The metal, it was cold and unforgiving. Smooth and certain. Violet almost lost her grip a couple of times, but she knew she would be alright even if she did. Her force field would save her.

She wasn't used to it in the first place. She did not take any rock climbing lessons, all she had done was running and some gym training. Her muscles strained as she pulled herself up slowly, one groove at a time. Step by step, she was soon more than halfway up the Omnidroid's limb.

Don't look down.

Yet it was futile. It was the thought that counted. Like when she was watching horror movies. She knew the horror was going to hit her hard, but she still kept her eyes open. Not wanting to waste the money Tony paid to the cinema booth. Wanting to actually know what happened instead of closing her eyes. She always ended up burying herself in Tony's arms, sometimes with some tears. When it got too terrifying.

Except there was no Tony now. Violet both wanted and did not want to know her current altitude, but she did it anyway.

She looked down.

The sight took her breath away.

The ground, it seemed so far away. Like the suburban night sky-line, and the unsuspecting civilians. The gas looked like a small green handkerchief atop a great big black bed, the size of Metroville. She was probably four stories in the air, but the human mind can exaggerate physical quantities.

The ground, it seemed so far away.

Violet felt her back arch as her stomach contracted. Luckily, there was nothing in her stomach to purge. It was painful, nevertheless, and Violet had to concentrate harder on her arms to prevent herself from losing grip. The view was rather terrifying, if not magnificent.

Just moments ago, her feet were planted on the ground as she looked up at the towering menace. Her heart skipped a beat. She could hardly hear anything the Dick was saying now.

Get a grip Violet. Its not like you've not been this high in the air before. Remember Dawn.

But she wasn't held safely by an immobi-ray this time.

Thinking about her trusty force field helped Violet somewhat. Ripping her glance from the ground, she placed a foot on the next groove of the Omnidroid's limb. She promised herself never, ever to look down again. To fight the temptation a fear with utmost vigilance.

It wasn't easy scaling the entire limb of the Omnidroid, but soon enough Violet was atop the round connecting mechanism that joined the limb to the spherical body of the Omnidroid. The words the Lieutenant-Colonel were spewing were coming through much louder and clearer than before. Yet Violet could not afford to cover her ears, who were hurting under the blasting loud-speakers.

The connecting mechanism was about slightly halfway over the Omnidroid's body. With a grunt, Violet scaled what was left of the body.

I made it!

Dusting herself off, she thought how nice it would be if she had the elasticity of her mother. She wouldn't have to got through all that climbing, just an easy stretch and it was over.

It was then that she had a clear view of Lieutenant Colonel Dick. Standing in the cube-like cockpit of the Omnidroid was a tall, well-built man with dark hair, like Violet herself. He wore a full, green military uniform complete with a visor-helmet. His mouth, it was busy. Spewing propaganda in every direction.

The completion of the climb left Violet's arms free. She thankfully shielded her ears from the loudspeakers as she contemplated her next move. The cockpit was perfectly sealed. It was a cube-like construct with glass panels attached on its four sides to allow pilot visibility. There were no control panels inside, as the Omnidroids were controlled by a remote, or maybe multiple remotes.

She wanted to blast the glass with a force field, but she wasn't sure whether that would work. The glass could be bullet-proof, and she did not know how bullet-proof glass worked. Did they deflect piercing damage or impacts? She also risked ending the stream of mind-controlling words from the loudspeakers and risk detection.

Suddenly, a deafening roar filled the air. It was loud enough to blanket out the loudspeakers, even to Violet. And she was right next to them.

Violet looked up, but there did not seem to be anything. She looked down at the troops on the ground. They still held formation, keeping tight lock on the civilians, but most of them were prone on the ground now. They had their rifles equipped and pointed towards the air, firing at some unknown threat.

Then Violet saw them as they soared high above the sky-line. They were fighter jets, an entire wing of them. Two of them swooped down from formation and unleashed a volley of air to ground missiles at the Omnidroid.

Violet was stupefied. If she deflected the missiles with a force field, it would immediately alert Dick to her presence. If she did not, they would blow her a couple of feet into the air. Her only option now was to get the heck off of the Omnidroid, using gravity as an ally.

But Violet never made the jump. The Omnidroid snapped back into action, jerking violently. Violet clung onto the cockpit as she watched the Omnidroid deflect the missiles expertly with raised limbs. Its laser turret activated, shredding one of the fighters' wings. The damaged fighter veered erratically through the air, eventually crashing into an office tower, exploding in a brilliant orange ball of flame.

The surviving fighter rejoined formation with the rest of the wing which cruised high above the Omnidroid out of the range of the laser turret. Violet got her mind back together and looked into the cockpit. Dick was on the ground shouting into a radio frantically. She had a look at the situation on the ground. None of the civilians had attempted an escape. The gas must still be holding out, otherwise it was the fear that kept them in place.

Another explosion rocked the sky as another fighter found itself crashing into another building. Violet looked up in shock. Did the Omnidroid possess such accuracy that it could snipe with its laser turret?

What Violet saw was far more shocking. An aerial dogfight was taking place. The fighters were exchanging chain gun fire with several unidentified aerial attackers. The attackers swooped in and around the fighter wing swiftly, breaking the formation apart. Violet squinted at the skirmish a little harder, and bit her lip.

Velocipods!

The Velocipods, they were not engaging the fighters with their cannons Violet soon realized. They were dodging fighter fire as they went in for a melee kill, using their deadly blades to shred the fighters' wings. Another fighter lost a wing as it pummeled towards the ground, disappearing over the metropolitan sky-line.

The fighters, they were losing the skirmish. They started dropping like flies as the combat progressed. Violet did not know whether to be relieved or unhappy. She stood locked in place, observing the explosions in the air. Suddenly, the remaining fighters broke free of combat and fled the scene, pursued by a frenzy of velocipods.

It was only then that Violet thought about exploiting the situation to her own advantage. Looking into the cockpit, she saw Dick wiping his forehead and reactivating the Omnidroid's loudspeakers.

Alright, this is it.

Violet raised an invisible hand and generated a spherical force field around her body, holding it in place. She prepared the force field for expansion, closing her eyes, concentrating hard. Opening them, she blasted the cockpit moderately, controlling the blast so as not to drain herself completely.

The glass failed to break. Instead, Dick was thrown against a glass panel uttering a painful grunt. The grunt was magnified by the loudspeakers a hundred fold.

Violet panicked, and looked down at the troops. They did not seem to be affected by the grunt, still pointing their rifles at the air. Violet quickly took the opportunity to blast the loudspeakers cleanly off the Omnidroid's cockpit.

"What the?" Dick found his voice as he recovered from Violet's blast.

Suddenly, swooping down from the skyline in all directions were what was left of the wing of fighters. Simultaneously, they unleashed a volley, no, two volleys of missiles at the Omnidroid. From Violet's position, she could see that they were aimed squarely at the Omnidroid's cockpit. It was enough to make any young Super panic horribly. Violet counted about twenty over missiles fast approaching her position.

Violet gave a classic, Violet-scream as she put up her force field (it went something like "AI-EEEE!"). Six missiles struck the force field, pushing Violet backwards. Violet could feel the painful impact of the missiles, there were simply too many of them. Like a snake wriggling through her veins, biting randomly at the walls. The Omnidroid managed to deflect the rest of the initial volley with two of its raised limbs. The Omnidroid's body slanted as it defended itself, causing Violet to roll off the Omnidroid using her force field.

As Violet fell towards the ground, she saw the second volley of missiles slam into the Omnidroid's cockpit, consecutively. The glass continued to hold, until the sixth or seventh missile found its way. She saw splintered glass bounce of her force field. The fighters swooped perilously close to the Omnidroid, which swiftly took out two with an outstretched limb and two more with its laser turret. Two velocipods intercepted another fighter, tearing apart both of its wings.

The pyrotechnics were enough to instill shock and awe, distracting Violet from something that was launched out of the cockpit. It was a body, dressed in a green uniform flying out of the cockpit, heading right for her. It was screaming, flailing its arms wildly in the air as it pummeled towards Violet.

Violet knew the man falling towards her was a power-hungry, insane and possibly evil person. Yet, she could not bring herself to let him be mutilated by the ground right in front of her. Especially when it happened right in front of her. He would probably stain her force field with a flood of red liquid as he hit the ground like a wet pancake. And Violet would not like that.

She would probably never recover from it.

I will always save lives, never take them.

It was fortunate that Violet reached the ground before the good Colonel. She floated down gently using a force field for levitation. Looking up at Dick's crazed appearance, she formed a force field around him and brought him to the ground safely, dramatically re-appearing as she did so.

She hoped her trademark live-saving technique would work on the Lieutenant-Colonel. She did not want him to pull out a sidearm and start firing wildly.

And it seemed to work, as Dick looked over at Violet in a mixture of wonder and horror. The look you get when you believe you meant to die, but did not. The look when you placed your eyes upon an angel for the first time in your life.

Or maybe it did not work. Maybe it was Dick's injuries, they made Violet choke. He had probably half a dozen glass shards lodged into his upper torso in all directions. There was blood trickling down his nostrils and from wounds that covered his arms and legs. Violet had never seen so much blood in her life.

But at least he wasn't dead.

"You're that girl Super that saved the other Supers…" Dick stammered. "Rick wasn't lying."

All Violet could do was nod. Her eyes were still examining the glass shards sticking out of Rick's chest.

Oh God.

"Those fighters, they look European," Dick continued, very slowly. "Rick must have done something…"

He doubled over and coughed out a few drops of blood. One or more of his lungs must have been punctured.

"I've got to get you to a hospital," Violet put a hand to her mouth. She could feel her tears coming.

"The hospitals, they're empty," Dick mustered enough strength to say, wiping blood from his lips. "Thanks for saving my life, Invisigirl. You're different from the other Supers…"

That took Violet by surprise. "How am I?"

"Most of them, they did it for fame. That's how I saw it anyway. Supers were people who were full of it, causing destruction to property just to save some pathetic lives. All for the popularity, and glory. The anti-Super lawsuits were inevitable."

That's not true! Mom and Dad, they were good noble Supers!

But Violet knew better than to argue with an injured Lietenant-Colonel. The priority of saving this live overwrites any other. She bit her lip and kept quiet.

"But you, you do it out of pure will. The evidence speaks for itself, you saved me." Dick finished. "Its good to see not all Supers are arrogant fools."

Suddenly a huge shadow appeared over Violet and Dick.

The Omnidroid, having finished off the fighters, had found something new to kill.