“What the hell are you doing Tyler?” she enquired as she made her way over. She felt safe to use his real name since nobody could hear her unless the police hacked their private comm frequency. Her steps were slow and deliberate. Linette knew there were police officers all around, possibly even a couple of snipers, but feared none of them whilst in her armour. However, she did recognise the fact that something about Tyler was a little ‘off’ so erred on the side of caution. “Thinking!” he said. “Thinking?” she said confused, “About What?” “How you keep screwing up!” he replied with a raspy tone. Having called her out to a very public meeting she found the comment rather insulting and considered she should have stayed away if he was going to talk to her like that. “Shouldn’t we be discussing this elsewhere, preferably away from the law and anyone else that might be on their way here?” Linette was trying to suggest they settle their differences elsewhere. Though the police posed no threat, the middle of the street was no place for an argument. He may as well have shouted from the roof tops, “come get me”. “And why would I do that?” he replied “Perhaps because I rather like my freedom!” She feared the longer they just ‘hung around’ the more chances were that the area would be swarmed with the military, CLEA, armed police, any wannabe hero in the area or all four. Some threats did not bother her, their armour probably could not take a massed attack “The problem with that is I want people to witness this?” “What? Witness what?” His crazy behaviour and talking robot fashion was now starting to irritate her. “Witness what will happen to people who keep failing me!” As soon as he finished his sentence, Powerslide spun around lowered his sword and charged like a bull right at her. Linette only just managed to jump out of the way of the incoming blade with milliseconds to spare and a parked car clocked the full force of the impact which sent it somersaulting into a nearby shop. “Are you insane?” she shouted. He did not reply but turned around and charged again. This time she decided to defend herself. He tried to get in a couple of strikes, but she blocked the attacks. The force of the blows caused her to stagger backwards and he appeared to have been affected similarly so by the time Tyler stopped a gap of about twenty feet had opened up between them. “Why are you doing this?” she called out. Again, Powerslide did not reply and once more advanced towards her. This time instead of keeping the blade straight, she noticed him perform a back swing like he was using a golf club and could not believe what he was doing. “Stupid!” she muttered to herself, realising that the momentary lapse in concentration had allowed Tyler to build momentum. A split second later she felt the blade connect with her armour and then she was thrust skywards. The air time seem to last forever and when she eventually came back down the side of a van ended her travel, its body deforming around hers as the armour slammed into the steel panelling. “That does it,” she said whilst extricating herself from the twisted metal carcass. She’d had enough. She was pissed. Though their working ‘relationship’ was a little strained of late he had gone too far now. Well you want to play rough, then I’ll give you rough! “Looks like I’m going to knock them some answers out of you!” she screamed. No longer content to defend she was out for blood, namely his. As she approached Tyler, he started to circle her. She did the same, since she did not want to get outflanked. He tried for a torso strike. She dodged the attack and returned the favour. Again, he did not back down and tried again. Fury now took control of her body and she snapped. An instant later she went mad trying to get in as many blows as possible. He parried her blows and went on the attack. She defended against his strikes and not got through. Assessing the situation, she noted that she could not get past his defence and neither could he get past hers which only left her frustrated. The entire battle was pointless but unless he backed down then she was not going to stop even if that meant they died of old age. Despite the effort needed to keep on fighting she refused to simply make her escape and allow Tyler to think he had won, but after ten minutes had passed desperation finally set in. Every chance she recovered enough to try for a strike she made a mad charge at him. He appeared to be tiring as well for the number of attacks he was making had also slowed. Her conscience tried to tell Linette that what she was doing was illogical but when she got angry she got bloody-minded and this was one of those times. Hardly able to hold her blade up, even with the increased strength her armour provided her attacks were all over the place. She no longer cared if they were on target or not. Tyler though also seemed unable to get her and his attacks kept going wide and the only damage caused was collateral as vehicles started to get catapulted into property like missiles, propelled from the blows from the missed strikes. Then after what felt like an eternity something completely inexplicable happened. Tyler dropped his weapon. “Please help me. Something…in my mind” he called out. Not taking any chances Linette chose to approach him cautiously, holding her sword in a mid-guard position. When content that he had given up she finally lowered her weapon and they met face to face. “Sorry” he said “I have no idea what is happening to me. It was like I was not in control.” “Psychic attack?” That was one explanation which would account for him trying to kill her. “Maybe, I don’t know”. As he spoke, Linette became aware that he was moving his hand down her back which she thought was a little odd. “What are you doing?” He ignored her query and without warning she felt pressure on the small of her back as he thrust his hand through the outer armour and tugged at something. An instant later Linette felt the suit start to shut down. Her helmet display flashed and went dark indicating a massive power loss. Without power she lost the augmentation to her strength. The sword felt like it was trying to break her wrist. She screamed and was forced to let it go. Panicking she tried to run but the armour was now ungainly dead weight. Unable to balance properly she tripped and fell but using every ounce of her remaining strength, she was able to rotate her body so she ended up lying on her back rather than face planting the pavement. Staring upwards she could no longer move, secured in her armoured straightjacket. A moment later her opponent came into view, straddling her prone body and staring into her eyes. She then heard him speak which meant he was using external comms. “Problem with you is you don’t think. Our fight was a stalemate so I used by brains and tried a new tactic. Now you’ll pay for allowing me to sabotage your armour, and all your other mistakes!” She half expected him to run her through with his weapon but instead he discarded it. The next thing she felt was a blow to her head. Then another one. She tried begging for mercy but without power all her comms were down, so he could not hear her anyway. Eventually she lost count of how many time he had hit her head and then he started on her torso as well. In his years on the force the Chief had seen many of the worst aspects of humanity but as he stared at the monitor screen, watching Powerslide’s actions made him feel sick. The man was like an animal trying to prise a nut out of its shell and he did not appear to want to stop until he achieved that goal. He could not help but wonder that if what was happing disturbed him, then it would be a lot worse for his officers actually able to witness what was happening since they would be having an internal struggle in trying to not intervene. Having come through the ranks, he knew that if he was one of those on scene then he would have difficulty in ignoring Powerslide since allowing a vicious crime to continue went against everything those that carried a badge believed in. However, he had chosen to issue the orders as a means to save lives for the ordinary officers of the New Tokyo police were ill equipped to deal with such a powerful criminal. The situation though changed for the worse when Powerslide succeeding in smashing off Sledgehammer’s faceplate. Now the Chief knew he had no choice but to act. Sledgehammer’s life was now in danger and though she was a known criminal she did not deserve to die. Besides, the death of someone on live television whilst police appeared to do nothing would not be good publicity for the New Tokyo police. Naturally the Chief was still concerned for the welfare of his officers which is why he had tried to hold off from making the call but with no news from CLEA, he no longer had a choice. He had to send them into harm’s way to save her life. Speaking to the senior officer at the cordon the Chief proposed that his officers should form two teams. One team would open fire on Powerslide hoping to distract him, whilst the second team would snatch the battered Sledgehammer lying prone on the ground. With the order sent the Chief now returned to the TV screens. He felt rather helpless as he watched as the officers on both teams ready their weapons and move into position. A moment later the first team advanced and opened fire. The chief closed his eyes and prayed that they would all make it, but then there were gasps of surprise erupting all around the control room. The chief opened his eyes again and noted that everyone else’s were glued to the monitors. “What happened?” he asked. “A sort of purple and yellow blur that dropped down from above and stopped the bullets” shouted someone. “Then when it hit the ground a blast wave knocked everyone to the floor” added someone else. The Chief now watched intently at the nearest TV screen and saw that when the dust cleared there was a new player in the game in the outline of a woman. She was wearing armour, albeit a different type to that either Powerslide or Sledgehammer. Particularly noticeable to him were the massive pair of fists and oversized boots. Someone else shouted the word “Pildedriver” in reference to a new ‘hero’ that had been making appearances recently. Though the Chief never bothered showing an interest in amateur crime fighters he thought there was something vaguely familiar about her. Then he remembered, her picture had been on a file that had come across his desk recently. The first time she had ‘appeared’ in his city, his own officers had been responding to reports of a woman, wearing ‘armour’ wandering the streets with no memory of who she was or how she got there. She had then been taken to hospital to learn what was wrong but before she could make a formal statement she had slipped past her guard one night. What the chief found particularly curious about here was the fact that when the ran her prints there were no records of her. Since he was the most senior police officer in New Tokyo Piledriver’s file had ended up reaching him after CLEA put in a request for intel on her. Had CLEA never asked then he doubted he would ever have seen the file, not that there was much information in it anyway. Sneaking out of police custody, meant the Chief felt she was guilty of something although he did not know what. The only thing he was actually glad of now was she had reappeared, since it meant he could call of his teams from rescuing Sledgehammer. Though he hated to admit it to himself he knew he and his officers needed her as she might be the only way of stopping Powerslide.