This is officially the first chapter I've written where I've actually followed a kind of writing schedule for all fourteen days, by which I mean I was like, "Okay, I'ma write five hundred words a day, plus a couple for planning and editing." And... it's quite manageable, actually. Why haven't I been doing this forever?! Also, HOLY HELL, I'm better at writing when I plan things instead of improvise?! I would never have expected this! That is 100% not sarcasm, by the way. I totally figured I'd be better and more creative if I were a bit more spontaneous, but apparently not. Huh.
"Wait!"
It was all I could think to do.
Noelle was lifting Panacea higher into the air, her mouths nearly unhinging themselves as they opened to swallow her, the world could end right now, and all I wanted was to make everything slow down for a moment. Desperate, I cried out as loud as I could for Noelle to just wait.
Even as I was shouting, Noelle's tongues were rolling toward me, a slick, undulating mass of flesh that was ready to bury me. I nearly tripped over myself trying to backpedal away from one that had shot out to hook around the backs of my knees, and another almost blindsided me as I was trying to recover. A quick glance to my left showed me that Tattletale was struggling to avoid the tongues on her side, even though there were only a few of them. I wanted to help—but it was all just too fast, I didn't have a chance of stopping any of this if I didn't have time to think first!
So, in between pants for air as I weaved between the tongues, I screamed at Noelle with at the top of my lungs, throat starting to smart already as I prayed for her to turn her head, slow her attacks, anything.
She didn't seem to notice. Her tongues kept lashing out at me, one clipping my shoulder and knocking me head-first into a shop-front. I didn't go all the way through the window, but I could hear the sound of shattering glass as I slid to the ground, dazed.
With a pained grunt, I started to push myself back upright, wincing as I felt bits of glass digging into my gloves. I had barely managed to get to a kneeling position when there was a strange splintering sound, and a flash of bright light that forced me to squeeze my eyes shut against the glare.
I groaned, groping with one arm at the wall beside me, looking for a handhold to push myself back up. Noelle roared in anger, and I braced myself, ready for one of her tongues to wind its way around me, lift me up into the air—but the attack never came. Blearily I forced my eyes open and refocused my attention on Noelle, only to find that she was now encased in a massive layer of pale blue ice. I blinked in confusion, before noticing a woman in blue with both hands outstretched, being supported on both sides by what I assumed to be her teammates.
Amy was still suspended in midair, the tongue holding her straining against its frozen bonds. Any hope I may have had that Noelle would stay immobilized vanished as soon as cracks began to creep across the freshly-laid ice, each one forming with a dry snapping sound that made me flinch.
As I watched Noelle struggling to free herself, the closest thing I'd ever seen to an honest to god barrage of blaster powers was slamming into her. Some were holding back, I saw—Dragon, most notably, as well as a few others. Only a few of them were attacking the actual tongue holding Panacea. It looked like everyone was being very careful of their aim, making sure they didn't hurt one of the best healers in the country. Part of me wondered if we'd all look back on that tomorrow, remembering it as the choice that ended the world—but it wasn't like I wanted to kill her, and maybe more importantly I couldn't. I really needed more ranged options.
Grimacing, I turned my attention to the rapidly deteriorating shell of ice around Noelle. I couldn't see the cape that had made it anymore, but they hadn't reapplied it yet. Maybe it was a limitation to their powers, maybe they'd been attacked by a clone—in the end, it didn't really matter. She was breaking free, and the blasters weren't going to be able to free Panacea in time. A few fliers had drifted down near her, Aegis and Dragon among them, but their efforts were hampered by the flailing of what few tongues were left unfrozen, as Noelle was keeping them close around her prize, reluctant to give up another power to copy. Even as I watched, one of the Dragon suits was slapped out of the air by a tendril, smashing into the ground so hard that it left a sparking crater in the road.
"You can still come back from this!" I shouted as loud as I could, hoping to buy a little time for the rest of the defenders. Noelle ignored me entirely, though I wasn't exactly surprised. Internally I scolded myself for being so vague—specifics, I needed to distract her and she wouldn't pay any attention if I didn't give her details.
"Coil figured it out!" I burst out, for once letting my mouth run on ahead of my brain. This time, Noelle whipped around and gave me her full attention, though I could still see the ice around her beginning to splinter.
"He had a way to fix you," I continued, hardly even knowing what I was saying at this point. "I heard him talking to someone named Mr. Pitter!" The man had seemed like some sort of cross between a creepy nurse and every other mercenary in Coil's employ, none of which suggested that he would have been trusted with something like this. Still, I was beginning to realize that without a power like Tattletale's that let me know what Coil might have figured out, I would just have to overwhelm her with sheer volume of bullshit.
Noelle was not pleased. "You're lying!" she howled. Again her torso erupted in a maddening chorus of dissonant cries, though I was getting better at ignoring it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spared a glance for Tattletale, who was being supremely unhelpful at the moment—though I supposed that probably had something to do with the way she was leaning against a dumpster and panting for breath. No help from her, not for the moment, at least. Then, just as I was about to look away, she turned and caught my eye. Her head shook emphatically, and I noticed her tilting her head toward Noelle. A warning? Or a sign that she couldn't help me?
I'm not a thinker, damn it! I thought heatedly. Regardless of what she was trying to tell me, I didn't have time to think it through. I just had to keep talking, keep distracting her.
"Pitter is still alive," I insisted. Hell, for all I knew he was, I hadn't seen him since he fled the room where I—where I met Dinah. "If you stop this now we can find him, get him to tell you what he knows!"
"Liar!" Noelle screamed again, throwing herself against her bonds with her eyes bulging out of their sockets. Froth began bubbling up at the corners of her many mouths as she thrashed in place, and cracks were forming all along her bulk, more rapidly than ever.
Too far, I realized, as my heart rose into my throat.
Slowly, then faster and faster, sheets of ice around her shattered under the strain. The bonds around her strongest legs went first, though she was still partly stuck to the ground. Heads all along her torso began to crush the ice between their jaws, snarling as they spat shards of frost onto the wet pavement below. The blasters and fliers redoubled their efforts, to little effect.
Then, her tongues came free. With a resounding crack, the one holding Amy split away from the main body of ice, snapping up into the sky as the tendril was suddenly freed of all resistance.
"I swear!" I cried, desperation beginning to bubble over into my voice. "I know where he'll be, too! He's still in the bunker, hiding in Coil's office! I can take you to—"
I was cut off by a gunshot. Then another, and another and another, too fast for me to count them. High above me, Aegis dove in front of Panacea, and I watched in horror as he began to bleed from at least three bullet wounds. Whipping my head around to the source of the sound, I saw Tattletale—still leaning on the dumpster, arms outstretched, and holding a gun in her trembling hands.
"What the fu—" I tried to shout, only for my words to die in my throat as Panacea screamed once... and disappeared down one of Noelle's jaws.
For a moment, I stood frozen, staring at the place where the healer had been. Other capes were still moving, I knew. Noelle was still moving, I could see her coming closer, but it wasn't until I heard the sound of something metallic clattering to the ground that I finally snapped out of my reverie and began backing away.
Despite what had just happened, pandemonium did not break out. I thought I could sense a kind of hot rage in the postures of the capes arrayed against Noelle, even fear—but not outright terror. Maybe they hadn't been told exactly why Panacea was not to be allowed near Noelle at any cost, or maybe it hadn't had as much of an impact on them, hearing it secondhand. Either way, it was only a select few that showed the same fear that I began to feel, slowly overpowering the numbness and shock.
Tattletale hadn't moved from the stance she'd taken to shoot at the healer, but I could see her face going milk white even as I watched. Her gun was lying abandoned in the street, her limp hands still outstretched as if to use it. Aegis was hovering in front of Noelle, almost as if he were fighting his instinct to dive in and try to save her, despite the futility of the action. Blood was seeping into the fabric of his costume, where he'd taken the bullets meant for Panacea.
Again, I found myself wanting time to stop, just to give me a few seconds to process what had just happened. But Noelle was still in motion. One of her tongues snapped through the air, heading straight for me. I was forced into a hasty, stumbling retreat as I ducked under the attack. To my left, Tattletale had gone almost entirely limp, slumped with her back against the dumpster and a look of naked terror on her face. I slid past a few more tongues, until I could grab her under both arms and haul her along down the street, gritting my teeth in annoyance.
"Move," I hissed. She seemed to jolt back to reality, shoes scraping against asphalt as she pushed herself back upright.
"We're so fucked," Tattletale murmured. I couldn't exactly disagree with that sentiment.
Again I wracked my brain for options—so far I'd been useless and worse than useless, and I couldn't let the world end. Not now, when I'd only just gotten away from Coil.
Still, I couldn't think of anything to do. The only way we could get Panacea back was if Noelle gave her up voluntarily. There was no way she was going to... unless...
Fuck.
"I... have an idea," I said, reluctantly. Tattletale gave me an odd look—maybe she knew what I was thinking, maybe she was still trying to figure it out. Honestly, I didn't even have the whole plan yet, just vague outlines. All I knew for certain was that I needed to be in a position where Noelle couldn't get to me right away, but could still hear me. I couldn't do that here, she'd just chase me down and swallow me.
I changed direction as abruptly as I could, propelling Tattletale and I down an alley and letting Noelle stumble past us, unable to make such a sharp turn. I didn't exactly smile when I spotted the fire escape near the middle of the alley, but I did feel a surge of relief as I approached it. I could probably have tried to flag down a flier instead, but I didn't really like my odds of surviving long enough for them to get to us through all of Noelle's tongues.
She herself was in very noisy pursuit, though the tight alleyway was proving to be a problem for her. It was a lot like in Coil's base—if she couldn't fit, she'd be limited to attacking with a tongue, or just tearing the whole place down. I didn't doubt that she could do that, but with the extra time I'd just bought I boosted Tattletale as high as I could to get her to the bottom of the ladder.
Once she was on her way up, I crouched down and sprang back into the air, catching the third rung from the bottom in both hands. Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind that slid down once you put weight on it. I had to haul myself up rung by rung, but even that wasn't exactly difficult with my armor. Soon Tattletale and I were both on the roof of the building, two stories up and out of reach of Noelle for the moment. She was already trying to scramble up on top of the buildings at the edge of the alleyway, using smashed windows as handholds, but it would take her a while.
That meant my idea might work—unfortunately.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped up to the edge of the roof and faced Noelle. "Spit her out!" I shouted, clenching my fists so hard that my nails bit through my gloves. "Spit her out and you can have me, I won't run!" Beside me, Tattletale turned her head sharply to stare at me.
"No!" Noelle shrieked. "I'm going to hunt you down!" Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Tattletale stiffen slightly.
"But you don't have to," the villain said suddenly, turning back to look down at Noelle. I fought back a grimace, gripping one of the straps around my breastplate hard enough that I was sure my knuckles were turning white. Even though this had been my idea in the first place, I couldn't help but feel an irrational pang of hurt at how willing Tattletale was to help me do this. I pushed it away—I already knew I wasn't worth the end of the world.
"You're not a bad person, Noelle," Tattletale was saying. "You just want revenge, you want to get even." The girl in question snarled angrily, but she was paying her full, undivided attention now.
"I want to make up for it," I pitched in, only for Tattletale to shake her head slightly at me. This time I knew that it was a signal for me to shut up.
"It doesn't have to be like this. You can get your revenge without destroying the city, or hurting people who had nothing to do with it. And Panacea—Amy might even be able to help you."
As Tattletale was talking, I found myself looking between her and Noelle, trying to gauge the latter's reaction. But as I watched, I began to notice Tattletale's eyes occasionally flicking to something beside Noelle. Something in the street?
I scanned the area, trying to see what she'd seen—and it was then that I realized the barrage of blaster powers had slackened somewhat. Noelle was ignoring them entirely now, and behind her, just a bit to her left, was one of the Dragon suits. It hovered almost twenty feet off the ground, motionless.
If the way Tattletale kept looking at it didn't tell me there was another plan going on, then the slight smirk she flashed at me definitely would have. I still had no idea what the plan was or how she'd known about it, but just the fact that there was one brought on a rush of relief that left me feeling dizzy.
Noelle, meanwhile, was still tearing at the alley mouth with all of her legs, struggling for purchase to climb up and charge at me. As soon as Tattletale stopped talking, she turned to us and bellowed at the top of her lungs, "No!"
I opened my mouth to respond, but Tattletale elbowed me gently in the side. Turning to glance at her out of the corner of my eye, I saw her mouthing the words, piss her off.
That... wouldn't be hard. "What?" I yelled down at Noelle. "You think you can catch me yourself?" Noelle smiled—and with the mouths on her torso participating, it was not a nice smile.
"Coil thought so too," I said. Tattletale hadn't really told me how angry to make her, so I went with the nuclear option.
Noelle didn't disappoint. "You bitch!" she howled, enraged, and began tearing frantically at the walls in her way. Bricks and bits of timber came loose in droves, falling to the ground and shattering into tiny pieces.
"I caught him though," I continued, feeling myself starting to sweat through my clothes. Noelle hadn't been all that composed to begin with, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to make her any angrier than she already was... but there was a kind of rush to it, of pushing at her until she snapped. Maybe this was what Tattletale felt like all the time.
Noelle was beyond words now. She just screamed, ramming a mutated leg right through the second story of the building and hauling herself up onto our level. And, while she was distracted, Dragon dived.
The suit did the one thing everyone had been trying so hard to avoid throughout the battle—it slammed right into the center of Noelle's gelatinous bulk and pushed itself inside. I blinked, suddenly realizing that the entire plan had been to feed her another cape and feeling more than a little bit betrayed.
Until Noelle began to thrash even more wildly, nearly toppling over as her back began to bulge and warp. She screamed, rage and pain mixing together, words lost in a maelstrom of gibberish as she fought her way forward, staring right at me and Tattletale as the strange protrusion burst in a shower of gore. The Dragon suit emerged, with Panacea held tightly in its metal arms.
"Go!" Tattletale urged, giving me a push from behind. I went, though not before catching a glimpse of Noelle, with strings of foam and saliva hanging from her mouths, trying to pick up speed to get to us. The building in front of her had been almost totally demolished, letting her use her many limbs for leverage to climb up to us. We had maybe a few seconds before she reached us.
As soon as we got to the edge of the roof, we jumped. I landed fairly easily, having made it to the other side with several feet to spare, but Tattletale only barely cleared the rim and went down hard on one knee, panting. I hauled her to her feet, thought not before Noelle had covered nearly half the distance across the other roof.
"Hey!" I shouted, noticing a flier hovering a few feet away. As he touched down, I recognized Aegis, still bleeding from a few of the bullet wounds Tattletale had given him.
He regarded her coldly, and offered me his hand, gliding slowly to let us keep up with him. "Come on," he said. "We need to get off this roof."
I looked at it, feeling slightly repulsed for some reason I couldn't place. "I'm faster than Tattletale," I told him. "Grab her, I'll follow you on the ground."
Aegis relented, though he didn't look happy about it. Tattletale probably didn't make things any better by smirking at him as he picked her up, but soon enough they were up in the air, and I only had to worry about keeping myself out of Noelle's reach. By then I'd reached the end of the roof again, and had to make a longer jump this time to a building just a bit taller than the one I was on.
But just as I coiled my legs underneath me, she made contact with the building I was on. The whole complex shook violently with the impact, throwing my balance a little. I jumped anyway, feeling the sudden release of tension and rush of adrenaline as I leapt through the air.
The alley below me was relatively large, and I caught a glimpse of a battle going on down below, with a cape that looked like he might have been Clockblocker dodging between a group of clones, trying and failing to tag them as they faded in and out of sight. I caught barely a glimpse of it as I flew by, and then I passed the top of my arc. I was falling when I hit the next roof, grabbing the lip with both hands and wincing as my body slammed into the wall. Hauling myself up was easy, and I soon found myself sprinting through someone's rooftop garden. It was surprisingly intact, considering, though I knocked over a potted plant of some kind as I rushed past.
Noelle would probably do a lot more than that. The thought was enough to get me moving faster, vaulting over a low wall at the other side of the building and landing easily on the next roof over. There was no alley between those two neighbors, and I couldn't help a small grin as I jumped off the end of that building and landed in a roll on the next.
Risking a glance over my shoulder, I had barely enough time to register a tongue flying in my direction before I was diving out of the way. My foot skidded across loose gravel, and suddenly I was going too fast and too far to stop. One leg slid right off the roof, and I hit the edge of the gutter flat on my back, rolling into open air with a yelp.
I landed badly on my shoulder, my armor making a horrible grinding noise as it buckled from the impact. Noelle was still right above me—I could actually see bits of her poking off the roof, her tongues trailing down the side of the building like strands of ivy. I struggled gracelessly back to my feet, realizing with a grimace that my right arm wasn't working very well. There wasn't any tingling to suggest that I'd hurt myself, but the exoskeleton was definitely damaged. I could barely move it, and it was jerky and unresponsive.
Adding it to the veritable laundry list of repairs I'd need to do when all this was over, and resolving never to fall off a roof again if I could help it, I took off down the street. I spared a glance behind me just as Noelle hit the ground, landing with a thud that shook the ground. I tried to pick up speed, but my exoskeleton was already giving me all it could.
She was faster than me. I knew that, which was why I'd been roof-hopping—she was heavier, too, and had a harder time navigating the strange paths I'd been able to take. Even then it hadn't worked that well, and I knew I couldn't outrun her like this. Already she was starting to catch up, I could see her tongues reaching for me out of the corner of my eye.
Making a split-second decision, I turned suddenly so that I was facing a worn-down apartment complex as I skidded to a halt. Kicking out, I smashed my foot through a grimy looking window on ground level, one that was barely large enough for me to squeeze through. Then I squirmed my way inside, doing my best to compensate for my busted arm.
Noelle caught up to me just as I'd gotten all the way through into a musty hallway. One of her tongues was stuffed into the gap, but I just dodged out of the way and bolted down the hall.
Inside, there was a cape in a rust-red bodysuit facing off against a slender clone. I flinched as I entered, and was hit with a wave of heat so intense it felt almost like a physical punch. The hero, or maybe villain, cried out as I entered, and nearly managed to trip over an antique-looking table.
I kept going, pausing only to bodycheck the clone into a wall as I ran past it. Sweat was already soaking into the clothes I wore under my exoskeleton, and as I made contact with the thing I could actually see my armor start to glow. Swearing, I sprinted to the end of the hallway and kicked open the last door on the right. My eyes alighted almost immediately on another window at the back of what looked like a child's bedroom. Smashing through it was just as easy the second time, and soon I was on the street on the other side of the building.
Glancing from side to side, I picked a street and began running as fast as I could. The second I saw an open alley, I dodged down it and kept going. Soon, I came upon a massive pile of rubble obstructing the street. Grabbing at it, I scrambled awkwardly up and over, doing my best to use my legs to compensate for my busted arm. The metal plating on my shins slipped and skidded whenever I tried to rest weight on it, so I had to angle myself so that my boots could slip into cracks in the material.
Eventually, I reached the top, and let myself roll to the bottom, landing with a heavy thump and a rush of tingling along my back. Hopefully I hadn't broken anything important. I was just about to pull myself to my feet, to start running again, when I realized that Noelle still hadn't come into the mouth of the alley. Her footsteps were growing closer, but I froze myself in place for a second. My breathing sounded very loud to me all of a sudden, despite the distant explosions I could still hear. I honestly had no idea if this would even work, or if she had some kind of secondary hearing ability like Lung, but I didn't really like my chances if I had to keep running.
Noelle approached, closer and closer, until she must have been right at the alley. I imagined I could feel her gaze sliding over the rubble between me and her, then past it and into the alley behind me. She didn't slow her pace at all, just kept coming nearer, and nearer. And then, her strange writhing footsteps were growing quieter, until finally I let myself release a breath of stale air I'd barely noticed I was holding.
As the sound of Noelle's pursuit began to fade, I let myself collapse backwards against the rubble. Panting heavily to try and get my breath back, I stretched out my bad arm as best I could. It still wasn't responding, thought that wasn't exactly surprising, since my exoskeleton couldn't heal itself like my flesh-and-blood body could.
I knew I should probably try to get back into the fight—it was far from over, though Panacea was hopefully far out of the way by now. At the very least I should run, grow the distance between me and Noelle as much as I could. But I wanted to rest a moment longer, hoping to recuperate a little energy before I went back to fighting for my life.
It started with a small chuckle. Despite the chaos, it was kind of nice just being outside, with the open air in my lungs. The laugh grew out from there, as adrenaline and terror and the sheer rush of freedom that came from being above ground all mixed together. It was shrill and brittle, and probably more than a little hysterical—but it felt amazing. I slid down the side of the car onto my butt, propped up with my head resting on the door, shoulders shaking as I giggled.
"Should we be worried?" asked a voice above me. I glanced up, and startled slightly when I realized that Aegis and Tattletale were both standing in the street, staring at me with varying levels of amusement and concern. I cut myself off, coughing awkwardly into the sudden silence.
"It feels kind of good to not be running for my life," I admitted. Tattletale raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.
"Why aren't you running for your life, anyway?" she asked instead, glancing around at the mostly empty street.
"I lost Noelle," I replied. "Ran through a building, smashed a window to get out the other side, she couldn't follow me."
"Good thinking," Aegis said, nodding approvingly.
"It's good you've had some time to rest," Tattletale observed. "We need to do something about Trickster."
I blinked. "Who?"
"Noelle's teammate," Aegis said. "The teleporter."
So that's his name. I nodded to show that I'd understood.
"The thing is, no one seems to be able to get a lock on him—he's wearing an armband, so the out-of-city capes are having a hard time recognizing him. The fact that he keeps swapping people around is only making things harder. He's busy trying to evade all the fliers for the moment, but he needs to be taken out, or else fighting Noelle is going to be even harder than it has to be."
"So you want to do something about it?" I guessed.
Tattletale grinned. "We need you to get Noelle to move away from him. Just keep running the same direction you have been, and Aegis and I will deal with Trickster." She paused, cocking her head to the side as if thinking. "Actually, Aegis will deal with Trickster. I'll be finding other fliers to help him." Her smirk had reappeared at full strength, though to me it looked a little strained.
"Okay," I said, nodding slightly to myself as I digested that information. "I just get Noelle to chase me, right?"
"Point her that way," Tattletale confirmed, gesturing in roughly the same direction I had been going. "Just until we can deal with Trickster."
"Right," I agreed, voice getting a little dry. "Nothing difficult about that." Tattletale at least had the decency to look apologetic.
She looked like she was about to say something else—as if I actually needed convincing. Herding Noelle around wasn't really that difficult, if you ignored the life-threatening danger. She went right to me, no matter where I ran. It was staying ahead of her that would be the problem.
"All I'm asking for is five, ten minutes," Tattletale told me. "Eidolon will be here by then, and..." she trailed off, her grin starting to slip. "Trickster needs to be either gone or otherwise occupied when that happens, or he might swap Eidolon into Noelle's range."
My eyes widened in sudden realization. "Oh," I said, dumbly.
A wave of exhaustion seemed to crash over me, but I pulled myself back upright anyway. It wasn't really tied to my body, at least I didn't think so. I probably needed to eat, badly if my past experience with my armor was anything to go by, but mostly the tiredness was in my head. I just had to get myself to focus, and then I could keep going.
"I'll distract her," I said finally, straightening up to my full height.
Tattletale gave me a mock salute and a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and she and Aegis lifted off again. I could already hear distant noises, blaster powers and heavy footfalls, that told me Noelle was nearby. Finding her wouldn't be hard.
"Right," I said aloud, poking at my defunct shoulder. "No problem."