|
Silent Jury
Issue #11
by Tom Zjaba
Chapter 15
A Fight for the Ages
As Robert looks around, he notices that that he is the only
one left. Around him are the five villains that are still standing. Only the Mob
is out. The Foreman is the first to speak up "Move aside, we have you beat." The
villains all laugh at this. "So aren't you guys going to tell me your origins or
something?" Robert says in hope that he can waste enough time for his friends to
regain consciousness. The Duelist speaks up as she says "Our origins? We were
given these powers by the Fallen One in exchange for helping him destroy you."
Robert looks at them as he sees they are preparing to attack. She has her sword
pointed at him. The Abstract Artist is drawing a whip with his gloves. Robert
then whispers to Langston "I need you to shoot out everything we have at them."
He then lifts his hands and shoots out a volley of missiles. Just as he does
this, the Miner, the man in the miner helmet, sends out a blast of light, which
destroys a few of the missiles. The rest hit their targets. The Duelist swings
her sword and hits the missile that is coming at her, but it explodes and the
impact of the explosion sends her flying. It also affects Abstract Artist, who
is also knocked back. The Myth is stunned, but able to absorb the explosion. The
Foreman also is knocked off his feet, but he quickly gets back up. Robert then
takes to the air and shoots the freeze ray. He spreads it out over the whole
group and keeps it going. The Myth smashes the ice as it hits him, but he is
slowly getting bogged down by it. The Duelist and Abstract Artist are quickly
covered up and taken out of the fight. The Miner blasts the ice and keeps
melting it as fast as Robert can shoot it at him. The Foreman runs and hides
behind a car. After a few minutes of blasting, Robert stops to see who is left.
He sees the Myth struggling to move in the waist high ice. The Miner is unfazed
with a pool of water around him from the melted ice. The Foreman remains hidden
in hopes that he will not get frozen. As he peeks around the car to see what is
happening, he hears something behind him. He turns to see what the noise is and
sees a car flying towards him. He has no time to react and before he knows it,
he gets smacked head on with a car. The car smashes into him and the car he is
hiding behind, which pins him between the two colliding cars. This sends the
other car forward as it hits the pile of ice and crunches. The Myth turns to see
what is going on and sees The One picking up another car. He struggles to turn
around and face the new danger. As he turns his attention, Robert shoots a
flurry of missiles at him, which hit him dead on and the explosion knocks him
over, face first into the ice. The Miner shoots a ray at Robert, who is hit by
the ray and knocked back into the building. As he hits the building, he starts
to fall towards the ground. "Langston, take over." he yells as he sees the
pavement rapidly coming at him. Langston quickly turns the armor around and
comes out of the tailspin. As this is happening, the Miner shoots again at him,
but this time with Langston in command, he easily evades it. But before he can
retaliate, the Miner is smashed by a car tossed by The One. He never sees it
coming. The impact of the car knocks him out immediately as he is crushed by the
weight and momentum of the car. With that, all of the villains are out for the
count.
At the headquarters, Daniel appears in the main room. He is
quickly greeted by Gadget who says "We have the device working. We need you to
go back to your dimension and bring back the other wizards." He nods in
agreement and follows him. As they go into the basement, they come into the room
and find Charlie and Mr. Smith. They have the machine up and running and Mr.
Smith says "It's ready to go. We will keep the portal open as long as we can.
Hurry as our world depends on you." Daniel nods and then flies into the portal.
Within seconds, he disappears from sight. The men all look at each other. There
is a sense of dread in their expressions. Charlie finally breaks the deafening
silence "Let's hope this works. Otherwise, we sent away our best chance of
survival."
The Fury flies down the hole and looks for The Fallen One. He
scans around, hoping to read his mind, but Doctor Warlock has cast a spell to
prevent this. After their encounter with Psyclone, they better understand how to
fight a psychic. The Fury knows they are around here and he is worried about
battling them. While he has not seen the tape, he has heard how they killed
Psyclone. While he never battled Psyclone one on one, he has heard enough to
know how powerful a psychic he was. Would he stand a chance against the Fallen
One? This may be his last stand. At least he will not die a poor man on the
streets. He will at least die with dignity and fighting for a cause. He moves
slowly through the building as he has no idea when they will just pop out. He
does have a mental shield protecting him, but will it be enough?
Doctor Warlock creates a mind's eye to look around. The eye
floats up and starts to look through the walls in search of The Fury. He uses it
to see The Fury coming down the hole they created. He is headed after The Fallen
One. He then uses it to look outside to see the progress of the battle. When he
sees that his super villain team has been defeated, he decides it is time for
him to battle the Silent Jury himself and insure they do not interfere in the
battle between The Fury and The Fallen One. He stops the mind's eye spell and
flies out of the building.
Robert is over trying to get Vanessa to wake up. At the same
time, The One is trying to revive Connie. Both girls are slowly coming out of
it. "Wake up Vanessa." Robert says as his voice goes into her armor. She slowly
starts to move as she feels the pain from her battle. "What hit me?" she says as
she struggles to sit up. "Some guy in a miner's helmet blasted you." Robert says
as he helps her sit up. "What happened?" she says as she looks around and sees
the villains all encased in ice. "We defeated them, but we have to get ready."
he says as he pulls her to her feet. "What about the others?" she says as she
struggles to stand. While she is physically fine, she suffered a mild concussion
and is having a hard time focusing. It also has messed up her balance as her
legs are wobbly. She is holding onto Robert to keep from falling.
The One is also having problems with Connie. He has her on
her feet, but she is not standing up on her own. She also needs to lean on him
to keep her balance. He is trying to be delicate, which is not an easy thing to
do when you are made of metal.
As they are recovering, they hear a loud boom. As they look
up to see what made the sound, they see Doctor Warlock floating in the sky. He
is glowing and electricity is surging through his body. Before they can do
anything, he shoots a very large lightning bolt down. The bolt flies down and
hits into The One, who screams as the bolt hits him right in the chest. The
sheer power of the bolt knocks him down and pushes him into the ground. When it
goes away, he lays there with small charges coursing through his body and black
smoke rising from his chest. He does not appear to be moving. Robert says
"Langston, I'm gonna need all the help you can give me. I am putting you in
total control." Robert then prays that Langston is up to the challenge. He
allows himself to go limp, so as not to interfere with Langston. While he has
done it before, it is very hard for him to give up control like this. A part of
him believes he can win the battle, but he knows deep down that Langston knows
more about fighting than he ever will. He wonders if the armored heroes in the
comic books ever had a computer that could do the fighting for them. Would Iron
Man allow a computer to control his armor? Part of Robert feels bad about
letting Langston take control. It is almost like he doesn't have faith in his
own abilities. But when he looks at his opponent and how easily he took out The
One, he realizes he made the right choice.
Doctor Warlock is hovering over them and admiring his work on
The One. He then looks at the two girls who are struggling to stand and figures
he can come back to them. He sees Robert flying up towards him and he smiles. He
loves when an enemy is impetuous and comes right at him. He prepares a repel
attack spell to counter the attack. But as Robert gets close, part of his helmet
opens and exposes what looks like a large light. He then turns it on full
brightness and it shines right into Doctor Warlock's eyes. Since the light was
made to illuminate a large area, even in the most extreme darkness, it is easily
able to temporarily blind Doctor Warlock. And since it is not a physical attack,
it is not repelled. Knowing that he probably cannot attack him right now, he
decides to use the few moments to protect the girls. He flies down and grabs
Vanessa in one arm and then flies over and grabs Connie in the other. He then
flies around the building and looks for a place to hide. Langston checks his
internal maps and sees there is a subway terminal down the street. He flies down
and the street and flies into the subway terminal and looks for a place to hide
the girls. He sees a car that is stopped and goes over and tears open the doors
and then puts the girls into the car. He then flies back up the tunnel and out
into the street.
As The Fury slowly flies down the hole, he looks back and
forth for any sign of The Fallen One. This is getting creepy as he knows he is
going to get ambushed at any moment. Not being able to read his mind is what is
making things hard. If he can block that power, what other powers can he block.
As he is pondering these things, he is hit hard by a blast of fire. The fire
comes right out of the wall and hits his right side. The shield protects him,
but he is mentally feeling the effects of having a blast of this magnitude hit
him. The impact and the intensity of the fire sends him flying as it rips
through the walls. Before he knows it, he is outside the building and falling
towards the ground. He has to let up the shield for a second to regain his
ability to fly. Once he is flying again, he puts back up the shield. He looks to
the building and sees The Fallen One coming out of the freshly made hole. His
mighty wings are flapping and he looks right at The Fury. "Go ahead and give me
a mind blast, I am ready for it this time." he says as he waits for a psyclone
attack. At first, The Fury does not know what he is talking about. But as he
thinks for a second, he realizes that he must be talking about Psyclone's
infamous attack. "You have the wrong guy. I don't do attacks like that." he says
to The Fallen One. "Good, then you will be an easy opponent." he says as he
unleashes another wave of flames. The Fury sees it coming and flies down to
avoid it. The flames go right over his head and hit a nearby building, where
they melt the facing of the building. "Guess your mom never told you not to play
with fire." he says as he mentally opens a fire hydrant and sends the water
right at The Fallen One. He is hit with a wave of water, but the flames coming
from his hands turns most of it into steam. "Is that your best? I was hoping for
a worthy opponent." With that, he creates two giant hands of fire. The Fury
flies between them and puts on a mental shield. He is able to outmaneuver them
as he nears The Fallen One. But what he does not realize is they are merely a
diversion. The Fallen One opens his mouth and sends out a wave of fire that
knocks him for a loop. While the shield keeps him from being burned alive, it
does stun him and before he has a chance to respond, the flaming hands grab him
and squeeze. He is trapped between two giant flaming hands and they are pushing
hard on his shield. His mind is taking a beating and the heat they are
generating is making this very uncomfortable for him. He struggles to keep the
shield up but he finds that he is nearing mental exhaustion and fears he may
black out.
As Langston flies the armor down the street, he scans for any
activity. Nothing is coming up so far. Even a thermal scan is coming up
negative. He then contacts the satellite up above and uses the onboard
telescopes to zoom in and look for Doctor Warlock. As they zoom around the city,
they are not showing any signs of him anywhere. As he flies down looking for
him, he flies right past him. But what he does not realize is Doctor Warlock has
an invisibility spell. But not just a normal invisibility spell but a total
invisibility spell. It makes him invisible to all forms of detection, normal or
magical. Doctor Warlock smiles as he flies right by. He then moves away from the
building and becomes visible again. Before Langston can get information from the
satellite that Doctor Warlock is right behind him, he is hit by a fireball. The
fireball hits him square in the back and explodes, engulfing him in flames. With
all the scanning devices on, he had to divert some of the power from the shields
and was not able to have full shields to stop the impact. While the shields do
lessen the blow, he still takes the brunt of the attack. The flames from the
fireball engulf the armor and send it falling towards the ground. While the
armor can withstand the heat, Robert still feels the temperature in the armor
rise. He also felt the impact of the fireball and it shook him up good. Langston
automatically turns on the cooling system to cool down the armor, which is a
welcome relief to Robert. . He also takes control of the falling armor and keeps
it from crashing into the ground. With full control restored, he turns to face
Doctor Warlock. But instead of being able and take the offensive, he is greeted
by a series of magic missiles, which fly right at him. He is able to quickly get
up a shield and stop them from a direct hit. But he does feel the impact as they
smash into the shield. As he drops the shields to shoot his own missiles at
Doctor Warlock, he is blindsided by a blast of energy that hits him in the back.
The blast, from the Miner, hits him hard and sends him flying face first into
the side of a building. He smashes into it hard and falls. Langston struggles to
regain control, when a second blast from the Miner pounds him. Once again he
smashes into the building. Before he can figure out the cause of the attack and
respond to it, Doctor Warlock sends a powerful lightning bolt that hits him
right in the side. The burst of electricity causes the system to go haywire and
knocks Langston offline. Without a computer system, Robert is just a man in
armor and falls to the ground. He hits with a powerful thud. While the armor is
padded and takes the brunt of the collision, he still feels it. As he struggles
to get up, a giant fist smashes him into the ground. It is followed by a second
equally large fist and that is the one that causes him to loses consciousness.
Standing over him is The Myth who is laughing. Behind him is The Miner, who is
also laughing. Doctor Warlock lands on the ground, next to them and joins in the
laughter. "Now it is time to kill him." he says as the three of them prepare to
end Robert's life.
Silent Jury © 2006-2007 Tom Zjaba
|