Chapter 117 Sellout.

Chapter 117: 117 Sellout.

"Fine," I said, wiping a streak of blood from my chin and bracing myself in the air. "Let’s dance, Trevor. We’ve got one song left."

Golden Boy hurled himself at me like a crackling, golden meteor.

I immediately cut the power to my thrusters and dropped out of the air like a stone, trying to slip under his trajectory. But he was fast. He banked sharply, switching directions mid-flight and diving right back at me.

As he closed the distance, I reached out with my magnetic powers, grabbing hold of the exposed iron girders in the ceiling above us.

I pulled hard on one, violently ripping a ten-foot section of reinforced steel out of its housing, and swung it at him like a massive baseball bat.

The girder hit him dead in the chest.

If he had been a normal cape, it would have shattered his ribs and launched him into the cheap seats. But Golden Boy just absorbed it.

The kinetic force of the impact washed over his glowing skin, feeding his aura until he practically shone like a flare. He hit the far wall, only to rebound off the concrete like a supercharged rubber ball and come rocketing straight back at me.

Shit. Hitting him with blunt force was just charging his battery.

A quick, desperate flick of my wrist yanked me out of the way just as a blast of his energy scorched the air where I’d been hovering.

I skidded hard across the polished concrete floor, crashing through a set of velvet curtains and tumbling into one of the backstage VIP holding pens.

I groaned, pushing myself up onto my knees. Sitting on a leather couch just a few feet away were the Devil’s Details—the demon-themed opening band.

They stared at me in complete silence, their spiked leather and intricate face paint making them look like incredibly confused gargoyles.

"Hey. Uh, everything okay out there, man?" the lead singer asked, lowering a bottle of water.

"Fine. Peachy. Don’t mind me," I grunted, forcing myself to my feet. I could hear Golden Boy blasting through the rigging outside, hunting for me. I glanced around the holding room, my eyes locking onto the band’s spare equipment. "Mind if I borrow these?"

"Uh, guess not. You sure you’re okay?"

"Absolutely," I said, stretching my arm toward a spare drum kit in the corner. With a sharp magnetic tug, a pair of heavy brass crash cymbals ripped off their stands and flew into my waiting hands.

Golden Boy suddenly burst through the velvet curtain, his eyes blazing with volatile, crackling energy. "Nowhere to run, freelancer!" he roared, lunging forward with both hands outstretched for my throat.

He expected me to throw a punch. He expected me to hit him with something heavy that he could absorb.

Instead, as he closed the gap, I brought both cymbals up and smashed them together directly on either side of his head with everything I had.

CRANG!

The deafening, metallic crash echoed through the small room like a bomb going off.

Golden Boy’s kinetic shield might have absorbed physical blows, but it couldn’t do a damn thing about the sheer acoustic resonance of two heavy brass plates vibrating inches from his eardrums.

I could practically see his pupils vibrate as he staggered back, his hands flying up to his ears as he trembled from the reverberations. He let out a disoriented, pained yell.

I didn’t give him a second to breathe. I stepped forward, following his retreat, and slammed the cymbals together against his skull again.

CRANG!

"Argh! Stop!" he shouted, stumbling blindly backward through the torn curtain.

CRANG!

Again! I drove him out of the VIP room and back into the main staging area with every clamorous, agonizing blow, using the sonic assault to completely scramble his equilibrium.

Out on the main stage, the music shifted. The heavy bass of the Steves’ instruments dropped an octave, and Psyren’s voice rang out, carrying that intoxicating, psychic weight.

"Aw, do the pretty little birds think they can best me? Well, I’ve got some friends of my own!"

Shit! I was running out of time! That was the cue for the henchman brawl.

"That’s your cue! Get out there!" I roared over my shoulder at the trio of demon-themed musicians hovering nervously in the holding room. "And remember! You’re brainwashed and brutal! Sell it for the cameras!"

The three guys exchanged a worried look, then firmly nodded, hefting their prop weapons and guitars. With savage, theatrical grins, they bounded down the corridor and out onto the stage, ready to join the Steves and act as the first wave of brainwashed foes for the Superstars.

I turned my attention back to the fight, but my time was up. Even as the band ran out, I stepped in to smash the cymbals into Golden Boy’s head one more time. But the disorientation had faded just enough.

His hands shot out, catching the edges of the brass plates before they connected. With a surge of golden energy, he crushed the thick cymbals in his fists like they were made of tin foil.

"No more of that trick!" he snarled, his eyes bleeding golden light as he raised a fist crackling with lethal, contained power.

I swung myself around by my armor, using a magnetic pull to violently yank my body to the left. The kinetic blast missed my head by inches, obliterating a heavy road case behind me, but the sudden, twisting motion sent blinding agony ripping through my chest.

Fuuuuuck. My broken ribs screamed in protest, stealing the breath from my lungs. I stumbled, clutching my side, but I forced myself to work through the pain. I was a professional.

I was good at this. But I couldn’t drag this fight out any longer, and I absolutely couldn’t let it spill out onto the main stage. Psyren’s debut was not going to be ruined by this gold-plated sellout.

But that damn kinetic barrier of his was going to be a problem. He was fully charged now. Hitting him was suicide.

Wait. How had I almost gotten him at that auto show all those years ago?

Oh, yeah. Physics.

His powers were reactive. The shield absorbed sudden, blunt impacts. It ate kinetic shock. But it struggled immensely with constant, agonizing, crushing pressure.

I landed hard on the concrete floor, dropping to one knee. I reached out with my powers, my mind mapping the labyrinth of thick, heavy-duty power cords and braided steel support cables hanging from the lighting rigs above us.

Golden Boy leveled his hands at me, a massive sphere of energy pooling in his palms. "Say goodnight, Miles. Enjoy the villain’s retirement."

He stopped sharply.

I swirled my fingers in a tight, clockwise motion. A dozen thick, metal-inlaid cables whipped down from the ceiling like mechanical serpents, wrapping themselves around his torso, arms, and legs in a chaotic, inescapable metallic straightjacket.

"What the—"

I clenched my fist, and the cables instantly pulled taut.

The steel wires bit deep into his suit, squeezing with the force of a hydraulic press. Golden Boy’s bearded face tensed in shock.

His golden barrier flared to life, crackling and spitting violent sparks of energy as it tried to absorb the assault. But there was no sudden impact to absorb.

He gritted his teeth, his bulging muscles flexing as he strained against the steel, trying to force his barrier to push the cables outward.

"That... won’t work..." he grunted, veins popping on his forehead as he fought the strain. "I can... break this..."

"We’ll fucking see," I said, my voice cold.

I kept my right hand clenched tight, maintaining the crushing pressure on the cables, and raised my left hand toward the ceiling.

Every piece of scattered, ambient metal in the backstage area—shattered amplifiers, bent scaffolding, loose bolts, and the twisted remains of the road cases—flew into the air above me.

The scrap swirled together in a violent metallic tornado, compressing and assembling into a solid, jagged mass the size of a minivan, hovering ominously in the shadows above him.

Golden Boy looked up, and I saw the first genuine sign of panic break through his arrogant facade.

I brought my left hand down hard.

The massive fist of scrap metal slammed into him. The impact boomed like a thunderclap, the air shuddering with the sheer, concussive force of it. The concrete floor beneath Golden Boy cratered instantly.

His barrier rippled violently, glowing a blinding, unstable white as it desperately tried to absorb the kinetic energy while simultaneously fighting the crushing cables.

Before he could recover, before he could redirect the energy, I lifted the metal mass and brought it down hard again.

BOOM.

"I... won’t... yield..." he gasped, his nose bleeding, the golden glow of his skin flickering like a dying lightbulb. "Thirty... million..."

"Just shut up and die!" I snapped, raising the makeshift hammer and slamming it down for a third time.

BOOM.

He bent beneath the terrible weight of the blow, his knees buckling. The orange field around him shrieked, spider-webbing with visible fractures. It cracked like safety glass under a sledgehammer.

Finally.

I raised the massive fist of metal one last time, pulling it as high as the ceiling would allow, and brought it down with every ounce of magnetic force I could muster.

The impact was deafening. The shockwave blew the remaining dust and smoke out of the staging area.

Golden Boy’s barrier completely shattered in a shower of brilliant, dissipating sparks. He gave me one last, desperate, utterly terrified look before he vanished beneath the mass of metal and plastic, buried completely by the final, thunderous blow.

Silence fell over our corner of the backstage, save for the distant, muffled sounds of the concert raging on the other side of the curtain.

I gasped for air, my chest heaving as the adrenaline started to crash, letting the agonizing throb of my broken ribs take over.

I loosened the grip of my right hand, letting the steel cables release their tension and drop lifelessly into the rubble.

Slowly, wincing with every step, I walked over to the crater and used my powers to lift the massive block of scrap metal just enough to look into the hole I’d made.

Yeesh.

Trevor lay at the bottom of the shattered concrete, his custom suit in ruins, his golden skin bruised and bleeding. He was completely unconscious, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths.

He wasn’t getting back up anytime soon. Or ever again, by the looks of the structural damage to his legs and ribs.

Well, that was just too fucking bad.