Brockton Bay, December 27th, 10:59 AM
Assault knew from experience that the most dangerous cape fights are always debuts. Your debut? The enemy's debut? Your teammates debut?
Didn't matter. Cape fights were decided by information just as much as skill. Debut fights had minimal skill combined with minimal information, and were often dangerous on every side.
Right then, as Vice descended the steps trailed by a cloud of fog, Assault realized they had no real idea what he was actually capable of.
Battery gave a soft grunt as she cradled her elbow. Junkyard Dog advanced, carrying the whole vault door over her shoulder like a huge circular cudgel. Vice strode behind, a huge canvas bag slung over his shoulder. It even had a dollar sign. Assault had to give points for sticking to the classics.
Now if only he could figure out what the hell was going on.
Vice snapped his fingers twice and swept his free hand outwards, like a foreman at a construction site telling the workers where to lay the foundations. "Cover us!" he yelled.
Suddenly, the fog cloud rushed over them until it rose, forming an opaque dome over most of the street. A swirling dense layer of the stuff separated all the combatants from the outside world.
Assault backed up, making sure to stand by Battery's side. Miss Militia joined their huddle as Vice and Junkyard Dog closed the distance. Battery's costume began to glow as she built a charge again.
Assault put up his dukes. "Well, turns out you guys can pack a punch. Not just style over substance, eh?" His cocky grin turned sour. "Party's over. You don't hit a member of the Protectorate with a literal ton of solid metal and get away with it."
Vice just held up a single finger. "Style over substance, eh? I'll have you know, if you get enough style in one place, it becomes a substance all its own." As he said it, a portion of the fog pulled away from the top of the dome and compressed itself into a milky white sphere on the tip of his finger. It looked like an overly full snowglobe.
Assault glared. "That's…"
"That looked like Stormtiger's power," Battery whispered. Assault watched Junkyard Dog's ear flick in their direction.
Assault would have brushed the power's resemblance off as a coincidence if Colin hadn't just brought him up. Now the connections were beginning to unsettle him. And if Vice had Stormtiger's power somehow, who was he ordering around before?
"There's something in the fog," Miss Militia stated. Her sniper rifle reformed itself into a shotgun, presumably loaded with beanbag rounds or rubber bullets.
Assault scanned his eyes around the interior of the foggy expanse. There. A shadow, moving above the ground. He only caught it for a second before it was gone. A winged silhouette.
This was bad. This was really bad. For as much as Assault wanted to rib and/or praise Vice for his presentation, the fog cloud had cut them off from Dauntless, who couldn't engage without entering the cloud blind. Plus, Miss Militia was either stuck trying to get out and being hamstrung by Dauntless's exact problem, or engaging in close quarters without any brute rating to speak of.
Retreating and regrouping meant good ol' Vice and Co. would get an opportunity to escape beneath the cloud cover. Add in the mystery Cape, and the promised 4-on-2 had turned into a 3-on-3 with no good way out.
Only one thing to do; turn it into a 3-on-2 as fast as possible.
"Battery, hit me."
She complied.
A fist struck his back and for an instant, Assault's world became a realm of discrete objects and vectors. The energy instantly distributed across his entire body, becoming an invisible arrow showing his projected momentum. He took it and snapped it forward until the force carried him just above the ground.
And then he was off. He tucked his feet in as he shot forwards, a flying crouch. Vice juked in front of Junkyard Dog, and his hand reconfigured itself into what could only be a slingshot made of human tendons. The grotesquery on display almost made Assault forget to dodge.
Quick as a wink, Assault extended his leg back down, making contact with the ground. He took a 90 degree turn in a split second as dodged the sphere of compressed air. It whipped past his shoulder, exploding back into fog behind him.
Assault held back a laugh. He extended his other leg and he was racing towards Vice again at just below his original speed. Air resistance was eating into his momentum.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Junkyard Dog fighting Battery and Miss Militia. She went for an overhead swing with the vault door on Battery, before being forced to use it as a shield as Miss Milita's weapon transforms into a riot gun. Rubber slugs ricocheted off the surface.
They had it handled for now. Assault put his finger up to his earpiece.
"Dauntless!" he shouted. "Get ready!"
Two quick kicks against the ground cause him to zig and zag. He deliberately moves himself to just within arm's reach of Vice.
Vice's hand reached out towards him, fingers extended, overbalancing himself. Almost certainly a Striker of some kind. People with brand new touch-based powers always end up looking like a child playing tag, at least in the beginning. A habit that Assault personally helped Clockblocker get over.
Assault was already gone, momentum changing in an instant.
A single boot against the ground, and then, just as fast, he was back. His other foot headed right at Vice's face.
Vice's arm comes up in a guard, but it doesn't help at all. It wasn't something you could block.
The second Assault made contact, he took all the momentum he had remaining and used it to send Vice up. The villain was launched straight out of the dome of fog, right into Dauntless's line-of-sight.
"Pull!" Assault yelled. Super-powered skeet shooting.
The top of the foggy dome was suffused with a brilliant white light, followed by a crack of thunder and a yelp of pain. Vice's body, smoking and on fire, fell back into the arena. His hand was still clutching the bag of cash.
Coins flew out of his body when he hit the ground. Sure. Makes sense.
Junkyard Dog crouched down behind the vault door. "Vice, God damn it!" she says, "Not again!"
Vice just groaned, smoking slightly, his body twitching on the ground. It seemed electricity put him down longer than just hitting him. How long was he out last time? Thirty seconds? A minute or two? Assault would have to make the most of it. He turned towards Junkyard Dog.
Another shot pinged off the she-wolf's shield as Battery built another charge. Assault signaled his wife to hit him again.
She nodded.
Junkyard Dog crouches down, and something moves beneath her fur. Her skin firms up, seeming more solid than before. When she stands up, there is a weight to her that wasn't present before.
She left the cover of her shield, and Miss Militia seized the opportunity. Her riot gun came up, and she fired.
Only, instead of the soft thwack of rubber on flesh, there is a sharp 'Ping!' of something bouncing off solid metal as the slug hits Junkyard Dog's shoulder.
Metal, just beneath the skin. The name made more sense now.
Hookwolf's power. This was starting to look really bad. They might be fighting a Trump. Vice might not even be the mastermind, if his only power was his shapeshifting and regeneration.
Junkyard Dog began to sprint straight towards Miss Militia. The gun in the hero's hands shifted from a riot gun into an actual shotgun, double barreled. Two quick shots fired off, tearing minuscule chunks out of Junkyard Dog's skin. The grimace on her face turned into a grin as she barreled forward.
Battery came speeding towards Assault, and he reached out his hand. A quick tag-in, and she came to a dead stop as Assault shot forward to intercept.
A quick jab to Junkyard Dog's knee reversed her momentum entirely, sending her backwards towards the Bank. Assault could feel how much more weight she had than before; at some point, she had gained an incredible amount of mass.
She dropped to one knee to stop herself, and when she finally came to a halt, Battery took it as a cue to come in with a charged kick. The superheroine came flying in, barely more than a blur with electric blue streaks.
Junkyard Dog's blue eyes narrowed, and she leaned back just far enough to dodge. Battery's kick went past her, and the wolf woman grabbed the leg at its full extension. Still charged, Battery reacted instantly, winding up her fist to hit Junkyard Dog off of her, but it wasn't fast enough. With one hand around Battery's ankles, combined with how tall she was, all she needed to do to knock her on her ass was to just stand up.
Battery instantly unbalanced and fell on her back. Her hands whipped towards Junkyard Dog's, having just enough charge to break the leg grab. She scrambled away from a pavement-shattering stomp.
Battery got up into a runner's stance.
They both locked eyes. Battery built a charge. Junkyard Dog growled like a motorcycle starting up. She charges forward, and Battery blurred and spear tackled the wolf woman out of the fog.
Assault moved to follow, when Miss Militia cried out. "Look!"
He turned, and saw the fog dome collapsing onto Vice's unconscious body, as if he was being absorbed by it. The small winged silhouette appeared again, before dragging Vice away.
Now Assault had some decisions to make. Miss Militia was entirely ineffective against Junkyard Dog at this point, barring heavy munitions, but he couldn't leave Battery to fight alone, no matter how much he trusted her skills. All it would take was one mistimed attack and she'd be nothing more than a normal woman without any backup. But Dauntless is their best weapon against Vice…
And then there was the money, of course. Couldn't forget that.
Assault shouted into his earpiece. "Dauntless, engage Junkyard Dog with Battery. Subdue as fast as possible and then regroup. Miss Militia, hit me with the biggest you have and then follow me."
Had to make sure everyone could do something. All Assault needed to do was keep Vice from leaving. Miss Militia could help handle whatever that flying thing was. Battery needed help.
"Acknowledged," Dauntless says. The crackle of his Arclance could be heard as he flew overhead.
Miss Militia's gun flickered until it reformed into a gun with a barrel of frankly absurd size. "Ready!" she yelled.
"Fire!"
Miss Militia was no dainty flower of a woman, but the recoil nearly knocked her on her ass. The bullet, weighing almost half a pound, hit Assault with the same kinetic energy he would get from being hit by a car. It was the biggest kick in the ass he could ask for from anyone who wasn't his wife.
He pulled it all into himself. He launched forwards at triple-digit speeds while the bullet dropped to the ground, inert.
Assault's power was fun as hell. It was almost worth it.
He flew into the fog, colliding with the winged silhouette, forcing it to drop Vice's unconscious body. He gave it a portion of his momentum, enough so that their speeds would equalize.
They both tumbled out of the fog cloud, sailing through the air in sync, like trapeze artists. The orange, feathery blur fell headlong across the pavement with a high-pitched "Ack!". Assault skipped across the ground like a stone across a pond before bleeding all his inertia into the pavement, coming to a dead halt just above the figure.
Who was, now that he got a good look at her, a little naked tiger girl?
As she writhed around on the ground, they made eye contact and the expression on her face was one of near complete mortification.
Lars looked at Assault.
Assault looked at Lars.
Lars tried not to throw up. Or blink. Or speak. Or breathe. Or Move. Or masturbate.
She groped blindly through her own psyche for some kind of meditative mantra or thought process that would allow her to immediately cease existing. Unfortunately for her, most Tibetan monks needed to meditate for decades before they could remove themselves from the universe whenever they wanted. She never stood a chance.
Assault continued to stare blankly at her.
What the fuck are you waiting for? Say something! Anything! Laugh, even! Isn't this fucking funny? Isn't this fucking hilarious? Little fucking naked tiger girl with a little collar robbing a bank! It's fucking funny! Laugh!
He just… continued to stare.
She was starting to feel lightheaded. She had been flying around in that fog cloud Vice had created with a bunch of stolen fire extinguishers, keeping it going by compressing it before it dispersed too much.
That was probably bad for her, right? Carbon dioxide inhalation or whatever.
Could he tell how horny she was? Was horny an expression? Maybe he just thought she was constipated.
She sat bolt upright, realizing how bad this actually was. She had been knocked away, and now the fog cloud was dispersing.
She could see Brad retreating back up the stairs of the bank, using the vault door she was still lugging around to block one of Dauntless's blasts of white lightning. Battery zipped after her.
Vice was still unconscious on the ground, the bag of cash laying next to him. Miss Militia's weapon had turned into a massive anti-brute taser, looking like a futuristic double-barrel shotgun, with a power cord leading from the handle to an absurdly large battery strapped to her back. Two wires extended from the barrels, connected to prongs embedded in Vice's back.
Vice twitched, and Miss Militia depressed the trigger, causing him to spasm and collapse again.
Well, shit.
"Okay, this is strange," Assault finally commented. "I don't think we've been introduced. You have a name? Also, you're under arrest. Can't forget that."
Did she have a name? She couldn't say 'Lars'. She couldn't say 'Stormtiger'. What would he think? He'd probably think she was lying! Even she would think that! What fucking resemblance was there? Stormtiger had a deep voice, was 6 foot one, 215 pounds of solid muscle!
"Uh, hello?" Assault asked.
Lars, meanwhile, had a scratchy soprano like a stray cat! She was 4 and a half feet tall or less! 70 fucking pounds!
"You okay in there?"
She needed a name. She needed a name with at least some dignity. Maybe, like, Hurricane Cat. Or something. Twister Tiger? No, that was too close. Skyscraper? Cause of the claws, and the flying? Skyscratcher?
"Are you listening to me?"
God, she was going to have to pick something. They were going to going to have to put something on her mugshot when they put her away and oh god she's going to have a mugshot, they were going to photograph her and angle the camera down to see her and ask her to wear some clothes for it and she was going to have to say 'I can't!' and then she was going to have to explain while everyone was looking at her!
And what if they didn't believe her? Why would Vice do something like that, anything like that. Why would anyone do that? They probably thought she had some kind of sick fetish. That she enjoyed it. And then they'd look at Stormtiger and the way his costume didn't have any shirt and they would say, 'Yep, the signs were all there. We diagnose you with terminal exhibitionism. You will go to your grave without any clothes on and we will give you an open casket funeral. It's what you would have wanted.' She just wanted girls to see her pecs! His pecs! Their pecs!
Fuck!
"Assault, I think she's hyperventilating," Miss Militia chimed in. She depressed the trigger again as Vice made to get up.
"Can you even speak?" Assault asked.
Lars stopped. She was feeling it again. The everything. The burning in her loins. The blush on her face. The blood in her veins, pumping so hard that it felt like it was trying to escape.
She took a deep breath in, and she opened her mouth to speak.
Vice beat her to the punch.
"Her name is Princess Kittyhawk," he spoke in a cutesy-wootsy voice, half affectionate, half mocking.
Miss Militia did a double take as Vice shot up, his electrical burns completely healed. She depressed the trigger again only to find it did absolutely nothing.
"I knew eating those coins would come in handy," Vice said. He tore off his tank top to reveal a mesh of copper wire embedded halfway into his skin, bridging the two electrodes of the taser.
Assault also did a double take, but in the opposite direction. He looked at Vice, and then, as if his words had only sunk in a second after Assault had heard them, he looked back at Lars.
"Wait, really?" the hero asked asked.
Before Lars could say anything, Vice spoke again.
"Yes, Really."
She tried to correct him. Tell him no, that wasn't her name. To shout and scream and declare herself to be any of the other stupid fucking names she had thought up herself. She even tried to admit to everyone watching that her name was Stormtiger, and that she used to be a real, human man.
And none of it would leave her lips. Instead, a strained, uneasy grin forced its way onto her mouth. Her teeth ground together. Tears borne of some indescribable emotion formed around the edges of her eyes.
She wasn't sure if it was part of Vice's master power, or if the bridge between her psyche and reality, the one she had been slowly rebuilding ever since last night, had simply shattered from the force of the bomb Vice had just dropped on it.
But she found herself nodding.
She saw Miss Militia, backing away from Vice as her weapon changed into something more useful, and more lethal. She saw Dauntless, flying into the bank, chasing after Battery and Junkyard Dog. She saw gawking civilians, pressed up against the windows of the gleaming office buildings surrounding them, taking pictures on their phones now that the fog had cleared.
Capturing the moment forever.
And she saw Assault, standing far above her, giving a sharp little snort of amusement.
Her eye twitched.
The cold winter breeze on her fur stopped entirely. Her power seemed to swell.
Vice juked forwards into Miss Militia's range. Her huge battery pack and taser disappeared, only to be replaced with a large electrical prod. Copper foil grew over Vice's skin wherever she struck, causing the weapon to short out. His leg lashed out and caused her to fall face-first against the asphalt.
In one smooth motion, Vice cartwheeled onto her back and pinned her to the road with two oversized staples that emerged from his hands and wrapped around her wrists. Her weapon flickered between knives, crowbars, and spears as she tried to find something that would get her free.
Assault moved to help, and then stopped, startled.
Because now the little tiger-girl was growling. Actually growling, not hissing, not purring, but a full-on tiger growl. She could feel the rumble in her chest travel all the way through her body to the tips of her wings.
Her grimace, or perhaps it was a smile? Whatever it was, it turned manic. It pulled on the muscles in her face until it began to hurt. The air began to stir and churn.
Assault finally tried to get past her, jumping to the side and then immediately reversing direction. It didn't matter.
She'd fought Assault before although she'd never gotten very close to him ever. He always seemed to avoid her. And now, staring him in the face, she understood why.
She swept both arms in front of her, creating two walls of solid air which Assault immediately ran into. She brought them together with a clap of her itty bitty kitty paws and the poor superhero got sandwiched in the middle.
Assault's power was nearly unstoppable. But it only worked on solid objects. And air, apparently, didn't count, no matter how hard it was. She'd knocked him off course with claw blasts before, when she wasn't what she was.
"Uh, ah, Miss Kittyhawk…" Assault stammered, looking like a bug trapped between two swirling panes of glass.
She shuddered. Some vestige of her dignity that had been drowning inside her crawled out of her throat. It tried to correct him.
"My name is Lars Miller Princess Kittyhawk." Lars said, a slight giggle escaping her lips. It's like something else just took over her mouth at the end of the sentence. No words caught in the throat, or stuttering, just a pure statement for everyone to hear.
"Uh, I know, good to meet you, can you let me down-"
She formed the walls into a wedge and blasted Assault upwards and down the street. He somersaulted through the air, holding his ears from the massive "Bang!" the detonation created.
He arced towards the ground, trying to get his feet below him. But she was faster.
The air behind her erupted and caught her wings, rocketing her forward, far faster than he was falling. She prepared a massive air-filled claw.
"My name is Stormtiger Princess Kittyhawk!" She screamed, releasing the claw in a huge blast, aimed upwards.
Assault went flying again before he could hit the ground. He wasn't making any funny little comments anymore, instead filling the streets with his frantic yelling.
She was juggling him, like a ballistic ball of yarn.
The PRT blockade stood in front of them. Two massive claws, one in each hand, sent Assault tumbling over, almost 40 feet high at his peak. Streams of containment foam tried to reach her and found themselves careening off course from contact with her personal jetstream.
They were both moving faster. Each blast carried him higher and farther as she gave him momentum. All his limbs flailed wildly, looking for any solid object he could use his power on.
She had the beginnings of an idea.
She created a massive swirling vortex that caught him on the way down, giving it enough power to make sure he never made contact with the ground. He spun, suspended above the street.
She gave the entire vortex a shove. He slid forwards down the street like an air hockey puck, nigh-frictionless, spinning wildly. Screaming the whole time.
If Assault wasn't going to laugh about how ridiculous this all was, she'd do it for him.
She kept applying gusts of wind, blowing him all the way down the street, between cars, through stop lights and intersections. She saw the flash of a traffic cam capture her body and she shuddered again. How fast was she going in order to set those off? Did they see a little orange blur chasing a tornado, or did they her her whole fucking body, wings flapping, legs quivering-
She laughed and screamed at the same time. She was getting lightheaded. The atmosphere in front of her thinned as it got out of the way of her rampage.
She screamed her name again.
Further. Faster. The pressure at her back built, and the air in front of her thinned. The world began to collapse inwards. She was riding a wave of her own creation, chasing a spinning red dot in front of her. She heard their destination approach. She could smell the moisture in the air.
She heard Assault screaming. His power didn't work on air; she was willing to bet it didn't work on water, either.
Half a dozen blocks from the bank, Assault's spinning tornado ride hit the barrier wall at the end of the road and flung him straight into the river.
A loud splash rang out.
She alighted on the top of the wall, claws gripping the edge of the brick that kept drunk pedestrians from driving straight into the water. She could see Assault treading water, being carried out the bay by the current. A sodden red figure amongst the blue.
She felt lightheaded. Dizzy. Her knees quaked. Her sex burned. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Think about something else. Think about anything else.
She just beat Assault by herself. She did so good. She deserved a reward, Vice slamming his-
Her hands went to her crotch, half trying to cover up and half trying to get off.
She stumbled over the top of the wall and glided haltingly down the edge of the river.
She looked at her reflection. Bright orange eyes, pretty wings, striped fur. She brought her paw up to her collar and pulled, feeling it tug at her neck. Her other paw reached between her legs. She pulled and pulled and pulled until the lightheadedness got worse again, her body stopping itself before she could tear it apart.. She pushed against her sex, until her body refused to continue, reaching the edge. She strained for release. She couldn't get it.
She needed to cum so fucking badly. She was so fucking pathetic.
A quake in her legs caused her to slip on the mud and fall into the cold, cold waters of the river. The change in temperature shocked her out her fugue and she scrambled back to shore on all fours.
She took a few deep, panting breaths, blew herself off with a gust of wind. Mud was caked against her fur. The burning was still there.
Princess Kittyhawk shook out her wings and took off towards the bank.
Brad brought his guard up as Battery slammed into him again, her footsteps further destroying the marble tiles of the bank lobby. The metal beneath his skin dented from the impact. If he could see beneath his fur, he would probably see bruises all across his body by now.
People made fun of the idea, but running back into the back had absolutely been a 'tactical retreat'. As soon as Dauntless started to make a beeline towards him, he knew he had to get somewhere with a lower ceiling, otherwise the bastard would just fly around pinging him over and over again with his stupid spear.
Speak of the devil. Dauntless flew in close behind him for a strafing run. Brad held up the vault door as it absorbed another blast of white lightning.
The thing had come in handy a lot, honestly. It had been Vice's idea. Fucker loved his props. Still, he needed some way to get that son of a bitch down.
Battery stalled out in a corner over by the broken vending machine, the glow of her power fading out. She was vulnerable now.
It would be so easy. Brad knew how to throw knives. He could make as many of them as he wanted at any time. He'd spent countless hours fighting boredom by sticking empty beers against walls with a well-aimed throw.
But there was a chance he would kill her. Vice had said no bodies. As much as Brad was starting to suspect the self-styled supervillain may just be an idiot, there was probably a reason for that beyond whatever bizarre moral compunctions the bastard might have.
Besides the obvious one, of course. A dead parahuman was one that wasn't going to join his sick little harem-thing.
Then again, it was also a power he wouldn't have access to.
Whatever. He'd fought in underground fighting rings for a long time, even before he had powers. He was no stranger to fighting nonlethally. It would be a challenge.
He barreled forward, vault door held in front like a tower shield. Another shot from Dauntless hit it dead on. The energy that bled through the improvised shield caused Brad's fur to stand on end. She could do some electromagnetic bullshit, he remembered. Frustrating as hell to fight.
He fucking hated electromagnetic bullshit. The metal underneath his skin writhed. Knives, chains, and wires formed from the amorphous mass inside his core, surrounding the jewelry he absorbed earlier.
Battery charged forward again, low to the ground. Going for his legs. Dauntless had landed in one of the bay windows, his lance crackling with energy again. Brad needed to retreat, no, reposition again.
God this sucked. If he could get either of them alone, that would be the end of it. But Dauntless kept covering for Battery while she charged.
He dodged past Battery's flying kick, shouldering the vault door over his back to take another one of Dauntless's blasts. His claws clacked against the marble as he ran towards the back of the bank, with the offices and cubicles, and most importantly, low ceilings.
He made to leap over the teller window, when suddenly, he felt all the metal beneath his skin get pulled. He yelped in pain and he was yanked backwards. The vault door was wrenched out of his hands and rolled into the wall. He hit the middle of the floor, hard.
He looked up and saw Battery with her hand outstretched, small arcs of electricity running between her fingers.
Electromagnetic bullshit.
A bolt of white lightning hit him in the back. He collapsed onto the floor, his steel-reinforced fucking tits creating cracks in the floor as he went down.
He looked up and saw the lines on Battery's costume were glowing again. Charged up.
Dauntless stepped from the ledge of the high window to glide across the lobby, keeping his spear trained on Brad's back.
Battery began to back up towards the front entrance. Brad scrambled to his feet to pursue, and her hand lashed out again. The circuitry on her costume flared a bright blue. A wave of magnetic force washed over his entire body, sending him flying backwards into the middle again.
Another bolt of lightning hit him in mid-air and he hit the ground limp. His ears were flicking back and forth and ringing like a bell. Spots filled his vision.
It fucking hurt. Brad fought the urge to just surround himself with metal, create an impenetrable wall of knives between himself and everything. Like always.
Nah, that'd just make this shit worse. He fought the urge down.
"Stand down," said Dauntless.
"Explain how you have hookwolf's power," Battery added. "Did Vice give it to you? What exactly are his powers? Is he a Trump? Some kind of power-copying biokinetic? What was the tiger-creature accompanying you?"
Man, Lars was kind of fucked in the head right now, but calling her a 'creature' just didn't sit right. Assholes.
Brad saw that Battery's costume was lit all the way up already. Did he black out for a few seconds?
Brad spit on the floor. "He's got a bunch of bullshit." Although not enough bullshit to actually be helpful at any point during the fight. Fucking fraud.
Dauntless spoke up from above again. "Exceptionally powerful capes such like him would be given very favorable terms of surrender in exchange for joining-"
"Are you seriously trying to give me the fucking pitch again?" Brad growled. He needed an opening.
"If Vice is somehow coercing you-"
Brad slammed his fist onto the ground, further ruining the marble tiles with a spider web of cracks.
Thoughts of the first night filled his head. The fight. Trying to run to the docks. Getting intercepted. The humiliation. The satisfaction.
He had wanted to fight. Any excuse, even if it was a ridiculous one. And now he had it, and he couldn't fucking handle it.
Dauntless began preaching again. "I'll give you one more chance to surrender. Assault and Miss Militia are engaging Vice and your… associate, outside-"
As if invoked by just mentioning her, the windows of the bank rattled and bowed as the wind outside began to roar.
There was a beat as the two heroes looked at one another. Dauntless put his finger up to his earpiece.
"Assault, what's happening-?"
His question was interrupted by, outside the front doors, Assault screaming as Lars blasted him down the street. Lars was also screaming, something about princesses?
He didn't really want to know what that was about. He could also see Miss Militia lying on the road, tugging at some kind of restraint.
Brad took the opportunity. He pulled all the metal inside his core, where it disappeared into that 'not-space' inside him.
He sprinted for the back of the bank. Battery attempted to pull him back into the lobby. For just a moment, he felt a tug on his neck as his spiked collar snapped off and flew directly at Battery, almost hitting her in the face.
He hurdled the teller window, just barely dodging another strike from Dauntless. He ran down the hallway, until he came to the offices and cubicles again. The Vault lay open in the back, loose banknotes spilling out.
Brad charged forward as Battery flung herself into the wall behind him, obliterating the drywall. He moved around the corner to keep himself out of Dauntless's sightline. The hero was running now, the ceiling being too low to actually fly around.
If Brad could just get Battery alone for long enough…
He ducked around another corner, vaulted a cubicle wall, and began to sprint. Ignoring the way his fucking tits jiggled around without the metal underneath it anymore. Thank fucking god for the bra Parian made.
Battery stumbled out of a hole in a nearby office. Her speed wasn't like Velocity's, or Assault's. She was fast the same way a cannonball was fast, as a function of how hard she could launch herself.
Case in point, the superheroine plowed through two cubicle walls to get in front of Brad. When she came to a stop she tore the carpet right out of the floor.
"Surrender. There's nowhere to run," she said.
Brad scoffed. "Could say the same to you. You left your supporting fire behind. Now we have a real fight."
"A real fight, huh?" Battery asked, lowering her stance. "Guess you are here of your own free will."
Yeah, he guessed he was.
He ran forward cutting off her charging time. He saw her lead with her uninjured arm. A mistake. She was much, much faster than him, but she wasn't trying to dodge, and only using one arm limited the arc of her attack.
He stopped right outside her range. Fast like a cannonball, and just about as maneuverable. He went in for a feinting jab.
Right here, right now, in this fight, Brad's body was no longer a strange, new thing. It was just a set of factors influencing the outcome of the fight. Stronger. Taller. Longer reach. The span of her arms could scratch across the entire hallway. He threatened the whole space.
Battery flexed her ankle. While she was charged, it provided enough force to send her 10 feet straight into the air. An aerial dodge. Another mistake. She just lost all her leverage.
Lars had the right idea; just keep them in the air. He retracted his feint and ducked closer, just out of her reach. Her leg snapped out to hit him and only met empty air.
He brought his fist up and slammed it right into her stomach. It was like hitting a solid wall. And not a brick one; Brad could wreck those with his bare hands now. Solid steel, or something harder than that.
She might have been strong, but she didn't weigh any more than a normal woman. Her body flew straight upwards.
He saw the lights of her costume go out just as she reached the ceiling. A cloud of plaster erupted as she made impact, and she almost seemed to peel off the ceiling before she fell back down onto the carpet.
She hit the floor hard. She was absolutely not powered up for that one, given the way she was groaning. She got her hand underneath her head before she hit the ground; it was probably broken now, but she saved herself a concussion.
The entire exchange took maybe 3-and-a-half seconds.
Brad savored the ache in his limbs and his knuckles. That was fucking good. As soon as he managed to get a man-to-man, or, rather, woman-to-woman-
No, that wasn't right either. Fucking one-on-one, whatever. Without interference he could get a much better read on his opponent and take them out. None bested him in the goddamn ring.
Speaking of which…
Dauntless rounded the corner, holding his spear at the ready with both hands, positioned in his arms more like a gun than a melee weapon. His head snapped to Battery prone on the floor before looking at Brad. His helmet obscured his expression entirely, but his stance betrayed fear.
He took aim, and hesitated.
"S-Surrender. I don't want to have to kill you."
Brad raised an eyebrow and ran his clawed fingers through his braids. "I really don't think you can. I can get over there in a single jump. You'd only get one shot."
The spear began to glow until there was no spear, only a solid rod of white, crackling energy. "I haven't been using my full power. One shot would be enough to stop your heart."
Brad huffed. "Oh, fucking come on. I ain't gonna kill her. You lost, man. Battery's down, Miss Militia is fixed to the road, and who knows what the fuck happened to Assault!"
A third voice chimed in
"Oh, Assault? He suffered from a very unfortunate power interaction. He's probably headed out into the bay now like a message in a big red bottle."
Brad and Dauntless both startled as Vice appeared, perched on one of the cubicle walls, bare feet gripping the edge.
Dauntless brought his shield around towards Vice.
Brad was going to lose it. "Now you show up? I already took out Battery."
Vice's head tilted as he squinted at Brad. "Hey, I took out Miss Militia-"
"You took out the one whose powers were 'I have a gun', meanwhile you were unconscious for the entire first half of the fight! Now you wanna get involved?"
"Fucking Jason the Argonaut over here denatured the proteins in my brain with a bolt of lightning!!" Vice shouted, gesturing wildly at Dauntless. "I had to re-nature my proteins! Shit sucked!"
"Maybe if you didn't play tag with the Striker and, I dunno, used some sleeping gas? Or something?"
"I was going to use Princess Kittyhawk's power!"
"THAT'S THE FUCKING NAME YOU CAME UP WITH?!"
Dauntless tried to speak up. "Can you two please-"
"It's a great name! Affectionate and cute, with just a little it of edge, plus the Wright Brothers reference-"
"It's five whole fucking syllables!"
"That's the issue you're taking with it?! We can just use Kittyhawk for short! It's fine!"
"You're shit at names!"
"You're using one of my names right now!"
"It was the best option out of a half-dozen garbage names!"
Battery moaned in pain on the floor.
"And where the fuck is 'Kittyhawk' right now? And where's the money!?" Brad continued.
"She's headed back! Probably just making sure Assault stays down and out. And I stashed the money, I wasn't just going to bring it back into the bank, now was I?"
"She's probably taking the smart option and leaving so she doesn't have to be known as Princess Kittyhawk! Idiot! Where's the fucking smooth, in-control Vice from last night, huh? You had some amount of grace and suave-ness or whatever, where the hell did that go!"
"You remember last night very differently than I do."
Dauntless slammed his spear into the floor. "Will you two stop bickering! You are both under arrest."
A loud 'crunch' sounded out from behind the cubicle wall.
Dauntless lifted off from the ground, his spear sparking away. "Stop whatever you're doing and get down on the ground, please. I get it, you're doing a Humor Villain thing, but you've seriously hurt my teammates. Please, just stand down. Whatever you're going through, the protectorate can help."
"Wow," Vice said. "You're just relentless, huh? It's admirable. It honestly is."
Brad was content to stand back and wait at this point. He sat down on top of Battery's prone form. She gave out another grunt.
Dauntless whipped his head back towards Brad. "Get off of her- What the fuck are you doing?" His voice cracked a little bit at the end there. "Are you all insane?"
Brad just shrugged. "You're fighting Vice. Pay attention." Negotiations had already happened like 5 minutes ago, over a megaphone, when the teams were roughly even. He was outnumbered now, in an arena with a low ceiling, at close range. What was he trying to pull?
Vice walked back into view, holding what looked like the mangled innards of an office printer in one hand, and a set of 4 pink, blue, yellow and black spheres in the other.
Dauntless just kept waving "No, just no, stop. Stop with the comedy props. Stop with the bits, stop with the robbery."
Vice tilted his head. "Are you using your Time-Out?"
"Yes! I mean, NO! What? Listen, please, just surrender. Ok? I am imploring you to be reasonable!"
Brad chuckled. "If that's your goal here, I feel genuinely sorry for you. Like seriously, my condolences and my sympathies go out to you." Lies to be sure, but funny lies nonetheless.
Ah fuck, her tits were- his tits were jiggling again. He wove steel underneath the skin of them again.
Much better. God, he could use a beer.
Dauntless just kept on pitching. "The PRT can excuse a lot, but if you run now, you'll be headed down the slippery slope towards-"
Brad shouted him down. "Vice, he's trying to negotiate because he realizes he's absolutely fucked and can't take you. Just beat his ass already. This is the like 3rd 'last chance to surrender' he's given."
Vice scratched under his chin, obviously pretending to consider both of their words. "Dauntless, I feel like you've made several key mistakes. The first was cooking my ass with a lightning bolt. That's a more excusable one, it's in the nature of the game."
"Game?!"
"The second is not booking it the moment you got outnumbered. I mean, powers go to those who will use them to fight, and all, but at a certain point you have to realize you're fucked, right?"
"I still have my charge-" The hero shook his head. "I mean my lance is still charged up. A single blast could reduce you to ash."
"Uh, no, especially not now that I've developed counter-measures. Fool me twice, shame on me and all that."
"I already hit you twice! Today was the second."
"Fool me thrice, go fuck yourself. Catch." Vice tossed the black sphere in his hand to Dauntless, who, having absolutely no control over the situation, or indeed himself, caught it by reflex.
Vice took a few swift steps to put himself between Brad and Dauntless. He put one of his hands behind his back, and Brad noticed that patches of skin on his hand had darkened to spell the words CLOSE YOUR EYES. A subtle signal, to be sure.
Brad did close his eyes, but not before rolling them.
It sounded like Dauntless took a moment to examine the sphere. "What is this?"
Vice spoke. "Dauntless, your final mistake was one of taxonomy. I am not a 'Humor Villain'. The public may see me as such, as might other villains. But make no mistake. I am a Villain with a Sense of Humor. And that little thing right there is a bunch of printer ink suspended in a shell of extremely compressed air."
There was a beat of silence.
"What?"
"Time in."
The sound of the sphere detonated was almost deafening. Brad felt something wet splatter against his face. He opened his eyes to see a mass of vaporized ink floating in the middle of the hall. The entire area had just gone entirely black as if it had been flash-charred.
It was like someone had shoved a lit stick of dynamite up a squid's ass. Did squids have asses?
Dauntless half-flew, half-stumbled out of the cloud, tripping over cubicle walls and flipping head over heels in mid-air until he collided with a load-bearing pillar and tumbled to the ground, frantically wiping away at the ink-stained surface of his helmet. His lance clattered to the ground.
Vice power-walked after him, completely clean. The inky haze in the air parted around him. He reached Dauntless, and, with his bare foot, stomped on a gap in his armor, making skin-to-skin contact.
"Annnnnnnd enter REM sleep. Come on, Enter REM sleep. There we go." He said. Dauntless's flailing seized up, before going entirely limp.
Wow.
He won.
"That shit was stupid." Brad declared, standing up to stretch. "Can you seriously not fight without props and shit? Like, actual man to man, exchange of blows?"
"Hey, if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid."
Brad opened his mouth to object to how stupid the statement itself was, before thinking it over.
Just like in the bank lobby, Vice used performance and showmanship to do the absolute bare minimum to achieve his goals. In this particular case, he had stumped Dauntless so hard he basically Shanghai'd him into a comedy act. And even if it didn't work, he would still have every advantage in the ensuing fight.
Shit, was Vice actually secretly a genius?
Brad watched him go over to the groaning form of Battery and press his thumb into her neck, knocking her unconscious.
Four heroes. Two whole thirds of the Protectorate, down in less than 10 minutes. It was very, very hard to argue with the results.
Vice walked back over to Dauntless's unconscious body and rubbed his hands together with glee. "Ooooh, I have plans for you."
Brad was deep in thought. Ideas crossed his mind, of Vice slowly taking over the whole Bay, every single parahuman slaved to his will. Of him on the deck of the Rig, shaking his fist at the whole world.
Of Legend, appearing as a tiny glowing speck in the distance, atomizing Vice with a laser.
Well, one last test for Vice then. Idiot or genius.
"Vice, wait."
"If you're about to ask for sex again, then you've managed to find a worse time and place than last night. Seriously, beds are great, sleeping, sex, the whole deal."
Maybe later. More serious things to deal with now.
"Vice, what's your plan to deal with Legend?"
Vice shot to his feet. "Wait, shit, is he here?"
Brad shook his head. "No, I mean… you're kidnapping a protectorate member right now and doing…" he gestured at her own body. "This, to him. Legend can fly here and back in like 20 minutes. He could show up on his lunch break. How are you going to beat him?"
"Why would he show up? He never showed up for you, or Lung, or Kaiser, why would he go out of his way to blow me to smithereens?"
"Because, unlike them, you become a bigger problem over time. Beyond the power-copying bullshit, you get more people, er, 'on your side' over time. Which makes you stronger, which makes you add bigger and stronger parahumans, which makes you even stronger. Snowball effect."
"Yes, you are, in fact, describing my plans for world domination. What about it?"
"I'm saying, if Dauntless here disappears, and then you show up with a reluctant, I dunno, minotaur lady or something in tow, they're gonna slap you with the S-class threat label, and then either put a wall around the entire city or nuke you."
Vice scoffed. "They wouldn't."
"Vice, they absolutely would. And that's if Legend can't just snipe you outright."
"I mean, if he tried, I could…"
Vice looked at Dauntless's unconscious, ink-covered form. His eyes darted around, looking conflicted.
The sirens of the PRT vans outside continue to blare. They were running out of time.
"Vice, me and Lars, nobody gives a shit about us. We're fucking- they think we're fucking scum, alright? Wastes of life. Good riddance. Nobody cares. You could get away with it for a while. If you take a hero, it's different. Open season. Cameras are rolling."
Brad leaned in.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me you have a way to beat Legend, with just my, Lars', and Dauntless' power."
Vice looked at Brad, and then at Dauntless. Then back at Brad, then back to Dauntless.
Brad couldn't believe a lot of things. He couldn't believe he was a werewolf woman with big boobs. She couldn't believe she actually initiated sex with this idiot. He couldn't believe he was trying to save this idiot's life, even if he was saving his own by extension.
And perhaps most of all, he couldn't believe that he, Brad fucking Meadows, was encouraging cautious long-term planning.
Vice grabbed his head and screamed in frustration.
"Fuuuuuuuck! You're fucking right. God damn it."
He crouched down next to Dauntless's unconscious body. He shoved his finger up underneath his chin, where it sank up into his head.
"Vice, I thought you weren't going to do that!"
"I'm getting his power and his will now! Body can come later!"
Brad was suddenly struck by a vision.
There was a black glass plane, twisted roots and glowing fruit. A moon, bright, pink and full of chains.
Brad blinked the apparition away. It wasn't like his own, more a passing glance at something he still didn't quite understand.
"You need to explain what that shit is at some point, Vice."
"The existential horror underlying our reality can be explained later. Can you store this in your body?" Vice asked, holding up Dauntless's spear. "If I'm not taking his rod, I'm going to take his rod, you feel me?"
"I'll try, but if you make another fucking dirty joke I'll throw it in the ocean." He took the spear, and shoved it between his breasts into his core.
"You can't throw all your problems into the ocean, Brad."
Vice took off back to the lobby, Brad loping behind. The spear felt incredibly strange inside him. It was made of metal, it went in easy enough, but then it seemed to repel all the other metal in his core.
It was also giving off a concerningly pleasant buzzing sensation as it floated inside.
Vice entered into the lobby, jumping up to the windows to look at the PRT blockade outside.
"Looks like they've got a full contingent out there. We're going to have to break through."
"Fucking fine by me." It was absolutely time to go.
"Let's go then, we can meet up with Kittyhawk later, assuming she hasn't been captured or something."
Just then, a fast moving orange blur flew through the broken bank doors and tackled Vice to the ground.
"Oh, hey Lars." Brad said.
Lars looked fucking insane. Her fur had mud on it, she was shaking slightly, and she had a wild-eyed grin that looked like it was trying to split her face in half.
She spoke with a manic giggle."Viiiiiice! I won. I wooooooon. I did it! I give up!" She grabbed Vice's shirt in both fists and began to pull on it, claws picking at the seams. She rubbed her face into his exposed chest. "I win! You win! I lose! Heeheehee!"
"Vice, what did you do to her?"
"Nothing, besides give her a new name. However, she seems to have given herself a minor case of oxygen deprivation."
"Fix her!"
"In a second."
She started to hump against his crotch. "Pleaaaaase, I'm so horny. We can do it now. Are the cameras still working? I bet they are." Her body shuddered. "You win! You win! You win!"
"That's great, fantastic, could the two of you please have sex with me in more normal locations?"
Lars looked up at Brad, head lolling to the side, staring blankly with a smile on her face. "My name's Princess Kittyhawk," she giggled. "I underrrrstaaaaand, now, Junky. I understand!"
You don't understand shit.
"Vice."
"Alright, fine." His hand reached up beneath her chin, and her pupils dilated and undilated. Her grin faded into a nervous grimace as she regained lucidity.
Vice and her made eye contact.
"Kittyhawk, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but let's make our escape first?"
She bit her lip and nodded, slowly.
"Alright. You keep the containment foam off of us, Junkyard Dog clears a path, and I bring the car around. Got it?"
She nodded again.
"Junkyard?"
"I got it."
"Let's go, then."
They dashed outside. Rubber bullets and streams of containment foam veered off course as Lars flew ahead. Brad threw aside troopers and cars alike as the metal stirred within her.
Vice blasted two groups of troopers with the yellow and blue spheres of ink, blinding them.
And then, as they came off the steps, he turned around. He brought out the ball of magenta ink, split it into two, and fired them off at the wall above the bank doors.
The resulting splatter made a giant, pink, "V".
"I thought that would look more red."
"Can we fucking go please?"
And then they were off.