April 14th, 2011.
Thursday, 10:59 AM.
The news had been in a constant cycle for the last few days. Showing the same clips at every opportunity and every time he saw them; he would get a little more annoyed. Lung defeated by Armsmaster: The battle for Brockton Bay! Was the headline streaming across the banner at the bottom of the News. Lung was being held in a secure facility while they completed his trial. A trial that was being held despite Lung's absence. He would probably get sent to the Birdcage, I thought. Dangerous capes tended to have very fast trials, as they were in constant danger of a breakout attempt, but they hadn't moved Lung yet for some reason. He was apparently not in any condition to be moved after his battle against 'Armsmaster'. Urchin scoffed, none of them had really done any damage to lung that he wouldn't walk off. The only person that could have caused the extended stay in critical condition was the bug-girl filling Lung's body up with more poison than blood.
Strangely enough, there was no mention of me, the Undersiders or the bug-girl. Armsmaster had totally jacked our cred, what an asshole. I'd have to get him back for that one, eventually. I turned off the TV when they restarted the clip of Armsmaster shaking hands with the mayor. The phone rang sometime later, and it was Coil. The Undersiders were supposedly out doing a job for him and had been pinned down, and they needed someone to assist with their escape; primarily as a distraction, so they could get past the heroes that had them surrounded. This seemed to be becoming a reoccurring theme I thought, had I secretly been hired as the Undersider's babysitter?
I told him I'd been there soon. I had spent the last two days practicing a little something special for the next time I had to baffle someone with bullshit, and this may just be the perfect time to use it.
I stared at my stereo on the shelf, it was time.
April 14th, 2011.
Thursday, 11:05 AM.
When Urchin arrived at the Brockton Bay central bank, he immediately realised that it hadn't changed much, not from the outside at least. It brought with it a tidal wave of memories, of planning, laughing and messing around, before it had all gone wrong. He shook his head in a failed attempt to disperse the thought and focused on his surroundings. There was a throng of people being held back by officers and members of the PRT, at either end of the street to keep them at a safe distance from the bank. The Wards were out in full force, every member present and accounted for. I felt a twinge of disbelief that the Undersider's had decided to attack the place in broad daylight. Either the Undersiders had no idea what they were doing, or this had been on purpose. Either way, Coil didn't deserve this kind of nonsense from his teams.
I took a deep breath, pushed down any doubts and dashed straight over the top of the wards to land between them and the bank. The Wards were immediately on high alert, before I had even landed. They started spreading out into a large half-circle across the courtyard and road. By the time they had gotten into position, I was just about ready. I was creating wire constructs all over the pavement between us and I placed my beat-up old stereo on the ground. Humanoid figures slowly rose from the ground to stand before them. They were roughly six feet tall and had an obviously female figure covered in bulging wire muscles.
Before long twenty of the wire-people stood around me, ten to a side and each one had a wire cable that traced back and tethered to me. The Wards moved back to both give themselves room to move and spread out further to place themselves in between my army and the normies. I reached down and pressed play on the stereo.
"Ahem." I said and started singing.
"We need to take it back in time," Whoops I hadn't restarted the song.
"When music made us all unite," I continued, "And it wasn't low blows and video hoes!"
I saw Vista's mouth drop open and Aegis started laughing loudly; strangely out of character for him. Clockblocker had crossed his arms seriously. The rest of them were in various states of disbelief. My wire constructs began to dance in synch on either side of me. I was able to keep track of every single wire I had out all the time so moving them in perfect synchronicity like this, wasn't even that hard. The front row on both sides dipped low and did some very naughty moves. I heard someone behind the Wards wolf whistle, and I grinned.
"Am I the only the one getting tired," I pointed my hand at the Wards and moved it slowly across the crowd thrusting with my hips. "Why is everybody so obsessed, money can't buy us happiness!"
Browbeats large form was just shaking his head and Aegis was truly losing his shit now. Kid Win had his pistols pointed at me, but he was watching the reaction of his team as much as me. I could even see Vista tapping her foot to the song.
"Can we all slow down and enjoy right now," I whipped my non-existent hair over my shoulder and my constructs copied the move with their long wirehair. "Guarantee we'll be feeling alright."
"Everybody look to the left," I lashed my hand to the left and every wire construct followed. "Everybody look to the right," they followed again.
There were more whistles and calls from the crowd behind the fence
"Can you feel that yeah, we're paying with love tonight!" I fell backwards onto the pavement and a construct on either side caught me or pushed me back up.
"It's not about the money, money, money," I spread my arms above my head and slowly brought them down to my sides. "We don't need your money, money, money." Shake, shake, shake.
Aegis had completely tapped out by this point, and Clockblocker was staring at his teammate seemingly unhappy. I couldn't see Shadow Stalker anywhere, I suddenly realized. Shame that she would miss out on my incredible distraction; it was strange that she was the only one missing. Gallant was also amongst them, in a suit of power Armor.
"We just want to make the world dance, forget about the price tag!" I shook my finger at them like they were the ones being naughty. The constructs copied me diligently.
I was probably getting to far into it, I'll admit.
"Ain't about the uh cha-ching cha-ching-" I sang before I was abruptly interrupted by a donkey punch to the back of the head.
"Shut up!" Glory Girl yelled slamming into the ground behind me and skidding to a stop. "You're ruining it!"
My vision went blurry as I was bounced off the pavement like a rag doll. I barely managed to flip myself forward into a tumble and carried the momentum off the ground back to my feet in a wild and uncontrolled manoeuvre that left me looking like a staggering drunkard.
"You can't sing at all!" Glory Girl continued mercilessly. "It's the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life!" The stereo continued to play unhindered, but she made no motion to stop the music.
'Jesus Christ lady, pull your punches.' I managed to say and stumbled to the side, ending up only a couple of feet away from her, she had her arms crossed now completely unworried, I'd better change that. I lashed out suddenly and punched her across the face. It felt like I had broken my hand in the process, and she hadn't flinched or even moved her head. She just looked at me strangely for a moment; so, I did it again, with the same result.
"Ow!" I yelled, in pain. "What are you even made of?" I shook my hand out to try and banish the awful feeling.
"I'm invulnerable, idiot." She said, matter-of-factly.
"I know that," I shot back, "But what are you made of spe-" I punched her in the face again and dived away. Most of my wire constructs all jumped on her and started kicking and punching. The few ones that were left over spread out to block and engage the others.
Glory Girl was quickly buried under the assault and began to try and tear her way out. I turned expecting Aegis to be blasting in my direction, but he was standing still next to Vista. Gallant was engaging one of the constructs that had moved towards Vista. Browbeat was moving carefully to flank me, and Clockblocker was sprinting straight at me at stupidly fast speeds. What?
I waved my hand across in front of me and a wave of wires followed the motion, but he just circled around and punched me square in the chest. I felt a spike of alarm when he touched me, but time continued normally, and I wasn't suddenly frozen somehow. Clockblocker broke off after the hit when he was engaged by several constructs at once. I went flying backward from the punch before I used some wires to halt myself. Browbeat was now right next to me and he lashed out with one giant arm. I caught his hand with my own massively reinforced arm and held his fist tight when he struggled to pull his hand back. Kid Win had stopped shooting at me with his pistols the moment browbeat had gotten close, afraid of friendly fire. I made five wires and thickened the tips until they were capped with large round panels, reminiscent of shields.
I stuck the shields around Kid Win in a cube shape and held them there, he immediately stuck his hand through one of the gaps and tried to shoot at one of the wires holding the panels up. God dammit man, I plugged the gaps with smaller panels, and he yanked his arm back inside to avoid getting squished. My attention turned back to Browbeat who was still trying to pry my hand of his fist. Browbeat hit hard, and not just purely because of his size. There was way too much force behind the hit for it to be just that. But he didn't hit quiet as hard as Glory Girls. My wire enforced arm held up under the strain, although I had to reinforce it greatly, the force travelled through the wires and didn't touch me at all.
If I had tried to block that without the wires, he would have broken my arm easily, and likely taken my arm off at the shoulder. These guys really needed to stop hitting so hard, they were going to kill somebody one of these days. Browbeat was looking down at me in shock and I looked him straight in the eye.
"Are you ready now?" I said to him. "To witness a power not seen for thousands of years!?" I shouted in his face.
He immediately stopped trying to free his hand and lashed out with his other arm in shock. I caught it as well and started screaming in his face like I was trying to go even further beyond. I wrapped him in wires and picked him up off the ground. He was using his power to do something to mess with my wires, but my control was better than his disruption by far. He couldn't keep up with all the wires at once, he didn't have the enhanced multitasking to do it. I let his hands go and he floated in the air before me trapped.
I mimed hitting him with a 'Kamehameha' while still yelling incoherently at the top of my lungs. I made him fly off slowly through the air towards Vista. She tried to catch him out of the air, but I tripped her with a wire, and she fell over under his weight. I retracted my wires and laughed loudly with my hands on my hips.
'It's like a rite of passage at this point; for you lot to get your asses kicked by the glorious Urchin.' I taunted them and tangled Vista and Browbeat a little and they struggled to get back to their feet. Gallant stepped away from fighting one of the wires constructs I'd sent after him for a moment to try and shoot me with his beam attack. I created more floating wire-shields in the air to block them.
Aegis was struggling to pull Browbeats large form to his feet, and Vista was yelling for him to get off her. Had Aegis been skipping the gym? What on earth was going on with him?
As soon as Vista was free, she made an angry gesture at me and a piece of the ground stretched up at great speed and smacked me flying towards the bank. I tumbled violently through the air and smashed through the front doors of the bank. I ended up lying on the floor in the middle of the lobby. These dudes needed to chill with the power they were hitting me with. I looked around and realised there were people everywhere.
Tattletale and Grue were all standing around in the lobby near one another. Regent was near the door next to some of the big ass doggies who were growling at my abrupt entrance. No sign of Bitch herself and one of the dogs was missing. There were normies all over the bank sitting on the floor with their hands on their heads. I did a double take and looked back at the girl that was sitting to my left. It was Panacea. I pointed at her and shook my finger; she was staring at me in shock.
"First it's Laserdream," I told her, "Now it's Panacea. Why does New Wave keep trying to rob this Bank?" I demanded. The normies made some noise at that, confused.
Panacea spluttered for a moment, unable to counter. She smacked my hand out of her face instead, resorting to violence, just like a villain. Real mature.
"When did you join the Undersliders anyway?" I continued, frowning. I could feel that Glory Girl had almost gotten free, I tried to rearrange the wires to catch her again, but the others were gallantly helping her, heh.
Tattletale was staring at me in exasperation, but Grue was a picture of stoicism.
"It's the Under SIDERS," Tattletale said annoyed. I blinked at her, damn this mask. Grue nodded at me. I turned to Regent; he just gave a jaunty wave. I grinned.
"Hey man," I said, before turning my head back to the others. "What a dumb name, Underside of what? S-M-D-H." I spelled out the last bit loudly and shook my head.
Tattletale looked about ready to respond before the Bug-girl suddenly walked into the room.
"Oh, hell no!" I shouted at her and climbed to my feet. I immediately tightened my wires and ensured I was bug proof. She looked at me in shock, looking between me and Panacea. "You damn dick-" I started.
"Shut up!" She immediately cut me off with a shout. I took a fearful step backward.
"Right!" I said, turning to address Panacea still on the ground. "I'm going back out there to finish kicking their asses; you and the rest of your team should make a break for it, now," I told her firmly.
Panacea spluttered on the floor, and I spun towards the door. I stuck out my hand on the way past and Regent gave me a high-five, I was glad he hadn't left me hanging, that would have ruined my exit. I stepped through the hole I'd made in the door and back outside. Glory Girl was now free of the wires, which had remained as a patch of terrain that was reaching out at anyone who was nearby. Clockblocker was flying over the top of the field and dropped down to land next to her. Since when the fuck did Clockblocker fly, I thought. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark.
"This is absolute nonsense," I said to them shaking my head. "First Panacea is robbing the bank and now Clockblocker is flying." Glory Girl glanced at the bank with a weird look on her face.
"It's like I'm in Bizzaro land." I finished. Gallant strode forward and stopped next to them staring at me. My good humour abruptly took a dive.
"Hey man," I said, sounding like a normal guy for once. "I'm sorry for how things turned out. I wish I could have done it differently." I felt awful for what had happened, and I wish I'd been stronger, or smart enough to figure out a way that hadn't result in the death of his brother.
"So do I." Dean said, sounding sad, instead of the hate I'd expected. "He was going to kill that woman; you did what you had to do." The others were watching the exchange quietly. I felt a surge of something in my chest at his words, relief maybe.
"You going to let us take you in?" He asked but we both knew the answer to that. I let out a little laugh.
"I'm on the clock, sorry." I took a deep breath and let it out through my nose.
I didn't think I would have been so understanding had the roles been reversed. Dean was a better man than me, that was for sure. The Wards were lucky to have him.
"Right then," I said and cleared my throat. "Thank god you're here. Panacea is robbing the bank; she must be in league with the known villain; Laserdream." I set the scene with an old classic.
It was a shame Triumph wasn't here he would have gotten the joke, but Vista and Clockblocker both reacted nonverbally to it, but not Aegis I'd noticed. It finally clicked, Clockblocker and Aegis had switched costumes. I pointed at Aegis and Clockblocker with finger guns and started making 'Ahh!' noises. Clockblocker, in Aegis's costume, shuffled a bit next to Vista. He had stayed out of the fight mostly, maybe the same concerns I'd had about the dangers of combining out powers?
"Very sneaky of you," I said, getting ready to attack. "But-" A cloud of darkness suddenly rolled out of the bank and covered us all.
Grue's power. What the fuck man? I immediately started throwing out a growing ring of wires tethered to me. I moved them out slowly through the darkness, tagging everyone's location. I moved away from Gallant who was the closest to me, I really didn't feel like beating him up. People suddenly started running out of the bank in mass numbers, pinging their locations through my wires. I felt tiny things start to land on me and some of the wires. I immediately destroyed them, not today bug-girl. I suddenly realized that the music had stopped; actually, all the noises had stopped. Weird.
A trio of giant dogs suddenly emerged from the bank and hooked a hard left. I tracked them easily as they had destroyed the thin wires that were in their path with ease. I couldn't see them, but I imagined they had people on top of them. The Undersiders had escaped and the job was just about done. Someone flew straight up into the air hitting another wire, either Glory Girl or Aegis. The ground abruptly started to lift into the air near a shorter person, Vista and dragged yet other wires with it. I started to pull all the wires I still had outside into a giant hand construct the size of a bus before starting to generate more wires.
I pushed myself up and out of the darkness and looked around. I could see where the darkness had shot across the street and into an alleyway, but the heroes had also spotted it. Glory Girl started flying in that direction before the giant wire hand reached out and yoinked her down into the darkness. She disappeared with a yelp. Vista spotted me and started to move another pillar in my direction, I held out my hand in the universal symbol for halt. She didn't stop.
"A bunch of normies ran out of the bank when the darkness first came out!" I shouted, "Be careful or you might squish them!" She immediately stopped and looked down fruitlessly at the cloud.
Aegis headed towards her in case I went on the attack again. Glory Girl was going ape shit like she was fighting the final boss in Super Smash Brothers 64 swinging wildly in the dark. I started grabbing everyone in the cloud that I could feel with my wires and lifting them up, starting with the ones near Glory Girl. I also took the time to lock Gallant up in a similar prison to Kid Win. Gallant had started moving in my direction as soon as I'd moved away from the door, he must have been able to sense me in the darkness.
The people rose above the darkness and started to appear, and Aegis was looking between them and me. I started moving them toward him and the pillar they were standing on grew large enough for them to stand on. I put the people down gently before ganking Glory Girl with a second giant hand from behind. Hah, you thought there was only one, but there was two all along! I lifted her up out of the cloud and floated her over next to them; the hands had locked fingers together around her.
"I think that's everyone." I said, "Unless I missed some-" Someone walked out of the bank suddenly. I grabbed them and brought them up. It was Panacea.
"Panacea! You idiot, you were supposed to escape with the rest of the Undersiders!" I yelled at her. "Are you sacrificing yourself so that they can escape? How noble."
I heard someone in the crowd say, 'Panacea is in the Undersiders now?'. Goddammit, I was magnificent.
"I am not with the Undersiders you IDIOT!" She yelled back at me furiously. Wow, rude.
"I am truly shook by this turn of events," I deadpanned back at her.
She let out a wordless noise of frustration and the darkness abruptly started to dissipate, it held up for much longer than I thought it would, but they should have been long gone by now. Oh, maybe Grue was expecting me to use it to run away? Whoops. Price tag started playing again when the darkness vanished from around the stereo, it was still on repeat. I wrapped a wire around the handle.
The pillar the heroes and all the normies were on slowly lowered to the ground. The normies began to flee towards the police. I waved to the crowds who were making a great deal of noise.
"No need to thank me," I said holding up a hand to them, and bringing Panacea within easy reach.
Surprisingly none of the heroes looked very thankful, how strange.
"Just doing my job." I handed Panacea off to them. "The only thanks I need; is for this evil-doer to face justice."
I gave a jaunty wave and suddenly zipped off over the bank and ran away grinning the entire time. Panacea yelled something after me, but I was already too far away. Aegis, in Clockblocker's costume valiantly flew after me; but couldn't keep up for long. When he gave up, I let all my wires vanish, freeing everybody else.
It's all about the money, money, money.
Authors Note:
Alright this one was a great deal more silly than normal. I keep switching between first person and third person, I don't doubt that some of the changes have managed to sneak in.
