As My Legs Shook
Okay, so tomorrow is Easter Sunday... and is also probably going to be a bit batshit crazy, since I'm going out to see family that lives kinda far away. In the interest of not getting up even earlier than I already have to tomorrow morning to post this, here's the chapter a day early. Next one will (probably) be on Sunday again as usual.
Kid Win went down with a shower of sparks and a surprised shout. His hoverboard tumbled end over end beside him as he began to plummet, until Glory Girl sped over and managed to snag his armor in one hand. It was a narrow save—her dive brought her so close to the ground that I had to bend my knees to keep my toes from skimming along the pavement.
She kept going, shooting away from the warehouse as fast as she could. There was a flash of fire as the Butcher followed behind us, and I thought I could hear the sound of something big running along the road. I risked a glance, and saw a massive wolf-like animal bounding toward us. For a moment, I almost thought it was one of Bitch's hounds—until it reared back its head and screamed.
Glory Girl cried out and twisted in midair, before dropping right out of the sky. I panicked for a second, mind reeling. A wave of dizziness kept me from reacting until I slammed feet-first into the street hard enough to crack the pavement. I ended up on my stomach, just before something heavy landed on my back with a dull thump.
"What..." I groaned, stunned. I shook my head from side to side, momentarily overwhelmed by a sudden sense of loss, of searching for something that had been snatched right out from under me.
It took the Butcher appearing in a small tornado of fire for me to start thinking again. I tried to get up, and accidentally dumped Glory Girl from where she'd fallen on top of me. She managed to cushion her head as she landed, looking dazed.
"Aurora!" Kid Win shouted into the comms. "It's a trump!"
The connection only took an instant. Glory Girl had fallen out of the sky—odds were her shield wasn't working either. I jumped in front of her, all too aware of how meaningless that was in the face of an opponent with perfect aim, and put my hands in the air.
"We don't want a fight," I said, more to buy time than because I expected her to listen to reason.
The Butcher seemed to think it was funny. She smirked and said, "I know." Then, she drew another arrow.
"You think I'm afraid of you?" I blurted, running on more or less the same strategy I'd used during the Noelle fight—piss her off and hope I could take the hits, because Glory Girl certainly couldn't.
To my complete surprise, it worked. She turned to point her bow at me, and I did my best to shield my visor with both arms—but she hadn't been aiming for my face. The arrow struck just under my breastplate, in the relatively soft mesh over my stomach. I grunted and doubled over, pins and needles spreading through my abdomen—but I couldn't feel any blood.
"Aurora!" Kid Win shouted, sprinting over to us and firing half a dozen blasts at the Butcher. She disappeared, only to erupt into being not two feet behind him, bathing him in flames. He cried out and stumbled back, only to be blindsided when she did it again.
"Fuck!" I swore, hovering in front of Glory Girl and torn between protecting her and running off to help Kid Win. Ultimately, he had armor and she didn't, at least not at the moment. "How close are you guys?"
"Two minutes," Miss Militia said tersely. She went on to tell me something else, but I'd stopped paying attention. I could see the wolf thing loping toward us, and behind it another two capes leading a fair-sized army of what had to be the clones.
Leaning down, I tried to haul Glory Girl to her feet. Her bad leg buckled almost immediately, but she managed to grab my shoulder and keep herself upright, so I assumed she was at least conscious. Hauling her up onto my shoulder, I took off in a dead sprint along the road. Kid Win tried to follow, but cut off running and went down with a sharp scream.
I glanced over my shoulder and found him crumpled on the ground, with the Butcher standing over him. Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, I bolted to a nearby alley and unceremoniously dumped Glory Girl onto the ground. With any luck, she'd recover from whatever the bestial cape had done before the Butcher got this far. Without it, there wasn't much I could do.
"Kid!" I called out, as I tore back along the road. "Hang on!"
He groaned in response, and as I rushed toward him he managed to roll himself onto his back and start firing at the Butcher's face. I took his cue and switched my own blaster as high as it would go. Instead of aiming at her, since I assumed she would just teleport out of the way, I shot at the monster cape. It took three shots to the face, but shrugged them off with no more than a frustrated roar.
I made it to Kid Win before it did, barely. Sliding to a stop next to him, I noticed that he was panting heavily and starting to heave himself to his feet. The Butcher disappeared, and I swung wildly at the empty space around me, guessing she'd reappear close enough to hit us with the fire blast.
She didn't disappoint. My left gauntlet clipped her shoulder, and sent her spinning off-balance. The woman snarled, and stretched out a hand toward me. A violent buzzing shot up my spine, curling through my veins like a living thing, but I didn't flinch—instead, I lashed out at her face. She disappeared again before my punch could connect.
"We're approaching the warehouse now," Miss Militia announced into my headset. "Where are you?"
"Out back," I shouted desperately. "We're... fuck, to the west of it I think."
"Try to stay calm," Weld advised.
"Like hell!" I snapped, as another arrow buried itself into the mesh at my right elbow. This time I thought I could feel an actual cut, though I had no way of knowing how deep it was.
Kid Win, meanwhile, had managed to find his feet. He was facing the trump, letting off blast after blast in an attempt to keep the thing off its feet. It howled again, and I reeled in place.
The Butcher darted in the second I was distracted, jabbing me in the shoulder hard enough to spin me around. There was another flare of tingling that soon sharpened to a constant buzz in the back of my mind. I had no idea what was going on with the injury, but I flailed blindly in an attempt to get her away from me so that she couldn't do it again. She blocked my arm, actually catching it in her own and shoving me off balance. Her fist collided with my side, sending me crashing to the ground with a yelp.
It was then that I realized she was stronger than me. Actually, physically stronger—that hadn't happened since Noelle. I grimaced, getting unsteadily to my feet and lowering myself into something like a fighting stance. She just smirked—apparently she knew what a real one looked like, and I hadn't even come close. Her foot lashed out, catching the side of my helmet with speed I wouldn't have believed. I overbalanced, and landed on my back again.
I tried shooting at her, but this time she didn't even bother to teleport. The blast went too far wide, and she slid easily out of the way. My injured elbow started to ache, really ache, and for a moment I was nearly overwhelmed by panic. What the hell did she do, that it hurt enough to override my armor?
Slowly, unsteadily, I stood up again. I was starting to understand the general rhythm of her attacks, or at least I thought I was—she would throw punches and kicks, probably because her arrows hadn't done enough damage on their own. I glanced down, and verified that yes, she had dented my armor with every hand-to-hand attack.
Guessing she was going to come at me again, I backed up rapidly and swung at her to keep her away from me. Somewhere behind the Butcher, I heard a sharp hiss and an explosion that nearly knocked me off my feet. She turned, fists tightening.
I lunged at her, trying to take advantage of the opening, but she just blocked my swing contemptuously. Her hand waved in a lazy circle, and for a moment my whole world whited out.
When I could process my surroundings again, I turned my head to stare at the Butcher and let out a feral scream. This monster had hit me. She was going to die.
She interrupted the attack with another arrow, this one hitting a chink in my armor near the knee. Then she stepped in close, dodging around a swing that would have hit her right in the teeth. She pulled a massive-looking gun from over her shoulder, giving me all of half a second to reel back in surprise before she emptied at least a dozen bullets into the vulnerable spot on my stomach. Then, her elbow came down hard on my back and sent me spilling onto the street.
I groaned, dazed, but thankfully returned to sanity. The bullets hadn't pierced through—at least, if they had I probably wouldn't be alive to notice. I lifted my head enough to see that the Wards were running toward us, along with what was left of the Protectorate. Miss Militia in particular stood out, wading through the sea of clones and mowing them down as she went. They were still several hundred yards away, and soon slowed in their approach.
"Over here!" Kid Win yelled, narrowly dodging a swipe from the monstrous cape. It opened its mouth to scream again, but he stepped right up close and sent a blast right down its throat.
The Butcher whirled around, bringing her gun with her. I swiped at her ankles, hoping to trip her up at least, but missed. Miss Militia turned and bolted away from us, using the horde of clones as living shields as she went—too slow. Then, a sharp crack sounded from somewhere in the press, and the Butcher vanished before she could start shooting.
I heaved myself to my feet, slowly and unsteadily, feeling a bit like I'd just been fed through a woodchipper. My elbow was, if anything, worse than it had been when her arrow had first hit me.
Stumbling forward, I ran toward where Kid Win was doing his best to handle the wolf thing. It was still on the back foot, howling at him with no effect. Well, not no effect—he stumbled and flinched every time, but kept fighting.
Halfway there, the Butcher burst into being on a rooftop. Her gun had been holstered again, and she was drawing back her massive bow. I sucked in a breath, trying to see where she was aiming. Then, Kid Win stumbled and fell.
"Kid!" I screamed, rushing over to him and doing my best to block the monstrous cape. He groaned and sat up, clutching his shoulder. An arrow was buried in between two plates of his armor, and I could see that he was bleeding.
Nearby, Assault and Battery were engaging two more of the Teeth, though I didn't know who they were. One looked to be completely drenched in blood, though it was hardening into scabs that acted almost like armor. The other just seemed to be standing there, though I couldn't tell what their power was.
The rest of the Wards had backed up to a nearby intersection. The horde of clones was charging toward them, but Clockblocker must have put up a piece of string or something, because they were dying in droves as they approached. Obviously they weren't very bright, as they just kept going heedless of the danger, only to be neatly bisected by their own momentum.
As I watched, Weld began wading through the press. An arrow soon embedded itself in his left eye, but he barely even winced. The Butcher turned shot a third time—but her arrow ran itself into the ground, well before it would have hit any sort of target. Vista.
In response, the Butcher teleported twice, each time moving closer to the Wards. Panic closed up my throat for a moment, until Miss Militia emerged from the horde of clones and began shooting what looked a lot like the same gun the Butcher herself had been using.
It seemed to get her attention. She half-turned, momentarily distracted, before teleporting again. This time, there were too many clones between her and Miss Militia for the latter to get a decent shot.
"Clockblocker!" Flechette cried out. The arrow curved toward them, around Spree's army and directly toward Vista. It impacted dead center—and shattered harmlessly.
I nearly collapsed, gasping with relief, but was forced to put up a hand and turn my attention to the wolf thing again. It bit down hard on my arm, to very little effect.
Glancing around, I realized that the spatial warping had disappeared—Vista's power wasn't working. I frowned, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Clockblocker. Flechette had called his name as soon as they realized who the Butcher was aiming for. He must have frozen her, to stop the arrow. I cursed under my breath—she'd be out of commission for at least the next thirty seconds, and when his power wore off the Butcher could just fire again. Not to mention, if Clockblocker were forced to freeze his own armor she and Flechette would go back to being sitting ducks.
"Aurora," Weld said over the comms. "You're armor stands up to those arrows, doesn't it? We need to get her to focus her fire on us."
"How?!" I demanded, shoving the monstrous cape back a few paces and backhanding its jaw. There was a telling silence on his end of the line.
"She's too mobile," Miss Militia snarled. I couldn't see her from where I was, but there was a large disturbance near the edge of the clones that I guessed had something to do with her.
Even as we spoke, the Butcher was drawing back her bow. It was inexorable, the string moving back and back, and the body of the weapon drifting from side to side as she chose her next target.
"Flechette," Weld ordered, as he continued shouldering through the press of clones toward where the Butcher stood. "I need you to stay close by Clockblocker, enough that he can freeze you even if he locks his armor."
"Got it!"
"I have to get closer," he grunted. "I think I'd be immune to at least a few of her powers."
"Me too," I replied. "I mean, not immune, but it's close enough." My elbow still throbbed, though it seemed to have stopped getting worse for the moment. It was bad enough already, stiff and hard to move. Still, I gritted my teeth and raised my hand, shooting another dozen or so times at the Butcher. I couldn't remember exactly how long the gun had held out before, but I'd spent at least a few minutes rapid-firing, so—
The light went red.
"Oh, come on!" I snarled, ceasing fire. I'd already done what I needed to—the Butcher had been forced to teleport again, to keep from being knocked off-balance, and I'd even managed to knock the arrow away from her. That gave Flechette enough time to line up a shot of her own. The second her arbalest drifted in the Butcher's direction, she teleported again.
Why had the gun run out of charge so fast? Well, not run out, it still had a little battery left before the light would switch off entirely. Maybe it hadn't finished charging since our spar? But Kid Win had told me that a half-hour or so should be enough.
It's the settings, I realized. I'd been using the more intense version of the blasts, and it had taken its toll on the battery life. I contemplated switching to the lower setting, but ultimately abandoned the idea. My shots were barely doing anything to the Butcher as it was, in all likelihood if I toned down the power she'd just ignore them entirely. But...
The Butcher appeared on another nearby rooftop, and I fired off another few blasts, flicking the switch back and forth. She couldn't ignore all the blasts, not when some of them could actually knock her off balance keep her from firing. Instead, she was forced to move again, though this time I couldn't see where she'd gone. Flechette could, though, and raised her arbalest again.
Another round of teleports later, and the Butcher crouched behind a nearby building, not twenty feet away from me. I tensed, but realized with a shock that she wasn't paying me any mind at all. Maybe she'd decided I wasn't a threat, after our fight earlier. But then, who—
"Clock!" I shouted. "Freeze Flechette!"
The Butcher fired again, and I heard a yelp over the comms. "She's okay!" Clockblocker reported, voice a bit shaky. "I'm freezing my costume, Flechette's hand is on my wrist so I can't move anyway."
"I'm probably next," Miss Militia said, incredibly calmly considering the circumstances. "She knows she won't knock out our brutes in one shot, so—" There was a loud blast from the middle of the clones. "If you see her, call out her location. I should be able to disrupt her, even if I can't see her." I didn't bother asking how—mostly because I could see what looked like a small cannon poking out from behind a low wall where Miss Militia had taken shelter from all the clones.
"On top of that warehouse, behind the air conditioning unit," Assault grunted. A small silvery streak flew from behind the wall, twisting in midair, and a second later the structure crumpled in a flash of fire. How much of that was from whatever Miss Militia had shot and how much was the Butcher teleporting, I wasn't quite sure.
Then, a flash of fire rolled over me. I yelped, spinning around and finding that massive bow not even a yard away from my face. The Butcher wasn't looking at me, though. I leapt forward, trying to intercept her before she could get off the shot.
"She's right by Aurora," Kid Win shouted over the comms.
"A shield," Miss Militia snarled.
"This works out!" I realized suddenly. "If we keep forcing her to teleport near Weld and I, we can actually fight back."
I darted forward, attacking erratically. All I really needed to do was slap her arrow out of the way—and she didn't pull back quite fast enough to stop me. The Butcher growled, then pulled what looked like a small stone from her pocket and threw it. I covered my visor instinctively, but something still rammed home right between my fingers.
There was a loud crack, and I found myself staring at a stone dart embedded in my visor. I had to go cross-eyed to even see it. Then, the Butcher disappeared in a flash of fire.
Yanking the dart away to clear my vision, I spun around to try and find where she'd gone. I couldn't see her, but a flash of movement down the street caught my eye. For a moment, I wondered if she'd decided to retreat—until I realized that there was someone flying towards us, just a few feet above the ground.
"Glory Girl's up," I called out.
"Butcher just showed up next to us!" Clock added. "It's safe to shoot, we're all frozen." Miss Militia turned and fired in their direction, and the Butcher disappeared in the resulting explosion. It wasn't long before Glory Girl caught up to the fight. She looked abnormally pale, but her face had a determined cast to it. Her leg, I noticed, was bleeding through the bandages.
The Butcher appeared again, this time between us and Kid Win. She was still turned toward the Protectorate, another arrow already forming in her hands. Glory Girl shot forward, presumably to ram into her from behind, but she twisted at the last second and vanished in a flash of fire.
When she appeared again, the only warning I got was a searing heat at my back. I moved to turn, but was stopped when her elbow slammed into the back of my neck and knocked me to the ground. I landed on my hands and knees, mechanical arms twitching and tensing as the control unit on my neck was jarred.
I pulled myself to my feet, and turned around just in time to see a glimmer of realization on the Butcher's face. Her hand came up, another stone resting in her palm. I tried to cover the control unit, but before I could even start to move she let fly.
The stone bounced off the back of my neck with a sharp crack, hard enough to dent the casing and shatter the delicate system inside. Suddenly the full weight of my armor rested on my legs—the legs I'd been so sure could wait until tomorrow to be augmented.
I crumpled bonelessly to the ground, my weakened visor cracking a little when my helmet hit the concrete. My left arm moved—it was the only part of me strong enough. I tried to push myself upright, with the rest of me twitching sluggishly. All I managed to do was roll onto my back. The Butcher was standing over me, an arrow knocked.
"Aurora!" Kid Win shouted, ignoring the monstrous cape for a moment and loosing a half-dozen shots in the Butcher's direction. It took the opportunity to rear on its hind legs and screech at Glory Girl as she tried to intercept the Butcher's aim. She went down in a tangle, landing next to me with a pained grunt.
Miss Militia abandoned her cover—it was more or less useless in this fight, anyway—and fired at the Butcher, this time with a much more precise rifle. She tensed, but didn't teleport. Instead she looked down, scowled, and tried to dodge. I stared, baffled, as a bullet tore through her shoulder and knocked her off-balance.
What? I thought. There'd been no reason to let that shot hit her—in fact, the flames from her teleportation would have seriously hurt Glory Girl, who was only now getting painfully to her hands and knees. She still couldn't walk, and was stuck on the ground as the Butcher stood over us.
Two dark eyes met mine, through the hole in my visor. The hole that she wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of. Grunting from the effort, I shifted around so that I could clap my left arm over the opening. That seemed to make up her mind—I wasn't a threat anymore, and she had more dangerous targets to deal with first. She turned, trying to walk away from us.
I couldn't move my legs, I couldn't push myself up—but I could still move my left arm. Reaching out, I grabbed her by the ankle and held on, my sheer weight making her stumble for a moment. She kicked out at my head, connecting with my visor and knocking a chip of glass loose, but I held on.
Her eyes snapped back to me. They were thunderous, as if she couldn't even conceive of how such an insect would dare hamper her. She raised her bow, knocking an arrow and pointing it right at my helmet. I let go, reaching up toward my face. It was too slow, too weighted down by all that armor—
And then, the Butcher lurched forward with a sharp scream. There was a hole in her chest, right near the heart, and she fell to her knees with a yelp. Her eyes were wide, her mouth set into a grimace as she put a hand over the wound.
Behind her, Miss Militia stood with what had to be the biggest gun I'd ever seen in her hand, its long barrel still smoking. The Butcher fell to the ground to my left, and then disappeared in another burst of flame. I winced as a wave of dry heat washed over me, but the light tingling on my cheeks and nose seemed dim in comparison to everything else.
I grunted, and strained to see what was happening from my position on the ground. My mind whirled, trying to find a solution to the sudden problem of not being able to move. I could release my armor, use the sequence I'd programmed in to open it up and escape—but then what? Even with the cybernetics, my body would still be vulnerable and I'd only be a liability to everyone else.
It took me a moment to lever myself onto my side, so I could try and find the Butcher's new location. My eyes flickered over the buildings around us, over the Teeth—but they were running. The clones surged toward us, filling the street as the two capes Assault and Battery had been fighting vanished into the press. The monstrous cape, too, bounded off into their midst, shrinking and morphing until it, too, was impossible to locate amongst all those bodies.
They were retreating. I grimaced, suspecting some kind of trick—but there was no reason for the Butcher to leave, unless... unless she'd been badly hurt.
I scrambled to free myself from my armor, tensing hands and feet in the right sequence until the connectors unlocked themselves with a muffled hiss. It took another moment of struggling to try and tease them apart, and then I was flopping onto the pavement, reaching up to disconnect the control center.
As soon as I did, I was momentarily overwhelmed by pain. Everything hurt—my face, my legs, my elbow—but I managed to rise to my hands and knees and look up.
"What—" I croaked, but stopped when I saw Miss Militia swaying slightly where she stood.
"They're leaving," Weld said, stating the obvious. The microphone crackled more than normal, probably because of the beating my helmet had just taken.
Miss Militia dropped her gun, only for it to reform in her hand a second later, this time as a knife.
"The Butcher is injured," she said, tonelessly. "I... believe it to be fatal."
Assault swore viciously over the comms. I struggled to my feet, staggering as my legs shook with the effort of holding me up. My useless fucking legs, that had failed so critically in the middle of the fight. Head spinning, I made my way over to where Miss Militia stood, her power flickering as the weapon in her hand changed from knife to pistol to rocket launcher and on and on, making me dizzy as it went.
"What—" Clockblocker said, voice cracking. "What do we do?"
Miss Militia spoke quietly, still in an odd, distant voice. "This might be a unique opportunity. If... if I can get back to headquarters before she... well..."
"The Butcher's tougher than that, isn't she?" Assault argued, jogging over to his colleague in a daze. He was covered in small scratches, but looked otherwise unscathed.
"She was distracted," Miss Militia explained. "I didn't expect... not that it matters."
"Okay," Assault blurted, turning and starting to pace back and forth. "Okay, so she's hurt. That doesn't mean she's gonna die."
I finally managed to hobble over to them. Battery, too, had approached, and laid a hand on Miss Militia's shoulder.
"We need to get back," the Protectorate leader insisted. "Now, if possible." Her eyes squeezed shut, though I couldn't see much of her expression through the bandana over her mouth.
I could see what she meant. It was a sort of fucked-up practicality—if she were locked up before she turned, the world might finally be rid of the Butcher. And, if it would take time for the villain to succumb to the wound, we would be able to contain her powers. But, if we didn't...
The mental image of a Butcher that could create guns out of thin air, especially ones that shot rockets... it wasn't a good one.
"She might not die," Assault insisted.
"Even so," Miss Militia murmured. "I don't want to be out here, waiting for it." She straightened up, the only evidence that she wasn't as calm as she appeared being her power, still shifting erratically from form to form.
"Vista and Flechette are still frozen," Clockblocker reported solemnly. "And I can't move." He spat that last sentence with uncharacteristic anger, and I felt that I could empathize. If I'd been able to protect myself when the Butcher had shot me... I gritted my teeth.
"The Wards should stay here for now," Miss Militia decided. "I'll go back to headquarters, and... wait this out. Whatever happens."
"Hannah..." Battery murmured, and I looked away uncomfortably. It felt weird, like I was spying on someone's last moments with their friends. I supposed I was.
Miss Militia vanished into the PRT van soon afterwards, with Assault and Battery following her in tense silence. I stood motionless in the street for a while, biting my lip hard enough to draw blood. My legs shook under me, weak and useless.
Seconds turned into minutes, and one after another Flechette and Vista unfroze. Weld took on the unenviable task of telling them what had happened. The seven of us ended up sitting on a nearby curb, waiting for another van to come by and pick us up.
At some point, Glory Girl's powers had come back online. She hovered cross-leged a couple inches off the ground, flexing her hands. They'd gotten all scraped up during the fight, probably during one of her falls.
Time seemed agonizingly slow as we waited. Clockblocker made a few half-hearted attempts at starting conversation, then fell into an uneasy silence. Then, after what felt like hours but had probably been much less, Battery's voice came in over the comms.
"We're at headquarters," she said. "I'll be keeping you informed, but nothing seems to be happening yet."
I grunted to show I'd heard, but otherwise kept staring sullenly at my legs. It seemed bitterly unfair that, the one time I focused on something other than my cybernetics, their lack had almost gotten me killed.
After a while, Vista leaned her head on my shoulder. She looked more like the twelve-year-old she was in that moment than any other I could remember. I patted her awkwardly on the back.
The PRT van arrived soon after Battery began giving us updates. Each status report was given every fifteen minutes, like clockwork—another two came in as we were driving to headquarters. Each time, nothing had changed.
It was around two hours after that when the Wards were allowed to come and see Miss Militia. By then, she was sitting quietly on a cot in one of the Master-Stranger cells, looking up at us through the glass. She managed a smile as we approached, though her power was still flickering anxiously.
After we left the room, I asked one of the PRT agents how sure they were that the shot had been fatal. They'd grimaced, and said that as far as they knew, the Butcher had no regenerative powers. Yet still, it had been hours since the attack, and she hadn't died. Either that or she had, and her powers took a while to transfer.
There was, as it turned out, frustratingly little information available. We had no way of knowing whether or not something had happened, and Miss Militia herself could only confirm, over and over, that she couldn't use any of the Butcher's powers, that she didn't hear any voice in her head but her own.
By about midnight, one of the PRT agents managed to find a source saying that the third Butcher had taken approximately two hours to turn, but had begun noticing extra powers in less than twenty minutes.
The information seemed to breathe some life back to the assembled heroes. Assault in particular was vocal in his opinion that, if the Butcher had been shot in the chest, she would almost certainly have 'kicked the bucket' by now.
Another four hours later, two of which I spent in a fitful nap, the PRT declared that holding Miss Militia was more of a formality at this point—somehow, it didn't seem the Butcher had died. When they told us, Missy broke down crying, shoving Dennis away when he started fussing over her.
"I'm fine," she insisted, hiccuping as she tried to talk. "I'm just happy."
For my part, I walked away from the rest of the group. Miss Militia was fine—it had worked out. How?
I'd seen the hole in the Butcher's chest, and the PRT had confirmed early on that none of her reincarnations had possessed any known regeneration powers. That she had managed to get away from us at all was a testament to her durability, but none of the Teeth had healing abilities, either. So how had she survived?
Not to mention, why had she been shot in the first place? There had been nothing stopping her from teleporting, except—she'd looked down, at Glory Girl and I, and taken a bullet to the shoulder. Then, later, she'd been distracted when Miss Militia had hit her in the back... but the fact remained that she had no discernable reason to stay where she was.
I had too many unanswered questions, and while we'd somehow managed a victory today, the Butcher was alive—and that meant we'd likely run into her again. So, I snuck away from the rest of the Wards and into Armsmaster's old lab. There, under the table, were the new cybernetics, right where I'd left them. They were still hidden by a sweatshirt—the old one I'd gotten all bloody when I'd installed the arm, though I'd cut off the worst of the stain to avoid suspicion.
Picking up the bag, I tucked it under my arm and left the building. I'd been useless in that fight, as soon as the Butcher took out my armor. Helpless, trapped in my own tech. I was never letting that happen again.
I'm curious what y'all think of the timeskipping there at the end. I wasn't entirely sure about doing that, but I figured having a huge cliffhanger over something that ultimately doesn't go anywhere would be worse.