Chapter 1

Friday, December 21^st 2012, 6:17 PM

Blake Wallens sat in the dark living room with his cellphone pressed against his ear, squeezing it in a white knuckled grip as he spoke in a quietly furious voice. "Goddamnit, Carla! I told you five times already, you are NOT going to the party with Amanda!"

"But daddy! EVERYONE is gonna be there! I have to go! This meteor shower party is gonna be the coolest thing!" His oldest daughter, a full six minutes older than her twin, whined into his ear again and Blake fought hard not to slam the phone into the nearest wall.

"Carla, I'll be home in about an hour and if you aren't there I WILL show up at this party and carry you to the car in front of all your friends," he stated in his best 'I mean business' dad voice, completely ignoring her startled and horrified squawk of protest. "I gotta get back to work sweetie, please don't make me hunt you down tonight. I love you. Tell Abbie I love her too."

There was a long suffering sigh tinged with anger and frustration, but finally she spoke again. "We love you too, dad. Be safe. Bye."

"Perfect timing Bman!" Jimmy Addleson whispered as headlights illuminated the curtains for several minutes. Blake stayed seated while Jimmy and the new guy, whose name he couldn't remember, moved into position as all three pulled ski masks over their faces. A moment later keys rattled in the door and a woman walked in followed by a man carrying a little boy in his arms. Blake closed his eyes, and waited for the lights to come on, before opening them again and lifting his 9mm. The woman started to scream but Jimmy's hand strangled the sound almost before it started.

"Hello, Thomas Parker, you owe someone a large amount of money." Blake stated in a deep and menacing baritone several octaves lower than his actual voice, and watched as realization settled on Thomas Parker's face. "My friend there will escort you to your son's room where you will put him to bed very carefully while we sit here politely and keep your wife company."

By the time Thomas and the new guy returned, Blake and Jimmy had Catherine Parker handcuffed and gagged on the floor, and had replaced the couch and tables with a ten by ten sheet of thick plastic with a kitchen chair in the middle. New guy placed Thomas in the chair then knelt beside Catherine, his 9mm pressed against her back right where her heart should be. Blake took a canvas tool bag from the couch and set it on the small table Jimmy brought for him. He opened it and pulled out hammers, pliers and several icepick like tools.

"Thomas, I'm not going to say who you owe money to because you and I both know who he is." Blake paused, looking pointedly at the terrified man until Thomas nodded agreement. "Good, that saves time with the pleading and trying to say we have the wrong guy. Do not try to bribe us, because you do not have enough money to make us turn on our employer. Personally I would be fine just letting you know that we can do this and leave it at that, but our employer says he wants breakage. I will give you the choice. Which bones are the most important to you?"

"Ummm ... I ... uh ... need my right arm for work." Thomas gasped, trying not to start crying.

"Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll take the fourth and fifth metacarpals then the ulna and radius of your left arm." Using a felt tip pen, Blake marked each bone with a single dot as he named it. "How does that sound to you, Thomas?"

He couldn't hold it in anymore and the tears started pouring down his cheeks, and try as he might he couldn't get his voice to work, so he simply nodded to the man in the ski mask. Before he could react something was stuffed in his mouth and he heard a crack like breaking two twigs at once as the man broke his arm. A split second later the pain hit him and he tried to scream and vomit at the same time. He had never felt anything quite like it and quickly decided he never wanted to feel it again. He didn't even feel the two bones break in his hand. The two men waited till he stopped trying to scream then lifted him out of the chair and carried him to the bottom of the stairs. The talker knelt down beside him while the other two began straightening up the living room.

"Alright, Thomas, you did good here." Blake patted him on the right shoulder and turned just enough to see Catherine where she lay on the floor. "You too, Catherine. And now we leave and you call an ambulance and tell them he fell down the stairs. Do not call the cops or the next time we visit there'll be one body bag and two missing persons. You are a very attractive woman, Catherine. Selling you would almost cover what Thomas owes. Do you understand?"

Terror seized her followed by shame as her bladder emptied at the thought of being sold and what might happen to her son. She couldn't stop staring at the big man who did all the talking, and broke Tom's arm and hand. His eyes looked warm and expressive. She nodded, though it was a little jerky, and the talker nodded back. Five minutes later there was no sign the three men had been in her home.

Wednesday, April 15^th 2015, 1:20 PM

"Can you hear me okay?" The voice sounded perfect, like the young man was standing right beside him rather than on top of the five story office building across the street.

"Loud and clear, are we good?" he replied, keeping his head down, face hidden by his floppy hat and body wrapped in several layers of old castoff clothes.

"We're ready to rock the house!" Came the excited affirmative. Shaking his head he walked into the bank. He ripped the hat off and tapped the smallest button on the control stick in his hand causing two simultaneous firecracker like explosions under his clothes. Almost instantly a shockwave blasted out of the man, shredding the tattered clothes off of him and knocking everyone within thirty feet to the ground. He now stood in a black and silver suit. A large metal box was strapped to his back with wires and tubes running to several strange metal disks on his torso. Seconds later an irritated snarl sounded in his ear. "Fuck! Someone hit the alarm!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who don't know, I am Blastwave and this is a robbery." His voice was a deep and booming baritone, and as he spoke he walked confidently toward the vault door. "I am here for the cash in the vault. I neither need nor want your personal valuables, so stay down and I won't be forced to hurt you."

"Cops are seven minutes out, Wave."

Nodding slightly he walked right into the vault, grabbing the janitor's cart from the nearby closet as he went, emptied everything out of it and started dumping bricks of fives, tens and twenties into it. The sudden clang of the vault door slamming shut startled Blastwave. "Rail, what the hell is going on out there?"

"Nothing, why?" came the slightly confused reply.

"Something just closed the vault on me." Blastwave growled, eyeing the vault door angrily. He was stronger than pretty much every pure human and more than a few supers, but he wasn't strong enough to rip the vault door open and that meant he was going to have to blast his way out. He just hoped it didn't destroy all the money. "Rail, I'm gonna trigger three."

"Gotcha, that should ... shit! Blast, there's a super here herding the civvies out! He's moving too fast to make out ... bitch! It's Speedfreak!"

"Gal is probably around somewhere, Rail. Those two are joined at the hip." He sighed long and deep; of the supers to show up Gal was one of the few that could easily subdue him. Speedfreak wasn't a problem since she couldn't actually hurt him, but Gal's gravity control was impressive and sometimes unpredictable. Resigning himself for the fight to come, Blastwave took a deep breath then triggered the third largest button on his control stick. Six explosions slammed into his body with the force of six sticks of dynamite. He felt it in the same way you would feel a fly land on you. The shockwave that rippled out of his body crushed the shelves all around him flat against walls, which were now warped, as it ripped the vault door right off its hinges, flinging it fifteen feet into the room beyond. And then he saw her, standing a dozen feet away. At about six feet tall, she was long and lean-looking under the armored midnight blue full body suit she wore. Her short, blood red hair was spiked and angry looking.

"GAWD!Iknewitwasyouthesecondwegotthecallyouaresuchadickandwe'regonnakickyourasssssssssssss!" The words flew out of her like they were trying to keep up with her hyperspeed. It was one of the major downsides of the speed based powers. Usually every aspect of the person is ramped up comparable to their superspeed. Another was the fact all speed based supers have a tell; they can't just go from standing still to Mach 4, since it tends to liquefy internal organs. Blastwave watched as Speedfreak's feet shifted back and forth like a boxer on meth and he triggered the third button again, just as she blurred into motion. She was lifted from her feet as the shockwave threw her through the plate glass windows of the bank.

"Oh shit! That was freaking AWESOME! Hahahaha!" Blastwave shook his head as he ran for the entrance. He assumed Railgun's overzealous dislike of Speedfreak was due to the fact that he couldn't hit her with the projectiles from which he took his name. Regardless, Blastwave was running before he cleared the shattered windows. Speedfreak was sitting up and shaking her head slowly, but he doubted that she would regain her senses before he could get out of sight. He turned a corner and almost ran smack into the one super he didn't want to see; Gal. Floating, she was about ten feet tall, though Blastwave figured her at around five feet eight with just a few curves. The instant she saw him his body simply dropped flat to the ground as the gravity around him increased by several magnitudes. Now lying on his stomach he could just see her floating five feet off the ground. He looked up and realized that her suit was more like a really long white, silver and pale blue dress and under that dress were surprisingly short legs wearing blue and silver Reebok's. Farther up those short legs was a pair of panties that looked like a Twister mat.

With her gravitational powers clamping him down, Blastwave was only saved from death by his indestructible bones; his rib cage protecting his lungs was the only reason he was able to draw enough breath to start laughing. Gal cocked her head at him, regarding him through the silvery bug eyed goggles that were assumed to cover alien eyes. 'Gal is an alien' was the story, backed up by the pearl colored skin, the silver, black and dark blue hair, the fact she never spoke and those strange and unnerving goggles. But Blastwave's view showed legs that were tan and muscled like a gymnast.

"Whatthehelldoyouthinkyou'relaughingatasshole?" Speedfreak was suddenly there, almost blocking his view of Gal.

"I ... love ... Twis ... ter!" Even though his ribs kept his lungs from being crushed, it was still difficult to talk.

"Whatthehellareyoutalkingabout?" The confusion on Gal's face was reflected in Speedfreak's eyes.

"Right ... finger ... red!" he gasped. Speedfreak's confusion deepened and for a second Gal looked completely baffled, then her face flared bright red under the now obvious paint as she clamped her legs together to hide the red dot positioned directly over her mons, and suddenly gravity was back to normal. Springing to his feet, he screamed "COVERFIRE!" and triggered the second button. Four explosions, each with the force of a single stick of dynamite, pounded his skin. The resulting shockwave flipped Gal backward fifty feet and slammed Speedfreak into the brick wall behind her. Turning on the balls of his feet, Blastwave dashed back out of the alley just as chunks of metal began raining down at over three thousand meters per second, ripping basketball sized chunks out of the pavement and surrounding buildings. He could hear Speedfreak's high-speed cursing as she tried, and failed, to dodge the shrapnel raining down. He could also hear Railgun's high pitched laughter as he pelted the object of his hatred. It made Blastwave think of the Coyote and the Roadrunner. "I'm glad you're having fun, Rail, but you better beat feet before Gal decides to come looking for you!"

"Shit! Okay, I'm following from up high and I've got sensors maxed so if Gal ... DUCK!" Railgun's sudden scream was warning enough for Blastwave as he shifted his headlong dash into a sideways lunge that put him through a store window, in time to avoid a Honda Civic that went flying through the space he had just occupied. The car wouldn't hurt him, actually it couldn't, but it might have slowed him down long enough for Gal to get close enough to use her powers. "Shit, Speedfreak is gonna be on you in seconds and I think Gal figured out which roof I'm on!"

"Okay, get out of here before she crushes you like a beer can, I'm gonna try a dash and disappear and I'll catch up with you tonight," he panted, as he shoved past stunned and screaming customers of the comic store, dashing for the rear door. He was barely through the emergency exit before it blasted open again and Speedfreak tackled him. The impact worked in his favor; her super-fast truck like tackle triggered his shockwave ability and blasted her back through the steel emergency exit door. Grabbing the dumpster that pancaked against the opposite wall from the wave, he wedged it as best he could in the exit before dashing for the street. Pulling a long coat from under the large metal backpack, Blastwave quickly put it on and willed his face to change. Anyone who met him as Blastwave wondered where he had found such an intricate mask. None realized that the flat black surface with circles in white and silver radiating from the center of his face was in fact his actual face, another aspect of his abilities. Not only did it allow him to change his face, it made his eyes completely white and allowed him to repeat the dark color and circle pattern across his body, as well as remove every distinguishing feature.

By the time he turned the corner he looked like anyone else, maybe a little bulkier than your average person, but not so much that he drew unnecessary attention. He was almost lost in the crowd when people stopped moving and stared at the screaming super who was zipping at super speeds all over the street and sidewalk, looking for anyone that might have seen the notorious super criminal, Blastwave. Grinning as he hailed a cab, Blake Wallens never even glanced at Speedfreak.