Long time no see, if you've read the newest chapter of Momma Ziz you'll know the low-down, if not then just know life's been unpleasant.
Sorta happy with how this turned out after so long away from it, tried to mix funny with actiony, hope I found a good mix.
-oOo-
Darkness, as it was want to do, filled the night as Taylor and I stared out over the city from a modest height in the air, the frigid temperature blocked out somewhat by our costumes and Glory Girl's fuck physics shield while Shadow Stalker's power was used to make absolutely sure no one was aware of our presence.
After the final class of the day we'd made good our escape from that hellhole the city calls a higher place of learning, dodging the trio's rather weak attempts at cornering us and heading back home.
A quick dinner with Danny and a bit more digging through the Internet yielded some more of the interesting capes from abroad, though that also brought to a head a rather pointed question which I really didn't want to answer right then.
Namely, Taylor bringing up that some capes can't be copied, namely Case 53's and certain other capes. She'd stared at me for a solid couple of seconds when she pointed out she couldn't copy any of the powers of the Triumvirate, or Battery for something a bit closer to home. She'd written it off at first but after trying Weld and a couple other Parahuman's abroad there was an eclectic mix that she just couldn't copy. I'd felt a cold sweat run down my back as I quickly shifted to Uber and Tattletale and did my damndest to bullshit my way out of it. She barely bought my explanation, barely, because it basically boiled down to "I don't know." and amnesia was sort of the defining feature of Case 53's beyond the monstrous additions, which helped sell it a bit more. There would be more questions like that later, of that I'm sure but for now I was safe.
Sighing the sigh of a bullet barely avoided, I stared down at the city proper, occasionally switching out Stalker to scan the streets with Tattletale. It was at about the fifth or sixth pass that I noticed it.
'It' being the hulking monstrosity parked out back of a loading dock next to a run down warehouse deep in the docks. Looking like the bastard love child of a garbage truck, ATV and front end loader, the 'killdozer' (because that is the only name that did the vehicle justice) was generously coated in turrets and gun ports as well as enough armor to make a tank enthusiast froth at the mouth. At the moment it was being loaded by a small army of ratty dealers, the 'cargo' being large bags of white powder and even larger bags of gray-green mulch.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what those packages were and, if I missed my guess, that truck belonged to Squealer.
"Found some trouble." I remarked, pointing down at the operation.
Taylor's eyes focused on the truck, a small flash of incredulity tugging at her lips as she gawked at the massive machine. "What the hell is that?"
"If I were to guess? Nothing good. The Merchants are here at least, probably Squealer or Skidmark giving out orders to the non-powered gang members."
Taylor floated over to me. "What's the plan?"
...Was that deference? Did she trust my opinion that much? ...Huh. Well I suppose I was the more confident one between the two of us and that would lend well to planning... Scratching at my chin, still annoyed with the lack of a beard there, I scanned the surrounding buildings. "Probably not the best idea to go in there wrecking ball style, so maybe something a bit more covert?"
Taylor frowned, chewing at her lips as ideas ran through her head. "We could drop down to the roof with Shadow Stalker's power and I can take them down with mine?"
A classic, I like it. Though, it could use a bit of tweaking. "And if we get discovered THEN we take the wrecking ball approach." I nodded to myself, a satisfied smile on my face, which earned me an amused laugh from Taylor.
'Operation Sneaky' is a go.
We both fell from the sky, cloaked in shadows, releasing the power at the last moment and touching down lightly on the roof. Now within range of the ground I could feel Taylor's power get to work, moving a large host of bugs from the surrounding abandoned buildings.
I switched out Glory Girl and dropped into the network filling up around me, noting Taylor twitch out of the corner of my eye and paying extra care not to touch any of the bugs within range. I'd already promised I wouldn't control any of her bugs, so I made do with the passive awareness of the swarm to piggy back her senses, using Tattletale in tandem to divine bits and pieces from the bugs senses and relay them back to Taylor to give her a better idea of her surroundings.
It was a bit crude but it helped immensely in getting a real time map of the area, including all the people in it.
Holy shit that was a lot of people.
Aside from the dozen outside, there was close to fifty inside, moving like a kicked anthill and gathering what they could, likely to distribute their product and change hideouts.
There was a short pause as Taylor and I glanced at each other.
"Uh, how do we take all of them down without them alerting everyone." Taylor seemed rather sheepish in that moment, "I don't have any bugs that can knock them out instantly..."
"Ah... right.. hrm." I tapped idly at my lips in thought, running though the list of capes I could name off the top of my head that could help with this, marking off the ones who wouldn't help in this situation. Realistically, there was only one choice I could think of that would work here, but did I want to make that kind of choice right here, right now?
I glanced over at Taylor, she smiled.
Fuck it, lets do something crazy. By our powers combined! Panacea I choose you!
As my brain filled with data from all the microscopic organisms covering my body, I smiled back, mine a lot more predatory. "Bring a bunch of bugs over here, Christmas just came early."
She gave me a funny look but did as asked, a large eclectic mix of insects, ranging from fly's to roaches to beetles skittering around in front of me. I shivered slightly as I stuck my hand into the pile, getting various blueprints of the insects that I touched.
This was... incredible, I honestly couldn't fathom why Amy limited herself like she did. Sure, there were about a million ways I could turn these bugs into the worst pestilence this world had ever known... but to counter that, there were millions upon billions of ways to turn these creatures into a force for good. To heal people, to manage crops without pesticides, to feed people even. It was... humbling.
Taylor cleared her throat, which brought me back to the present with a small jerk. She was staring at me expectantly, waiting... it was kinda creepy actually with those orange lenses of hers reflecting back at me.
Well, no time like the present. I dug back into the mass of bugs, grabbing a wad of them and fusing them into a big ball of biomass. To my side Taylor sucked in a breath between her teeth as I focused and shaped what I wanted.
After a few moments the bug was done. Barely the size of a fifty cent piece, the mosquito looking creature zipped out of my hand and made a small buzzing arc around the roof before landing in Taylor's hand.
Taylor stared down at the bug, wide eyed through her lenses for a moment before a bright smile formed on the visible part of her face. "This is awesome, what power did you find that could do this?"
"Funnily enough? Panacea's." I laugh, creating a couple dozen more of the bugs, "Turns out, her power is actually bio kinesis, she just uses it to heal people, very noble of her if you ask me." Was I laying it on a bit thick? Probably, but Amy deserved a bit of praise for the shit she had to put up with. I'd probably... stop by and stick a spanner into that bit of messed up clockwork, get her out from under Carol's thumb and convince her to take a vacation once in a while.
"Sounds like it." Taylor nodded along, more interested in her new toys than me at the moment, "Can you make anything else with it?"
"Loads of stuff." I answered, amused at the almost childlike gushing over her new bugs, "Can do pretty much anything with it, only really limited by biology honestly."
Taylor paused at that, her expression going blank. Shit... what did I say wrong this time? I reflexively switched Panacea out for Tattletale.
"Anything?" Why didn't I like that tone of voice...? "Even... um-" She leaned forward and whispered in my ear. She leaned back after she was done, Tattletales power informing me that she was blushing a deep crimson under her mask.
Oh fuck you ROB, you and the plot device you rode in on. Tch, figures, nigh unlimited power to play God with biology and flip mother nature the bird and the first thing she thinks of is her body image issues... I couldn't really blame her but... "Can we address that after we take down the super powered drug dealers?"
If anything Taylor's blush grew deeper. "R-right ...sorry."
Oh for the love of... I reached a hand out and thumped her on the forehead, drawing a small noise of pain from her.
"What was that for?" she pouted, rubbing the spot on her face under the mask.
"For being stupid," I respond dryly, "I'm not mad at you, it's just now is not the time to be thinking about power induced makeovers. And besides, you look good already so quit taking what those three base bitches say so literally, they wouldn't know beauty if it reached out of a fashion magazine and bitchslapped them with a handbag full of it."
Taylor rocked back slightly, eyes wide behind her mask as she tried to hold back a snort of laughter, the mental image that must have brought forth would probably stick with her for a while, that and my powers told me in no uncertain terms that she was appreciating the complements too. Ah, teenage hormones and an emotionally wounded personality, like gas on a fucking fire I swear... but at least it was progress.
"A-alright." Taylor mumbled, a pleased hum to her voice.
Maybe too good of progress... The humming was kind of unnerving considering the countless billions of bugs she was currently building up into a swarm around the warehouse.
It was kinda horrifying to watch really, the almost inhuman intelligence that formed in the swarm. Taylor couldn't know, not without an outside perspective like mine, just exactly what her power was doing. With Tattletale chiming in my ear exactly how much processing power was on display here, I could use my direct connection with the swarm to pick out where Taylor ended and Queen Administrator began.
It really was a sight to behold, To see Taylor's attention shift between individual bugs at ridiculous speeds while the rest of the swarm ran on autopilot, guided by a sort of precog based behavioral system that offloaded the bandwidth to her shard which fed back the information in easily assimilated packets that wouldn't turn her brain in scrambled eggs.
With this kind of system, I could see why some stories had Taylor's personality bleed over into QA. Now that I was digging deeper, Taylor's brain appeared to be in more of a symbiotic link than a parasitic one and her emotions were having a very minor influence on how the autopilot systems acted, each currently showing more enthusiasm and joy than they had mere minutes ago.
It was something I'd have to address eventually, but for now, it was amazing to watch a shard at home in it's environment, watching in real time how they went about their bullshit.
Speaking of bullshit... I blinked, returning my focus back to what Taylor was doing with the bugs I'd made for her. Most of them were crawling around on the drug dealers below, though a few were circling the killdozer, finding their way into the giant conglomeration of steel, concrete and turrets.
Huh, that had to be Skidmark there and that was probably Squealer in the drivers seat. Taylor hadn't found Mush yet but given the giant pile of garbage that was moving around in the expanded cargo hold of the vehicle... well, the less said about the guy's habits the better.
"Alright you cock sniffing nut wads, time is money and we're losing too fuckin much of it, so hurry that shit up!"
Hello Skidmark, glad to see your vulgar lexicon was as extensive as it was in canon...
In response to Skidmark's... enthusiastic pep talk, the rest of the gangers double timed it, grabbing double and huffing as fast as they could, tossing the large bags of drugs into the back of the killdozer.
"That's right, pack that shit in tight, we got a long ride to go. Ain't that right sweet cheeks!"
"You know it skids!"
The voice over the killdozer's speakers was slurred but clearly Squealer and from the feel of things on Taylor's end, was covered head to toe in leather, fire retardant clothing and a sealed helmet, likely to combat the heat that was coming from the kildozer's engines.
So no go on putting her to sleep the easy way, we'd need to go down there and bust her the good old fashioned way.
It was at about that moment that Taylor chose to strike.
In perfect synchronicity several dozen bugs stabbed down with their syringe-like probes, injecting their chemical payload.
"Alright, that's the lasof it, ge-" Whatever Skidmark was about to say was cut off as he slumped to the floor of the killdozer, all around the machine and inside the building the rest of the gangers joined him.
"Skids, you okay out there?" Squealers voice had flecks of concern in it, which grew more apparent when the drug lord wouldn't answer her. "Mush, see what's up with Skids!"
The trash in the hold stirred, the man within surging up into hunched crouch, opening the door to the back of the vehicle.
I knew the jig was up the moment a tide of trash flooded out the back, grabbing up Skidmark and a dozen nearby gangers before forming into a roughly man shaped blob. "We're gettin attacked!" The voice coming from the mass was raspy and ill-used but clear enough to raise alarms.
"Shit!" Squealers voice growled over the speaker as the hulking machine rattled to life with the sound of a jet engine and rattling metal, "Grab who you can, we're getting the fuck outa here!"
Taylor made a noise of annoyance in her throat as she got to her feet, me not a moment behind her. Our feet left the ground at the same time, both of us switching to Glory Girl as we leapt off the roof. There was a brief moment of weightlessness as her powers settled in the both of us providing lift and, more importantly, acceleration. IN the short space between the rooftop and the back of the Killdozer the two of us had approached the speed of a car on the highway, barreling towards Mush.
The Merchant cape must have saw us coming as he turned at the last moment, twisting and expanding into a giant trash balloon that blinded us as we splashed through the much and grime, exploding out the other side without our target.
Mush snarled, shedding mass by tossing the ball of gangers into the back of their escape vehicle. Now a good two feet shorter the trash heap golem spun, launching a wad of foul wetness at us, making up for the loss by sucking in a mass of trash from within the warehouse and surrounding dumpsters.
The veritable whirlwind of garbage made approaching a bit of a challenge, it didn't help that I couldn't blatantly use Hatchet Face in front of Taylor as we hadn't read up on the Nine to make my usage unremarkable and I still didn't want her asking any more pointed questions right now. So no quick wins for me, just had to beat his face in, intelligently.
To help with that I slotted in Shadow Stalker into my second slot, fading to shadows as I shot through the trash. At the last moment I phased back, tackling the trash heap at the chest in a foot ball tackle that sheared off the top half of the golem, revealing that the little troll had dropped down into the trash ball's stomach.
I could feel whatever bond that kept the trash in my hands dissipate, losing coherency as it started moving back towards it's source. Now I couldn't have that.
Shadow Stalker shifted out to Lung and fire filled the air, burning and melting the trash as the licking tongues of flame surged towards Mush. The man tried to escape but Taylor chose that time to clothesline the golems legs, flipping it nearly ninety degrees upside down to land on the trash heaps neck stump.
Give credit where credit is due, Mush was coherent enough to throw a rope of trash towards the back of the truck, yanking himself away from the trash ball, losing mass but speeding up in the process.
I shot forward, preparing to grab the annoying little shit out of the air but the canons in the back came on and peppered me with a hail of bullets and I swerved, switching out Lung for Shadow Stalker to let the bullets pass through.
Mush hit the back, rolling into the trash ball that was once the container of his boss and their henchmen. "I'm in, let's go!" He screamed further into the hold to Squealer, who punched a button in the cab, snapping the back of the machine closed. A factory stack's worth of smoke blew from the muffler sticking off the top of the machine as it lurched forward, picking up speed as it barreled down the abandoned roadways.
Dammit! Couldn't let em get away, not when we were doing so well! I kicked up to speed again, making sure to stay intangible as I quickly caught up to the thunderous vehicle plowing through decrepit cars and broken light posts. Landing on the roof I planted one of my fists into it, preparing to rip the damn thing open to get to the people inside.
"Get off my ride you shit-eating cunt!" Squealer snarled, flipping a switch in the cab that sent arcs of near lethal electricity down sides and roof of the machine.
My teeth snapped shut as liquid fire ran up my imbedded arm, sending agony through my nerves as I tried, and failed to rip my arm free.
"Schrodinger!"
And Taylor to the rescue. I could kiss you, you wonderful girl.
She'd apparently shifted out Stalker for Velocity as her current...well, velocity was an order of magnitude faster than Glory Girl was capable of, plowing into me, ripping me free even as we flipped end over end past the Killdozer.
Taking the short reprieve that followed the vehicle turned on a dime at the next intersection, the rocket engines protruding out the sides of the machine roaring to life to keep the damn thing from tipping over as it clipped into several of the buildings on that street.
"You motherfuckers are messin up my paint job!" Oh and now Squealer sounded pissed. The volley of missiles that followed was uncalled for. The flamethrower after that even more so.
Still, we had numbers -power wise at least- on our side as we dodged all the little turrets we could, occasionally switching out for a blaster to blow them off the sides of the machine. Finally after a minute of dodging and weaving we slammed down onto the roof of the vehicle over the cab. Before the bitch could shock us again we slammed our fists down and ripped the top off of the thing. Granted there was about another two feet of concrete and rebar below that but we made quick work of it and were now staring at a rather baleful looking Squealer.
"Stop this thing!" Taylor yelled down at her, letting a few of the bugs she had on her amplify her voice over the wind as it whipped by.
Squealer threw a wrench, Taylor caught said wrench and threw back at her, hitting the console, setting things to sparking. "Oh fuck, you did not just do that, you borked the fucking invis-suite."
"I said, stop this thing."
" Eat a dick you flat chested bitch! I'm the only one who can stop this thing, you take me out and anything in the path of this thing gets pasted! So just fuck off so I can-."
A heavy impact filled the air, followed by a slight lurch then a grinding of metal as a resistance was met. Then whatever resistance there was vanished and the killdozer continued on.
A flash of metal bounced past, which I caught in my hand.
It was a mask.
A Dragon mask.
I glanced behind us at the large human shaped divot in the ground with a group of people huddling around it, staring down into the hole. Around them, small fires flickered and guttered out.
I glanced back at the mask, then up at Taylor.
"Did we just run over Lung?" Taylor voiced, a morbid bit of awe tingeing her voice
I would have laughed at that if it wasn't for the fact that Squealer was screaming.
"Now look at whatcha done, the controls aren't working, shits fucked!"
Okay... that's not good... Especially because there was a large warehouse at the end of the street, which ended in the bay beyond that... Okay, really not good!
Shit! Who could handled this? Assault? No if I stopped this thing on a dime everyone inside would get splattered. Fenja and Menja? Same problem. Fuck! Uhhh, hrmmm OH! That could work. I reached out a hand and grabbed Taylor's, pulling her close. "I have an idea, be prepared to fish these idiots out!" Taylor nodded sharply, digging her hands into the concrete of the vehicle and holding on for dear life.
I swapped out to Kaiser and raised my arms.
In front of the killdozer a wedge of metal formed, slightly higher than the warehouse, just high enough to let the machine clear the roof, remain airborne for a moment before plopping down with a horrendous splash into the shallows that probably displaced water all the way out to the oil rig in the bay.
Taylor held on rather well, as did I after nearly falling off the quickly settling boat anchor that the vehicle had found itself. With a very real chance of the thing sinking we quickly pulled Squealer out of the cab by the scruff of her neck, ripped off a section of clothing and administered some knock out juice to keep her from flailing around. It was short work to do so with the rest of the vehicle's occupants, though we had some trouble with Mush. Well, only in so much as it took for the hold to fill with water and soak all of his trash. At that point everything became a biiit too heavy and the ugly, wirily little man extracted himself like a drowned rat from his cocoon of garbage. Another bit of knockout juice and liberal use of Rune's power had the rest of the gang piled onto a slab of metal and ferried out of the water and onto dry land.
Breathing hard, I plopped down next to our little party wagon of villains. "Well, as first outings go, This was smooth sailing."
Taylor, somewhat breathless, glanced pointedly over her shoulder at the smoking wreck in the bay. "I don't know... it felt like a bit of beach to me."
...
I raised an eyebrow. "Whale, it was a bit of a pain in the bass, but I'm shore you enjoyed yourshellf-" I waggled my hand a bit."-ish, just make sure you re-fin-ber the porpoise of this little voyage."
Taylor stared at me blankly.
I stared at her back.
"You two are fuckin nerds."
We both stared at Skidmark.
I couldn't help it, I laughed. Taylor joined a moment later.
-oOo-
Something something Lung forgot to stand behind the yellow line at the stations of canon.
