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Zzzp zzp! From her wrists, Nadia let two of her Wasp’s Stings fly. The bioelectric energy shot from her suit straight toward the tank.
And remember what we just learned about propane gas and electricity?
The blast was so big that tiny Nadia was thrown backward, tumbling head over feet three, four, five times before she was able to catch herself with her wings and bring herself back upright. She was disoriented—which way was up? Everything was huge and her head was still spinning.
There. The huge ball of flames. That was enough to get Nadia situated. The A.I.M. agent whose gas tank she’d blown up was rolling around in the middle of the street, trying to put himself out. He’d be busy for a while. Nadia spun to relocate his friends. The one outside the office’s front door was frantically shrugging off his own propane pack.
First sign of intellect I’ve seen today. But wait…
The third A.I.M. agent had used the detonation as cover and bolted down the alley. Nadia shot after him. He wasn’t wearing a gas tank; he had on a normal backpack. A JanSport. So normal it stood out sharply against the black hazmat suit and matching black bucket helmet.
Nadia made a mental note to ask Janet if bucket helmets were perhaps going to be high fashion soon. She really hoped not.
When she caught up to the agent in the alley, Nadia wrapped one arm around the handle of his backpack before exploding back to her usual size. She used her momentum to lift the agent into the air by the handle, spinning him in a circle before releasing her arm. The bucket-head went flying into the metal dumpster at the back of the alley, sliding to the ground with a thump. Nadia was shocked to see him jump back to his feet—spry, she thought, narrowing her eyes. She landed on the ground in front of him as he pulled out a handgun.
“Oh, absolutely not,” said Nadia. She was miniature before the agent could even pull the trigger.
Nadia’s whole body shook with the force of the blast from the muzzle. But instead of rushing away from the gun, she flew right toward it. She passed the bullet in midair, twisting her body in a spin that would have made her old ballet instructors proud to avoid getting caught in its slipstream, and kept moving toward the weapon. She landed on the barrel—hot, hot, hot—tilting to the left as she did. When she reached the handle, just behind the trigger, she ran directly over the magazine release button, dropping the remainder of the bullets out of the gun. The magazine clattered to the sidewalk as Nadia launched herself off the back of the gun. She flipped over the agent’s shoulder, eager to get behind him—there was still one bullet in the chamber, after all.
Nadia zoomed into the side of the dumpster feet-first, pushing back off toward the agent and exploding back to her usual size while flipping head over feet. She used the momentum and force of her transformation to place a kick to the agent’s kidneys that was much more devastating than it would have been otherwise (for the record: already pretty devastating). He dropped like a sack of potatoes falling down a very steep set of stairs into a cold cellar.
Where they store the potatoes. You get it.
Nadia picked up the gun and racked the slide, clearing the loaded bullet from the chamber. Working quickly, she shrank, shrinking the gun along with her, then returned to size and crushed the weapon easily under her boot.
Just one more.
Leaping from the ground in a sauté* that would have made her handlers proud, Nadia let her wings take her the rest of the way off the ground. She emerged into the light of the mostly deserted street (thanks to Wendy’s quick thinking) and searched for the last remaining A.I.M. agent. There was his discarded propane tank; there was the toasty agent who had rolled himself into unconsciousness. But the third agent…was gone.
How did someone in such a bulky getup run away so fast? Thunderation.†
They must have been using a version of Monica Rappaccini’s phasing belt. Coincidentally, Nadia thought that “Monica Rappaccini’s Phasing Belt” sounded like one of Priya’s favorite bands. Still, not a very “devastating Super Villain” feeling.
A voice crackled to life over Nadia’s comms system as she touched down outside the office’s front door.
“Nadia!” It was Janet, and she sounded worried. “Are you all right?!”
“I’m fine,” Nadia confirmed. “Goth Devo, on the other hand…”
Janet stifled a chuckle. “How many did they send?”
“Three,” Nadia replied bitterly. “One got away. Phased. I should have had him.”
“You did great,” Janet assured her. “S.H.I.E.L.D. has a cleanup crew incoming and I’m on my way, too. Did they know that isn’t our lab?”
“That’s what I said!” Nadia poked the charred hazmat suit with her booted toe. The A.I.M. agent inside groaned. “Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. can get answers out of them.”
“That’s the plan,” Janet agreed.
Nadia made her way back down the alley and found the second agent still out like cold potatoes. He’d fallen facedown and his bucket was slightly askew, his full backpack jutting straight up from the middle of his back. Nadia tugged on the black JanSport before she remembered—she was missing plans right now! “Oh, Janet,” she said in a rush, grabbing the backpack’s zipper, “can you please tell Ying I’m going to be late for Star Wars night tonight?”
“Star Wars night?” Janet repeated with a laugh. “Did your driver’s ed get canceled?”
Nadia froze while reaching for the backpack’s zipper. She flipped her wrist around and checked the date. Wednesday. Driving lesson night. Just like every Wednesday. Nadia whipped her phone out of its dedicated pocket on her thigh to text…Ying? her instructor? everyone? in a panic, when she saw she already had a text waiting for her.
TAINA: So we off for Bee-Boi testing, then?
Oh.
