Test Flight (Open to Chellizard)

Icarus had been through a rough first week.  Not that his day job was hard, only that it was boring.  Between that and the mental bloc he had encountered for the last few weeks on his armor, he was about ready to call the whole hero thing quits.  He had the perfect suit of armor.  He had the perfect place to monitor for criminal business, at his job at the Police Department in Tampa's IT department.  But his hero alter ego just couldn't get anywhere to save anybody in time.  That was the problem when you weighed 410 pounds in your armor.  

 The armor used to be able to fly.  That was the most beautiful thing about it, other then it's futuristic good looks.  The first night he had worn it, he had been able to fly high in the sky.  The HUD display said they had reached speed of over 300 mph.  Now, the best the silly hunk of junk could do was a rocket assisted jump.  And it couldn't even jump that high.  And the jumps were getting shorter.  It was a regular dilemma.  Shorter jumps... no flight.  Suddenly Icarus' mind blew a lightbulb, literally.  Fuel!  The electron-ion blasters must have needed more fuel.  He raced back to his apartment, mind ecstatic.  He barely noticed people's cellphones going haywire all around him as he ran, his excitement powering their systems past the point of functioning properly.   Up to his room, fumbling with the keys, into his closet, where the suit was, disassembled, helmet lying on the ground, looking like someone lost their head.  

He lifted up the calf piece of the right leg - then put it down and closed the blinds.  It wouldn't do to disclose is secret identity to anyone who happened to look up into his window from one of the neighboring buildings.

He pried open the device, and set it down on his table.  It snapped open at a mental command, and powered up.  There.  Simple as could be, there were the slots, right in the calf, little tiny things, so small as to be unnoticed, unless you knew what you were looking at.  Naturally they were meant for a solid fuel, and at the bottom of the little slots were little tiny bits of silvery metal.  Icarus examined it.  It had to be lithium.  It was so light, and even as he watched, it corroded away to nothing but dusty-grey material.  Lithium, lithium.  He had that.  It was up by the cinnamon in the cabinet.  No wonder his dad's basement had so much!!  That is what powered the boosters!  He had plenty of lithium!

It took only a few minutes to have both sets of booster engines refueled with the metal.  Hundreds of miles of sub-sonic flight were ahead of him now.  He assembled the suit on himself, carefully left his apartment, and took the elevator for the roof.  If anybody saw him, he reasoned he could just say he was cosplaying.  That excuse worked al the time.  

But there was no need.  No one was in the apartment complex.  It was a beautiful day.  The other tenants were probably at the beach.  They had real lives.  

Ha. If only they could fly, thought Icarus. He could, and it made him feel superior.  He was basically superman now.  He could fly, and was bulletproof.  He didn't have a laser - but that could be next. Lasers were easy to build.  

Icarus stood on the edge of the building, 15 stories in the air, dramatically clenched his fists, and ignited the ion-thrusters in his boots. They hummed to life and took off with a jet like roar, not a problem to be found.  He was flying!  He couldn't believe it!  He could go anywhere!!

Then there was a muted roar-cough, and the boosters gave out.  

"Damn." Said Icarus, and then he was weightless, falling, falling, only to land, stunned,  with a crash in a dumpster in the back alley behind his apartment building.

"Ohhh", Said Icarus. "My head!"

The armor was in sleep mode.  No one could hear, see, or get in or out.  A quick mental command fixed that, and the armor hummed to life.  HUD popped up, and status after status flew in front of his face.  

Power: 93%
Armor Integrity: 100%
Weapons: 100%
Graphene-Electron Byways: 100%
IonCharge: 100%
NueralNet: 98%
Fuel: 99%

That last one was the one that confused him.  If his fuel was at 99%, why couldn't he fly? He was sure that was the problem... He was mulling over that question when HUD brought up the fact there was a woman approaching.  Icarus mentally locked his face-plate, and turned on the external speakers as he saw her approach.  She was beautiful, african-american-ish, and had one funny looking haircut.  He climbed out of the dumpster, as regally as possible.  Normally he knew he was impressive - a 6'5" sportscar-colored robot with glowing palms, eyes, and chest RT had to look impressive - but that impressiveness was going to be dented when one was climbing out of a dumpster.  

"I'm OK, I'm OK.  Just running a test," said Icarus.  "There's really no need to worry, at all."  

Icarus smiled back at her, but then stopped when he realized she couldn't see his smile through the face plate anyway. The car and the gunshots startled him, but he remembered a moment later he was in a bulletproof -hell, it was missile proof - armor. He turned to the girl, LED eye sensors flaring a little.

"Saving the day is what I do best," he said heroically. Internally he was a little nervous - and he barely noticed that the girl was all nonchalant about gunfire and racing cars. Maybe she was high - there were no shortage of people on drugs in Tampa. He would have waved it off if there hadn't been a unique energy signature, faint, but weak, like an aura around her, one that he wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for the radio-vision the computer in the suit brought up.

Icarus paused mid-step, and turned to her, armor whining like an RC car. "Are you a meta-human, or are you just high?"

He didn't wait for an answer, because more shots were fired in the background. People's lives were in danger, and he had the responsibility to save them, regardless of his curiosities regarding this random girl's identity.

"I have to go," he said over his shoulder, dashing for the street, titanium boots clanking and sparking against the hot dark concrete. "But stay there! I have a couple of questions for you!"

And with that he rocketed out into the street, half-jumping, half-flying after the gun-blazing cars. He nearly crashed right after the first jump, and on the second he knocked over some outdoor chairs and tables. He opened up a police line on the radio of his helmet.

"Hello, this is an emergency broadcast - I have an armed car chase, civilian-based, multiple shots fired. This is a 9102 emergency. All units respond!"

"Who the hell is this!?" Crackled a voice in response.

"This is Mercury, Tampa's newest superhero!" Beamed back Icarus. If he had his way, he'd soon be Tampa's greatest superhero, ever.

. o O ( saying you see someone's aura is stretching it. I'll let it pass this one time, but don't make it a habit. )

She leaned out of the alleyway and looked off after the cars, cupping a hand over her brows. Her nostrils flared a little bit. She was smelling the air, determining any sign of blood. None that she could tell in the immediate proximity. As in, no stray casualties. Her sniffing would support his drug-user theory, thus making her seem like a Tampa regular.

A laugh found it's way passed her lips, her hands clapping and then an index finger pointed down the street.

"By all means, save the day, hero! No one's holding you back." she said, finally noticing how tall the suit of armor really was.

Watching as he bolted off, the question stayed with her, and she answered out loud, even though he could not hear her.

"Meta-human... no. High? Maybe." not a lie, and even if it were, he wasn't here to witness it.

Which meant she had time to assume the role of Aegis. Her new found identity.

The shadows of the alley were perfect, and an old milk crate was a good enough place to stash her belongings. She would just have to remember where she put them to begin with. They had all been loaned to her by the girl's she had met in Texas. Most of it was weird, but she appreciated the things she was given.

As soon as she had stripped down, she closed her eyes and reopened them.

"Ascend." she commanded.

Her body became stark white, and dark lines traced along her body. Her hair became tendrils that stretched and bent back to mesh with her spine. The reason her hair was cut so oddly.

Her lips were black, matching the lines tracing along her body. It was time for her to try out her most recently found power.

Flight.

Looking up, she felt herself start to lift from the ground. The cosmic energy, that makes up roughly sixty percent of her DNA, reacted with Earth's gravitational pull. As such, her body reacts differently and allows her to fly. It also allows her to super-jump. But, she's new to this whole flying thing, so it's not going to be smooth at first.

And she was right.

Breaching the mouth of the alleyway was one thing, but keeping herself from taking a sharp nose dive into the pavement was another. She soared, and used her arms as guidance, but mainly just glided, moving from roof top to roof top. Her feet barely touched down, but with a gently push, she leaped over gaps normal people would need a running start for.

Her feet became encased in an iridescent cosmic energy each time she was 'flying.' It looked as if little platforms were forming to keep her afloat.

And that was somewhat right.

All that aside, she had two vehicles to catch. The gunshots brought her attention to Jefferson Street. A small smile curled over her lips, and then she halted and held out her hands.

"Shield."

A large bubble formed around each vehicle, and started to lift them up off of the ground. Uzma floated down, just as police sirens came blaring around the corner.

Her voice rang out, loud and heard by the citizens that looked up in awe at her ethereal form.

"Citizens of Earth. I beg you not to fight, and not to waste your energy with pointless bickering."


"IT'S AN ALIEN! EVERYONE RUN!"

and a panic broke out.

Of course that would happen.

Icarus did a three-point land and roll, metal clanking and sparking orange on the tarmac, sun glinting on his armor's shiny surface.  He expected everyone to be staring at him - he was, after all, a fantastic and intimidating thing.  But instead everyone was running in every direction, faces in awe as they looked over their shoulders and ran/stumbled away.  Traffic backed up, and people blared their horns.  And then he saw it.  It was something alien, and it was floating in the air, 40 odd feet down Jefferson Street.  It seemed to have the two criminal cars in some sort of bubble-ensnarment, bright in color but transparent, but smooth and calm looking.  It was a little intimidating - so much power!

The thing said something, accent undeterminable, and Icarus missed it,  mostly because he was so overcome with awe and fear and a mixture of that strange tenseness that the unknown carried.  

"Play that again - what she said," he ordered the onboard AI.  

The voice was faint.  Icarus mentally had the computer increase the volume.  

"Citizens of earth - {STATIC}.  Fight - {STATIC} - Your energy - {STATIC} - waste with pointless bickering."  

Icarus mind, filled with anxiety and tenseness, registered that as a threat.  Weapons systems switched to mid-range, HUD going dark blue, eye-targets ranging the alien things body.  His hands raised, arms extended, palm ion blasters powering up with a whine and a faint blue glow.  They were effective to a range of about 100 yards, so at this range they would be fine.  

Next he sent out a red signal to the police cars coming.   This would keep them away from the thing, and out of harms way, because a red signal meant that there was heavy armament present, and that police cars would not be safe enough.  Somewhere in the back of his consciousness Icarus wondered if the police department would send in the armored trucks, or maybe even a SWAT team.  A red signal was rare, even for a druggie town like like Tampa.  

He turned on the armor's external speaker and turned up the volume to high.  His voice would boom out over the street, electronic and processed, louder than the pandemonium all around.  He was nervous, but the computer would change his tone and make him sound more confident then he actually was.

"You, in the white with the Medusa head.  Put the cars down, and come down, hands behind your head!"  

The instant after he said that Icarus pondered if maybe he was asking something he couldn't enforce, or maybe that he was being to threatening.   If all those alien movies that he watched were right, this alien femme would turn to him, and destroy him with a thought.  With an after thought he added -

"Please?"

Her Alien Form.

The men inside of the vehicles were, for lack of a better term, freaking out. They attempted to shoot the iridescent shield, and failed horribly. The cars rocked dangerously close to tipping over inside of the spherical shields. Uzma was holding on to them, though. She wouldn't let the imbeciles tip over and crush themselves. Slowly, but surely, she let the cars touch ground, the shields dissipating and releasing the gang bangers when the police cars had arrived.

But, coincidentally, her new metal friend had made a guest appearance as well. Wonderful. Floating in mid air, she let her hands stay by her sides, even when he asked her to raise them above her head.


I'll finish this later. My day got busier than I thought it would.