Sidekick by Carl Stubblefield (10 best novels of all time .txt) 📗

Panting, he looked down on the scene and could see that they had lost him, at least temporarily, in the sparkling haze Aurora had created. The two cybernetic supers with weapons fell back now that he wasn’t being actively tracked. They swept their weapons back and forth, looking up at the sky, preparing for an impending attack. From their vantage, it must have looked like he was responsible for the Ion Storm because none of them were stalking closer to Aurora’s hiding spot. Yet.

“Maybe you should scan them and see what we’re dealing with, yeah?” Nick prodded.

Gus’ head cleared after the near-fiasco. Wreckognize revealed the muscle-bound guy to be Silverback, whose main skills were Resilience: extraordinary resistance to projectiles and explosive damage due to a passive ether shield that absorbed and deflected attacks above melee speeds, and Bound, which was basically enhanced jumping and Enhanced Strength.

Jet appeared in Gus’ peripheral vision and he mentally instructed it to hamstring Silverback on his signal. That would allow him to drop in and Leech him while he was in the lead and separated from the others.

The others were too far away to lock onto with Wreckognize and, rather than give chase, they were carefully working their way toward the manor, with the methodical military caution of someone clearing an engagement zone. Once they reached the main patio, they stayed close to the door of the manor, holding back.

Hovering closer, Gus gave the order and Jet raced forward in a blink, slicing into the back of Silverback’s meaty legs. There was a brief flash and the blade skipped as it hit Silverback, not cutting nearly as deep as Gus had expected. Still, the titan of a man let out a bestial roar and fell forward. There were some shots fired from the direction of the manor in Jet’s direction, but the naginata easily evaded them as it retreated.

Getting an idea, Gus ordered Jet to fly through the intervening space and target whatever was signaling the others. The shots tracked upward as Jet zipped and zoomed about and Gus dropped down to Leech Silverback. By the time he reached the man elbowing himself forward in an army crawl, the cuts had stopped bleeding and then the gaping wound closed and knit together. He swiped out, growling as he struggled forward. Gus almost tried to reach in and rely on Leech’s stun effect but another super was fast approaching with an arm outstretched towards Silverback.

Gus took to the air again, glad he hadn’t dropped out of stealth.

Wreckognize revealed Ash to be the simple name of the super who vaporized the tree. He wore a flamboyant red jacket with exaggerated shoulder pads flaring out and curving upwards. Ash began sweeping his hands back and forth in front of him and a wave of something passed over Gus. As it did, it sucked out a third of his health and MP.

The effect was so jarring that he lost focus on his Camouflage and Advanced Flight and crashed to the ground, barely staying on his feet. Gus dashed backward to get out of range, half expecting to brain himself on a tree in his haste, as the two supers charged toward him.

He took flight again but hovered much lower than normal, about twenty feet above the ground. The timing would have to be right, and he had to force himself to face this rabid rhino of a man without fleeing or escaping into stealth.

Silverback perked up and got him in his sights. As predicted, he jumped up towards Gus, grabbing him around the waist in a huge bear hug.

Gus slapped his arms on the sides of the bald man’s head and hit Leech, draining Enhanced Strength first. The hard tone of the man’s muscles seemed to relax into something more like flab. The vascularity and tautness of his skin disappeared as his strength stats were robbed from him.

The unconscious and weakened Silverback let go of Gus. Gus grabbed him and clung on as they fell, allowing the burly man to take the brunt of the fall back to earth. It still shaved off another five percent of his total health as they hit and Gus bounced off, spinning onto the beach. Spitting out sand, Gus shook his head and crawled back to the prone man.

He quickly absorbed Bound and Resilience before dodging back into the air as Ash reached toward him. He felt a pull before he got out of range and lost a tenth of both his MP and HP. Gus glanced and saw his HP was at 252/620 in just a matter of moments of fighting, then it began quickly decreasing, along with his MP.

Wiping sand out of his blurry eyes, Gus squinted as he activated Wrecks and Parks on Ash. Instead of totally stunning him, it only dropped him to one knee, but the draining effect paused.

Ash looked up and grinned, Gus’ HP and MP beginning to slowly trickle away again, picking up speed.

A sensation like ice cold fingers wrapped around Gus’ heart and pulled. Gus could barely keep himself in the air as he was reeled in, Ash staring him in the eyes the whole time.

There was a jerk and Ash’s eyes rolled up into his head. Jet appeared as he fell face first to the ground, butt of the shaft having cracked into Ash at the base of his skull. Jet tipped as if in salute and sped off as Gus felt a crushing pain in his left side. He fell to the earth and pain lanced through his hip and cracking ribs as he landed hard, dropping him to only 42 HP remaining.

He couldn’t breathe as he scrambled for his pocket and quickly consumed a pink and red gel. The pain subsided somewhat and he had to greedily eat another red gel before the pain faded and he coughed up blood. The red restored fifty points and the pink helped him regenerate 2 HP per second.

Seeing a