***A Taylor, a Crystal, a Kayden, a Lisa, a Amy and a Vicky walk into an underground bar. Dean's also there I guess?***
Tracking down her father through the sewer system had been a shitty idea, Taylor thought.
Not because of the obvious joke, but because Brockton Bay was a modern city with a modern sewer system that you couldn't just walk through. That kind of shit only happened in shitty cartoons that had very little to do with reality.
So, instead, they were moving through old smuggling tunnels from back in the prohibition days. Same effect, slightly more realistic.
"So, how do you know where we have to go?" Taylor asked.
"Thinker powers," Nostradame replied. "Also, most of these hallways are actually dead ends."
Taylor looked around, checking the ancient architecture. The tunnels were mostly brick, with some wood, and filled with graffiti both old and new. One wall said 'Mayor Christner is literally Hitler!' while another said 'Hitler is literally King George!' A third wall had a few cave paintings, but those were obviously fake, giving that one of them was a man throwing spears at an armored man on a motor cycle, and the part where they were painted on a brick wall.
"Awfully convenient," Crystal remarked.
"I know right?" the girl agreed. "I mean sure, Thinker headaches hit me at the most inconvenient moment possible, but the rest of it? Pure awesome!"
"Speaking of Thinker powers," their walking flashlight said, "which way now?"
"Hold on, lemme Thinker for a second," Nostradame replied, looking around, then taking out her phone and opening up a GPS app.
"That's… that's cheating!" Taylor yelled out.
"Hey, not my fault no-one else downloaded the 'Historical underground of Brockton Bay' app!"
"Can't believe you're actually getting signal here…" Amy remarked.
"Tinkertech," the girl smirked with a grin that reminded Taylor of some sort of forest animal she couldn't quite place. Perhaps an angry badger?
"Hold up gals," Dean spoke out, easily recognized by his possession of actual testosterone. "I can see an emotional signature ahead."
"What kind of emotion?" Nostradame asked.
"Mostly anger, I think," Gallant said. "But it's one of those broody types of anger, the really pathetic type that prefers limb biscuits to Linkin Park."
"Do… do you kids even remember Linkin Park?" Purity asked.
"Duhh, it's my dad's favorite band," Vicky replied.
"I feel old…"
"Anyway, I think he's waiting for us," Dean said, "so let's see who it is."
Taylor walked forward, power at the ready as she turned the corner, spotting an ancient prohibition-era bar, half-forgotten and covered in shadows. Moving clouds of darkness drifted through the room, weaving between ancient bottles of whine and an antique beertap, the wooden panels of the floor broken up by wear, tear, and rot.
"It's her again!" Taylor shouted in anger.
"Really Huntress?" Panacea replied. "You're still not sick of that stuff?"
"It's a running joke!" she replied. "The constant repetition is what makes it even funnier!"
"Yeah but, it's just kind of mean-spirited now…" Vicky said.
"But she actually looks like a lady now! Panacea even helped her go undercover as a girl and shit!"
"Oh, right, so if a guy steals women's clothes you're perfectly okay with calling him a lady, but if someone in a woman's body tells you she's actually a he, that's when you suddenly draw a line?" Grue-ette asked.
"I guess?" Taylor replied. "I mean, this is all getting really complicated, and you're my archrival, so I basically do whatever bothers you most? It's more about that than about any politics on my part."
"That's… reassuring? Not reassuring? Just… what?" Grue asked.
"Look, can we just skip all this stuff and fight?" Taylor replied, circumventing the rest of the conversation by slinging a blast of light at Grue.
He moved his hands, launching a curtain of shadows, covering the elaborate scenery in a blanket of utter darkness. Taylor's attack struck the mists, the two opposing forces annihilating each other as they met. Through the quickly fading gap in the mist, she saw Grue running away, and knew that she really only had one option. To run after him.
She dashed forwards, darkness lapping at her body while she gave chase through half-darkened tunnels. Somewhere behind her, she could hear Nostradme call out something to the tune of "Watch out, there's a booooo-" but she ignored it. During the chase, she quickly grabbed her phone, she turned its torch on and stuck it beneath her shirt, a constant source of light to feed on, counteracting the worst effects of Grue's darkness.
Eventually, her mad dash through the tunnels brought her to another room. One half set with carpet and a small barrier, like you'd see in a museum. The other containing a boxing ring, as well as a few wooden stands.
Grue was standing in the middle of the ring, holding two tattered pairs of boxing gloves.
"The hell is this place?" Taylor asked.
"Old prohibition era illegal boxing ring," Grue replied. "Only reason my dad ever took me on the underground tour. Anyway, I could flood this room right now, leave you in excruciating pain, then beat you up."
"No you couldn't, I'd beat you," she replied.
"Really not the point. Anyway, I'm not a killer, and like Shadow Stalker, I have a feeling you're just going to keep coming after me, so how about this. No powers, no tricks, just a one on one boxing match. I win, you drop this stupid vendetta of yours. You win, you got me locked up. Deal?"
"Deal," Taylor replied, jumping into the ring, and accepting the pair of gloves Grue threw at her, connected by the laces. Putting them on, she got ready in a fighting stance. She was tall, but her enemy, though now female, was taller still, and had much more experience in combat. Luckily, she had an ace up her sleeve.
"Let's go," Grue said, feet moving in an intricate pattern as she danced forwards, when Taylor stepped towards him with a massive haymaker. Grue evaded effortlessly, leaning back away from her fist, but didn't expect what should have been very obvious to him as a bolt of light smashed through his helmet, knocking him to the floor.
Had he really expected her to play fair here?
XXX
Darkness, followed by a quick blast of light, followed by disorientation.
"Where the hell are we?" Glory Girl asked, as the darkness around them dissipated, showing a confused Amy, an all-knowing Nostradame, and a large warehouse with massive windows, large tables, and lots of drugs. And also a supervillain.
"Seriously? I lose a teleportation bomb, and I get a bunch of teenage girls? This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever!" an angry Bakuda yelled, launching a grenade out of a launcher.
"Block it!" Nostradame yelled out, and as Vicky saw Amy and her new girlfriend quickly overturn a table and hide behind it. She flew forward, catching the grenade in midair as it exploded.
For just a second, her shield turned off, then on again.
"Damnit. That bomb was way too weak. Low Energy, sad!" Bakuda yelled, grabbing two orbs from a nearby table filled with them, putting one in her launcher, then throwing the next one.
"Dodge then smash!" the other blonde yelled out, and Vicky obeyed the annoying little sister-stealer. The first grenade didn't even come near her, much like her teammates passes back on the basketball team. The second, quickly coming out of the launcher while the first was still in the air, she dunked into the floor as she soared through the air.
The first grenade exploded, then exploded again, and again, and again. The second, upon smashing into the floor, turned the concrete into putty.
"That all?" Vicky asked, looking Bakuda in the goggles.
"I bet if you had a tv-show, your ratings would be bad!" Bakuda yelled, throwing another grenade, aiming not at Vicky, but at her compatriots hidden behind the overturned furniture
Nostradame yelled out in frustration, ducking through the room as Vicky took the opening and rushed Bakuda.
Just before impact however, she was thrown back in a storm of lightning out of nowhere, crashing into a row of tables before coming to a stop against the wall of the building, white powder that was probably cocaine floating through the air around her.
"You know how we already have landmines and sea mines?" Bakuda asked. "Well, I invented something new, I call them space-mines! Because they're at a specific place in space!"
"You're really annoying, you know that right?" Vicky said, wiping a small trail of blood from her mouth as she stood up, her forcefield coming back in a rush.
"I have the best catchphrases, better than anyone else's catchphrases," Bakuda replied.
"Well, I have my own," Vicky said, floating back up into mid-air, then propelling herself forwards. "Gloryyyyyyyy smaaaaaa-"
She didn't complete her sentence, because her little sister had finally made her way through the room, taking Bakuda out with a fire extinguisher to the head.
"Y'know, for drug-dealing gangsters, these guys are awfully good at investing in fire safety!"
XXX
Purity launched twin beams of energy straight at the asshole's smugly smiling face. He'd reformed his bone structure, turning him mostly male again despite Panacea's attention, and he dodged the attack.
The two beams flew onwards, disappearing into the city far below them, ending in plumes of dust as Purity gave chase after the flying bonemaster.
She couldn't let up, couldn't give him a chance to recuperate. Not after she'd caught him by surprise after suddenly being teleported right behind him. Marquis was too powerful, too dangerous. According to Max, the man had been a tyrant back in the day, and a decade in the Birdcage had only honed his skills.
The man turned in mid-air, shearing off part of his wings with a swipe of a bone blade that then crashed down to Purity's level. A quarter second later, they'd already started growing large spikes on all sides, caltrops in midair.
Purity flew around them, far faster than the maneuverable hummingbird, and launched a quick beam of energy at him that he dodged by shifting to the side. It shattered one of the man's wings, but nothing more, and the wing was quickly regrown.
Regrowing the wing again, however, had forced him to stop flying for a second or two, giving Purity the high ground again. She launched a dozen smaller bolts, forcing the man to focus on evasion rather than regaining his height advantage as she gave chase.
Marquis shifted something in his stance, his wings reshaping into something more hawk-like as he dove down, using gravity moreso than flapping to give him speed.
Kayden readied a sustained beam of energy that traced just behind the man, her aim slightly too slow to catch up with the man, impacting only the buildings beneath him until he finally disappeared between two towers.
She gave chase, speeding after him with single-minded determination. She had destroyed the Empire, she could destroy the Marche.
Weaving in between the towers, she saw shattered glass falling to the ground beneath, and spotted the man's dropped wings in the building ahead of her.
Was this how he wanted to play it? By forcing her inside, into his territory? Did he underestimate her determination?
Bracing herself in midair, she aimed the beams of energy downward at an angle. She couldn't give Marquis time to escape, so she aimed at the core of the building, all the way on the first floor. If she remembered her discovery channel, that was where the main support structure would be, and where it was under the most strain.
Several seconds later, the building groaned, then fell, tumbling to the side as it did so.
"The fuck is your fucking problem you lunatic!" Marquis yelled out, flying straight at her in an incredibly uncharacteristic frothing rage, having jumped out of a window just in time. "Do you have any idea how many people you just fucking murdered!"
"I'm a hero!" Kayden shouted, directing her beam at the strafing man. He was fast, but her beam was faster, and while he managed to outfly her beam for a while, after flying three circles around her, her beam finally caught up with him, shearing straight through his bone wings, his body, and everything behind him.
There was only dust and noise. Loud crashes all around her as the city collapsed. She'd done it, she'd taken down the evil villain and proven herself a hero once more. She was a good person, not a Nazi or a murderer, like Kaiser or Marquis.
Taking a few moments to confirm her kill, observing the mangled remains of what had once been a birdcage inmate, Purity flew off further into the city, looking for her boyfriend. He'd be proud of her.