human form from every video that could possible be of the scene.

Clutching the core, Breakthrough wondered what exactly he was going to do with it. He sighed, only time would tell. Hopefully he would be able to figure out who or what made this creature, why they decided to attack star city as some sort of experiment, and put a stop to it.

[EXIT]

The boy did exactly what I had expected him to do. He rejected the diamonds and then departed. I had probably offended him. So much for making friends. Still had to admit though the flying was pretty cool.

Police swarmed the area, immediately drawing their weapons and scouting the area. One of them noticed me and seemed to be torn between arresting me on suspicion or asking if I was a victim. I threw the diamonds towards him and tore down an alley. Running from cops brought back good memories. Back when Gunny was still alive and I would steal newspapers to keep a fire going for us.

Man, I just didn’t understand any of this. Electro-Dinosaur-Metal-Monsters, blue boys that save your life and then fly away, cops that can’t make decisions, well that last one wasn’t too confusing I admitted but still, this place seemed to thoroughly enjoy being in chaos.

After I had slowed down to rest, I noticed that my security device for the chop shop had been blown away in the drama. I let out a loud groan and began my search for it.

My first day in star city hadn’t gone very well.