*****Hey guys! Here's the fourth chapter of ITC. Things are starting to get frosty between our two lovers as their passion begins to take the wheel. I'm sorry it took me this long to get the ball rolling, but I had to make sure everything was set up just the way I liked it. Remember to leave your comments and thoughts below, and thanks for reading! --DM23*****
*****Special thanks to Decal_last for proofreading this story. *****
In This Country
Arc 1: Brutal Beauty
Chapter 4: The One Month Trial
"Keep up with him Crystal!" Osprey yelled through the earpiece. "Don't lose him!"
Crystal scoffed as she travelled along the water, following Mad Master. It was one of the villainous strategies over the past few days to remove Crystal from the fight early on, seeing as how she would focus on the task at hand with such intensity. And since Mad Master had already put Jasper down, even temporarily, Crystal had to take his place. While it wasn't her cup of tea to play chase, the villain did have a bunch of civilians in his telekinetic grasp, so it wasn't an option.
But what made the problem worse was the distance. Mad Master had been high up in the air, even when Jasper fought with him, and because Crystal depended on the water to travel, she couldn't just reach up and just grab him. Not to mention, he saw all of her water attacks coming, so it wasn't hard for him to dodge an ice chunk or worse . . . use a hostage as a shield.
"Where's the Committee?" Crystal demanded into her earpiece. "I need someone to care for the civilians when Mad Master drops one of them."
"They can't spare any vehicles at the moment since Carbon sabotaged them last week," Osprey replied. "I'm coming to help but I don't think there's much I can do."
"It's better than nothing," Crystal grumbled.
It wasn't that she didn't know what Carbon had done, everyone knew. But the problem was that they were still coming across vehicles that had been sabotaged. And not just their vehicles, but weapons, a few outposts, and tech had been tampered with. And Carbon wasn't alone on his sabotaging spree. Later last week, the heroes found out Target had been taking out individuals who were getting suspicious of the ones Carbon had been possessing so as to not raise an alarm. As a result, until the CCC could repair the damage, they were taken out of the fight.
It was a well coordinated attack.
Or more accurately, a very
detailed
coordinated attack.
Apparently, the Committee said the attack was so well orchestrated that it was as if their database had been hacked. From the report they told Commander Shinobay, the villains would sabotage a base and then escape through the weakest points of the Committee's defenses . . . on multiple occasions. The heroes would've been able to help, but without the Committee pinpointing their location, all the heroes could do was search and come back with no results.
That's what everyone, Crystal included, was doing since last week. However, it was this week that they actually managed to halt their sabotaging campaign. As good as that news sounded, it still got worse as Replica and Mad Master joined in on the fray and causing a panic, which lead to where they are right now. As it stands, the odds of them winning, in this skirmish at least, was like the weather: grim and gray.
Gray . . . Gray . . . Grey with E . . . Grey.
"He's getting away!" Osprey yelled through the earpiece.
"I know!" she yelled back. "I'm coming up with a plan!"
She was trying to come up with a plan, or something of that nature. The problem was that she wasn't used to fighting villains like Mad Master; he was Hyper's main villain. But Hyper had been concussed by an explosion last week, which Dr. Walton, the war nurse turned heroine, ordered her to stay in the Recovery Wing of the Headquarters to recuperate and heal.
Thinking about her injured friend spurned Crystal on and she came to an unfortunate realization. She was never going to capture Mad Master by chasing him and missing her attacks. Instead of doing ground to air attacks, she needed an air to air attack . . . and a whole lot of luck to make it work.
"Osprey, get Mad Master to turn around!" she shouted.
"Do you see how far ahead he is from me?" he asked.
"The people are slowing him down, he just doesn't know it!" Crystal relayed the information. "Turn him around and send him back towards me! I'll fight him head on!"
"This had better work!" Osprey yelled back before he increased his speed.
Crystal was hoping it'd work too. Spreading her hands, she clenched them into a fist then thrust them both into the air. Simultaneously, a huge column of water blasted into the sky, rising higher and higher until it seemed as if they reached the clouds. Then, she crossed her arms and separated them, making the water dissipate and become one with the clouds.
Time to do it again
, she thought.
She moved as fast as possible, going from making one large column at a time, to making smaller columns that merged together. It didn't matter how she got them up there, all of it was to help her accomplish one thing: changing the weather. This was one of the things that, even with her powers, Crystal had never done before. Obviously, it took too long getting ready when she could just make ice gauntlets, throw ice chunks or water spurts, or just fight with her fists.
But she had to adapt if she wanted to rescue those hostages.
The clouds were now a darker shade of grey, swirling in a mass of thick hair on his head with eyes sharp and clear, a sturdy nose, and a pair of lips that she'd want to --
"He's coming your way!" Osprey yelled into her earpiece. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah!" she yelled, shaking her head to clear her thoughts of a certain someone.
Raising her hands, Crystal felt for the water molecules in the clouds. As she felt them respond to her, Crystal tightened her hands into fists and thrust them in Mad Master's direction.
This had better work
, she thought.
Mad Master was completely unaware of things changing. Having not seen Osprey when Crystal was chasing him, the villain believed Crystal had given up and passed the responsibility to someone else. It didn't matter to him who was coming for him; his job was to just keep them distracted.
So, that's why he didn't see a streaking object hit him on his head. For a brief moment, everyone started to fall, screaming all the way down as if their lives were ending right then and there. But, he snapped back to his senses and took hold of all the hostages, maybe, and kept flying around.
In his defense, he was flying at high altitudes at high speeds, even with the extra weight of his hostages. Plus, the sun was blocked by the clouds, so it was dark. That's why it wasn't his fault that he couldn't see clearly. But he knew he needed to change tactics himself as another object came hurtling through the sky and smacked against his shoulder.
It left a sharp ache in his shoulder, but it dulled after a few minutes. Looking down, he scanned the water until he saw Crystal's silhouette. Whatever she was doing, he knew he had to stop it. With a flick of his finger, he threw a hostage straight at her to distract her.
"Osprey, get the --!" Crystal started to shout.
"I'm on it!" the hero yelled as he dived for the civilian.
As he caught the civilian, Crystal raised her arms one final time before bringing them down hard. And to his dismay, Mad Master saw realized why she was doing all of that: hail. The little chunks of ice were merely falling with no wind, but since they were higher in altitude, Mad Master realized he was going to have to fight on all side to even escape.
