Interlude: Frostfire

It had been a long night. Three robberies, a supervillian attack and a fire had made for some exhausting work, and Frostfire, otherwise known as Holly Johns, was feeling all the effort catching up with her. She was standing in the shadow of a skyscraper, perched on top of a smaller building beneath it. Before her, the city park was spread out. It was a favourite spot of muggers, but she'd chosen it because she reckoned it would be slow tonight and she needed a break.

At twenty four years old, Holly had been acting as Frostfire since she had turned eighteen. She was half Japanese, though this could be hard to pick out sometimes because of her snow white hair and pale complexion, both of which were on account of her power. Snowflakes danced around her whenever she slowed down, her abilities were always on, but she could dial them down or up as she needed. she was wearing her normal suit, which was to say, a skintight spandex thing coloured in blues and whites. She didn't bother with a facemask - unlike most heroes, the fact that her powers were always on meant that there was little chance of hiding her identity anyway, so she'd gone full in on the heroing and turned it into a career and life choice.

There was a device connected to her wrist. A small transceiver, connected to the central computer back at the base. It was a work of genius, the pride of the tech-hero called Gadget who had made it able to intercept and even sort emergency calls, diverting the most important to heroes who could respond the best. The police didn't like it too much, but they knew better than to complain. After all, everyone knew this was Avatar's city. The oldest and first hero, Avatar had existed since before the city and - excluding other immortals - was probably the oldest human alive. If you could call him human, that was. People were split on that. But Avatar didn't care, he was dedicated to his duty, absolute in his commitment. To him, the police **** were a bunch of new kids on the block, and he didn't see why he should have to give ground to them when he had been alive since at least the time of ancient Egypt. A man who had seen the pyramids raised, fought against Alexander the Great, and been a sworn enemy of Rome didn't really fear much from an angry police ****. Go figure.

As for Frostfire, she preferred to work with the police where she could. She was one of the more powerful heroes in the city. Her ability allowed her to either reduce or intensify the heat in a given area. That was the origin of her name - frost or fire, she could do both.

She had also been working for about eight hours so far, and was utterly spent. She was looking forward to getting back home and getting some sleep. Then, she could eat, get washed, and have some time to herself before she took to the streets again. Along with Redwing, Frostfire was one of Avatar's favourite because she was like him in more ways than one. Her powers were elemental like his, but more than this, like him she had dedicated herself totally to the work of being a hero. Avatar tended to look down slightly on such unimportant things as a life outside of the mask, or civilian friends.

The device on her wrist beeped, and Holly sighed, but flipped it open.

"What is it, Gadget? I'm tired, is there no one closer who can handle it?"

"I don't know, Frostfire." Gadget's voice came back clear and strong. He was a hero, but a non-combat one. A science type who preferred to rely on his devices. Though, he didn't do much personally, his technjology had revolutionised the world of heroes, and Avatar quite liked him. "Something is up. I am getting odd readings nearby. Somewhere in the park. You're the closest one, can you take a look for me?"

"Odd readings?" Holly quirked an eyebrow, "What do you mean by that exactly?"

"Can't say for sure, but it roughly corresponds to dimensional travel... it's a Warp Gate. I can't say more without some eyes on the ground. I've got Bullettime and Mystic on route as well, but you're the closest. If you want, I can wait until they get there and you can take a break, but..."

"Time could be important." Holly nodded, "All right, all right I'll take a look."

She darted from the rooftop, rolling as she hit the ground. Her body wasn't as tough as someone like Redwing, but she was still above human, and took the impact well, coming up to her feet smoothly like she had done a thousand times before. The device on her wrist showed her the rough location of the gate, and she started to move, speeding through the dark as silently as she could. Trees rose around her, and bushes and hills were shadowed by the full moon. Her senses were on full alert, and she could feel a tingle building up in her body as she moved. In one hand fire, in the other ice. Holly was one of the ten most combat capable heroes in the city and knew it. She had power, and she moved like someone who knew how to use it.

After a few minutes, she arrived at the sight of the gate. It was a small clearing, the trees had been moved to the side to make room for a pond, with benches placed around it. The park road detoured here, bending around the waters. Near the side of the pond, Frostfire saw a device. It was about the size of a human head, and made of gleaming metal. It was spherical, perfectly circular, and was floating in the middle of the air.

"Gadget?" She said, "I think you were right. This looks like super tech. Someone made this."

The only sound that came back was a hiss of muffled static. An instant later, the sphere flashed, a blast of blinding light hammered into her, and when she could see again, there were six mechanical forms standing in a line between her and the sphere. They were robots, each one humanoid, but made of gleaming metal parts. They had wrist mounted cannons, and blades which folded out of their bodies.

"So," She said, "It was a trap. Interesting choice, but you have to know that using something like that as bait was going to draw in one of the big guns. Why don't you tell me who you are, and I'll let you go?"

They opened fire. A storm of energy seared through the air towards her, but she lashed out with her own powers. A wall of ice sprang into existence between them and her, and the attacks rained into it. It didn't hold them back, though, but the second one slowed them, the third one made them slower yet. She just kept applying ice until the wall was so thick that the energy from the beams was drained, and they died out. Then, with a click of her fingers, the ice wall broke into a rain of razor-sharp blades which showered down on the robots.

They must have been reinforced, a rain of shards which would have shredded a human barely did anything to them, but Frostfire was an old hand at this, and had expected it. That was why the ground below them erupted into a next of impaling ice spikes, catching two of them. This time, the armour didn't hold, and they were run through, sparking and twitching. Four more were left, they re-positioned and opened fire, but she darted to the left. This time, she called upon heat, and two of them simply exploded. It was a misconception that she threw fire. She didn't. She just caused it to appear where she wanted it. Inside of a robot, for instance...

Four down now, two remaining. They charged her, blades flashed for her face, but she didn't flinch, ducking under one and ramming her fist into its chest. The armour it wore buckled and ripped - not in the least because she'd coated her hand with razor-sharp blades of ice - and she threw it aide. The last one came at her with a kick, which she ducked under. Frostfire darted forwards, hammering half a dozen blows into it, and then sweeping her leg under it to bring it crashing to the ground. It tried to rise up, but ice formed around it, sticking it where it lay.

"You're going to stay right there." She said to it. "I am sure Gadget will have a fun time playing with you and seeing where you come from. That is, assuming your master doesn't want to cooperate. You can come out, by the way. I know you're there."

A shadowy figure stepped forwards. He hadn't been there when she had arrived, so he had probably arrived at the same time as the robots.

She knew instantly that he wasn't a robot as well. He was human, tall and proud, clad in dark clothes, with a cloak that fell almost to his heels. he was muscular, with a powerful build. As he stepped forward, she got a look at his face. Green eyes, and dark hair, a scar across his cheek, and the bridge of his nose was missing a slight chunk.

"Dogma?" She said, blinking in surprise. "I thought you were-"

"Dead?"

"Smarter than this. This was a sloppy ambush and you know it. Did you really think that six of those things would be a threat?"

"No," He admitted, "They were low class trash. I wanted to see who would come to investigate, and I must say I am glad it is you, Frostfire. Though, I would have preferred Redwing after what happened last time."

"Yeah, yeah," Holly rolled her eyes, "Sworn ****, get her for killing you, etc, etc."

"I'm glad that you're so flippant." Dogma said, "Though you're wrong. I didn't die last time we fought. I was just...shall we say temporally misplaced. I had a lot of time to myself while I was floating between dimensions, between timelines. Eventually, I managed to escape by refining my powers. I'm stronger than I've ever been before!"

"Yeah, sure." Frostfire was unimpressed, "I've not heard that one a thousand times before."

"Then let me show you something you haven't seen a thousand times before!"

Dogma gestured, and a wave of discordant sound bore down on her.

Author's note: Hopefully, you guys will forgive me this non-porn chapter. I promise we're going back to Lilly next chapter, I just needed to move the plot forwards a little bit and there was too much of it for me to integrate into another chapter.