Running From Himself 3-4 (Patreon)

The air over Maspeth tasted like scorched pennies and a busted car battery.

Reggie dipped his left shoulder, cleats scraping harsh against the pavement as he slipped a hissing wall of pressure-packed air from the barrel-chested woman’s arm. The punch had enough force behind it to cave in the side of a car, displaced steam whistling past his ear and stinging his cheek. 

He spun before she could vent another blast-boosted haymaker and rounded on her. There was no textbook form, nothing like that considering neither Reggie or A-Train ever trained for anything like that. Shoulders loose and chin tucked down, he dashed up.Inside her guard, dark eyes widened as Reggie fired out a short, messy flurry; two quick jabs to stumble her, and then a heavy twisting hook that caught her clean on the jaw. 

Bone ground against bone, a shockwave rippling up his forearm as his fist met bone hardened to handle the pressure of her powers. Fuelle flew backwards across the pavement, her heavy combat boots smoking the asphalt as her body came to a hard crash, a parking meter bent at forty-five behind her.

High above the intersection, the sky tore open. 

Blinding yellow light washed out the muggy Queens afternoon, a deafening crack of thunder sounding off with it. Reggie didn't need to look up to know who was playing weather girl with the little light show. 

"Third time this week, Bia!" Reggie tilted his head back, legs blurring as he dodged another chunk of street Pavement Pedro threw his way. The speedster yelled as loud as he could, voice carrying over the chaos of car alarms and another lightning strike. "Beginning to think you're a stalker, sparkplug!"

A woman in a pristine white-and-gold bodysuit hovered above the warzone, wind whipping around her as her hands crackled with the heavy arcs of her own power. 

"In your sick little dreams, track star!" Nubia bit the words out with a yell loud enough that her own lightning couldn’t drown it out. The woman was in her usual mood as expected, Nubia too used to treating every conversation as if it was a pop quiz on her patience. "I’m out here cleaning the street trash out of my tri-state area! Don’t flatter yourself!"

The last word came with a grunt as she threw a hand down. 

And with it, a fat bolt of lightning.

The yellow blast arced past Reggie's shoulder, slamming into the cracked pavement right as the steam-girl burst back to her feet and dodged back. It didn’t hit her but it did blow a fresh pothole in the street, sending a shower of hot gravel against Reggie's shins. 

Yeah, sure. He burst forward; still on Fuelle’s tail as the girl vented for more speed, doing her best to keep her distance.“Cause you just be around patrolling Queens like that!” Reggie smirked as he threw a quick jab to keep the steam-girl backing up, the speedster dancing on the balls of his feet. “Come on, Bia.”“Shut up!”Reddie ducked under another swinging fist from the asphalt-giant charging his way, skidding across the ground as the surprisingly-fast brute crashed through the brick of an abandoned laundromat. “You know you wanna back the Blu!” It was funny out loud as it was in his head, Reggie well aware the anchors on Supe-Scopp were already trying to manifest some hashtag-powercouple bullshit between them.“Back the who?”

Sure, he’d never admit it anywhere there was a camer around, but having Nubia — an almost fifty-ton powerhouse — overhead as air-support wasn't the worst thing in the world. His smirk pulled wider into a grin as Nubia left words behind for an infuriated growl, the electricity around her hands brightening with her rage. “Come on, Nubia! It’s you and me against the world. Just admit you missed watching me do my thing!”

"Only thing I miss is my foot up your a—"

Nubia didn't get a chance to finish the sentence.

Not as a blunt-force geyser of red gunk launched upward like a firehose on half-pressure. The mass clipped her right in the hip, impact knocking her right out of her hover as the lightning around her flickered and died.

Reggie’s eyes snapped back to the sight of a lanky redhead at the far end of the street, skin still smoking from the blast from before. The guy was on his knees, next to a hydrant, face blackened with soot as both his palms were held up high.

Fuck. “Nubia!” Reggie pushed off the cracked curb as gravity took over, pulling one-sixty pounds of extremely irritated superheroine right out of the sky.

Controlling his speed took thought but Reggie was all adrenaline, blood pumping loud in his ears as it stripped the noise out of the afternoon. Blue lightning crackled under his sneakers as he ate up the torn-up street in a heartbeat. 

He didn't need to do the math; his body kept the score on instinct. 

Angle of descent. 

Velocity. 

Mass. 

He slid directly under her falling shadow, cleats planted hard into the asphalt as he widened his stance.

She hit his arms and he caught her by the back and knees, her eyes wide as she stared right into his for all of a second. He didn’t stop moving, though, and in the next; Reggie spun on his heel and sent her straight back into the air — throwing the woman like a cheerleader.

Time snapped back and the noise rushed its way in with a wave of sirens and helicopter blades.

"Back in the air, Big Bird!" 

Nubia arrested her upward launch a good three stories up, a fresh burst of yellow holding her firm in the air. She whipped her head around, eyes wide, and crackling with electricity of their own.

"Excuse you?!" Her voice echoed over the street, both arms thrown out wide. "Big Bird?!"

 "Well, yeah, Super-Mom.” Reggie bounced on his toes, rolling out his shoulders to shake the ache free. “You're all in yellow. You're tall. I mean... you see it, right?"

"First of all, this is gold, Blu Bitch!" Nubia thrust one finger down at him, the air around her practically vibrating. "Second—"

Nubia didn't even bother looking at her target as the flying woman snapped her left arm toward the redhead trying to run away.

The street lit up like the Fourth of July, Sangre not even having time to scream as yellow lightning arced from Nubia’s knuckles. Lightning slammed him off the pavement and through the wall of the busted-up warehouse, the smell of raw ozone flooding the street.

"—second, keep my name out your muthafuckin’ mouth!"

The speedster just laughed. “You got it, Super Momma!”“Reggie, I swear to g-!”A heavy hiss pulled his attention back to street level as the woman made another charge. Her chest already swelling three times its size, hot steam poured from her whistling elbows as she prepped another triple-force haymaker. 

Blushift didn't wait for her to close the distance. 

He blurred forward, trusting in his own durability to take the heat, and was in her guard before her fist could even leave her hip. Fingers on both hands grabbed tight at the sweat-soaked collar of her jacket and Reggie got ready to have some more fun with momentum.Physics was never his favorite class, but he knew enough to get the basics and it stuck with him even through another life. “Alley-oop!” Reggie spun as he heaved backward, ripping the screaming steam-girl off the pavement and tossing her straight up with a heavy grunt. 

"Your turn!" Reggie called out. 

Nubia didn't miss a beat, the woman diving from the sky like a gold-white anvil and dropping a two-handed hammer strike right in the center of Fuelle’s unguarded chest. 

The mid-air impact went off like a cannonball.

Fuelle cratered straight down into the roof of an already-wrecked minivan, steel folding around her like wet cardboard, axles blown out until the undercarriage scraped the asphalt and windows blew out in a shower of safety glass. 

Reggie let out a sharp breath, wiping a smear of soot off his forehead. “That it?” Heavy, grinding footsteps vibrated through the soles of his sneakers, an answer to his question. Damn it.

The asphalt giant stepped out of the smoke.

El Asfalte… Reggie’s eye twitched at the dumb fucking name.

The banger stood over eight feet tall now, an overbuilt nightmare of tar, asphalt and mineral mass; each footfall cracking the street under him as sheer mass and raw strength did what it did.How heavy… Reggie clicked his tongue, a low whistle sliding out. “You been snacking, huh?”El Asfalte clearly hadn’t wasted any time while he was out of it, the guy having doubled up on whatever pavement was available to suck up. Formerly dark-flesh was black as night, every piece of skin pebbled as cracks of black tar slowly weeped at his joints. 

"I’d give up, Rocky." Reggie shook his head, feet already bouncing as he got ready to move again. “This don’t look like your fight, man.” 

The giant didn’t seem to care as he lunged out for the speedster.Hm. Reggie’s mouth turned down in a frown, his earlier guess about the guy coming back to him. Not that fast on his feet — at least not for a supe — but his hands…

The hands were a different story altogether, something Reggie noticed as he slipped past a tar-coated fist the size of a microwave. He weaved past another blow that would have sent a normal person’s head flying down the block, the wind of the swing whistling past a fresh shape-up.

Without wasting a moment, Reggie stepped in hard, shoulders loose as he dropped into a rhythm he never had the chance to practice outside of trees on his property. A flurry of messy hooks ripped free — left, right, left right, leftrightleftrightleftright — each one burying deep into the street-man’s ribs.

Hitting the guy felt like punching through a mountain, each blow barely making the guy step back even as he grunted and swung at Reggie. Impacts rattled up Reggie’s knuckles, each hit sounding off like a sledgehammer against actual rock; the bones in his hands already protesting this fight.

The A-Train static buzzed under his skin; that desperate need to run, to flee, to avoid doing shit like this, taking on fights for no reason. Shut! Reggie just pushed the noise down, gritting his teeth. Up!

Blue sparks ignited across his knuckles. 

It started as a flicker shedding off every fifth hit, but as he kept swinging — burying lefts and rights into the thick torso — the lightning began to wrap his fists; each blow moving faster and hitting heavier the harder Reggie pushed.

A shadow fell over them as Nubia dropped in right behind the giant, spinning with a roundhouse that cracked like thunder against his back. The giant roared, already stumbling forward from the joint strike.

No words were exchanged and none were needed, the tag-team falling into place with a rhythm that was almost syncopated; brutal, balanced, and on-beat. 

A heavy right cross came from Nubia as she spun around, yellow voltage exploding across Asfalte’s and snapping the rocky head to the side.

The giant fully off-balance as he tipped back, Reggie used the opening. Blue lightning coiled up his legs and Blushift exploded upward with a grunt, a flash of blue sparking in the air as a devastating uppercut clashed square under a rocky chin. 

Strength and speed came together in sheer force, the eight-foot supe flying entirely off his feet and into the air.

Nubia was already waiting. Gaining altitude in a split second, both hands clasped together and came down with a flash of her own yellow sparks as a brutal full-force spike drove itself right into the rock-man’s chest.

Asfalte hit the parking lot.

Pavement caved in with a spider-web of fractures, driving him nearly a foot deep into the ground with a cloud of blinding dust. The giant lay in the center of it all, asphalt armor slowly flaking away and fading  from his heavily bruised human body. 

Silence rushed back into the street, dust settling as the sound of sirens got nearer.

Reggie stood near the edge of the crater, lungs burning and chest heaving as he was forced to breathe the air thick with powderized concret. Small arcs of blue lightning still flickered and danced across his knuckles and up his forearms, dying out in the air.

Something dropped beside him as he looked up.

Nubia stood six feet away, gold boots planted on the cracked asphalt as her chest rose and fell too. Yellow arcs crawled across her shoulders, jumping off her skin and grounding out on the pavement. 

Reggie turned his head to stare at her.

"...what?" Nubia stared right back as she wiped a streak of dirt off her cheek with the back of her wrist, chin tilted up.  "I got something on my face?"