Chapter 34
-Colin, Now-
My helmet radio buzzed as I was patrolling near downtown.
"Console to Armsmaster."
"Armsmaster here," I responded. "What do you have for me?"
"We have reports of a fight between the Empire and the Undersiders. Assault and Battery are nearby, they were dispatched to investigate. They may require backup."
"Understood." The location and the fastest route appeared on my HUD before Console finished speaking. "Heading there now."
I hit the gas, speeding off into the night, even if I doubted there was much more to see than after the previous altercations.
I was less than halfway there when the radio buzzed again.
"Hey, Boss, when are you getting here? You'll want to see this—"
Assault's radio cut off suddenly, and Battery spoke up instead.
"What he means is this one was a lot more violent than the others. We found…"
I stepped off my motorcycle, taking in the scene. Another unassuming warehouse, at first glance it wasn't any different from the hundreds more operating in the city, or the similar number left abandoned by the city's decaying economy.
The first indication as to what had happened here were the broken-down front doors. The concrete around it was marked by distinctive, linear gouges. A few movements of the eye and a blink brought up a few other crime scene images. Between the match and the story of the Empire member who decided calling an ambulance was more important than keeping secrets, there was little doubt Hellhound had been at work here. The entrance was clearly a lot more direct and obvious than her team's usual fare before their recent and mysterious feud with the Empire, but it could be explained by the simple fact of their targets no longer being civilians.
-Alexander, Then-
The impact on the door was our first warning that these fucking brats fell for the bait. The fact our lookouts didn't warn us earlier was also our first warning things weren't quite going according to plan.
I didn't know how the boss guessed they'd hit here, and frankly I didn't care. What mattered was that after these four kids - or five now, rumor had it - doing their best to turn us into the laughingstock of the city, some people were getting ideas. I'd caught a few ABB goons poking around our territories closer to the Docks myself. They learned better.
It was time to teach these brats the same lesson. One of them - definitely five, then - jumped off the back of a dog and landed on the shoulders of one of our unpowered guards while he was still staring slack-jawed at the animal and the expanding trail of darkness its rider left behind. Did we not explain to these idiots what to expect? I ran after her while she knocked the guard's buddy out with his own gun. She leapt out of the way of my punch, even though she hadn't been looking in my direction. Enhanced senses?
"Ah, Oedipus. Another me knew well what to do with you," she spoke with a smile, wistful note in her voice.
I ignored the nonsense and punched her. She dodged. I punched again. She dodged again. Didn't quite look like martial arts. Instinctive fighting skills from her power, by the looks of it.
They wouldn't help her for very long, though. She'd get tired. I wouldn't. Worst case, we'd catch her after dealing with the rest of her gang... embarrassing as it would be to need to resort to that.
I charged, confident in my power - and she clearly knew she couldn't hurt me. She wasn't even the first person to try and throw me, so keeping my feet on the ground wasn't difficult.
My opponent grabbing me by the arm and pulling me into a waltz step was new, though. I got a flash of her teeth in front of my face before being shoved hard towards the trail of darkness. I felt my nose break from a punch, but my blind swing back at her hit nothing but thin air. Then I felt my nose reset itself. A few more strikes and shoves from the darkness spun me around, but I managed to get back to my feet. She's not heavy enough to stop me, I thought. Just pick a direction and run out of the darkness—
I did. I thought for a moment I might have winged her with my elbow, but I wasn't sure.
Ouch.
Okay, that's a wall. Just… just follow it back to the fight, nobody saw anything.
The noise of a fight signalled my escape back into the light. I took in the chaos, then made my way back into the melee, picking the one standing closest - the Renfaire clown - as my next target.
-Colin, Now-
Stepping over the remains of the doors, I came across a scene just like Assault and Battery, who had been closer and gotten here before me, had reported. A large number of destroyed crates, weapons and drugs spilling out of them. Bullet holes and casings. Kaiser's trademark metal spikes growing out of the ground in several places.
Assault and Battery had Alabaster and Hookwolf restrained. The former had a look of defeat on his face. The latter just swayed side to side where he sat, giggling to himself. Hm. We know he's not a happy drunk. Power effect? The Undersiders don't have anyone with a similar power. Unless… Well, we'll find out soon enough.
There was one last thing my colleagues reported that I had to see for myself. I moved deeper into the warehouse, around some crates to find a larger, more open area. I idly noted that a warehouse would normally have the open space to be near the entrance. I examined the scene.
-Victor, Then-
Plan A going to shit wasn't much of a surprise. The Undersiders' fifth member being the loon that had Mastered Hookwolf was a pessimistic guess being proven right.
It was entirely in character for him that Hookwolf charged straight at her the second she stuck her face out of her teammate's darkness, ignoring Hellhound's dogs for that - and blocking my own line of fire. Dammit. My orders were to shoot her first. The rest of her gang could be caught and made an example of properly, but with her Master power… We wouldn't take risks.
I could've sworn the crazy bitch shouted something at Hookwolf before dodging out of his way, but I couldn't hear it. I only saw her spin a little, the sleeve of her costume torn through by a few hooks she didn't quite escape in time. Seemed like it drew blood, too.
I aimed my rifle at her, idly noting the way her eyes were fading from red to orange as her head jerked my way. Something hard hit me under the chin as I was pulling the trigger, and the shot went wide. What— Who—
A few more strikes hit me, and then the crazy girl was in my face. I let my claimed skills guide me in fending her off, but something nagged at the back of my mind. When I got tripped despite knowing for sure she couldn't have done it herself, I realized what had happened.
"They've got another Stranger!" I shouted, shoving the crazy girl off me as hard as I could and lunging towards where my rifle had dropped. If the new Stranger got their hands on it—
It wasn't there. Ah, fuck.
I turned back to look for my opponent - the one I could see, at least - only to find her running off towards the center of the battlefield as fast as she could, where Kaiser, still seated on his throne, managed to skewer one of the dogs through its front paws. The animal bucked, tearing free, leaving pieces of meat still stuck on the spikes. Hellhound had managed to hold on, but the darkness generator lost his grip and fell to the ground, where a spike rose from the ground to meet him.
The crazy girl leaped to slam into him and knock him out of the way of the rising spike, but the collision slowed her down too much. She fell on the thing herself, then twitched violently a few times before she stopped moving, her feet barely reaching the ground. For a brief moment, the fight came to a pause, her teammates looking in shock.
You could've heard a pin drop. You could certainly hear Kaiser stand up, arms wide as if to give a speech.
He didn't get to start speaking.
-Colin, Now-
The first and most obvious thing to catch the eye were the bodies. Two of them - Victor and Othala. She'd been broken out of holding just yesterday. I took a few pictures of the scene, making sure the original position of the bodies was well-recorded, before leaning down to examine their wounds. Defensive wounds on Victor's forearms, throat torn out. He went down fighting. Othala had been laying face down, a bite mark in the side of the neck… probably bitten from behind. Tried to run?
Bite marks. The Wards had seen Cassandra - Taylor Hebert - bite an opponent in combat, but that had only left a barely visible mark by the time he'd been taken into custody. There were a few hospital reports of people - known or suspected criminals - waking up in alleys with similar marks, and rumors of far more cases, dating back to not long after her trigger. Then there was the mystery cape who'd Mastered Hookwolf, coming from and disappearing to nowhere as far as anyone could tell. Rumors, again, had her involving herself in a fight between Hellhound and Hookwolf. The picture made sense already, and I made a note to contact Daniel Hebert soon, but I still had a crime scene to finish investigating.
The last point of interest was an ornate throne of blades, facing a single bloody spike jutting upwards from the ground.
And halfway between the two was the body of Kaiser himself.