Liliths shadow omnibus v.., p.14
Lilith's Shadow Omnibus: Volume 2, page 14
“Oh, come on! I’m not a kaiju!” the taller woman spat, putting her hands on her hips. “Seriously, are you trying to make me into a joke?”
“Sorry, sorry!” a man called out, his poofy hair looking like it was made of electricity and his eyes glowing bright blue even through his goggles. He looked like a mad scientist to Lilith, but she recognized Holofield.
The man was well-known for his work in the civilian field, as he could create holographic projections of people that they could control to fight, including all their powers. The projections were obviously digital, like the ones Lilith was watching, and they could only fight one another and damage objects which he’d created with his powers, but it allowed supers to fight one another full-force for entertainment, which made him rather popular on the whole. Lilith had even watched a couple of the fights he’d allowed to take place, which had been rather fascinating from a technical standpoint, even if she didn’t find watching the fights that interesting. Most of the time they turned into slugging matches, which wasn’t something she was very interested in watching.
With a couple of gestures, the buildings burst into tiny cubes of light, then reshaped into a pretend alleyway, complete with a dumpster, several trash cans, a nearby mailbox, and a couple of light poles.
Spark started forward, sounding excited as she spoke. “Come on! I’ve never seen one of his shows in person before, and I want to see it up close!”
“Alright, if you insist,” Lilith said, relaxing slightly as she followed Spark. “Who’s the big one, anyway? I recognize Red Rager, but mostly because we were in line together when checking in.”
“Clever Croc! A heroine from down in Florida somewhere… I think she’s a private eye, and she transforms to look like that. See? There she is in her normal shape,” Spark said, nodding toward the side of the stage, where a woman was sitting with her eyes closed. The woman had blonde hair and was a little under six feet in height, much smaller than the heroine in the ring, but she had the same outfit and hairstyle. She just looked normal in comparison.
Lilith opened her mouth to comment on it, but the next moment there was a sound like a gong, and someone exclaimed loudly, “Fight!”
The next instant the two heroes blurred toward one another, and Lilith watched with wide eyes.
Both combatants moved with practiced skill, but the differences between them were instantly obvious to Lilith. Clever Croc was big and tough, and one of her swipes punched a hole in the side of the dumpster effortlessly as she missed, sending holographic particles swirling across the battlefield, while Red Rager was fast and agile, avoiding the blows of the bigger heroine. The red-clad heroine made good use of her surroundings to dodge under Clever Croc’s reach, pounding a punch into her opponent’s stomach, which was accompanied by a loud whine as electricity crackled… and Clever Croc grinned.
“Got you!” Croc exclaimed, and her arms snapped shut toward Red Rager. The heroine began to duck, but that didn’t help when the bigger woman outright bodyslammed her.
Lilith winced as Clever Croc came down on Red Rager, causing the smaller woman to cry out, though she sounded more startled than hurt, as motes of light went out in every direction. For an instant, Lilith thought that the scene was going to get more violent, though without blood or gore, but then the image of Red Rager vanished, and the woman stirred on the other side of the ring.
“Right, getting right up next to you is a really bad idea,” the heroine said, even as loud applause echoed around the ring, and Lilith smiled as the projection of Clever Croc vanished as well, while the woman stood up, rolling her head back and forth as if trying to get rid of a crick in her neck. Red Rager continued, a little crossly. “I have to say, though… you’ve got to be really tough. I thought the stunner would at least slow you down!”
“I’ve been tased before, so I decided to get an insulator in my suit. It doesn’t get rid of the shock, but it makes most of them tolerable,” Clever Croc replied, giving a broad smile as she circled the stage and offered Red Rager a hand. “Good match, though! I don’t get to go all-out often since I usually don’t want to kill anyone.”
“True enough! I guess I’m just used to having friends to help, too,” Red Rager said, nodding as she shook Croc’s hand firmly. “Definitely gave me a few things to think about.”
“That… was over really quickly,” Lilith said, tilting her head to the side.
“Yeah, well, when you’ve got two people who’re both specialists in close combat, you either end up with one person crushing the other fast, or them being evenly matched enough that it goes on forever. The second is particularly common when you’ve got bricks,” Spark said, grinning at Lilith. “Of course, it helps that I’ve got one the world’s toughest bricks on my team, so I’ve seen it on occasion. Watching people’s frustration when they can’t even scratch Archon is hilarious. They always think they’re going to be different.”
“If you say so,” Lilith replied, shaking her head as she wondered how anyone could be that delusional. She’d seen Archon shrug off attacks effortlessly that would’ve punched through her shields far too easily. In front of them, Holofield hopped up into the ring, holding a microphone.
“Alright, that’s another match down! Anyone want to give it a try? Whether a friendly sparring or a chance to settle a rivalry once and for all, the Holographic Ring has your back!” Holofield exclaimed, looking around with a broad grin.
“No large-scale battles?” a man called out, his outfit a dark red, and with an orange pair of goggles obscuring most of his face.
“Sorry, I’m afraid not. I’d hoped to have a larger field, so we could have running battles above the booths, but the fire marshal said no,” Holofield replied, shaking his head regretfully. While he spoke, his gaze settled onto Lilith and he perked up, his eyes looking like they had an odd grid pattern to Lilith, and they were glowing a bright blue. “Though if you want the chance, you can sign up with my assistant for a chance to enter the next Battle Royale! Six rounds of free-for-alls, with a prize for the person who comes out on top!”
“Drat, this is boring… and I’m guessing he’s going to try to drag you into the ring if we stick around,” Spark said, looking disappointed, and gestured off to the right. “How about we go that way? I saw all sorts of neat tech over there earlier, and you’re an inventor of sorts, right?”
“I wouldn’t call myself an inventor. I use technology, but any skill I have is entirely mundane,” Lilith replied, smiling a little more as she let Spark drag her off again. She was letting that happen a lot, she noticed. “Still, new technology is interesting, yes.”
“Good!” Spark exclaimed happily, leading the way rapidly.
The next half hour was a whirlwind of activity for Lilith, and one that was rather interesting, as it happened. While there was some super-tech in the area, like the device a woman was selling that functioned as an anti-gravity ‘parachute’ for those who needed to bound off a building or who had super-strength but no ability to survive the landing. There was also a man demonstrating an experimental nanotech suit of armor, one which he claimed could self-repair, perform first aid on the wearer, and boost the user’s strength besides. Lilith noticed that he did not mention how long it could function for, though, and since he was trying to get funding for the next round of upgrades, she suspected that his funding had been cut off elsewhere.
On the other hand, she’d also seen a wide variety of more useful items. Some were obviously for fans rather than heroes, but the equipment that heroes might find useful was fascinating. There was a micro-submersible that was essentially a hardsuit designed to function at up to three thousand feet below the ocean surface, and the vendor that sold that had an entire catalog of other ocean-going vessels for heroes, from yachts to submarines, and a few miniature helicopters and the like. The rescue gear for mountaineers fascinated Lilith as well, as did several capes designed as short-term air filters and which were highly fire-resistant. That would be rather useful if someone was caught in a forest fire, she supposed.
There were also plenty of more mundane devices available, like utility belts, attachments for the belts, locator beacons, communication gear, helmets, body armor, and more. While many of the vendors had items that could be easily adapted to a hero’s outfit, there was plenty of it that was significantly less expensive, yet also less easy to disguise. That made sense to Lilith since the more streamlined appearances likely cost more to make.
Of course, then there were the booths for those who were inventors or wanting to build suits of their own. There were sheets of different types of polymers and plastics, along with others in cables for those using some 3d printers, canisters of resins for the other types of printers, armor plates, racks of different sizes and shapes of metal and plastic parts, bolts of fabric, actual bolts, screws, and nuts… the sheer variety was impressive, as was how several of the vendors had tried to outdo their competitors by having sample devices on hand. One of them even had an engineer on hand who was teaching people who paid for the parts how to build their own utility belt from scratch.
“Is there anything that you want?” Lilith asked at last, glancing at Spark curiously. “You’ve been leading the way, but I haven’t seen you really look at anything that you’d want.”
“Well… not really,” Spark said, glancing around as she shrugged. “Most of this wouldn’t work well with my powers. Too many electronics short out, and with as fast as I have to move, it takes really finicky materials to keep up with me and not melt or something. I feel bad for Dec since he has to build stuff that can survive me. I think I’m harder to deal with than Archon, in a lot of ways.”
“Ah. That seems reasonable, though a little sad. I’m sorry you can’t buy anything you’d like,” Lilith said.
She was about to continue when there was a hiss from behind her, and Lilith jerked to the side.
Chapter 18
Thursday, August 14th, 2031
Astrodome Convention Center, Las Vegas
The dart shot through the air where Lilith’s head had been, and a tiny part of her wondered just why it was that people seemed to like shooting her in the back of the head. An instant later she realized her mistake, as the dart continued on a trajectory that would intersect with a young woman going through a shelf of robotics parts.
Then Spark moved, electricity arcing off her and into Lilith’s arm, briefly numbing her before her body shrugged it off. The heroine moved like lightning, snatching the dart out of the air before it traveled half the distance to the young woman, then spun around to face the attacker, just as Lilith began turning.
Spark cursed softly just as Lilith finished turning, and Lilith’s stomach clenched at the sight before her. Not that she’d been attacked again, because that was frustrating, but because her attacker was obvious… and the big, scarred man had lunged toward the man, not that he was going to do much good.
A man in torn jeans and a hoodie was behind her, the dart gun hidden by his hip, but Lilith couldn’t make out many details about him, not with how he was literally melting into the floor, turning into little more than a shadow. Lilith’s hand had only started for the pistol hanging at her side when the man vanished through the floor, and she swallowed a swear word.
The crowd looked more confused than anything else, and Lilith guessed that most of them hadn’t seen anything happen, as suddenly as it’d occurred. She wasn’t surprised since she had barely noticed.
“Crap!” the big man swore, glowering at the spot, then at Lilith as he continued. “You really know how to attract trouble, don’t you?”
Lilith looked at him, her eyes narrowing, then asked, “Are you supposed to be security? If so, it might have helped if you’d told me beforehand.”
“Oh, shut up,” the man retorted, glowering at her. “If it weren’t for your—”
“Jake, shut it. Lilith was invited here, which means you’re responsible for her safety. If you were that upset, you shouldn’t have let the committee invite her,” Spark said, her tone flat. “Stalker Seven isn’t going to wait around for us to chat.”
The big man growled, then turned away, quickly moving toward the wall, and Lilith paused, then began following him as she glanced at Spark. Jake was cutting a path through the crowd for them, so she asked, “Stalker Seven? And Jake?”
“Jackhammer Jake, he’s a brick on the upper end of class B. He’s also a jerk,” Spark said, keeping pace with Lilith easily. “Stalker Seven is a merc in the underworld. Infiltrator, assassin, and all-around ass. Not surprised he took a job to take you out… I just hope he isn’t here with his siblings. That could make things rough.”
“Ah. Why is Jake heading for the back halls, then?” Lilith asked, frowning as she dodged around a table, and saw Jake had his badge out. “Seven melted through the floor.”
“He can’t go immaterial for long, which means he went downstairs or into the basement. If we’re going to catch him, have to grab him before he reaches an outer wall,” Spark said, and paused, then swore. “He probably went underground. People might’ve noticed a shadow drop through the room, but there’re enough heroes in the area that they won’t know it was him.”
“Right,” Lilith said, just as Jake got the door open. He wasn’t holding it for them, but Spark didn’t wait for an invitation, surging forward with a sparkle of electricity to grab the door, holding it for just long enough that Lilith could get in, then she lunged forward.
“Spark, what’re you—” Jake began to snarl, and Spark interrupted.
“Helping! I’ll see if he came out on the first floor, you two go after the basement! I’ll catch up if he’s not there,” Spark told him, then shot toward the stairs, making Lilith wonder how the woman had even known where they were.
The chorus of swearing from Jake didn’t make Lilith happy, but she also wasn’t going to slow down, not since she was catching up. He might be strong, but she was faster than he was.
They raced down the stairs, the sound echoing loudly in the shaft, which reminded Lilith of why so many staircases had carpet on the stairs. She was almost a full flight behind Jake to begin with, but she closed the gap quickly, and when he jumped over the chain blocking access to the basement, she was barely three steps behind him. She hopped over the chain, considering the man for a moment.
“So—” Lilith began, just to have him cut her off.
“Shut up, I don’t want to hear it,” Jake said bluntly, racing down the stairs. “You’re nothing but trouble, and I want you off my back!”
The venom in his voice startled Lilith, prompting her to back off slightly, but then they reached the bottom of the stairwell. There was a door labeled Generator Room on a bright red sign directly ahead of them, and a hallway going left and right. As he headed left, Lilith skidded to a stop, considering either direction for a moment, then grimaced and turned right.
“Just great. A lovely start to the day,” Lilith murmured, not moving quite as quickly this time around.
The basement of the convention center wasn’t that bad, Lilith had to admit. It wasn’t like there were seeping water pipes creating puddles or anything like that, but the lights were few and far between, and the care to make the building welcoming had been almost completely abandoned down here. There was gray paint on the walls, but that was the extent of it, and she could see ductwork, wiring, and more above her, while the open doorways she paused to look through led to rooms that were practically unlit, with the occasional stack of supplies in them. Lilith had no idea what the rooms were used for, but it almost looked like someone had intended for there to be offices below ground, then abandoned it before furnishing any of the rooms.
She reached another intersection, and Lilith slowed, mentally making a map of where she was, then stopped, as it suddenly occurred to her that she was entirely alone. Alone in a dimly lit hallway with a villain whose name included the word stalker. It made her wonder if she might have made a mistake when she followed Jake.
“Maybe I should just head back upstairs,” Lilith said, glancing around warily. Spark had said that Stalker Seven could go immaterial briefly, but she hadn’t mentioned how often he could do it. That was irritating since it didn’t give her a good idea of what she was dealing with. Habitually she asked, “Circe?”
There wasn’t an answer, and if nothing else, that put up her hackles. The handful of times that she couldn’t contact Circe had been few and far between, especially since she’d gotten an earbud that linked into the AI’s systems. It shouldn’t be as worrying as it was, but that didn’t matter to her instincts.
The scrape of someone’s shoe to her right caught Lilith’s attention, and she spun, just in time to see what looked like the flicker of someone dodging into a side room, their coat barely in view for a moment.
Lilith’s hand went to the pistol on her hip and she tensed, debating on what she should do, then shrugged and drew the pistol, cautiously moving to the side so she could see through the door more easily. The dim light didn’t help, but at least she was able to see in the dark more easily than most people.
As she moved to the side, Lilith’s eyes flicked back and forth, and she frowned. The light filtering into the room didn’t give her much to work off of, but she didn’t see any other movement, and Lilith also didn’t hear anything. Not aside from distant echoes, and the faint sound of footsteps from above her. The room had stacks of tables and chairs in it, providing plenty of hiding spots, and Lilith took a cautious step inside, watching the sides in particular, to make sure she wasn’t going to get grabbed as soon as she stepped in.
