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A Line of Red: Before
It wasn't far, now. He just he just had to make it back. He had left the highway far behind; the Corridor should be just beyond that next batch of trees. Not far.
Fire tore his arm off at the elbow. Blood broke through the cauterized skin, twisted and flowed and split and joined, like a network of veins and arteries, out and down and up and back into what was left of his arm. The trees broke and he came to a cliff, steep and rocky. This wasn't supposed to be here! Had he gotten turned around? White bone began climbing up in the center of the network of free-flowing blood. Tissue followed it, muscle, ligaments, skin. His new hand was pale and sensitive, untouched by sun or wind or pain. He ignored it. He heard a humming in the distance. No choice, right? Never much choice. He jumped and broke his ankle in the fall, and hopped on one leg as the other snapped itself back into place, and then he ran again.
He had to keep moving. But where was he? Lost. How would he find his way again? No time to figure that out; he had to keep moving. He had to keep moving, and getting himself more lost. Maybe it'd be easier if he just gave up and tried to escape later.
A line of red struck the ground in the distance. The ground erupted in ferocious light and sound, launching trees and dirt and roots and branches, which then rained down around and in the barren crater left behind. Crap. They had gotten new tech already; that had just been a test. Could he regenerate from that, whatever it was? Best not to find out. He had to reach Coalition base! They had to know. Capture wasn't an option, but what could the Coalition do against these... Kid Infinity. Kid Infinity was on the Coalition roster now; he'd know what to do. Renewed, he picked a direction and began running again. Kid Infinity would know what to do.
It was several hours yet before he found what he had been looking for; a large mound of dirt--like a baby hill--that had apparently been cut in half vertically and had a brown, wooden door stuck in the resulting flat side. To all appearances, the door would open into a wall of dirt, but he knew this wasn’t the case. He sprinted for the door, nearly tearing it out of the half-mound as he threw it open, leapt through the frame and slammed it shut.
A monitor beeped to life. The small gnomes Kid Infinity had created to amuse himself vanished with a thought, and he brought his attention back to his duties. Someone had entered one of the Corridors. It happened occasionally; some kid got lost and curious, or a reserve member showed up unannounced. Kid Infinity recognized the intruder.
"Regen?" Kid said aloud, leaning forward to get a better look. Regen had been a founding member of the Coalition, but had left before the Kid joined and they had never met face-to-face. The Kid only knew him because of the extensive dossiers the team kept on its members, past, present, and on occasion, future. But Regen hadn't left, Kid Infinity remembered; he had vanished.
Regen reached the other end of the Corridor: another door, white and with a shining brass handle. He tore it open, glad to escape the Corridor. He found himself in a large circular room, several stories tall, each floor lined with more doors, leading to more Corridors. This was just one of many rooms like it. He locked the door behind him, and set off at a run. The satellite was bigger than he remembered; it took two wrong turns and three dead ends for him to find his way to the monitor room.
"Regen, right?" Kid Infinity greeted, "Something wrong?" From what the Kid could gather, lots was wrong. Regen's clothes--they looked like some sort of uniform, like what a prisoner would wear--were torn in many places, with small sticks and leaves stuck to it and resting in his hair; he had been running. He looked like he hadn't eaten in a long time; he wasn't the excessively fit Super he had once been. But mostly, he looked tired.
Regen opened his mouth to say something... and then closed it again. "I... I'm not sure how to explain this." He said, finally.
"It's alright," the Kid assured him. "Here, sit down. You need anything? Food, a drink? I think some of the beer Hazard tried to hide is--"
"No, it's--it's okay. I'm fine."
"Alright," Kid said, pulling up a second chair, "Then... you want to try to tell me what's got you worried?"
Regen took a deep breath. "You know how a lot of Supers have been vanishing lately?"
"Most of the older generation is retiring, yes," the Kid replied.
"A lot of them... A lot of them aren't. A lot of them are like me. We got... well, we got captured. Don't know who it was; I don't think they're with any of our governments, though. They caught us, they caught us and tried to push us to our limits. They were studying us, our powers. Not just the good guys, either; I saw Coldular and Mummyhead and some others there, too."
"And we thought we had just finally found a prison that could hold them."
"It did, actually; there were a lot of attempts at rebellion, but their technology... ...You know Star Wars?"
"You're kidding."
"Probably more advanced by now," Regen said, "Occasionally, there'll be a-a time ripple-thing. All of their tech suddenly becomes more advanced. I don't know how it works, or how--"
"How long has this been going on?" Kid Infinity asked over interlaced fingers.
"A couple of years, at least."
"The others need to hear about this," the Kid said, standing and walking over to a panel of controls near the monitors. His hands ran over the console, bringing up small windows and information. He went through a series that Regen remembered well, one that would instruct any active members of the Coalition to assemble at the satellite.
"We've got a half-hour at least before anyone will be able to get here," the Kid said, "So in the meantime--"
The satellite shook, throwing both of them to the ground. Alarms blared, and Kid Infinity leapt to his feet and listened.
"Sh--" the Kid hissed. Regen blinked. Did Kid Infinity just almost curse? The boy spun on his heel and gestured to the monitor controls; small sparks of white jumped about on the keyboard, bringing up images from within the satellite. On several, there were machines, like huge, four-legged spiders, crawling through the satellite's halls, tearing down whatever got in their way.
"Of COURSE they're coming straight for us, "Kid Infinity said, annoyed. "Are those the same guys who--"
"Yeah. I don't recognize those spider things, but it's definitely their stuff."
"Then get out of here," the Kid said, "Get to the Corridors, pick one and run. I'll handle the ones here."
"I'm done running," Regen insisted, "I've--"
"I don't want to risk you getting caught again. You're the only one who knows anything about these guys, and if they're here for you, they could easily grab you and go before I could do anything. So--" The satellite shook again; the Kid kept his balance, but Regen didn't. A huge, white, glowing hand caught him and held him. "I hate manhandling people," the Kid said, apologetically. The floating hand carried Regen out the room, and Kid Infinity tried not to feel like a jerk. Instead, he looked up.
A dark blue bolt tore through the ceiling and floor in an instant, tearing gaping holes the size of swimming pools, and deep down in the satellite’s heart, the Kid heard and felt an explosion--one of the auxiliary power sources, the Kid figured.
Kid Infinity wanted to curse, but he had been raised better than that. Instead, he clapped his hands. Reverberations traveled throughout the satellite; something that was felt rather than heard. Something had changed.
A second shot was fired, but this time Kid Infinity was prepared. The ceiling was gone, now, but the floor was still half there; Kid Infinity gripped a ball of blue, its energies lashing out from between his fingertips, tearing into the walls and what was left of the floor. He tightened his hands, and pinched the blue destruction into two, one bolt of oblivion in each hand. And he sent them back where they came from.
Kid Infinity listened.
The one above--the one that had attacked him--was gone. Two more... near the Corridors. Crap. Scalding Source energy filled him, and he was in the primary Corridor Hall, a spiraling tower, shaped like bee's hive. Regen hadn’t made it to a Corridor yet; the Kid could hear and feel and smell him coming, still carried by the Kid’s hand construct. He urged it onward, knowing that the Corridors were the only way Regen was getting out of the satellite safely. At least, the Kid corrected himself, so long as he could keep one working. And could keep Regen from getting vaporized or crushed or--
A tearing sound from above grabbed the Kid's attention, as another one of the machines tore through the ceiling. These things moved faster than he thought! He jumped several stories and launched himself off the railing towards the invader. He formed a comically large boxing glove.
"Out!" The Kid uppercut the machine back up into the ceiling--and with any luck, straight out into space. More tearing. The Kid looked back down, letting the boxing glove fade. Two more had ripped into the room below him. White wings directed his fall towards the nearest, on the third floor.
"What are you?" he asked upon landing. "Aside from a giant spider-robot thing from the future, I mean. That much is obvious." A Source-formed sword cleft the thing in two. "I mean, you aren't alive," he said to the remains, "Not even in the intelligent robot sense." He turned and leapt to face the last one. "I don't think you--" He stopped, catching himself in mid-air with a platform construct. "What.." He paused for a long moment. Had it been his imagination? He made a baseball. A baseball bat to go with it. Heck, why not? He made himself a helmet and uniform and even a home base, just because he could. A swing and a crack and the final robot thing had a baseball-shaped hole in it. It collapsed, nonfunctional, now.
"That wasn't so hard," the Kid muttered and headed over to the robot. What to do with it and its friends? Thing'a'majig was a tech guy; he might want it...
It was one of those spider-things, but there was such a huge indentation in one side, Regen figured it was already dead. Then it started... rippling. Distortion spiraled around it, swirling colors that made one feel ill, until it was completely hidden from view. Regen cursed.
"KID!"
"What? Oh, hey, Regen, I--"
"CELESTIAL!" the machine had since landed, though it did so silently, and the warping around it had faded. It had changed completely. Though it before stood on legs of a spider, it now had limbs and a body all too human. Were it not for the skin--blue and black and purple, like an ugly bruise--and were it not for the teeth--sharp and pointed and rowed like a shark's--it might've even passed for a man.
"...Excuse me?" the Kid asked.
"I know well how to deal with your kind," it said, though Regen was not sure how, with those teeth, "Observe, NJ9228, and do not flee again." Regen shivered. NJ9228 had been the number they had used to keep track of him. It had not been a good thing to be referred to by number.
"Wait, I don't get it," the Kid said, unafraid, "Are you mechanical, or organic?"
"A little bit of both," the machine replied. It raised its arm, and the limb shifted and twisted and changed. A hole opened up in the palm of its clawed hand, widened, and an inner light seeped out.
"But mostly neither," the thing finished. Kid Infinity braced himself, but even for him, there was no time to react. Regen didn't know what happened. But Kid Infinity was on the ground now, and the robot hadn't moved. All Regen knew was that a line of red had burned itself into his vision. Kid Infinity was bleeding; even his blood was white. The Kid didn't move. The machine's arm became an arm again. It turned to face Regen.
Now what? thought Regen. Now what?
