Investments 14.7
I gazed down at the wreckage below me and let out a long, low sigh of relief.
It looked like a sink-hole hand opened, full of rubble and collapsed masonry, the air shimmering from the heat filtering upwards. Looking for Mouse Protector, I saw the torch of her power up the street, away from the edge but in sight of the collapsed section.
As I flew down to her, she gave me a half-hearted wave with her sword, only glancing at me as she stared at the wreckage. As I approached, she backed away quickly, calling out shakily, "Vej, I know I've said you're hot, but I meant that in a sexy way!"
I glanced around, and noticed that the area around me had started to steam, a bit of pulped newspaper by my foot having lit itself. I reminded myself that just because my power made me immune to heat, it didn't mean I couldn't warm up. Bringing Stellar Negation fully online, the flame snuffed itself out. "Sorry, forgot."
"Forgot?" she asked incredulously, before shaking her head. "Guess that tunnel was deep, huh," she said, waving to the restaurant's entrance, red light illuminating the street right outside. I nodded, dismissing that star, along with the forty or so deeper underground. "So, a lot of 'em?" she queried.
"You could say that," I agreed, sighing, feeling tired once more. Between what I'd seen, and the damage I'd taken, I could hear my bunk calling my name, but I needed to finish this mission first. "Good call, by the way. Parts of it were underwater, and while I'm immune to disease, it was pretty bad down there. In a lot of ways," I muttered the last bit.
Mouse glanced at me, blinking behind her mask. "Um, you okay Vejimite? You look a little green around the gills. Um, not that way," she quickly added as I felt nauseous, thinking about the prisoners I'd killed, unable to heal them. "I guess there wasn't anyone to save down there?"
"I couldn't save them, so I gave them mercy," I replied. With the temperatures we'd hit in that cave, every tunnel that connected to it would at least have had scalding steam, enough to cook someone through, shooting down it. I was glad I took the time to make their deaths painless and swift. "I'm glad you guarded the entrance, Karen."
"Oh," she remarked. "At least it's over."
I started to agree with her, but the rubble, which had finally settled, lifted slightly, the sound carrying clearly across the abandoned streets. Looking at her, she gave me a chagrined shrug, and I just sighed.
The rubble shifted again, and again, something disturbing the wreckage of the building that'd dropped into it. "Stay out of this fight," I told her, drawing my sword but finding it half-melted, the patterns in the grain a chaotic mishmash of lines, circles, and everything else. My Immunity had protected my gear before, from blasts of hot and cold, but spending a protracted amount of time at lava temperature had obviously had some effects.
As I put it back, the rubble moved once more, and a giant, dark-green, webbed hand burst out, gold melted around its wrist like a crude bracer. Another arm, with matching golden armor, joined it, both clawing the ground as it pulled itself out of the rubble.
"Holy fuck," Karen whispered as the monster stood, now forty feet tall, dark scales wetly shining in the morning light. I grabbed a fridge-sized piece of rubble, infusing it with momentum, and hurled it as hard as I could without draining a shield. The momentum added to the speed of my throw, accelerating the masonry to a ridiculous speed that sent a shockwave of air blasting in its wake.
I hit it dead-center, with a sound like thunder as it toppled backwards, ribs audibly cracking even from this distance. From first-hand experience I knew that I hadn't hit it hard enough, as I could hear it's ribs uncrack as it slowly scrabbled to its feet. It looked at me, and gave a gurgling screech, twin spikes of fear and anger reappearing, as if they'd never left. Both emotions descending on my sluggish thoughts like twin fog banks, one hot, one cold, mixing into a twister of fuck off.
"Lee," Mouse whispered, her voice trembling. "I think you just pissed it off."
Pissed it off? Pissed it off? I raged internally, too tired to bury the emotion under a sense of grim purpose once more. I was the one who was pissed off because this stupid power-rangers monster of the week knockoff didn't know when it was supposed to fucking die. Like the others, but bigger? What was this stupid 'make my monster grow!' bullshit? Fuck, I'd even turned into a giant robot, buried it in lava and dropped likely a hundred tons of fucking rubble in it, and it still wouldn't fucking die!
However, here on the surface, I had a lot more options. While I couldn't pull out my more distinctive powers here, I could finally use my major power. Reaching out to the air around us, I formed blade after blade, all of them invisible, all of them deadly sharp, and launched them at the creature in a horizontal rain of swords.
The fleshy parts were cut, and bled blue-black blood freely, but the blades just bounced off its scales harmlessly. Its wounds healed as it charged us, enormous hands reaching towards us, and my strongest power was rendered useless. Even the blades that scratched at its milky eyes, now covered by a hard membrane, did nothing.
Reaching deeply into the air around us, Mouse Protector rooted to her spot in fear, I blasted it with a hurricane of air, picking it up and throwing it back into the rubble from which it'd crawled out from. It picked itself back up as its wounds healed, as if I'd done nothing at all, and prepared to scream again. I felt something in myself snap. It wanted to yell, Mastering everyone around it to feel a completely underserved sense of powerlessness and terror against this stupid fishy freak? Well it could fucking choke on it!
Reaching inside, I grabbed Acoustokinesis, and shoved it into the Major power slot I'd been keeping empty, trying to figure out what to put in its stead. I'd get another eventually, but this thing needed to die.
I felt the sounds of everything around me, the frantic, rapid thudding of Karen's heartbeat, the shifting of rubble as something slithered away from us two streets over, a crackle of distant lightning, but most of all I heard the sound already starting to form in that abomination's throat.
Shutting out all else, I reached a hand out and grabbed the sound as it started to emerge. It was slippery, something more than sound, but I got most of it, the thing's cry, dry and reedy by the time it reached us, only instilled the slightest of worry on top of what I was already feeling, and a smidge more anger, but I was already sure this thing needed to fucking die.
Setting up the cancellation bubble around it, only able to encapsulate it's head and shoulders effectively, I took the sound, trapped inches outside of its mouth, rattling around in my mental grasp, and turned it on itself, warping and increasing it over and over and over again, until it was a cry that would shake the heavens. It wanted to yell at me? I'd do it right back, except I was louder.
Closing my hand, I let my control sound go, the sonic energies bursting forth within the spherical territory I'd set up, in a move guaranteed to vaporize this stupid fucking thing.
It didn't.
Its eyes popped, the membranes ruptured, and it looked like someone had beat the ever-living hell out of it, its teeth all splintered and bleeding heavily from the mouth, but it survived.
It tried to shriek in pain, but a wet, bubbling sound was all it could make. That said, I could already see it start to heal, slowly, but surely. In a minute or two? It'd be fine.
"What. The. Fuck." I hissed. If I wasn't sure that whoever had this power originally was already dead, I'd track them down and kill them myself. That was supposed to be a one-hit kill move! I was supposed to be able to use that on fucking Endbringers! And this jumped up piece of sushi took it and fucking survived? This would notbe allowed to stand.
It thrashed, but I ignored it, going through my repertoire. The Shard Railgun would take too long, be too destructive, and I'd just used it, and was planning to use it again. Doing so now would tie it back to me. Anything too flashy would be traced back to me as well, as would anything in my colors. As I stared at the creature, yelling and flailing, my hand bumped against my melted sword. Yes, this could work.
Unholstering it, I grew out its handle, longer and longer until it was more glaive than short sword. Grasping it tightly, I started pouring Momentum into it, curling it so tightly it was practically a needle, furrowing it like a drill. I poured Light into it as well, just for the adding 'go fuck yourself' value. It'd likely explode on impact, but that was the point. If this didn't work, I'd just go full giant, manhandle it into the anomaly I'd just closed off, and hold it in there until it fucking died under those fucking wingbeats.
The giant Deep One had healed, its cry once more strong enough to reach us, though, I attenuated it with my own power, dampening the effect. Hefting the projectile, making sure to never break physical contact, I got ready. I wasn't Archer, but I could hum a few bars. "I am the bone of my Shard," I muttered to myself darkly.
It sighted in on me, and started to charge me once more. I needed it closer, so that when I hit it, I wouldn't strike anything else. Brockton Bay was mine, and I wouldn't let this abominable amphibian Master me into destroying it even more. I could protect us from the blast, but not anything else, so this had to be perfect. More and more Momentum and Light poured into the weapon, which started to shake in my hand.
"Closer," I muttered as it took ponderous step after ponderous step, each one bringing it a dozen feet nearer, and each one faster than the last as it built up speed. It charged forward, screaming, and when it was half a dozen steps away, I was ready. I threw my creation, and hoped for the best. Hurling it forward hard enough to drain a crystalline shield, the Momentum infused inside it activated, boosting it even faster.
The weapon seemed to detonate as it left my hand, a single bell-like tone ringing out, my Acoustokinesis dampening both the sound and the blast wave as they washed over us. Each piece of my weapon was accelerated forward as it came apart, forming a thin white and gold beam that pierced the creature skull as if wasn't even there, time seeming to freeze for a few, agonizing seconds before the creatures upper body exploded away from the stream of destruction, revealing the orange-lit clouds behind the monster to be doing so as well, the last glint of gold-tinged Light fading from sight, blending with the light of dawn.
The corpse hung there, mid-step, arms only attached by relatively small strips of flesh, before it slowly toppled over with a ground-shaking thud. Looking past it, the blast was at enough of an angle, that only the buildings on the far side of the sink-hole were affected, a few losing their top floors while one collapsed entirely, and I sighed with relief.
Whether I'd hit something vital, it'd run out of healing, or I'd finally done it an injury too great for it to return from, the abomination was dead, and my fear, and my rage, slowly petered off, draining out of me with almost physical force.
Turning my back on the creature, absolutely done with the stupid thing, I walked over to Karen, who was just staring at it, unmoving. "You okay there?" I asked, kindly.
She flinched, stumbling backwards and quickly catching herself. "You, it, what the fuck wasthat!?"
"What was growing down in the nest, and the reason why it was good that we'd tackled it now," I replied easily, reaching to grab a woodchip from my belt, only to pull out blackened ash. While my gear had only experienced a fraction of the heat I'd been exposed to, it'd been enough to completely destroy it as well. My Eclipse phone was also a puddle of slag, my wallet a shriveled mass of carbon. Looking around I saw a bit of splintered furniture, and grabbed it with air, bringing it closer, dropping it as I thought better. There was no reason to stick around, and every reason to leave. "If it was fully grown, that would've really sucked, though that 'fear me' Master aura was a pain in the ass,"
"Fully grown? Master Aura?" she echoed numbly.
"Yeah," I nodded, "It ate some of the little ones to get bigger, but it wasn't ready. And, as bad as it was, it was only a bigger, tougher versions of the others. By an order of magnitude or three, but anyone who could fly or move quickly could've held it off. Hell, if Hannah lent you her weapon, set up as a rocket launcher, you probably could've kept it busy indefinitely, if you could power through its Fear effect to move. That's why you didn't get to safety, right?"
"I. . . I didn't even think about it," she admitted, surprise and self-recrimination in her tone. "But, I'd've left you alone, Vejy, and I wouldn't do that!"
"I can fly," I pointed out, "and it couldn't.". Normally I'd have mentioned how I'd told her, over and over again, to leave when things looked bad, but Master powers were horrible for a reason. Instead I took her by the arm, turning her away from the corpse, and started walking back the way we'd come. We'd cleared way out to the green zone, and then back to base, so the walk might help us both come down from what just happened. I'd been worried that this thing was gonna try to run, but it'd been too focused on me, thank god.
"If I'd needed to, I'd've thrown you over my shoulder and taken off," I told her, smiling. "Now come on, our job's done, and I believe up next was a shower. God knows I need one, even if these costumes are self-cleaning. How were things on your end?"
She hesitated, but allowed herself to be turned, sheathing her weapon and holstering her shield. "Not bad. I was right about the patrol, by the by. Another twelve of 'em tried to come back, and I took 'em out, quiet as a mouse and even more deadly!"
"Aren't mice generally harmless?" I asked as we walked.
She nodded, "Low bar, I know, but that just means I'm right! They were right over. . . the heck?" she slowed down, looking around. "They were here! I promise! A dozen of them, rodent's honor!"
"I believe you," I reassured her as she started to panic. "Where, exactly, were they?'
"Right here!" she said, pointing down at the ground. I crouched down, looking at the area. It was clean. Very clean.
"Notice anything wrong?" I asked, not wanting to taint her opinion in case I was completely off base.
She nodded, "Yeah, there ain't any bodies! There isn't even any blood! It's. . . it's not even dirty," she observed, consternation calming her as she come to the same conclusion I had.
"I heard something around here, but it was leaving. Maybe it ran off with them?" I suggested.
"All of them?" she asked, pausing and popping away, only to come back a moment later. "It even took the first group we killed! How?"
"There's a lot of them, it's big, or it's been doing so the entire time and it's stealthy," I rattled off. "Want to know what it definitely is?"
"Dangerous?" she guessed.
"Not our problem," I disagreed. "Once it's been scouted, we'll kill the fuck out of it. Until then? Too many unknowns. Powers are weird, and this place is powers allowed to run wild, something keeping them going even after their users are dead. I was an idiot in my first time around here, and I could've dealt with even today, tonight, whatever, better. So, you want to walk back, or say fuck this and just port back?"
Mouse struck a thinking pose, but before she could reply, a sound like constant, low level lightning started approaching us. Tired as I was, I forgot that I'd noted it not even a minute ago and hadn't paid attention as it'd slowly gotten closer. We both tensed, her taking out her weapons while I went to grab a knife, only to find the sheath empty, so I reached inside a pouch to grow a new one. The plate was a wad of slag in my pocket, but it was still enough to pull a throwing knife out of, into which I infused a small amount of Momentum into.
From the west, a shape crackling with white lightning flew in from on high, arcing down towards us. I recognized the twin flames before I recognized the people they were attached to. The Navy Blue & White Flames of Item Purpose Distilment and the Cyan & White Aura of Temporary Personal Enhancement marked the pair as Dauntless and Battery, which lead me to murmur 'Friend' to Mouse, who hesitated before putting away her gear once more as I let the knife go, streaking off into an empty building.
As the two neared us, Battery blurred, blasting downwards in a streak of motion. I could barely make out her looking around, zooming over to look at the downed Deep One before moving in front of us. She was fast and, despite what her costume would suggest, she left no other visual effects. Nonetheless, it was still enough for my power to copy, and I could feel the star taking its place in the night sky that was my own repertoire, twinkling above the ocean of Flame that was my power.
"Hiya!" Mouse greeted with a smile and an enthusiastic wave. "Hell of a night for walk!"
Dauntless touched down next to Battery, shield and spear ready, but not activated. Sadly, this wasn't enough to gain a copy of his power. I wouldn't slot either of them while they were still heroes deserving of the name, but there was now a large difference between having their power on file and using it. One of the few upsides of the reworking of my power was that it helped delineate the difference, the slotting of powers a conscious, permanent choice, and not one I'd take lightly.
That said, now that I had a clear head, I regretted slotting Acoustokinesis. It was useful, and I would eventually gain another Major slot, but it was one gone that I could've used for a different, better power.
"What are you doing here?" Battery demanded. "And what the hell is that?"
I glanced over at Mouse, expression confused. "We just told you," I informed the government hero. "Talking a walk. And that's a dead monster."
Dauntless looked at me from his hoplite helmet, his eyes covered by a dark visor but his mouth still visible as he slowly pronounced, "A walk."
"An enthusiastic walk," I agreed.
Battery looked at me, at Mouse Protector, who was practically radiating smugness and good cheer, and at the mountainous corpse behind us. "And do you normally kill monsters on your 'walks'?"
"It was a very enthusiastic walk," Mouse Protector admitted conspiratorially, not even hiding the smile in her voice. "Think we could do this again?"
I shrugged, "Don't see why not MP. Maybe not for a bit, though. They're quite exciting."
"Quite," she agreed solemnly.
Battery looked at Karen carefully. "Mouse Protector?"
The heroine in question bounced on her heels. "The one and only, accept no imitation. But send 'em over to me, copyright infringement is no laughing matter!"
"Your name is copyrighted?" I asked.
She looked at me, confused. "Of course not, Vejovis. Copyrighting is for published works. I'm trade-Marked!"
"Of course you are," I groaned, laughing.
"Either of you two gonna explain that!" Battery demanded, before we could continue.
I turned, gave it an exaggerated look, then turned back to the PRT lackey. "I think it's dead, but I'm not a doctor."
"I think she means, what is it," Dauntless asked, before Battery could.
"Dead Deep One, from Lovecraftian Lore. A giant one, to be precise. The small ones, be right back-" I said, turning and flying into the restaurant, ignoring Battery's "Where are you going?"
Dropping into the pit, the two dead guards were still there, so I grabbed one, flying back. "-Going to get one. For comparison purposes," Karen said as I came back. "See? Never bet against the Mouse!"
"I thought that was 'never bet against the house?'" I asked, enjoying the repartee. It was a bit of tonal whiplash, but I could roll with it. Hopefully we could finish this conversation quickly. I was extraordinarily tired.
"That too," my partner in anti-crime agreed. "See! Little guy, big guy. Little guy's way weaker. Don't tell him that though," she whispered, "he might get a complex."
I dropped it at Battery's feet, who stared at it, and sighed. "And you just decided to take a walk-"
"A very enthusiastic walk," Karen corrected.
"Into the yellow zone," Battery continued, as if she hadn't been interrupted, "where no one is supposed to go, and just happened to come across a. . . fish thing."
"Deep One," I supplied helpfully.
"And decided to kill it, and that big one, which we heard all the way back at command," she pushed forward. "All on your own."
"It was more than the two, but, yes, that about sums it up," I agreed pleasantly. "Why, have we broken any laws?"
Battery stared at me in disbelief, before waving towards the larger corpse. "I'm gonna take that as a no," I said after a moment.
"At least tell us what that was at the end," Battery sighed.
At my blank look, Dauntless added, "The beam."
"Oh, that, Arachne Assemblages asked me to test something for them, if I found something on one of my moonlit strolls that needed a bit extra oomph. It worked, but it also exploded, so that's a definite 'needs improvement', from me," I explained.
"You were using unlicensed Tinkertech?" she asked levelly. "Do you know that's against the law."
I felt a spark of irritation that burned its way out from my tiredness. While messing with these two was fun, and something I'd only do because I had nothing against either of them, it was quickly losing its charm. The fact that I might've believed them, had I not done my research before going with the 'anything weird is experimental TinkerTech' route, didn't help. I didn't like this kind of 'Unless you know everything better than me I win' bullshit at the best of times, and this was not one of those. "Oh, my. I didn't know I'd joined the Protectorate! Because that's an internal policy, not the law. If it were, why, every single non-PRT Tinker in existence would instantly become a villain."
"It is?" Dauntless asked, and I shot him an irritated look. "Sorry. Joined right after I got my powers," he admitted, making it very difficult to be angry at him. "That's what I was told."
"It's a law that governs government backed heroes," she told him. "You officially registered-"
"Which isn't backing, as I refused any funding for that exact reason," I cut her off, my joviality spent along with my liking of the woman before me. "So either you didn't do your research on me, or you're actively lying to me. Either way, if you want more info, you can talk to my lawyer." I looked over to Dauntless. "You're either a damn good actor, or you didn't know, so you I still like."
Battery started to say something, but I talked over her, "And thus, I have officially run out of fucks to give. Mouse, you want to take us back to base?"
"With pleasure, you still owe me that shower, and I want you to make sure you get all my nooks and crannies!" she smiled, grabbing hold of my arm.
Feeling her power tugging on mine, I let her drag me away, the world shifting and leaving us back at my doorstep. "Fuck, it's only been a few hours?" I commented to myself, opening the door. "I'm ready for fucking bed."
I was halfway across my bedroom, before I turned around and glanced at Karen, who was still standing at my doorstep. Her body language, as far as I could tell, screamed indecision. "You gonna stand there all day, or are you gonna come in?"
She jumped a little, before bounding across the threshold, removing her helmet and Balaclava in one smooth motion, revealing a broad, tired smile. "Dibs on washing my hair first. And it's not my job to come inside, it's yours!"
Shaking my head, I followed the quickly stripping heroine into my bathroom.