With a last look at each other, SemiConductor
and FrostFire walked into the room. SemiConductor’s whole body pulsed
with electricity, and FrostFire’s signature fists of ice and fire
were adequately displayed. When they stepped in Grendel had just won
the fight and was tearing a hunk of meat out of his opponent’s arm,
then, the whole room stopped. The drummers stopped and looked at the
intruders and Grendel just stayed hunched over for a moment, a disgusting
chunk of meat still dripping in his mouth. Then all hell broke loose.
All of the Troll’s drummers were powerfully advanced Trolls and a
particularly large one charged FrostFire. The Outcast threw a flame,
charring the Trolls head and in the same moment, deeply froze the
Troll’s stomach. As tolerant as the Troll was he couldn’t handle such
severe temperature differences in two such sensitive parts of his
body and he collapsed on the floor.
The battle ensued with FrostFire
freezing his enemies and blasting them with fireballs, while the battle
around SemiConductor resembled an electrical storm with bolts of lightning
flowing every which way, and if a Troll ever got close enough to try
a physical attack, he was met with an electrically charged fist that
sent him flying back several feet.
By the time the room was cleared
enough for them to catch their breath they realized that Grendel had
been standing there the entire time watching the battle. While another
supervillain would take this moment for some dialogue, Grendel proudly
beat his chest and charged the pair, green energy now streaming out
of his body.
Although they were weary from the countless fights that
they had encountered previously in the building they had no choice
but to steel themselves against the rushing Troll’s onslaught.
FrostFire
underestimated the Troll’s speed and before he could brace himself,
or prepare any measure of counterattack, he took the Troll’s full
rhino rush in the stomach. He was blown back and driven into the wall,
with little chunks of concrete flying out around him. Before he had
a chance to recover Grendel started pounding him, driving him even
farther into the wall with the power of his fists, which were quick
and unrelenting. There was nothing FrostFire could do.
The Troll suddenly
stopped his attack and stood up howling and convulsing as a huge blast
of electricity hit him in the back. The attack wasn’t so much a bolt
as electricity appears as lightning, but actually a beam of lightning,
which was electric energy so concentrated, it magnified the power
of the attack tenfold.
As the Troll stepped back FrostFire managed
to recover and he decided to return the attack he had received. He
pummeled his opponent with continuous strikes of ice and fire as he
pulverized the Troll’s cranium.
Then, SemiConductor charged herself
up and sealed the Troll’s feat to ground with incredibly strong static
electricity. While the Troll was held in place the attacks from FrostFire
became more powerful and he felt his mind starting to numb as it does
when one fights furiously for a long period of time.
At first, the
Troll’s immobilization had been to their advantage, but Grendel turned
it upon them using the situation to gain more balance and stability
as he attempted to block FrostFire’s blows, FrostFire was to focused
on his attacks to notice, and when the Troll found an opening he swung
an uppercut right into FrostFire’s jaw sending him sailing back into
the hole he had made there previously.
As he picked himself up from
the wall again, he was thankful to see Semi leading the monster away
from him by hovering on the ceiling and drawing the Troll with repeated
electric blasts. He realized that the Troll was to resilient and strong
for them to be able to wear him down fighting like this.
They needed
a new tactic, or a new power, and as FrostFire looked around the room
he realized it.
They were in a room where a separate office was suspended
by four thick columns above the rest of the room and a catwalk above.
Hoping that SemiConductor could handle herself and keep Grendel busy
long enough, FrostFire rushed up to one of the columns and began to
coat it in a deep freeze.
Meanwhile, SemiConductor was floating around
the room, dodging the frustrated attacks of the enraged Troll beneath
her. She managed to keep him away from FrostFire but she knew she
couldn’t keep this up forever. Although she had plenty of stamina,
the constant flying and sending down constant electric blasts on her
opponent was beginning to take its toll. Realizing she was on the
verge of collapse she used up her last reserve of strength jetting
over to FrostFire, hoping that she had given him enough time to recover
before she passed the buck.
As the large Troll charged FrostFire,
the former Outcast gang leader took careful aim and launched a fire
blast between the four columns. Suddenly, it split into four separate
fire balls and took out all four of the iced down columns in unison.
After using a thick enough layer of ice to make the columns weak and
brittle, FrostFire had managed to break them up and bring the office
structure down on top of Grendel.
As the small office fell on the
Troll FrostFire felt like their victory had finally been assured.
Then, when he didn’t hear the expected crashing noise, he slowly realized
that Grendel had caught the collapsing structure. Both FrostFire and
SemiConductor stood there, staring at this Troll who was using every
last ounce of his strength and resolve to keep the thing from crushing
him.
Then after an extended moment of awe, FrostFire realized that
the Troll was actually stuck. He may have been able to catch the thing
but even strength such as that had a limit and the insanely powerful
Troll had reached his. He had saved his life but did not have the
strength to remove it from his arms. Then, with a sickening crunch,
the demolished office collapsed on the Troll burying him under over
a ton of rubble.
"Well that was anticlimactic." FrostFire thought
to himself as he had finally defeated his enemy. Then the realization
of the achievement hit him and he exclaimed, "We finally defeated
Grendel!!!."
He joyfully turned to SemiConductor expecting to see
a look of glee and happiness on her face as well. However, he was
surprised to be met with a look of sorrow and coldness.
Then SemiConductor
slowly drew a gun that she was hiding somewhere in her tight shirt
and pointed it at FrostFire. A normal gun would be a small deterrent
to one such as him, but it was not a normal gun. It was made of a
brilliantly shining white metal and instead of a magazine it had a
green glowing rod attached to the bottom of it.
Then she addressed
him and said, "I’m sorry Leo. But he’s not Grendel. I am."
With that,
the shocked FrostFire fell to the ground his confusion overpowering
the realization that she had fired it at him.
It did not knock him
out. He stood back up quickly and had the instinctual reaction to
attack but when he saw the gun still drawn on him he stopped, and
he realized that his powers had been weakened because of the blast.
He barely managed to stammer out the word, "what?"
"Sit down," she
said and FrostFire slowly obeyed, the shock stalling his movement.
Still holding the gun on him SemiConductor began to speak. "You know
the Dyne was first introduced in the 70's? It was huge back then and
there weren’t any Trolls because of it at that time either.You know
there are three things that can happen to someone who’s heavily exposed
to Dyne. The first is that they die, plain and simple. The second
is that they mutate into a Troll with all the side effects. But there
is a third possibility. Not a lot of people now know about what went
on with Dyne when it was first brought onto the streets. But the fact
is it was all a conspiracy. Some shadow organization of scientists
found that the drug could allow people a power beyond the normal effects
of the drug. For some it gave them a psychic link to other worlds,
other dimensions, and even travel to them. The whole reason the drug
was introduced on the streets is because the percentage of people
who developed this power was so small that they had to use that large
of a scale to get the desired results."
Although FrostFire had known
little of this he still wondered what it had to do with her. His question
was soon answered.
"Every one of the users who developed this ability
went insane, save one. Me." FrostFire looked up at her. He had gone
through enough shock in the past few minutes for him to not be surprised
now. So she had been a user.
"I was very young, barely a teenager.
At school I was ridiculed for having blue skin. I didn’t know I generated
electricity back then. Well, I used drugs as my release. Once I started
to feel the effects of the power I was kidnaped for study. I did go
insane at first. The sensations of seeing and traveling to other worlds
involuntarily was too much for the mind to handle. But unlike the
others I recovered from it. I think it was because my powers developed.
The increased neuroelectricity allowed me to remain sane while I still
had the powers from the drug."
At this she began to take on a tone
of longing and reminiscence. "It was incredible FrostFire, being able
to see and travel to these other worlds under my own control. There’s
nothing else like it."
"However, after regaining my sanity I knew
I couldn’t stay there as a lab rat. I escaped shortly before Back
Alley Brawler’s famous bust on their labs. Of course, its not famous
to the public. As far as the normal people know, the Trolls are the
only result of Dyne."
"And you founded the Trolls?" FrostFire asked,
deciding that she was to wrapped up in memories to fire the gun at
the sound of his voice.
"Yes," she said giving him a long cold look.
"I realized that if I wanted to keep the public eye away from what
had happened in the labs, then they needed a new enemy produced by
the drug. And so I found the Trolls."
"In the beginning when there
were so few of them. They had no sense of brotherhood between each
other. They would have died off on their own and everything about
the drug would have been forgotten if I hadn’t brought them together
and formed them into a gang. That kept the drug on the streets and
the attention on them instead of what went on in the labs."
"But why?
Why would you want to keep the drug on the streets?"
"Because that
drug is capable of so much more! Don’t you see?! It doesn’t just give
people the power to see and travel into the dimensional plane. They’re
tapping into the plane itself!! And so I realized that it was possible,
with this drug, to actually alter reality itself. I had to do more
with it. I had to pick up where those mad scientists left off. For
years I tried to find out if there was anyway to locate the people
who exhibited those effects and study them but I didn’t have the resources.
The drug was still on the streets thanks to the growing population
of Trolls but there was nothing I could do to control any of it."
"And then your group came along. The Trolls and the Outcasts battled
each other so much that I knew I could keep a watch on their progress
and maybe found out more about the other users as well. I found I
actually enjoyed gang life. The violent lifestyle was a nice outlet
for all the years of frustration. Well I still got nowhere with research.
And then you got arrested and the Trolls fell apart and Dyne practically
disappeared from the streets."
With a malicious grin at FrostFire
she continued. "I’ve gotten kind of good at this kind of thing. I
decided with the Trolls dying out it was time for the Outcasts to
fall, so I easily broke them up into factions and with the demise
of the gang I wound up in prison. I knew I wasn’t going to stay in
there. You were in for life and you were the only one who would have
questioned how such a violent member of the Outcasts could have reformed
so easily in prison. The psychologists all just thought they were
doing a good job."
A fiery rage began to build in FrostFire. "She
destroyed my gang. She did!"
However, she kept talking, now so wrapped
up in her tale that FrostFire probably could have attacked and she
would not be able to react fast enough. "All this time I’ve been slowly
studying Superdyne. I finally developed it so that the mutation rate
would be accelerated and I started to release it back on the streets
in small quantities. Unfortunately this meant the Trolls would come
back up. I picked one out, altered his doses and I made him the new
Grendel. Once again I gave them direction and purpose and now that
they’ve been cleaned out I can focus more on what I want. The true
power of Superdyne!"
"And now you’re going to die for it," she said
as she once again focused on FrostFire and the gun in her hand.
FrostFire
slowly spoke up, "I’m sorry Semi but the truth is," he shot a small
fireball from behind his back and hit the green rod attached to the
gun. "The truth is nothing you could ever do would help you to stop
me."
The green growing rod exploded and the blast knocked SemiConductor
off her feet. FrostFire approached her and raised a fist charged with
a red hot flame over her head.
He heard her say something that sounded
like "What?"
"You killed Keystone and you destroyed my gang!" he shouted
and he sent a blaze of fire into her face, unrelentingly increasing
the flame until the corpse fell to the ground a blackened skull attached
to a blue skinned body.
Later when Special Correctional Agent Rick
Oharan’s men swept through the building, rounding up any loose Trolls,
one of the men brought a scrap of paper, with fresh writing on it
to the Agent because he had noticed that it mentioned his superior’s
name.
The note stated simply,
I know I served my purpose. You can
try looking for me and you’ll probably find me. I was actually considering
turning myself in after this was all over, but a little more went
down here than you’re aware of. SemiConductor’s dead. I won’t say
why I killed her. But lets just say your department would have done
the same. Let’s just end it with I’ve been expended.
Oharan read over
the note. Wondering where FrostFire had gone off to and decided he
was perfectly content to leave that question to whatever agent took
this case. He was retiring and glad of it, now that it wasn’t his
job anymore the thought crossed his mind that maybe, just maybe, it
might be better if they just leave FrostFire in peace for the rest
of his days.
The next day a muscular, blue skinned man in his mid-fifties
walked up to City Hall in Atlas Park to register as a hero.
"Sir,
the hero registration office has been in Skyway City for the past
five years." The receptionist said upon hearing the newcomer’s request.
"What?! Why the heck would it be there?" Was his enraged response.
"Well, the city council wanted to have it in the safest part of town."