AN: Thanks again to my beta Grey Raven 09 for his assistance!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Worm. If I did, I would be FAR more productive.
Please enjoy and let me know what you think in a review if you feel like it!
Desecration 03
I had my eyes closed and was concentrating on moving my bugs into place up ahead when I felt Flechette reach past me for the phone lying on the middle console. Frowning, I opened my eyes and glanced down. She flipped open the phone and dialed a number, it only rang for a single beat before being picked up. "Miss Militia."
"Ma'am, this is Flechette, I'm with the Outcasts and - "
"Oh, you are? Well…that's good I suppose. Your tracker is offline by the way."
"Yeah, I may have forgotten to turn it back on when I followed Clockblocker. Sorry." She couldn't have sounded less sorry if she tried. I smirked despite myself. Rebels were always fun, as long as they weren't the crazy, murderous type of rebels. "Ma'am, if the Nine are clustering, why don't we just attack them from above? It's just Shatterbird on their end, surely an air strike would be better than risking this many people."
I shook my head. Flechette was new in town, she didn't know about Dinah yet, but Miss Militia certainly did and so did the PRT and the Protectorate as a whole. I was sure someone had called Coil to ask her if that would work. Even if someone was messing with her powers, I couldn't see an airstrike working well with Siberian in the picture.
"Our Thinkers shot that idea down, Flechette. Shatterbird has very good mobility and is able to destroy most missiles we could send against them at their current location. We would need tinkertech assistance to have a chance and if we go that route…"
"Siberian throws them back at us," Lisa said sighing. "She's done it before when they grouped up. It never ends well and usually winds up with a lot of people dead. Good idea, but doesn't pan out well in execution. If we can find the Master though…Queen, any luck?"
"Lots of vans and apartment buildings in the area. I'm searching most of them right now. There's nothing in a half-mile radius. I'm already extending it out to one mile but the wider the circle, the longer this will take," I said.
Miss Militia grunted. "I copy. Outcasts are you ready to move in? I was about to signal everyone forward."
"Ready as we're going to be."
"Roger," her voice grew distant as a click sounded from the other end. It seemed like she had keyed a radio. "All forces, move up. Commence Operation Subtraction."
"Really?" I muttered. "Subtraction? That's like one of the names I'd use…" Lisa shifted back into gear and we shot down the street.
As we pulled up to the docks a minute later we all got out of the van and my eyes narrowed as I stared at the group of supervillains sitting nonchalant on the benches, looking for all intents and purposes as if they were out for an afternoon stroll and decided to stop for a few minutes. I slowly walked forward to stand in a line with my friends to my right and the Protectorate to the left. Beyond them were Kaiser and several of his stronger capes as well. I even caught sight of Lung's metallic dragon mask as the man in question leaned against a building at the edge of the cordoned area.
"Jack Slash," Armsmaster said stepping forward to be slightly in front of the rest of us. "Release your hostages."
I sucked in a breath and narrowed my eyes. Muttering a curse under my breath I scowled. They had four people sitting with them. How had I…Fuck.
I was laser focused. Too focused to be natural. Paige's confidence boost may have gotten me out the door when I probably shouldn't have, but this was beyond that minor buff. I shifted my emotions and reset myself to a near emotional dead-state, the docks around me immediately grew clearer as I found my head clearing and my annoyance, frustration, anger, and sheer hatred just fell away.
As soon as my mind settled down, one of the girls - Cherish from the pictures I'd seen - raised her head and glared at me. "You're cheating. Jack, make her stop cheating."
"Now, now, sweetheart, none of that yet. Queen, my dear? Are you cheating in our little game before we even get started?" the bearded man asked as he stood with a small smile, flicking the knife in his hand open and closed.
"Tell your little bitch there to stop fucking with all of our emotions and I'll stop self-mastering to prevent her from affecting me," I shot back. Several of the people in the area glanced my way and swore as they realized what was going on. Several of my clusters took note of Heartsight standing behind Armsmaster with her hand on his back, her thin frame nearly completely hidden from view by his bulky armor. So, they were using Emma as a semi-counter to Cherish too. Less than fully effective apparently if the two of them weren't being yelled at but I was. Or the Nine just didn't care about them.
"So, it is inherent to your powers. Interesting. You'd have thought we'd figure that out before coming here. I'll have to have a talk with Shatterbird about her research skills."
"Jack Slash, I will not ask again: Release. The. Hostages." Armsmaster ground out, his grip tightening on the halberd in his hands.
Jack sighed. "See that's really not how the game works, Mister Armsmaster. I had had a whole weeks long plan here originally. We'd set up shop, kidnap a few people, torture and humiliate some others, probably kill a few every several days just to remind everyone we were still here, all the while we'd be running our recruitment tests until a candidate proved themselves, and everyone else died of course." His face briefly turned into a scowl before his features smoothed back into that near-ever-present smile. "But then Bonesaw died and Burnscar is off the grid doing lord knows what. She isn't even causing a mess! I thought I had trained her so well too…Ah well, I am no longer interested in playing my original game."
"So why not just leave instead?" Armsmaster growled. "Let those people go and get out of our city."
Jack laughed as did the other members of the Nine. Crawler's echoing chuckle from his multiple mouth was disturbing on so many levels and it sent a shiver down my spine. "Where's the fun in that? However, I do have a new game planned! See we're going to have the Candidates step forward and then we're all just going to have a bit of a battle royale. Winner gets to walk away with us! Sounds like fun don't you think?"
"This is pointless, Jack," Armsmaster said, a scowl clear on the exposed portion of his face. "You have nowhere to run, your major survival tool has already been defeated and look at who is arrayed against you! Surrender now, give up the hostages and I promise I will argue to have you sent to the Birdcage instead of simply killed."
I winced. Dammit, he really was bad with people. Someone else should've taken the lead on this. I shifted my bugs for a better look at the surrounding people and frowned as I heard a dim whisper in the back of my mind. A whisper that didn't sound like QA or any of the other shards I'd been hearing lately either…
"Nah, see I don't think…" I tuned out the conversation and shifted my bugs again. The whisper returned. I couldn't make out what it was saying, but it sounded like it was asking for directions in a…muffled tone.
Experimentally I shifted channels and reached for Monarch. The whisper was there immediately.
Frowning, I flexed my fist. Whisper.
"Fuck me," I muttered. Heartsight glanced my way, but I shook my head just enough for her to refocus on Armsmaster. Instead I murmured around the corners of my mouth towards my teammate. "Insight, you said that Jack probably had a second power? One that lets him walk away from cape fights without a scratch?"
"Probably. Some sort of analysis ability. It fits all of the data Dragon and I found on the fights he's been in," she replied just as quietly as Armsmaster grew increasingly frustrated. I was running out of time.
"What if he can listen in when we talk to our powers? Or just do anything really since when you think about it, our powers seem to know everything about us and how we're going to react. Or act."
Her eyes narrowed to slits. "That…It would make sense. It would have to be almost subconscious though otherwise he'd never be able to react fast enough. I don't have enough hard data to tell you for certain, but that would work. How sure are you and how do you know? If you tell me the latter, I can probably fill in the blanks and tell you for certain."
"I hear a whispering that sounds like a shard, but it's not actually talking to me. It's like it's asking for answers that I'm automatically giving it. I think his shard is backdooring into mine. QA can you block it?"
A few bugs formed into a face just behind my head and whispers took over my head for a brief moment. "Broadcast," QA hissed. "Siege Engines can try to skirt around me, but you cannot! You will not! You do not get to query my Host directly! Your access privilege is revoked!"
Abruptly the whispers ceased and Jack blinked cutting off his conversation with Armsmaster mid-sentence to stare at me. All humor left his face and he scowled again. "You do cheat, girl. Enough of this. I'm done playing. Candidates! Forward! Or we will - "
He didn't get any further as he had to leap backward as the ground in front of his feet exploded. The debris cleared an instant later and my eyes widened as I saw my father flying through the no-man's land between us and the Nine. He had rocket shoes on and a small rocket launcher on his wrist - which was likely what he had just launched at Jack. We all stared dumbstruck as Coil flipped in midair and threw a punch towards Jack while simultaneously launching a rocket towards Cherish. She squealed and tumbled backwards off of the bench. Jack fared far better; he just bent to the side dodging with almost nonchalant ease out of the way of the left hook.
Coil however ignored the dodge and ignited his boots again flipping over Mannequin and Shatterbird as they both lashed out, Mannequin with his arm and Shatterbird with her wings of glass. Coil grabbed two of the hostages and literally threw them towards us. Aegis grabbed one while Victor managed to catch the second. Coil wrapped one arm around each of the other hostages and kicked off of ground surging back towards us as Crawler's tail lashed into the spot he had just vacated and one of Mannequin's arms shot out again, missing him for a second time. Jack's stab with his knife however did manage to pierce one of the rocket shoes which my father promptly kicked into Jack's face just before it exploded.
Coil touched down with both of the other two hostages - two preteens it looked like - barely five seconds after he had blasted onto the scene and I whistled. "You couldn't have looked a little less cool while doing that? Or maybe been that awesome while coming to save me one time?" Frowning, I rechecked my emotional balancing and muttered, "Fuck. Stupid seepage. QA, help more with the shunting until we kill Cherish."
"You can take care of yourself, Queen, they couldn't," Coil commented over his shoulder. "Run along kids. Things get messy from here folks. Insight, you might want to leave."
"Just try not to give me orders and I can manage," she responded tersely. "I don't abandon my friends."
Jack tossed his head, smiling again, and his hair flipped back blowing in a small breeze, the explosion from the rocket boot seemingly having done absolutely nothing to him. "Well, well, I must admit, that was rather impressive for a Union worker. What do they teach you in those things these days?"
"How to kill people that threaten my children. You've hurt my daughter and you're currently hurting another girl I consider my daughter. You don't get to leave here, Jack."
"Big words." His smile grew larger. "You're a skilled little mouse, but we've caught a Mouse before haven't we, friends?" The Nine stood, smirking behind him nodding their heads. I felt a bit of rage creep back into my awareness at the mention of Karen and what they had done to her.
Knowing the attack was coming, I tapped my earpiece hoping Dragon had connected it to everyone present in some way. Just in case, I hovered several bugs near everyone's ears to pass the information along with as well. "Jack's a Trump. He can predict parahumans' attacks; it may not even be conscious on his part that he does it. When we move, be careful."
"Protectorate copies," Armsmaster whispered back.
"Wards copy," Aegis' murmured reply responded.
"Empire, understood," Kaiser said shifting his stand slightly.
My father nodded but didn't speak.
A grunt and slight head nod from Lung were confirmation enough from his part.
Jack was still talking. "You realize by removing the hostages we don't really have to play that second game anymore right? So…instead, let's just see who survives! Have some fun everyone!" He thrust his arm forward like some sort of demented drag race announcer and…things got chaotic from there.
Miss Militia and Coil both fired rockets into the Nine while Aegis, Dauntless, and Armsmaster jumped forward. Kaiser raised his arms and a veritable swarm of metal exploded out around Mannequin. Several Soldier bugs leaped over the van at my command and pounced into the fray. A grenade arced down along the rear of the fight and exploded sending a shout of pain out from Cherish and driving Shatterbird into the air. For a moment I thought we might actually be doing well.
Then the Nine countered. Shatterbird launched one of her wings towards Aegis before he could jump after her, pinning him to the ground. I tried to redirect one of the Soldiers to help him, and Dauntless twisted to assist as well. Both of us were too slow. Crawler casually reached down and snapped his primary mouth over the Ward's head, his large teeth cleanly separating Aegis' head from the rest of his body. I barely had time to process his body slumping over when Crawler finished rearing back up and shot a stream of acid towards Dauntless. The hero had screamed with rage when Aegis fell and charged towards the murderer while my Soldier pounced onto Crawler's back tearing into him with its blades. My Soldier's attacks seemed to have little to no effect and when the acid struck Dauntless on his helmet and breastplate it sizzled. I had just enough time to think that maybe the charges Dauntless had accumulated in them would leave him unharmed, when Crawler surged forward unbalancing the Soldier with the sudden movement. His clawed feet struck the breastplate and cut through like a knife through butter, blood spurting everywhere. A second stream of acid finished off the hero.
I growled as more shouting rang out around me. I was about to redirect several of my Enhanced to go after Crawler when a bestial roar echoed across the docks. Lung, scales already covering a majority of his body and fire wreathing his form, broadsided Crawler, nearly carrying him away as the momentum drove the two fighters over a hundred feet further from the rest of us. "Yes! Yes! This is what I wanted! More, more, get angrier! Hurt me!"
Armsmaster swiped at Cherish, but she dodged back as a blade of glass again lanced down. It cut him off from her and she just grinned, actually going as far as reaching up to pull down her eyelid and stick out her tongue at the local Protectorate leader. He surged forward again, his halberd swiping through the glass. Heartsight hanging back near the buildings with the other non-physical combatants shouted, "Armsmaster, you're compromised again! Overconfidence! Fall back and I can reset it! Kaiser you too! Depression!"
As Armsmaster halted his attack and tried to disengage, Mannequin almost seemed to slither forward, his arms extending and his body inverting itself, the 'feet' punching forward to try and spear the man. Armsmaster was able to bat aside one of the projectiles though the second one struck his arm and spun him around. I heard him hissing and scrambling to his feet as Mannequin reeled his limbs in to attack again. The bugs I sent to muck up the mechanisms were only partially successful, but the enhanced spider silk seemed to have a bit more luck with slowing the gears down. It would take time to fully stop the tinker monstrosity using just that. Time we might not have.
Coil shouted directions to several people leaving Insight wincing though she stayed standing and kept a running commentary as well. She was shouting out short, clipped bursts into her earpiece and the combatants adjusted their tactics as the two Thinkers fed more and more information to our team.
I saw Siberian off to the side just staring at everything and grinning wide. Why didn't she fight? What was she waiting for? I frowned as a Soldier died taking a hit meant for Victor and a second lost an arm as it blocked a glass wing thrown towards Miss Militia. Cherish was mostly amping our confidence. And Siberian, their ultimate trump card wasn't engaging yet. Jack was mainly dodging and grinning.
They were playing with us. They'd already killed two and they were just playing with us. They weren't taking this seriously. They would refuse to take it seriously until they were endangered. Siberian was only going to get involved when we thought we were going to win and then she would just murder all of us.
Fuck. That.
"Amy, I'm giving Monarch full control of all of the critters here. I'm concentrating on finding Siberian's Master. Keep an eye out and let me know if I need to nudge anywhere."
"Got it. I almost have this gas thing ready. Should I hold off? It releases a smokescreen. Should help to obscure the battlefield a bit, but we'll need good timing to take advantage of it."
I cast my net wider and grinned. "Finish it, I know exactly when to use it." I tapped my earpiece again and continued, "Artillery, when I tell you, launch the largest, heaviest thing you can along the line of bugs I draw out. Wait for my word."
"Copy."
"Queen, this is Sanctuary, I'm almost on scene along with most of my family. Can you give me a target too?" Victoria's voice cut in as soon as Artillery's reply faded.
"How fast do you fly?"
"I can hit Mach 1 with a bit of room."
I looked to my right and Insight nodded. "I'll help with the timing. Sanctuary, Queen will give you a line to fly. Stay far enough out that you can hit that speed. Go for max impact CDB."
"For once, I don't hate that nickname," she replied.
I dropped into the swarm and spread them further. All of the buildings were searched and no one matched either Mr. Manton or Miss Manton. Now I just needed to go through the cars. I could do this. I had the -
Another scream sounded and Jack laughed. Velocity fell over in front of him, his chest nearly cleaved in half. I had one of the Soldiers grab him and haul him over towards Amy. He might not be dead just yet and Jack hadn't gotten his head so there was a chance.
Fuck the Master. We were brute forcing this shit. "Flechette, get ready to fire along the line I draw out. Sanctuary, Artillery, stand by." I grabbed Amy's new Fogbug as she let it go and shifted her hands to Velocity.
"Sanctuary, start your run," Insight said, wincing and grabbing the side of her head. I pushed the Fogbug into the middle of the running fight and triggered its reflex. Smoke immediately blanketed an area nearly 25 feet in radius as the Fogbug keeled over dead.
"Didn't have time to perfect it. Sorry," Amy muttered. "Fuck this is bad. Stop trying to move, you're making this more difficult."
I ignored her as I felt Mannequin shift positions. He could probably see through the smokescreen. Tinkers were such bullshit. Not that it would matter. Vicky may be trying to get better about a lot of things, but she was still great at one particular item: causing massive damage very, very quickly.
"Artillery, go," Insight spat falling to one knee and groaning.
While Sanctuary was flying inbound at about the speed of sound I watched through my line of bugs - which were quickly squished - as Artillery threw a gigantic chunk of concrete and steel through the air. Both ballistic missiles impacted their targets at almost the exact same time, Jack's shouted warning coming an instant too slow for either party to react.
Four of Mannequin's six terrariums shattered, organs spilling onto the wooden slats. Sanctuary wasted no time in lifting herself out of the hole in the ground and destroying the remaining two segments of the mad Tinker's body.
In the air, Shatterbird never even saw the huge chunk of Fuck You before it swatted her out of the sky like a - well like a bug. She tried to scream but I sent a stream of bugs down her throat to head it off in the second or two she had left. As the concrete landed on the docks, a distant squelch and spray of red mist spread out from underneath it.
The smokescreen dissipated and Jack was there scowling at me. "You girl, are an annoyance. Do you know how long it took me to get those two housebroken? Have you no remorse for what you've done?"
"Longer than it took me and my friends to kill them," I replied back a vicious smile on my face. "I was a few seconds away from killing my own father a few weeks back, Jack. Do you really think you're any different? Let's dance."
Siberian moved. Her pounce was almost faster than I could see but I had been waiting for it. The bug I had sitting in front of Flechette dipped down and she loosed her arbalest. The bolt struck home, embedding itself into Siberian's chest and with a popping sound, the bitch disappeared.
Jack sucked in a breath and glanced to the side. "What the fuck?"
"Found someone that could hurt her. Surprise." Satisfaction bled back into my awareness, but I pushed it down the link to QA. I needed to stay clear headed and couldn't take the chance that Cherish would turn this around for them at the last moment.
Kaiser stepped forward and raised his gauntleted hand. "As the girl said, Mr. Slash. It is time to dance." A line of metal flew into being arcing towards Jack. He nimbly danced backwards avoiding each one, though one blade veered off to the side. Jack lashed out with his knife and deflected it at an instant before it took off Cherish's head though he wasn't able to do anything about the gigantic monster dog that bounded onto the scene from the rooftop and grabbed her in its jaws, shaking the woman back and forth before throwing her violently to the side. Apparently Bitch had entered the scene. Cherish coughed up blood from where she lay as Jack snarled and slashed down, sawing through a hefty chunk of the top of the dog's head. It whimpered and staggered back moving away from Jack.
Miss Militia took up the assault and angled shot after shot towards the two members of the Nine. Jack managed to skip out of the way of several as he moved closer and closer to Cherish. When she shifted her gun to something heavier he finally just lifted his blade to swat at one of the rounds she fired. The ping was audible and I dove to the side as I saw the trajectory change. A hiss and spark behind me gave me a clue where the bullet landed and Amy's shout only served to confirm it. "Seriously! Again, motherfuckers?!"
I felt Siberian pop back into existence as her growl echoed inside and outside my head. I reached to the side and pulled Flechette's arbalest into the right angle. "Fire!" She fired and Siberian vanished again.
Jack screamed. "Fine! Take your fucking win, Brockton Bay! Crawler! We're leaving!"
"You go! He can hurt me! I'm having too much fun here!"
Nearly everyone on both sides of the battlefield stopped and stared at that proclamation. "Crawler that was not a request," Jack's voice was quiet, yet it somehow managed to carry across the entire scene.
"Hurt me! Hurt me more!"
The answering roar shot a pillar of flame into the air nearly 100 feet. "Time to leave," Siberian's voice echoed through me as she reappeared next to Jack and Cherish grabbing each and jumping away before I could redirect Flechette's weapon for a third time. Growling I turned to try and follow after them, but two hands landed on my shoulders pulling me back.
"Don't," Armsmaster said, his hand on my right shoulder. "They're retreating. We'll get them later."
"Dinah's already reported the chances being at 86.313%, Taylor. Stand down," Coil said his hand on my left. I glared at them both.
"Three of them are getting away," I spat.
"And we cannot kill Siberian, so they will continue to get away," Kaiser said walking up. "Let them be another city's problem. You said that Jack Slash can determine how a parahuman would react? That is good information. He will not be invincible now. Cherish is nothing for properly prepared capes. Only Siberian can provide any issues and we cannot counter those. You can't just have this girl hit her every two minutes. Let them go, Queen. We won this battle and trashed their reputation, don't go looking for another fight."
I glared at all three of them. "Battle's not over yet." Wrenching my arms away from the two behind me and turned to stare at Lung and Crawler. Crawler was still laughing as Lung grew larger and larger, his fire hotter and hotter. The dragon was nearly the same size as when he had fought Leviathan. I queried Monarch to see if it had anything that could help. There was apparently an explosive burrowing bug that it had been working on recently. That had promise. I tweaked the Princess' acceptable processing schematics and set it to work on producing those. Before it spit them out however, Lung literally flipped Crawler over his head and slammed the beast down onto the ground.
Crawler's eyes blinked and he could only stare up, a small smile on each of his many mouths as Lung leaned over and wrenched his mouth open. An instant later, Lung screamed out, a cone of white flame lancing through the length of Crawler, immolating the monster from the inside out, melting the docks into glass, and flash-boiling the sea. The area was covered by a rolling wall of steam for almost a minute and when it finally cleared, the ragedragon was left standing over a large glass canyon that was filling with seawater - there was nothing left of Crawler. The air surrounding us was still super-heated and several of the people standing closer to the fight were batting at their exposed skin, wincing at the red, raw burns that were showing. Amy was levering herself up with a scowl and limping towards the worst affected.
"Now, the battle is over," I said. "I'm going home to see what the fuck is up with Vista and Burnscar."
No one tried to stop me as I walked to the car.
Fanfic Rec: 'With Friends Like These' by TheMadmanAndre. Taylor triggers and the Endbringers shrink to pocket size to come help her out, becoming adorable in the process. She fairly quickly finds out that she can vary their size and their power accordingly. Coil is not amused with having to placate Endbringer Girl while Lisa is scared so far to hell that she loops back around to being amused. Armsmaster gets a clue, along with the PRT in general, while Sophia manages to get even stupider. Very amusing, fun and awesome. In progress, and actually updated just the other week!
