SIXTEEN

Katie had found her way to the desk of the police station. A young black woman with what seemed to be a permanent scowl on her face was manning it.

“Hi, my name is Katie. I need to talk to someone who was arrested this evening. His name is Hank Connors.”

The woman behind the desk scowled even harder. “You a lawyer?”

“Not exactly. But Hank needs my support. He’s just…”

An explosion took at a wall. The sound deafening, giving Katie a flashback to the day The Red Raider raided the lab of Hank’s dad.

People started to scream and run in all directions. The lady behind the desk took cover behind it. Katie just watched how her flashback came to life. Through a hole in the wall stepped The Red Raider, accompanied with five of his thugs and a few other, costumed characters.

For a moment she felt panic taking hold of her. Then she told herself she would be just fine. Nothing could hurt her. She’d shown that during her earlier encounter. She just had to make sure these creeps didn’t hurt anyone else. She was wearing her Invulnergirl suit under her clothes. She just had to find a quiet spot to change clothes.

There was a lot of panic. Cops reaching for weapons, visitors trying to run away, to hide. As she ran away herself, Katie could hear The Red Raider say, “Drop your weapons and surrender. That way nobody gets hurt.”

She managed to get inside the visitor’s toilets. Locking herself inside a stall she quickly took off her regular clothing, leaving her in only her superhero outfit. She put on her mask and her stylish beanie. She could hear gunfire. She had to see if she could rescue some people. She ran out of the toilet as fast as she could. She walked right into a hail of bullets.

To her left were The Red Raider’s thugs, firing automatic weapons at a bunch of cops huddling behind the reception desk to her right.

“Get out of the way!” a cop yelled at her. “You’re in my line of fire.”

Not bothered by the bullets, she gave the cop a look that said Are you kidding me, and told him, “I’m also in the bad guy’s line of fire. I would think you could appreciate that.”

One of the Raider’s henchmen said, “The bullets aren’t hurting her. Let’s take her down the old-fashioned way.” He ran towards Invulnergirl with a knife out.

The knife hit her right in the stomach and just bended like it was made from paper. He held up the knife in front of his eyes, not believing what he just saw happen.

“Good luck with that,” Invulnergirl said and hit him in the face with all her teenage strength. It was enough for him to topple over.

“Pile up on her!” another henchmen said. They now all ran towards the young heroine.

“Crap,” she uttered as she saw five, tough looking bad guys coming at her.