There was a tense pause where the only sound in space was the low rumble of the Brute's growl and the tightening of Rudy's rubbery limbs as he adjusted his grip on the hostages. Vector made a show of checking an invisible watch.
Rudy spat a glob of phlegm onto the concrete. "You're not even worth a comeback." He looked below him at the Brute whose abdomen he was still wrapped around like a sash. "Drop him." It was firm command, solid and cold in its delivery. Thorne flinched at the decisiveness of it all.
He watched as obediently Brute planted his feet, concrete whining under his boots and got into a stance. However, before he could however complete his preparations, Vector zipped forward in a navy-blue smear and reappeared in front of his target. His hands blurred as he struck the massive man's midsection with a barrage of fists.
It was like a speed-bag demo on fast-forward; His strikes from what Thorne could tell all aimed to strike center mass again, and again, and again, until the slaps became one continuous thud like helicopter rotors.
Except what should have been a quick beatdown became rather anti climatic. The Brute didn't even so much as flinch. Instead, the brute simply groaned looking down at him with a slow predatory patience.
'Seems the only thing Vector managed to bruise was his ego.' Thorne thought. Spectated from the safe distance and protection of his dumpster with his jaw wide open momentarily. Before catching himself and remembering he was hiding from dangerous criminals, not watching a football game from the stands.
A second registered as an awkward pause, "Pathetic, all that hype earlier and for what? This?" Rudy was grinning from ear to ear. Quite literally. His smug disdain for the speedster was on full display.
The Brute seized the moment, swinging his enormous gun upward. Even from twenty feet away and behind cover, Thorne thought he felt the wind pressure as the massive weapon scythed through the air. Vector flickered aside, cocked his head like he was personally offended that the brute thought such an attack could hit him.
With another savage twist, he gripped the rotary cannon with one hand, hoisting the entire thing until the barrels lined up with Vector. The slow starting mechanical whirl of the gun barrel was all the warning Thorne needed.
He ducked down behind his dumpster hiding spot. Curling into and ball to make himself small he covered his ears as best as he could. Thunderous sounds shattered the air in the loading zone as the brute unleash a metal storm of hundreds of rounds per minute. At this moment Thorne's hiding spot behind the dumpster became the world's worst VIP section.
Compelled to cower by a stormfront of gunfire, Thorne couldn't stop flinching, it was as if the impact of each bullet sent its vibrations through his bones. More than once, he swore the dumpster had been hit. He did not dare to open his eyes; the fear of perception becoming reality was too great.
Even with his hands clamped over his ears, his head rang like a church bell as spent casings tinkled down the alley in a metallic rain. It was pure, mindless noise, tearing apart the world around him and what little hope Thorne had of not soiling himself right then and there. But luckily, that bit of his dignity remained intact.
Meanwhile, where the target of this merciless onslaught stood. The hail of bullets should have turned Vector into additional art on the alley wall. Instead, He stood unmoving rather than attempting to use his incredibly speed to avoid the innumerable rounds. He had his hands held protectively across his gold sheened visor, as he bore the full brunt of the assault.
The grooves in his unyielding suit shimmered, a coruscating film flickering across his chest, arms, and thighs wherever the rounds struck. Every bullet that hit him flashed blue white, ricocheting away with a sharp clang. The rounds that missed atomized small chunks of wall, shredded dumpsters, or shattered the earth.
By the end of the volley, the air was so thick with concrete dust and gun smoke that neither villain could see if the hero was still standing. Thorne could barely see his own hands clutching the edge of the dumpster.
"Is that all?" Vector called, audible through the chaos. He brushed a flake of dust from his shoulder like it was dandruff. "Well, it's not like I expected you to do any better."
As the sound of Vector's confident boast and the lack of gunfire. Thorne did a thorough body check before He even dared to open his eyes. He pressed his hand to his chest rubbing his hand in a circle.
Before running his hand down to his hips, he half expected to be legless thinking that what he had felt before was a phantom limb. Satisfied that he was still intact, he slowly opened his eyes.
When he looked down, he was surrounded by several bullet holes surrounded by tiny craters in the ground looking beside he also noticed that there were several larger holes in the dumpster he was hiding behind.
The inside surface had been ripped open, sharp edges curled back like the open petals of a steel flower. He skittered backward, suddenly, intensely aware of how close he had come to being removed from the mortal world. He gasped, his lungs struggling to remember their function. He was gasping his lung struggling to remember their function.
Vector and the villains were locked in a tableau, frozen as if someone had hit pause on the world's most deranged Saturday morning cartoon.
Peeking through the steel flower, Thorne saw the barrel of the brute's white-hot cannon lowering, hazy steam rolling off of it. The metal ticking from the heat. There was a moment of stunned inertia, the kind of silence that felt like a tongue bitten in church. The air was dense with the hostility directed by both parties.
The Brute's hands hung loose around the smoking weapon. He breathed out a, a low, bestial growl that promised more violence to come as his eyes inspecting the destruction holding a hint of disappointment that the hero wasn't vaporized.
Rudy lips peeled back as hissed something at him that Thorne couldn't hear due the ringing still in his ear, but the way the rubber-man's jaw flexed suggested irritation.
Fighting off a cough as dust clawed at his throat. "Shit so much dust. "A wheeze rattled up from his chest. Thorne wiped his watering eyes with his sleeve and turned his gaze towards the direction of the Hero.
Vector stood in the lingering haze. His feet planted exactly where he had stood before the maelstrom of bullets. Thorne blinked. The hero looked impossibly clean. Not a scuff or tear on the suit, not a speck of blood or even dust. Just grooves of blue-white energy flowing across the suit, glowing faint under the haze. If it wasn't for the incredulous scattering of bullet holes and spent shells, Thorne would have believed world had restarted in the same frame as before he closed his eyes.
And, he was staring at Thorne. Vector's visor was definitely turned toward him. The expression beneath it hidden, for a second Thorne expected a posturing monologue, some witty reassurance that bystander like himself were going to be safe. But Thorne felt, no, he was absolutely sure, this guy was laughing at him.
"Bastard." It was meant to be a thought, but the words broke free out of his mouth without warning. He yanked his gaze away, cheeks burning. Not humiliation exactly, not by itself but something close.
Then the energy lines across Vector's suit shimmered with a sudden coherence. Thorne, used to seeing powered showboating on his apartment's TV, he hadn't realized how different it felt to experience it in person. The courtyard vibrated with a static tension that Thorne could feel in his ribs.
'Was this what it felt like to be inside a microwave, just before the popcorn bag ruptured?' Thorne clenched his fist unconsciously.
Vector dropped into a tight, crouched stance. He bent his knees; his right arm cocked back as the grooves of blue-white energy along his suit converged. Every pulse of light flowing straight into his clenched fist. "This time I make sure to put you down." Thorne could all but see the smirk he was sure was on the hero's face.
The Brute's lips retracted enough to show the pale glisten of his teeth. Rudy's spaghetti-bundle arms flexed even tighter around the hostages, the man's face pinched white as dough as he let out a soundless cough.
Vector twitched, and in a blink, crossed the gap to the Brute. A bottled bundle of kinetic fury packed into one clench fist. He drove his hand into the Brute's torso.
Right in the gut where Rudy's malleable body wound itself in a flat rubbery sash. He was caught in the epicenter. Unable to remove himself from the brute or the location of the strike in time. The audible squelch of air forced from two bodies at once and two distinct cries of pain tore through the loading zone.
The impact went off with a meaty and seismic crack. Tearing the brute off his feet and carrying Rudy along with him as he rocketed into the very hole he had made in the loading bay wall. They departed so fast Thorne hallucinated a momentary afterimage.
Both hostages were release from Rudy as soon as the strike landed, they fell unceremoniously on the ground with a light thud as the pair were thrown back. Thorne could hear the loud sound of a secondary impact within the shadows of the broken building wall.
Impossible to say if it was the sounds or the impact of the strike that vibrated through Thorne's jaw, but the resonance stuck around long enough to be impressed upon his bones. It was the kind of sight that would replay in his brain every time he heard a bat crack at a baseball game, forever.
A beat of silence followed. Vector straightened, cracking his neck with a theatrical gesture. "Low born villain bastards, know your place." He then turned to look at the hostages laying on the ground.
Thorne's pulse was close to bursting. Three bits of knowledge hit him at once. First, that Vector was operating at a level of power and violence that short-circuited any realistic understanding he had of heroes.
Second, the hostages were now sprawled on the ground, but that attack was just as likely to send them flying along with Rudy. Vector this bastard of a hero couldn't care less about saving anyone's life. And third, He absolutely had to get out of here now that he finally had the chance to safely slip away.