Spectral 1.4

"Well," I said aloud, announcing my presence. The Azn Bad Boys and Lung looked up to me, who stood on top the building. I hopped off the ledge and fell directly in between two of the gun-toting thugs. Before they could react, I opened my arms, as if welcoming Lung. The mooks collided with my fists and got knocked backwards, unconscious.

"I've been looking for a bit of fight as of late," I continued. A few thugs thought it would be a good idea to rush me instead of shoot me. The first one who reached me attempted to pistol whip me. I caught the incoming gun and punched his solar plexus, before knocking him on the temple. The next two thugs got caught by my hands, and I slammed them together. They crumpled to my feet. I looked down at the unconscious men, and I looked up at the other twenty or so thugs, and Lung.

"And I figured I'd get in trouble if I fought a random cape without reason," I went on. I grabbed the nearest thug and headbutted him, knocking him out. I grabbed the gun from the falling mook, unloaded the clip, and chucked it at a random henchman. It hit him on the temple, putting him to sleep.

"Then I found you," I continued. Lung hadn't made a move yet, other than standing at attention. A few of the thugs grew uneasy at the fact someone was taking out their friends. The smirk on my face grew exponentially as a raised my fist outwards at a certain group of four or five Asian mooks at the edge of the gathering. He let an ecto blast fly off, knock the entire group back and out. Everyone jumped, minus Lung, but he still took a step back.

All the thugs get scared at the sight of an enemy cape.

Lung smirked, and took a step forward, wordlessly accepting my challenge. "Go," he said aloud in his strong accent, "find those brats. I'll take care of this."

I watched as the thugs dispersed, leaving me and Lung standing alone in the middle of the streets. I turned my attention back to my opponent at hand, raising an eyebrow. Triangular plates of metal began piercing through Lung's skin, overlapping like scales. The man's fingertips and toes were quickly becoming that of similar to talons.

I was about to let loose on the guy before he exploded. Not with rage. No, the guy literally went boom.

I coughed out some smoke, and waved my hands in the air, trying to clear the smoke. I squinted, watching Lung walk out of the ball of flame, as one himself. The fire around him glinted off of his silvery scales, as his gaze narrowed in on me. I grinned, and cracked my knuckles. "Hello, parahuman stress ball," I greeted.

Lung roared at me. It was not animalistic as I expected, but a human one full of rage and fury. He sent out a burst of fire, which felt hotter to me than it already was because of my ice core. I dodged out of the way to keep up this game, not wanting it to end. I came out of my roll crouching, and let off a beam of green fire. The ecto blast caught him in the chest, and forced him to take a step backwards to keep himself upright.

I ran at Lung, while he was distracted, and through a charged punch directly at his core. The dragon man's eyes popped out almost comically as he was sent flying backwards into an abandoned (thankfully) warehouse. He stood up, disorientated, and I smiled seeing the fist-shaped dent in the center of Lung's stomach.

He stood up again and roared at me once more, this time dropping in pitch. His body swelled, shaking off plaster and debris, as the Asian cape grew a foot in height. I watched in disbelief as spines grew down the seven-foot monster's back.

Geez, I thought, it's like fighting a more powerful Aragon. The thought made me grin.

"Bring it on!" I yelled in anticipation. And bring it on, he did.

Lung opened his mouth and let loose a blast of fire. I put up a green shield, watching the red flames lick around the edges, like a kid working a lollipop. He set himself forward and began staggering, but quickly running, towards me. I dropped my shield and ran towards my opponent as well.

Knowing the area around Lung was likely to be as hot as hell, I used my cryokinesis to chill the air around me to subzero temperatures. Our punches collided and a shockwave exploded. Dust kicked up, spreading outwards in a circular fashion. Streetlights vibrated as air was forcefully expelled outwards. Lung and I got pushed back a good ten feet away from each other. I looked around and noted the red lights of multiple cameras recording the fight.

This better get over a million views on YouTube, I thought, smirking inwards. My Fenton Creep Stick wouldn't work well in this situation, nor anything else I had brought with me. I watched as Lung calmly made his way over to me. Now standing at a whopping nine feet tall, covered absolutely everywhere in fiery metal. His eyes were almond pools of molten iron, staring me down. My radioactive green eyes met his, and he unleashed an incredible burst of fire.

Decidedly tired of playing the 'I'm As Good As You Are' game, I turned intangible. I looked around myself in interest as the fire was so hot, it was actually melting the street. "Bernnn...keckshercker…" I heard Lung rumble out. I think he was insulting me, but with all that metal and accent in the way, I couldn't tell.

The fire died away, and I watched Lung's eyes widen as he saw me, perfectly unsinged. I raised my own fists, covered with bright blue energy.

"My turn."

I let my cryokinesis loose as the icy blue beams hit Lung at the knees. Ecto-ice quickly began forming, locking his feet to the ground. The ice quickly began spreading, growing up his legs. But despite his best efforts, Lung couldn't melt the ice. It continued to grow over the now-shrieking monster of a human, until it had finally encased the entire cape. I lowered my arms and let out a breath, feeling stress leave my body.

"That felt great," I said aloud, not expecting a response. A year and a half of stress just went into the comedic owning of a metal-plated monster.

"It sure seemed like it," a voice commented behind me. Forcing myself not to jump, I turned around to be greeted with three monstrous dogs. How did I know these creatures of muscle and bone the size of vans were actually dogs?

I met Cujo.

On two of the dogs, there were riders. Two girls on one dog, and two guys on the other. I assume the person with no skin showing was male, considering his height. "You really saved us a lot of trouble," the tallest person told me. His voice was deep and indeed male, but muffled by the helmet he wore. He was dressed entirely in black, a costume I realized was basically motorcycle leathers and a motorcycle helmet. The only thing that made me think it was a costume was the visor of his helmet. The full-face visor was sculpted to look like a stylized skull, and was as black as the rest of his costume, with only the faint highlights of reflected light on the surface to give a sense of what it was. It was one of those costumes that people put together out of what they can scrounge up, and it wasn't half bad if you didn't look too close. He reached out a hand towards me, and I shook it.

Withdrawing his hand, the man in black jerked his thumb over one shoulder, "When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah."

"So you're the kids Lung was planning on trying to kill tonight," I casually commented. He nodded in confirmation.

The guy in black, who I would nickname Skull Face for the time being, kept talking. "Wouldn't you know, his flunky Lee is there with a half dozen guys, but Lung and the rest of his gang are nowhere to be found," he laughed, a surprisingly normal sound for someone wearing a mask with a skull on it.

"Lee's no slouch in a fight, but there's a reason he's not leader of the ABB. He got spooked without his boss there and ran. I guess you're responsible for that?" Skull Face waited for a response from me. When I nodded, he turned towards Brockton Bay's newest ice sculpture, then spoke without turning to look at me, "Lung got fucking creamed. The fuck you do to him?"

"Beat him up with physical force, used some type of blasts on him, and then froze him," the second of the girls said, answering the question before I could get a word in otherwise. She was dressed in a skintight outfit that combined black with a pale shade of purple and her dark blond hair was long and windblown. The girl grinned as she added, "He's not holding up too well. Gonna feel a helluvalot worse tomorrow."

I shrugged. "Frostbite will do that to you," I joked, and she laughed.

The man in black suddenly turned to look at me, "Introductions. That's Tattletale. I'm Grue. The girl with the dogs-" he pointed to the other girl, the one who was still on the monstrous dogs, and petting them. She wasn't in costume unless I counted a plaid skirt, army boots, a torn-up sleeveless T-shirt and a hard plastic, dollar-store rottweiler mask as a costume. "-we call her Bitch, her preference, but in the interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her Hellhound instead. Last and certainly least, we have Regent."

"Fuck you, Grue," Regent retorted, with a chuckle and a tone of voice that made it clear he didn't really care. He was wearing a white mask, not really decorative or made up as the ones I associated with the carnivals in Venice, but similar. He'd placed a silver coronet around his short black curls, and wore a ruffled white shirt with skintight leggings tucked into knee-high boots. The outfit was very renaissance faire; he'd fit in great with Dora's royal court. He had a build that made me think more of a dancer than a bodybuilder.

"Nice to meet ya'," I greeted, nodding to them in turn. I had prepared a name in case I needed one, a name that was not remotely close to either 'Phantom' or 'Inviso-Bill'. I really hate that name.

"I'm Agloolik," I greeted. Grue snorted from within his helmet. "You just made that word up," he accused good-naturedly. I shook my head and grinned.

"A-G-L-O-O-L-I-K," I spelled out for him. "Look it up some time."

Tattletale turned around and it looked like she was going to say something else, but she stopped, turning her head. The smile she'd been wearing faded, "Heads up. We've gotta scram."

Bitch nodded in response and whistled, one short whistle followed by two long ones. After a brief pause, the road was suddenly shaking by impacts. In just moments, the three creatures of hers bounded from where they were 'parked' over to next to the quartet.

Grue turned towards me. I was still standing on the opposite end of the roof, by the fire escape. "Hey, want a ride?"

"Nah," I refused. "I'm gonna stick around a bit longer."

"Well, 'Gloo, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they're not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here," she said. Tattletale flashed me a smile. She had one of those vulpine grins that turned up at the corners. Behind her simple black domino style mask, her eyes were glittering with mischief. If she had red hair, she would have made me think of a fox. She kind of did, anyways.

With that, they leaped over my head, one of the three beasts hitting or stepping on a manhole cover, eliciting a screech of metal on metal.

When I realized what had just happened, I could have sighed, seeing my luck turn out this way. The good ol' Fenton luck. It was easy enough to pin down Regent, Tattletale and Bitch as teenagers. It wasn't much of an intuitive leap to guess that Grue had been one too. The 'children' Lung had mentioned, the ones I had gone to so much effort to save tonight, were bad guys. Not only that, but they had mistaken me for one, too.

Well, time to meet the locals, I thought.

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[A/N]: Two more chapters to go before the end of the first arc.

~Slenderbrine