Devil in Falls 3:Twisted Metal

It has only been two weeks since Kai Steel nearly died at the hands of Jaren Lawrence, AKA Blind Sight. Even still, she finds herself thoroughly engrossed in her work with Meta Life and prowling the streets every night trying to track down Blind Sight. Thus far the former has resulted in way too many publicity events, the worst of which would be the upcoming swimsuit calendar shoot. The latter seems to be comprised primarily of dead ends and no little frustration on Kai’s part.

Brushing a few strands of her highlighted-auburn hair from her face, Kai looks at her Blackberry and sighs. It’s 2am already. She certainly hadn’t intended on being out this late, but this place wasn’t an easy find. Looking up, Kai surveys the abandoned building, one of many in the seedier portion of the Old Town district. Even with all of the heroic individuals and promising politicians this area was a poverty stricken and crime filled ghetto. Kai couldn’t begin to imagine the hardships these people dealt with day in and day out. Focusing her thoughts, she walked through the main entrance. Had she been a little less distracted, Kai may have noticed the silhouette of a man floating above the very same building she just entered.

Concentrating his thoughts, the man calling himself Concussion sees the woman known as Kai Steel enter an abandoned building. She looks like a regular, unassuming black woman, but in his mind he sees she is so much more. He knows she looks for a man… A man who hurt her, and he sees that man is ironically only three streets away and underground. Neither is aware of the other.

He is aware of all.

Let’s see how the woman of steel likes a new flavor of metal.

In his mind he knows that twelve galactic clusters distant, on the second world of a dying sun, a metal exists with properties making it far too unstable to refine by human hands. A strange being, skin born of fire – mining… Always mining. His mate finds comfort in killing his kin. Mining. Must mine –

Stop!

Finding focus, though it has only been the merest fraction of a second, the man pulls a barrel of the fascinating metal across the void instantly, placing it below in the building’s basement levels.

He returns his attention to the woman, Kai Steel, as she makes her way through the first floor and down the stairwell.

***
Kai felt a sudden chill, though the air was warm. Something felt off about this place. She didn’t want to use her abilities in the stairwell for fear of destroying too much of the steel inside the concrete, and potentially causing half the building to fall in on her.

Pushing open the door to the basement sublevel, Kai was taken aback. The room was lit! It was plainly evident that no one was here, but someone must have been using the place recently. Walking down the stairs to the basement floor, Kai noticed a barrel on the far side of the room and something glittering on the floor closer to where she stood. Picking up the item, she noticed it was some sort of miniature auto syringe. The print on the side read GenePerk. GP. It was a dangerous superdrug that granted normal humans meta abilities for a very short time span, but users became extremely dependant upon it… If they survived the havoc it played with their genetic makeup. Rumor was that this stuff had originally come from some secret military lab experimenting on meta human abilities. Well, wherever it came from it likely had little or nothing to do with Jaren Lawrence. This must have been a distribution house for the stuff before something spooked them.

Tossing the empty syringe aside, Kai Steel walked towards the barrel on the far wall. Her feeling of unease grew the closer she got. The barrel was of a design that was too high tech for some drug runners to just leave behind. It appeared to be electronically controlled with strange runes glowing on the display. Kai touched the display with a finger and nearly jumped when four clamps released the lid with a hiss. Feeling hesitant, Kai slowly lifted the lid from the barrel and instantly felt a wave of nausea come over her. She fell to her knees, pulling the barrel over with her. Strange stones poured out of the barrel around her prone body. Kai felt like her skin was on fire and her eyes couldn’t focus.

What was happening?!

Kai Steel’s abilities reacted of their own accord, something in the rocks’ effect on her forcing the reaction. Her body began absorbing the alien stones and Kai felt a searing pain wrack her entire body. Becoming metallic, Kai’s skin began to split and crack. Energy from the reaction began radiating from her body, but the organic alloy of alien metal and human flesh was generating more energy than her body could expel. She tried letting go of her ability, but the metal seemed to have taken control! Kai was bleeding raw power and she knew it was killing her. Dragging herself away from the spilled barrel, Kai slowly put distance between herself and the strange rocks. It took more strength than Kai ever knew she could muster. It felt like an eternity with every inch she crawled. Kai could feel her body shutting down. She began to panic. Lying prone on the concrete floor, Kai desperately tried to dispel the energy her body was continuously building up. Reaching an arm above her head, Kai let it fall in a fist to the floor. The concrete shattered, forming a fist-sized crater. She lifted her arm and smashed it down again. It didn’t seem to be working. Again. Again. Again! Kai had broken all the way down to the rebar latticework in the concrete and still the reaction was building up energy. This metal was going to kill her. Her ability was going to kill her. Kai thought it almost comical that the ability she never quite came to terms with was going to be her silent killer, all because she was too scared of Jaren to just sit around at home and wait for him to come kill her. Now she was going to die to some strange metal.

Metal.

The rebar was pure, American steel! Maybe she could use her ability to purge the bad metal with the steel like a blood transfusion! Forcing her body to release the toxic metal by replacing it with the rebar’s steel, Kai slowly began to feel the debilitating effects of the odd rocks fade. Kai rolled her body further away from the barrel and lay there for a time. She felt like she had been forced to run five marathons, while on fire and carrying a forty-ton weight. Focusing on the ceiling, Kai noticed the concrete had begun glowing. She wasn’t a scientist, by any means, but she didn’t think that was a good sign. Running up the flights of stairs, back to the ground level, Kai plopped down in the street. She reached into her pocket and retrieved her Blackberry, figuring she should call the AFPD over here with a containment crew, or whatever it is they do.

The phone’s blank face stared back at her. “You know you are hazardous to your phone’s health, Kaitlyn,” Kai mumbles to herself before sticking the phone back in her pocket. “Nea will be pissed that I ruined another one…”

***
The shadowy figure on the roof vanishes from sight, his attentions drawn elsewhere – Kai Steel already forgotten.


Part 1: [link]

Part 2: [link]
I hope the story came out to be acceptable. I included what was asked by Andrew, but kinda got stumped over how I wanted to write it and have the situation make sense to the reader. I'll have to let you guys decide that one... I need to stop staring at the monitor.


Devil in Falls Part 3: Twisted Metal
Concept and Concussion
Artwork+Story and Kai Steel