But, Phact was still missing - and that left her the de facto leader of The Council. Which meant she needed to patrol. She needed to check in with Kastra and Imperatrix, make sure that they were doing alright in the aftermath of Phact’s sudden disappearance. But as it stood now, she didn’t have the time, or emotional wherewithal to deal with such a meeting.
Frankly - if Phact did not appear again soon, Sabine would need to look into recruiting a new member to replace her - and then see if they could summon the rod. She was afraid that if she was able to call the rod to herself that would mean the worst - that Phact was gone - dead or…
Shaking her head violently to clear her thoughts, she turned her attention back to the night - reaching out with that sense that allowed her to seize on the powers around her. Looking for the beacons in the night to tell her where those agents of chaos were lurking about. She felt a signature similar to hers in power, and adjusted her vector to intercept.
She was in the mood to vent some of her feelings in the form of aggression.
---
Stibnite stood in the dark of the night, her eyes cast towards the sky as she enjoyed the first signs that summer was ending. It was starting to get dark earlier and earlier. That meant she was able to go out hunting before midnight for a change.
What was interesting though was that her traditional prey was coming towards her. Turning slightly, Stibnite adjusted her hood to shadow her face as she gazed in the direction the aura felt like it was coming from. “Come and play little mouse.” The words were a whisper as she summoned her weapon, aimed in into the distance and fired.
---
There was a whisper of something flying past her face, and Sabine dropped into a roll, hissing as she tucked into cover against the hip high wall that covered the rooftop. The aura was close now, and the last thing she wanted was to give more of her location away than she had to. Whoever it was had something ranged - which meant she needed to close the gap as quickly as she could, but without presenting herself too much to the would-be sniper.
Keeping low to the ground, using the wall for cover, she crouch-ran forward, all but sprinting anytime she broke cover, keeping her motion as serpentine as possible to make getting a bead on her difficult.
“You missed!” She shouted, hoping her foe would hear her. “Why don’t you come out and show your face - might actually be able to get a real shot off that way!”
---
A shot and a miss. She knew taking the shot blind was a risk but at least the message had gotten across to whoever this woman was. The voice sounded familiar but Stibnite didn’t take the time to rack her memory and place it. Instead she stepped back, making a move to shift behind an AC unit.
“Or you can sit still and just let me kill you.” Stibnite shot back. “Solve all our problems.”
---
“Oh but where’s the fun in that?” Sabine shot back, looking around for something to possibly throw to act as a distraction while she darted for a different patch of cover, settling for a half-brick that had fallen from its spot in the wall she leaned again. “Or do you only show yourself when your little kill crazy Lieutenants are in danger?”
Sabine would never forget that voice. The voice that belonged to a face that featured often in her darkest nightmares. She grit her teeth, willing the sudden upwelling of anxiety down, funneling it into the burning desire to bash the woman to a pulp against the stones.
She would have her revenge…
Hucking the brick with all her strength over the wall in the opposite direction of her planned path, she sprinted as soon as she heard the loud cracking sound of the brick shattering against the far wall.
---
To her left, Stibnite heard something smash against the ground. The sound broke her concentration and she jerked her head to glance over her shoulder, catching sight of the shadows of broken stone shooting in the air.
A trick. A distraction.
That meant…
Stibnite pushed from her hiding place backwards, quickly glancing to her right trying to prepare for any form of an attack.
---
As the air did not immediately fill with death, Sabine knew that her ploy had worked. Sadly, such things only really worked once. She could keep throwing things all day, but invariably, her foe would learn the pattern, as true randomness was not a thing that could occur. Biting her bottom lip, she waited for a few heart beats, before unclipping her tactical light from her hip.
Flipping the light on to it’s red color setting, she set the intensity to its highest setting, and held it up over the wall, waving it a few times as if trying to draw attention. She listened for the sound of something wizzing in the air over her head, doing her best to keep the handle of the light below the wall.
“Come on… shoot…” She muttered under her breath.
---
What the hell was this woman doing?
Stibnite’s eyes burned with the appearance of the bright red light. While red might have been used to save night vision in most cases, when it appeared as a stoplight bright flash, it wasn’t going to save anything.
Throwing back her hood, Stibnite cursed under her breath and stepped towards the side. Had the moon been out, she was sure her shadow would have been cast and that would have given her away to her target. The problem was that now this target was doing its best to become the hunter. That was a position Stibnite would NOT give up.
She had to figure out who to switch this around. How to take advantage of….
A twisted smile appeared on Stibnite’s face before in the snap of her fingers, the Captain teleported from her hiding spot to the flat roof top to the right of the one she had been on before. “You are mind.” She hissed, shooting at the end of the light beam.
---
The whizz of the needle came from an entirely different direction than Sabine had been expecting. The searing pain it caused as it grazed her gloved hand and embedded into the wall of her moving light caused her to hiss, killing the light in that instant and moving as quickly as she could away from the wall. The aura was now in a completely different place…
Teleportation. She was on the back foot again.
Growling she clipped the flashlight back onto her hip, picked up another nearby half-brick and started to move swiftly toward the aura again. There was no point in trying to go from cover to cover - the aura had her flanked.
She zigged-and-zagged across the rooftop, picking up speed as she got into a heavy sprint.
When she reached the end of the roof she jumped high, presenting a target she knew, but she needed an idea of where the enemy was. When she saw the bright white of the hair in the dark, she threw the brick as hard as she could at the target, hoping against hope it would give her time to land, instead of getting riddled with holes.
---
Not a sound came until she heard the footsteps moving across the the surface of the roof. Jerking her eyes to follow the soft noise, Stibnite moved with it, heading to the edge of the roof to keep her small wrist bow’s range of attacking.
What she didn’t expect was to see the form leap into the air. It caused her to stop, arm slightly raised as she realized WHY she recognized that voice from before.
“YOU!” Stibnite hissed, her arm rising to protect her head as the brick slammed into the metal protecting her left arm and weapon. The force behind it made her wince and let out a hiss and jerked her arm back to her side. Well, that explained the fighting style. This brat had been a pain in her side since they first laid eyes on her.
“I should have killed you when I had the shot.” Stibnite snapped, this time, teleporting but not to a location. No, she teleported into mid air where the senshi would be a split second later. In doing so, she ignored her weapon and the close shot, instead throwing a punch at the woman’s gut as they fell.
---
Sabine HATED teleportation. It was so unfair! One moment she’d managed to throw the woman’s aim off and the next she was grunting from a sudden punch knocking the wind out of her as they were both suddenly plummeting to earth. There was nothing for it, they were going to hit the other rooftop in a pile of bodies - or they were going to if she had anything to say about it.
She reached out and grabbed the other woman’s hair, and with little decorum, spat full force into her face, almost hissing with rage.
“Yeah, well you didn’t - b***h!” She kept her grip on the other woman as tight as she could, waiting for the boneshaking impact of the ground.
---
The ground came quickly but not quick enough for Stibnite to snarl at the woman. In power, they were technically equally matched. A super and a captain locked in combat. Yet her advantage was cut now as if she teleported to safety, the senshi brat was coming with her.
Damn.
“A mistake I plan to rectify!” Stibnite hissed, throwing all fairness out the window a** he leaned forward and sank her teeth into the woman’s neck. This wasn’t pleasure...this was pain.
The wind flew past them before stibnite released trying to roll away from taking the blunt of the fall.
---
The bite to her neck caused the younger woman to hiss in pain. As the other woman attempted to roll away Sabine growled under her breath, and leaned her weight fully into the other woman, pulling back on her hair, to try and remove the teeth from her neck, while the other threw in a few quick rabbit punches to the other woman’s side.
Sabine did everything she could to ensure the older woman would land on her back, and when the ground finally met them, they landed with a hard THUD, sabine using the other woman to break the fall, working to let the fall drive her more into her fist to try and do more damage to her.
“DIE ALREADY!”
---
Stibnite’s breath left her the moment her back smashed into the solid Earth behind her. Had she been truly still a human, she was all but sure she would have broken something in her back. Being an agent though, she would live. However she was at the disadvantage as she tried to gasp for air.
With the weight of the senshi ontop of her, her chest wouldn’t fill and she couldn’t sense her arms or her legs. But in her vision, Stibnite could see the woman rise up before those eyes filled with hatred and the first fist crashed into Stibnite’s face.
Two. Three. The senshi was beating into her and it was all she could do to try and keep her from hitting the same place on her face twice in a row, let alone try and breathe.
If only she could get a split second. And Opening….
Something!
---
Sabine let loose once they landed, giving vent to all her rage and anger as she smashed her fists down into the other woman’s face, neck, and chest. She was at her mercy now - and Sabine did not feel merciful right then. Quite the contrary. She was going to take her pound of flesh and then some from this woman. She was going to pay her back two fold for the damage that had been done to her in that cold building all those nights ago.
She was just about to slam her fist down into the woman’s throat again when the sound of someone clearing their throat broke her out of it. Her eyes tracked upward, even as she grabbed the other woman’s hair to make sure she didn’t escape, fingers twisting in and pulling her head up from the pavement - ready to slam it down again at a moment’s notice.
Only to freeze entirely, when she spotted Leucite standing before her, one arm carefully positioned around Nick’s neck. The tall man tilted his head, his eyes were smoldering coals as he looked at Sabine.
“I would suggest…” Leucite said in a very low voice - almost a whisper. “That you release my captain. In return, I will release my prisoner… agreed?”
Anger flashed into Sabine’s eyes, then guilt, then fear. The General had Nick… AGAIN. He knew Nick was close to her somehow - and now he was going to use him to bargain for the Captain’s life?
Damn it all…
“Deal,” She said softly, rising to her feet, pulling Stibnite to hers as she did so - by her hair no less. Before looking at Leucite with cold eyes.
“But you let him go first, and when he’s with me, then I’ll let her go - I don’t trust you to teleport and try and take us both out.” Sabine hissed.
“Child, you try my patience,” Leucite hissed in anger. “Release her, or I pop this young man’s head clean off his shoulders, are we clear?”
“.... On the count of three then?” Sabine asked darkly.
“On the count of three…” Leucite agreed.
“One…” Sabine said. “Two….”
“Three,” Leucite finished, releasing his grip on Nick and shoving the boy toward Sabine. Sabine did the same to Stibnite, and watched as the General teleported the distance between them, scooping up the woman into his arms without a moment’s hesitation, looking down at her with a look Sabine had only seen her father give her mother when she wasn’t feeling well - caring concern.
It didn’t fit him.
It was replaced by cold rage as he lifted his head. “Now go,” He hissed angrily. “But next time we meet - I will kill you and your little friends, understand?”
“I’d just LOVE to see you try.” Mercy said, before taking Nick’s hand, fishing out her phone, and slamming the home button - transporting the two away to the safety of her homeworld - she didn’t dare try to move while he was still around.
Leucite hissed angrily and spun, looking down at Stibnite.
“You going to make it? Or do we need to stop by an ER?” He asked her softly, his voice thick with concern.
---
Deep groans came from the woman in his arms. Pain, anger, rage. Everything fired in her blood as her hand raised up and took a firm hold of his shoulder. “You….” She was trying to move, trying to raise her head up only to find it far too painful to keep it supported for very long without his arm there. <******** her…” Stibnite hissed again, her powers slipping away leaving not the captain who would kill on sight but the woman who would drag someone into a dark alley and then kill them.
Imara hesitantly opened her eyes to look up at her husband before she turned her head and spat blood to the ground.
“Next time I see that b***h, she’s dead.”
The words were a whisper but the meaning...she would find a way. The little senshi would PAY for this.
---
Leucite nodded with a quiet sigh. “Let’s get you home,” He murmured softly. “Then we’ll see about taking you to the ER - if you need it.”
The fact that she was raging against the senshi was a good sign, and the next moment, the pair were gone, leaving the rooftop a barren, bloody mess.
Torvil
