Side Story - Star Titan 1

Side Story

Star Titan 1

Star Titan hovered above the French countryside, exhausted beyond anything he’d felt in years. Three hours of sustained flight from California to here. Mach four through the atmosphere, plasma jets burning hot enough to make the sky scream. His skin was red beneath the armor, friction burns across every exposed surface despite his enhanced durability. His regeneration worked overtime just keeping him functional.

Below, a facility sat in the middle of farmland. Lights blazed against the darkness, exactly where the coordinates said it would be.

More evidence Grimnir had been telling the truth.

Kyle was somewhere in that facility. Two years of being told his brother was dead, and the whole time he’d been here. Imprisoned. Tortured.

But what happened after he got Kyle out?

Santiago would send someone after him. Reports of him abandoning his duty would have been sent out before he’d even left Argentum. They would have tracked his trajectory and run calculations, figuring out where he was going. The company had resources and an army of superhumans they could mobilize. 

He was approaching peak Tier 3, stronger than almost anyone on Earth.

Almost wasn’t everyone.

And he couldn’t fight them all while protecting an unconscious Kyle.

He pulled up the System’s interface. With a thought, he scrolled through his contact list. Past names he’d worked with for years. Heroes. Colleagues. People who would turn on him the moment they learned what he was about to do.

He stopped at one entry.

Stared at it for several seconds.

Hesitated.

He probably won’t even come. Might not even respond. But if there’s anyone who would understand...

He started the message. A brief explanation. Coordinates. Urgency. Signed his name. John.

When it was ready, he hesitated again.

If he did this, there was no going back. Asking a supervillain for help meant crossing a line he’d spent five years defending. It meant admitting that maybe the people he’d called friends weren’t friends at all. That maybe the villain he’d helped hunt understood loyalty better than the heroes who’d lied to his face.

He hit send before he could reconsider.

There was no immediate response. Not that he’d expected one.

John looked down at the facility one more time. At the lights. At the place where they’d kept his brother imprisoned for two years while telling him Kyle was dead.

He dropped.

For the first time in years, he stopped holding back. His Corona ignited, a sphere of superheated plasma roaring to life around him. It transformed him into a miniature star falling from the sky, bright enough to turn night into day across the countryside below.

The earth didn’t stand a chance.

Plasma burned through topsoil like it was paper. Through bedrock. Through the concrete foundation. Through sixty feet of reinforced steel and plating. Everything vaporized in his wake without a care for what Santiago Systems had built here.

Just a brother burning through every obstacle between him and Kyle.

The spherical chamber appeared below him, exactly as the intel had described. He dropped through the final barrier and landed inside, Corona dissipating as his boots hit the metal floor.

Kyle was there.

Strapped to a containment platform in the center of the room, tubes running from his body to monitoring equipment. Sedation feeds. Metal restraints. The kind of setup used for the most dangerous subjects, the ones who couldn’t be allowed to wake.

His little brother looked thinner. Pale. Two years of this.

Fury and relief warred in John’s chest.

He walked across the chamber and tore through the restraints with his bare hands. The cuffs bent and snapped. He ripped away the tubes, the feeds, the monitoring equipment. Checked Kyle’s pulse, his breathing. Stable. But still sedated.

John lifted his brother carefully and settled him over his shoulder, one arm wrapped protectively around him.

Time to leave.

He burst back into the French night, Kyle’s weight secured over his shoulder. Cold air hit his face after the heat of the descent. The facility’s alarms screamed behind them, but those didn’t matter anymore.

The streak of light curving across the sky did.

John barely had time to register the movement before a beam cut through the air where his head had been a second before. He twisted, and the shot carved a line across his shoulder armor instead.

Radiant.

The hero materialized fifty meters away, already decelerating from his pass. Streams of gentle light washed out from him, keeping him airborne. Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops, incongruous against the night sky. Sunglasses reflected the facility’s emergency lights.

“Put him down, John.”

Star Titan’s Corona reignited. Plasma roared to life around him and Kyle both, a sphere of superheated air that turned the crater beneath them to glass. Kyle would be safe inside. Anyone trying to reach them from outside would burn.

Radiant pulled back, rising higher.

“That’s not going to work.” Radiant’s voice carried across the distance, calm and professional. “You know that.”

John created his first star between them. The miniature sun appeared in empty air, burning bright. He detonated it toward Radiant, plasma spraying in a cone.

Radiant was already moving. A hard-light platform shimmered into existence beneath his feet. He kicked off it, curving his trajectory away from the blast. The plasma passed through empty space. By the time it faded, Radiant had accelerated to a streak again.

The beam came from behind, slipping through a gap in the Corona. John felt it punch through his back armor, the impact staggering him forward. His free hand moved instinctively to create another star at Radiant’s position, but the hero was already gone. Already building speed for another pass.

This was going to be bad.

John expanded his Corona, spreading it wider to ensure Kyle stayed protected. The field thinned as it grew, less concentrated. His personal defense weakened with every foot of coverage.

But Kyle was safe. That was what mattered.

Radiant came in fast, another platform appearing mid-flight to change his angle. John created three stars in a triangle pattern, trying to box him in. Detonated them in sequence, plasma converging from multiple directions.

Radiant curved through the gap between two blasts. His Light-Speed Reflexes had read the timing, found the window, threaded through before the third detonation could catch him.

Another beam. This one hit John’s leg, carving through the armor plating. Pain flared, then faded as his regeneration started working. Not fast enough. The damage was accumulating faster than he could heal.

Corona was an incredible defensive power, but the concentrated precision of Radiant’s light beams, combined with his ridiculous reflexes, allowed him to find the gaps in it.

He tried to predict Radiant’s next approach. Created stars along likely paths. Prepared to detonate them the moment the hero committed to a direction.

Radiant stopped instead. Came to an instant halt twenty meters to the left, assessing. John manifested a star at his position and pushed, ready to detonate.

Radiant accelerated away before John could trigger it. The star exploded into empty space.

John was fighting one-armed, and it showed. His manifestation speed was halved. His ability to gesture, to direct, to control the plasma after generation, all of it compromised by Kyle’s weight on his shoulder.

He couldn’t put his brother down. Not in the middle of a fight. Not with Radiant here.

Another pass. Radiant curved high, came down at an angle John couldn’t easily rotate to cover. The beam caught his shoulder, the same one that had taken the first hit. Armor cracked deeper. John felt something give, not quite breaking but close.

He created four stars this time, a wider net. Detonated them in a cascading pattern meant to force Radiant into a sharp turn.

It almost worked. Radiant had to bleed speed on the curve, his momentum dropping as he avoided the plasma bursts. For a moment, John saw the opening. Saw where Radiant would be as he rebuilt velocity.

He manifested a star ahead of the trajectory. Started the detonation sequence. Too slow. His exhaustion betrayed him. The star formed, but the trigger came a half-second late. 

Half a second was all Radiant needed to flash past the position before plasma filled the space.

John was breathing hard now. Three hours of flight, then burning through sixty feet of facility, now this. His regeneration pulled at his energy reserves. His Corona flickered as his concentration wavered.

Radiant must have seen it. The next attack came faster, more aggressive. A beam from the side caught John’s back again, punching through weakened armor. Another from above hit his other shoulder.

John rotated, tried to track him. Created stars wherever Radiant appeared. But each manifestation came slower. Each detonation arrived late. His one-armed handicap compounded with exhaustion, making him predictable.

Radiant stopped again. Farther away this time, outside easy range.

John’s arm was shaking. Kyle’s weight felt heavier. The Corona pulsed unevenly around them, his control slipping.

Radiant raised his hand, light gathering at his palm. The angle was wrong. Off-center. Aimed at Kyle.

John didn’t prepare another star.

He prepared hundreds.

“Star Field.”

The sky above them ignited. Miniature suns materialized across the night, spreading thousands of meters in every direction like a constellation being born. Hundreds of them. Each one burning with the same plasma that had carved through sixty feet of earth and steel.

They detonated as one.

Plasma rained down. Not in waves or jets, but in countless droplets. Tens of thousands of burning points fell like hail made of starfire. Each drop was small, concentrated, hot enough to punch holes through concrete. Through steel. 

Through people.

The air screamed with the sound of it.

Radiant moved. Had to. There was nowhere to stand, nowhere to dodge. The plasma rain covered everything, a curtain of death falling across the entire area.

He became a streak of light, flashing between the droplets. His speed was almost impossible, his reflexes reading trajectories faster than thought itself. Hard-light platforms appeared and shattered, giving him angles, letting him curve away from clusters of plasma.

But there were too many. Speed alone couldn’t save him.

Droplets caught him. One burned through his shoulder. Another carved across his ribs. His shirt began smoking, holes appearing in the fabric. His glasses cracked. More hits. His arm. His leg. Small wounds, but they added up.

With a roar, Radiant’s form exploded with light.

Pure radiance burst from him in every direction, a sphere of brilliance that lit the countryside brighter than the hundreds of suns conjured by Star Titan. The light met plasma mid-fall, burning it away, countering it, vaporizing droplets before they could reach him.

The technique lasted three seconds. When it faded, Radiant was still there.

His shirt hung in tatters, smoking holes burned through the fabric. Wounds wept on his shoulder, his side, his arm. His sunglasses sat askew on his face, one lens cracked. He reached up slowly and straightened them.

John’s Corona flickered. The Star Field had cost him everything left. His vision swam. His legs wanted to give out. Only his grip on Kyle kept him upright, gave him something to focus on besides the exhaustion trying to drag him down.

Radiant’s expression shifted. The casual demeanor was gone. The professional assessment finished. He looked at John with something that might have been respect.

Then his face hardened.

He accelerated. Raised a hand.

The trajectory aimed straight at Kyle.

John didn’t think. His body moved on instinct, turning to put himself between the beam and his brother. He felt the impact in his chest, the concentrated light punching through armor that had already taken too much damage.

The force staggered him. His grip on Kyle loosened for a terrifying second before he caught himself, wrapped his arm tighter.

“You’re losing, John.” Radiant’s voice carried across the distance, matter-of-fact. “Just put him down. This doesn’t have to get worse.”

John looked up at the hero. At the man he’d worked beside for years. At someone he’d thought was a colleague.

Radiant was right. He was losing.

But Kyle was still safe. John wasn’t putting him down.

Then it happened.

The sky broke.

Space warped and cracked. Reality bent around a point a kilometer above them, and a starship tore into existence. The Leviathan materialized inside a shimmering barrier dome that kept it suspended against gravity’s pull.

The air that had occupied that space exploded outward.

Thunder cracked across the countryside, the sound of the atmosphere being violently displaced. Wind screamed past them in a shockwave that flattened the grass far below.

John braced, wrapping both arms around Kyle, his Corona flickering as he fought to stay upright. His exhausted body wanted to collapse. Only adrenaline and desperation kept him airborne.

Radiant just leaned into the blast. His tattered Hawaiian shirt whipped wildly around him, holes smoking, but his expression barely changed. The wind might as well have been a gentle breeze for all the concern he showed.

Between the ship and the two superhumans, a figure hovered.

Fortress-themed armor, black and red plates reinforced with patterns that looked like castle battlements. A helmet with a closed faceplate, angular and imposing. Cape billowing in the settling wind. The man floated there with the casual confidence of someone who knew exactly how dangerous he was.

John’s chest tightened. Fortress—No. He changed his name.

Skybreaker.

Radiant’s gaze flicked between Skybreaker and Star Titan. Assessing. Calculating. One peak Tier 3 fresh for combat, one peak Tier 3 barely standing. They would be tough odds for Radiant, but not impossible.

His stance shifted slightly. Light gathered at his palms. His body angled toward Skybreaker, ready to accelerate.

Then three figures emerged from the Leviathan’s opening ramp.

They launched from the ship and flew forward, closing the distance fast. Supervillains, each one radiating power that made the air shimmer around them. John didn’t recognize them all, but he knew they must be escapees from the Supermax prison. 

Skybreaker no longer traveled alone. He’d recruited a crew of supervillains.

Radiant’s expression shifted. The calculation had changed. Four against one, with one of those four being Skybreaker himself. The light at his palms faded. His stance relaxed just slightly.

He looked at Star Titan. Something that might have been amusement crossed his face.

“You always were smarter than you looked, John.” His voice carried easily across the distance, casual despite the smoking holes in his shirt and the blood on his skin. “You win. But there’s no coming back from this. See you ‘round.”

He turned and started flying away. Then he began to glow.

Brighter. Brighter still. His form became difficult to look at directly as light poured from him, building intensity with every meter of distance. The acceleration was building, momentum gathering.

The glow became blinding.

Then he was gone. A streak of pure radiance that shot across the sky and vanished over the horizon in less than a second.

Silence settled over the French countryside.

John floated there, arms wrapped around his unconscious brother, Corona barely flickering. His vision swam. His entire body screamed for rest. But Kyle was safe.

Skybreaker approached and hovered twenty meters away, the three villains spreading into a loose formation behind him. The starship loomed in the background, a monument to power and resources John no longer had access to.

“John.” The voice came through Skybreaker’s helmet, amplified but recognizable. “You look like hell.”