Arc 5 - The Tragic Death of Lung's Eyes
fabledFreeboota
Sometimes frustrated.
- Location
- England, West Midlands
Note from the Author: The film of Lawnmower Man isn't even remotely close to the short story of the same name by Stephen King. Taylor doesn't know this, and thinks that Stephen King is clever, and that she's clever for referencing something by Stephen King.
5.1 - A Nondescript Chapter
The place was nondescript. As we stepped inside, it became clear that it was nondescript. There were three people inside it when we arrived, all of whom were nondescript.
"Rum!" I shouted to the nearest of them, a nondescript woman whose name tag said "Hello, my name is Rina."
"No, Skitter," Tattletale nudged me, "She's deaf."
"Rum," I signed at Rina the deaf, before adopting a Captain Morgan pose.
"If you want something, write it on the pad," Tattletale nudged me again. To demonstrate, she reached across the table, took the pad and wrote 'tea, earl grey, hot'. I followed her lead and wrote RUM in bold block capitals, italics, and underlined.
Grue took the pad next and wrote "she'll have a coke, and another one for me." Then Regent took the pad and wrote "Sex on the beach."
The woman rolled her eyes, ensuring that she wouldn't be getting a tip from me.
It had been a week since Lord Buckethead's return. Brian had visited me several times, only once with Alec so he'd stop being jealous. He'd brought me coffee, and I'd shown him what few films I owned. One time we'd just laughed and talked over a Power Rangers marathon. It was nice.
What wasn't nice was that apparently the heroes had decided to call me Ugly, for reasons completely alien to me. I'd have preferred Kiddo, but according to Butch people could just call you whatever they liked. That was how Alec had gotten stuck with Regent instead of George the 3rd Base. Lung had heard about it and told all his friends that that ugly cape didn't like ABBA. And I didn't. I was more of a My Chemical Romance kind of girl.
It seemed that we had arrived a few minutes early, because the rest of the guests immediately showed up.
First was Kaiser. He wore a suit of armour supposedly made from the knives that killed his father, and all we could see of his skin was his manly, chiselled jaw. He was flanked by identical half naked Valkyrie babes with like, Thule Medallion bikinis and sig runes on their chins or something, I don't know my appropriated Norse iconography.
Purity entered behind Kaiser, whiter than Mayonaise. She could have been naked for all I knew, I wasn't going to look directly at her. It was like floodlights were being shined in your eyes. She was followed by more nazis. Just all the Nazis. A swastika titted wrestler was there, someone in an SS uniform, a spooky ghost with a stahlhelm, a woman with a buzzcut, a tiger wearing an armband. They just kept coming and coming and coming. There was even an albino guy in a Jesus hates Pronouns shirt bringing up the rear. Once they were all inside, the nazis all formed a human pyramid, and Kaiser sat down on top of it.
Coil entered after Empire 88, took one look at the nazis, shook his head, and sat down at the table. He was tall, thin, and wore a skintight costume with a picture of a snake on it underneath a set of basketball shorts.
"Who's this dickhead?" I said to Tattletale.
"Someone we obviously don't work for," she said.
"Damn straight," Coil said.
Next in was Faultline. She wore a pink and green tutu and had glowing neon eyes. Supposedly, she beat up superheroes with her power to destroy clothes for her college years, then became the leader of a small team of assembled misfits what did her bidding like. She was followed by an orange lizard and a see through snail both with matching gang tattoos in the shape of a toilet seat.
She and Tattletale said "Hold me back" in unison, seeing their respective teams rush to hold them. Apparently the two hated each other for being black costumed clever people who recruited people with powers that sounded weak unless you properly took the time to explain them to people. Brian had explained as much one morning when I'd asked where he'd gotten a bruise from. Holding back Tattletale when she'd seen Faultline in her civilian clothes apparently.
"Your magic contact lenses shit!" Tattletale yelled, struggling against Alec's very possessive looking efforts toward restraining her.
"Your powers are shit!" Faultline replied.
"You're trash mate! Everyone hates you!"
Finally, in came the Merchants. Two guys and a girl. They were dressed in business suits rendered tacky by the addition of gold chains and massive codpieces. Even on the girl, which was a look I could respect. They were acting so uppity just because they sold cocaine to bankers instead of stealing gold from banks or mercenary work or killing minorities. Worse than that? They actually seemed to care about the city's homeless population. Granted, it was so they could sell them drugs.
Kaiser flicked his hand, sending spikes protruding out of the seat Skidmark was about to take. "You can sit in a booth. You and your team are pathetic, deranged losers that aren't worth talking to. The people at this table? I don't like them, but I'll listen to them. That isn't the case with you."
Skidmark smiled back at Kaiser with a mouthful of gold teeth that had replaced all his ugly drug user teeth, and got himself another chair. Kaiser made it spiky again. Skidmark got another chair, Kaiser made it spiky. Finally, Mush reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic folding chair, span it around so it was facing backwards, and Skidmark sat down backwards on the backwards chair. Kaiser waggled his hand at the plastic chair, but it was hopeless.
"Is there anyone else?" I asked the room.
"I'll be taking a chair, I think," someone spoke from the door. I didn't even bother to look at these ones. I was already tired of new capes showing up and getting described.
"The Travelers, yes?" Coil spoke, his voice smooth, "You're not employed by me."
"We aren't," the voice said. The Travelers took a seat too.
"So we gon fuck up Lung some more then?" I asked.
"Who the fuck's she?" Skidmark asked.
"I the fuck am ugly," I said.
"And I'm butch," Bitch said, standing up and putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey!" the wrestler with the swastika tit tattoos said from his place in the human pyramid that was E88. "My henchmen said a butch girl was stealing my van sized creatures!"
"She does that," Grue said.
"Well don't do that!" the wrestler said.
"Who the fuck're they?" I said, jabbing a thumb at the wrestler.
"Hookwolf," Tattletale said. "They turn into an edgy wolf."
"Nazifurs can fuck off!" Bitch growled.
"What she said!" I said I did, one hand on butch's shoulder, the other pointing at this Hookwolf twat.
"Hey," Skidmark said.
"Ye?" I said, sneering.
"You're the girl that beat up Lung, aren't you?" Skidmark asked.
"Ye."
"Noice."
I nodded, not too hard. Humble nod, but cool. I was getting the hang of this villain life thing.
"Three hundred and five individuals confirmed dead and over a hundred and eighteen hospitalized in this past week. Armed presence on the streets. Ongoing exchanges of gunfire between ABB members and the combined forces of the police and military, to the point where I had to walk awkwardly around at least five firefights and listen to half of the soundtrack of Mamma Mia! just to get here. They have raided our favourite coffee shops and bombed places where they think we might order takeaway. They have seizled our territoraisles, and there's no indication that they intend to stop anytime soon," Coil said, trying to get us all back on track.
"Not feeling safe to walk the streets at night is a tragedy," Kaiser spoke.
"It's just not safe for people anymore," Purity said, backing him up.
Everyone other than Faultline's Newt and Snail glared at Purity. I was glad I still had the angry eyebrows cut into my costume, even if it was only because I'd been too lazy to repair my mask yet.
"Well what if we take out the Chamberlain?" Grue said, trying to defuse the tension slightly.
"Well what if I beat up Lung again?" I suggested.
"That's a great idea," Kaiser said. "Killing Lung should make the entire Quo go Status again. We'll split up into teams and escort this..."
"Taylor," I said.
"We'll escort this Tailor to go beat up Lung again while Grue goes and bullies an angry humming bird. Then everything will go back to normal, and things will be safe for everyone."
Once again, the room glared at Kaiser.
"Here here," Purity said, giving Kaiser a few claps. The non neo nazi portion of the room collectively shook their heads or cursed under their breath or dug their nails into the table. Except for Tattletale. Tattletale kicked me under the table.
"You didn't actually beat up Lung!" she hissed.
"Silly Lisa," I said, grinning vulpinely. "Taylor always beats up Lung,"
5.2 - A Short Chapter
There was a long squeal of feedback, followed by the sound of a mid twenties man desperate for another job, no matter how dead end, clearing his throat.
"Attention shoppers. Please be informed that stores will be closing at five-thirty today, as part of the city-wide curfew. Make sure to cooperate with the rozzers at the entrances and exits of the Weynmouth shopping centre, and return to your homes by six. Thank you."
"Okay," I said.
"Thanks," the man on the intercom said back.
"Your welcome," I said.
"Alright, let's make like a banana and GTFO," I said, grabbing my useless lump of a dad and carrying him off with me.
"Sure thing big ostritch," my dad said, struggling under the weight of all the liquor and liqueurs he had bought for himself.
I was apparently due back at school tomorrow, according to my power. My dad had picked up how stressed I was using his dadly powers, and offered to take me shopping. It felt redundant after having been out with Lisa and the guys a week ago, so I skipped over describing any of that stuff for you.
Both inside and outside the glass doors of the mall's entrance, there were soldiers. Not your PRT soldiers with nonlethal weapons, the kind that had gotten all antsy now that they couldn't invade middle eastern nations without having all their glass explode in their face. If we tried to take Panama today we'd be fucked. So the military just sorta showed up whenever the government wanted to wage war on drugs or break up a protest. In the midst of the soldiers were two capes; Battery and Shadow Stalker. A vast and terrible force told me that I should either hate or adore Shadow Stalker, which was odd because I thought that was Glory Girl's power but what the hey.
Capes always seemed so much bigger and impressive on the news. Once you looked past the fishnets, the heavy crossbow, the metal mask, the cold-iron look of her mask, and the dreadlocks, Shadow Stalker was still just an teenage girl.
"Alan," my dad spoke, "It's been a long time."
I turned to look. I realised who we'd run into, and made a noise like a deflated baloon.
"It's good to see you, Danny. I've been meaning to get in touch."
"Not a problem, not a problem," my dad laughed. He shook the hand of the ginger man. Alan Barnes. "These days, we can count it as a good thing if we're busy. Is your daughter here?"
Alan looked around, "She was thirsty, so I'm holding our place in line while she… ah, here she is."
Emma joined us, a diet sprite in one hand. She looked momentarily surprised as she saw me. Then she smiled, "Hi Taylor."
"Rack off ye dag," I said, before spitting on her shoes like a llama.
"Is that any way to greet your best friend Taylor?" my dad cried out, aghast.
Emma smiled. I pounced atop her, sending her sprawling to the floor. I set about beating her, one punch at a time.
"That's much better!" my dad said.
"Emma!" Alan said, mortified.
A clawed hand grabbed my fist before I could lay another blow. I turned around. Shadow Stalker growled at me and I growled back, a noise that a van sized creature could have made. Shadow Stalker let go, stood back. She dropped into a wrestler's stance, a challenge issued. I abandoned Emma and stood up, mimicking her pose.
"Go get her Taylor!" my dad cried.
"Turn around, turn around," Shadow Stalker said. I shook my head.
She pointed at something behind me and I turned to look. Click. When I turned back my hands were in handcuffs.
"You could have hurt her more than my parenting!" Alan Barnes said, mortified.
"She'll live," I said, with a mighty flex of my muscles that snapped the handcuffs in two.
"I thought you raised your daughter better than to smile at people," Danny said, shaking his head at Alan. "We're going home Taylor."
Shadow Stalker growled at me. I raised a middle finger at her as me and my dad cartwheeled out of the mall and into our illegally parked car.
5.3 - Finally A Chapter with some Principals
A huge pet peeve of mine: cliffhangers that lead into an unspecified change of scenery and action. Somehow I didn't think I was going to see any less of them anytime soon.
My dad and I had been made to wait for thirty minutes. There were only so many times you could sing Bohemian Rhapsody while waiting for a school to see you about charges of bullying. In our case, 5.
"What if we sung Under Pressure instead?" my dad asked.
"Don't!" Sophia's mother said.
Sophia's blond and blue eyed mom. With a short haircut. You know, I was starting to think that wasn't Sophia's mom. It looked an awful lot like a former governor of California.
Emma's dad was busy talking to whatserface's mom and dad, who'd showed up on their own. Alan Barnes the giant ginger. He was big. Emma was talking to Sophia, who looked sullen, angry, and butch.
The secretary came to get us from the office, and we were directed down the hall to an egg shaped room with an egg shaped conference table and egg shaped chairs. My dad and I sat on one side of the table, and everyone else sat on the other side. BAM. Symbolism right there.
"Sup," Principle G said. I really had missed a lot of school. "We're here to discuss us some incy dizzles where one of our "students"" he said, adding asshole quotes to the word students. "Has been victimizzled."
He looked down at a spot on the table to the right of where his folder was, and picked up the folder without quite touching it. It floated off away from his hand when he was gesturing at me.
"By these popular girls."
Emma waved at him. Sophia snarled, baring her mandibles until her so called mother nudged her. There was an empty chair between Madison's mother and father.
"So lets start by asking why you punched Emma outside of school," Mr G said, looking at my dad.
"I didn't," my dad said.
Mr G turned slightly to look at me. His folder clipped into his face.
"Because I hate her," I said.
"I thought this best to bring to the official channels," Alan said.
"Piss off Alan," my dad said.
"Why do you hate her?" Mr G asked.
"Because she bullies me."
"When you don't ignore me..." Emma said under her breath.
"What you say?" my dad said calmly. Emma jumped a little, moving to cling to her father.
"Nothing!" she said.
"That don't sound like nuffink!"
"Are you calling my daughter a lyre?" Alan said.
"No, I'm calling her a liar!"
"Listen, your daughter assaulted mine outside of school hours. Just because you push someone into a locker doesn't mean you can't be friends with them anymore. You used to push me into lockers all the time, Danny. Why can't we be friends again?"
"Piss off before I twat you Alan!" my dad roared. "Your daughter's no good she ain't!"
"I won't stand for you saying that about my daughter!" Alan said, rolling up his sleeves.
"No, stop, don't," said Mr G.
My dad and Alan started a rousing bout of fisticuffs, one that knocked Sophia's mother's chair to the floor. I calmly stepped out of the room, because my power said I probably oughtta.
5.3 Again - I looked at the others, and they were all moving into cover.
Time was short, so Tattletale was in my room of the loft while I changed. She's ace though, so don't get your hopes up.
"We're doing three groups. One with you and Kaiser to go beat up Lung, one with Brian and Alec to go shoot that Oni Lee dude that I'm not sure if he came up yet or not, and one with me to go shout insults at the Chamberlain until he feels bad."
I hiked the pants portion of my armor up around my waist, then began sliding my arms through the sleeves of my jacket. The new pants I'd bought were form-fitting, and all in all, putting it on was like putting on nothing at all. It was a good thing I'd invested in those newfangled spider silk pants they were selling these days.
"I'm with the group that has that stupid bitch Faultline, that tophat wearing loser Trickster, and that shapeshifter from the Travellers. We get a few nazis with guns too, but I'm blonde so I think I should be okay for friendly fire. Trickster though..."
"The Travellers have a Shapeshifter? I wasn't paying attention by that point. You can't just introduce a hundred new capes and expect me to care about all of them."
"Well she showed up to the pub as a gorilla with four arms."
"Lame."
"It was purple and had like, tear ducts in the shape of roses?"
"Lame!"
"Well, my power says she's not even really a shapeshifter, so I'm going to stare at her really hard until I learn all her secrets."
"And whatcha gon do bout that Faultline?"
Lisa grinned in a fashion approximating that of a small furry creature, "I'm gonna sing Mr Brightside but deliberately mess up some of the words when we're on our way into battle."
I shuddered.
"What's Brian up to?" I asked, trying to take my mind off of the song that had just been put in it, while putting my gloves on one at a time.
There was a knock on the door. Alec called from the other side, "Alec."
I rolled my eyes and popped my mask on. We headed outside together, walking side by side like badasses. Between skintight latex, loose shirts, and buried underneath a hoodie we had this real dichotomy going on. I could only imagine that Butch joining in with her skirt and punk jacket would have made it look even cooler. There was a nondescript vehicle pulled over in front of the door, blocking line of sight to the rest of the street. Brian and that Rachel were already inside, waiting and patting empty seats.
"Who's driving?" I asked, before I heard a bark from the driver's seat.
"Its okay, he used to be the size of a van," Lisa reassured me.
"Its a shame he can't drive stick," Brian said, his all obscuring skull mask turning to face Rachel. She made a low growl.
"Well its a good thing the van's automatic," I said. Rachel growled lower.
"Where are the other van sized creatures?" I asked, hoping that showing an interest in her pets would defuse what little tension we had.
Rachel opened her jacket, revealing two tiny puppies in her inside pocket. I recognised one as an Oxford Comma.
It was a long trip, and the puppies made cute little sleepy noises the whole way through. Rachel would not let me pet them.
Half an hour in, Tattletale leaned out the open window and pointed, "See that tower, there? The one that looks like a lighthouse, but has strange and terrible notes emanating from its windows?"
"Yeah?" I said, faintly hearing a few strange and terrible notes of unholy music above the background screams and explosions of Brockton Bay. "That one?" I said, pointing at its tall and derelict shape, twisting up into the sky like that perverse Babel of long ago.
"It's an old tourist trap that closed down a decade ago. Someone built an exact replica of Blackpool tower in Brockton Bay. It's where the Merchants - Skidmark and his crew of dealers-"
"I know who the Merchants are fam."
Lisa looked at me like an Oxford Comma that wanted a treat. I made a gesture for her to carry on.
"Its where Skidmark and his crew of dealers used to hang out, before they made it big. Now they rent it out to some dumb German musician and a few students who like to use words like bohemian, exotic, and squamous whenever they're walking anywhere that hasn't been gentrified yet."
The doors of the van opened up, and Brian chucked me out. I landed with an oof, and was dusting myself off when Rachel landed on top of me.
"Good luck!" Alec called, putting his hand on Brian's shoulder.
I was dusting myself off a second in time when Rachel tossed a puppy sized van sized creature at me. Luckily, my power gave me reflexes so powerful that the PRT would surely one day spot them on a camera and go "That there am power that is!"
"It needs a little time to grow," Rachel said, as to the point and slightly feral as ever. Truly her ferocity knew no bounds. Her romulan upbringing had bestowed upon her bluntness at the cost of conversation.
"Are you okay?" she asked me.
"I'm fine," I said. "My dad beat up my bully's dad. I got a call from the school to say he was in detention and they were very disappointed in him."
"What about the bullies?"
"They didn't get detention, but I got told their parents got told they were very disappointed in them."
We reached the old and haunted tower, the strange and alien music echoing down from above, and sure enough there was a group of villains waiting for us.
Kaiser was first and foremost among them. Ornate and shiny armour, totally different while still being pretty much the fucking same really to the way it was two days ago. Fenja and Menja stood either side of him, wearing their finest "Girl in a fantasy story written by men" armour, with a red armband with like, a nordic rune in the middle or something, but they were both wearing them on opposite arms so they could go and do this whole twins thing. It was kinda lame.
"Who's that, Bitch?" I said, pointing at a girl with a sun design on her costume.
"I'm not a bitch!" the girl said, taking umbrage at my question.
"Apologies, I was simply asking my comrade, whose chosen cape name is Bitch. Isn't that right, bitch?"
"She's Sunspot," Bitch said, sounding a little annoyed. "With the Travellers?"
"Gotcha," I said.
Just behind Sunspot was two members of Faultline's motley crew. A half man, half amphibian freak of nature was hanging off the wall by his fingertips and toes, and a woman whose costume was covered in what looked like mazes was leaning against the same wall. Probably Labyrinth. She looked like she'd be named Labyrinth with hair looking that Bowie. Newter, the horrifying abomination with the faded orange skin, was wearing tattered jeans and had dyed his hair a jeans blue. Wait, no, he was just wearing a pair of denim booty shorts on his head.
"Glad you could join us Kiddo," Kaiser said. "Ready to beat up Lung for us?"
"Yeh fam."
5.4 - The Chapter That Came after 5.3
Kaiser, Fenja and Menja had all ducked into an alleyway. Bitch and her van sized creatures (which had grown to full size in the time between last chapter and this chapter) were disappearing around the far corner of the same building.
Ahead of me, a trio of people in ABB colors crossed the street. A guy and a girl who looked like they might have been gang members before it was cool. A teen who was about my age trailed behind them, looking too scared and worn out to be anything but someone's kid who'd just been dragged along. They were all armed. They were all azian too. One had a baseball bat with nails hammered into it. I wanted a bat like that.
Just behind them was the building that had to be our target. It was a dirty gray warehouse with the letters "That Azian Gang Is Not Here" spray painted on and around the loading bay door in an elaborate style that told me some gangers had way too much time.
"Hey!" I yelled. The scared kid with the bat turned to face me at exactly the right moment for my boot to hit his face. I spinning ninja kicked the woman in her gut, and after an elaborate leg sweep that knocked him to the ground I stomped on the face of that guy who'd been an azian before it was cool.
"ATTACK!" I yelled, after the fact. I'd sort of gotten ahead of myself. Still, now I had a spiky baseball bat. I'd like to see Emma Barnes have a go at me now.
Kaiser shook his head, and issued a complex hand gesture that suggested he was either going to go aroundiijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj the back and ATTACK! from there, but it could just as easily have meant he was going to go off into a bush with his two Valkyries and leave us undermen to go sort this shit out ourselves.
Me, Newter, Labby, and Sunspot collectively pointed at a point on the side of the building, and Rachel whistled and pointed at a spot slightly to the right of where we'd been pointing, sending her van sized creatures out to headbut it and claw it until they'd dug a hole big enough for themselves. Which was fine, even if we just wanted them to go in through the thin garage door we'd been pointing at.
We cartwheeled in through the hole Bitch had dug, into a room full of naked men and women covered in powdered sugar.
"Donuts!" I said, pointing at them.
Newter walked up to one and said hello. He greeted them faster than an enthusiastic waiter on a busy night, clearing his way through the lot of them before I could stop pointing.
The lot of them dropped to the floor faster than you could say "Aroundiijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjabouts."
5.6 - Oni Lee's Here
I sensed a presence I'd not felt in a long time.
"Lung!" I said.
"Lung?" Sundancer asked.
"And some loser who I've never felt before..."
"Sorry," Newter said.
"No, not you. You should be busy with Oni Lee."
"Oh no!" Newter said. He put his hands up and span on the spot, waiting for Oni Lee to show up. I knew his power was a mix between Multiple Man and Nightcrawler, but his copies were so lame they just gave up and died. He'd been using his power to create infinite dust so he could corner the market on litter boxes, but then he'd found out killing people was funner. And that whole "Nobody is allowed to make money except members of the Elite" thing that Earth Bet has always had going on, don't ask, long story.
You know what, fuck it. Apparently a secret cabal of wealthy bastards funded a few concerned individuals that themselves had pushed for legislation that would limit the ability of capes to damage the existing market practices of our society. Simultaneously, an entirely unrelated secret cabal of wealthy bastards with superpowers decided to... Oh god I was right this takes forever to explain. We'll get to this later I guess.
Sure enough, Oni Lee sashayed into the room. He struck a pose, and before Newter could slap him he was turning into dust. Newter coughed, choking on bits of Oni Lee. My god, that's what those naked people had been covered in. They were cutting Cocaine with Oni Lee!
An Oni Lee had appeared in front of Bitch, and handed her a grenade. She took it, and checked to see the pin was still there. She laughed, relieved, but an Oni Lee reappeared in front of her and grabbed the pin. Bitch shook her head at him, but Oni Lee nodded his head and teleported again. Bitch covered her mouth and lobbed the grenade off out the nearest window. But where had Oni Lee gone?
I suddenly felt a stabbing pain in my back. Something had stabbed me in the back with something. It hurt moderately.
"That moderately hurt," I said. A hand grabbed me by the shoulder as the blade was plunged deeper into me, exploding into a blossoming blooming bouquet of liquid pain.
"That was for Lung's balls, kiddo," Oni Lee whispered into my ear, waiting for me to drop dead or scream from the knife he was twisting inside me.
I didn't, fyi. How could I tell you a story if I was dead? Nope, I just stood there.
"Are you.... Are you not dead?" Oni Lee said, the raspiest and edgiest voice I'd ever heard sounding verily confuzzled.
"No you," I said sagely, raising my hand to stroke the chin of my mask. Because I knew that while he knew that I knew I had a knife in my back, Oni Lee didn't know that I knew he didn't know that he presently had his back to the hole in the wall we'd come through. And thanks to Coil we, happened to have some professional friends in some pretty high places.
BANG! went the high powered silenced legendary custom military grade hunting sniper rifle, followed by a distant and whispered "Just business, kid."
I was thrown to the ground by the shear shear shear shear powerful dreadful shear power of the impact of that fateful shot, sent rolling off into the other wall. I looked up through my legs to see Oni Lee poking at the kneecap sized hole in his leg. There was a distant sound like someone chambering another shot into something that probably used bolt action for balancing purposes, and Oni Lee melted into dust.
"Is he gone?" Newter said, coughing up a dragonfull of Oni Lee dust.
"He's gone!" Sundancer said, having done nothing to help.
"You haven't seen the last of me!" Oni Lee rasped, his voice faint and distant.
"No Sundancer," I said. "I don't think we've seen the last of Oni Lee..."
"No sirree..."
"Eeee..."
" ... .... .. .. ....... ...... ..... .. . ............... ... ... ........."
5.7 - Taylor Single Handedly Defeats Lung
I didn't like leaving Labyrinth behind after she did fucking nothing to try and help us with Oni Lee, but we totally left Labyrinth behind so she could tie up a few unconscious Lung Goons. I stressed the importance of not letting them run free. We didn't want them to keep turning up. Especially not naked Lung Goons. So we left easily the highest rated Shaker in Brockton Bay, Vista be damned, to carry out a menial task.
Me, Newter, Sundancer, and Bitch ventured upstairs after Bitch had finished shrinking her van sized creatures to the size of motorcycles so they could get up the stairs. Before we could reach the top, Newter was coughing his lungs up and complaining about if this counted as cannibalism.
"Of course it doesn't, you're an amphibian, not a human," I said, before realising how shitty that sounded of me. "Sorry," I added.
"Its okay," Newter wheezed.
"Stay here," I said, leaving Newter in the hands of Sundancer. I could take Lung. EDIT: She's wearing gloves at this moment in time, leaving Newter in her hands is okay.
The roof of the next room up had been torn off by two giant women, who were leaning in to poke at Lung's goons with pointed sticks. Lung was trampling this way and that, stepping around a floor covered in spikes just big enough for a giant lizardy person to have a hard time not stepping on.. He was big and looked nothing like anyone's drawings of him would be, no matter how specific I got with the description, so I'm just not gonna try. Suffice to say, Lung big, Lung strong, Lung scaly, Lung got a silly looking face.
Kaiser was in the middle of the fray, punching Lung's goons and making little noises as he did. Lung made a little step towards him, but a chunk of metal shot up towards him and Lung stepped back like a coward. It was in that moment of fright that Lung managed to spot me across the room. Sombre music swelled before dropping for one of those beats they leave for comedic effect.
"Not you again!" Lung said.
"It is I!" I said, striking a pose.
"You didn't do anything to him," Bitch said.
"No," I said. "But he got fucked up anyway. And it'll happen again!"
"Confound it Undersider!" Kaiser roared. "I thought you were going to annihilate this tall fire breathing lizard!"
Lung took a step back, standing up to his full height. I realised with horror that his monster form wasn't null. I saw terrible things in the half light of that room. Terrible, half rotten things. I never wanted to see my own again.
However many darts Armsmaster had shot him with must have done it, because Lung had been neutered. Wait. Neutered. Of course! Newter!
I grabbed Newter and yeeted him at Lung. Lung caught him, and looked at me. Lung raised an eyebrow at me. I leaned back and folded my arms. Lung looked at Newter, and scrunched up his eyes. Newter smiled at him, and Lung squeezed him tight enough to make his eyes bulge.
"How ironic," I said.
"What?" Lung said, loosening his grip on the newt man in his hands. I went to adjust my glasses, but too late did I realise that they were in fact, drawn on.
"Your name was Lung, but you were defeated by contact hallucinogens instead of inhalants."
Lung looked down at the newt in shock and dropped him, stepping carefully back.
"My sobriety," Lung said, staggering back and forth about the room. "I needed that to feel bad about myself!"
He managed a good ten more seconds of awkwardly walking before he slumped forwards and fell asleep. Without his leadership, Lung's Lung Goons scattered like the separatists before Nemesor Zahndrekh at the 5th battle of Vryndarkh or Vindork or wherever, like the geeks before Alexander the Great, like headless chickens at the sight of a headless chicken.
Kaiser clapped his hands together. "Good job! You really showed that worthless subhuman garbage what for!"
Everyone sort of looked at him. Kaiser made a little gesture using his throat that meant he either wanted us to cut Lung's head off, or he wanted takeout sauerkraut. Sure, Lung was unconscious, but he was also a forty foot long lizard man covered in shiny scales. My power was telling me we couldn't even if we tried.
"I wish I could've done something," Sundancer said.
"Nobody cares!" I said, walking carefully over to the body. I gave one of Lung's soft and vulnerable looking eyes a kick. "Cor, wouldn't it be a right larf if we just poked his eyes out with a stick and then fucked off?"
5.Wow We've Skipped Two of These
"Hey corporate puppets!" I said down the phone.
"Yes, this is the Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Team," a tired sounding woman said. "What is the nature of your Parahuman related emergency?"
"I just poked out Lung's eyes with a stick. He's fucking wasted mate, I need an ambulance here or he's gonna lose his nards again."
"Please don't waste the PRT's time."
"Why?" I shouted, glaring daggers in the general direction of the building in the middle of the bay part of Brockton Bay that was not officially the PRT's. "Have you got lots of turning innocent children into soldiers to get back to, pig?" I dramatically hung up on Lung's phone, and I was about to lob it up into the air and melt it with my amazing and astounding powers when I remembered what Victoria had done. Hate had ruled her mind then. And I wasn't about to let hate rule mine. No. No more senseless violence. Besides, this was a pretty sick phone. Hotpink clamshell smartphone. With plenty of credit on it too. Add that to the money in his pockets and I'd just made about two hundred bucks beating up Lung a second time. Toss that on the pile of gold I had in my room back at the hideout.
"I can't believe you poked out his eyes..." Sundancer said.
"Nah, me neither," Bitch said. She offered a hand for me to high five and I high fived it hard enough to make my hand hurt. "You're off the fucking chain."
"What is wrong with this earth..." Sundancer said, shaking your head.
"This is why I spend as little time here as possible," Labyrinth said, in a moment of solidarity with another waste of space cape that didn't take out none of Lung's goons.
"Well, that went well," Kaiser began. "At last the depraved and-"
I segued me and Bitch a few streets over so we didn't have to listen to the rest of whatever he was going to say. Then I segued back and got the dogs we'd forgotten. Then I sequed nowhere for good measure.
"So what now?" I asked, sequing on the spot..
"We could go back to the hideout and watch Revenge of the Binks again?" Bitch shrugged, saying.
And so we did, and there was much lying of one's legs atop one another's on the goat slash foot rest, as per the norm whenever two gays attempt to sit straight on a couch. Oh god, we're almost out of backlog.
Interlude 5 - The Happy Snail's Journey
I'm sure that Gregor the snail would be none too happy to know that once again, though noone would have believed it, minds immeasurably superior to his own were scrutinising him like the drop of water multiplying thing he resembled. Where once he was some statistic to mad scientists, now he is observed in the same fashion by madmen and madthems who view him as a tragedy. And slowly, surely, we are drawing our plans against him. Darn it. I've gone and got War of the Worlds stuck in my head again now.
Anyway, for now we must watch this translucent snail man go about his daily business, making the most of a life pointlessly ruined for the sake of something petty and small like trying to save the world.
His business today seemingly being getting teens to buy vodka for him. Maybe an "In Soviet Russia" joke was in order, but I find formulaic jokes to be the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to humour.
"Yo, this what you want?" the teenager with poor personal grooming habits and a hoodie to cover up his ugly mug said.
A snail man with nasty hands snatched the brown paper bag off him and clawed through packet after packet of beef jerky to find the real prize. Smirnoff. Strawberry Smirnoff. Noone could know that Gregor was drinking this revolting stuff, lest they might ask for a share. Not Newter, not Labyrinth, not even Faultline.
"Da," the snail man said. His voice was "slightly" accented, the words and sounds that of someone for whom English was a second language the first time around, and a first language the second time around. How ironic that a snail had a slug to blame for that.
He shoved a bunch of bills into the teen's bill, and went on his merry snaily way, wrapping his shell covered hands all around the cap of the bottle and undoing it. Just a sip. Just a quick one.
By the time Gregor had returned home, he was wishing he had made the kid buy him two bottles. Passers by called him drunk if they were nice to case 53s, or monster if they weren't, or fat if they were just plain mean. I mean really, this is the modern world, not everyone has the time to get jogging in. Regular exercise is a bourgouise luxury, stolen from the poor before being comodified by gyms and sold back to the masses. It takes effort to not put on weight. It takes effort for a healthy diet. And some people, like Gregor here, just had the wrong body. Not the wrong body to begin with, he was probably fine with himself before he was abducted and drugged and mutilated. Honestly, you'd have to be a real jerk to do something like that.
From a block away, you could see the Palanquin bouncing. That's how loud the music was. Enough to make a building throb like a heart. Ugly yellow neon letters spelt out the club's name.
They were lining up around the blockton just to get in. Gregor had no need of queues, and walked up to the bouncer.
"What the hell?" one of the girls near the front of the line complained, "We've been waiting for forty five minutes and you let that fat fuck through like that?"
Gregor raised a middle finger at the girl, showing off his gross slimy skeleton fingers.
"Come back when you look like this!" Gregor said, giving the doorman a brief hug in a gesture of thanks.
Gregor squeezed his way through dancers, aided in his struggle towards the stairs by his natural lubrication. The upstairs balcony was filled with girls, all flouncing over one another like cats on catnip. Only three people were more or less alert as Gregor approached. Two girls and a newt.
"Gregor, my man!" Newter said, extending a hand. Gregor slapped it. Da, dat was de stuff.
"I was just about to show these ladies a good time, want one?"
The lady in question gave Gregor a slightly disgusted look.
"Don't be like that. This is Gregor. He's made entirely out of gelatin. Its like sleeping with a waterbed. Ain't that right Gregor."
Gregor nodded.
"You can see right through this bad boy," Newter said, reaching a hand around the shoulder of the other girl. She promptly flopped to the floor, unconscious.
Newter sighed, shaking his head.
"You want smelling salts? I make smelling salts?" Gregor asked, but Newter waved him off.
"I'm fine," Newter said, his face desperate. "I'm doing just fine. Hey uh, why don't you see Faultline. She wanted to speak to you."
"Really?"
"Yeah, just uh, leave Laura here with me."
"Ok," Gregor said. He turned to leave, but a hand tugged on his shoulder, setting his body wobbling.
"Hey jello boy," the girl said.
"Hmm?" Gregor said.
The girl pressed a card into his hand.
"Call me."
Gregor smiled to his snaily self as he walked off to Miss Fitts's... Miss Fitt's... to the office of one Miss Fitts. Behind him he heard the thump of a woman dropping to the floor, and a sad cry of "Not again..."
Gregor opened the door to the office that belongs to Miss Fitts. Inside, Spitfire and Labyrinth were compromised atop a stone slab in the midst of a garden of green grass and grey cloudy skies.
"Wrong door!" Spitfire yelled, magma dripping from her lips and onto her bare chest, where as I understand it it changed magically into lava in the eyes of the pedantic.
"Sorry," Gregor said. He shook his head in embarrassment as he closed the door on the behind himself and walked that little bit further, to the office that belongs to Miss Fitts.
Miss Fitts was in her professional clothes; a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top three buttons undone, and black slacks tucked into shiny black riding boots with steel toes that made a big loud clacking noise when she walked. Her midnight black hair was tied back in a perfect ponytail. Her eyes carried a warning for those sensitive to flashing lights, alternating between red and blue with a violent and violet fashion. She had three cups and a half empty bottle of Strawberry Smirnoff on her desk in front of her.
"Watch this," she said, knocking back a shot. She took her spike covered hairpin out of her hair, letting the midnight black curls unfurl, and then she set the pin down on the table. Under one of the cups it went, and then she was spinning cups all about this way and that.
Miss Fitts lifted all three of the cups, one at a time. No hairpin. Gregor appreciated this. Gregor gave a little clap.
"How's Labby?"
"She was in her room with Spitfire."
"What is it with that girl and fucking pyromaniacs..." Miss Fitts said, taking another swig of her vodka, straight from the bottle. Gregor stared at her the whole while, envy in his beady eyestalks. "Where does she think she lives? In a club?"
Gregor made a little chuckle.
"Here, help me finish this off," she said, eyeing the half filled bottle. "Fuck! Where does it all go?"
"Maybe Cauldron stole?" Gregor said, extending a hand for the bottle.
"Of course they did!" Miss Fitts said, taking another swig. Gregor stared at the bottle of reasonable but well marketed fermented potato. "They're responsible for everything. They're the reason I was thrown out of university and everything. My thesis was too close to the real secrets!"
Gregor doubted Miss Fitts was telling truth there.
"Do you have another lead?"
"Of course I do. You remember Mayor Stanton?"
"The man that made ass of himself at Christmas party here?"
"I showed him a few photographs and asked him if he knew where a girl could get herself some superpowers."
"Really?" Gregor said. It sounded almost impossible.
"No, I zapped his clothes off and beat him up until he told me how his son got his powers."
"Won't he want revenge?"
"Yes, he will..." Miss Fitts explained as she reached into her drawers and pulled out a blonde wig. She grinned the grin of an aristocrat wearing a red coat and riding horseback who was just following tradition. "He sure will..."
5.1 - A Nondescript Chapter
The place was nondescript. As we stepped inside, it became clear that it was nondescript. There were three people inside it when we arrived, all of whom were nondescript.
"Rum!" I shouted to the nearest of them, a nondescript woman whose name tag said "Hello, my name is Rina."
"No, Skitter," Tattletale nudged me, "She's deaf."
"Rum," I signed at Rina the deaf, before adopting a Captain Morgan pose.
"If you want something, write it on the pad," Tattletale nudged me again. To demonstrate, she reached across the table, took the pad and wrote 'tea, earl grey, hot'. I followed her lead and wrote RUM in bold block capitals, italics, and underlined.
Grue took the pad next and wrote "she'll have a coke, and another one for me." Then Regent took the pad and wrote "Sex on the beach."
The woman rolled her eyes, ensuring that she wouldn't be getting a tip from me.
It had been a week since Lord Buckethead's return. Brian had visited me several times, only once with Alec so he'd stop being jealous. He'd brought me coffee, and I'd shown him what few films I owned. One time we'd just laughed and talked over a Power Rangers marathon. It was nice.
What wasn't nice was that apparently the heroes had decided to call me Ugly, for reasons completely alien to me. I'd have preferred Kiddo, but according to Butch people could just call you whatever they liked. That was how Alec had gotten stuck with Regent instead of George the 3rd Base. Lung had heard about it and told all his friends that that ugly cape didn't like ABBA. And I didn't. I was more of a My Chemical Romance kind of girl.
It seemed that we had arrived a few minutes early, because the rest of the guests immediately showed up.
First was Kaiser. He wore a suit of armour supposedly made from the knives that killed his father, and all we could see of his skin was his manly, chiselled jaw. He was flanked by identical half naked Valkyrie babes with like, Thule Medallion bikinis and sig runes on their chins or something, I don't know my appropriated Norse iconography.
Purity entered behind Kaiser, whiter than Mayonaise. She could have been naked for all I knew, I wasn't going to look directly at her. It was like floodlights were being shined in your eyes. She was followed by more nazis. Just all the Nazis. A swastika titted wrestler was there, someone in an SS uniform, a spooky ghost with a stahlhelm, a woman with a buzzcut, a tiger wearing an armband. They just kept coming and coming and coming. There was even an albino guy in a Jesus hates Pronouns shirt bringing up the rear. Once they were all inside, the nazis all formed a human pyramid, and Kaiser sat down on top of it.
Coil entered after Empire 88, took one look at the nazis, shook his head, and sat down at the table. He was tall, thin, and wore a skintight costume with a picture of a snake on it underneath a set of basketball shorts.
"Who's this dickhead?" I said to Tattletale.
"Someone we obviously don't work for," she said.
"Damn straight," Coil said.
Next in was Faultline. She wore a pink and green tutu and had glowing neon eyes. Supposedly, she beat up superheroes with her power to destroy clothes for her college years, then became the leader of a small team of assembled misfits what did her bidding like. She was followed by an orange lizard and a see through snail both with matching gang tattoos in the shape of a toilet seat.
She and Tattletale said "Hold me back" in unison, seeing their respective teams rush to hold them. Apparently the two hated each other for being black costumed clever people who recruited people with powers that sounded weak unless you properly took the time to explain them to people. Brian had explained as much one morning when I'd asked where he'd gotten a bruise from. Holding back Tattletale when she'd seen Faultline in her civilian clothes apparently.
"Your magic contact lenses shit!" Tattletale yelled, struggling against Alec's very possessive looking efforts toward restraining her.
"Your powers are shit!" Faultline replied.
"You're trash mate! Everyone hates you!"
Finally, in came the Merchants. Two guys and a girl. They were dressed in business suits rendered tacky by the addition of gold chains and massive codpieces. Even on the girl, which was a look I could respect. They were acting so uppity just because they sold cocaine to bankers instead of stealing gold from banks or mercenary work or killing minorities. Worse than that? They actually seemed to care about the city's homeless population. Granted, it was so they could sell them drugs.
Kaiser flicked his hand, sending spikes protruding out of the seat Skidmark was about to take. "You can sit in a booth. You and your team are pathetic, deranged losers that aren't worth talking to. The people at this table? I don't like them, but I'll listen to them. That isn't the case with you."
Skidmark smiled back at Kaiser with a mouthful of gold teeth that had replaced all his ugly drug user teeth, and got himself another chair. Kaiser made it spiky again. Skidmark got another chair, Kaiser made it spiky. Finally, Mush reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic folding chair, span it around so it was facing backwards, and Skidmark sat down backwards on the backwards chair. Kaiser waggled his hand at the plastic chair, but it was hopeless.
"Is there anyone else?" I asked the room.
"I'll be taking a chair, I think," someone spoke from the door. I didn't even bother to look at these ones. I was already tired of new capes showing up and getting described.
"The Travelers, yes?" Coil spoke, his voice smooth, "You're not employed by me."
"We aren't," the voice said. The Travelers took a seat too.
"So we gon fuck up Lung some more then?" I asked.
"Who the fuck's she?" Skidmark asked.
"I the fuck am ugly," I said.
"And I'm butch," Bitch said, standing up and putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey!" the wrestler with the swastika tit tattoos said from his place in the human pyramid that was E88. "My henchmen said a butch girl was stealing my van sized creatures!"
"She does that," Grue said.
"Well don't do that!" the wrestler said.
"Who the fuck're they?" I said, jabbing a thumb at the wrestler.
"Hookwolf," Tattletale said. "They turn into an edgy wolf."
"Nazifurs can fuck off!" Bitch growled.
"What she said!" I said I did, one hand on butch's shoulder, the other pointing at this Hookwolf twat.
"Hey," Skidmark said.
"Ye?" I said, sneering.
"You're the girl that beat up Lung, aren't you?" Skidmark asked.
"Ye."
"Noice."
I nodded, not too hard. Humble nod, but cool. I was getting the hang of this villain life thing.
"Three hundred and five individuals confirmed dead and over a hundred and eighteen hospitalized in this past week. Armed presence on the streets. Ongoing exchanges of gunfire between ABB members and the combined forces of the police and military, to the point where I had to walk awkwardly around at least five firefights and listen to half of the soundtrack of Mamma Mia! just to get here. They have raided our favourite coffee shops and bombed places where they think we might order takeaway. They have seizled our territoraisles, and there's no indication that they intend to stop anytime soon," Coil said, trying to get us all back on track.
"Not feeling safe to walk the streets at night is a tragedy," Kaiser spoke.
"It's just not safe for people anymore," Purity said, backing him up.
Everyone other than Faultline's Newt and Snail glared at Purity. I was glad I still had the angry eyebrows cut into my costume, even if it was only because I'd been too lazy to repair my mask yet.
"Well what if we take out the Chamberlain?" Grue said, trying to defuse the tension slightly.
"Well what if I beat up Lung again?" I suggested.
"That's a great idea," Kaiser said. "Killing Lung should make the entire Quo go Status again. We'll split up into teams and escort this..."
"Taylor," I said.
"We'll escort this Tailor to go beat up Lung again while Grue goes and bullies an angry humming bird. Then everything will go back to normal, and things will be safe for everyone."
Once again, the room glared at Kaiser.
"Here here," Purity said, giving Kaiser a few claps. The non neo nazi portion of the room collectively shook their heads or cursed under their breath or dug their nails into the table. Except for Tattletale. Tattletale kicked me under the table.
"You didn't actually beat up Lung!" she hissed.
"Silly Lisa," I said, grinning vulpinely. "Taylor always beats up Lung,"
5.2 - A Short Chapter
There was a long squeal of feedback, followed by the sound of a mid twenties man desperate for another job, no matter how dead end, clearing his throat.
"Attention shoppers. Please be informed that stores will be closing at five-thirty today, as part of the city-wide curfew. Make sure to cooperate with the rozzers at the entrances and exits of the Weynmouth shopping centre, and return to your homes by six. Thank you."
"Okay," I said.
"Thanks," the man on the intercom said back.
"Your welcome," I said.
"Alright, let's make like a banana and GTFO," I said, grabbing my useless lump of a dad and carrying him off with me.
"Sure thing big ostritch," my dad said, struggling under the weight of all the liquor and liqueurs he had bought for himself.
I was apparently due back at school tomorrow, according to my power. My dad had picked up how stressed I was using his dadly powers, and offered to take me shopping. It felt redundant after having been out with Lisa and the guys a week ago, so I skipped over describing any of that stuff for you.
Both inside and outside the glass doors of the mall's entrance, there were soldiers. Not your PRT soldiers with nonlethal weapons, the kind that had gotten all antsy now that they couldn't invade middle eastern nations without having all their glass explode in their face. If we tried to take Panama today we'd be fucked. So the military just sorta showed up whenever the government wanted to wage war on drugs or break up a protest. In the midst of the soldiers were two capes; Battery and Shadow Stalker. A vast and terrible force told me that I should either hate or adore Shadow Stalker, which was odd because I thought that was Glory Girl's power but what the hey.
Capes always seemed so much bigger and impressive on the news. Once you looked past the fishnets, the heavy crossbow, the metal mask, the cold-iron look of her mask, and the dreadlocks, Shadow Stalker was still just an teenage girl.
"Alan," my dad spoke, "It's been a long time."
I turned to look. I realised who we'd run into, and made a noise like a deflated baloon.
"It's good to see you, Danny. I've been meaning to get in touch."
"Not a problem, not a problem," my dad laughed. He shook the hand of the ginger man. Alan Barnes. "These days, we can count it as a good thing if we're busy. Is your daughter here?"
Alan looked around, "She was thirsty, so I'm holding our place in line while she… ah, here she is."
Emma joined us, a diet sprite in one hand. She looked momentarily surprised as she saw me. Then she smiled, "Hi Taylor."
"Rack off ye dag," I said, before spitting on her shoes like a llama.
"Is that any way to greet your best friend Taylor?" my dad cried out, aghast.
Emma smiled. I pounced atop her, sending her sprawling to the floor. I set about beating her, one punch at a time.
"That's much better!" my dad said.
"Emma!" Alan said, mortified.
A clawed hand grabbed my fist before I could lay another blow. I turned around. Shadow Stalker growled at me and I growled back, a noise that a van sized creature could have made. Shadow Stalker let go, stood back. She dropped into a wrestler's stance, a challenge issued. I abandoned Emma and stood up, mimicking her pose.
"Go get her Taylor!" my dad cried.
"Turn around, turn around," Shadow Stalker said. I shook my head.
She pointed at something behind me and I turned to look. Click. When I turned back my hands were in handcuffs.
"You could have hurt her more than my parenting!" Alan Barnes said, mortified.
"She'll live," I said, with a mighty flex of my muscles that snapped the handcuffs in two.
"I thought you raised your daughter better than to smile at people," Danny said, shaking his head at Alan. "We're going home Taylor."
Shadow Stalker growled at me. I raised a middle finger at her as me and my dad cartwheeled out of the mall and into our illegally parked car.
5.3 - Finally A Chapter with some Principals
A huge pet peeve of mine: cliffhangers that lead into an unspecified change of scenery and action. Somehow I didn't think I was going to see any less of them anytime soon.
My dad and I had been made to wait for thirty minutes. There were only so many times you could sing Bohemian Rhapsody while waiting for a school to see you about charges of bullying. In our case, 5.
"What if we sung Under Pressure instead?" my dad asked.
"Don't!" Sophia's mother said.
Sophia's blond and blue eyed mom. With a short haircut. You know, I was starting to think that wasn't Sophia's mom. It looked an awful lot like a former governor of California.
Emma's dad was busy talking to whatserface's mom and dad, who'd showed up on their own. Alan Barnes the giant ginger. He was big. Emma was talking to Sophia, who looked sullen, angry, and butch.
The secretary came to get us from the office, and we were directed down the hall to an egg shaped room with an egg shaped conference table and egg shaped chairs. My dad and I sat on one side of the table, and everyone else sat on the other side. BAM. Symbolism right there.
"Sup," Principle G said. I really had missed a lot of school. "We're here to discuss us some incy dizzles where one of our "students"" he said, adding asshole quotes to the word students. "Has been victimizzled."
He looked down at a spot on the table to the right of where his folder was, and picked up the folder without quite touching it. It floated off away from his hand when he was gesturing at me.
"By these popular girls."
Emma waved at him. Sophia snarled, baring her mandibles until her so called mother nudged her. There was an empty chair between Madison's mother and father.
"So lets start by asking why you punched Emma outside of school," Mr G said, looking at my dad.
"I didn't," my dad said.
Mr G turned slightly to look at me. His folder clipped into his face.
"Because I hate her," I said.
"I thought this best to bring to the official channels," Alan said.
"Piss off Alan," my dad said.
"Why do you hate her?" Mr G asked.
"Because she bullies me."
"When you don't ignore me..." Emma said under her breath.
"What you say?" my dad said calmly. Emma jumped a little, moving to cling to her father.
"Nothing!" she said.
"That don't sound like nuffink!"
"Are you calling my daughter a lyre?" Alan said.
"No, I'm calling her a liar!"
"Listen, your daughter assaulted mine outside of school hours. Just because you push someone into a locker doesn't mean you can't be friends with them anymore. You used to push me into lockers all the time, Danny. Why can't we be friends again?"
"Piss off before I twat you Alan!" my dad roared. "Your daughter's no good she ain't!"
"I won't stand for you saying that about my daughter!" Alan said, rolling up his sleeves.
"No, stop, don't," said Mr G.
My dad and Alan started a rousing bout of fisticuffs, one that knocked Sophia's mother's chair to the floor. I calmly stepped out of the room, because my power said I probably oughtta.
5.3 Again - I looked at the others, and they were all moving into cover.
Time was short, so Tattletale was in my room of the loft while I changed. She's ace though, so don't get your hopes up.
"We're doing three groups. One with you and Kaiser to go beat up Lung, one with Brian and Alec to go shoot that Oni Lee dude that I'm not sure if he came up yet or not, and one with me to go shout insults at the Chamberlain until he feels bad."
I hiked the pants portion of my armor up around my waist, then began sliding my arms through the sleeves of my jacket. The new pants I'd bought were form-fitting, and all in all, putting it on was like putting on nothing at all. It was a good thing I'd invested in those newfangled spider silk pants they were selling these days.
"I'm with the group that has that stupid bitch Faultline, that tophat wearing loser Trickster, and that shapeshifter from the Travellers. We get a few nazis with guns too, but I'm blonde so I think I should be okay for friendly fire. Trickster though..."
"The Travellers have a Shapeshifter? I wasn't paying attention by that point. You can't just introduce a hundred new capes and expect me to care about all of them."
"Well she showed up to the pub as a gorilla with four arms."
"Lame."
"It was purple and had like, tear ducts in the shape of roses?"
"Lame!"
"Well, my power says she's not even really a shapeshifter, so I'm going to stare at her really hard until I learn all her secrets."
"And whatcha gon do bout that Faultline?"
Lisa grinned in a fashion approximating that of a small furry creature, "I'm gonna sing Mr Brightside but deliberately mess up some of the words when we're on our way into battle."
I shuddered.
"What's Brian up to?" I asked, trying to take my mind off of the song that had just been put in it, while putting my gloves on one at a time.
There was a knock on the door. Alec called from the other side, "Alec."
I rolled my eyes and popped my mask on. We headed outside together, walking side by side like badasses. Between skintight latex, loose shirts, and buried underneath a hoodie we had this real dichotomy going on. I could only imagine that Butch joining in with her skirt and punk jacket would have made it look even cooler. There was a nondescript vehicle pulled over in front of the door, blocking line of sight to the rest of the street. Brian and that Rachel were already inside, waiting and patting empty seats.
"Who's driving?" I asked, before I heard a bark from the driver's seat.
"Its okay, he used to be the size of a van," Lisa reassured me.
"Its a shame he can't drive stick," Brian said, his all obscuring skull mask turning to face Rachel. She made a low growl.
"Well its a good thing the van's automatic," I said. Rachel growled lower.
"Where are the other van sized creatures?" I asked, hoping that showing an interest in her pets would defuse what little tension we had.
Rachel opened her jacket, revealing two tiny puppies in her inside pocket. I recognised one as an Oxford Comma.
It was a long trip, and the puppies made cute little sleepy noises the whole way through. Rachel would not let me pet them.
Half an hour in, Tattletale leaned out the open window and pointed, "See that tower, there? The one that looks like a lighthouse, but has strange and terrible notes emanating from its windows?"
"Yeah?" I said, faintly hearing a few strange and terrible notes of unholy music above the background screams and explosions of Brockton Bay. "That one?" I said, pointing at its tall and derelict shape, twisting up into the sky like that perverse Babel of long ago.
"It's an old tourist trap that closed down a decade ago. Someone built an exact replica of Blackpool tower in Brockton Bay. It's where the Merchants - Skidmark and his crew of dealers-"
"I know who the Merchants are fam."
Lisa looked at me like an Oxford Comma that wanted a treat. I made a gesture for her to carry on.
"Its where Skidmark and his crew of dealers used to hang out, before they made it big. Now they rent it out to some dumb German musician and a few students who like to use words like bohemian, exotic, and squamous whenever they're walking anywhere that hasn't been gentrified yet."
The doors of the van opened up, and Brian chucked me out. I landed with an oof, and was dusting myself off when Rachel landed on top of me.
"Good luck!" Alec called, putting his hand on Brian's shoulder.
I was dusting myself off a second in time when Rachel tossed a puppy sized van sized creature at me. Luckily, my power gave me reflexes so powerful that the PRT would surely one day spot them on a camera and go "That there am power that is!"
"It needs a little time to grow," Rachel said, as to the point and slightly feral as ever. Truly her ferocity knew no bounds. Her romulan upbringing had bestowed upon her bluntness at the cost of conversation.
"Are you okay?" she asked me.
"I'm fine," I said. "My dad beat up my bully's dad. I got a call from the school to say he was in detention and they were very disappointed in him."
"What about the bullies?"
"They didn't get detention, but I got told their parents got told they were very disappointed in them."
We reached the old and haunted tower, the strange and alien music echoing down from above, and sure enough there was a group of villains waiting for us.
Kaiser was first and foremost among them. Ornate and shiny armour, totally different while still being pretty much the fucking same really to the way it was two days ago. Fenja and Menja stood either side of him, wearing their finest "Girl in a fantasy story written by men" armour, with a red armband with like, a nordic rune in the middle or something, but they were both wearing them on opposite arms so they could go and do this whole twins thing. It was kinda lame.
"Who's that, Bitch?" I said, pointing at a girl with a sun design on her costume.
"I'm not a bitch!" the girl said, taking umbrage at my question.
"Apologies, I was simply asking my comrade, whose chosen cape name is Bitch. Isn't that right, bitch?"
"She's Sunspot," Bitch said, sounding a little annoyed. "With the Travellers?"
"Gotcha," I said.
Just behind Sunspot was two members of Faultline's motley crew. A half man, half amphibian freak of nature was hanging off the wall by his fingertips and toes, and a woman whose costume was covered in what looked like mazes was leaning against the same wall. Probably Labyrinth. She looked like she'd be named Labyrinth with hair looking that Bowie. Newter, the horrifying abomination with the faded orange skin, was wearing tattered jeans and had dyed his hair a jeans blue. Wait, no, he was just wearing a pair of denim booty shorts on his head.
"Glad you could join us Kiddo," Kaiser said. "Ready to beat up Lung for us?"
"Yeh fam."
5.4 - The Chapter That Came after 5.3
Kaiser, Fenja and Menja had all ducked into an alleyway. Bitch and her van sized creatures (which had grown to full size in the time between last chapter and this chapter) were disappearing around the far corner of the same building.
Ahead of me, a trio of people in ABB colors crossed the street. A guy and a girl who looked like they might have been gang members before it was cool. A teen who was about my age trailed behind them, looking too scared and worn out to be anything but someone's kid who'd just been dragged along. They were all armed. They were all azian too. One had a baseball bat with nails hammered into it. I wanted a bat like that.
Just behind them was the building that had to be our target. It was a dirty gray warehouse with the letters "That Azian Gang Is Not Here" spray painted on and around the loading bay door in an elaborate style that told me some gangers had way too much time.
"Hey!" I yelled. The scared kid with the bat turned to face me at exactly the right moment for my boot to hit his face. I spinning ninja kicked the woman in her gut, and after an elaborate leg sweep that knocked him to the ground I stomped on the face of that guy who'd been an azian before it was cool.
"ATTACK!" I yelled, after the fact. I'd sort of gotten ahead of myself. Still, now I had a spiky baseball bat. I'd like to see Emma Barnes have a go at me now.
Kaiser shook his head, and issued a complex hand gesture that suggested he was either going to go aroundiijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj the back and ATTACK! from there, but it could just as easily have meant he was going to go off into a bush with his two Valkyries and leave us undermen to go sort this shit out ourselves.
Me, Newter, Labby, and Sunspot collectively pointed at a point on the side of the building, and Rachel whistled and pointed at a spot slightly to the right of where we'd been pointing, sending her van sized creatures out to headbut it and claw it until they'd dug a hole big enough for themselves. Which was fine, even if we just wanted them to go in through the thin garage door we'd been pointing at.
We cartwheeled in through the hole Bitch had dug, into a room full of naked men and women covered in powdered sugar.
"Donuts!" I said, pointing at them.
Newter walked up to one and said hello. He greeted them faster than an enthusiastic waiter on a busy night, clearing his way through the lot of them before I could stop pointing.
The lot of them dropped to the floor faster than you could say "Aroundiijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjabouts."
5.6 - Oni Lee's Here
I sensed a presence I'd not felt in a long time.
"Lung!" I said.
"Lung?" Sundancer asked.
"And some loser who I've never felt before..."
"Sorry," Newter said.
"No, not you. You should be busy with Oni Lee."
"Oh no!" Newter said. He put his hands up and span on the spot, waiting for Oni Lee to show up. I knew his power was a mix between Multiple Man and Nightcrawler, but his copies were so lame they just gave up and died. He'd been using his power to create infinite dust so he could corner the market on litter boxes, but then he'd found out killing people was funner. And that whole "Nobody is allowed to make money except members of the Elite" thing that Earth Bet has always had going on, don't ask, long story.
You know what, fuck it. Apparently a secret cabal of wealthy bastards funded a few concerned individuals that themselves had pushed for legislation that would limit the ability of capes to damage the existing market practices of our society. Simultaneously, an entirely unrelated secret cabal of wealthy bastards with superpowers decided to... Oh god I was right this takes forever to explain. We'll get to this later I guess.
Sure enough, Oni Lee sashayed into the room. He struck a pose, and before Newter could slap him he was turning into dust. Newter coughed, choking on bits of Oni Lee. My god, that's what those naked people had been covered in. They were cutting Cocaine with Oni Lee!
An Oni Lee had appeared in front of Bitch, and handed her a grenade. She took it, and checked to see the pin was still there. She laughed, relieved, but an Oni Lee reappeared in front of her and grabbed the pin. Bitch shook her head at him, but Oni Lee nodded his head and teleported again. Bitch covered her mouth and lobbed the grenade off out the nearest window. But where had Oni Lee gone?
I suddenly felt a stabbing pain in my back. Something had stabbed me in the back with something. It hurt moderately.
"That moderately hurt," I said. A hand grabbed me by the shoulder as the blade was plunged deeper into me, exploding into a blossoming blooming bouquet of liquid pain.
"That was for Lung's balls, kiddo," Oni Lee whispered into my ear, waiting for me to drop dead or scream from the knife he was twisting inside me.
I didn't, fyi. How could I tell you a story if I was dead? Nope, I just stood there.
"Are you.... Are you not dead?" Oni Lee said, the raspiest and edgiest voice I'd ever heard sounding verily confuzzled.
"No you," I said sagely, raising my hand to stroke the chin of my mask. Because I knew that while he knew that I knew I had a knife in my back, Oni Lee didn't know that I knew he didn't know that he presently had his back to the hole in the wall we'd come through. And thanks to Coil we, happened to have some professional friends in some pretty high places.
BANG! went the high powered silenced legendary custom military grade hunting sniper rifle, followed by a distant and whispered "Just business, kid."
I was thrown to the ground by the shear shear shear shear powerful dreadful shear power of the impact of that fateful shot, sent rolling off into the other wall. I looked up through my legs to see Oni Lee poking at the kneecap sized hole in his leg. There was a distant sound like someone chambering another shot into something that probably used bolt action for balancing purposes, and Oni Lee melted into dust.
"Is he gone?" Newter said, coughing up a dragonfull of Oni Lee dust.
"He's gone!" Sundancer said, having done nothing to help.
"You haven't seen the last of me!" Oni Lee rasped, his voice faint and distant.
"No Sundancer," I said. "I don't think we've seen the last of Oni Lee..."
"No sirree..."
"Eeee..."
" ... .... .. .. ....... ...... ..... .. . ............... ... ... ........."
5.7 - Taylor Single Handedly Defeats Lung
I didn't like leaving Labyrinth behind after she did fucking nothing to try and help us with Oni Lee, but we totally left Labyrinth behind so she could tie up a few unconscious Lung Goons. I stressed the importance of not letting them run free. We didn't want them to keep turning up. Especially not naked Lung Goons. So we left easily the highest rated Shaker in Brockton Bay, Vista be damned, to carry out a menial task.
Me, Newter, Sundancer, and Bitch ventured upstairs after Bitch had finished shrinking her van sized creatures to the size of motorcycles so they could get up the stairs. Before we could reach the top, Newter was coughing his lungs up and complaining about if this counted as cannibalism.
"Of course it doesn't, you're an amphibian, not a human," I said, before realising how shitty that sounded of me. "Sorry," I added.
"Its okay," Newter wheezed.
"Stay here," I said, leaving Newter in the hands of Sundancer. I could take Lung. EDIT: She's wearing gloves at this moment in time, leaving Newter in her hands is okay.
The roof of the next room up had been torn off by two giant women, who were leaning in to poke at Lung's goons with pointed sticks. Lung was trampling this way and that, stepping around a floor covered in spikes just big enough for a giant lizardy person to have a hard time not stepping on.. He was big and looked nothing like anyone's drawings of him would be, no matter how specific I got with the description, so I'm just not gonna try. Suffice to say, Lung big, Lung strong, Lung scaly, Lung got a silly looking face.
Kaiser was in the middle of the fray, punching Lung's goons and making little noises as he did. Lung made a little step towards him, but a chunk of metal shot up towards him and Lung stepped back like a coward. It was in that moment of fright that Lung managed to spot me across the room. Sombre music swelled before dropping for one of those beats they leave for comedic effect.
"Not you again!" Lung said.
"It is I!" I said, striking a pose.
"You didn't do anything to him," Bitch said.
"No," I said. "But he got fucked up anyway. And it'll happen again!"
"Confound it Undersider!" Kaiser roared. "I thought you were going to annihilate this tall fire breathing lizard!"
Lung took a step back, standing up to his full height. I realised with horror that his monster form wasn't null. I saw terrible things in the half light of that room. Terrible, half rotten things. I never wanted to see my own again.
However many darts Armsmaster had shot him with must have done it, because Lung had been neutered. Wait. Neutered. Of course! Newter!
I grabbed Newter and yeeted him at Lung. Lung caught him, and looked at me. Lung raised an eyebrow at me. I leaned back and folded my arms. Lung looked at Newter, and scrunched up his eyes. Newter smiled at him, and Lung squeezed him tight enough to make his eyes bulge.
"How ironic," I said.
"What?" Lung said, loosening his grip on the newt man in his hands. I went to adjust my glasses, but too late did I realise that they were in fact, drawn on.
"Your name was Lung, but you were defeated by contact hallucinogens instead of inhalants."
Lung looked down at the newt in shock and dropped him, stepping carefully back.
"My sobriety," Lung said, staggering back and forth about the room. "I needed that to feel bad about myself!"
He managed a good ten more seconds of awkwardly walking before he slumped forwards and fell asleep. Without his leadership, Lung's Lung Goons scattered like the separatists before Nemesor Zahndrekh at the 5th battle of Vryndarkh or Vindork or wherever, like the geeks before Alexander the Great, like headless chickens at the sight of a headless chicken.
Kaiser clapped his hands together. "Good job! You really showed that worthless subhuman garbage what for!"
Everyone sort of looked at him. Kaiser made a little gesture using his throat that meant he either wanted us to cut Lung's head off, or he wanted takeout sauerkraut. Sure, Lung was unconscious, but he was also a forty foot long lizard man covered in shiny scales. My power was telling me we couldn't even if we tried.
"I wish I could've done something," Sundancer said.
"Nobody cares!" I said, walking carefully over to the body. I gave one of Lung's soft and vulnerable looking eyes a kick. "Cor, wouldn't it be a right larf if we just poked his eyes out with a stick and then fucked off?"
5.Wow We've Skipped Two of These
"Hey corporate puppets!" I said down the phone.
"Yes, this is the Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Team," a tired sounding woman said. "What is the nature of your Parahuman related emergency?"
"I just poked out Lung's eyes with a stick. He's fucking wasted mate, I need an ambulance here or he's gonna lose his nards again."
"Please don't waste the PRT's time."
"Why?" I shouted, glaring daggers in the general direction of the building in the middle of the bay part of Brockton Bay that was not officially the PRT's. "Have you got lots of turning innocent children into soldiers to get back to, pig?" I dramatically hung up on Lung's phone, and I was about to lob it up into the air and melt it with my amazing and astounding powers when I remembered what Victoria had done. Hate had ruled her mind then. And I wasn't about to let hate rule mine. No. No more senseless violence. Besides, this was a pretty sick phone. Hotpink clamshell smartphone. With plenty of credit on it too. Add that to the money in his pockets and I'd just made about two hundred bucks beating up Lung a second time. Toss that on the pile of gold I had in my room back at the hideout.
"I can't believe you poked out his eyes..." Sundancer said.
"Nah, me neither," Bitch said. She offered a hand for me to high five and I high fived it hard enough to make my hand hurt. "You're off the fucking chain."
"What is wrong with this earth..." Sundancer said, shaking your head.
"This is why I spend as little time here as possible," Labyrinth said, in a moment of solidarity with another waste of space cape that didn't take out none of Lung's goons.
"Well, that went well," Kaiser began. "At last the depraved and-"
I segued me and Bitch a few streets over so we didn't have to listen to the rest of whatever he was going to say. Then I segued back and got the dogs we'd forgotten. Then I sequed nowhere for good measure.
"So what now?" I asked, sequing on the spot..
"We could go back to the hideout and watch Revenge of the Binks again?" Bitch shrugged, saying.
And so we did, and there was much lying of one's legs atop one another's on the goat slash foot rest, as per the norm whenever two gays attempt to sit straight on a couch. Oh god, we're almost out of backlog.
Interlude 5 - The Happy Snail's Journey
I'm sure that Gregor the snail would be none too happy to know that once again, though noone would have believed it, minds immeasurably superior to his own were scrutinising him like the drop of water multiplying thing he resembled. Where once he was some statistic to mad scientists, now he is observed in the same fashion by madmen and madthems who view him as a tragedy. And slowly, surely, we are drawing our plans against him. Darn it. I've gone and got War of the Worlds stuck in my head again now.
Anyway, for now we must watch this translucent snail man go about his daily business, making the most of a life pointlessly ruined for the sake of something petty and small like trying to save the world.
His business today seemingly being getting teens to buy vodka for him. Maybe an "In Soviet Russia" joke was in order, but I find formulaic jokes to be the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to humour.
"Yo, this what you want?" the teenager with poor personal grooming habits and a hoodie to cover up his ugly mug said.
A snail man with nasty hands snatched the brown paper bag off him and clawed through packet after packet of beef jerky to find the real prize. Smirnoff. Strawberry Smirnoff. Noone could know that Gregor was drinking this revolting stuff, lest they might ask for a share. Not Newter, not Labyrinth, not even Faultline.
"Da," the snail man said. His voice was "slightly" accented, the words and sounds that of someone for whom English was a second language the first time around, and a first language the second time around. How ironic that a snail had a slug to blame for that.
He shoved a bunch of bills into the teen's bill, and went on his merry snaily way, wrapping his shell covered hands all around the cap of the bottle and undoing it. Just a sip. Just a quick one.
By the time Gregor had returned home, he was wishing he had made the kid buy him two bottles. Passers by called him drunk if they were nice to case 53s, or monster if they weren't, or fat if they were just plain mean. I mean really, this is the modern world, not everyone has the time to get jogging in. Regular exercise is a bourgouise luxury, stolen from the poor before being comodified by gyms and sold back to the masses. It takes effort to not put on weight. It takes effort for a healthy diet. And some people, like Gregor here, just had the wrong body. Not the wrong body to begin with, he was probably fine with himself before he was abducted and drugged and mutilated. Honestly, you'd have to be a real jerk to do something like that.
From a block away, you could see the Palanquin bouncing. That's how loud the music was. Enough to make a building throb like a heart. Ugly yellow neon letters spelt out the club's name.
They were lining up around the blockton just to get in. Gregor had no need of queues, and walked up to the bouncer.
"What the hell?" one of the girls near the front of the line complained, "We've been waiting for forty five minutes and you let that fat fuck through like that?"
Gregor raised a middle finger at the girl, showing off his gross slimy skeleton fingers.
"Come back when you look like this!" Gregor said, giving the doorman a brief hug in a gesture of thanks.
Gregor squeezed his way through dancers, aided in his struggle towards the stairs by his natural lubrication. The upstairs balcony was filled with girls, all flouncing over one another like cats on catnip. Only three people were more or less alert as Gregor approached. Two girls and a newt.
"Gregor, my man!" Newter said, extending a hand. Gregor slapped it. Da, dat was de stuff.
"I was just about to show these ladies a good time, want one?"
The lady in question gave Gregor a slightly disgusted look.
"Don't be like that. This is Gregor. He's made entirely out of gelatin. Its like sleeping with a waterbed. Ain't that right Gregor."
Gregor nodded.
"You can see right through this bad boy," Newter said, reaching a hand around the shoulder of the other girl. She promptly flopped to the floor, unconscious.
Newter sighed, shaking his head.
"You want smelling salts? I make smelling salts?" Gregor asked, but Newter waved him off.
"I'm fine," Newter said, his face desperate. "I'm doing just fine. Hey uh, why don't you see Faultline. She wanted to speak to you."
"Really?"
"Yeah, just uh, leave Laura here with me."
"Ok," Gregor said. He turned to leave, but a hand tugged on his shoulder, setting his body wobbling.
"Hey jello boy," the girl said.
"Hmm?" Gregor said.
The girl pressed a card into his hand.
"Call me."
Gregor smiled to his snaily self as he walked off to Miss Fitts's... Miss Fitt's... to the office of one Miss Fitts. Behind him he heard the thump of a woman dropping to the floor, and a sad cry of "Not again..."
Gregor opened the door to the office that belongs to Miss Fitts. Inside, Spitfire and Labyrinth were compromised atop a stone slab in the midst of a garden of green grass and grey cloudy skies.
"Wrong door!" Spitfire yelled, magma dripping from her lips and onto her bare chest, where as I understand it it changed magically into lava in the eyes of the pedantic.
"Sorry," Gregor said. He shook his head in embarrassment as he closed the door on the behind himself and walked that little bit further, to the office that belongs to Miss Fitts.
Miss Fitts was in her professional clothes; a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top three buttons undone, and black slacks tucked into shiny black riding boots with steel toes that made a big loud clacking noise when she walked. Her midnight black hair was tied back in a perfect ponytail. Her eyes carried a warning for those sensitive to flashing lights, alternating between red and blue with a violent and violet fashion. She had three cups and a half empty bottle of Strawberry Smirnoff on her desk in front of her.
"Watch this," she said, knocking back a shot. She took her spike covered hairpin out of her hair, letting the midnight black curls unfurl, and then she set the pin down on the table. Under one of the cups it went, and then she was spinning cups all about this way and that.
Miss Fitts lifted all three of the cups, one at a time. No hairpin. Gregor appreciated this. Gregor gave a little clap.
"How's Labby?"
"She was in her room with Spitfire."
"What is it with that girl and fucking pyromaniacs..." Miss Fitts said, taking another swig of her vodka, straight from the bottle. Gregor stared at her the whole while, envy in his beady eyestalks. "Where does she think she lives? In a club?"
Gregor made a little chuckle.
"Here, help me finish this off," she said, eyeing the half filled bottle. "Fuck! Where does it all go?"
"Maybe Cauldron stole?" Gregor said, extending a hand for the bottle.
"Of course they did!" Miss Fitts said, taking another swig. Gregor stared at the bottle of reasonable but well marketed fermented potato. "They're responsible for everything. They're the reason I was thrown out of university and everything. My thesis was too close to the real secrets!"
Gregor doubted Miss Fitts was telling truth there.
"Do you have another lead?"
"Of course I do. You remember Mayor Stanton?"
"The man that made ass of himself at Christmas party here?"
"I showed him a few photographs and asked him if he knew where a girl could get herself some superpowers."
"Really?" Gregor said. It sounded almost impossible.
"No, I zapped his clothes off and beat him up until he told me how his son got his powers."
"Won't he want revenge?"
"Yes, he will..." Miss Fitts explained as she reached into her drawers and pulled out a blonde wig. She grinned the grin of an aristocrat wearing a red coat and riding horseback who was just following tradition. "He sure will..."
