Lair by Carl Stubblefield (recommended reading TXT) 📕

pressure on the shapeshifter as the Factionless leader faced him and began hurling glowing lava balls, kudoken style. Equipment was dissolved into black bubbly masses as the superheated material dissolved polymer plastic panels and displays. A lava ball hit the leg of a crew member, taking it off at the knee, cauterizing it, and filling the room with an unbearable stench.

Aurora focused her intent and drained most of the energy from the lights, absorbing photons and robbing Slipstream of her deadly ammunition. The area darkened; Aurora left only the red emergency illumination, which had the least energy of visible light.

Graviton attempted to shift the direction of his abilities to immobilize the opposing leader, who responded by simply beginning to hover in the air. One of his sub-skills must have been flying, and these supers were resistant to gravity attacks. Abandoning these techniques, Graviton flung Mercurio against the far bulkhead to focus on the leader. Concentrating, he began to generate a matterless singularity at the core of the invader’s chest.

Gus watched Mercurio fly toward the wall, changing his form into a ball. He hit it, but rebounded off of it like he was made of rubber, and launched back into the fight. He slid behind Aurora and his elongated arms began to snake around her.

Glancing back to the bosses, Gus saw the lava super had staggered to a knee, clutching at his chest, looking back in fury at Graviton. Stretching his hands out to the sides, tight beams of lava shot laterally and began eating into the structure around him. One of the crew leapt out of the way as a console was split in two, the beams melting through everything in their path.

Locking eyes, the two supers pitted their strengths against each other to see who would last the longest. Creaking of beams could be heard as the heat chewed through supports, weakening the substructure. The space station was designed more for functionality and was lightweight by nature, to more easily maintain orbit. Thus it lacked the durability of a typical fortress, as access was limited for most supers, and soon began to succumb to the heat.

Gus could begin to see an indented deformation that was slowly growing larger in the chest plate of the lava super that resembled a crumpling soda can.

Mercurio had wrapped Aurora in multiple bands of his stretched, flexible arms while Slipstream was hitting her with what looked like a glowing cudgel of some sort.

With a loud groan, the room split, buckling upward in the center, separating Graviton from his enemy. There was a moment of weightlessness, the strain of damaged components stressing gravity tethers to the breaking point. Gus flew out of his left boot, secured in place only by the remaining latch on the right one. The station’s gravity field stuttered into effect, then winked back out into zero gravity.

“Critical failure! Hull breach! Please evacuate!” a voice warned over the speakers, amidst sirens that began to sound. The door to Gus’ right slid into the wall… the escape pod was open! Whether caused by a short or the station’s imminent demise, the restrictions had been lifted. Gus strained to reach to remove the last latch on his right boot, grabbed the doorjamb, and pulled himself out of his boots and inside. The supers outside continued to struggle and crash about, pushing off walls to engage each other in the weightless environment.

The pod was an oval room that branched off the main bridge. It was about twenty-five feet in diameter and appeared to be designed for two individuals. The decor and technology appeared a lot older than the bridge for some reason. The fluttery-falling sensation of lost gravity returned and Gus hit the launch button. As the doors slowly slid shut, he could see Graviton getting a face-full of lava as the other super straddled him and they both grappled each other as they floated by. Blinking in surprise, Gus numbly let his eyes drift and saw explosions through the portholes and main screen along the front of the pod. He was still in a shocked stupor when it was forcefully jettisoned away from the station.

Chapter Two

Crash Into Me

Gus hovered for a second as gravity shifted yet again, then he was flung into the wall. Lights flashed, and the world turned as he flew toward the ceiling. Through the viewport, he could see the tumbling of the sky, then water, then sky again as the pod flipped and shimmied through the atmosphere. His inner ear and stomach tried to orient with the confusion of signals to figure out just where down was, as the rudimentary inertial dampeners struggled to minimize the strain to the occupant inside. Fortunately, his stomach was conveniently empty.

Due to the rapid firing of the pod, Gus was not anchored. Nor was he familiar with any of the controls or layout of an escape pod. Henchmen never got the opportunity to use one, especially a good one like this. He could tell that Graviton did not want him using that particular pod, but his survival instincts kicked in before his rational thought of how this super could mash him to a pulp. Too late to worry about that now.

Gus caught sight of two of what he assumed were space-suits across the pod from him. The tech looked conspicuously old in comparison with the bridge. Gus wondered if it had been cannibalized from some older space station. He began army-crawling to them amidst the debris that shuffled back and forth across the wobbling pod that bucked like an angry bull. He was only ten feet away from them when the pod started skipping off the atmosphere. One lucky shift, and Gus grabbed the security mesh by the two containment suits along the other side of the pod with one arm. It felt like it was almost yanked out of his shoulder socket as he dangled for a moment, scrambling to secure his grip with his other hand.

The suits yawned open like