In celebration of my new job, I am updating all 4 of my fics at once. Behold! The week of Lark begins!
[*****]
Excellence 2.2.4
Laser pistol in one hand, stun rod in the other, I circled Über and herded him away from Leet to the other side of the stage. They had a lot more to gain from synergy and cooperation than we did. His return fire was simply deflected off my stun rod as I swatted his beams before they could harm me.
That said, I wasn't exactly hitting him with my stray shots. I wasn't putting my all into it; I didn't need to. He was moving where I wanted, and once he was there I'd be able to pick him apart at leisure.
Once he was at the corner of the stage, I shifted to firing directly at him.
With a flicker of his bubble shield my beam bounced right back at me and hit me before I realized what had happened. I fell back on my ass and couldn't move for a second. My moment of paralysis wasn't ignored, and I was suddenly under a rain of laser shots, ramping up my 'damage' and keeping me immobile while not sending me flying too far. I was spasming and jerking too much to defend myself, so he kept up the attack until he was close enough to snatch the stun rod and laser gun from my trembling hands. He stepped back and stopped shooting me, then holstered his gun.
"So, no special ability with hand to hand, eh?"
I caught my breath and stood up on shaky legs.
"Nope."
"Then why didn't you open up with your stun rod?"
I blinked.
"Didn't need to."
His head tilted at that.
"You seemed to be serious enough aside from that one stupid call. You even fought well. Extremely well. Are you sure you're thinking . . . clearly?"
I almost gave that some thought, but I wasn't going to fall for his obvious mind game. I didn't need to listen to the babbling of some pathetic criminal that was about to go down hard.
Wait.
Pathetic?
This was Über. One of the potentially most dangerous capes alive if he chose to be. But I could take him.
What?
Where did I get off thinking he was pathetic? I never thought that! I . . .
It clicked.
Glory Girl.
Her emotional aura.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My shaking stopped. I felt it, a wave washing over me, soaking me in . . . arrogance. Confidence. Self-righteousness. It was 'helping' me as much as it was hindering our opponents. But I didn't need any of that emotional backup. It was warping me.
I mentally turned to the wave and rejected it. Something inside me surged up and blasted out, mentally scouring the foreign influence from me.
Immediately a rush of fear and revulsion washed over my mind. What was I doing? I was going easy on Über? Did I want to get wrecked on my debut as a cape? No! Screw that noise! That's not me!
My breathing hurried, and I shuddered. Shaking my head a few times rapidly, I reset my stance and faced my opponent once more. I calmed myself.
"Thank you for that. Really." I was completely sincere.
"No problem. Victoria there tends to forget how much she fucks with her friends' minds as much as her enemies, and while usually I'd keep quiet and just pound you . . . you were trying to be fair even while under the Asshole Aura. Figure that deserved some professional courtesy."
I nodded.
"I won't ask for my weapons back; just know that I'm new at this and don't really know how far my ability goes when pushed."
He nodded back.
"Bring it, hero."
I charged. This time there was no fancy theatric approach. A blur of blows, not to hurt him so much as get him guarding. A three punch combo, and a kick . . . that launched me up and into a backflip away from him, power flowing into me as I landed hard on the edge of a particular plank on the stage.
A plank that stretched out to underneath Über's right foot.
My foot went down, and the other end went up- more than mine, because the fulcrum of the plank happened to be much closer to me. As such, Über was launched a good ten feet into the air.
Fun physics fact: without some kind of ability specifically tailored to motion or gravity, you cannot move your body outside the arc of a given throw or fall (before air resistance and terminal velocity come into play, at least). That said, as a martial artist, Über was now in the worst possible position: he had no control over his landing spot or fall speed, leaving him on a very predictable path for the next couple seconds.
I kicked myself forward as hard as I could, flying at him at full speed. I rotated my body in mid-air, coming at him with a kick with my full body weight behind it . . . which he promptly grabbed, flipped himself over, and used as a stabilizing platform to kick off of me and land back on stage, sending me flying towards the edge. I landed in a slide and came to a stop right on the right edge of the stage, then stood up. He was frowning.
"I thought you shook of the stupid arrogance."
I smiled.
"I did."
He was quiet for a moment, and then his eyebrows slowly went up as he noticed what I was twirling idly in my hand.
[***]
Victoria wasn't happy.
Not happy at all.
The giant stupid glove-hand-thing was able to smack her around despite her force field. That wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't being injured at all, but she was being moved around- more and more as time dragged on and she kept taking hits.
That was the troublesome part. She was used to tanking most hits, and avoiding blows she would otherwise normally ignore was a slightly alien mindset to her. Every time she went to send Leet over the edge, the hand came down fast and hard. When she focused on the hand, Leet peppered her with some dumb toy or another that he kept pulling out of nowhere.
This time it was a . . . flower? Wait, what is he doing with that- oh shit!
She was being bathed in flames as the hand floated up out of the inferno.
Fire . . . flower? Isn't that fucking Mario? What the hell is this? Nothing else about this is Mario! They're breaking their own rules!
"Arrgh!" She flew forward into the fire, fist extended. The fire stopped and the felt the impact as a (quickly shrinking) bubble shield popped into existence around Leet. He opened his mouth to comment, but Glory Girl wasn't having any of it.
"JUST! GO! DOWN!" Three blows, each sending a round dent crunching down into the wood of the stage. Leet's smug expression faltered for a moment as his footing inside the bubble shook. He had to crouch as the bubble continued to get smaller. The bubble popped, and she reared back for one more blow . . .
And the hand swept and knocked her feet out from under her. She had taken Lightshow's advice to heart and was focusing on flying 'down' to compensate for the extra inertia she was being given by all the weird attacks. That she didn't account for a basic sweep led her to falling down hard, which was followed up by the hand wrapping around her and pressing its thumb over her face.
'Mmmph!'
Victoria couldn't breathe.
She had gotten a few pointers from other 'Alexandria package' capes on how to deal with choke-situations. It was a common enough tactic that there were a few old standby responses for brutes. Namely, enter an environment so harsh that your assailant folded before you ran out of breath. That most brutes could hold their breath longer than normal was a small blessing.
Still, when the hand floated up with her in the grip and started spinning wildly in different directions, it didn't take long for her to completely lose her bearings. If she tried to fly in any direction she was like as not to send them both careening 'out of bounds' or whatever the stupid setup was. No way was she going to leave Lightshow up against these two creeps solo.
Well, no way barring she'd die otherwise. She was pretty sure that even if the nerds won they'd not actually kill them.
Then again that was before she just lost her own temper and tried to beat Leet's face in at full power, which led to her current predicament.
She flexed her arms and tried to bring them up and away from her body, to no avail. She could feel the hand as it squeezed harder in response to her struggling.
Wow, she was dizzy.
This might be bad . . . feeling sleepy . . .
[***]
Über whipped out both laser pistols akimbo and started raining fire on the new girl as she brandished his Homerun Bat like she owned it. She took off running in a wide circle around him, hopping and spinning as she went to dodge his fire. He led his shots and alternated beams, but she slipped around them like a snake. The corona of illumination around her was getting brighter and brighter.
Once she had circled halfway around him, she turned on a dime and rushed right at him. He aimed above and below and fired a pattern down through her and out to the sides; utterly undodgable if she didn't take to the air.
Light assaulted his eyes as a column of brightness exploded from her. A sunset-red cape manifested in the light sphere just behind her and swooped around in front of her to block all the shots.
Shit.
He triggered his bubble shield just as she slammed a foot down and screeched to a halt- right outside of the bat's strike range.
What?
Before he could react she reached high up and flung the bat down onto his shield. It bounced up behind her into the air. Above Leet and over him.
Above the Master Hand, and then down towards it.
"Oh shit, Leet look out!"
But his voice was muffled by the bubble. She smiled, crossed her arms, and tossed her hair back with a flick of her head as the bat spun and fell and landed on the spinning Hand- which sent the robot crashing straight down as if it had been hit by a truck. Leet went flying a few feet as it crunched down into wood and steel as it was embedded into the stage.
She didn't turn around to look, keeping eye contact Über the whole time.
Über just stood there for a second as Glory Girl pried the crippled robot off of her, and Leet stood back up from his fall.
Not good.
Not good at all, but he was smiling. Leet was muttering something he couldn't make out, but the new girl just amped up her grin.
The bat, which had bounced off the hand and back into the air for a moment, was snatched out of the air just as it was about to land on her head. The blinding light and cape appeared again for just an instant as she did.
Über shook his head slowly.
"I don't feel like playing dirty after that. So, before we escalate this any further, a deal: we walk, hostages leave unmolested."
The new girl glanced back at Glory Girl, who was gasping for breath. She turned back to Über.
"I can't say what's waiting for you outside the stagehouse. For the hostages I'll take the deal. Leet, you agree with Über?"
A moment passed, and the skinnier villain blinked, tore his gaze away from the ruins of the robot, and responded.
"Yeah. Sure. Ten seconds after we're gone the pocket closes and everything goes back."
Leet limped over to Über and leaned on him as they moved to the edge of the stage. Apparently that fall did more damage than was immediately obvious. Before they jumped off, Über turned back.
"New girl. You got a name?"
She nodded.
"Lightshow."
Über chuckled.
"Perfect."
"It was fun, boys. I'll try to keep them from editing you in our recording too much!"
Leet gaped in outrage and started yelling something as Über pulled them both over the edge. The 'out of bounds' sound triggered, and Lightshow turned to Glory Girl.
[***]
I walked over and nodded. The audience wasn't screaming anymore, and a few shouted thanks could be heard from the various women clinging to their seats.
"Clean end, everyone's safe."
"You believed them?"
"Honestly? Yes. Über wouldn't bother to lie about that. This entire set-up allowed them to escape clean as soon as they 'lost;' I wouldn't be surprised if wherever they exit happens to be out of state or some- what's that sound?"
We both looked around for the hissing noise, and I only noticed the bob-omb a fraction of a second before it bumped into Victoria's leg and exploded.
