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Chapter 33
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Defiler grinned as he strolled through the chaotic hospital. One officer tried to turn him away earlier. That officer was dead after a mere scratch on the neck. He was going to leave, sure enough, but Defiler came here for one reason. He wasn’t leaving until his work was done.

Doctors, nurses, and other staffers worked to helped the injured, with less severe cases being guided to safety outside of the city. Defiler would join them after his trip to the nurses’ station on the third floor of the north wing. That was where he was going to find the woman responsible for his path he took. That was where he was going to thank her by ending her.

If she wasn’t there, she was close by there. The bitch was working tonight, Defiler had learned since breaking out of the Asylum.

It was here, tonight, or he would have to wait even longer.

When he saw her shuffling through a few clipboards, of paperwork belonging to patients who were being treated and evacuated as soon as they could be moved, Defiler told himself that he had waited long enough.

Ohm Wire guided an elderly woman to a S.W.A.T. truck being used to drive a number of patients, and their family members, to the bridge. As she helped the lady up inside the back of the vehicle, she noticed a police lieutenant trying to listen to his radio amidst the noise.

She dug out her earpiece—nearly swearing aloud at her girlfriend’s habit that she picked up all of a sudden—and put it in.

“. . . repeat. There has been an attack at the bridge. The road is blocked of all cars. Low level heroes are working to escort everyone across the bridge on foot while one fights the villain. Over.”

Without a word to the people inside the vehicle as to what had just been said, Ohm Wire walked to the lieutenant.

She spoke through her earpiece, “Is anyone available to help clear a path by Independence Bridge? We have a hospital full of people in Steel Canyon who need to be moved.”

“I’m trying to get over there,” said a voice. “A swarm of these undead creatures just saved a villain from being apprehended.”

Ohm Wire shook her head. “I’d head there myself if super strength was one of my abilities. What about teleporters? Are any available to help evacuate these hospitals? There are a number of patients in intensive care.”

“Fuck,” said a woman’s voice. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Not a fighter?” asked the lieutenant.

“Level 8, reformed villain status, until the new year actually,” Ohm Wire stated. “I have to wait that long for the re-classification, so I’m trying to keep it down and do my best without throwing punches and kicks at anything that moves.”

The man whistled. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m helping in case a villain shows up. A friend of mine suggested that I come here, which I’ve learned often means he knows something might happen.”

“Ha! So far the worst that’s happened here is one of my men has missed his check-in. It’s probably nothing since he’s not the most punctual of the bunch.”

“I’m about to head back in. Where was he last, in case I see him?”

The second floor, north wing, was nearly empty by the time Ohm Wire got there. The last few people were leaving, and she nodded to them. Ohm Wire checked a few rooms before she heard whimpering.

Ohm Wire investigated the source to find a patient, a balding man, huddled in one corner. How long was he here, and how did the hospital staff miss him?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.

More, harder whimpers.

“What happened? Why haven’t you fled to safety with everyone else?”

“Bad man. Dead man. No.” His gaze never once met Ohm Wire. It was fixed on something at the far end of the room.

Ohm Wire followed his gaze and walked past the curtain separating the near side of the room from the far. She pulled the curtain aside and saw a police officer lying under the sheets. There was a look of fright on his face, mixed with suffering as if from an illness. He was dead, his neck scratched by something unknown.

She looked back at the patient, ready to defend herself if need be, but the man in the corner only cried some more.

“Did you see who did this?” Ohm Wire asked.

“A bad man,” said the patient. “A bad man with bad nails, bad smell.”

“Damn it. Look, would you like to help me to safety?” She didn’t need the help, but she hoped that the offer would in turn help him have the strength to get down to the police below.

He was surprised at first. She held out her hand, and he accepted.

Ohm Wire let him take the lead, his legs wobbling, as they walked to the stairs. “This way much safer,” he said. He opened the door.

And, as though timing were the universe’s plaything, a woman screamed from above them. Her footsteps trampled along the steps until she hurried into view.

“Please,” the nurse said in a frantic voice, “please tell me you’re one of the good guys. You have to help me.”

“What happened?” In hindsight, Ohm Wire shouldn’t have asked. A villain came into view up the next landing in the stairs. She recognized his face and dark complexion from a report she had once caught Walter reading about dangerous villains. It was Defiler, if she remembered the name right, but she barely knew anything about what he could do, only thanks to his work on the officer in the other room.

“You can only run for so long,” Defiler said. “It looks like I’ll have to kill all three of you.”

“Run, help her to the police lieutenant downstairs,” Ohm Wire said, shoving the patient and nurse towards the flight of stairs going down.

Defiler jumped down to intercept them, but Ohm Wire was quick to kick him aside before thinking twice about what she was doing. In spite of her inhibitions, she had to keep this villain at bay, if not subdue him, until help could arrive. She pulled her leg away as he tried to grab for it with those nails of his. She couldn’t take any chances. Defiler’s nails were probably responsible for the officer’s death.

He coughed up something and spat up toward Ohm Wire. She ran over the bars in haste to escape whatever was coming her way. It sounded like a massive spray, and smelled horrific, whatever it was.

The patient and nurse were already out the door and running for the front entrance of the hospital, leaving Ohm Wire to deal with this villain whose abilities she was suddenly having to learn as she went along.

So far, it was avoid the nails and potentially toxic spit. Hopefully, no one else was coming through this stairway any time soon.

Ohm Wire drew the metal claws from the sheaths within her bracelets. She hadn’t had to use these in a while, but this seemed like an appropriate time. She told herself they were for distance and impact, not for stabbing or scratching. That was going to be difficult, but the alternatives were losing her life or losing her chance at redemption.

She saw and heard Defiler coughing up more fluid to add to the already nauseous supply. Ohm Wire thought she heard a sizzling sound from above as well. She chose to exit the stairwell rather than run at Defiler. She closed the door and held it shut as soon as the spray began.

A vapor escaped through the crack in the door, and the bottom corner of the thin window melted first before the rest of the door did. Ohm Wire stepped aside, shouting for everyone to get to safety.

Her electric field that bent most light around her came up as she generated it to do so, and Ohm Wire waited.

If she wanted to kill anyone and have that death be seen by more than enough witnesses for it to plague her life, now was the time to do it with her claws. However, she didn’t want to kill this villain if she could help it.

As soon as Defiler stepped out into the first floor, Ohm Wire kicked him in the face, and swung around to kick again. This time, she felt the villain sink his nails through the fabric on her legs and into her skin.

She hated how attacking or moving suddenly dropped her faux invisibility.

She grunted and surged her electric energy through her leg in hopes of cauterizing whatever might be entering her system. She wasn’t sure if it worked to save her, but it at least shocked Defiler, and he let go.

“You’ll be dead soon enough,” said Defiler.

“Don’t count on it.” Ohm Wire struck a fighting pose.

“If I have to coat your entire body with my venom, I will. You should have let me kill the woman.”

“Not happening. I don’t even care what she is to you.”

Defiler coughed up more of his toxic spray. Ohm Wire dove as much out of the way as she could, rolling on dry ground as a violet fluid covered a large portion of the corridor leading to the ICU.

The nausea was excruciating for the moment it took for Ohm Wire to get up, use her metal claws as a shield against a swipe from Defiler, and kick him in the stomach.

Meanwhile, an officer ran into the corridor and immediately hunched over at the edge of the puddle of toxic fluid. The officer regurgitated the contents of his digestive track before falling to the ground.

“How can you still be standing?” Defiler asked.

It had to be her electric powers somehow. They weren’t perfect for making her immune, but they gave her a fighting chance. Hopefully they held long enough. Hopefully, she could survive long enough. The stench of the miasma rising from the violet fluid was making her feel sicker by the moment.

“It’s our audacity, we damned heroes,” Ohm Wire said. “Someone has to stand and fight against the worst, and tonight that’s me.”

She charged him with a flowing flurry of punches and kicks. Defiler shifted from an act of surprise to fighting out of desperation. His attacks were slower and messy, though harder hitting, compared to Ohm Wire’s. For a time, she thought she had this fight in the bag, but the feeling in her stomach caught up to her, and she hunched over in agony. Defiler used the opportunity to punch her in the face.

It took a moment to realize that she was on the ground, or that the villain was grabbing her by the hair.

He said, “I’m going to enjoy finishing you.”

The next second, he coughed up more fluid. Ohm Wire struggled to no avail. Even stabbing Defiler’s arm with her metal claws, the villain pulled her in, his lips puckered.

She wasn’t sure if her next attack would even work. Panic was setting in. Panic that she was going to die, panic that she was going to fail as a hero, and panic that who she’d been would cease to matter to the love of her life. How could she think such a thing? As the villain drew closer, she fought with herself and who she was now.

Gushing water came in from the side and saved her from the villain’s grip. Beyond the far side of the puddle of toxic fluid, there was a fire hose held and aimed by a construct of shadow. War Lagoon was further back, and he looked as though he were about to fall over.

Once War Lagoon turned the water onto the edges of the toxic fluid, Ohm Wire grappled Defiler’s next attack and let her electric fields surge with power.

The villain roared in pain until seconds after Ohm Wire let go. Defiler stumbled sideways.

Ohm Wire limped over to the man and said, “I told you; tonight, that someone is me. I’m a damned hero.” She punched him in the face one more time, knocking the man out.

She looked back over to War Lagoon to give him a cheer, but he had already collapsed into the arms of a couple nurses while the water continued to leak out of the hose toward the violet mess separating Ohm Wire from where everyone else was.

Her insides burned a little, and her head felt woozy. Ohm Wire traversed the wet floor while trying to figure out the best thing to say to everyone on the Alpha Signal. Her mind was drawing blanks, as were growing spots in her vision.

Someone might have caught her on the other side. She couldn’t tell.

While her numb legs struggled to do anything legs were supposed to do, and her lungs burned, she thought long and hard about what had brought her here. She thought about the choices she had made as far back as choosing to embrace her powers, about dating a hero when she had become a villain in name, about going through with the redemption procedure, and trying to help her girlfriend find more love than Ohm Wire alone. This fight to save the city was another damned Monday, and now she chose to burn harder. She chose to stand.

Damn, Ohm Wire was tired, but she had tonight in the bag. She pushed herself free of the person helping her, and then stumbled forward, ready to help the next person. She could chew herself out in the mirror later.

“They’re finally letting up!” someone shouted as Diamond Grace took down another undead foot soldier.

Up the road, sure enough; the seemingly endless columns of the marching foot soldiers was thinning in number. How long had Diamond Grace been fighting tonight alone? It was supposed to be a random night out with Trush Knuckle, and she was getting so tired. It made her wonder how the heroes and villains did this sort of thing on a regular basis, though maybe not to this extreme.

At least the man sounded like he was still enjoying himself.

Diamond Grace cried out, “Let’s push these freaks back and get out of here!”

She nodded to Trash Knuckle, and they jumped at the front line of the remaining foot soldiers. Sure, the civilians were gone and the heroes could have left already to help with the evacuation efforts in other parts of the city, but there needed to be a city left when everyone came back. That was why the heroes, and a few villains, redoubled their efforts when the immediate danger was nearly over.

A static-ridden voice said through the radio signal, “Attention all teleport . . . repeat, calling . . . teleporters. You’re needed . . . hospitals. Get your butts over . . . .”

Diamond Grace tried to listen to the broadcast more clearly. It sounded like Princess Undercut. The fighting didn’t help, and neither did the growing sound of someone laughing.

Then, suddenly, there was a sound akin to the squealing of speakers, and another of bones crunching. A man screamed out for a moment before he was silenced.

Trash Knuckle tackled Diamond Grace from the side before she could look to see what was happening. The two of them were inside the smoldering ruins of a shorter building that those foot soldiers had blown to pieces.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Shh!” Trash Knuckle said, “Be quiet, and stay down until I say we can move.”

“What?” She usually didn’t mind when Trash Knuckle pinned her down, but this time it hurt. There was nothing intimate about it.

Someone joined them in the building ruins. Trash Knuckle swore under his breath. “I’ll distract her,” he whispered. “You get running. I’ll catch up when I’m done with her.”

The woman who joined them said, “Sorry to break up your little moment. Wait, no. No I’m not. If you’re just going to sit still like that, then I guess I’ll just kill you both now like I did your friend over there.”

Diamond Grace didn’t understand. Who was this woman? How did she kill the hero standing beside them a moment earlier, and why?

Trash Knuckle stood and clubbed something sticking out of the ground at the woman with his fist. The mystery woman was too nimble for the projectile to touch her. The area around the ruins suddenly wreaked worse than any sewer. Diamond Grace knew that was Trash Knuckle. He was unleashing his full power. With a growl, he launched himself at the unknown woman.

He told her to run, but Diamond Grace didn’t. She couldn’t. She sat up and did the only thing she was able to do.

She watched in horror.

In no time, the unknown woman kicked away Trash Knuckle’s balance, and then pointed at his head. The squealing sound rang through the air again, and Trash Knuckle screamed. His whole body shook.

The woman laughed as she clenched her fingers, and the first man Diamond Grace ever felt anything for fell to the ground without a sound, or any sign of a head. Blood spilled out where he landed.

“No!” Diamond Grace screamed.

“Now,” said the unknown woman, “for you.” She stood over Diamond Grace, one arm extended in her direction. She laughed, and she lifted a finger.