Partner’s Sacrifice
Outage was leaning against the concrete barrier atop a random roof in Enderburg’s square. Soft footsteps started behind her. There was a lightness to the clicking of heels that was familiar, trained stealth, even when there was no danger. Outage stared at the ground below, contemplating the option to address the person.
“Won’t you look at me?” A disheartened woman says behind Outage. Her voice was small, defeated.
She continues, “what have I done?” and steps forward with another click. As Outage stays quiet, leather creaking together as she shifts, avoiding a response.
“This isn’t how this has to be, Outage. You don’t have to be angry anymore. I’m here for you, why don’t you see that?”
She goes to speak further, when Outage interrupts, “You being here…is the problem, Pyra.”
Silence ensues for several seconds before two hands slink around Outage’s waist. Who tenses in response, fingers digging into the concrete. The distant sound of cars rumbling by, kids shouting, and wind blowing fade out as Outage goes still.
“You’re warm.” Outage quips weakly. The cold barrier she leans on, is a stark contrast to the welcoming heat of her partner in Justice.
“You say that every time I touch you. Why?” The soft wisps of her fingers danced along Outage’s stomach and caused it to flip in response.
“Because I shouldn’t be close enough to feel it.” Neither of their voices broke beyond whispering, though Outage’s statement rose an octave halfway through when nails gently raked along her side.
“But you’re always so…cold. In more than one way, Outage. Why do you hide so far in yourself? We’ve been partners for 3 years now, and you still don’t open up to me.”
“That’s exactly why, Pyra.” Outage shifts, seeming to pull away from Pyra, who holds on slightly tighter. “We’re partners. That’s it. We fight crime together, on occasion when our villains collide. Why would I open up? I’m doing my job. My identity, my person, my life. It’s separate from this. And I can’t make new connections. It makes my complicated life, too messy.”
The fingers go slack around Outage’s waist, and they pull away, “Partners? We’re just partners? You’re joking.”
Outage slips a few feet away, still not looking at Pyra, “I wish I was.”
“I can’t believe you. After 3 years. 3 entire years of kicking Cryo and Star’s ass, swapping coms to keep an eye on each other. Having nightly stakeouts at banks, for Pete’s sake, one day I consoled you when you were crying over someone who didn’t like you back! We are more than partners. And you know it.”
“I know it, but can’t let it be true.”
“And why is that?” She challenges Outage.
“Because personal information can ruin a good workflow. If I tell you anything and you don’t agree with it, or you get offended, don’t sympathize, or something else. That ruins our entire dynamic, Pyra. So we can’t be anything beyond occasional partners. I just won’t allow it.”
Pyra reaches out, desperate. “Please, we’ve been through so much. Nothing you say will change how I see you.”
“If you knew who I was, it might. I’m a completely different person under the mask, Pyra.”
“I mean, we both are. You don’t think my eyes are actually blank, do you? I don’t wear this much pink, either. I’m not as serious.”
“So it’s a façade? A game?”
“No! You are twisting my words away from my point. I’m saying that neither of us is who we say we are. That’s how superheroes work. But I’m still me! I’m Pyra, and you’re Outage. No matter what. And I want to know who you are. Both of you.”
Outage balls her hands, shaking her head. “No, no.”
“Please…please, something simple. Anything...just let me know you care about me too. Beyond just a ‘partner’.” She spits the word like poison.
Outage remains resolute until that point, when her shoulders sag and her arms drop to her sides. “My…favorite drink is tea?”
Pyra perks up, grinning at Outage’s back. “Yes! Mine is a strawberry milkshake.”
Outage turns her head slightly, “I really like romance movies”
“Oh me too!” Pyra steps forward as Outage finally faces her. She takes her hands, bound by leather and trembling. “Keep going!”
“I…my favorite Disney movie is the little mermaid.”
“Mine is Cinderella.” Pyra grins, the edges of her mask crinkling at the edges. “Can I ask one more favor of you? This one will be tough.” She gives Outage’s hands a soft squeeze.
“Of course..” Outage breathes out, distracted.
“Who didn’t like you back?”
The question hung in the air like a poorly timed joke. And Outage pulled her hands back suddenly.
“What?”
“I want to know who broke your heart. Who managed to break through the walls I’ve been hacking at for years. And then betray you like that. I’ve never..” she frowns, trying to take Outage’s hands back, “I haven’t seen you so defeated before. Even after losing to Star for so long. Beating yourself up about it despite living through so many of her attacks when so many other humans failed. This one person broke you. And you haven’t been the same. So, who was it?”
Outage lets out a small whimper, shaking her head and sliding to the floor with her head in her hands. Pyra plops down beside her and offers her shoulder, which is taken promptly.
“It was…this girl.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Sitting on the cold concrete roof, the leather-clad woman stiffens and curls in on herself. “Of course, this is what I meant.” Her tone turns forlorn.
Pyra furrows her brow, her mask following suit, even as her eyes stay blank and lacking irises. “Outage? I don — “
Outage cuts her off, scowling and pushing away, moving to her feet. “If it is a problem, then I have proven to you why I do not share my personal life. This will affect us, Pyra. I should not have spoken.” Her words were crumpled, wavy behind the static of her voice modulator. She presses a button and soft whirring breaks the quiet night between them.
Pyra moves to get up, “Outage, no, this is not a problem. You are not a problem! It was a surprise, is all. Please don’t leave.” There was something in her tone that Outage could not place, something familiar.
She shakes her head, and the whirring grows louder as she is lifted off the ground and hovering before Pyra, whose eyes shine with emotion. “It may not be a problem now, but assumptions will be made. Forget what I said, Pyra. It is of no use to either of us. My love life does not exist, for both sides. And it is better that way. Do not search me out. Cryo is being tracked out of town, I will not be around.”
“Outage, please!” Pyra hovers after her and grabs her hand, only to let go when Outage cries out in return. She yanks away, both women cradling their hands to their chest. Pyra’s own fingers were engulfed in pink flames, and spreading down her hands. In the soft breeze, the tendrils flickered lightly, creating a dull pink light cast on the pair’s faces. The opposing heroine had one smoking hand, the fire having seared past the leather and to her skin, which now bubbled with instant blisters and irritation.
“I’m Sorry, I…” Pyra found herself trembling, and the fire growing brighter, and further down her arms, not burning her own suit. The result was the illumination of pain on Outage’s face. “It was an accident! I promise, I wasn’t in control of my emotions! I…I…”
Outage silenced Pyra with her glove, the burned hand coming into full view. “And it is my fault, my news has caused this. Already, it is proving to do bad things. Don’t you see? We work together because we don’t know each other. We’re strangers, people in costumes who play lives that are not our own. I don’t even have powers. I am just too hopeful, too weak, too human. We could never be friends, Pyra. It’s too dangerous.”
In irony, the fire-oriented hero felt her own eyes burn with tears. “But I do know you! You are not just…someone in a costume. You are Outage. You are intelligent and kind-hearted you have a temper and walls so high up even I can’t fly over them. You protect everyone, no matter what, except yourself. You let yourself be thrown, tossed, and broken over and over because you want to save people. You make your own technology to be this incredible hero who thwarts one of the city’s most dangerous villains every other week. You inspire the entire city of Enderburg to stand up for themselves because they can. Because you did it. A human, with nothing more than a little help, overcame doubt and tyranny, trial and error. You won over the very same city after years of them hating you for trying to one-up me!” Pyra took a shuddering breath, her body wobbly in mid-air. “You won me over. Instead of rivals, we became partners. I sought you out, because you had potential, because I couldn’t handle Cryotech and Starlight at the same time. You have helped me for years, and for what? For me to care that you loved a girl?”
Outage had long since let her guard fall. No one has ever spoken of her like that. She didn’t think Pyra even liked her until tonight. Thought it was a ruse, that this was how partnerships went. She said nothing, how could she?
Pyra floated closer, flames up to her shoulders. The heat radiating off her could rival a bonfire. She could see a spark between Outage’s good hand, little bands of electricity jumping between her fingers.
“Are you…still afraid?”
Her voice was but a whisper, barely picked up by her modifier, and crackled out a low, “Yes.”
As if expecting that answer, Pyra landed back on the concrete near the edge of the building, head down and shoulders tense through the bubblegum flames. Cars below them had died off in the past few minutes, curfew setting in place as people went home.
“Then nothing I can do will change that. If you are still afraid and unwilling after 3 years, one conversation will not change that. You know what I feel, yet you refuse to acknowledge it. To let me in.” Pyra turns her back on Outage, “So be it. Goodnight, partner.” Pyra leaped off the roof, and soared between the skyscrapers, not waiting for an answer.
Outage had not one word to give.
— — —
It was days before the news of Outage reached the city, having been quiet since she vanished into the night. Video footage played on every screen and every channel.
Pyra, stopping her flight over the town square, heard the loud speakers playing out what the news anchors spoke of.
“We have the weathe — -” The screen glitches out before something else pops up.
Pyra frowned and settled herself atop a smaller building as the video proceeds.
It was a drone, a very small high powered drone that zipped around before focusing on a bright blue-haired man with a white lab coat and metal armor underneath.
“Cryotech, of course. Perhaps this will help me find Outage, it is live.” Pyra mumbled as the drone zoomed closer to Cryo.
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Cryo grinned like the madman he was when he saw the drone. “Perfect, functioning as it should.” He cleared his throat before turning to the camera fully.
Pyra heard several citizens boo when he spoke.
“Citizen’s of Enderburg and Airus, I bring this to you in hopes you see how fruitless your endeavors are in stopping me. You see, I have something special for one of your favorite heroes. Or maybe, not so much? When they get here, you will all watch as I take away something useless, and pathetic. I want you to see how your brothers, sisters, friends, et cetera, react to this. Because we all think that we are safe, until….one of our biggest pillars falls due to too many cracks.”
His manic ramblings were understood well enough, the city in a tense hush. Pyra was prepared to fly off at once if he showed up or was a distraction for Starlight.
Cryotech laughs, a sadistic twinkle in his eye as he grabs the drone and throws it out, the camera shaking before it stabilizes and is now a distance from Cryo again. In comes a figure clad in green and black. Despite being far away, the icy man is heard well, perhaps attached to a mic.
“You’re right on time, my sweet bolt.”
Something flashed behind Outage as she planted her feet on the ground, surrounded by tall grass. It was odd, them meeting in a field, usually, it was a city bank or an abandoned train yard. But never in the middle of nowhere. Alarm bells rang in Pyra’s head before Outage spoke. She could be clearly heard as well.
“I didn’t know we planned our meetings, Cryotech.” Outage launched herself at him. Blade extending for a swipe.
The man shook with more laughter, coat ruffling in the wind as he flew back away from her.
“Is that what you think I mean? Always so serious. Lighten up, it’s just us. You and me. No buildings to rob, no people to hurt. Why so quick to end things when it’s only going to get more fun?”
“Nothing with you is ever fun.” Outage spat, but lowered her blade and did not ready another attack. The city below the screen murmured, curious. Pyra bit at her lip, anxious as to what Cryo was planning.
“And yet you banter. You stop and listen to me when I speak. You, my Bolt, return every single time I show up…for what? A job? You get beaten to a pulp over and over and you come back just because you want to best me? You know you can’t. I’m giving you mercy with our little squabbles. Even now, you listen to me, what I say. You find it exhilarating.”
“Who would find this exhilarating?”
“The same person that goes out of their way to be above the average person. You live off of being more than human, don’t you? You just want to be at the same bar as your beloved partner. But you never will be, because you are human. You are weak and fragile. No amount of nanobots or foldable blades and wires will help you be anything more than human. But you find it exhilarating to try. Because no other human does, so that must be worth something, anything, right?
You fight me, I fight back, you get praise for something I let you get away with.”
Cryotech advances on Outage, who growls and takes steps back before her ankles are clamped by something. She cries out and tries to move, but her arms are clamped around the wrist and tugged down. Rubber-clad robot arms hold her in place. She struggles as the drone flies in for a closer shot of the two.
The city bursts out into a mass of curiosity, none quite scared for their second-most beloved hero. The first was frozen in terror as she watched her partner struggle and send shocks into the rubber arms, doing nothing as her body crackled with yellow electricity.
A large machine replaces a section of the grass surrounding Outage. Several smaller machines extend what appear to be ray guns. Pointing directly at the trapped vigilante. Parts spun and came with it stored electricity. That which mirrored Outages own mechanical powers. This was when Pyra finally took off to where she thinks they were, unable to watch as the broadcast continues.
“Reverse engineering your power was hard, Bolt. You made it a real challenge to gather information when you never used it unless necessary. I had to push your limits for nearly a year to perfect it, and then improve it. But here we are, you caught like a mouse in my trap. So easily lured in when promised a fight. You are simple-minded beyond your technology, you care for nothing but reputation. Because you walk a thin line with your city. Whether they hate or love you. You jump at any chance to be among the latter. And that will be your downfall.”
“You crazy bastard! Let me go!” Her cries whet unanswered as Cryo finally made it face to face with her, the drone up close and personal too. You could see the terror in the heroine’s eyes and joy in her nemesis’.
“Hush now, lone lightning, you must have known this would happen eventually. It was always creeping closer. The day where you would run out of luck, out of mercy. You are too much of a pest to be worth anything more than a passing swat now and again. This is your last draw, if you are as strong as you want people to believe, let’s see if you can make it out of this one alive.”
He steps back, outside the machine as the drone keeps floating in front of Outage as she screams at him. A fifth arm comes up and wraps around her mask, pressing tightly so that she can’t make any noise, nor can she breathe.
Pyra was speeding faster than she had ever flown before, hair in her mouth and eyes.
“See that drone in front of you?”
Outage can’t reply and instead struggles against her restraints, letting out an impressive electrical shock from her body. It was no use and Cryo told her as such.
“Those, my dear bolt, are made of a dense rubber that prevents all electrical current. Your little static charges go nowhere. You have no grounding point.”
He laughs, cackles, more like, before continuing. “This drone you see, is broadcasting our little chat to our favorite cities right now. On every channel, every device, every screen. No one can miss this. Just as they won’t miss you.”
Her struggling dies out as her face pales, eyes lined with tears.
“Now don’t cry, they never believed in you anyway. But…why to everyone, you ask? It’s simple, really. I’m stalling, waiting for your beloved partner to make her rescue. A screen isn’t enough, she has to be here, to witness this. I have waited too long to do this just for it to be us. No, no no no no no!” He stops to laugh again, “I want to see the light die out from both your eyes. I want to kill you. And crush her. She is so fond of you, you know that? Watching her fly around after you for years, healing your tiny scrapes and wounds while we end up with broken bones and punctured lungs. It would be endearing if she wasn’t so…pink. It’s too bright of a color to be pleasing. It hurts my eyes, I want to dull it. So I will make her choose. All we have to do is…wait.”
The drone turns at the timing as Pyra slams into the ground and grabs a hold of Cryo by the throat. He gargles out a laugh as she slams him into the ground, holding a flaming hand close to his face.
“Shut it off.” The city sat with bated breath as Cryo started giggling, then laughing, then howling.
“Oh my beloved matchstick, I can’t!” He laughs more, not threatened by the fire hovering near his face even as he visibly sweats.
“Explain, before I melt that smile off your face.”
“I never built it with the intention to turn it off.” He sings, smiling up at her through the fire. “But you can. In exchange for something.”
“What is stopping me from smashing it?”
“Clever, but you would die from even touching the metal, which is fire-resistant, by the way. So no melting it either!”
“What do I have to exchange?”
Cryotech grabbed Pyra’s wrist and slammed it down beside his head, forcing her face close to his as he whispers in her ear something too low for the camera to pick up.
Pyra understood though and cried out with anger as she put her hand on the villain’s face, searing it instantly. His screams ring through the city as they watch their heroine burn Cryo alive.
He falls limp and she removes herself, turning to Outage and the machine. Due to her restraints, Outage was passed out and unable to fight for herself any longer. The machine got louder, more violent, and charged. Pyra was running out of time.
The drone followed her as she made her way to her partner in the field, wind and electricity crackling made it hard to hear anything. But Pyra had made up her mind.
“I’m sorry,” The city heard her start, as she approached Outage, hair whipping around.
“For what I am about to do, you will hate me afterward, and I understand that. But your life matters more than this. I know you can’t hear me, but they can.” She turns to the drone, “Citizens, please, I ask you to close your eyes. To shield your children, shut off your screens if you can. To save her, I must take off her mask. But she cannot be Outage without it. So do me one favor as Pyra, and don’t look. Her one wish was to only be known as she appears. I beg you, fulfill her wish.”
It will not be known to Pyra if they look away until days pass. But she turns to Outage and the arm over her mouth peels away. The sound of the machine is deafening now, prepared to fire at them both.
“I am sorry Outage! But for this to work I must look, they watch me, the drones, and that is the only key for the machine to turn off. I can’t prevent this! I won’t let it change anything! Even if I know you!”
The city can’t hear anything now, only see Pyra crying and reaching up to grab her mask.
Pyra places her hands on either side of her mask and finds how to detach it. Once she feels it give, she takes a breath and pulls it away.
The last thing the city sees before the feed cuts off, is Pyra dropping the mask in shock, before saying something and covering her mouth.
“Nova?”
Stood before the heroine in pink, was none other than Nova Massi. As the machine whirs in defiance, before settling to turn off, the silence creeps in.
Tears streaming down Pyra’s blank eyes, she gazes along Nova’s face. Battered, with a line around her nose and mouth from the pressure of the mask, lips blue from lack of oxygen. “Oh, Nova…” Sobs erupt from Pyra, as she reaches forward to caress Nova’s face gently, shaking in fear of hurting her. She cannot believe it’s her, it’s always been her.
Pyra slowly took her hand away and despite the shock, started dislodging the human from the machine, lifting her with ease and cradling Nova as she floated away from the machine. Setting the young woman into the grass and landing herself, she collapses onto her knees beside her. Pyra pulls Nova’s head and shoulders into her lap and hugs her gently, tears wetting Nova’s face.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It was me. I love you it, was me.” She repeats, trembling.
The unconscious girl did not wake. Pyra, free to talk starts mumbling apologies to Nova. Leaning down, Pyra plants a gentle kiss on the woman’s forehead, letting them linger there.
Pyra whispers to her childhood friend. “My friend, I am so sorry…it was me who broke your heart, wasn’t it? You were right, knowing has changed everything.”
Silence follows, only broken up by gentle sobs from Pyra, until Nova shifts in her arms.
“…Angel?” Comes a whisper from the heroine, much to Pyra’s surprise and chagrin. She laughs, flushing a dark pink among her already bubblegum skin.
“Yes, Nova, it’s me.” The girl opened her eyes, an unfamiliar green shone back, another modification Pyra assumes helped hide her identity besides her voice.
“Good, I would have been embarrassed if I was wrong.” Nova quips, exhaustion lacing her words.
“I am sorry, that I am Angel.” Pyra says suddenly, tears forming again, “I know that personal connection makes Outage’s job harder. And I have jeopardiz-” Angel is interrupted by lips connected to hers, Nova having pushed herself up by her elbows to reach. Once the woman pulls back she cups Pyra’s face.
“I love you too, we shall worry about the rest later. For now, can we go back to your mom’s place? I need a nap on the couch.” There’s a soft, albeit tired smile on Nova’s face. A glimmer in her eyes shone with passion.
Pyra laughed lightly, “Of course, I shall carry you.”
The women watch the sunrise on a new day, a new era in the city of Enderburg upon them.
