2.31.2 – Cooler than ice

2.0 - Edited by: Rellawing, AlliterativeArts - 12/3/2020

Seemingly from nowhere, Midnight Avenger produced a foil-wrapped object the size of a stack of dollars. When he unwrapped the foil, Aurora saw it was a gelatinous-looking block wrapped in plastic. “This is the substance they found at Padua, about ten bricks worth. The typical shipment we’ve intercepted so far has twelve. That means it’s highly likely that two are missing, either fed to the children or to the Councillors. A person exposed to even one-one-hundredth of this is at high risk of developing severe side-effects. The only blessing is that the dose-effect curve on this garbage isn’t too bad after a certain point; there won’t be much of a difference whether someone consumed a tablespoon versus a full brick.”

“Your friend is definitely one of the people who is at risk right now since her punishment was interrupted. Evidence points to them only using this to feed the kids they locked up in solitary such as her. I’m currently tracking all the kids that the records indicated were imprisoned during the period of time in which they should’ve received these bricks. That’s still at least a dozen kids at risk. Not too many, but I can’t afford to stay in the city to watch over these possible victims.”

“I will forward some information you might be able to use to subdue them. I’m depending on you to make sure that any incidents are dealt with appropriately, okay?”

Aurora nodded after Midnight Avenger finished and replied, “Yes, sir. I understand. I’m already watching the one you know, the one I flew home. I’ll keep tabs on the others as well as I can along with her. I understand that this exposure might unlock meta-genes in them…. Is that the worst of it?”

Midnight Avenger didn’t paint a rosy picture, “The prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus, and subthalamic nucleus are impacted causing disinhibition, slanting personality expression and… Sigh, put simply, what usually happens is that they gain a superiority complex and feel the need to act on their whims. More simply put, it usually results in criminal behavior. The powers they get vary, obviously, and the unlock of powers lasts anywhere from hours to days. What was recently discovered is that this stuff can incubate in a human body for up to six months.”

“I don’t expect you to keep watch on all the candidates around the clock, but it may help you to know about them, as it may help you de-escalate the individual who’s acting out. Let me show you something else,” he said, holding out his hand.

Aurora looked blankly at it and reached her own hand out to shake his. He chuckled wryly. “Your communicator.”

Sheepish, Aurora handed over her communicator and he showed her how to take a picture and how to cross-reference something with an identification folder. A feature like that would seriously help with investigation. “I’ll forward you the information in an hour,” he said, handing the card back to her.

Aurora nodded and smiled. “Thank you, that’s going to be very important going forward.” her smile broadened. “Detective Kirby is onto some of this. I’m thinking…” Her grin faltered. “Would it be alright to let him know that the kids who were subjected are at immediate risk and that they should be watched for any odd symptoms surfacing? It doesn’t make much sense to take a ‘wait and see’ stance if we’re reasonably sure of who will develop these powers.” Aurora’s eyes narrowed and she paced as she thought her way through it. “Naturally, we don’t want to impact their lives, but anything could cause serious issues.” She looked up at M.A. “And we don’t want them to hate or be wary of heroes or authority figures when things do kick off. A little bit of advanced warning might be helpful too.”

Midnight Avenger shook his head in a resigned fashion. “First of all, the California authorities want to put a lid on this whole affair. They’re trying hard not to let anything get out at all. Your Detective friend may already know the situation, but he is likely under orders not to tell anyone anything new. Second of all, what do you expect we’d do about these kids? Round them up and keep an eye on them for the next six months?”

Aurora shook her head in return and ruefully chuckled at the very idea. “No, nothing like that. Just a watch. Limited surveillance. It’s the best move, I believe. They shouldn’t see any observers. I, for example, could watch from the sky at a distance, particularly with the zoom on the communicator. We need to get a general idea of their condition regularly. I can’t be in multiple places at once, so if we want this to be an effective monitoring system, we’ll need some help. The police don’t need to do much. They need only look for odd behavior or the early onset of powers.”

“They’re likely to want to monitor them anyway, assuming they’re properly wary of the threat that these kids pose for the next six or so months. Anyone who sees anything odd could report directly to Detective Kirby and through him, I’d know. He’s more than trustworthy. He’s a real believer in superheroes. He’s knowledgeable and experienced enough to stay discrete, so to speak. He or I can then pass on what’s needed on to the Society and his own superiors. We work well. Either way, I’m going to step up my patrols in the city.”

Midnight Avenger slightly tilted his head. “Again, they probably don’t want this getting around even to the police like your Kirby. And even if they were fine with that, it would certainly cause a reaction if the police started setting up surveillance over all those families. The level of resources they’d have to divert while other and more common crimes happen… it just wouldn’t go over well.”

With another sigh, he still somewhat relented, “Talk to your friend, he can tell you what resources they can pull.”

Midnight Avenger suddenly stopped speaking and put his hand up to his ear. “Wait a second. I’m getting a report…” He looked out over the horizon. “One of the kids from Seaside is already having a reaction. Get over there and look for… ice,” he said. “I’ll head over myself, but you’re faster.” He started tapping the air in front of him as if he were typing.

“Roger,” Aurora replied quickly, “I’d offer you a ride, but something tells me you wouldn’t accept the offer.” She grinned, having a fair idea of his distrusting nature and his own pride. “See you there, sir.”

She waved and leapt into the air, pouring on the speed as she headed northward. At first she wasn’t sure of exactly where she should be going, but she didn’t have to wait long to find a decent enough clue. Seeing tall towers of ice along the street, she followed the sheets of ice along until she came upon the flashing lights of several police cars. Some were simply parked but others were completely encased in the ice.

In the center of the iced up zone was a large igloo-like structure.

Aurora gathered her energies, analyzing the situation. Was it an attack, or was it self-defense?

The police were firing on the igloo! Aurora came to a stop nearby. She aimed at the igloo and opened fire herself to test the ice’s durability versus her blasts, to discover soon that they didn’t break easily under siege. The somewhat muffled voice of the person inside shouted loudly. “You’ll never break in! Just wait until I’m done, you dumb bastards!”

Aurora shook her head in confusion. She maneuvered herself down onto the igloo and sat on its roof. “Hey kid,” she called to the occupant, motioning for the officers to stop firing since it was obviously not getting them anywhere. “It’s your friendly neighborhood Guardian Angel Aurora sitting up here on top of your nice little ice-shack. Gotta say your ice powers are pretty impressive. Remember how gallantly I saved you all from that awful camp? I was trying to open a door inside so I could talk to you, but you’re a tough nut that’s for sure. Would you mind talking about what you’re doing here today? Believe me, I know how scary it can be waking up and finding that you have super powers...”

She had to wait a beat for the igloo’s creator to respond, “I’m no kid! I’ll show you too just how cool I am!”

The igloo split to reveal a small boy inside, maybe thirteen years old. He was encased in a clear ice shaped like armor or at least it looked a bit like that. He gestured at Aurora and icy shards started shooting out at her. Her field was able to rebuff the brunt of his assault, but some of the icy shards actually lodged into the barrier! Aurora was shocked to see that the stuff they were fed had such a huge impact.

She knew she’d have to be deliberate and careful. That weird meta tofu definitely had some serious effects.

“Really?” Aurora asked calmly. “I save you from that awful camp and you want to attack me? You think destroying things is cool? This isn’t the way to act cool. That’s what villains do. Didn’t you ever look at the skies and think, ‘I would really like to be a superhero someday. I would like to protect people and stand for something good in this cruddy world!’ If you want to be cool, that’s about as cool as anyone could be in my opinion.”

“Shut up! You don’t know anything!” The boy cried out and charged directly at Aurora. He swung his ice enlarged arms at her, but she was able to dodge his clumsy blows. As he continued to swing repeatedly, the cops started shooting again causing Aurora’s eyes to widen. One of the bullets hit her field and stopped short, but the other bullets ricocheted and went everywhere.

“Stop that!” Aurora barked a command at the cops. “You’ll just kill someone firing at us! Let me handle this! He’s not what you think he is. Don’t antagonize him any further. You’ll just be putting your lives and his at risk!”

Aurora refocused on the boy. “Don’t mind them. They’re scared. You’re scaring people. Is that who you want to be?”

“Yes! I want everyone to be afraid of me! I’m the coolest guy around! No one can control me anymore, ever!” he screamed and his icy body started growing spikes.

One of the cops called out an order to the officers and then to Aurora, “All right, everyone fall back a half-block. Give Aurora a chance to take this monster down!”

The boy was triggered instantly. “You think I’m a monster?” he snarled. “I AM a monster! I’ll show you ALL just how much of a monster I AM!” he bellowed as he started to grow, or rather the ice encasing him did. The ambient temperature in the area started to drop noticeably.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Aurora murmured to herself, thinking about how to resolve the situation with the least necessary violence. Fire would be helpful, or perhaps electricity, but she didn’t have abilities in either element. If she made the use of a power line, would the kid survive? She was afraid she’d have to be rough with him one way or another, but not like that. Perhaps vibration could help? Was there a jackhammer? She shrugged to herself and smiled. She could make rings and walls, what else could she do? She focused and tried to form a jackhammer.

She created the light construct of one, but it was just an object in the right form rather than being a functional tool. She shrugged again and simply rammed it into the icy body. Waste not, want not. No vibrations were produced, but she did chip off a bit of his armor. She nodded thoughtfully.

“Hey! Stop that!” the boy cried out. He took a swipe at her again, and managed to score a hit on her barrier. The hit packed enough of a punch that it knocked her aside, barrier or not. She tumbled to the ground, more shaken than hurt, but taking the blow cost her a few seconds to recover.

When Aurora got up and slipped close to put a hand on his icy shell, he cried again, “Hey!” She quickly enveloped him in her aura and lifted him off the ground, and he instantly started flailing uselessly.

As the ice continued to gather mass, the temperature continued to drop more and more, eventually he became difficult to hold aloft.

Aurora frowned and formed a halo around him and tried to suspend him in the air while attempting to prevent any further growth. The ring almost immediately strained and cracked between the apparent strength of his ice armor and the temperature. It seemed he was actually pretty powerful. Nevertheless, Aurora opened fire and started to strip the ice from around him with surgical blasts, putting more energy into it than before. She chipped at it tenaciously, sending chunks of ice flying to strike everything around.

“You said you wanted to help me, you liar!” he bellowed. “I’m going to freeze everything!” He strained against the halo and it further splintered, almost shattering. Aurora had a huge crisis on her hands. He was almost free.

In a snap decision,she decided to target his legs specifically to reduce his mobility and perhaps make him easier to subdue. She had no choice since she couldn’t hold him much longer, but she kept her halo around him as she dropped him and flitted around him, focusing on showering each leg with a volley of blasts. It was just like the crane. How she brought it down safely.  Each blast calculated carefully, making sure that none struck anywhere near the boy’s body.

“I do want to help you, to protect you!” she cried. “But I can’t help you if you’re fighting me!”

Aurora continued blasting the legs strategically until one of the legs shattered right as he broke free of the halo. The boy tried to regrow the leg right away but Aurora had now moved on to attacking the arms. He curled up in a ball and the armor started to grow more and more opaque. Finally it turned into an igloo again.

“Don’t retreat now! I’m not trying to hurt you! Promise me you’ll be a hero! Please think about what kind of person you want to be!” Aurora ceased her attacks the moment he reverted to his igloo form with a heavy exhaling of air. She floated down, looking at him. “I can wait as long as you need, and I’ll keep the police away from you.”

Just as she said that, another cop ran in and trained his gun on the igloo. “Hey, do you know what’s going on here? We got a report about this kid tearing up one of the local store fronts. He’s been going crazy since, just destroying things and throwing ice at people. Are you really going to be able to talk him down?”

Aurora kept her eyes on the igloo. “I’m trying.” Aurora smiled wryly. “I don’t know him personally, but I know of him. He’s a victim who’s not in his right mind. It’s not his fault that he’s acting out the way he is. There’s more to it, but trust me when I say that he’s a good kid, and that I want to protect and get through to him.”

She looked at the officer for a brief moment. “What info can you give me that might help? His name, for example” She asked softly.

The officer shook his head. “We don’t know who he is; the ice is distorting enough that we can’t get a good image of him.”

“I know who he is,” suddenly came the voice of the Avenger as he descended from a nearby building on a tether. “His name is Jason Starling, and he was sent to Padua for ‘personality disorders’. Apparently, his family thought he was a monster for whom he loved. Rather poetic that he develops cryokinetic powers after being left out in the cold like that.”

The Avenger turned to Aurora. “Looks like you fought him to a standstill, Aurora. Did I hear you trying to talk him down?”

“Yes, sir. I believe that’s the best course of action. Deep down they’re not bad kids. Mistreated horribly, but they’re not malicious.” She turned her eyes back on Jason.

“Hey Jason, Midnight Avenger knows your name. How cool is that? You wanna be a hero and meet him?” Aurora directed her voice to loudly call out to him.

The Avenger looked at her, and then to the igloo. “Jason,” he said, “you’re not a monster. Aurora knows it, so do I. So do you. Come out of there and surrender.”

The Igloo started to rumble. Six legs burst out and it popped up like a crab. “You know what’s cooler? If I show everyone I can beat two superheroes at once!” Jason yelled as the igloo started to skitter at them. Aurora shot a semi-apologetic look at Midnight Avenger. “Legs again.”

Aurora winked, extending her hand and focused on creating an enormous halo to bind all the thing’s legs at once.

Trapped again, the kid was bound in place at least temporarily. The Midnight Avenger hopped on top of the igloo and drove a spike into the top of it, then hit a button to activate it. After he hopped off, the igloo started to shudder, shake and finally started to crack.

“Get ready to restrain him when he’s out,” the Avenger barked.

After a few seconds, the ice shattered and Jason tumbled towards the ground. Aurora quickly reformed a halo around him to create a form-fitting suit that would cover his body, encasing him neck to toes. She wasn’t able to get it perfect on the first try, but as he struggled she continued to tighten it around him, until he was fully bound up.

“Make a hole around his mouth. I have a sedative,” Avenger said.

“Sure.” Aurora smiled and focused on her binding to get his mouth open and keep it open with a kind of funnel shaped construct.

“Not exactly my intention, but we’ll make it work,” Midnight Avenger said, pushing an oblong object into Jason’s mouth. There was a loud hiss and in a moment Jason’s resistance lessened and then stopped. Aurora let the construct dissipate and got her first clear look at the boy. Sure enough he was an otherwise unremarkable thirteen years old boy who was now unconscious...

The cop pulled out a set of handcuffs, but the Avenger put a hand up, barring the officer from proceeding forward. “The Sentinels are taking custody of this boy, officer. We’ll take it from here.”

The cop looked to the present angelic superhero. “Aurora?”

Aurora nodded and pulled her ID out to show it to him. “I shouldn’t have to vouch for a superhero like Midnight Avenger, but I do, officer. There’s no one who can help the boy better than the Sentinels.” She smiled reassuringly. “There may be others like this boy in the near-future, so please put the word out that they should be treated with care and extreme respect.”

The Midnight Avenger pulled Jason up on his shoulder, turned and gave Aurora a seemingly appreciative nod and grunt. “I will see to it that the boy is cared for. You’ll have more information as soon as I load Jason into the Avenjet.”

As if on queue, said jet appeared and hovered down to about twenty feet above the street. A stretcher lowered from the belly and the Avenger loaded Jason onto it before turning to Aurora. “Jason will be fine. You’ve done well here,” he said and leapt up to a hatch.

As the Midnight Avenger started to take off, another person, this time a civilian, approached Aurora. She spoke, “Valerie North, Seaside Chronicle. I saw what just happened. Care to give me your story?”

Aurora paused a moment before smiling slightly. “I can only share some limited information at this time. It may be trite to say, but it’s for the good of all involved. Suffice to say, I do my best to be of service to anyone who is in trouble in San Isidro and to a slightly lesser extent Seaside City. My name is Aurora, a rookie member of the Society of Sentinels. I’m partly of an alien race, but you can think of me as a guardian angel if that’s simpler for you. But my name is just Aurora.” She smiled warmly. She extended her hand and after a moment Valerie took her hand and they shook on it.

Aurora finished, hoping she wasn’t botching her first speech to the media, “There isn’t much I can tell you beyond this I’m afraid. I plan to keep my civilian identity private and it will remain so for a good long while. I look forward to doing what I can to make a difference in my corner of this beautiful world, and beyond that as well, opportunity willing.”

“Well, that’s certainly not a lot of information. Are the citizens safe now at least?” Valerie asked.

“I’d like to say, yes absolutely and completely, but…” Aurora chuckled self-deprecating. “I might look like an angel, but I can’t promise that kind of perfection. I’ll do the best I can for everyone though. I stand for what the Sentinels do. The protection of the people and their lives before all else.” She winked.

“If you’ll excuse me, I must be away.” She blew a kiss and laughed as she leapt into the air at top speed. The entire sequence of events had been quite a rush. She was glad that they’d been able to protect Jason, but she was more excited that she’d somehow acquitted herself well… hoped.

Well enough to perhaps have earned some respect from Midnight Avenger!