Neepa
Always pondering story possibilities
- Location
- Germany
Could this be the introduction of the party system? Or some botched variant of it?
Greg Veder vs The World (Worm x The Gamer)
- Thread starter ZFighter18
- Start date
- Crossover
-
- Tags
- worm greg veder gamer (litrpg)
- Location
- Ohio
I noticed the red hp thing, and how that felt off.
I did not notice the level though.
GREG Informational/Wildbow WOG
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
GREG Informational/Wildbow WOG
Something I'm crossposting from SB.
In all fairness, it was Emma's attempt to use Greg and prevent Taylor from getting any sort of positive boy-attention that kinda got away from her before she could realize it.
Second, it is WOG from WB himself that Greg will immediately forgive terrible behavior or forget a girl if another one shows him positive attention.
Here we go.
Everything I do with Greg is based off canon and this WOG.
The Worm Fandom seems to think Greg is a horrible dirty evil incel/GamerGater.
They're absolutely wrong.
If anything, Greg is a simp.
One of his cape names and one of his first actual quests was a hint to this.
WHITE KNIGHT.
Despite this, based off of the WOG that Wildbow gave me in a Reddit post 3 years ago that is now on the Worm wiki, Greg is one of the few actually good people in Worm.
He's an honestly nice 15 year old boy.
He just has some sort of development/social disorder.
Also, he's 15.
Something I'm crossposting from SB.
In all fairness, it was Emma's attempt to use Greg and prevent Taylor from getting any sort of positive boy-attention that kinda got away from her before she could realize it.
Second, it is WOG from WB himself that Greg will immediately forgive terrible behavior or forget a girl if another one shows him positive attention.
Here we go.
Everything I do with Greg is based off canon and this WOG.
The Worm Fandom seems to think Greg is a horrible dirty evil incel/GamerGater.
They're absolutely wrong.
If anything, Greg is a simp.
One of his cape names and one of his first actual quests was a hint to this.
WHITE KNIGHT.
Despite this, based off of the WOG that Wildbow gave me in a Reddit post 3 years ago that is now on the Worm wiki, Greg is one of the few actually good people in Worm.
He's an honestly nice 15 year old boy.
He just has some sort of development/social disorder.
Also, he's 15.
- Location
- Elsewhere
And really, that's punishment enough.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Genuinely good isn't some hidden inherent attribute that people have to dig for.
good is expressed in behavior or it's fucking meaningless. And not being willing to spend the effort to learn how to not make everyone around you not uncomfortable all the time is not "good."
Greg's behavior toward Garrote was wrong, full stop. Him not knowing better isn't really an excuse but even if it was it is the product of him repeatedly making the choice not to learn better for years beforehand.
he's a "relatively unobjectionable guy who lack social skills and may have some sort of disorder". There's a big gap between that and positively "good"
good is expressed in behavior or it's fucking meaningless. And not being willing to spend the effort to learn how to not make everyone around you not uncomfortable all the time is not "good."
Greg's behavior toward Garrote was wrong, full stop. Him not knowing better isn't really an excuse but even if it was it is the product of him repeatedly making the choice not to learn better for years beforehand.
he's a "relatively unobjectionable guy who lack social skills and may have some sort of disorder". There's a big gap between that and positively "good"
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm not sure immaturity in a fifteen year old boy can really be considered a choice, evidence of them having chosen not to learn some elementary skill their conscience should have motivated them to acquire.
One of the reasons legal minority is even a concept is that adolescent children just plain do not have what it takes, mentally and socially, to cope with the responsibilities and expectations of adult life. The implications of that can be far-reaching.
Now, I don't actually know what Greg did or didn't do in canon. Some actions are immoral enough that no amount of immaturity is an excuse. Maybe Greg did something like that.
But I don't think you can treat immaturity in a fifteen-year-old as an intentional choice, rather than a sign that they haven't yet reached the developmental level you'd like them to have reached.
...
To me it feels kind of like blaming a toddler for shitting themselves and not being potty-trained.
One of the reasons legal minority is even a concept is that adolescent children just plain do not have what it takes, mentally and socially, to cope with the responsibilities and expectations of adult life. The implications of that can be far-reaching.
Now, I don't actually know what Greg did or didn't do in canon. Some actions are immoral enough that no amount of immaturity is an excuse. Maybe Greg did something like that.
But I don't think you can treat immaturity in a fifteen-year-old as an intentional choice, rather than a sign that they haven't yet reached the developmental level you'd like them to have reached.
...
To me it feels kind of like blaming a toddler for shitting themselves and not being potty-trained.
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
Wrong? It made Garrote feel bad but the feeling of being catfished on the internet is a real one, especially with teenagers.
Garrote was well within her rights not to entertain Greg's requests, largely because it wasn't really possible, but Greg was also justified in cutting off a friendship with someone he never met due to feeling as if they were lying to him about their identity.
He didn't demand or threaten. He simply made clear he felt he was being lied to and stopped interacting.
"everyone around you"
That feels very biased. First of all, the story is largely from Taylor's POV and he never really made her feel uncomfortable so much as he got on her nerves. The few characters we see interacting with Greg generally ignore him and no uncomfortableness is noted, save from Greg himself in an early apperance when he realizes he did something wrong. That statement is often made by people talking about Greg in reference to the fandom but lacks actual support.
Not to mention, it's kind of like saying that someone on the spectrum who doesn't realize that some of their behaviors are annoying isn't a "good" person because they never learned that other people are annoyed by it.
Not gonna lie, he really didn't.
Annoying? Yes.
Stupid? Very.
In bad taste? Yes.
Nothing immoral tho.
It's an oddity I've noticed. People will say they "knew someone like Greg" and then attribute the bad feelings they have to those people to him.
It's created a fanon around him that doesn't make sense.
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Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This I agree with.
I mean, I've run into incels before, and Greg in Canon doesn't have that "I'm entitled to everything, especially sex, just because I was nice and paid attention to people" vibe that most incels have. Incels can be socially awkward people, but incels have that one extra thing that most normal socially awkward people don't have. Narcissism. Seriously, just look up the traits that a narcissist would have and incels' traits tend to overlap with the traits of a narcissist.
Greg doesn't even seem to act like Taylor SHOULD be into him just because he was only one of the few people who were nice to her in school. If anything, he seems willfully oblivious to the fact that Taylor's being bullied and an outcast, and seems in awe that Taylor still stuck around listening to him ramble on when most other girls didn't. He's just a massive motormouth who doesn't know when to stop and seems to be a socially inept guy to the point that he can't recognize social cues that tell him when others want him to stop talking. There are no signs of narcissism in him.
He reminds me more of a few guys I knew at the deaf school I used to go to as a kid. Some boys would have overprotective well-meaning parents who socially isolated them from other kids during their early years, fearing that other kids would harm them during playtime because in their minds their sons wouldn't be able to communicate when something got to be too much for them.
So as a result, those kids wouldn't have developed social skills most would've developed at around three years of age and stuff like that, which usually develops when you play with other kids/toddlers your age. things like how to read facial expressions, etc, so you'd know when somebody was feeling uncomfortable or not. so those boys would end up having to learn basic things like that when they're enrolled into deaf elementary school and stuff like that.
And it becomes harder for them if they also have disabilities on top of being deaf, like being autistic too. And yes, like Taylor I found them to be irritating at times but I'd never get the vibe that they were doing it to try to get into my pants or anything like that. They were just being overly friendly without realizing how obnoxious they came off as.
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
My case was weird: the more I learned about Greg the more I realized that the someone like Greg I knew was me. This meant that "look how horrible Greg is, let's gang up on him" wasn't really ever in my thought patterns, the way it seemed to be in other people's - but I knew enough about myself to realize that the reaction to Greg that other people had looked pretty justified.
(It probably didn't help that I knew several other people on the spectrum, and Greg reminded me a bit of them as well.)
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
I just find character bashing in general pretty stupid. Unless they, like, killed a puppy I'm not sure what real evidence people have? If the writer/author never says it/confirms it, people need to stop treating their assumptions as fact.
On a lighter note, I now imagine Sparky as a kindhearted animal lover who can't leave poor 'puppy' Greg alone.
On a lighter note, I now imagine Sparky as a kindhearted animal lover who can't leave poor 'puppy' Greg alone.
Lag 6.4a
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
Lag 6.4
He raked the fingers of his right hand down his face, eyes gazing upwards at the dark night sky as he let out an annoyed groan to follow the sigh. The things I do for these numbers. Turning his gaze back to the book resting on his lap, he shook his head and frowned at the ordeal in front of him. "Okay, let's do this again."
The words left him as nothing more than a statement, because he was speaking absolute fact.
Long was the nicest way to describe the book in front of him, honestly, and that was only after he had gotten fifty pages in. The author, who was probably doing his very best and wasn't that sad as hell, somehow managed to make one paragraph feel like an entire page with the way he wrote. Rambled on and on in his own way, the man had made each page seemingly loop back to the one before it, creating a convoluted mess of phrase and wording as he somehow managed to retread the same ground with slightly different terminology every 500 words.
He turned the book over in his hand, shaking his head as he spotted the unpicturesque face of a chubby bald man in a sweater vest attempting his best version of a relaxed smile in his author's photo, only to come off looking sweaty and constipated at the same time. Dr. Jeremiah Goldstein, PhD… Greg snorted aloud as he read the name, the man's picture too funny for him to look at for too long.
Imagine being boring and an asshole, the blond mused to himself, thinking back to how the literal egg-head of a professor himself had talked about his cape identity on national television. Not to mention bald too, he added as an afterthought, fingers coiled around a thick hank of his own hair. Greg didn't hold a grudge, though, not in the slightest. After all, the guy probably had his reasons for calling a brave young superhero all those mean names. Must suck to suck, Jerry.
Ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-
No sooner than the last chuckle had faded away did the ever-so-familiar noise make itself heard, screen after screen after screen after screen from his friendly system popping into semi-reality right in front of Greg's field of vision, almost as if aware the teenager might ignore the helpful notifications otherwise.
Considering the first thing the blond did was close his eyes and let out another long sigh followed by a rattling groan that would have been right at home in a zombie movie, the possibly-sentient game wasn't that far off. Right on time. Points for punctuality, game. After taking another few seconds to drag one hand down his face, Greg Veder let out another sigh before finally opening his eyes to face what he had been expecting for the last few hours.
The blond raised an eyebrow at those locations as he flicked each pop-up away with a lazy gesture, the neighborhoods actually not what he was expecting. Chinatown, Seoul Plaza, Little Tokyo, sure. Beachgate, East Hook, maybe. But these… His mouth pulled itself down into a slight frown. These are new attack spots. Empire spreading out?
The quest screens hung in the air as Greg stared at them with half-lidded eyes, gaze not even bothering with the actual text as he locked on to the rewards and suppressed a groan. Wow, throw me a bone, would you?
Whether it was due to the fact that these quests were repeatable - and boy, did they fucking repeat - or the fact that the Game considered Greg way too strong to receive much of a reward for what were basically chores at this point, the XP he had been receiving for them over the last couple weeks had been a fraction of what he had come to expect. Honestly, it probably had something to do with the 5 Perk Points he had dropped for Battle Concentration, if he really thought about it. Either way, it was kind of annoying. Not that he didn't wanna save lives or anything, but still… You could make it worth my while, you know that right?
His pleas for more went unanswered yet another night as a tinny beeping noise rang out from the pocket of Greg's jeans, rather loud in the relative silence of the open air. Letting out yet another sigh, this one of exasperation, the young blond reached into his pocket and opened the burner phone he had bought for just this purpose.
Raising it to his ear, he rolled his eyes at the person on the other end rattled off respectful greetings in rushed Japanese only to gain more than a hint of fear in their tone as they began telling Greg what he already knew.
"..."
"わかった。"(I know, I know.) the teenager replied, albeit in somewhat stilted Japanese. "台地、俺が何と言ったのか？わかった。"(Daichi, what the hell did I just say? I know.)
"..."
Rolling his eyes at the confused words he got in reply, Greg spoke up again, his impatience audible in his tone this time. "「わかりました」と言った。俺は理由のために払います。だから、仕事をしてくれ！(I told you that I know. I pay you for a reason so just do your job and I'll handle my part.)"
"..."
He nodded along impatiently, eyes half-lidded as he did his very best not to simply hang up at the continued unnecessary talking. " やれやれ,「あわてないで」と言ってくれたください。早く届くつもりです。そうして、問題はもうすぐ扱います。(Yeah, yeah, just tell everyone not to panic and that it'll all be over in an hour, tops.)"
"..."
"忘れないでくれ。倉庫の前アジトまつをめいじてください。(Also, don't forget. Have them meet up by the safehouse by the other storage place.)"
"..."
"重火器を使わないで。(No guns.)", he added, his tone firm this time. Definitely no guns. " 誰か恐慌して、俺を撃つはだめだ。ビジネスがおわりのあと、早く来ます。 ボッスンアウット。(I don't need anyone getting nervous and shooting at me again. I'll be there as soon as I'm done. Boss out.)"
A cool breeze blew his hair back from where he stood up on a rooftop, peering down at the view that was Brockton Bay's mostly-recovered Downtown. At least, what little he could see of it from the edge of the Downtown district. Night had already fallen hours before he had made his way over here just forty-five minutes ago, and the streets were as bustling with a liveliness that one wouldn't expect from a city that had just survived a mass bombing half a month ago.
"That's Brockton for you, I guess. Tough as nails," the blond muttered aloud to himself. "Still doesn't stop idiots from trying to tear it apart, though."
With a slight upward tilt to the flat expression he wore, Greg walked over to the edge of the rooftop, only coming to a stop as he raised one leg to rest a sneakered foot halfway on an overturned carton resting on the ledge itself. Both eyes flicked from side to side as he looked out into the distance in the direction that was the waterfront, eyes flickering a bright gold each time he chose to blink.
Several long seconds later, he spoke again. "...Inventory."
Even before the last syllable left his lips, a bright blue glow surrounded his body, rendering his form indistinct to any possible viewers. A literal second later, it faded away, the teenager's bare face and casual clothes replaced by a jet-black domino mask, a dark button-up motorcycle jacket with sleeves folded back and sewn up to his forearms, a large belt of the same color hanging from his hips and similarly colored, thickly-armored motorcycle pants. A long scarlet scarf was wrapped around the bottom half of his face and neck, long ragged ends fluttering in the wind, and motorcycle gloves of the same color covered his once-bare hands.
Another flash of blue surrounded his right hand a moment later, Greg raising that same hand up in the air as the light faded, exposing the form of the jagged, chipped nodachi that now rested on his shoulder. Sliding his arm back till the sword lay flush with his back, he let it go and allowed the blade to simply stay attached where it was.
The blond took a few more steps forward, kicking the carton off to the side as he stood on the very edge of the roof, looking down at the busy street below. "Wait…" Greg tilted his head to the side for a moment, a look of sudden realization on his face. "Almost forgot…"
His free hand swiped in front of his face in a flash of blue light as quick as the others, a solid black skull faceplate appeared over his domino mask. "Hardkour's gotta strike fear into the heart of evil, right?"
With that, he let a smile spread across his face, arms stretched out at his sides as wind blew his hair back, the sounds of Brockton Bay's nightlife hitting his ears as he simply took it in.
With a deep breath and an open grin just beneath his skull mask, he slowly leaned forward.
And just like that…
He fell.
The sudden downward drop was slowed moments later as a pair of surprisingly adhesive soles met the sides of the building, his fall becoming a downwards facing run for a few thrilling seconds. Immediately afterwards, Hardkour leapt off the side of the building in a burst and blur of motion, launching himself like a missile towards the nearest building.
Clearing the roof of a five-story brownstone with ease, the costumed blond met the side of another building and ran along its side at inhuman speeds in perfect and complete ignorance of the concept of gravity. Jumping again and again, he bounded from building side to building, relatively weak flares of his Reinforcement sending him ever further and faster with every single leap.
Traveling like this had become commonplace to him, the movement style distinct from the glowing, near-flight leaps that a certain White Knight had shown off during the day. Bouncing from rooftop to rooftop and running along building sides like a ninja were less likely to get him spotted but they also helped separate his identities as well. The news had been looking for him for weeks now, almost as eagerly as they chased after sightings of his more knight-like persona, but when it came to avoiding them, he had learned how to move unseen and discreetly…
Hardkour jumped yet again, his arc sending him right towards a flagpole jutting out from the side of a building. Both arms reached out and his face exploded into a grin as he made contact, body moving with his momentum as he spun and spun and spun, his entire figure almost a blur. With a burst of manic laughter, the blond let go and let himself fly high up into the air again, whooping like a madman as he did so.
… Somewhat discreetly, at least.
Finally done, he thought to himself as he leapt into the air from a rooftop several blocks away from four now-unconscious Empire thugs. It had been as easy as usual, as simple as something like that gets, at least. But then again, fighting the guys causing trouble was never the hard part anyway.
Nah, it was all about finding them.
It may not sound like much, but a whole neighborhood was a lot of ground to cover, especially when you were only looking for less than half a dozen people. Moving just a bit too fast when it came to looking for his targets meant people could end up in the hospital. Hell, the morgue even.
Well… the wrong people.
Smirking at his own little joke as his sneakered feet met the edge of a rooftop, Hardkour kicked up enough speed to turn his limbs into a blur and raced to the other edge in the blink of an eye. While the rooftop may not have been designed for highway speeds, it didn't much matter as he was already in the air again with a powerful leap, the wind rushing around him with blistering speed as his scarf flared out behind him like a cape.
Loud night tonight though. Almost never this heavy with the idiots. The thought was enough to make him pause as he alighted on a brick wall, his back and the soles of his feet staying firmly in place as he simply sat on the wall. Seriously, though, ten guys in one night? Half a dozen fires? Talk about wei-
"Pleasesomebodyh-!" "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
"HELP!"
The hell? His head snapped to the side and, already moving without a single complicated thought in his head, Hardkour pushed off the brick wall behind and bounded through the air towards the call for help.
Moving like a maniac, he was there in literal moments, knees bending with the sudden impact as he touched down feet-first just outside an alley. The blond threw out his arms, clicked his heels together and bowed, eyes never leaving the figures in front of him as he wore a fake smile no one even saw. "And he aces the dismount!" They all remained frozen in place at his sudden appearance, the street silent as a grave. Even then, he didn't need the power to read thoughts to know the word on everyone's minds. Cape.
Besides the trembling woman on her knees, the frightened children in her arms and the Chinese man clutching his clearly bleeding nose and battered face alongside them, there were four of them directly in front of him and two a bit further away; a chubby bottle blond in nothing more than a white t-shirt and dark jeans standing shoulder to shoulder with a pimply-faced dude wearing a ratty windbreaker, a tired-looking man in black motorcycle leathers from head to toe with a long scar edging up the right side of his face and stopping right under his eye standing front and center, and a bit behind him to the left, a rail-thin guy in a wife beater, this one looking far too twitchy to not be on any drugs.
Right behind the four of them stood a very tall and overly-muscled skinhead in literally nothing else but denim shorts and a pair of white sneakers. Standing bald head and shoulders above the rest, he proudly sported a black lightning-shaped tattoo on the right side of his well-defined chest as he leaned up against the trunk of the car parked halfway on the curb. Trying his best to look tough was a much smaller man with an unfortunate haircut standing right beside him, small even by a teenager's standards and wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest.
All of them were young, none of them probably anymore than nine or ten years older than him, and like he expected, every one of them was armed with a handgun, the bottom of the weapon visible sticking out each of their waistbands. Oh, boy.
The funny thing about the Empire, more than any other gang within the city, was the simple fact that they were all about their image. Their most publicly seen capes; Kaiser, The Wonder Twins, Purity, were all shiny, bright, well-spoken and… well, you could assume good looking but with capes and masks, no one could really say that for sure.
Regardless, the Empire capes most of the public could name by heart were as clean-cut as a Nazi super-gang could expect to be. Even the less talkative ones like Krieg, Stormtiger, Crusader and even Hookwolf managed to be surprisingly well-behaved… again, for Neo-Nazis. at least. More than that, all of them were reined in compared to every other villain in Brockton Bay.
Still, no matter how good the capes looked, it did not help when a large chunk of their non-powered members couldn't seem to go two days without kicking in the teeth of anyone with a skin tone darker than a brown paper bag.
If they weren't beating people up, they were shattering windows, breaking down doors, stealing whatever wasn't nailed down and setting the place on fire… and sometimes, not even the middle two. A lot of them seemed to have taken it to heart that his territory was theirs to run wild in at night, or in the early early morning… or every single time Greg felt like he could take a moment to himself. With the fact that Brockton PD didn't even seem to register calls from the formerly-ABB held neighborhoods anymore, he knew for a fact that people could die if he didn't make his way down there in time.
Pretty much like what was going on right now.
Couldn't make this one easy for me, huh? he thought to himself as he slowly rose from his bow. Yeah, sure, put a whole family right in the splash zone. That's fair. He let out a huff of air as he finally stood up straight and angled his head at the gangsters. "Hey, guys, I know I'm late but… you started without me?"
Not a single Empire flunky spoke, all of them simply sharing increasing looks of worry at each other and the cape in black-and-red didn't miss a single one. The one in motorcycle leathers did his very best to keep his expression still even as his hand twitched towards the visible gun at his waist. Despite the anger in his glare, it wasn't hard for Greg to notice the wariness on the man's face much like the other three, all of them obviously recognizing the distinctive red of his long-ass scarf. Two weeks of this mayhem had gotten him something of a reputation with the Empire, he was sure of it.
"You want something… c-cape?" The scarred man spat the last word out like a slur, answering back in a voice that would put some baritones to shame. Despite that, he couldn't keep his voice from wavering. For a fleeting moment, Greg found himself wondering just how many of the man's friends he had personally put in the hospital but the thought quickly passed as his attention turned to what was actually important.
"First, the name's Hardkour - k, o, u, r, make you sure get that right when your boss hears about this - but also, good question," the self-titled Hardkour answered back with a smile that went unseen from behind his scarf. "Gimme a sec to think about it." He raised a hand up to his chin for a few seconds, pretending to actually think about it before going, "Ah! I remember now. What I want is for you to let these good people go."
"Wh-"
Hardkour took a single step forward, a single finger up to the place his mouth would be under his scarf and Scarface shut up immediately.
"Mr. Lin, I'm gonna need you to escort your family away from here, please."
A brief pause filled the air as the injured man took a moment to process that he heard his name, looking more shocked and frightened than he had been when Greg first landed, if such a thing was possible. "H-how did y-"
Repeating the gesture that quieted Scarface had the same effect on the trembling man, Greg didn't say another word as he just stared at him from behind his mask. After a few seconds of silence, the family man simply nodded as he got to his feet and pulled his wife up alongside him. Mouthing a 'thank you' to the cape that saved his family, he began to move as quickly as he could manage, one of his children in his grip as his wife held the other. Greg simply nodded back and moved to stand in place of the family as they scurried away down the sidewalk.
"So," Hardkour tilted his head as he spoke, slowly glancing at each one of them in turn. "Now that that's out of the way… I'll make you a deal. You go back to your boss and tell him that Lung's territory is mine now. In exchange, I won't jack up your insurance premiums." Like I even know what that means.
The four of them nearest him shared another look and for a second, the cape felt that they might actually surrender for once.
Then Chubby went for his gun.
Hardkour was in motion the instant the handgun left the waistband, a thunderous 'bang' filling the air as he grabbed hold of the man's wrist in a lightning-fast lunge and swung it and the weapon he held into the air. What might have been the sound of all the bones in his forearm cracking went unheard as Chubby screamed loud enough to wake the dead.
Shots rang out as Hardkour leapt into the air, pulling off several unneeded flips and twirls as bullets from opposite directions raced right through the spot where he had stood a second ago. Landing in a cartwheel, Greg pushed off the ground with both hands and launched himself feet first at the nearest gunman.
From Greg's perspective, he took his time moving toward the next shooter, barely moving at a fourth of his un-enhanced top speed as he zig-zagged to stay out of the actual path of fire. Despite that, he knew Hardkour must have seemed impossibly fast as a certain twitchy bastard fired like a maniac at the places he had been, screaming incoherent curse words all the while tears streamed down his face.
Twitchy's gun clicked empty as Hardkour neared him, to his obvious panic. With only a split second of hesitation, the man whipped out a knife from his pocket and slashed at the cape as he came within reach.
His dodges were lazy, Hardkour barely having to lean and flop out of the way of the man's pointless stabs and slashes as Twitchy did more damage to the air than him. After a few seconds of this became boring, he quickly repaid the man's wasted effort and annoyingly loud gunfire with a jab to the solar plexus as light as he could manage. And there go his ribs, Greg thought with a wince. I really gotta get better at that.
Scarface wasn't able to finish whatever he possibly could have said as the cape appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye, the flat of his palm impacting the man's chest. Before he could even so much as scream, the grown man slammed back into the now-cracked windshield of the car directly behind him, either unconscious or unable to move.
Wait… The teenager blinked as he realized that the man hadn't even tried to fight him let alone went for his gun at all. As if to drive home the point, the pistol in Scarface's waistband fell loose and clattered onto the asphalt, forcing a wince from the young cape. "... sorry?" Should I be apologizing? The guy is Nazi scum but I kinda feel like I should. Uhhh…
Holding back the urge to groan at his mistake and wondering if he should, Greg spun around as his Danger Sense buzzed again, the sensation almost like a whisper this time. He raised an eyebrow as he watched the retreating back of the shrimp that had hung back from the fight, the guy already half a block away. Huh. Okay, I guess.
Not bothered at one guy escaping, Greg shifted his gaze to the last guy left, raising an eyebrow as the man just now got down from his seat on the trunk of the car. They never learn, do they?
The bare-chested man stood about half a dozen meters away from Greg with an eager grin on his face, all six feet and seven inches of him. His hand inched toward the silver gun visible in the pocket of his jean shorts, the action eliciting nothing more than an eye roll from Greg. But I guess if they did, they wouldn't still be Nazis, right?
From a standstill, the skull-masked blond rushed towards the skinhead at speeds more comparable to a car on the highway than a human being. Before the man had time to blink, he landed a single punch directly to the thug's chest and, like Greg expected, his target went tumbling backwards head over heels.
-1
"...ow."
The blond blinked in confusion as the word left his mouth before he realized it.
"What the..." He raised his still clenched fist up, the slight stinging sensation from his knuckles already gone as soon as he noticed it. Did that actually kinda-sorta hurt me? Enough to drop him down a couple points of health, it seemed. Certainly enough to be felt, that was certain.
"Hehehehe."
The sound of a much deeper voice giggling pulled him out of his own thoughts and Greg glanced back at the hairless figure he had just punched hard enough to send sprawling a few good meters away as the man pulled himself to his feet. A slight glow surrounded him for a moment, the light color already fading to nothing as he got back up.
What the- A pair of blue eyes widened for a moment before narrowing again, sudden realization coming over him as the costumed teenager let out a sigh. "... cape?"
Muscles nodded. "Yeah. Just a couple days ago."
Greg met that answer with a nod, actually feeling somewhat excited after weeks and weeks of chore-like Empire clean-up. The fact that normal people went down in one hit now was honestly one of the most boring parts of all of it. At the very least, this might be fun. "First cape fight? I'm just guessing 'cause I've never heard of you."
The grin on the man's face grew at the question, looking almost manic as he began to slowly walk forwards. "Yeah, y-yeah, haven't told nobody either." With every step he took, the grin grew as his gaze flickered between his own hands and the cape standing away from him, seemingly gaining confidence from the fact Greg had yet to move. "I was actually hoping it would be Assault, y'know. But you're good enough, I guess."
The teenager quirked an eyebrow. "Good enou-"
Hardkour ducked back reflexively as Muscles rushed forward at surprising speed, the man crossing almost half a dozen meters in a fraction of a second and already prepared to swing. With barely a moment's thought, he retaliated immediately, barely holding back as he thrusted with his open palm right into the man's torso.
The meathead flew from the strike, landing back-first on the asphalt several feet away with a groan. Pain, and more than anything else, shock was clear on his face as he glanced back up at the teenager staring directly at him, eyes visible behind his skull mask flickering with a chilling blue light.
[Analyze.]
"Was this really your best idea?" Greg replied, mocking tone in full force.
Rather than answer, Muscles jumped to his feet with a rough shake of his bald head, the glow around his body intensified enough for the young cape to catch it again. Just like that, the Neo-Nazi charged forward once more, to Greg's slight surprise.
He's… faster?
A bit faster, Greg confirmed, but not so much that he was able to dodge the full-force standing kick that slammed into his bare chest the instant he closed the distance. In fact, as the man literally went flying like a javelin even further back than the way he came, the teenager found himself doubting Muscles ever even saw the hit coming.
"I just wanna go home, big guy," he called out to the Empire cape, hands cupped over his mouth. The blond's smile began to lessen as Muscles bounced back to his feet seemingly no worse for wear, the pale white glow around him seeming to stick this time. "How about we end it here and call it your loss? I'll only brag about it a widdle bit."
Six feet and seven inches of grown man stared down the younger cape with that same shit-eating grin on his face, breaths coming in heavy pants that clearly came from anticipation as opposed to exhaustion. Once again, the mountain of a man rushed forward, moving even faster for the second time in a row.
Alright, you wanna play? The teenager smirked behind his scarf. "Let's play."
He burst forward with the raw natural speed as he had become accustomed to under his Hardkour persona, not a single hint of yellow light to be found anywhere. He closed the miniscule distance between them in a heartbeat and met the musclehead in the middle, their clash coming to a sudden halt. Greg shot a hand out to catch the large fist in his palm with nothing more than a slight grunt of effort on his part and pushed back easily. As he stared back at the cape opposite him with mirth in his eyes, the blond took a moment to relish the confused look slowly wiping away the Nazi's eager grin.
Only a moment, though.
With a yell, Muscles struck out with a heavy punch that would have broken the bones of any normal person, yet his smaller opponent caught it with his forearm with only a barely audible groan. Without hesitation, Greg retaliated before the Brute in front of him could blink, launching several blurred jabs into the skinhead's face and midsection, the man's white glow growing more distinct and solid with each single blow. Each strike stung his fists a little more, the field around the man growing denser with each impact and Greg could only confirm this as the numbers bleeding from his own health worryingly began to near the double digits.
He felt a growl rise in his throat, the urge to draw on Reinforcement and cut the fight short growing. With great effort, Greg pushed the thought away, not trying to send the man's head flying off with an errant punch. Muscles took the moment of hesitation to charge again, glow intensifying for a moment as he managed to land a hard punch that caught the teenager on the bottom of his jaw.
- 75
"Fu-!" It was a punch like one he hadn't felt in a while, Greg noted with a dazed blink. As his head snapped back from the strike, Greg bit back a curse and wrenched down the red scarf around his face, letting go of his Surface Adhesion to let it fall down fully around his neck. With a slight sound of amusement, the blond spat a mouthful of blood onto the street. Baring his stained teeth at Muscles in a grin, he gave the man a motion with one hand that anyone and everyone knew meant "bring it."
Muscles' eyes lit up with a fire and the man stormed forward in a bullrush that was surprising even to Greg, faster than what he had come to expect from him. Covering ground at a superhumanly fast pace, the skinhead threw another fast punch and the glow from his field brightened, solidifying around his fist in particular. With ease, Hardkour dodged the easy to read strike before he slammed a hard elbow into his opponent's broad chest, knocking him back a step or two.
"Not happening, tough guy!"
With a lunge, Greg grabbed hold of the man's shoulder and pulled him in close.
Another pained wheeze left the fighter as a final hard blow in the form of a swift gut punch met his unprotected stomach, depriving him of even more air. Several hundred pounds of skinhead doubled over, the thug retching and hacking as he was hit with force equivalent to a battering ram. The blond's grin returned for a single second only to fade just as quickly as he noticed the shield around his large opponent solidify again as he staggered around on unsteady legs, the off-white light visible around him like full-body armor as Muscles tried to catch his breath.
He's not bleeding. Barely even a bruise. The thought came to Greg immediately as he took in his gasping opponent, the man's skin barely even blemished under the light of his field. He's not hurt. Why is he not hurt?
[Analyze.]
How the f- Greg paused, shoulders visibly slumping as he realized something very important.
He's getting stronger, isn't he? The teenager let out an audible sigh, actually feeling a little annoyed after getting actual confirmation of how little damage he was doing to a literal jumped-up mook.
Guess we're doing this now. The irritated Hardkour charged the winded villain wannabe, slamming into the grown man with full force. Muscles slammed into the side of an abandoned car, someone having made off with the wheels sometime ago, and slid to the asphalt with his face having left a dent into the door. A moment later, he let out another grunt as over two hundred pounds of teenage boy slammed into his back.
"Hey, buddy," Greg called out from on top of him, tone as mocking as ever. "I just want you to know that this hurts me way more than it's gonna hurt you."
In a single movement, Greg grabbed the man's burly right arm as it flailed back, held it like a vise and-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
-snapped it backwards like a twig.
"That was also a lie."
Impressively, Muscles didn't pass out from the pain. Then again, he was a cape. Instead, he screamed as loud as his lungs could manage and bucked upwards like a raging bull. At the exact same moment, the off-white shield around the man bulged around his skin, fragmenting like glass for a single moment, before it ruptured outwards with the force of a grenade.
"Jesus Ch-" The words died on his lips as Greg was hurled off almost immediately, thrown from the Empire cape's back and launched away as his shield exploded.
-125
Recovering with a quick flip, Greg landed like a cat several meters away, a bit unsteady on his feet but not too worse for wear. "What the hell are your powers, man?"
The blond shook his head quickly and, after taking a moment to blink away the spots in his vision, he glanced back up to witness the other cape still howling on the street, head up against the car as he cradled his nigh-useless arm. "You know what, don't answer that."
As Hardkour took another step forward, his eyes flashed a bright blue again as he called upon his most-used skill.
[Analyze.]
Shield down? Nice.
"I'm sorry", Greg spoke up again, a smile visible beneath the skull he wore. He took a single step closer to the grown man bawling on the ground in a position that was almost fetal. "Did it really hurt that much? I've had a couple broken limbs, y'know. You don't see me-"
CRACK!
"-crying about it!"
Hardkour's leg snapped out at the same moment as Muscles' leg snapped in, the man's tibia fracturing with a sickening sound and forcing another level of scream to erupt from the man's mouth.
-2
There's the rebound, he noted with a frown. Shield's coming back. The skull-masked teenager squatted down next to the insensate gangster and grabbed the man's thick neck with both hands. "Let's make this quick, big guy. The faster you sleep, the faster I get what I want." With a grunt, he slammed Muscles' head forward into the side of the car directly in front of him with as much force as he could muster.
BANG!
Muscles screamed again, thrashing against Greg's hold as his face met steel. "Oh, shut up, would you?"
BANG!
Another dent formed, a deep indentation that would have been almost a perfect mold of the gangster's face if only steel was a good bit more pliable. Still, he thought with a grin, nothing wrong with trying, right?
Hardkour raised Muscles' head up again ready to continue his attempts to beat the man into unconsciousness when he suddenly paused, aware of a familiar buzz at the back of his thoughts. The blond's eyes widened and he jumped back and away, intent on avoiding whatever trick the cape under him was about to pull…
-200
Only to bite down on his tongue as something slammed into him from behind.
Hard.
Whatever it was sent him flying back in the complete opposite direction, tumbling head over heels in the most literal of ways. It was a literal second later that Greg met ground, or wall in this case, with a hard smack of leather against brick as his back met a building side. It barely hurt, relatively speaking, as he had been hit with far far far worse and barely even screamed, but the sheer power behind it was enough to knock the wind out of him.
Okay. Okay. Oh. Kay. No such thing as a simple night, I guess. With a quick inhale, the teenager allowed himself to glance up, hoping to catch sight of whatever it was that sent him flying.
After a moment, he blinked.
He blinked again.
The urge to rub his eyes like a cartoon character popped into his head, only ignored by the power of his common sense and the fact that he was wearing a mask made it pointless.
Either way, Greg seriously doubted rubbing his eyes for hours would manage to erase the fact that two Protectorate heroes stood not too far from where he was, before someone had so rudely knocked him out of the air.
Assault, in the dark visor and red-armored costume that only an idiot could mistake for Velocity's, glanced from Muscles' half-knocked out form to where he now rested, slumped up against the wall of a boarded up… convenience store?
Maybe. It was hard to read the sign from here.
Battery stood only a few paces in front of her partner, glowing blue circuit lines of her gray costume slowly growing brighter.
This is a thing now and I still don't know who hit me… but I'm pretty sure I can make a really good guess, though. He thought with an outward sigh, eyes focusing on Battery. When is this mission gonna end so I can dip out of here?
"So, before like, you know, you hit me again," Hardkour began slowly as he took his time rising to his feet, eyes firmly placed on both Assault and Battery as they stood there in combat-ready poses. Well, Battery more than Assault. The red-clad cape kinda just stood there with his arms crossed over his chest as his partner held her fists up, quite obviously raring to go. "Can I just ask…"
He trailed off, hands up in the air.
"What?" Assault responded, after a few awkward moments of silence.
Greg nodded in his direction. "Exactly. What. The hell… was that for? You just attacked me out of nowhere? What was that all about?"
Battery loosened her stance slightly as she shifted forward a few steps. "You're wanted by the PRT under suspicion of homicide."
"Couple dozen suspicions, actually," Assault chimed in, the man leaning back slightly as he tapped the heel of his foot against the street. "Been a real busy bee, huh, kid?"
The hell? Couple… couple dozen murders? Greg's blue eyes widened behind his mask, legitimately confused as to what the two capes were even talking about. A second later, he told the pair as much. "Dude," He paused, glancing over at Battery in an attempt to be respectful towards the experienced heroine who thought he was a criminal, "dudette…"
Assault let out a slight cough at that, one Greg decided to ignore.
"...with all due respect, I have no frickin clue what you're talking about," he continued, both hands still in the air. "I'm a hero just like you." After a moment, he added on to that. "Well, I don't exactly work for 'The Man' y'know, but I'm a hero without a paycheck."
He paused and tilted, raising his raised hands even higher in the best approximation of a shrug he could manage. "Technically, that kinda makes me more of a hero, if you think about it?"
Assault raised a fist to his mouth, that same cough returning with a vengeance.
Battery shot the man a quick look, her mouth turned down into a vicious scowl, before fixing her gaze back on the cape opposite both her and her partner. "Are you the cape known as Hardkour?"
"...You've heard of me?"
Battery seemed to take that as a yes, judging by the way her jaw tightened and she barged forward with her questioning. "Are you also the same individual who engaged in combat with Oni Lee on Wednesday, April the Twentieth?"
"...To save Shielder and his hot sister, yeah, that's me."
Both Battery's stance and expression tightened, the woman raising her fists again. "As I said before, you are wanted by the PRT under suspicion of murder of several members of the Azn Bad Boys."
Hardkour blinked rapidly. Ohhhhh shit. I remember… that was me, yeah.
"First of all…" he let out a long breath of air to buy time as he rushed for what to say, "you actually didn't say that before."
The coughing fit behind Battery went unremarked on once again, despite Assault seemingly in the midst of hacking up a lung by the sound of it.
"Second…" he continued, "I have no idea how you could possibly think that was m-"
"A figure in black was spotted leaving several crime scenes," Battery interjected, obviously intent on shutting him down. "You also have a sword on your back, the same as that individual."
The teenager nodded along with her words, trying his best not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation he was currently. Wanted for murder… wow. I am so freaking boned right now. Keeping his face as still as he could manage, Greg spoke up again. "Hm. Hm. Hm. You make good points but, hear me out... I disagree with them."
"In that case," Assault chimed in, tilting his head to the right to mimic Greg. "We're still gonna have to bring you in for the assault of a Ward. Y'know, the altercation with Shadow Stalker?"
Oh come on! Hardkour's mouth dropped open in shock at those words. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. That was an accident." He shot back immediately, pointing one finger at the other male cape. "Hell, she attacked me first!"
Assault let out a long interested-sounding noise. "So, you're confessing that it was you?" He tilted his head in the other direction, an amused tilt coming into his voice. "Personally, I just guessed but again, good to know."
… okay, he's good. Greg blinked, suddenly feeling very unsure of himself. He is very good. Note to self; don't answer his questions.
"Although, if that wasn't enough," Assault spoke up again, gesturing with a thumb to the drooling form of Muscles the Neo-Nazi slumped against a dented car to his right. "We also got you on attempted murder and excessive use of force."
"Attempted murder? On that guy?" Greg found himself scoffing, his mouth moving before the rest of him. "Don't be crazy. He's a Brute. He'll be fiiiiine…"
Muscles chose that moment to chime in with a noise that was somewhere between a groan, a scream and outright sobbing. Some might call it a death rattle but Greg was more optimistic than most, so he didn't.
"... with medical assistance. He'll be fine with medical assistance."
Assault pointedly glanced at the other Empire members lying in various positions up and down the small street, a few who were actually still groaning in pain, Greg now found himself noticing. After looking at each one in turn, the Protectorate hero glanced back at Hardkour, expression unreadable behind his visor.
"In my defense, I forgot those guys even existed until right this second."
For the first time, Assault finally gave in, his mouth twitching for a second or two before the red-clad cape let out several loud barks of laughter that the man didn't even bother to pretend away as a simple cough this time.
Honestly, it was for the best.
Greg was kinda getting tired of pretending he didn't notice.
"Puppy, I think I like this kid."
+10000 XP
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Greg Veder pushed a loud sigh out of his mouth, the sound launched deep from within his chest with hours of frustration serving as powerful propulsion. He closed his eyes for a moment, a finger and thumb on his left hand kneading the bridge of his nose. "Jesus Christ, why did I pick this book? I could have chosen any other smart-looking book but I went with this one."
He raked the fingers of his right hand down his face, eyes gazing upwards at the dark night sky as he let out an annoyed groan to follow the sigh. The things I do for these numbers. Turning his gaze back to the book resting on his lap, he shook his head and frowned at the ordeal in front of him. "Okay, let's do this again."
"Yeah, no, I can't. I literally can't. I have lost the ability and will to can." Greg swiped the book from his lap with one hand and began shaking it like a rag, the freshly-bought paperback somehow managing to rewrite the definition of boring. "It's not even worth the stats. Holy fuck, is this thing long for no reason."
The words left him as nothing more than a statement, because he was speaking absolute fact.
Long was the nicest way to describe the book in front of him, honestly, and that was only after he had gotten fifty pages in. The author, who was probably doing his very best and wasn't that sad as hell, somehow managed to make one paragraph feel like an entire page with the way he wrote. Rambled on and on in his own way, the man had made each page seemingly loop back to the one before it, creating a convoluted mess of phrase and wording as he somehow managed to retread the same ground with slightly different terminology every 500 words.
He turned the book over in his hand, shaking his head as he spotted the unpicturesque face of a chubby bald man in a sweater vest attempting his best version of a relaxed smile in his author's photo, only to come off looking sweaty and constipated at the same time. Dr. Jeremiah Goldstein, PhD… Greg snorted aloud as he read the name, the man's picture too funny for him to look at for too long.
Imagine being boring and an asshole, the blond mused to himself, thinking back to how the literal egg-head of a professor himself had talked about his cape identity on national television. Not to mention bald too, he added as an afterthought, fingers coiled around a thick hank of his own hair. Greg didn't hold a grudge, though, not in the slightest. After all, the guy probably had his reasons for calling a brave young superhero all those mean names. Must suck to suck, Jerry.
Ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-ping-p-
No sooner than the last chuckle had faded away did the ever-so-familiar noise make itself heard, screen after screen after screen after screen from his friendly system popping into semi-reality right in front of Greg's field of vision, almost as if aware the teenager might ignore the helpful notifications otherwise.
Considering the first thing the blond did was close his eyes and let out another long sigh followed by a rattling groan that would have been right at home in a zombie movie, the possibly-sentient game wasn't that far off. Right on time. Points for punctuality, game. After taking another few seconds to drag one hand down his face, Greg Veder let out another sigh before finally opening his eyes to face what he had been expecting for the last few hours.
Huh.
The blond raised an eyebrow at those locations as he flicked each pop-up away with a lazy gesture, the neighborhoods actually not what he was expecting. Chinatown, Seoul Plaza, Little Tokyo, sure. Beachgate, East Hook, maybe. But these… His mouth pulled itself down into a slight frown. These are new attack spots. Empire spreading out?
The quest screens hung in the air as Greg stared at them with half-lidded eyes, gaze not even bothering with the actual text as he locked on to the rewards and suppressed a groan. Wow, throw me a bone, would you?
Whether it was due to the fact that these quests were repeatable - and boy, did they fucking repeat - or the fact that the Game considered Greg way too strong to receive much of a reward for what were basically chores at this point, the XP he had been receiving for them over the last couple weeks had been a fraction of what he had come to expect. Honestly, it probably had something to do with the 5 Perk Points he had dropped for Battle Concentration, if he really thought about it. Either way, it was kind of annoying. Not that he didn't wanna save lives or anything, but still… You could make it worth my while, you know that right?
His pleas for more went unanswered yet another night as a tinny beeping noise rang out from the pocket of Greg's jeans, rather loud in the relative silence of the open air. Letting out yet another sigh, this one of exasperation, the young blond reached into his pocket and opened the burner phone he had bought for just this purpose.
Raising it to his ear, he rolled his eyes at the person on the other end rattled off respectful greetings in rushed Japanese only to gain more than a hint of fear in their tone as they began telling Greg what he already knew.
"..."
"わかった。"(I know, I know.) the teenager replied, albeit in somewhat stilted Japanese. "台地、俺が何と言ったのか？わかった。"(Daichi, what the hell did I just say? I know.)
"..."
Rolling his eyes at the confused words he got in reply, Greg spoke up again, his impatience audible in his tone this time. "「わかりました」と言った。俺は理由のために払います。だから、仕事をしてくれ！(I told you that I know. I pay you for a reason so just do your job and I'll handle my part.)"
"..."
He nodded along impatiently, eyes half-lidded as he did his very best not to simply hang up at the continued unnecessary talking. " やれやれ,「あわてないで」と言ってくれたください。早く届くつもりです。そうして、問題はもうすぐ扱います。(Yeah, yeah, just tell everyone not to panic and that it'll all be over in an hour, tops.)"
"..."
"忘れないでくれ。倉庫の前アジトまつをめいじてください。(Also, don't forget. Have them meet up by the safehouse by the other storage place.)"
"..."
"重火器を使わないで。(No guns.)", he added, his tone firm this time. Definitely no guns. " 誰か恐慌して、俺を撃つはだめだ。ビジネスがおわりのあと、早く来ます。 ボッスンアウット。(I don't need anyone getting nervous and shooting at me again. I'll be there as soon as I'm done. Boss out.)"
Greg let out another sigh and dropped his burner phone back into his pocket, the book in his other hand vanishing into blue light with barely a thought and a half-muttered 'Inventory'. As the last screen dimmed into nothingness, the blond uncrossed his legs and sprang to his feet in a single movement, scattering a few pieces of long-abandoned construction materials away from him as he did so.
A cool breeze blew his hair back from where he stood up on a rooftop, peering down at the view that was Brockton Bay's mostly-recovered Downtown. At least, what little he could see of it from the edge of the Downtown district. Night had already fallen hours before he had made his way over here just forty-five minutes ago, and the streets were as bustling with a liveliness that one wouldn't expect from a city that had just survived a mass bombing half a month ago.
"That's Brockton for you, I guess. Tough as nails," the blond muttered aloud to himself. "Still doesn't stop idiots from trying to tear it apart, though."
With a slight upward tilt to the flat expression he wore, Greg walked over to the edge of the rooftop, only coming to a stop as he raised one leg to rest a sneakered foot halfway on an overturned carton resting on the ledge itself. Both eyes flicked from side to side as he looked out into the distance in the direction that was the waterfront, eyes flickering a bright gold each time he chose to blink.
Several long seconds later, he spoke again. "...Inventory."
Even before the last syllable left his lips, a bright blue glow surrounded his body, rendering his form indistinct to any possible viewers. A literal second later, it faded away, the teenager's bare face and casual clothes replaced by a jet-black domino mask, a dark button-up motorcycle jacket with sleeves folded back and sewn up to his forearms, a large belt of the same color hanging from his hips and similarly colored, thickly-armored motorcycle pants. A long scarlet scarf was wrapped around the bottom half of his face and neck, long ragged ends fluttering in the wind, and motorcycle gloves of the same color covered his once-bare hands.
Another flash of blue surrounded his right hand a moment later, Greg raising that same hand up in the air as the light faded, exposing the form of the jagged, chipped nodachi that now rested on his shoulder. Sliding his arm back till the sword lay flush with his back, he let it go and allowed the blade to simply stay attached where it was.
The blond took a few more steps forward, kicking the carton off to the side as he stood on the very edge of the roof, looking down at the busy street below. "Wait…" Greg tilted his head to the side for a moment, a look of sudden realization on his face. "Almost forgot…"
His free hand swiped in front of his face in a flash of blue light as quick as the others, a solid black skull faceplate appeared over his domino mask. "Hardkour's gotta strike fear into the heart of evil, right?"
With that, he let a smile spread across his face, arms stretched out at his sides as wind blew his hair back, the sounds of Brockton Bay's nightlife hitting his ears as he simply took it in.
With a deep breath and an open grin just beneath his skull mask, he slowly leaned forward.
And just like that…
He fell.
The sudden downward drop was slowed moments later as a pair of surprisingly adhesive soles met the sides of the building, his fall becoming a downwards facing run for a few thrilling seconds. Immediately afterwards, Hardkour leapt off the side of the building in a burst and blur of motion, launching himself like a missile towards the nearest building.
Clearing the roof of a five-story brownstone with ease, the costumed blond met the side of another building and ran along its side at inhuman speeds in perfect and complete ignorance of the concept of gravity. Jumping again and again, he bounded from building side to building, relatively weak flares of his Reinforcement sending him ever further and faster with every single leap.
Traveling like this had become commonplace to him, the movement style distinct from the glowing, near-flight leaps that a certain White Knight had shown off during the day. Bouncing from rooftop to rooftop and running along building sides like a ninja were less likely to get him spotted but they also helped separate his identities as well. The news had been looking for him for weeks now, almost as eagerly as they chased after sightings of his more knight-like persona, but when it came to avoiding them, he had learned how to move unseen and discreetly…
Hardkour jumped yet again, his arc sending him right towards a flagpole jutting out from the side of a building. Both arms reached out and his face exploded into a grin as he made contact, body moving with his momentum as he spun and spun and spun, his entire figure almost a blur. With a burst of manic laughter, the blond let go and let himself fly high up into the air again, whooping like a madman as he did so.
"WHOOOOOHOOOO!"
… Somewhat discreetly, at least.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Finally done, he thought to himself as he leapt into the air from a rooftop several blocks away from four now-unconscious Empire thugs. It had been as easy as usual, as simple as something like that gets, at least. But then again, fighting the guys causing trouble was never the hard part anyway.
Nah, it was all about finding them.
It may not sound like much, but a whole neighborhood was a lot of ground to cover, especially when you were only looking for less than half a dozen people. Moving just a bit too fast when it came to looking for his targets meant people could end up in the hospital. Hell, the morgue even.
Well… the wrong people.
Smirking at his own little joke as his sneakered feet met the edge of a rooftop, Hardkour kicked up enough speed to turn his limbs into a blur and raced to the other edge in the blink of an eye. While the rooftop may not have been designed for highway speeds, it didn't much matter as he was already in the air again with a powerful leap, the wind rushing around him with blistering speed as his scarf flared out behind him like a cape.
Loud night tonight though. Almost never this heavy with the idiots. The thought was enough to make him pause as he alighted on a brick wall, his back and the soles of his feet staying firmly in place as he simply sat on the wall. Seriously, though, ten guys in one night? Half a dozen fires? Talk about wei-
"Pleasesomebodyh-!" "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
"HELP!"
The hell? His head snapped to the side and, already moving without a single complicated thought in his head, Hardkour pushed off the brick wall behind and bounded through the air towards the call for help.
Moving like a maniac, he was there in literal moments, knees bending with the sudden impact as he touched down feet-first just outside an alley. The blond threw out his arms, clicked his heels together and bowed, eyes never leaving the figures in front of him as he wore a fake smile no one even saw. "And he aces the dismount!" They all remained frozen in place at his sudden appearance, the street silent as a grave. Even then, he didn't need the power to read thoughts to know the word on everyone's minds. Cape.
Besides the trembling woman on her knees, the frightened children in her arms and the Chinese man clutching his clearly bleeding nose and battered face alongside them, there were four of them directly in front of him and two a bit further away; a chubby bottle blond in nothing more than a white t-shirt and dark jeans standing shoulder to shoulder with a pimply-faced dude wearing a ratty windbreaker, a tired-looking man in black motorcycle leathers from head to toe with a long scar edging up the right side of his face and stopping right under his eye standing front and center, and a bit behind him to the left, a rail-thin guy in a wife beater, this one looking far too twitchy to not be on any drugs.
Right behind the four of them stood a very tall and overly-muscled skinhead in literally nothing else but denim shorts and a pair of white sneakers. Standing bald head and shoulders above the rest, he proudly sported a black lightning-shaped tattoo on the right side of his well-defined chest as he leaned up against the trunk of the car parked halfway on the curb. Trying his best to look tough was a much smaller man with an unfortunate haircut standing right beside him, small even by a teenager's standards and wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest.
All of them were young, none of them probably anymore than nine or ten years older than him, and like he expected, every one of them was armed with a handgun, the bottom of the weapon visible sticking out each of their waistbands. Oh, boy.
The funny thing about the Empire, more than any other gang within the city, was the simple fact that they were all about their image. Their most publicly seen capes; Kaiser, The Wonder Twins, Purity, were all shiny, bright, well-spoken and… well, you could assume good looking but with capes and masks, no one could really say that for sure.
Regardless, the Empire capes most of the public could name by heart were as clean-cut as a Nazi super-gang could expect to be. Even the less talkative ones like Krieg, Stormtiger, Crusader and even Hookwolf managed to be surprisingly well-behaved… again, for Neo-Nazis. at least. More than that, all of them were reined in compared to every other villain in Brockton Bay.
Still, no matter how good the capes looked, it did not help when a large chunk of their non-powered members couldn't seem to go two days without kicking in the teeth of anyone with a skin tone darker than a brown paper bag.
If they weren't beating people up, they were shattering windows, breaking down doors, stealing whatever wasn't nailed down and setting the place on fire… and sometimes, not even the middle two. A lot of them seemed to have taken it to heart that his territory was theirs to run wild in at night, or in the early early morning… or every single time Greg felt like he could take a moment to himself. With the fact that Brockton PD didn't even seem to register calls from the formerly-ABB held neighborhoods anymore, he knew for a fact that people could die if he didn't make his way down there in time.
Pretty much like what was going on right now.
Couldn't make this one easy for me, huh? he thought to himself as he slowly rose from his bow. Yeah, sure, put a whole family right in the splash zone. That's fair. He let out a huff of air as he finally stood up straight and angled his head at the gangsters. "Hey, guys, I know I'm late but… you started without me?"
Not a single Empire flunky spoke, all of them simply sharing increasing looks of worry at each other and the cape in black-and-red didn't miss a single one. The one in motorcycle leathers did his very best to keep his expression still even as his hand twitched towards the visible gun at his waist. Despite the anger in his glare, it wasn't hard for Greg to notice the wariness on the man's face much like the other three, all of them obviously recognizing the distinctive red of his long-ass scarf. Two weeks of this mayhem had gotten him something of a reputation with the Empire, he was sure of it.
"You want something… c-cape?" The scarred man spat the last word out like a slur, answering back in a voice that would put some baritones to shame. Despite that, he couldn't keep his voice from wavering. For a fleeting moment, Greg found himself wondering just how many of the man's friends he had personally put in the hospital but the thought quickly passed as his attention turned to what was actually important.
"First, the name's Hardkour - k, o, u, r, make you sure get that right when your boss hears about this - but also, good question," the self-titled Hardkour answered back with a smile that went unseen from behind his scarf. "Gimme a sec to think about it." He raised a hand up to his chin for a few seconds, pretending to actually think about it before going, "Ah! I remember now. What I want is for you to let these good people go."
"Wh-"
Hardkour took a single step forward, a single finger up to the place his mouth would be under his scarf and Scarface shut up immediately.
The man took a quick step back, hand twitching closer to his gun as he visibly fought the urge to draw it, as if the sweat trailing down his brow wasn't evidence enough. Chubby outright flinched at the sudden movement, Zit-Face doing the same while the twitchy one actually scurried back like a rat, almost stumbling into the car parked behind him in his attempt to put some distance between him and the dark-clad cape. Muscles leaned his head over and simply grinned at the action. Unlike the rest, his expression flickered from wary to eager. Great, this is gonna actually be a fight.
"Mr. Lin, I'm gonna need you to escort your family away from here, please."
A brief pause filled the air as the injured man took a moment to process that he heard his name, looking more shocked and frightened than he had been when Greg first landed, if such a thing was possible. "H-how did y-"
Repeating the gesture that quieted Scarface had the same effect on the trembling man, Greg didn't say another word as he just stared at him from behind his mask. After a few seconds of silence, the family man simply nodded as he got to his feet and pulled his wife up alongside him. Mouthing a 'thank you' to the cape that saved his family, he began to move as quickly as he could manage, one of his children in his grip as his wife held the other. Greg simply nodded back and moved to stand in place of the family as they scurried away down the sidewalk.
"So," Hardkour tilted his head as he spoke, slowly glancing at each one of them in turn. "Now that that's out of the way… I'll make you a deal. You go back to your boss and tell him that Lung's territory is mine now. In exchange, I won't jack up your insurance premiums." Like I even know what that means.
The four of them nearest him shared another look and for a second, the cape felt that they might actually surrender for once.
Then Chubby went for his gun.
Hardkour was in motion the instant the handgun left the waistband, a thunderous 'bang' filling the air as he grabbed hold of the man's wrist in a lightning-fast lunge and swung it and the weapon he held into the air. What might have been the sound of all the bones in his forearm cracking went unheard as Chubby screamed loud enough to wake the dead.
Hurling the screaming fat man a good ten feet away like a bag of trash, Greg simply nodded in acknowledgement as the very back of his head buzzed with the gentle yet familiar warning of his Danger Sense. And the fun starts now.
Shots rang out as Hardkour leapt into the air, pulling off several unneeded flips and twirls as bullets from opposite directions raced right through the spot where he had stood a second ago. Landing in a cartwheel, Greg pushed off the ground with both hands and launched himself feet first at the nearest gunman.
A double kick to the chest took Zit-Face out of commission and might have cracked a rib or three, but the ninja-themed teenager chose to assume the guy would be fine… at some point. Either way, he didn't really have the time to check as he sprung back into action at the call of his Danger Sense, darting to the right to avoid a hole in the skull. Barely even blinking as he caught sight of the bullet zoom past his face for a fraction of a second, Hardkour sprung forward again.
From Greg's perspective, he took his time moving toward the next shooter, barely moving at a fourth of his un-enhanced top speed as he zig-zagged to stay out of the actual path of fire. Despite that, he knew Hardkour must have seemed impossibly fast as a certain twitchy bastard fired like a maniac at the places he had been, screaming incoherent curse words all the while tears streamed down his face.
Twitchy's gun clicked empty as Hardkour neared him, to his obvious panic. With only a split second of hesitation, the man whipped out a knife from his pocket and slashed at the cape as he came within reach.
His dodges were lazy, Hardkour barely having to lean and flop out of the way of the man's pointless stabs and slashes as Twitchy did more damage to the air than him. After a few seconds of this became boring, he quickly repaid the man's wasted effort and annoyingly loud gunfire with a jab to the solar plexus as light as he could manage. And there go his ribs, Greg thought with a wince. I really gotta get better at that.
"Wai-!"
Scarface wasn't able to finish whatever he possibly could have said as the cape appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye, the flat of his palm impacting the man's chest. Before he could even so much as scream, the grown man slammed back into the now-cracked windshield of the car directly behind him, either unconscious or unable to move.
Wait… The teenager blinked as he realized that the man hadn't even tried to fight him let alone went for his gun at all. As if to drive home the point, the pistol in Scarface's waistband fell loose and clattered onto the asphalt, forcing a wince from the young cape. "... sorry?" Should I be apologizing? The guy is Nazi scum but I kinda feel like I should. Uhhh…
"My bad, dude."
Holding back the urge to groan at his mistake and wondering if he should, Greg spun around as his Danger Sense buzzed again, the sensation almost like a whisper this time. He raised an eyebrow as he watched the retreating back of the shrimp that had hung back from the fight, the guy already half a block away. Huh. Okay, I guess.
Not bothered at one guy escaping, Greg shifted his gaze to the last guy left, raising an eyebrow as the man just now got down from his seat on the trunk of the car. They never learn, do they?
The bare-chested man stood about half a dozen meters away from Greg with an eager grin on his face, all six feet and seven inches of him. His hand inched toward the silver gun visible in the pocket of his jean shorts, the action eliciting nothing more than an eye roll from Greg. But I guess if they did, they wouldn't still be Nazis, right?
From a standstill, the skull-masked blond rushed towards the skinhead at speeds more comparable to a car on the highway than a human being. Before the man had time to blink, he landed a single punch directly to the thug's chest and, like Greg expected, his target went tumbling backwards head over heels.
-1
"...ow."
The blond blinked in confusion as the word left his mouth before he realized it.
"What the..." He raised his still clenched fist up, the slight stinging sensation from his knuckles already gone as soon as he noticed it. Did that actually kinda-sorta hurt me? Enough to drop him down a couple points of health, it seemed. Certainly enough to be felt, that was certain.
"Hehehehe."
The sound of a much deeper voice giggling pulled him out of his own thoughts and Greg glanced back at the hairless figure he had just punched hard enough to send sprawling a few good meters away as the man pulled himself to his feet. A slight glow surrounded him for a moment, the light color already fading to nothing as he got back up.
What the- A pair of blue eyes widened for a moment before narrowing again, sudden realization coming over him as the costumed teenager let out a sigh. "... cape?"
Muscles nodded. "Yeah. Just a couple days ago."
Greg met that answer with a nod, actually feeling somewhat excited after weeks and weeks of chore-like Empire clean-up. The fact that normal people went down in one hit now was honestly one of the most boring parts of all of it. At the very least, this might be fun. "First cape fight? I'm just guessing 'cause I've never heard of you."
The grin on the man's face grew at the question, looking almost manic as he began to slowly walk forwards. "Yeah, y-yeah, haven't told nobody either." With every step he took, the grin grew as his gaze flickered between his own hands and the cape standing away from him, seemingly gaining confidence from the fact Greg had yet to move. "I was actually hoping it would be Assault, y'know. But you're good enough, I guess."
The teenager quirked an eyebrow. "Good enou-"
Hardkour ducked back reflexively as Muscles rushed forward at surprising speed, the man crossing almost half a dozen meters in a fraction of a second and already prepared to swing. With barely a moment's thought, he retaliated immediately, barely holding back as he thrusted with his open palm right into the man's torso.
The meathead flew from the strike, landing back-first on the asphalt several feet away with a groan. Pain, and more than anything else, shock was clear on his face as he glanced back up at the teenager staring directly at him, eyes visible behind his skull mask flickering with a chilling blue light.
[Analyze.]
- Markus "Muscles" Mills
"Was this really your best idea?" Greg replied, mocking tone in full force.
Rather than answer, Muscles jumped to his feet with a rough shake of his bald head, the glow around his body intensified enough for the young cape to catch it again. Just like that, the Neo-Nazi charged forward once more, to Greg's slight surprise.
He's… faster?
A bit faster, Greg confirmed, but not so much that he was able to dodge the full-force standing kick that slammed into his bare chest the instant he closed the distance. In fact, as the man literally went flying like a javelin even further back than the way he came, the teenager found himself doubting Muscles ever even saw the hit coming.
"I just wanna go home, big guy," he called out to the Empire cape, hands cupped over his mouth. The blond's smile began to lessen as Muscles bounced back to his feet seemingly no worse for wear, the pale white glow around him seeming to stick this time. "How about we end it here and call it your loss? I'll only brag about it a widdle bit."
Six feet and seven inches of grown man stared down the younger cape with that same shit-eating grin on his face, breaths coming in heavy pants that clearly came from anticipation as opposed to exhaustion. Once again, the mountain of a man rushed forward, moving even faster for the second time in a row.
Alright, you wanna play? The teenager smirked behind his scarf. "Let's play."
He burst forward with the raw natural speed as he had become accustomed to under his Hardkour persona, not a single hint of yellow light to be found anywhere. He closed the miniscule distance between them in a heartbeat and met the musclehead in the middle, their clash coming to a sudden halt. Greg shot a hand out to catch the large fist in his palm with nothing more than a slight grunt of effort on his part and pushed back easily. As he stared back at the cape opposite him with mirth in his eyes, the blond took a moment to relish the confused look slowly wiping away the Nazi's eager grin.
Only a moment, though.
With a yell, Muscles struck out with a heavy punch that would have broken the bones of any normal person, yet his smaller opponent caught it with his forearm with only a barely audible groan. Without hesitation, Greg retaliated before the Brute in front of him could blink, launching several blurred jabs into the skinhead's face and midsection, the man's white glow growing more distinct and solid with each single blow. Each strike stung his fists a little more, the field around the man growing denser with each impact and Greg could only confirm this as the numbers bleeding from his own health worryingly began to near the double digits.
He felt a growl rise in his throat, the urge to draw on Reinforcement and cut the fight short growing. With great effort, Greg pushed the thought away, not trying to send the man's head flying off with an errant punch. Muscles took the moment of hesitation to charge again, glow intensifying for a moment as he managed to land a hard punch that caught the teenager on the bottom of his jaw.
- 75
"Fu-!" It was a punch like one he hadn't felt in a while, Greg noted with a dazed blink. As his head snapped back from the strike, Greg bit back a curse and wrenched down the red scarf around his face, letting go of his Surface Adhesion to let it fall down fully around his neck. With a slight sound of amusement, the blond spat a mouthful of blood onto the street. Baring his stained teeth at Muscles in a grin, he gave the man a motion with one hand that anyone and everyone knew meant "bring it."
Muscles' eyes lit up with a fire and the man stormed forward in a bullrush that was surprising even to Greg, faster than what he had come to expect from him. Covering ground at a superhumanly fast pace, the skinhead threw another fast punch and the glow from his field brightened, solidifying around his fist in particular. With ease, Hardkour dodged the easy to read strike before he slammed a hard elbow into his opponent's broad chest, knocking him back a step or two.
Not even bothering to hold back on his speed, the blond lashed out with a right cross to the center of the grown man's torso before he could fully rise to his feet. The powered gangster was the one to stagger back this time, face red as strings of spit fell from his open mouth. Greg swung again and again, every blow a powerful hook to the jaw that sent both head and body in the opposite direction each time. For a moment, Hardkour paused his barrage and Muscles took a deep gasp of air, obviously attempting to catch his breath.
"Not happening, tough guy!"
With a lunge, Greg grabbed hold of the man's shoulder and pulled him in close.
Another pained wheeze left the fighter as a final hard blow in the form of a swift gut punch met his unprotected stomach, depriving him of even more air. Several hundred pounds of skinhead doubled over, the thug retching and hacking as he was hit with force equivalent to a battering ram. The blond's grin returned for a single second only to fade just as quickly as he noticed the shield around his large opponent solidify again as he staggered around on unsteady legs, the off-white light visible around him like full-body armor as Muscles tried to catch his breath.
He's not bleeding. Barely even a bruise. The thought came to Greg immediately as he took in his gasping opponent, the man's skin barely even blemished under the light of his field. He's not hurt. Why is he not hurt?
[Analyze.]
- Markus "Muscles" Mills
How the f- Greg paused, shoulders visibly slumping as he realized something very important.
He's getting stronger, isn't he? The teenager let out an audible sigh, actually feeling a little annoyed after getting actual confirmation of how little damage he was doing to a literal jumped-up mook.
Guess we're doing this now. The irritated Hardkour charged the winded villain wannabe, slamming into the grown man with full force. Muscles slammed into the side of an abandoned car, someone having made off with the wheels sometime ago, and slid to the asphalt with his face having left a dent into the door. A moment later, he let out another grunt as over two hundred pounds of teenage boy slammed into his back.
"Hey, buddy," Greg called out from on top of him, tone as mocking as ever. "I just want you to know that this hurts me way more than it's gonna hurt you."
In a single movement, Greg grabbed the man's burly right arm as it flailed back, held it like a vise and-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
-snapped it backwards like a twig.
"That was also a lie."
Impressively, Muscles didn't pass out from the pain. Then again, he was a cape. Instead, he screamed as loud as his lungs could manage and bucked upwards like a raging bull. At the exact same moment, the off-white shield around the man bulged around his skin, fragmenting like glass for a single moment, before it ruptured outwards with the force of a grenade.
"Jesus Ch-" The words died on his lips as Greg was hurled off almost immediately, thrown from the Empire cape's back and launched away as his shield exploded.
-125
Recovering with a quick flip, Greg landed like a cat several meters away, a bit unsteady on his feet but not too worse for wear. "What the hell are your powers, man?"
The blond shook his head quickly and, after taking a moment to blink away the spots in his vision, he glanced back up to witness the other cape still howling on the street, head up against the car as he cradled his nigh-useless arm. "You know what, don't answer that."
As Hardkour took another step forward, his eyes flashed a bright blue again as he called upon his most-used skill.
[Analyze.]
- Markus "Muscles" Mills
Shield down? Nice.
"I'm sorry", Greg spoke up again, a smile visible beneath the skull he wore. He took a single step closer to the grown man bawling on the ground in a position that was almost fetal. "Did it really hurt that much? I've had a couple broken limbs, y'know. You don't see me-"
CRACK!
"-crying about it!"
Hardkour's leg snapped out at the same moment as Muscles' leg snapped in, the man's tibia fracturing with a sickening sound and forcing another level of scream to erupt from the man's mouth.
-2
There's the rebound, he noted with a frown. Shield's coming back. The skull-masked teenager squatted down next to the insensate gangster and grabbed the man's thick neck with both hands. "Let's make this quick, big guy. The faster you sleep, the faster I get what I want." With a grunt, he slammed Muscles' head forward into the side of the car directly in front of him with as much force as he could muster.
BANG!
Muscles screamed again, thrashing against Greg's hold as his face met steel. "Oh, shut up, would you?"
BANG!
Another dent formed, a deep indentation that would have been almost a perfect mold of the gangster's face if only steel was a good bit more pliable. Still, he thought with a grin, nothing wrong with trying, right?
Hardkour raised Muscles' head up again ready to continue his attempts to beat the man into unconsciousness when he suddenly paused, aware of a familiar buzz at the back of his thoughts. The blond's eyes widened and he jumped back and away, intent on avoiding whatever trick the cape under him was about to pull…
-200
Only to bite down on his tongue as something slammed into him from behind.
Hard.
Whatever it was sent him flying back in the complete opposite direction, tumbling head over heels in the most literal of ways. It was a literal second later that Greg met ground, or wall in this case, with a hard smack of leather against brick as his back met a building side. It barely hurt, relatively speaking, as he had been hit with far far far worse and barely even screamed, but the sheer power behind it was enough to knock the wind out of him.
Okay. Okay. Oh. Kay. No such thing as a simple night, I guess. With a quick inhale, the teenager allowed himself to glance up, hoping to catch sight of whatever it was that sent him flying.
After a moment, he blinked.
He blinked again.
The urge to rub his eyes like a cartoon character popped into his head, only ignored by the power of his common sense and the fact that he was wearing a mask made it pointless.
Either way, Greg seriously doubted rubbing his eyes for hours would manage to erase the fact that two Protectorate heroes stood not too far from where he was, before someone had so rudely knocked him out of the air.
Assault, in the dark visor and red-armored costume that only an idiot could mistake for Velocity's, glanced from Muscles' half-knocked out form to where he now rested, slumped up against the wall of a boarded up… convenience store?
Maybe. It was hard to read the sign from here.
Battery stood only a few paces in front of her partner, glowing blue circuit lines of her gray costume slowly growing brighter.
This is a thing now and I still don't know who hit me… but I'm pretty sure I can make a really good guess, though. He thought with an outward sigh, eyes focusing on Battery. When is this mission gonna end so I can dip out of here?
"So, before like, you know, you hit me again," Hardkour began slowly as he took his time rising to his feet, eyes firmly placed on both Assault and Battery as they stood there in combat-ready poses. Well, Battery more than Assault. The red-clad cape kinda just stood there with his arms crossed over his chest as his partner held her fists up, quite obviously raring to go. "Can I just ask…"
He trailed off, hands up in the air.
"What?" Assault responded, after a few awkward moments of silence.
Greg nodded in his direction. "Exactly. What. The hell… was that for? You just attacked me out of nowhere? What was that all about?"
Battery loosened her stance slightly as she shifted forward a few steps. "You're wanted by the PRT under suspicion of homicide."
"Couple dozen suspicions, actually," Assault chimed in, the man leaning back slightly as he tapped the heel of his foot against the street. "Been a real busy bee, huh, kid?"
The hell? Couple… couple dozen murders? Greg's blue eyes widened behind his mask, legitimately confused as to what the two capes were even talking about. A second later, he told the pair as much. "Dude," He paused, glancing over at Battery in an attempt to be respectful towards the experienced heroine who thought he was a criminal, "dudette…"
Assault let out a slight cough at that, one Greg decided to ignore.
"...with all due respect, I have no frickin clue what you're talking about," he continued, both hands still in the air. "I'm a hero just like you." After a moment, he added on to that. "Well, I don't exactly work for 'The Man' y'know, but I'm a hero without a paycheck."
He paused and tilted, raising his raised hands even higher in the best approximation of a shrug he could manage. "Technically, that kinda makes me more of a hero, if you think about it?"
Assault raised a fist to his mouth, that same cough returning with a vengeance.
Battery shot the man a quick look, her mouth turned down into a vicious scowl, before fixing her gaze back on the cape opposite both her and her partner. "Are you the cape known as Hardkour?"
"...You've heard of me?"
Battery seemed to take that as a yes, judging by the way her jaw tightened and she barged forward with her questioning. "Are you also the same individual who engaged in combat with Oni Lee on Wednesday, April the Twentieth?"
"...To save Shielder and his hot sister, yeah, that's me."
Both Battery's stance and expression tightened, the woman raising her fists again. "As I said before, you are wanted by the PRT under suspicion of murder of several members of the Azn Bad Boys."
Hardkour blinked rapidly. Ohhhhh shit. I remember… that was me, yeah.
"First of all…" he let out a long breath of air to buy time as he rushed for what to say, "you actually didn't say that before."
The coughing fit behind Battery went unremarked on once again, despite Assault seemingly in the midst of hacking up a lung by the sound of it.
"Second…" he continued, "I have no idea how you could possibly think that was m-"
"A figure in black was spotted leaving several crime scenes," Battery interjected, obviously intent on shutting him down. "You also have a sword on your back, the same as that individual."
The teenager nodded along with her words, trying his best not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation he was currently. Wanted for murder… wow. I am so freaking boned right now. Keeping his face as still as he could manage, Greg spoke up again. "Hm. Hm. Hm. You make good points but, hear me out... I disagree with them."
"In that case," Assault chimed in, tilting his head to the right to mimic Greg. "We're still gonna have to bring you in for the assault of a Ward. Y'know, the altercation with Shadow Stalker?"
Oh come on! Hardkour's mouth dropped open in shock at those words. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. That was an accident." He shot back immediately, pointing one finger at the other male cape. "Hell, she attacked me first!"
Assault let out a long interested-sounding noise. "So, you're confessing that it was you?" He tilted his head in the other direction, an amused tilt coming into his voice. "Personally, I just guessed but again, good to know."
… okay, he's good. Greg blinked, suddenly feeling very unsure of himself. He is very good. Note to self; don't answer his questions.
"Although, if that wasn't enough," Assault spoke up again, gesturing with a thumb to the drooling form of Muscles the Neo-Nazi slumped against a dented car to his right. "We also got you on attempted murder and excessive use of force."
"Attempted murder? On that guy?" Greg found himself scoffing, his mouth moving before the rest of him. "Don't be crazy. He's a Brute. He'll be fiiiiine…"
Muscles chose that moment to chime in with a noise that was somewhere between a groan, a scream and outright sobbing. Some might call it a death rattle but Greg was more optimistic than most, so he didn't.
"... with medical assistance. He'll be fine with medical assistance."
Assault pointedly glanced at the other Empire members lying in various positions up and down the small street, a few who were actually still groaning in pain, Greg now found himself noticing. After looking at each one in turn, the Protectorate hero glanced back at Hardkour, expression unreadable behind his visor.
"In my defense, I forgot those guys even existed until right this second."
For the first time, Assault finally gave in, his mouth twitching for a second or two before the red-clad cape let out several loud barks of laughter that the man didn't even bother to pretend away as a simple cough this time.
Honestly, it was for the best.
Greg was kinda getting tired of pretending he didn't notice.
"Puppy, I think I like this kid."
+10000 XP
- Quest Success!
- STATUS
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
If it's wasn't for the fact it's half the humor, I would be desperately wanting him to put more points into wisdom or charisma.
Thank you for chapter
edit: that was a lot of bonus exp for minor encounter. Damn.
The bonus exp came from the 3 separate achievements.
He basically avoided a murder in front of 2 Protectorate capes, met and defeated a Mini-Boss and encountered 2 famous capes.
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
Nope. Consider the quests as semi-precognitive in function.
Measuring the Miraculous
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
If you've ever played the Wearing the Cape TTRPG, this might seem familiar, as I used the sourcebook to help me write it and make it look... like this.
Wearing the Cape is surprisingly a good fit for Worm, if you ignore certain more out-there bits.
Great book series too.
Wearing the Cape is surprisingly a good fit for Worm, if you ignore certain more out-there bits.
Great book series too.
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
I'll be honest, the title initially made me think of Miraculous Ladybug and Chat Noir. Kind of surprised nobody did a Gamer Miraculous, darn things are weird enough to justify it.
Besides me wanting to laugh like mad, that was pretty interesting. Was it mainly just for fun or will it have some relevance in the future? There's no Int debuff, so inevitably I figure Greg would try his hand at comprehending Parahumans.
Besides me wanting to laugh like mad, that was pretty interesting. Was it mainly just for fun or will it have some relevance in the future? There's no Int debuff, so inevitably I figure Greg would try his hand at comprehending Parahumans.
Lag 6.4b
ZFighter18
I'm not a god. I AM WHAT A GOD PRAYS TO.
- Location
- Maryland
Lag 6.4b
As Assault's chuckles faded away under Battery's continued glare, Greg simply stared at both of the older 'professional' capes with a slowly-fading smile on his face. A small part of him was actually excited to see his heroes in the flesh — one more so than the other if he was being honest — while the rest of him…
I wonder how long they're gonna keep this up, he wondered to himself, one eyebrow raised behind his skull mask. Any longer and they have to realize that they're being crazy obvious with it.
The teenager knew what stalling looked like, of course. Assault was good at it, though, with the way he stretched out words and even over-exaggerated simple things as long looks just to seem playful and fun. There was no doubt that a good chunk of it was just the man being himself or at least playing the same part he did for the camera, but Hardkour knew he was still milking it for what it was worth.
The good-cop, bad-cop routine Battery was obviously trying to pull was obvious as day as well, mostly for how forced it was to make Assault look like the friendly nice guy. It took all his effort not to sigh as Assault stepped closer to stand right beside his wife just a few seconds later and the two seemed to engage in some sort of conversation, Battery actually sounding like she was nagging him as the man nodded along with a patronizing smile on his face. No way they actually got together if she's got that much of a stick up her ass, Greg's fading smile revived itself slightly with a smirk at that thought. Not likely. How is that hot?
All jokes aside, this was starting to get pathetically obvious, and that was coming from him. Greg knew that he was never the most observant person, even with a skill that let him do just exactly that to a superhuman degree, but still… Just put a little more effort into it, whydoncha? It certainly didn't help the supposed image that the two were just being casual and not at all worried or threatened by him when Battery continued to give her husband several playful punches in the arm over his behavior. Oh, come on already, I know how his powers work.
Greg bit back a groan at the sight, shoulders simply slumping they weren't contained in his skull, the blond was sure his eyes would have rolled right out of their sockets. Take some acting classes or something. It would have helped the whole ruse if the both of them managed to do a better job to pretend like they weren't keeping one eye on him the whole time, both of them clearly prepped to launch into action at any moment.
You know what? [Analyze.] [Analyze.]
Interesting… but yeah, I'm done waiting. With that thought, Greg decided to simply cut the charade short the simplest way he knew how. "So…" the blond tilted his head to the side as he called out loudly, "you guys do know I can tell you're stalling, right?"
Both Assault and Battery paused their conversation, not quite freezing in place but oddly still as their heads turned fully to focus on him in near-perfect unison. Standing just under twenty-five feet away from him, just in front of the car Greg had put work into denting, he had no doubt that both of them heard him loud and clear. Neither said a word at first until Assault let out a loud cough, the sound quickly transitioning into actual laughter as the Protectorate cape didn't even try to fake his composure this time.
Huh. Greg raised an eyebrow as Battery's shoulders slumped, the woman letting out an exasperated sigh as her partner held his stomach amid actual belly laughs.
The blond blinked at both of them, not even bothering to fake a smile that he didn't feel right now. They really think I'm stupid, huh? He let out a sigh through his nose, eyes narrowed to slits behind the eyeholes of his mask as he glared at the two Protectorate capes. "So, I tell you that I know you're stalling for reinforcements and all you do…" He shook his head at the ridiculousness of it. "All you do is stall some more." Neither of them bothered to actually say anything in response as they simply shared a look, something Greg felt told him all he needed to know. "Yeah," Hardkour snorted loudly. "You guys need to work on your acting skills, but still, kudos for sticking to your guns."
Assault shared another look with his partner before turning back to Hardkour. He moved a bit nearer towards where Greg stood, only a few feet closer but close enough to make the teenager tense, before coming to a stop as he let out another long sigh. "Kid…"
"The name's Hardkour," said kid interrupted, one finger rising to his temple as he bent forward slightly at the waist. "Got it memorized?"
The red-clad cape let out another chuckle, one that didn't sound quite so sincere this time as he simply raised his arms in implied defeat and gestured toward his partner. Letting out a sigh, Battery took a few more steps forward to match Assault's position and spoke up, circuit patterns on her suit still shining a bright white. "Alright, let me just be clear with you… Hardkour. I'm not sure what you mean by st-"
"Oh, come on," Greg couldn't help but scoff, once again interrupting the capes as he shook his head in actual annoyance at Battery's continued attempt to lie to him. At least Assault could admit I was right, even if he didn't say it straight up. "You know what really wrinkles my ballsack, lady?"
Assault's hands rose to grip the sides of his head, his mouth mimicking the words despite making no sound.
"When adults try to treat me like that," Greg continued. "I know you have a job to do but try not to patronize me, okay? I'm a teenager, not a fucking retard." The blond took a step forward of his own, folding his arms as he spoke. "It's the only thing that makes sense, y'know, and that's why I said it. Either you have some kind of sedative, I'm guessing you don't cuz you'd have used it instead of tackling me — thanks for that — or you have backup on the way with an easy way to haul me in."
A smile sprung back to life on his face, Greg unable to help the expression as he simply let his mouth splurt out what his brain saw as obvious. "I don't see any containment foam on the two of you and I doubt your whole plan was to beat me bloody and unconscious and drag me in, right? The only answer that makes sense is that you gotta have some sort of backup coming. Probably a PRT truck full of troopers and that oh-so-special foam you actually need to haul capes in? No?"
His smirk transformed into a grin as he caught Battery's flinch. "No, please, tell me I'm wrong. I wanna hear you say it."
"Wow, dude, you're a smart one," Assault replied after a few moments of extended, pregnant silence. He inched toward the sidewalk again, taking two quick steps before coming to another stop. "Like, smart smart."
Hardkour nodded in the hero's direction. "Good to see that it's not just me saying what we both already know. I was feeling kinda self-conscious there for a second."
Assault let out another low chuckle, one that sounded oddly sincere, given the situation and shot Hardkour a grin to match his own. "You're funny, not gonna lie there. Quick on your feet too."
"Quicker than you," the teenager shot back.
"Ooh, burn," Assault replied, a hint of friendly snark in his tone. Obviously intent on saying more, the man made to move forward again.
However, Battery didn't seem to appreciate that, as the woman stuck her arm out to bar her partner's movement. In his place, she stepped forward and ahead of him until she stood barely twelve feet away from Hardkour's position. "Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, Hardkour, we just wanna talk to you. You've gotten into a bit of trouble here but you're a kid. They will go easy on you. You really don't wanna make this a fight, though."
Eyes narrowed despite his still-present grin, Greg shot back, "Listen, I know they'll go easy on me. I was taking down literal terrorists while you PR-pirates were probably sitting on your asses somewhere. Thanks for your service, though." The mocking salute may have been a bit too much but he did it anyway, heels snapping together and all.
"I'm sure people will be glad to know their heroes care more about chasing down a high-schooler than saving their lives. Really putting those tax dollars to work..." Okay, now you're just making stuff up. I don't even think the PRT gets tax money, do they?
"Hold up!" Battery took another couple of steps forward, almost edging on to the sidewalk as Hardkour remained standing against the wall of the boarded-up convenience store. "You don't get to say anything like that! I'm not gonna let you insult the work we d-"
"Gonna stop you right there," Greg interjected, barely holding back a grin as he held a finger up in the air. Battery visibly bristled at both the action and the interruption, her wariness seeming to have shifted into outright annoyance. "I don't really care about what you do. I'm talking about what you don't. If you got a problem, take it up with the people the Empire killed these last couple weeks. Maybe Dauntless was too busy saving cats from trees. Or Triumph had to do another photo op with the mayor." The teenager clicked his tongue, an insincere on his face. "I knew there was a reason that I thought Armsmaster was the coolest one on your team."
The blond let out a loud snort, shifting into a loud and mocking laugh a moment later after he gave up on holding it in. "No offense, of course."
"Some taken," Assault replied, more than a little bit of hurt clear in his tone that Greg wasn't entirely sure was fake.
"Eh," Hardkour shrugged. "I also don't really care."
"And why do you care so much?" Battery shot back at him, body language primed again as her circuit-patterned suit continued to glow. "About the violence? You clearly don't have a problem with killing people… from these neighborhoods."
…The hell is that supposed to mean? Greg's smile disappeared again, eyes narrowed to slits as he stared down Battery. "What…" He let out a scoff before he spoke again. "What, you think 'cause of that mess a few weeks ago, that…"
Greg stared at the Protectorate capes, actually incredulous at what she was implying. "What? I hate all Asians? That's what you actually think?" He let out another unbelieving scoff, hands dropping down to his sides as they tightened into fists. "Jesus Christ, looks like I'm not the one who's the fuckin' retard here."
The teenager blinked a moment later as Battery almost immediately stood up straighter at his words, confused as to why both she and Assault suddenly seemed a good deal more tense.
Oh.
Greg's eyes widened slightly as he replayed what he just said and realized that his words had come out in a vicious growl as opposed to his intended mocking tone. Whoa, pull it back. The unexpected anger struck him hard and the blond eased back against the wall with his hands raised, a slight awkward laugh leaving him as he did so."You know what? This was a fun talk… but I got an appointment I don't wanna be late to."
"Hardkour," Assault called out with a hand up, stopping Greg before the teenager could even so much as take a single step. "You don't wanna run. Take it from me."
Battery nodded, once again looking ready to leap into action. "I'd listen to him."
Greg paused for a moment, a finger tapping his chin as an errant idea popped into his thoughts. After a moment, he gave a mental shrug and decided to give voice to it. "You guys are supposed to take me in… whether or not I come willingly… right?"
He shook his head a moment later, waving away any attempt either of them could make to sugarcoat the response. "Don't answer that. We know that's a big yes, so… you know what?"
"What?" Battery replied rather tersely.
"See," Greg snorted, brushing off the last of his irritation. "I figure, it's like 2 AM, and we all don't wanna get bruised up. So, how 'bout I make you an offer you can't refuse? I won't struggle. I won't fight. None of that. All you gotta do… is catch me."
"Catch you?" Battery asked back incredulously. "You're joking, right?"
"Serious as an Endbringer attack," Hardkour answered back. "Hand to God."
"You can put the hand down because that's not happening." Despite the fact that Greg couldn't see her eyes, he knew for a fact that the woman was glaring at him with all the force she could muster. "That. Is. Not. Happening," she repeated, punctuating each word forcefully. "Just come quietly."
Assault shrugged, smile still on his face. "I'd listen to her."
Hardkour laughed to himself, shaking his head as he realized that the heroes didn't seem to catch on to his point. "You don't really have a say in this. Here's the thing, lady... I. Can. Run. Any. Time. I. Want. To," he shot back, in blatant mockery of Battery's tone.
The blond flashed them both a grin as he took a step forward, both Assault and Battery doing the same until there were barely nine feet of distance between the three of them. "You're the heroes here. I'm the dastardly vigilante. You don't chase me down, you're not doing your job. You gotta do it. At least this way, you're guaranteed not to get a ninja sword to the gut."
"Look," Assault began, scratching the back of his head as he spoke. "Look, I'd be down for a good race anytime, but if you run, right now… then that escalates this. I don't want that. You don't want that."
Hardkour said nothing, his grin only widening.
Battery's expression shifted, moving from a scowl to an open grimace as she glared at Hardkour with her teeth grit. She bounced on the soles of her feet again, already aching to make a move if her body language could be trusted. "So, high-stakes tag, is that it?" she finally asked after a moment of silence.
"Look who's been paying attention. Gold star, lady. A-plus."
"You're only hurting yourself right now." Battery snapped back at him, hands tightening into fists yet again. Her body was tensed, every part of her screaming that she was ready to pounce at any moment. "This isn't some kind of game, you know!"
The teenager tilted his head, eyes narrowed just slightly. "To you."
Hardkour laughed out loud as Battery visibly bristled again at those two words, the female cape edging a few steps to the side but not taking a single step closer. "But yeah… no tricks. None of that. All you have to do is keep up and tag me. That's it." Greg answered, arms spread out at his sides like he was presenting on a stage.
Finally, he turned his attention to Assault. "That's all I want."
Taunt? That was a taunt?! The blond's eyebrows rose behind his mask. Did that really count?
Assault's expression shifted a bit, almost matching his wife as his cocky smile grew brittle to the point that it somewhat appeared like a grimace. "This isn't gonna end well for you, you know?" He asked after a few seconds of silence, his smile returning to normal. "You think you're really faster than the two of us, though?"
Greg grinned, showing far too many blood-stained teeth as he did so. "Wanna find out?"
"So, how's about i-"
The words died mid-sentence as Battery's figure blurred toward him.
Part of her wanted to say she had a plan.
Rushing the kid while he was unprepared and goofing off sounded as good as any other. He clearly wasn't going to come along quietly and honestly, Battery didn't feel the need to humor the high-schooler by engaging in some pointless chase around Chinatown.
She was a Protectorate cape, after all, not some underpaid truant officer.
And yet…
The rest of her just felt livid.
She wasn't quite sure why, exactly, but something about the kid standing on the sidewalk just rubbed her the wrong way. Whether it was the way his eyes seemed to mock her, or possibly the complete nonchalance that oozed from him, or maybe it might just have been the simple snarky remarks that made her want to grab him by the collar and slam him up against that wall-
It certainly didn't help matters that the little brat felt so smug about openly admitting to murder, throwing around hypotheticals like she had to worry about police standards.
Whatever it was about him that got her so riled up, it didn't really matter.
She had enough.
As the kid began to yammer on again, she tensed.
The same instant Hardkour turned his attention away from both her and Assault, Battery forced herself into high gear, the circuit detailing on her suit glowing a bright white as she went from zero to European highway speeds in under a second.
Blue eyes snapped back down and for an instant, their eyes met.
She blinked, mid-step, eyes suddenly widening as the boy vanished.
What the- Before she could even process that, Battery let out a sudden cry as something struck the back of her ankles from behind, knocking her off balance and unable to halt her forward motion. Half an instant later, the cape winced - not from pain, but surprise - as her back impacted the brick wall of the shuttered convenience store.
She was back on her feet in a literal second, only to let out a sudden shout as her husband's body slammed into hers at high speed. Battery fell hard to the ground, catching herself with a grunt on her hands and knees, while Assault simply recovered in the air and rebounded — the way he almost always did — feet meeting the wall first as he bounded off it and back to the ground like a circus performer on steroids.
"I could have sworn I said tag, but two-hand touch works just fine for me, too."
The female cape bit back a growl as she jumped back to her feet again, not even paying Assault a glance as she brushed off his helping hand. Hard eyes flicked over to the teenage vigilante as he bounced on the balls of his feet almost halfway down the alley, several meters from where they stood at the entrance. Alright, then. We'll play it your way.
"He's playing us," Battery hissed through gritted teeth.
"Correction!" the vigilante shouted back, both hands cupped around his mouth. "I've been playing you."
The heroine bit down the urge to curse at the taunt, frustration spiking in a way she hadn't dealt with for quite some time. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper as she hissed out instructions. "He's too slippery. Cornering him isn't enough. We gotta do this hard, fast and dirty."
"Really? Reminiscing about our wedding night right now?" Assault replied back, voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, if you want to…"
"I swear to God..." She punctuated that last word with a punch to her partner's shoulder that would have sent a car skidding out of control like an icy road in the dead of winter, one Assault didn't even seem to recognize as he smiled back at her.
"I kid. I kid."
Assault shot her another grin and a wink before they both darted off again in unison, Battery just keeping pace with Assault before she punched his side again. This time, he let himself move with the blow, shooting toward the alley wall at an angle as Battery charged forward toward the awaiting teenager.
Her fist came up and she neared him in a little more than a second.
It took a fraction of that for the boy to almost disappear in front of her, the image of him blurring with movement even from her accelerated perspective.
Another fraction later and her super-durable fist slammed into nothing but simple red brick.
The force of her strike sent bits of brick and dust flying, her vision almost obscured if not for her visor. With the sound of laughter, her head whipped to the right and she saw her target.
Even further down the alley, he stood with his hands in his pockets, casually bouncing on the balls of his feet as he laughed at her attempt.
She didn't waste another moment.
Unfortunately, neither did the kid.
Hardkour's entire body burst into motion to sidestep Battery's third lunge. This time, though, she caught his movements perfectly, eyes wide and open as she took in the slow-motion world her powers granted her when charged. Two simple steps was all it took to carry him several meters away from the female Mover, her hand still stretched out toward him.
Before either of them could draw breath, her red-suited partner rushed him from the opposite direction, moving only half as fast as Battery had. The blond glanced up as Assault's arm arced towards him in what would seem like most to be an impossibly fast series of swipes.
Cackling at the top of his lungs, Hardkour dove to one side as he avoided Assault's hands, weaving out of the way of each at the very last second. "What's the Japanese word for slow again?" Battery rushed at the vigilante again, interrupting his line of thought only for the kid to flip back and bounce from wall to wall before dropping back to the alley floor in a move worthy of her husband. "Oh, yeah, I remember now. Osoi, oso sugiru, omae wa toroi na."
The kid's laughter devolved into puerile giggles, only intensifying further as Hardkour caught the Assault's second swing only to duck yet another rush from Battery from behind at the same time, as he pulled the red-suited kinetic forward in his place.
For the second time in half as many minutes, Battery found herself meeting her husband's body as they tumbled out of the alleyway in an uncoordinated sprawl of limbs. Her throat clenched as she bit down a curse, jumping back to her feet as quickly as she could. This is what I get for going for the hard sell, she groused to herself, You would think most kids would back down with murder charges thrown in their face.
To most, Battery was quickly coming to realize didn't seem to apply much to the kid they were trying to corral.
Her eyes flicked from side to side, trying to catch where the kid could have gone to, only for her eyes to widen a second later in sync with her husband. Both of them quickly locked on to the teenager at the other end of the street as he flipped backwards up into the air and slammed down onto the roof of an abandoned car. The top of the clunker buckled under the force of his impact, Hardkour clearly not trying to be gentle.
As he landed feet first, the teenage vigilante threw his head back and let out a villain-worthy cackle at the two confused and surprised professional heroes. Grinning back at the both of them, the vigilante leaned back, hands curled like claws at his sides to strike a back-breaking pose and let out some weird screeching noise at the top of his lungs.
"...what." Her husband vocalized what both of them were thinking but Battery knew for a fact that Assault couldn't help but be legitimately interested as to what the kid was actually doing. He was curious that way and she loved him for it.
Assault shot a quick look at his partner, "I have no idea what's going on but I kinda like it."
Sometimes. She loved him for it sometimes.
"Stop. Encouraging. Him," Battery hissed at her partner, throat full of gravel as the circuit lines of her suit pulsed white. "If you're not gonna focus, I'll do this by myself."
"Battery," Assault whispered back.
She ignored his voice, focusing her attention on both her power as she charged to her maximum and the teenage cape still mocking them with every moment he spent free.
"Battery."
Not this time, brat. She tensed.
"Puppy." A hand on her shoulder held Battery back before she could rush off again and she almost whirled on Assault in her anger, blood pumping in her ears as she glared at her husband.
"What?"
He stayed silent and serious, a rarity for him, and gave her a steady once-over. What is he… After a moment, Battery glanced down at herself as well, suddenly aware of just how tightly her fists were clenched as her body continued to tremble from… Rage? Anticipation?
Battery felt her heart drop into her stomach as she realized she wasn't exactly sure what she was feeling, only that whatever it was had her attention laser focused on that goddamn br- She shook her head and took another moment to unclench her fists again.
Both her and Assault met eyes from behind their visors as they came to an immediate realization that neither of them had to voice. Master.
Battery held back another curse as she nodded her head, the cape doing her best to keep her mind clear as she released a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. Shoulders squared, she turned back to face the vigilante with Assault by her side.
Without another word, both capes dashed forward again.
Hardkour reacted before they could even get halfway across the asphalt; the teenager flipping backwards off the car the instant they moved. His feet barely touched ground for a single moment before he spun around in a blur of motion and was already pounding pavement down the currently empty side street.
Battery clenched her teeth as she outpaced her husband, super-strong feet slamming the asphalt as she sped up to make sure they didn't lose the kid. A part of her almost felt thankful that he was largely just running in one direction, the drain on her power lessened by the simple movement pattern. Don't have too long before I have to charge up again though, she frowned to herself. Gotta make sure I'm close before that.
It didn't actually take long, a few seconds at most after she made a sharp left at the corner, before she began to catch up with Hardkour. His scarf trailing behind him as he ran got her attention immediately, the tattered red cloth like a matador's cape.
And I suppose that'd make me the bull. She frowned at that thought, only to let out a relieved sigh of barely concealed relief moments later as she noticed Assault nearing her, the pace of his steps quickening with every passing second. Another sharp turn, this time left, and he was there at her side, his stride longer and less labored than her more aggressive running style.
Good, Battery thought with a mental nod. The only thing the kid had on them was how quickly he could accelerate, she was sure of it. At this pace, they were bound to catch up to him in no time. If not her, then definitely Assault.
And if both of them couldn't manage it, well…
The thought evaporated from her mind as something else caught her attention, the distance between both of them and the kid decreasing with every single step. "We're catching up," she said with a smirk. She glanced at Assault, expecting to see the same on his face, only to be met with a serious grimace.
"No, kid's slowing down," he answered back, with a slight shake of his head. "On purpose."
What. Battery's smirk vanished as she tried to refute him only for her to realize that he was right. The way her perception accelerated while she ran often made it hard for her to judge motion from other Movers but Assault was all about motion. If he said it, it wasn't likely that he was off the mark.
"Why?" she bit back as she glanced at him, barely tamping down her annoyance. It was much easier this time around, she noted to herself. The blood pumping in her ears had calmed and her mood felt much more level despite the physical exertion. Whatever Master effect the kid had at his disposal was likely wearing off. Maybe the distance.
"Why do you think?" He edged his head in the kid's direction and Battery turned her gaze back to see the kid actually running backwards almost at the same speed from before, this time with a phone to the side of his head. "Either he's actually having a conversation right now, which I doubt, or he's just having fun with this."
A moment passed and the kid put the phone away before he flipped the bird at both of them, one finger for each cape, and turned his back to them before speeding up again.
Battery narrowed her eyes. "...I think I hate this kid?"
This time, Assault did smile at her. "Is that a question?"
"...Maybe!" Battery shouted back as they rounded another corner out of the mostly empty areas of Chinatown and traffic began to fill the streets again. She had to yell as she darted out of the way of a rapidly honking car, one that was going a bit too fast for these neighborhood streets for that matter, and landed right by Assault's side again.
Both of them stayed hot on the kid's tail, Battery remaining on as straight a path as she could manage down the busying street while Assault weaved in and out of traffic to match the kid as he began bounding the street. "A better one question would be, 'where the hell is he taking us?'"
"What?!" Assault's voice came through her earpiece as he was forced to make distance between her and some oncoming cars, Battery wincing slightly at his volume. "What do you mean?"
"Look at him," she answered back, both of them easily able to spot Hardkour as he jumped up every few seconds, head flicking from side to side. "He's on the lookout for something."
Assault shot her a glance. "Maybe that phone call was re-"
A barrage of gun shots sounded off, loud and strong, as they completely drowned out the rest of his words. Both Assault and Battery snapped to attention, both at the sudden sound of pistol fire as well as screams.
"Where is that coming from?!"
Battery's shout didn't go ignored by her husband, the red-clad cape jerking a thumb in the direction of the vigilante they had been chasing. "I think he's got an idea!"
Hardkour leapt into the air, suddenly unburdened by gravity as he cleared several stories in a second and alighted on a rooftop only to dart away in what Battery had to assume was the direction of the gunfire.
"After him!"
"No, I was just gonna stay here and take in the nightlife," Assault answered back sarcastically, already in motion. Battery shot him an annoyed glare, only to flinch mid-motion as several more bursts of gunfire rang out, followed by a sound of screeching tires and a squeal of crumpled metal erupted. "Goddamnit, I'll call it in, just move!"
They both turned a corner, sprinting as fast as they could in pursuit of the kid, Assault rattling off code words to police and emergency services as they moved. For a moment, they were lost for direction until a bright gout of flame caught their attention from half a block away. If that wasn't enough, then the sight and sound of people screaming as they ran away certainly gave them an idea of where to go.
Turning another corner, Battery leapt forward without a word, clearing several dozen meters of fencing to land on another street entirely, her fist striking the asphalt at the same time as her bent legs to support her impact. Several yards in front of her, her husband landed with much more grace than she could ever manage.
Normally, he would rib her for her somewhat unsteady landings but the two Protectorate capes remained absolutely silent as they took in the street in front of them.
An overturned SUV sat there in the middle of a half-empty street, it's tires melted into slag as the wheels turned listlessly. Shattered windows showed off the unmoving, blood-covered passengers inside, some still in their seats as they hung upside down by the grace of their seatbelts and one slumped on the upside-down roof of the vehicle. Empire tattoos were visible on at least two shaved heads and what were certainly illegal guns on the asphalt, scattered on the asphalt around the car.
Fuck. Battery's eyes flicked to the top of the vehicle where a familiar vigilante crouched with bent knees, still smiling like nothing at all had happened. Her heart beat loud in her ears again as they locked eyes, her attention suddenly focused on him as she felt that familiar annoyance(?) rise up from nowhere. Fuck.
"Man, you guys sure took your time."
"... Are they alive?" Battery asked quickly, not willing to give him a chance to work whatever Master effect he had. "Answer."
"Yeah…" His smile widened as he rose to a standing position. "For now, at least."
Hardkour made to jump down from the overturned vehicle, humming some pointless tune as he did so. Before his feet could hit the ground, both Battery and Assault burst forward, both of them moving as fast as they could to neutralize the kid before he could escape again.
He opened his mouth wide and Battery's eyes widened in shock as a burst of flame leapt from the depths of his throat, long and thin but dangerous all the same. She moved quickly, slamming her husband to the side with a shove and darting to the side herself.
To her surprise, the fire died out before it neared where both she and Assault had stood, but she didn't allow herself to freeze. She lunged at the kid once more, bursting forward as she spent several seconds of her charge to electromagnetically tear the bumper of the car off as the kid stood in front of it, hoping to trap him in between her and it.
She wasn't prepared as Hardkour threw himself backwards and over the bumper like an Olympic jumper from a standstill. In the same moment, he lashed out with an upside-down bicycle kick, striking the bumper perfectly and sent it hurtling directly toward a surprised Battery still in motion.
Battery slapped aside the front guard away with a grunt and continued her charge. Time slowed down even further for her as the kid side-stepped, moving even faster than normal as he bounced on the balls of his feet like a trained boxer.
She swung.
Two blows.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Delivered in the blink of an eye.
He ducked each one like it was child's play.
"Battery." Assault's voice came in through her headpiece. "I circled around. Pincer move on my signal. Three…"
She kept swinging at the kid, changing the rhythm and speed of her blows as she attempted to trip him up with a change in tempo. Thinker, maybe?
"Two…"
Each blow was dodged with the same ease, the kid not even trying to escape her reach as he avoided each punch. Accelerated perception, definitely.
"Now!"
Pushing down the rising frustration she felt, she charged forward again as Assault burst out from behind the SUV like a rocket, intent on spearing the kid with a tackle.
Hardkour's fist lashed out for the first time, driving itself into her gut and slamming all the air out of her lungs and forcing bile up her throat as she nearly fell to her knees, only for him to duck aside at the very last instant. For the third time that night, Battery found herself in a head-on collision with her husband.
She stumbled back as Assault rebounded off her body and towards Hardkour again.
Their target leapt aside to avoid the kinetic's second lunge, body on a straight shot toward the wall of some random building. Sneakered feet met brick wall in a sudden leap and Hardkour slammed off it, forcing himself into the air as Assault slid to a halt on the ground below.
Hardkour dropped to the ground as Battery steadied herself and Assault came to a stop, still grinning at the both of them. "Assault."
He glanced in her direction for a second, not keeping his gaze off the kid quite yet. "Yeah?"
"Call... call Velocity."
The kid let out a laugh at that. "And, that's my cue. This was kinda-sorta-maybe fun. You guys coulda tried harder and I'd love to give you pointers, but now I gotta split."
"As if we'd let you," Battery spat. "You're not getting away if we can help it."
"That's the thing." Hardkour shook his head. "You can't."
Before either her or Assault could make a move, the teenager suddenly spun on his feet, both arms thrown back behind him as he leaned forward.
Battery's eyes widened as the kid suddenly took off down the street, bursting away at a speed that had to be at least double what she could manage at her very best.
Assault blinked as Hardkour vanished around the corner. "...Huh."
He glanced back at Battery, hand on his chin. "Huh."
Battery lifted a hand under her visor, pinching the bridge of her nose tight. "I'm begging you, right now. Please... please don't say it."
"Honey, how do you feel about kids?"
"... I said please."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
As Assault's chuckles faded away under Battery's continued glare, Greg simply stared at both of the older 'professional' capes with a slowly-fading smile on his face. A small part of him was actually excited to see his heroes in the flesh — one more so than the other if he was being honest — while the rest of him…
I wonder how long they're gonna keep this up, he wondered to himself, one eyebrow raised behind his skull mask. Any longer and they have to realize that they're being crazy obvious with it.
The teenager knew what stalling looked like, of course. Assault was good at it, though, with the way he stretched out words and even over-exaggerated simple things as long looks just to seem playful and fun. There was no doubt that a good chunk of it was just the man being himself or at least playing the same part he did for the camera, but Hardkour knew he was still milking it for what it was worth.
The good-cop, bad-cop routine Battery was obviously trying to pull was obvious as day as well, mostly for how forced it was to make Assault look like the friendly nice guy. It took all his effort not to sigh as Assault stepped closer to stand right beside his wife just a few seconds later and the two seemed to engage in some sort of conversation, Battery actually sounding like she was nagging him as the man nodded along with a patronizing smile on his face. No way they actually got together if she's got that much of a stick up her ass, Greg's fading smile revived itself slightly with a smirk at that thought. Not likely. How is that hot?
All jokes aside, this was starting to get pathetically obvious, and that was coming from him. Greg knew that he was never the most observant person, even with a skill that let him do just exactly that to a superhuman degree, but still… Just put a little more effort into it, whydoncha? It certainly didn't help the supposed image that the two were just being casual and not at all worried or threatened by him when Battery continued to give her husband several playful punches in the arm over his behavior. Oh, come on already, I know how his powers work.
Greg bit back a groan at the sight, shoulders simply slumping they weren't contained in his skull, the blond was sure his eyes would have rolled right out of their sockets. Take some acting classes or something. It would have helped the whole ruse if the both of them managed to do a better job to pretend like they weren't keeping one eye on him the whole time, both of them clearly prepped to launch into action at any moment.
You know what? [Analyze.] [Analyze.]
- Assault Lvl 45
- Battery Lvl 37
Interesting… but yeah, I'm done waiting. With that thought, Greg decided to simply cut the charade short the simplest way he knew how. "So…" the blond tilted his head to the side as he called out loudly, "you guys do know I can tell you're stalling, right?"
Both Assault and Battery paused their conversation, not quite freezing in place but oddly still as their heads turned fully to focus on him in near-perfect unison. Standing just under twenty-five feet away from him, just in front of the car Greg had put work into denting, he had no doubt that both of them heard him loud and clear. Neither said a word at first until Assault let out a loud cough, the sound quickly transitioning into actual laughter as the Protectorate cape didn't even try to fake his composure this time.
Huh. Greg raised an eyebrow as Battery's shoulders slumped, the woman letting out an exasperated sigh as her partner held his stomach amid actual belly laughs.
The blond blinked at both of them, not even bothering to fake a smile that he didn't feel right now. They really think I'm stupid, huh? He let out a sigh through his nose, eyes narrowed to slits behind the eyeholes of his mask as he glared at the two Protectorate capes. "So, I tell you that I know you're stalling for reinforcements and all you do…" He shook his head at the ridiculousness of it. "All you do is stall some more." Neither of them bothered to actually say anything in response as they simply shared a look, something Greg felt told him all he needed to know. "Yeah," Hardkour snorted loudly. "You guys need to work on your acting skills, but still, kudos for sticking to your guns."
Assault shared another look with his partner before turning back to Hardkour. He moved a bit nearer towards where Greg stood, only a few feet closer but close enough to make the teenager tense, before coming to a stop as he let out another long sigh. "Kid…"
"The name's Hardkour," said kid interrupted, one finger rising to his temple as he bent forward slightly at the waist. "Got it memorized?"
The red-clad cape let out another chuckle, one that didn't sound quite so sincere this time as he simply raised his arms in implied defeat and gestured toward his partner. Letting out a sigh, Battery took a few more steps forward to match Assault's position and spoke up, circuit patterns on her suit still shining a bright white. "Alright, let me just be clear with you… Hardkour. I'm not sure what you mean by st-"
"Oh, come on," Greg couldn't help but scoff, once again interrupting the capes as he shook his head in actual annoyance at Battery's continued attempt to lie to him. At least Assault could admit I was right, even if he didn't say it straight up. "You know what really wrinkles my ballsack, lady?"
Assault's hands rose to grip the sides of his head, his mouth mimicking the words despite making no sound.
"When adults try to treat me like that," Greg continued. "I know you have a job to do but try not to patronize me, okay? I'm a teenager, not a fucking retard." The blond took a step forward of his own, folding his arms as he spoke. "It's the only thing that makes sense, y'know, and that's why I said it. Either you have some kind of sedative, I'm guessing you don't cuz you'd have used it instead of tackling me — thanks for that — or you have backup on the way with an easy way to haul me in."
A smile sprung back to life on his face, Greg unable to help the expression as he simply let his mouth splurt out what his brain saw as obvious. "I don't see any containment foam on the two of you and I doubt your whole plan was to beat me bloody and unconscious and drag me in, right? The only answer that makes sense is that you gotta have some sort of backup coming. Probably a PRT truck full of troopers and that oh-so-special foam you actually need to haul capes in? No?"
His smirk transformed into a grin as he caught Battery's flinch. "No, please, tell me I'm wrong. I wanna hear you say it."
"Wow, dude, you're a smart one," Assault replied after a few moments of extended, pregnant silence. He inched toward the sidewalk again, taking two quick steps before coming to another stop. "Like, smart smart."
Hardkour nodded in the hero's direction. "Good to see that it's not just me saying what we both already know. I was feeling kinda self-conscious there for a second."
Assault let out another low chuckle, one that sounded oddly sincere, given the situation and shot Hardkour a grin to match his own. "You're funny, not gonna lie there. Quick on your feet too."
"Quicker than you," the teenager shot back.
"Ooh, burn," Assault replied, a hint of friendly snark in his tone. Obviously intent on saying more, the man made to move forward again.
However, Battery didn't seem to appreciate that, as the woman stuck her arm out to bar her partner's movement. In his place, she stepped forward and ahead of him until she stood barely twelve feet away from Hardkour's position. "Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, Hardkour, we just wanna talk to you. You've gotten into a bit of trouble here but you're a kid. They will go easy on you. You really don't wanna make this a fight, though."
Eyes narrowed despite his still-present grin, Greg shot back, "Listen, I know they'll go easy on me. I was taking down literal terrorists while you PR-pirates were probably sitting on your asses somewhere. Thanks for your service, though." The mocking salute may have been a bit too much but he did it anyway, heels snapping together and all.
"I'm sure people will be glad to know their heroes care more about chasing down a high-schooler than saving their lives. Really putting those tax dollars to work..." Okay, now you're just making stuff up. I don't even think the PRT gets tax money, do they?
"Hold up!" Battery took another couple of steps forward, almost edging on to the sidewalk as Hardkour remained standing against the wall of the boarded-up convenience store. "You don't get to say anything like that! I'm not gonna let you insult the work we d-"
"Gonna stop you right there," Greg interjected, barely holding back a grin as he held a finger up in the air. Battery visibly bristled at both the action and the interruption, her wariness seeming to have shifted into outright annoyance. "I don't really care about what you do. I'm talking about what you don't. If you got a problem, take it up with the people the Empire killed these last couple weeks. Maybe Dauntless was too busy saving cats from trees. Or Triumph had to do another photo op with the mayor." The teenager clicked his tongue, an insincere on his face. "I knew there was a reason that I thought Armsmaster was the coolest one on your team."
The blond let out a loud snort, shifting into a loud and mocking laugh a moment later after he gave up on holding it in. "No offense, of course."
"Some taken," Assault replied, more than a little bit of hurt clear in his tone that Greg wasn't entirely sure was fake.
"Eh," Hardkour shrugged. "I also don't really care."
"And why do you care so much?" Battery shot back at him, body language primed again as her circuit-patterned suit continued to glow. "About the violence? You clearly don't have a problem with killing people… from these neighborhoods."
…The hell is that supposed to mean? Greg's smile disappeared again, eyes narrowed to slits as he stared down Battery. "What…" He let out a scoff before he spoke again. "What, you think 'cause of that mess a few weeks ago, that…"
Greg stared at the Protectorate capes, actually incredulous at what she was implying. "What? I hate all Asians? That's what you actually think?" He let out another unbelieving scoff, hands dropping down to his sides as they tightened into fists. "Jesus Christ, looks like I'm not the one who's the fuckin' retard here."
The teenager blinked a moment later as Battery almost immediately stood up straighter at his words, confused as to why both she and Assault suddenly seemed a good deal more tense.
Oh.
Greg's eyes widened slightly as he replayed what he just said and realized that his words had come out in a vicious growl as opposed to his intended mocking tone. Whoa, pull it back. The unexpected anger struck him hard and the blond eased back against the wall with his hands raised, a slight awkward laugh leaving him as he did so."You know what? This was a fun talk… but I got an appointment I don't wanna be late to."
"Hardkour," Assault called out with a hand up, stopping Greg before the teenager could even so much as take a single step. "You don't wanna run. Take it from me."
Battery nodded, once again looking ready to leap into action. "I'd listen to him."
Greg paused for a moment, a finger tapping his chin as an errant idea popped into his thoughts. After a moment, he gave a mental shrug and decided to give voice to it. "You guys are supposed to take me in… whether or not I come willingly… right?"
He shook his head a moment later, waving away any attempt either of them could make to sugarcoat the response. "Don't answer that. We know that's a big yes, so… you know what?"
"What?" Battery replied rather tersely.
"See," Greg snorted, brushing off the last of his irritation. "I figure, it's like 2 AM, and we all don't wanna get bruised up. So, how 'bout I make you an offer you can't refuse? I won't struggle. I won't fight. None of that. All you gotta do… is catch me."
"Catch you?" Battery asked back incredulously. "You're joking, right?"
"Serious as an Endbringer attack," Hardkour answered back. "Hand to God."
"You can put the hand down because that's not happening." Despite the fact that Greg couldn't see her eyes, he knew for a fact that the woman was glaring at him with all the force she could muster. "That. Is. Not. Happening," she repeated, punctuating each word forcefully. "Just come quietly."
Assault shrugged, smile still on his face. "I'd listen to her."
Hardkour laughed to himself, shaking his head as he realized that the heroes didn't seem to catch on to his point. "You don't really have a say in this. Here's the thing, lady... I. Can. Run. Any. Time. I. Want. To," he shot back, in blatant mockery of Battery's tone.
The blond flashed them both a grin as he took a step forward, both Assault and Battery doing the same until there were barely nine feet of distance between the three of them. "You're the heroes here. I'm the dastardly vigilante. You don't chase me down, you're not doing your job. You gotta do it. At least this way, you're guaranteed not to get a ninja sword to the gut."
"Look," Assault began, scratching the back of his head as he spoke. "Look, I'd be down for a good race anytime, but if you run, right now… then that escalates this. I don't want that. You don't want that."
Hardkour said nothing, his grin only widening.
Battery's expression shifted, moving from a scowl to an open grimace as she glared at Hardkour with her teeth grit. She bounced on the soles of her feet again, already aching to make a move if her body language could be trusted. "So, high-stakes tag, is that it?" she finally asked after a moment of silence.
"Look who's been paying attention. Gold star, lady. A-plus."
"You're only hurting yourself right now." Battery snapped back at him, hands tightening into fists yet again. Her body was tensed, every part of her screaming that she was ready to pounce at any moment. "This isn't some kind of game, you know!"
The teenager tilted his head, eyes narrowed just slightly. "To you."
Hardkour laughed out loud as Battery visibly bristled again at those two words, the female cape edging a few steps to the side but not taking a single step closer. "But yeah… no tricks. None of that. All you have to do is keep up and tag me. That's it." Greg answered, arms spread out at his sides like he was presenting on a stage.
Finally, he turned his attention to Assault. "That's all I want."
Taunt? That was a taunt?! The blond's eyebrows rose behind his mask. Did that really count?
Assault's expression shifted a bit, almost matching his wife as his cocky smile grew brittle to the point that it somewhat appeared like a grimace. "This isn't gonna end well for you, you know?" He asked after a few seconds of silence, his smile returning to normal. "You think you're really faster than the two of us, though?"
Greg grinned, showing far too many blood-stained teeth as he did so. "Wanna find out?"
- Quest Gained!
"So, how's about i-"
The words died mid-sentence as Battery's figure blurred toward him.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Part of her wanted to say she had a plan.
Rushing the kid while he was unprepared and goofing off sounded as good as any other. He clearly wasn't going to come along quietly and honestly, Battery didn't feel the need to humor the high-schooler by engaging in some pointless chase around Chinatown.
She was a Protectorate cape, after all, not some underpaid truant officer.
And yet…
The rest of her just felt livid.
She wasn't quite sure why, exactly, but something about the kid standing on the sidewalk just rubbed her the wrong way. Whether it was the way his eyes seemed to mock her, or possibly the complete nonchalance that oozed from him, or maybe it might just have been the simple snarky remarks that made her want to grab him by the collar and slam him up against that wall-
It certainly didn't help matters that the little brat felt so smug about openly admitting to murder, throwing around hypotheticals like she had to worry about police standards.
Whatever it was about him that got her so riled up, it didn't really matter.
She had enough.
As the kid began to yammer on again, she tensed.
The same instant Hardkour turned his attention away from both her and Assault, Battery forced herself into high gear, the circuit detailing on her suit glowing a bright white as she went from zero to European highway speeds in under a second.
Blue eyes snapped back down and for an instant, their eyes met.
She blinked, mid-step, eyes suddenly widening as the boy vanished.
What the- Before she could even process that, Battery let out a sudden cry as something struck the back of her ankles from behind, knocking her off balance and unable to halt her forward motion. Half an instant later, the cape winced - not from pain, but surprise - as her back impacted the brick wall of the shuttered convenience store.
She was back on her feet in a literal second, only to let out a sudden shout as her husband's body slammed into hers at high speed. Battery fell hard to the ground, catching herself with a grunt on her hands and knees, while Assault simply recovered in the air and rebounded — the way he almost always did — feet meeting the wall first as he bounded off it and back to the ground like a circus performer on steroids.
"I could have sworn I said tag, but two-hand touch works just fine for me, too."
The female cape bit back a growl as she jumped back to her feet again, not even paying Assault a glance as she brushed off his helping hand. Hard eyes flicked over to the teenage vigilante as he bounced on the balls of his feet almost halfway down the alley, several meters from where they stood at the entrance. Alright, then. We'll play it your way.
"He's playing us," Battery hissed through gritted teeth.
"Correction!" the vigilante shouted back, both hands cupped around his mouth. "I've been playing you."
The heroine bit down the urge to curse at the taunt, frustration spiking in a way she hadn't dealt with for quite some time. When she spoke again, her voice was barely above a whisper as she hissed out instructions. "He's too slippery. Cornering him isn't enough. We gotta do this hard, fast and dirty."
"Really? Reminiscing about our wedding night right now?" Assault replied back, voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, if you want to…"
"I swear to God..." She punctuated that last word with a punch to her partner's shoulder that would have sent a car skidding out of control like an icy road in the dead of winter, one Assault didn't even seem to recognize as he smiled back at her.
"I kid. I kid."
Assault shot her another grin and a wink before they both darted off again in unison, Battery just keeping pace with Assault before she punched his side again. This time, he let himself move with the blow, shooting toward the alley wall at an angle as Battery charged forward toward the awaiting teenager.
Her fist came up and she neared him in a little more than a second.
It took a fraction of that for the boy to almost disappear in front of her, the image of him blurring with movement even from her accelerated perspective.
Another fraction later and her super-durable fist slammed into nothing but simple red brick.
The force of her strike sent bits of brick and dust flying, her vision almost obscured if not for her visor. With the sound of laughter, her head whipped to the right and she saw her target.
Even further down the alley, he stood with his hands in his pockets, casually bouncing on the balls of his feet as he laughed at her attempt.
She didn't waste another moment.
Unfortunately, neither did the kid.
Hardkour's entire body burst into motion to sidestep Battery's third lunge. This time, though, she caught his movements perfectly, eyes wide and open as she took in the slow-motion world her powers granted her when charged. Two simple steps was all it took to carry him several meters away from the female Mover, her hand still stretched out toward him.
Before either of them could draw breath, her red-suited partner rushed him from the opposite direction, moving only half as fast as Battery had. The blond glanced up as Assault's arm arced towards him in what would seem like most to be an impossibly fast series of swipes.
Cackling at the top of his lungs, Hardkour dove to one side as he avoided Assault's hands, weaving out of the way of each at the very last second. "What's the Japanese word for slow again?" Battery rushed at the vigilante again, interrupting his line of thought only for the kid to flip back and bounce from wall to wall before dropping back to the alley floor in a move worthy of her husband. "Oh, yeah, I remember now. Osoi, oso sugiru, omae wa toroi na."
The kid's laughter devolved into puerile giggles, only intensifying further as Hardkour caught the Assault's second swing only to duck yet another rush from Battery from behind at the same time, as he pulled the red-suited kinetic forward in his place.
For the second time in half as many minutes, Battery found herself meeting her husband's body as they tumbled out of the alleyway in an uncoordinated sprawl of limbs. Her throat clenched as she bit down a curse, jumping back to her feet as quickly as she could. This is what I get for going for the hard sell, she groused to herself, You would think most kids would back down with murder charges thrown in their face.
To most, Battery was quickly coming to realize didn't seem to apply much to the kid they were trying to corral.
Her eyes flicked from side to side, trying to catch where the kid could have gone to, only for her eyes to widen a second later in sync with her husband. Both of them quickly locked on to the teenager at the other end of the street as he flipped backwards up into the air and slammed down onto the roof of an abandoned car. The top of the clunker buckled under the force of his impact, Hardkour clearly not trying to be gentle.
As he landed feet first, the teenage vigilante threw his head back and let out a villain-worthy cackle at the two confused and surprised professional heroes. Grinning back at the both of them, the vigilante leaned back, hands curled like claws at his sides to strike a back-breaking pose and let out some weird screeching noise at the top of his lungs.
"...what." Her husband vocalized what both of them were thinking but Battery knew for a fact that Assault couldn't help but be legitimately interested as to what the kid was actually doing. He was curious that way and she loved him for it.
Assault shot a quick look at his partner, "I have no idea what's going on but I kinda like it."
Sometimes. She loved him for it sometimes.
"Stop. Encouraging. Him," Battery hissed at her partner, throat full of gravel as the circuit lines of her suit pulsed white. "If you're not gonna focus, I'll do this by myself."
"Battery," Assault whispered back.
She ignored his voice, focusing her attention on both her power as she charged to her maximum and the teenage cape still mocking them with every moment he spent free.
"Battery."
Not this time, brat. She tensed.
"Puppy." A hand on her shoulder held Battery back before she could rush off again and she almost whirled on Assault in her anger, blood pumping in her ears as she glared at her husband.
"What?"
He stayed silent and serious, a rarity for him, and gave her a steady once-over. What is he… After a moment, Battery glanced down at herself as well, suddenly aware of just how tightly her fists were clenched as her body continued to tremble from… Rage? Anticipation?
Battery felt her heart drop into her stomach as she realized she wasn't exactly sure what she was feeling, only that whatever it was had her attention laser focused on that goddamn br- She shook her head and took another moment to unclench her fists again.
Both her and Assault met eyes from behind their visors as they came to an immediate realization that neither of them had to voice. Master.
Battery held back another curse as she nodded her head, the cape doing her best to keep her mind clear as she released a breath she wasn't aware she was holding. Shoulders squared, she turned back to face the vigilante with Assault by her side.
Without another word, both capes dashed forward again.
Hardkour reacted before they could even get halfway across the asphalt; the teenager flipping backwards off the car the instant they moved. His feet barely touched ground for a single moment before he spun around in a blur of motion and was already pounding pavement down the currently empty side street.
Battery clenched her teeth as she outpaced her husband, super-strong feet slamming the asphalt as she sped up to make sure they didn't lose the kid. A part of her almost felt thankful that he was largely just running in one direction, the drain on her power lessened by the simple movement pattern. Don't have too long before I have to charge up again though, she frowned to herself. Gotta make sure I'm close before that.
It didn't actually take long, a few seconds at most after she made a sharp left at the corner, before she began to catch up with Hardkour. His scarf trailing behind him as he ran got her attention immediately, the tattered red cloth like a matador's cape.
And I suppose that'd make me the bull. She frowned at that thought, only to let out a relieved sigh of barely concealed relief moments later as she noticed Assault nearing her, the pace of his steps quickening with every passing second. Another sharp turn, this time left, and he was there at her side, his stride longer and less labored than her more aggressive running style.
Good, Battery thought with a mental nod. The only thing the kid had on them was how quickly he could accelerate, she was sure of it. At this pace, they were bound to catch up to him in no time. If not her, then definitely Assault.
And if both of them couldn't manage it, well…
The thought evaporated from her mind as something else caught her attention, the distance between both of them and the kid decreasing with every single step. "We're catching up," she said with a smirk. She glanced at Assault, expecting to see the same on his face, only to be met with a serious grimace.
"No, kid's slowing down," he answered back, with a slight shake of his head. "On purpose."
What. Battery's smirk vanished as she tried to refute him only for her to realize that he was right. The way her perception accelerated while she ran often made it hard for her to judge motion from other Movers but Assault was all about motion. If he said it, it wasn't likely that he was off the mark.
"Why?" she bit back as she glanced at him, barely tamping down her annoyance. It was much easier this time around, she noted to herself. The blood pumping in her ears had calmed and her mood felt much more level despite the physical exertion. Whatever Master effect the kid had at his disposal was likely wearing off. Maybe the distance.
"Why do you think?" He edged his head in the kid's direction and Battery turned her gaze back to see the kid actually running backwards almost at the same speed from before, this time with a phone to the side of his head. "Either he's actually having a conversation right now, which I doubt, or he's just having fun with this."
A moment passed and the kid put the phone away before he flipped the bird at both of them, one finger for each cape, and turned his back to them before speeding up again.
Battery narrowed her eyes. "...I think I hate this kid?"
This time, Assault did smile at her. "Is that a question?"
"...Maybe!" Battery shouted back as they rounded another corner out of the mostly empty areas of Chinatown and traffic began to fill the streets again. She had to yell as she darted out of the way of a rapidly honking car, one that was going a bit too fast for these neighborhood streets for that matter, and landed right by Assault's side again.
Both of them stayed hot on the kid's tail, Battery remaining on as straight a path as she could manage down the busying street while Assault weaved in and out of traffic to match the kid as he began bounding the street. "A better one question would be, 'where the hell is he taking us?'"
"What?!" Assault's voice came through her earpiece as he was forced to make distance between her and some oncoming cars, Battery wincing slightly at his volume. "What do you mean?"
"Look at him," she answered back, both of them easily able to spot Hardkour as he jumped up every few seconds, head flicking from side to side. "He's on the lookout for something."
Assault shot her a glance. "Maybe that phone call was re-"
A barrage of gun shots sounded off, loud and strong, as they completely drowned out the rest of his words. Both Assault and Battery snapped to attention, both at the sudden sound of pistol fire as well as screams.
"Where is that coming from?!"
Battery's shout didn't go ignored by her husband, the red-clad cape jerking a thumb in the direction of the vigilante they had been chasing. "I think he's got an idea!"
Hardkour leapt into the air, suddenly unburdened by gravity as he cleared several stories in a second and alighted on a rooftop only to dart away in what Battery had to assume was the direction of the gunfire.
"After him!"
"No, I was just gonna stay here and take in the nightlife," Assault answered back sarcastically, already in motion. Battery shot him an annoyed glare, only to flinch mid-motion as several more bursts of gunfire rang out, followed by a sound of screeching tires and a squeal of crumpled metal erupted. "Goddamnit, I'll call it in, just move!"
They both turned a corner, sprinting as fast as they could in pursuit of the kid, Assault rattling off code words to police and emergency services as they moved. For a moment, they were lost for direction until a bright gout of flame caught their attention from half a block away. If that wasn't enough, then the sight and sound of people screaming as they ran away certainly gave them an idea of where to go.
Turning another corner, Battery leapt forward without a word, clearing several dozen meters of fencing to land on another street entirely, her fist striking the asphalt at the same time as her bent legs to support her impact. Several yards in front of her, her husband landed with much more grace than she could ever manage.
Normally, he would rib her for her somewhat unsteady landings but the two Protectorate capes remained absolutely silent as they took in the street in front of them.
An overturned SUV sat there in the middle of a half-empty street, it's tires melted into slag as the wheels turned listlessly. Shattered windows showed off the unmoving, blood-covered passengers inside, some still in their seats as they hung upside down by the grace of their seatbelts and one slumped on the upside-down roof of the vehicle. Empire tattoos were visible on at least two shaved heads and what were certainly illegal guns on the asphalt, scattered on the asphalt around the car.
Fuck. Battery's eyes flicked to the top of the vehicle where a familiar vigilante crouched with bent knees, still smiling like nothing at all had happened. Her heart beat loud in her ears again as they locked eyes, her attention suddenly focused on him as she felt that familiar annoyance(?) rise up from nowhere. Fuck.
"Man, you guys sure took your time."
"... Are they alive?" Battery asked quickly, not willing to give him a chance to work whatever Master effect he had. "Answer."
"Yeah…" His smile widened as he rose to a standing position. "For now, at least."
Hardkour made to jump down from the overturned vehicle, humming some pointless tune as he did so. Before his feet could hit the ground, both Battery and Assault burst forward, both of them moving as fast as they could to neutralize the kid before he could escape again.
He opened his mouth wide and Battery's eyes widened in shock as a burst of flame leapt from the depths of his throat, long and thin but dangerous all the same. She moved quickly, slamming her husband to the side with a shove and darting to the side herself.
To her surprise, the fire died out before it neared where both she and Assault had stood, but she didn't allow herself to freeze. She lunged at the kid once more, bursting forward as she spent several seconds of her charge to electromagnetically tear the bumper of the car off as the kid stood in front of it, hoping to trap him in between her and it.
She wasn't prepared as Hardkour threw himself backwards and over the bumper like an Olympic jumper from a standstill. In the same moment, he lashed out with an upside-down bicycle kick, striking the bumper perfectly and sent it hurtling directly toward a surprised Battery still in motion.
Battery slapped aside the front guard away with a grunt and continued her charge. Time slowed down even further for her as the kid side-stepped, moving even faster than normal as he bounced on the balls of his feet like a trained boxer.
She swung.
Two blows.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Delivered in the blink of an eye.
He ducked each one like it was child's play.
"Battery." Assault's voice came in through her headpiece. "I circled around. Pincer move on my signal. Three…"
She kept swinging at the kid, changing the rhythm and speed of her blows as she attempted to trip him up with a change in tempo. Thinker, maybe?
"Two…"
Each blow was dodged with the same ease, the kid not even trying to escape her reach as he avoided each punch. Accelerated perception, definitely.
"Now!"
Pushing down the rising frustration she felt, she charged forward again as Assault burst out from behind the SUV like a rocket, intent on spearing the kid with a tackle.
Hardkour's fist lashed out for the first time, driving itself into her gut and slamming all the air out of her lungs and forcing bile up her throat as she nearly fell to her knees, only for him to duck aside at the very last instant. For the third time that night, Battery found herself in a head-on collision with her husband.
She stumbled back as Assault rebounded off her body and towards Hardkour again.
Their target leapt aside to avoid the kinetic's second lunge, body on a straight shot toward the wall of some random building. Sneakered feet met brick wall in a sudden leap and Hardkour slammed off it, forcing himself into the air as Assault slid to a halt on the ground below.
Hardkour dropped to the ground as Battery steadied herself and Assault came to a stop, still grinning at the both of them. "Assault."
He glanced in her direction for a second, not keeping his gaze off the kid quite yet. "Yeah?"
"Call... call Velocity."
The kid let out a laugh at that. "And, that's my cue. This was kinda-sorta-maybe fun. You guys coulda tried harder and I'd love to give you pointers, but now I gotta split."
"As if we'd let you," Battery spat. "You're not getting away if we can help it."
"That's the thing." Hardkour shook his head. "You can't."
Before either her or Assault could make a move, the teenager suddenly spun on his feet, both arms thrown back behind him as he leaned forward.
Battery's eyes widened as the kid suddenly took off down the street, bursting away at a speed that had to be at least double what she could manage at her very best.
Assault blinked as Hardkour vanished around the corner. "...Huh."
He glanced back at Battery, hand on his chin. "Huh."
Battery lifted a hand under her visor, pinching the bridge of her nose tight. "I'm begging you, right now. Please... please don't say it."
"Honey, how do you feel about kids?"
"... I said please."
