Ramification 5.6
April 16th, 2011. 11:54AM
Basilia Rubio
Damn her.
Damn her….
For making me feel like inadequate garbage!
I dropped from a portal, cursing the deficiencies that still remained with my Dimensional Paths. Glory Girl followed after we had escorted Lung's kid to the PRT for her own protection. We raced toward the Docks, and I grimaced at the distant pillars of fire that rose from ABB territory. The cold fire ice of the pulse of mass effect fields let me know that Taylor was throwing down at full throttle. Waves of reality breakage gave away Dauntless, and I didn't feel much safety from how his power covered his body in a blinding light.
To the right, a
very unwell Fenja was trying to knock buildings over and was being held off by a frazzled Miss Militia. Her weapon was constantly shifting between any number of heavy weaponry from rocket launchers to anti-tank rifles.
Fenja attacked like a berserker, her pale and thin skin letting a blue light in her veins shine through. Like the proverbial David and Goliath, they fought on a surprisingly even footing, Miss Militia's weapon releasing a battle cry as it shifted to a chunk of sharp metal over three meters long and weighing
half a ton. She bludgeoned Fenja, knocking the giant off of her feet. She slipped between blows from the giant Valkyrie, her weapon spitting bullets in between punishing Fenja with increasingly absurd melee weapons.
On the left were the Dockworkers, my Golems and the PRT, facing off against Cricket and two dozen Empire members, with about a third of the Nazis having black pulsating marks. I winced, even people like that didn't deserve the level of suffering inflicted by those…
abominations.
"Do…do you really know how to…help them?" I asked to thin air, and I felt the distant song of the Rachni, transmitted through dimensions by my technology.
Yes, they are not at the stage of complete subservience.
Those corrupted by hate can still be saved, despite their crimes.
God…I think Piggot really isn't going to like this, because if I know this place eventually it'll come out that we've recruited an
entire alien race into our team. Made up of giant bug monsters capable of producing thousands of offspring a year, with acid spit, chemical factories in their stomachs, mind powers, and a carapace tough enough to bounce bullets.
Glory Girl tapped my shoulder, adjusting her crown with a light frown. "I've got Fenja…" she grimaced and gave an affectionate squeeze. "Monarch is going to be fine, she's tough and she's fighting alongside Armsmaster and
Dauntless. Okay?" I nodded, and with a final goodbye she rocketed into Fenja like a missile.
I turned around, ready to throw down with the Empire before closely thinking it through with what needed to be done. There were multiple armored vehicles, and I
had weapons that could take care of them. I patched into the PRT communication line.
"
We're combatting 24 Empire members and a cape, eight of them have received some type of…Tinkertech upgrades! We need reinforcements!"
I responded. "May I cut in…?" I trailed off wanting a name from the apparent commanding officer. She was a woman from the sound of her voice.
"
Captain Samantha Clemens, you would be Erudition?" The woman ducked as a bullet passed by her head, and I sicked two dozen drones on the buggers. The gunfire died down as they either plonked on omni-shielding or their users were foamed.
"Yes…I believe you require some assistance?" Only nine Empire members besides Fenja were still active. They were much faster than their still unfit counterparts, and the ion cannons did little to deter them. Shooting them with bullets
was an option but I'm not sure it was one I was willing to take.
Then again death might be a
mercy for the poor bastards.
"
That would be nice yes…your tinker friend took a bad hit from some type of lightning the Empire is shooting out." The captain added some information and I could hear the cursing of the tinker from here as she applied the medi-gel under cover.
"Well…that shouldn't be too much of a problem for me," My biotics surged and I took a page out of Taylor's playbook of biotics mixed with bending. The armored vehicles were acting as cover and supplies, and there were still another dozen Empire members on the way. "I've got a few things in store for the Nazi bastards, so…I'll get right on that." A few sensor checks found the vehicles had only a single driver each, so I chopped with my hand.
A wave of cutting wind was thrown and then compressed into a mobile barrier,
multiple wind blades were in fact shot and every single vehicle was cut in half. Drones then proceeded to foam their fairly normal drivers, with a few PRT agents getting in on the action.
"
You…" Cricket let out a high pitched sonic scream, windows breaking and blood seeping from her eyes as she raged. She flowed in her movements but fortunately didn't exhibit any use of elemental martial arts. Her power was being
juiced at the cost of stability, and I could tell that despite her clear dislike for me…
She didn't want to do this.
Cricket jumped two dozen feet in the air, twirling expertly as she dropped down with her kamas pointed toward my neck. I didn't give her a chance to hit me, pushing off the ground on gusts of wind. Her scarred arms
pulsed and a burst of
lightning smashed against my barrier. The lightning exploded through the ground, and I could hear Cricket's labored breathing from the single use of the symbiote forcefully taking her bioelectrical energy and using it as a trigger for a high scale energy attack.
My energy barrier had taken a hit but wasn't brought down to zero by the highly energetic attack. But if there had been multiple strikes…
"Hmm…"
With a sigh I kicked the ground, launching Cricket and half a dozen enhanced Empire members in the air. Cricket landed while the other six instead slammed half into the ground. It didn't kill them…but the fact they got back up despite suffering tremendous injuries didn't say good things about whatever this weapon is.
"
No…no…
NOOO!" I saw only the white of Cricket's eyes as she launched herself at me like a rabid animal. The others did the same, hysterical strength allowing them to throw three grown PRT troopers to the side with little difficulty. One of them got a shot off before a drone could down him, but the rifle bullet bounced with little difficulty off the PRT trooper's helmet. He fell, but the downed man managed to
launch a fireball(!) into his would be killer's chest before going down. The Empire member was flung back back before going still, but thankfully he was still alive.
I guess.
Cricket shrieked, and I felt nausea even through my armor, and then alarm as she shot out half a dozen bolts of electricity in several seconds. The energy barrier shattered, and she tried to shove her kama into my throat. Instead I threw
stasis at her, and she was frozen solid, surrounded in a field of solid photons.
There was a gunshot coming from where Danny had been hiding and my heart dropped into my stomach. I threw myself up to a tenth the speed of sound, knocking down the rest of the attackers with gusts of wind and throwing a few non-lethal bombs their way. As I turned to the damaged building I feared for the worst.
I only managed to dodge the rockslide by inches as six enhanced Empire members were bombarded but not killed by crushed concrete. I gaped as I saw Danny rise up from his destroyed desk, adjusting his glasses with a neutral expression that reminded me of Taylor. Bakuda held a hand in front of him, the gauntlet sizzling as a bullet turned to liquid metal as it fell.
Uhh.
"Aren't you supposed to be fighting the Empire?" Danny crossed his arms, his expression turning stern.
"They're all down actually, I had a few grenades on me…are you two okay?" Bakuda nodded with a pained hiss.
"Yeah…bastards got me good with a dozen strikes at once, the numbers were at least twice as high before the PRT got here. There's something really fucked up going on here." She sounded disturbed and frankly I felt no different.
This…wasn't the MO of the Reapers, even if this…event shared certain characteristics. Even so the Rachni had been quite adamant about them being able to easily counter anything this…
creature had to offer. Even if the disturbing vision had knocked me off my game.
Danny replied next. "I'm fine. I just need to get back to work."
…
"You're just as crazy as Taylor is…
and oh god she's fighting Lung." I squeaked and the look that Danny gave me was beyond horrifying.
"
What?"
"She…wanted me to save you…I…I…" I felt woozy, like I was going to throw up at any second.
There was a sound like the crackle of ice, and I felt another fight that had encroached the area end fairly rapidly. I turned around, blinking as Crystal and Amy came out of nowhere. A
wave of water followed Amy, and she quickly froze it as it collided with a struggling Fenja.
Amy tapped in."
Could you help me with this…please?" I glanced helplessly at Danny, his hands twitching and the parental fear feeling all too real.
"Go." I practically teleported to Amelia's side, and she commanded quickly.
"Stasis
now." Her voice brokered no arguments, and I threw half a dozen biotic restraints on the giant woman. They crackled as she began to break free but that was all the time Amy needed. A blob of water covered the woman's head and
glowed. To my shock I saw Panacea's
power run through and into the water, and I heard a visible scream from inside Fenja. In an instant, Fenja's supercharged power faltered and with a snap the brute changer collapsed back down to her normal size.
I could hear the PRT men here struggle to keep the other supercharged people under control. And I was thankful that I had kept a few drones on Cricket in case the stasis wore off.
A wordless scream of horror escaped Fenja, and she threw up a boiling black gunk that I immediately reduced to dust with a
Warp before dumping it in a testing facility for Bakuda bombs and having it shoved into another
Warp bomb. She passed out, and Amy slipped, covering her mouth for a moment. She ducked into an alley, and I could hear her tch for at least thirty seconds.
She rushed back out, with a surprisingly determined look despite how pale she was.
"I—" she cut me off.
"Gather everyone with those black markings. Then once we're done we can deal with Taylor being stupid enough to fight Lung."
"Wha?" She rolled her eyes.
"Singer-of-Rebirth told me, now stop being flighty and
help me." I nodded absently, shivering as the roar of Lung echoed through the town.
___
April 16th, 2011. 11:56AM
Taylor Hebert
I could hear my biotics pulse and twitch, my heart pumping in my chest as I rocketed around Lung. I could
feel the heat, feel his fire surging around him, a flaming whirlwind that damaged buildings. Even so we had kept the damage to a single street, despite Lung having grown to over 23 feet in height. Any time that molten concrete got close, I cooled it down with a pressurized burst of air projected from my weapon. The heat didn't phase me as much as it should and I was glad for that.
This really was a
battle.
Lung was burning, and it took everything we had from the three of us to even
try to take him down. Armsmaster had revealed a new weapon that cut through Lung like nothing I had ever seen. The grey blur had sliced through Lung's armor like it was a sheet of paper instead of inches of armor plating and scales. The tinker managed to keep up with Lung, his biotics giving him options that he didn't have before now.
BOOM!
Dauntless rained down lightning, each strike taking chunks out of Lung before they healed up in seconds. He routinely aimed for the wings keeping Lung grounded for as long as we could hold him. I had seen him smack Lung around like it was nothing, and his shield could block off Lung's firestorms so we wouldn't get baked.
As for
me.
I
blinked and slammed into Lung as the distance between us shortened to nothing. A wave of kinetic energy shattered his spine, and with a grimace I launched a
beam of warpfire. The white blast of energy punched through his chest and angrily he let out a wave of fire. I
blinked out of the way and up into the air, a much smaller but staggering wave of kinetic energy following.
The Dancing Kanquess, I could teleport at any angle I wanted at the cost of range and power. It was a tiring technique but I had been practicing for a while now, and I was starting to get the hang of it. My swarm made it easy to orient myself, and I had used it half a dozen times to get out of the way of more dangerous attacks.
"
NOT…BAAAD!" Lung snapped his jaw back into place, eyes continuing to burn like stars. Which made no sense to me…but there was a weirdly shaped flame inside his mouth, pulsing with each word.
Was he using his power to talk?!
Dauntless's spear pierced his neck from twenty feet away, extending out from his position in the air. It sent out a burst of energy, sending Lung barreling in Armsmaster's direction. I was about to let out a warning but the tinker dived toward Lung with
no hesitation, limbs blurring and the ground cracking as he swung his halberd.
SHINK!
And cut Lung in half.
I didn't let my awe slow my movements, and I launched a series of
barrier slices Lung's way. As I spun on the ground I found a broken fragment of metal, a rod about a meter long. I grabbed it with my left hand and launched it with a
throw at Lung's chest.
His wings were blown off by my barrier slices and the metal rod pierced his chest at transonic speed.
I launched forward at what felt like many times the speed of sound. I left
Lung reeling with another biotic charge. I flipped along his back, and combined an air bomb with a biotic
shockwave. I smiled when Lung shot off like a rocket into the road. Armsmaster kept Lung on the back foot, using his newfound earthbending to crush the dragon under the weight of the city.
"
MOVE!" Queen screamed in my ear, and I shouted out my own warning. The two capes dodged as Lung leapt into the air on regenerated limbs, a second pair of wings and arms emerging in a shower of biogenic metal and gore. I twisted through the air to dodge his sudden launch, and I didn't feel like the fight was turning in our favor with Lung taking to the air.
Lung twitched, and I
blinked out of the way as a giant metal dragon smashed into Lung at three times the speed of sound.
…
I didn't used to think of statements like that and
believe them, and I think that says a lot about my mentality.
Right. Focus Taylor, get back into the fight.
I jumped, moving air currents to my will, my swarm circling around me in a twister formation. Queen rode on a cloud of thousands of bugs, surfing on literal waves of insects.
Disperse.
The cloud spread out, giving me a three dimensional view of the battlefield that had gone from the ground to the air. Lung was twenty five feet tall and at least twice that length including his tail. Two pairs of flaming wings kept him aloft and he was already healing from the supersonic impact. Opposing him was Dragon and Dauntless, and I blinked at the suit that Dragon was wearing.
It was definitely new, around the same size as Lung and despite being made out of metal it looked a lot more organic, it's metal skin was almost flawless, with highly articulated scales that were covered in a faint green forcefield. It looked like a classic western dragon in every way, and it seemed to fly without using any visible propulsion.
"
Hello Lung." Dragon chirped almost cheerily, and two cannons opened up from her chest. Despite the heavy filtering of my helmet I was blinded as two beams of plasma caught Lung straight in the face. He howled, spinning in the air as his wings
vibrated. They flapped, and his scales flickered as he sent out a directed explosion.
BWOOM!
Dragon lifted a front limb, and a round shield cracked at the beam of destructive combustion. She
accelerated, firing what I was pretty sure were
railguns as she slammed into Lung in midair. The dragon took a hit from Dauntless, the Trump cape smashing his extended shield into Lung's back. With a sneer I directed my swarm, their numbers swelling as I rallied as many as I could reasonably command without damaging the ecosystem.
They struck at every spot and crevasse that Lung had on his body, obscuring his vision, digging at his skin with energy beams and projections of my airbending. Any time that Lung had an open wound my swarm would dig into them, injecting him with a cocktail of venoms and poisons. Maybe it won't hurt him as much as Warp would, but they were a good distraction…
Lung roared, twisting in the air with more agility than someone his size and mass should have. He was being pinned down, but in the air he had a lot more angles to escape from. I would have to step in a little more directly…
"Queen…" The projection straightened up, and with a smirk I silently commanded her to
attack. I blinked and summoned a field of gravity, shaping it around my shock-sword to form a blade of infinite sharpness. With a flick of my wrist I sliced open Lung's back and he slipped from his flight. Queen fell upon him like an angry goddess, and Lung got to experience what it was like to have ten thousand fire ants stinging him, and one hundred enhanced coconut crabs crushing through his scales.
A hook wrapped around Lung's tail and I weaved out of the way as Armsmaster threw himself back into the fight. He had launched himself into the air with his earthbending, and with another arm swing he cut through one of Lung's legs. He circled around Lung, using his own momentum to land on Dragon's back. The air of smugness was almost palpable from here.
"
Excellent…" I snorted as I picked up on Armsmaster's voice. "
It's taken significant practice to reach this level of acrobatics."
Lung narrowed his eyes, four wings flapping with immense downforce. His maw split open, and a white hot stream of fire nearly cooked me alive. Dragon blocked it with her own body, her wings acting as a shield while she floated in the air.
Dauntless flew until he was a blur even to my eyes, occupying Lung as he continued trying to fling balls of fire, the dragon's arms snapped into fast punches, detonating on impact with his shield. Some of them would get through, exploding on the ground before being put out by the PRT officers that had arrived on the ground.
I flew through the sky, launching warp after warp, whenever I wasn't
blinking in and out of existence. I landed back on the ground and launched a barrage of
throw propelled spears. To my astonishment he grabbed the first spear, and knocked the others off course in less than a second. I launched myself a hundred feet in the air, and flew around him, mentally flicking entire clouds of insects to block his sight, to analyse his movements and give me advanced warning of an attack.
Dragon rocketed toward him, Armsmaster holding on for dear life as she slammed into Lung like a metallic god. A compartment opened up in her suit's palm, and a cryogenic blast tried to cool off Lung. He flash heated the ice to steam with a wave of plasma. His tail whipped with a boom like cannon fire, and dented the metal that Dragon was made from.
Dauntless
blurred blasting an explosion of lightning right in Lung's face. He bashed Lung in a spiraling fall with his shield, and weaved between a firestorm with a speed that made my head hurt. His lance extended, and he sweeped it along in a narrow arc. I felt my ears ring and my swarm vibrate as a directed explosion of kinetic light launched Lung back at least ten feet into the air.
…
There was literally nothing we had that could use to
safely put him down…we needed to—
"
Monarch. Is there any attack that can put Lung down for a greater amount of time?" Armsmaster contacted me, and I flew down, knocking Lung off course with eddies of wind and gusts.
One attack came to mind, the strongest and
most dangerous biotic attack I could use right now.
"I have one."
"
Use it." He left no room for argument, and with my eyes shut I gathered up my biotic energy. I could feel the roiling waves of dark energy, the constant drone at the back of my mind.
"Are you sure about this? You
know the attack I'm going to use." He chuffed, and I could see how tight his grip on his halberd was.
"
I will take responsibility if this goes wrong." I sighed.
"Well…it's on your head." I
blinked until I was a good twenty feet above Lung. I took a deep breath and
pulled. I could feel the burn as I strained my nerves, dark energy coalescing and changing the properties of the universe. With another mental trigger, I started
crushing the air around my hand.
More.
The air rippled as gravity increased exponentially, I felt a bead of sweat drop down to my chin as I invoked more and more biotic power. I propelled myself on air, dropping my biotic lightening for a moment. Even without it I could just about equal Dauntless in speed.
More.
The air started heating, sucked into the black mass that started to form on top of my hand. Gravity
kept increasing, the center kept getting denser, and denser, and
denser. Lung paused, and I could see Dauntless moving back a few feet as the air around me started to ripple.
More.
For a moment everything was silent.
Then the air flashed to plasma, as it was crushed and warped by a
Singularity.
Lung's roar was soundless, and I flung the miniature black hole into his stomach. I was knocked out of the air as the most powerful attack I had available ricocheted inside his body. He drifted as gravity lost its hold on him, helpless to fight back against the gravity anomaly boiling his blood and warping and crushing his flesh even as he regenerated as fast as possible. He grew two more feet just to keep himself alive. I…
THUMP!
Why am I on the roof of a building?
My hearing was fuzzy, and I had to use my bugs to hear what the people around me were saying. Dragon was holding down Lung, and he was forcibly frozen by an application of Armsmaster's halberd. I couldn't…why was I?
Armsmaster was on his knee, and I finally noticed that he was
checking me over. He scanned me, and I could see the frown on his face. He gently poked my arms and I groaned as the
pain became evident. My muscles spasmed, and I could hear the alarms ringing before there was a sudden sensation of relief.
Medi-gel injectors…
"Monarch, can you hear me?" I groaned, nodding my head even as
agony surged through my exhausted nerves.
"Y-Yes…I just…added a little too much power…I exhausted myself." My throat was dry, and I think I hit my head with how fuzzy everything was.
"Not the smartest decision." I glared at him even with my helmet, and the usually stoic Armsmaster smiled for a split second. His smile broke when a bone chilling roar echoed through the street, and I could hear Queen hiss as Lung coated himself in a bubble of fire. Dragon stepped back, Armsmaster's halberd warping in the thousand degree field of heat.
I don't think he's going to like that.
The frozen air holding Lung down broke, and his muscles and silver scales swelled further. Lung had grown to just over thirty feet tall, as big as he was when he fought
Leviathan. His bat-like wings caused hurricane level winds, and a blast of fire beneath his feet boosted him over eighty feet in the air. His scales all shimmered, and my omni-tool
helpfully informed me that Lung was channeling both his firebending and his Parahuman pyrokinesis through his scales.
"We need to move…
now." I yelped when Armsmaster picked me up, leaping off a building to the next one.
But it wouldn't do any good.
The amount of energy he was channeling…it was…too much for
anyone to withstand. And then…Lung turned to us, and I had the vague idea that I was being sneered at.
That plus the inhumanly calculating look added up to a
nightmare.
A solid beam of fire over ten feet wide pushed against the air, and I could see Dragon turning at Mach speeds to block the beam of directed explosions.
Oh.
My swarm rippled and I knew we weren't going to be fast enough…
"G-Gate to—" The blast caught up to us before I could finish the words. I tried desperately to continue because I didn't want t—
Instead of blinding burning hellfire my vision was obscured by a blocky, ugly cockroach of a shuttle. But at that moment it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my life. It's shields shined golden, and the flames were split in two. One of the shuttle doors opened and I saw Basilia leap out.
"That's…" Armsmaster trailed off, and I couldn't help but stare as the sea of fire was halted by Basilia
alone. The cyclone of fire over fifty feet tall turned from blue to orange-white, with hints of other colors as Basilia circled her arms. The swirling flames were brought together into a pillar even taller than
two Lungs, and there was a chill down my spine as the flames sputtered and
died.
When the heat faded and the air cleared, Lung was gone with only an elaborate scorch mark remaining where he had stood. There was a long trail of destruction, and I felt surprised that we had managed to confine the battle to a single street.
"We…" I coughed, my arms spasming again after the strain of using my biotics for so long and then summoning a
black hole. "We fought him off then?" Armsmaster let out an admonishing murmur, and…
why do I feel like someone is burning a hole through my head?
"Monarch." My mouth went dry when Basilia appeared out of nowhere, both of her arms kept to the side but her hands tightened into fists. I tried to move, and she
growled.
"I…" Even without a face to look at I could tell she was pissed.
"Shut it." She pulled water from a built-in container in her suit, and took a knee. She fiddled with my suit, and managed to open up the chest plate. She sprayed more medi-gel, scanning me for a moment and stopping.
"Basilia…"
"You are currently suffering from heat exhaustion, biotic burn-out, two cracked ribs, a bump to the head, multiple bruises, several torn muscles, and minor
plasma burns." She pointed to my hands, where part of my armor had been burned away from the singularity. "This was after having the bright idea to combat the man who fought Leviathan for multiple hours without dying. You then had the
equally bright idea of creating a
singularity when your control of that technique is barely even adequate for keeping it from tearing your body apart."
"I…did what I had to…and he attacked first." She nodded wearily.
"I can understand that, but I'm not going to condone reckless actions. I…can't do that."
My temper flared. "Like you're any be—" she slapped my stomach and I felt my ribs protest as she started the healing process. The ache that had been building started to fade, and I relaxed.
"
No…tu no me vas hablar así! Yo se que ha hecho cosas estúpidos…pero no quiero repetir los mismos errores. So no tratas a poner esto encima de me! No voy a dejar que te matas…no…no…puedo estar solo." She talked so fast I couldn't even understand her, and my helmet didn't have an active translator.
"Huh…?" Basilia froze, and I could hear her get choked up. She muttered, and I protested as she pulled me up to my feet. She continued the healing session for a few minutes, and then forcibly sealed the suit back up.
The older woman hunched over, wringing her hands together as she looked away from me. "I…you almost died." I opened my mouth to respond to her but nothing came out.
Armsmaster stepped back. "You have two minutes." He waddled, scaling down the building just out of sight of my eyes. But not out of sight of my bugs.
I…was embarrassed to admit it took a lot longer to place a hand on her shoulder than it should have. She tried to shake me off but I didn't release my grip, this had to be talked out.
That's…what friends did right? Talk to each other?
"Basilia." I used the dimensional communicators, since they were on an independent network. "I…I'm sorry…please tell me what I did wrong?" That was automatically the
worst thing to say to her, with the way she whirled around to face me.
"
Taylor. You know we're friends right?" She sounded so very small, and beneath her heavy armor I could feel her shaking.
"I do know we're friends." I still didn't get what she meant though, but it felt obvious.
She sighed. "
Then you should realize that means I care about you, I care about your well-being. It means I…don't want you to die. I've never felt this terrified in my life, and it…it's hard to handle. I'm not cut out for that kind of life."
I wrapped my arms around my meager chest, not sure how to feel about this side of Basilia. "I think you're doing fine."
Basilia's laughter was self deprecating. "
Taylor…I got punked by Squealer of all people on my first day. We beat the Empire the first two times because Kaiser miscalculated and they didn't know their enemy. Out of the two of us, who has caught the most criminals personally?"
"But…" I thought about it, and realized she wasn't
entirely wrong. I had caught more villains than she had, and the number of non powered criminals was about equal between us. But it was obvious she preferred Athena to fighting crime directly but I…didn't have the same problem.
"
I just get scared you know? I don't have many friends in this world, and I don't want to lose that."
"I'll try my best to not…make questionable decisions." She laughed, shaking her head for a few seconds.
"Questionable decisions…is
that how you're going to phrase this?" She gestured to the liquefied street and I felt heat on my cheeks.
"Yes." She giggled, but her mirth passed when Dragon hovered above us, her suit stuttering with the damage she had taken.
"
Erudition, Monarch…could you come take a look at this?" We went with Dragon, and I felt confused as my focus shifted to the precise markings left by the battle. All of them had been made by Lung during the course of the fight. The shuttle hovered and I hopped on along with Erudition.
With a
fwump sound we lifted into the air, and I started to understand what she meant. There was a pattern to the markings, they meant something specific and they actually looked like lettering.
"What…the…hell?" Basilia muttered to my right, and I could see her drones were all focusing on the markings. She murmured more, mindlessly tapping on her omni-tool despite having a computer in her brain. Or maybe she was multitasking and using both at the same time.
"
Lung seems to have carved a precise message into the street during the fight. It says—"
"There is a
foul scent in the air, something slithers in the dark. It must be
excised. Then there's a few coordinates across the city, here, here, and here." I leaned over to see the holographic map, one spot was inside a warehouse in the Docks. The other was some office in the Commercial District, and the third was somewhere inside the Boat Graveyard.
"
What does that mean?" Dragon sounded curious, and I think Basilia already had the idea that we weren't going to be able to hide this.
"We…found something, a…a new member of The White Lotus detected some awful presence, and Panacea confirmed it when she removed…
something inside various Empire members. It's not entirely spiritual in nature, but whatever is going on…I don't like the sound of it." There was an underlying sense of wariness, and I could agree with her.
For more than fifteen blocks I could feel my swarm, and despite being simple bugs I could feel something like
fear from them. That wasn't normal, and I didn't like the sensation at all.
"
If what you're saying is true, I think the PRT would like to know." Basilia nodded, but checked on something.
"
Terra, do you copy?" I flinched at the sound of rock and concrete crumbling, and the signature sounds of biotic warps.
"
Yes I copy…I'm tied up with the Wards, we got ambushed by Oni Le—STOP THROWING BUILDINGS AT CHILDREN!" I could hear an affronted scoff from Vista. "
Oni Lee has manifested as an Earthbender and is being backed up by two firebenders and an airbender…GRENADE!" There was an explosion, and I could hear panting from Charlotte as she ran.
"Do you need any…help?" I could hear the cringe in Basilia's voice.
"
N-No…Assault and Battery are on their way, they got caught up with fifteen souped up Empire. But they're close…WHY ONI LEE! WHHYYY!" Charlotte let out a painful shriek of rage, and I heard an almost refined chuckle on the other end.
"
This is a play little one and it must look good. And it shall be…" There was a whistle of metal cutting through air, and Charlotte hung up.
Basilia sighed.
___
April 16th, 2011. 12:10AM
Basilia Rubio
I scowled as Taylor stripped out out her costume, and I got a better look of her bruises. If this had been some other more peaceful time I might have been a little embarrassed to see a girl with only her undergarment protecting her modesty.
Too bad I was still PISSED.
She sat down on a medical chair, and seemed a little uncomfortable as multiple robotic arms lightly inspected her.
Good.
I stomped over to her, trying to keep my temper in check but her frightened expression told me I was failing horribly. I huffed, and she hissed as I injected triage nano. In addition to some magic healing , I also used nano triage, a type of nutrient rich cell fluid filled with induced pluripotent stem cells that will rapidly multiply with the guidance of medical nanomachines. They should heal up most of her wounds within a few hours on their own, but paired with waterbending healing that would drop to a few seconds.
"Basilia." I glared at Taylor and she shut the hell up. With a growl under my breath, stepped up onto the chair, and crept up to Taylor so I could finish off the healing.
Focus.
I directed energy, my mind's eye focusing on the flow of chi, of life energy paths in the body. Around her damaged ribs, her bruises, her torn muscles, her strained nerves, and the burns on her right hand. There was also the goose egg on her head from tumbling two dozen feet down. If she was a normal human being she would have cracked her skull open instead of surviving with a light bruise.
My hands glided along her surprisingly
hard body, and I don't think Taylor wanted to interrupt me with the dumb expression she was wearing. I don't think I had ever felt such feverish anger before, and I
did have a temper problem but even for me this was a little beyond the pale. I guess I could only handle so much.
Once I finished up with her, I scrambled for something for her to wear that wasn't a
damaged set of Rachni biological armor. I knew I had a few spare shirts and shorts and pants somewhere.
"Are you still angry?" I didn't look at Taylor, and when I didn't find spare clothing I decided just to
make one. I stomped over to one of the compact omni-forge models, and quickly input the command for clothing that would be Taylor's height, width, and bodily structure. That would take maybe a minute at best, and the quality would be comparable to
better than standard weaved clothing.
The clothing was printed out, a generic black t-shirt and a pair of white gym shorts with black horizontal stripes. I threw them at Taylor and turned around, pinching the bridge of my nose and taking multiple deep breaths to calm my shot nerves.
I heard clothing rustling behind me and I took my time keeping my anger in check. It was hard not to be when your closest friend does something completely
stupid. At least I finally understood how she felt now when she found me bleeding on the floor, I had never been so
terrified in my life.
"Basilia…" I growled and turned around, and then forcibly relaxed midway into the movement. It wasn't
productive to be angry at her, and staying angry did nothing but stress me the hell out.
"What?" I fully turned around and then nearly fell flat on my own face.
Taylor had just placed her own shirt on, but was still holding it up to expose her abs. I opened my mouth and then closed it when no words came out to respond back to her.
"
Holy shit you could grind meat on those…"
Her eyebrows shot up. "What?" The confusion in her tone was as obvious as an eighty foot tall purple platypus-bear.
"I said absolutely nothing, you're just hearing things!" Her eyes narrowed and my face was surely on fire at this point.
"I'm sure I heard
something." Her lips were quirked up into an amused smile, and she crossed her arms over her chest, cocking a hip at the same time.
I tapped my fingers together, feeling a weird churning, butterflies in my stomach kind of anxiety. It felt familiar, and I wasn't sure why it did.
"Nope." I shook my head and waved my arms in denial. "I said nothing, and you will continue to think I said nothing. Is that clear?"
Her smile turned into a smirk. "No. Let me think…you said you could grind meat on…" At that point I tackled her, embarrassment overriding my common sense along with the stress from today. She took three steps back but didn't fall to the ground. I felt that anxiety come back tenfold when I felt hands around my waist. Taylor easily held up my weight with no strain put on her…
She was still smiling, bemusement dancing in her hazel eyes. Taylor was having an odd effect on me…for just a moment I felt…comfortable… felt warm and safe and almost protected. She placed me back down on the ground, and I barely kept my small hands from keeping their hold on her wrists.
I…what am I even thinking?
There was a contemplating look on her face, and I realized that I was staring at her for far too long. I looked away, and I bit my lip nervously as I tried to figure out what to say.
Why did I want her to hold me again? I don't…oh…oh…no…oh…no, no, no…
"Basilia? What's the matter? Are you having a panic attack?" She shook my shoulder and her concern didn't subtract from my increasing panic.
"I'm fine! Besides we need to…go…we have another meeting with the PRT. We need to plan out whatever is going on with the Empire 88." I distracted her from what was going on with myself.
"When is that anyway?" She asked and I gratefully answered.
"About two hours from now…they're scrambling to get the city back in order after that huge flare up. I'm also gathering up some
gifts for the PRT, because whatever is taking root in the city…it
can't be good."
"Have you gotten all of our defense up to code?" Her expression became a very serious one that I found kind of h—interesting. I found it interesting!
"Y-Yes…the heavy defensive barriers are operating at 100% capacity, and I've succeeded in placing barriers
between plates of grav-compressed laser steel. Nothing short of a barrage of nuclear tipped missiles could hope to get through, and that's only if they can get through the GARDIAN system I'm setting up. The security systems are up to date and…" I went on and on for a few minutes before Taylor eventually told me to stop.
"It's going to get
chaotic isn't it?" She didn't sound weary but I felt for her all the same.
I dropped my shoulders. "Yes it is…and it'll be up to people like us to clean up the mess."
…
I
hate Nazis…
___
AN: I feel at least a little proud of this chapter for the fight scene at least. I've never been too sure if I write them well or not but this felt right at least for me. And now some can see some of the little disadvantages of Passengers being freed from old limits. Lung might not have a conflict drive anymore, but he was picked by his shard for a
reason.
Oni Lee is no longer an automaton, and he can chuck buildings now, and the ABB has gone from having the least superhumans to the most.
Until the PRT shows up with their own bender divisions by the dozens. If there's one benefit, its that the reigns of power might be shifting back to the government. Whether or not that's a good thing is going to vary from place to place.
So enjoy.
