AN: Hello! Hello! Welcome back faithful readers! It's time for the next installment of everybody's favorite slime girl adventure, Flask! Brought to you by Wyvern and his persistent assistant, the Warhawk.
AtW: We've got good news and bad news. The good news is that we're really happy with the story and are nearing the climax of this arc. Maybe… three? Four more chapters? Not too many more. The bad news is that he and I are both quite wiped out. I've actually seriously neglected some of my schooling this semester for various reasons and I'm going to have to play catch up. He's also dealing with school and work. Expect it to be at least two weeks before we get the next chapter out. If it's sooner, it's a miracle born of our love for you guys.
Wyvern: As always, make sure you tell us how much you love us and worship our work through the offering of reviews. Or don't, but then I might get depressed and brood for a couple of days. Do remember to check your PM's for Alvor's replies.
Now, onto the show!
Chapter 11: Brockton Asunder (Part 3)
Flying was the ultimate freedom.
A secret joy not meant for humans.
The rush of wind against one's face, the warmth of the sun on their backs. No feeling in the world could quite compare to it, a forbidden pleasure that belongs to those who were born to it. It was a truly special feeling. Something you couldn't hope to describe unless you felt it for yourself.
And Victoria was starting to get sick of it.
The smell of smoke.
The sound of screaming and pistols going off all over the city. The normally calming sight of Brockton from above marred by fire. The city was collapsing on itself and Victoria had the best seat in the house to see it happening.
Cars overturned.
Houses, buildings, and stores vandalized.
It looked like something out of a horror movie, the only thing missing being zombies roaming the streets, and she was not about to count herself lucky just yet. With how her day was turning out, there was still plenty of ways it could get even worse.
Her family almost had a collective heart attack when the emergency sirens started blaring out from the rooftops. The system normally meant to warn of an impending Endbringer attack had been triggered as a response to the city wide panic and Vicky couldn't help but feel it was well deserved.
Gangs and rioters took control of the streets.
Capes fighting with no concern for what was happening around them while criminals and psychos from all walks of life came out to play as Brockton Bay descended into chaos.
The Protectorate's call arrived just as they had geared up to leave the house, the officer on the other end of the line doing his level best to convey just how badly the situation had gone and where they were most needed.
As per usual, Amy had been delivered straight to the hospital, one of the most well guarded facilities in the city. Anyone trying to do something funny would run into a full squad armed to the teeth as well as a pair of pissed off heroes.
Let it not be said that Assault and Battery couldn't be scary when they wanted to.
They weren't even the only ones pulling the most work.
Vicky had ran into Velocity half a dozen times by now, catching glimpses of the speedster as he ran triple duty around the bay putting out fires and laying out problems before they could grow out of control. The police had to set up containment zones outside just to house all the culprits being caught and turned in, the cells having already reach max capacity.
Honestly, the problem was two fold. After the wide ranging busts against the Merchants, the local police had broken the gang up and spread it out as much as possible. Mooks were sent to any nearby jails or prisons that could hold them, mostly to break the gang up and prevent it from starting a prison riot, and the captured junkie capes were held in cells on the Rig. But what that meant was that there just wasn't anywhere to take the people being arrested!
After the violence had started, a lot of protestors fled, while the ones that turned into a riot were pulled in multiple directions. That meant the PRT and the police had been able to isolate and arrest each section on their own. Standard tactics for the first couple times they pulled that. Then it occurred to someone to do a count of how many people they had.
In the end, the last number she had heard was that something in the neighborhood of five thousand arrests had been made. And the night was far from over.
Swooping down, she came to a stop right next to a police officer, the only noise she made being the light click of her shoes on the asphalt.
"Sir, what do you need help with?"
The man did a double take.
"Glory Girl? Is that… are you ok?"
She shook her head.
"The blood isn't mine." That was a half lie. Most of it wasn't hers. Instead of her pristine, shining self she was grimy. Her tiara had been lost hours ago, her hair was singed and covered in ash with a few chunks torn out, her makeup was ruined as streaks of grime and a few droplets of blood she hadn't been able to get off completely covered her face like a clown's face paint, and her clothes had been trashed. Her cape was gone, lost in a burning building, her dress was mostly in tatters, and if she hadn't had her aura it would probably have gone totally.
The only reason she wasn't covered in burns and slashes and missing chunks of skin was because she'd been visiting her sister throughout the night to receive touch ups.
Her hands suddenly flared with pain, Victoria gritting her teeth as she remembered diving through the window of a burning building, wrapping a pair of small children in several blankets, and then flying through the walls to escape. The first time her aura had been popped in public. And the first time she'd been meaningfully hurt since she'd triggered.
It had been the impact that caused her abilities to stutter, giving the burning debris time to melt what had been the sleeves of her costume into her skin.
Somehow she'd been able to fly to Amy who'd fixed her up.
Mostly. She hadn't put all the nerves back. And that's how Vicky knew the pain was just a phantom, just a memory. Gritting her teeth, she didn't let out a sound for a moment before she calmed. The cop was staring at her in worry, probably because she'd been so quiet for so long, but the man looked disturbed. It didn't bother Glory Girl. People had freaked out way more when she'd stumbled in with her skin literally peeling off in strips. Or when her chest had been gouged into by a four inch nail. Or how she nearly lost a leg when an exploding boiler sent her spinning, the concussive wave popping her shield, and drove a chunk of metal six or seven inches into the meat of her thigh.
She let out a dark laugh. That had been a close one.
"The dispatcher said you had a hostage situation? Empire trash and an asian family? What do you want me to do?"
Frowning, the man pointed to the entrance of the building, surrounded by what few police cars they could spare.
"The negotiators are keeping them busy, pretending to listen to their demands. But we don't have enough people to either hold them down or take them out. You have an aura right? Do you think you can handle this?"
"Maybe?" Vicky shook her head. "I'll just try and wrap this up quickly. There's a wreck at Acacia and Mountain so… I guess be ready to follow me."
Twelve hours ago, Victoria would have flown through the roof. All shock and awe. Right now, the thought of flying made her queasy. So, sighing and cursing the Empire in her head, she walked to the door of the building, gave it a short knock for manner's sake, twisted the doorknob out with a pop and took a step in.
"Hello there~"
BANG!
She didn't scream when the bullet ricocheted off her forehead. Instead, she just sighed and cranked her aura up to max.
"Put the gun down, please."
The six foot two, three hundred and fifty pound nazi pointing a .45 at her pissed himself. A foul smell told her he had then proceeded to do worse than that. He dropped the gun, the thing going off again and bouncing off into the darkness. Vicky cranked her fear aura ever so slightly more and the man's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and his tattoo covered body hit the ground with a large thump.
Vicky didn't use her aura like that very often. Sure, using fear to take down criminals had been her M.O for as long as she'd been a cape. But her mother had always warned her that it was quite powerful and therefore dangerous.
Masters always were.
Hence why she preferred short doses of her power. It made for a safer and less…messy way to win. The past few hours, however, had proven quite tiring. And shown Glory Girl that sometimes overkill was exactly what she needed to solve her problems.
If only the results weren't so… offensive.
"That was… disgusting." Her lip curled in disgust. She turned back to the apartment's Super's office. "Alright, I know you're in there. That there's four of you. Here's how we're going to do this. You let the family out, unharmed. After that, you will put all your weapons in a bag or container of some kind. Once you do that, you will leave the bin in plain view and come out one by one. If you do not do this, I will rearrange your internal organs until I'm bored or I think Panacea can't put you back together. You have to the count of… ten? Nah, five. You have to the count of five to release the hostages."
Loudly counting out, slowly enough the assholes could hear her, Victoria finally took a look around. The apartment was shot to hell, an overall mess not helped by the… smelly body she had just dropped. The furniture was either upturned or laying flat against the walls, a dinner table taking up most of the space to act as some sort of shield. The bullet holes in it couldn't have meant much else.
Windows were broken, glass peppering the ground like snow, large pieces reflecting light from outside off the ground and towards the ceiling.
It was a shit hole. Before it got shot up. After? Well… Victoria hoped they had good insurance. Lots of places had crime related insurance going on, and some of the pricier avenues even afforded the parahuman insurance. Premiums were most likely gonna skyrocket after the last few hours.
She… might have tried the whole 'dropping through the ceiling' plan once or twice since the manhunt started. Then there was that one jewelry she fell into after getting caught into one of Oni Lee's suicide vest blasts.
Her shield saved her.
But the store? Not so much….
"Five! Ok, time's up. I hope you like large objects shoved up your ass. About the size of your friend's head, if you get what I'm going after."
A loud burst of gunfire tore through the wall. Dropping to the floor, she waited until the bullets finished chewing through the room at torso level. Letting her power pull her forward, Victoria flew forward and up, righting herself, and then unleashed her aura at full blast once more.
"Stand down!"
Of the four men, all carrying firearms of various makes and models, three dropped their guns. The last one began wildly spraying bullets in her direction. Victoria bobbed and weaved, only the occasional shot pinging off her shield, before striking out with her hand. Yanking the pistol out of the man's hand, she ignored his screaming and the ruin of his mangled fingers. She just kicked him in the gut, slamming his body into the wall, before rounding on the other three.
They scurried back, eyes wide with fear.
"At least you didn't shit yourself. Now. Where are they?"
No one said anything. She ramped her aura up again.
"I said, where are they!"
One of the skinheads shakily pointed to his back, a small door that was barricaded with a washing machine. There were scuff marks on the floor, meaning they were halfway through dragging it off. Probably to turn the hostages into human shields against her.
The realization made her blood boil.
A flash of anger was all the group of lawbreakers felt before they dropped unconscious. The young hero tied them together, dropping the human sacks of shit into the living room before returning to the laundry.
"Hey!" Victoria stuck her head out the door way. "I've got them tied up. Come on over. I'll get the hostages out."
Already moving into the main room, the cops filtered around Vicky as she took a deep breath, pulling back her aura and allowing its calming effects to come forth. She was once told that while her fear aura was akin to staring down a dangerous predator, like a bear or a lion. Meanwhile, her calming aura was referred to as being given a heavy duty anesthetic.
She didn't like it.
Not as much as her other auras. Mostly because of the unfortunate reminder that she was, after all, a Master. And she never could shut it off totally. No matter how much she pulled back on it, her aura was always there, always influencing everyone around her. Except her family, of course, and she thanked God for that.
"The hostages are in a back room, it's over there and there's a washing machine blocking it. Let me go in first and I'll bring them out." The grown men nodded their assent to the teenaged girl. Odd to anyone who didn't understand what being a Hero meant. And even if she didn't feel even human, Victoria looked like one right now.
Pulling the washer out of the way, she knocked on the door to the back room.
"Hello? Are you ok? Can you hear me? It's Glory Girl, from New Wave."
There was no response and her heart twinged in fear.
'Please be ok, please be ok.'
Eyes open, no matter how much she wanted to shut them, she motioned the emergency personnel back.
"I'm coming in now."
Screams echoed from the back of the room and a short Chinese man, a large gash on his face, holding a chair leg up like a bat. He screamed something in cantonese and Vicky just smiled.
"Officer Cheng, could you come in here?"
There was just a tickle of her aura slipping out and she raised her hands. Frankly, the only thing she cared about was that the family was ok. As the cop came in, hands up too, he calmed the man down and the family was ushered out. The wife and three kids were scared, quietly crying even, but they were all ok. No one had anything worse than a bruise or the cut on the guy's face.
Quietly slipping away, she flew into the sky without another word. Pulling out her cell phone, she called the PRT's affiliate hotline and waited until she was patched through to the dispatcher.
"-lory Girl! Glory Girl! Can you hear me?!"
The voice was frantic, the backdrop of running water nearly drowning it as if it were raining. More concerning was the fact she was being called directly. That meant something bad enough to spook pretty much everyone had happened.
"This is Glory Girl. What's the situation?"
There was a screech of static and more water.
"-reak out! There's been a break out at the Rig!" The officer blared through the noise. The ringing of alarm sirens and the roar of explosions echoing across the line. "It's chaos out here! Skidmark and Squealer have somehow cobbled together an attack helicopter. Half of the brig is flooded and we are still digging out the Wards, Flask took them down."
'Shit.'
"Are they ok? Any casualties?"
"Only one, Clockblocker is being treated right now but we need flier support. Swing past City Hall and pick up a radio from the staging area. Your team will be on channel three."
"Understood." Vicky hung up, turning in mid air, and rocketing away.
'I hope Dean and Emma are ok.' Her boyfriend and best friend, Amy was her sister and super favorite, adorable, cute, little sibling, were tough. But getting buried in rubble was never fun. Even worse, Emms had mentioned how Taylor, her friend, was a Trump. And not in the best… mind set. Not that the girl would try to hurt anyone, surely not, but accidents happened.
As for the Merchant's….
Victoria growled and sped up, pushing her powers as hard as she could.
"Acceptable fucking targets!"
It was time to vent.
Canary… wanted to laugh. She would have laughed, if she hadn't been so utterly terrified that she'd gone white knuckled around the taser the troopers had given her. John, the wounded one, was propped up on the far bench and was cradling a shotgun while Sylvester, the trooper that had been the first to react, was standing outside the van with a shouldered, if lowered, rifle. And despite that, she still had no idea what was going to happen.
A veil of ash and thick, dark rain clouds hung heavy in the night sky..
The sound of gunshots split the night. It wasn't constant, but every so often a loud crack would echo in the distance. Once, she thought she saw a massive, alien monstrosity, wreathed in smoke and flame, stomp through Brockton Bay in the distance. This was not her home, it was almost alien to her seeing as she'd been in a cell the entire time she'd been here. But watching the great black plumes of choking smoke and hearing the wail of almost inaudible sirens and the thunder of war was… harrowing.
Despite everything she had gone through since she was arrested, Paige had gone through emotional turmoil the likes of which very few people could attest to. It was a harsh feeling, being demonized and made an example of just to prove someone's point, knowing millions upon millions of people thought she should be killed. Yet she'd chosen to fight back for as long as she could for her freedom.
Not that it had worked in the end.
Yet for all her struggles, Paige had still been a fairly sheltered young woman, without having experienced much of the violence which surrounded the world of parahumans. Everyone knew that there were dangers involved and everyone knew someone who suffered at least once because of it.
But seeing the results first hand.
The chaos. The destruction. The stories most took for granted about the monsters who shared their world.
They were true. All of them.
How is someone supposed to cope with it? With knowing that any moment could make the difference between life and death?
A dozen motorcycles, engines still humming, as a group of bikers, each and every one of them visibly armed, surrounded a black SUV.
"This is Lieutenant Sylvester of the PRT, you are approaching an official transport! We have suffered an accident, you will stay back for your own safety!"
If nothing else, the good LT barked orders like a drill sergeant. Canary… hoped it would be enough. The loud guffaws from the men, however, told Paige that is was not. Two men, wearing suits, stepped out of the SUV, from the rear of the vehicle, and walked to the front of the group with guns in hand.
"You don't seem to understand your situation. And I can see yellow feathers Mr. Cat. That means you've got yourself a tweety bird back there. Am I right?"
Tensing, the trooper's rifle bobbed up before he brought it under control again.
"Sir, leave this place. Now."
"Frank." The two men ignored the guy, one gesturing for a biker to get off his machine. "Go see if Tommy got what was coming to him. That was his truck up there."
Sylvester's rifle snapped up.
"Halt! Now! I will open fire!"
Holding up his hands, the biker shook his head.
"Woah man. We're just going to see if the snitch is dead. Everything else is between you and the boss."
Frank kept walking. The trooper pulled back, closer to the van, and kept everyone in his sight.
"Shit man. Tommy's fucking puree. This fucker's dead, dead. Like, closed casket dead."
The biker came back around the vehicle, looking a little green.
"Boss" smirked and turned back to Sylvester.
"Well, he's what we came here for. But you know, a cape like her, she's… valuable. Hookwolf escaped a cage transport twice, you know? So how about this. I've got about two million in cash and drugs. All yours. Just hand her over and we can all walk away."
Canary tensed. Would the man sell her out to protect his buddy? Would she end up in the Empire's claws? She hadn't heard much about them, being a local gang, but Taylor had mentioned they had "rumored" connections to Gesellschaft. And everyone knew who they were.
"I'm sorry, sir, but no." Sylvester's rifle snapped up. "Now kindly fuck off."
Paige deflated in relief, watching the group and trying to keep an eye on their guns as the bikers climbed off their motorcycles.
They were very well armed. Too well, in fact.
Then again, with Brockton Bay becoming a warzone, it was just natural that people would bring out the big guns to level the playing field.
"That's a shame." Suit one and suit two turned around and climbed back into the vehicle. As they closed the door, suit one, "Boss", called out over his shoulder. "Whoever brings me the girl gets paid triple and can have first go at her. Better to break a Master in before we let her sing."
It was a twig thin, completely bald man with a large hole in his cheek that brought his gun up first. Sylvester was trying to keep the other side of the group inside his vision. Canary screamed, the noise coming out as a garbled mess. Thankfully Johnny, the wounded trooper, saw where she was pointing.
His shotgun let out a bark, a solid slug punching through the guy's chest.
The rest of the bikers screamed in anger and opened fire in a blind panic. Because he was sitting in the floor and keeping quiet, none of them had noticed the second soldier and one of their own had just died. Sylvester, however, did not. Instead, he dropped to a knee and emptied his rifle across the group.
Only a few of the thugs were hit, and only one seemed to have died, but the rest of them fell to the ground behind their machines to take cover. Johnny took the opportunity to blow the head of the first person to pop back up and Sylvester had his rifle reloaded in a second.
Leaping up and to the side, the trooper moved at an angle and forward, slicing the pie Paige thought it was called, and continued to put short, controlled bursts into the face or chest of anyone stupid enough to peak up.
Unfortunately, the windows of the SUV rolled down and the barrel of a submachine gun stuck out. A rapid blast of fire hit Sylvester in the chest, knocking him onto his back.
Seeing this, the group of eight or so remaining bikers tried to swarm the man. Johnny, however, dropped the shotgun and let loose with his handgun. Sixteen barks dropped another two and clipped a third man, the rest opening fire on the van. The rounds almost hit Paige, causing her to scream when one bullet came so close it pinged off her muzzle.
Pain, almost like a broken jaw, blossomed.
By this point, Sylvester had managed to draw his side arm too. Rapidly firing into the group of advancing men, he managed to down another three, but the last two advanced on him with shotguns of their own. Hoping to use the close range to overcome his heavy body armor, one shot him in the arm, tearing into his uniform and forcing him to drop his gun, while the other aimed at his head.
Paige didn't realize she'd fired until the man suddenly seized up, shotgun discharging into the dirt and a pellet or two pinging off the side of the trooper's helmet.
Johnny had evidently reloaded, as his handgun left the two idiots bleeding and on the ground. The rest of his mag was directed towards the SUV, cracking the obviously reinforced glass but not doing too much more. When he brought his shotgun up, the slugs punched through. Each loud blast heralding another blossom of blood and a fist sized chunk torn out of the vehicle. Sylvester joined him soon enough and emptied another magazine into the vehicle
When the barrage ended, there wasn't much left besides the pained groans of the few survivors bleeding out on the ground.
Even that stopped when Sylvester climbed to his feet, calmly reloaded his pistol, and pumped two rounds into every man still alive. Each round made Canary jump. Somehow more intense than the entire gun battle had been.
Walking over to the van, he collapsed against the back of the vehicle and pulled his helmet off with one hand, his right arm bleeding from a number of large tears in the uniform, gun sitting on the ground next to him. Very much in easy reach.
Paige's heart hammered against her chest, ears echoing with thunder as she took an unsteady breath.
In and out.
In.
Out.
Her skin felt clammy with sweat. Her eyes burning with angry tears, though she suspected she had gone into shock some time ago and just stopped emoting all together. There was only so much a normal person, even a parahuman, could see before they just disconnected from reality.
She knew the carnage before her certainly classified.
It wasn't like in the movies, with long drawn out action sequences with downtime for a quick chat and one liners. This had been fast, unrelenting, and violent to the point the gun fight couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes. Not even a handful.
And the smell. God, the smell was horrible.
The exhaust from the motorcycles. The stink of gunpowder still lingering around the kill site. The blood slowly leaking out of the bodies as they died. The entrails, muscle, and bone exposed to the outside world making it feel as if she'd just walked into a horror movie.
Too much.
It was too much.
She staggered over to the two troopers, their forms taut with stress, watching to make sure the gang members were completely, perhaps to make sure none of them could try something funny. Truthfully, they didn't seem to be handling the situation any better than she was.
Looking like statues, stiff with worry while looking for any sign of trouble. It was almost like a trance. Johnny had even dragged himself over to sit next to Sylvester, the two barely moving.
Her hands clenched, nails digging on her palms.
"You two." She ran over to the two wounded troopers. "Are you alright?"
'Worn out' was perhaps a better way to describe the duo. Johnny was still sitting against the group, his breathing looking hurried, his face set in a grimace of pain. As if he had pulled a particularly painful muscle.
Sylvester was doing better off, though he clutched his chest in pain, likely the area where he'd gotten shot. Fortunately there was no blood in sight, otherwise Paige felt she might have fainted out of shock.
Johnny moved first, shuffling slightly in place.
"We're okay. Feeling like shit, but okay. What about you?"
Sylvester gave a shaky nod.
"Yeah, just a spook. The Kevlar underweave took most of it. I don't think they even penetrated too far into the trauma plate. And my arm fucking hurts but I'll keep it.."
Climbing to his feet, the trooper clipped his helmet to his belt.
"Miss, can you help Johnny walk? I think I have a broken rib or something and my arm's not… good enough to take his weight. There should be bag in there with emergency supplies. Grab it and hand it over. Then we can get Johnny out of there."
Paige felt her body collectively sigh in relief, spasms running through every inch of her body. She stepped closer, finding what he was looking for, and tentatively grabbed a first aid kit, the two belts of extra ammunition she saw, and a case of rifle rounds before stuffing it into the bag.
"That's all I could find… I… thank you. For all of that. Both of you."
She couldn't look at the troopers, not with her eyes blurry as they were with tears. The salty droplets running down her cheeks and into the ground. The two men grunted in response, Sylvester responding.
"You saved my ass out there. It's just fair, that."
Chuckling, Johnny waved her off.
"Don't worry lady. It's our duty. But fuck, I'm reporting this to medical. I want to get benefits for this shit after I get out."
The other man snorted back a laugh.
"Johnny, you stub your toe and report it to medical."
"Fuck yeah I do! I ain't gonna not get medical comp for this crap."
Groaning, Sylvester slid the pack onto his back and looped the carrying strap of his rifle across his shoulders.
Johnny punched his friend in his gunshot, getting a loud yelp and middle finger. This just had the younger man laughing his ass off. Shaking his head, Sylvester helped Johnny climb to his feat, the other man looping the shotgun around his shoulders before leaning on Canary's.
"How far are we?" She hedged a question, voiced groaning from the distorter.
"Gas station is just a mile or two back towards town. Shouldn't take too long."
Paige smiled.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."
The trio took a tentative step forward, awkward and clumsy, but it wasn't that long until they found their rhythm.
They had a long road ahead of them, but, even as the sky was on fire, Paige… felt something in her gut that told her there was a chance.
'Maybe I'm just delusional… I look like Ziz. But… I wouldn't mind being a hero.'
Taylor burst out of the ground with a triumphant roar, the world coming into focus as she squeezed herself out of the sewer system and exploding out of a manhole. Quite literally bursting into the world once more. Though it was already dark out, she could feel a light breeze caressing her 'skin', the chill of the wind slowly drawing her out of the trance she'd fallen into since escaping the Rig even as echoes of the screams she'd heard echoed in her ears.
She'd been navigating through the sewer system once she'd made landfall, mostly working through the Boat Graveyard and then the sewers propper once she'd reached it. Unfortunately, she'd largely been moving on instinct, in a near fugue state, and simply kept crawling forward. She had picked up a significant amount of… mass, easily making her ten or perhaps even twenty times the weight she had been when she'd first escaped her cell.
Considering she'd been totally lost and far, far too panicked to think clearly Taylor had simply kept moving forward.
Eventually, though, she'd felt more than hard heavy, violent impacts in the distance. Lacking for any other option, Taylor pursued them. On the way, she'd encountered much smaller, lighter impacts sending vibrations through her meters and meters and meters of pink slime. And then she'd heard the screams.
It was around that time that her memory grew hazy. Aside from a few flashes mostly involving the odd, unlucky insect or rat getting caught up in her endless advance she didn't recall feeling anything. Not except for a massive flash of anger and things suddenly breaking underneath her raw, crushing weight.
'That's not good. I've lost control of myself twice tonight. I… what does that mean?'
Going on a rampage still sounded as horrible as when she first thought about it, no matter how much she prevericated.
She knew it had been a bad idea to burst out of her cell and rampage through the regional PRT Headquarters. Taylor wasn't stupid after all. She was just so far beyond caring that she would do anything but stay put as her friend was carted off to a life sentence amongst the worst mankind had to offer.
Taylor wouldn't… couldn't not do anything about it.
So yes, just another addition to the long list of bad decisions she'd made since becoming a cape. Fighting the Wards a second time hadn't been any fun either, mostly because this time she was fully cognizant and aware of her choices.
She chose to escape.
She chose to fight her way out. To fight Emma.
And when the time came, she chose to drop a ceiling on top of her and the Wards.
An uncomfortable sensation rippled through her body, a cold void opening in her chest area much like a gaping maw. Anger, guilt, sadness, despair. A cocktail of unpleasantness she had been getting used more and more ever since she triggered inside that locker.
If this wasn't the final nail in her coffin, she didn't know what would be.
"Excuse me, uh, mam… may I help my friend?"
Spinning on the spot, Taylor finally took in her surroundings. There was a woman kneeling in front of a large skull helmeted biker, a blonde girl in a purple jumpsuit, a lot of dead… monster lizard things, and….
"Oh! Is she ok? What happened to her?"
Rushing over to the young woman only a few feet from her, Taylor cursed herself for her not paying more attention. Young, stocky, pretty badly scarred but… pretty enough. In a violent sort of way. She was maybe a couple years older than Taylor herself and bleeding from her palms, her stomach, and several slashes along her legs.
"Bitch was about to be torn apart by Hookwolf. Thanks for saving her, by the way."
Blinking, Taylor enveloped the wounded, bleeding girl with her mass, pointedly ignoring the sudden hiss from the purple bodysuit girl, and began to clean this Bitch's wounds.
"I don't know much about first aid, but this looks bad. I can at least eat the debris, and just the debris, and maybe stop her from bleeding to death. But Hookwolf, damn, that means… she's Cricket! Where is he? Is he coming back?"
Her extra eyes saw the girl slowly blink in confusion.
"No, he's over there. And over there. And a bit there. But mostly there."
Looking at where the girl was pointing, Taylor was about to shake her head in confusion when it clicked what the red smear was.
"Oh." Sending out a tendril, she confirmed it tasted of blood. "I… killed Hookwolf. Oh."
Taylor slowly extruded Bitch.
"I guess you would know me as Flask?" The slime monster shivered a little, small pieces of her body remaining behind to hold the maimed girl's wounds closed. "I'm the girl that busted up Winslow. Um, nice to meet you I guess. What… what happens now?"
Purple girl shrugged.
"No idea. Our safehouse got stepped on by Lung and our way home got blocked because Kaiser is throwing a hissy fit. You saved our asses, even if you didn't mean to sooo… maybe you wanna come along? The PRT is going to be after you. And if we survive tonight, well, I'm not sure. But not dying sounds like a great idea."
Shaking her head, Taylor gently set Bitch on the ground.
"No thank you. I need to save my friend. Canary, do you know where she is?"
Frowning, the blonde shook her head.
"Unfortunately, no. But I do happen to know where you can find out. Name's Tattletale, by the way. And you just saved the Undersiders."
Taylor tensed, her hackles raised.
'I saved a bunch of villains!?' Just before she said something… aggressive, the image of Bitch's wounds popped back into her head. 'But I suppose it was from a monster.'
The giant slime shook her head, dismissing those thoughts.
"Well, what do you want? I assume the information doesn't come for free?"
She had that much in the way of street smarts at least.
Chuckling, the young villainess waved her off.
"Nah. I'll tell you either way. But if you gave us a ride, that'd be great!"
Blinking with all of her eyes, Taylor slowly nodded, reabsorbing all the eyes that could see the large red streak back from where she'd burst out of the sewers.
"Great! You know the hospital at Main and 4th? The PRT has a command post there. Thing is, the only unit still there is the SRT. That's the PRT's SWAT team if you don't know. They've got lots and lots of guns, but no specialist equipment, according to rumor, since they're killers. All you gotta do is go there, ask nicely, or not if that's how you want to role, and you've got her!"
"Wouldn't the heroes just stop me?" That sounded way too simple to work. "I mean, they've gotta know I'm out. What's to stop them from just swarming me the second I show up?"
"Lung." Skeleton biker spoke up this time. "They've already lost Challenger, according to the news, and rumor is Miss Militia is badly wounded. Dauntless and Armsmaster are holding him back, along with the adults in New Wave, but it's a close thing. Kaiser, Fenja, and Menja are also trying to fight him, even if the E88 is rampaging through the ABB's territory right now."
"How do you know that?" Taylor's paranoia spiked when the boy just rolled off reams of information that seemed way too specific.
"PHO." The boy smashed his fist, and what looked like a pair of brass knuckles, into the back of Cricket's neck and the woman crumpled. "Got it open on my phone. The cape stalkers are streaming the fights live in HD. Good way to know what streets to avoid."
Snorting, Taylor shook her whole body.
"I assume you're not going to kill Cricket?"
Tattletale and Skele-Biker locked eyes for a bit, but it was a boy with a bleeding face that spoke next.
"We should off the stupid bitch. She tried to kill us. It's only fair."
The renaissance fair looking boy gave the downed woman a vicious kick to the ribs, getting a pained grunt from her.
"No." Skele-Biker firmly shook his head. "The Undersiders are not killers. We do not want that reputation."
"Who would know? Hookwolf is gone, there's no witnesses!"
Laughing, Tattletale interjected.
"Unless our new friend here wants to eat her, she'd still leave a body. And they were known to be fighting us. If people let their imaginations run wild…."
"Fuck." Renaissance flopped to the ground, still cradling his face.
"The big guy over here is Grue, and Regent is the one with the frills. Like I said, you saved Bitch and I'm Tattletale. So… Flask, mind giving us a ride? I did give you that tip on Canary after all."
A loud grunt drew everyone's attention, Bitch coming too. With another grunt the lizard monsters started melting, healthy dogs crawling out. Staring Taylor down, the girl ran a hand across her shredded abdomen and grunted, nodding at the slime once.
"I guess." Taylor was frowning, face warping into a faux pensive look. "If I don't, you might die. And you didn't kill… anyone." The 'like I did' went unspoken. "So it's fair. And it's not like I have a better idea. Plan A was to run around the city yelling and that would just cause more harm."
She sighed, body flattening out, becoming something akin to two king sized mattresses sat side by side, and a mouth reformed at the back.
"There's room for the dogs, but please make sure they don't do their business on me. It'd be very, very unpleasant."
Smiling and waving her hand, Tattletale just nodded and climbed aboard.
"Come on guys, we probably shouldn't stick around for this one. Better go get Panacea to patch us up and then disappear before the big fights cool off."
Regent gave a deep heaving sight, walking over to Taylor and flopping down onto her body.
"Guess it's not weirder than the dogs."
The canines, at a snap of Bitch's fingers, scrambled onto Taylor's mass. They seemed to find her fun to chew on, but since they were otherwise behaving the slime girl didn't say anything. Grue, for his part, just helped a scrambling dog, this one dragging at least six duffle bags with it, to get situated in the middle of their ride. After that, he picked Bitch up, despite how she growled at him, and gently sat her down.
"Thank you. For saving us."
Taylor gave a happy burble, glad she couldn't blush. There was something strong in the young man's gaze and it made her… happy she had decided to help them. And that meant she could keep an eye on them.
While Taylor wouldn't kid herself into thinking she was suddenly going to save the city, she thought that having one less group of villains running around was probably a plus. On top of that, she'd be able to keep an eye on them and, assuming Tattletale was lying to her, Taylor could simply turn them over to the troopers. Guns might not work on her, but from the way Bitch and Regent were bleeding they definitely worked on them.
'Plus they said the PRT had a command post at the hospital. But, that begs the question why they wouldn't they be afraid? Maybe… it's some kind of truce?' Lung was legendary for causing trouble, just as bad as an Endbringer. And the Undersiders are just thieves.
They didn't kill. Not like her….
Fortunately, or not, even her guilt and self loathing couldn't completely distract Taylor from the question of why they would want to… make nice so quickly with her of all capes. She might be a recent trigger, but she was just as dangerous if not more so than the majority of the villains skulking around the Bay.
'Even if they're just using me for a ride to the hospital, it still doesn't totally make sense.'
She was missing something, Taylor was absolutely sure of that, but she had no idea what it was. And no matter how hard she racked her brain, it just wouldn't click. Ultimately, she just trundled forward like the world's weirdest party float. And even as she moved through debris and rubble strewn street, her mind still returned to the ever growing guilt gnawing away at her gut.
'I hope Emma's ok.'