From the Ashes II
[Tattletale POV]
[Coil planned to let you hang]
Sometimes being a tinker doesn't help. Lisa admitted to herself not for the first time az she ran from Lung: "Grue! Cover Bitch's dogs when they need it! We need to book it! The PRT is going to box us is if we miss this chance!"
She ignored the affirmative grunt she received from the official leader of the Undersiders while her eyes landed once more on Lung: [Wants to make an example] [Willing to go all out]
Fuck! She grimaced, wondering what the fuck would push the most powerful but usually laid-back cape in Brockton Bay to pursue them so fiercely, only to immediately shut down her power at the best of her ability. She didn't need that information right now. While she looked around, hoping for an escape route that carried a high enough probability of letting everyone get out of the fight alive, she saw something new.
Standing just outside of the closest cone of light projected by the city lamp, there was someone. [curious] [confused] [confused by Bitch's dogs, Lung, Lung's fire] [not impressed] [seen worse]
When the cape took a step forward, walking into the light, Lisa's breath caught in her throat, her power briefly flaring before it dumped another truckload of info in her mind: [equipment handcrafted, no tinker tech, esoteric properties] [sword as a mockery of the statue on one side] [cape killed the person depicted by the statue] [not a person] What? Tattletale groaned as her power kept adding shit to her already overworked mind: [is lost in thought] [doesn't feel in danger].
The Thinker scrunched her eyes closed while she started to drag Regent towards the cape, opening them only to check Lung and warn the two Undersiders that were providing cover to their much less combat-capable companions. Namely, herself and Regent.
"Grue!" she shouted blindly, "Bitch! This way!"
When the new cape nodded in her direction, Lisa did her best to ignore the [is used to nonverbal communication in fights] [used to silence] [dislikes solitude] her power fed her, and almost let out a breath of relief, when the knight started running, only then spotting the rose blossom on the kite shield she brought on her back [esoteric effect...] "Oh, shut up!" she hissed at her own power, watching as her proverbial savior swatted Lung clear of his feet with the flat of her far too large, and far too heavy blade-like slab of stone.
[could have gone for the kill] [wishes to buy time for the weak to escape] The knight remained standing, both hands on her weapon, while she pointed the remaining Undersiders to Lisa's location, who quickly gestured for them to reach her location.
Still, the Thinker didn't move her eyes away from the new cape, knowing that it was likely her debut in the Bay. [experienced] Her power confirmed. [doesn't fear death] What? Lisa found herself focusing her power on the knight, even knowing that she would pay dearly for it: [has been dead before]
WHAT? Her mouth open in disbelief, she felt Regent being picked up by Grue, who quickly checked his unconscious companion, finding that he only had taken a nasty blow to the head, but her attention couldn't be taken away: [death is temporary]
Lung returned to the fray at least three meters tall, with sharp claws instead of fingers, and a shroud of flames over the steadily growing steely scales. The new cape took a step back, avoiding a feral swipe, quickly pivoting on her left foot in order to skirt by a fireball, and an instant later she slammed the stony pommel of her weapon against Lung, who crashed on the ground, his flames flaring out to provide cover for his healing and ramping up to act.
Without hesitating, the knight held the blade in front of her, the flat side more than large enough to part the flame, only to jump forward a second later, faster than it should have been possible, and slamming the sword down, barely missing Lung, who rose once more to his feet, the beginning of a tail sprouting from its back, and his flames burning hotter. [is holding back] [whishes to see how strong Lung can become]
"Tattletale!" Grue shaking her brought her back to the present, "We need to go! The PRT will be here soon!"
Lisa could only half nod: "She'll win."
"What?"
"The new girl." Tattletale replied, "She's sandbagging massively."
"We still need to move, Regent needs ice on his head." Grue replied while Bitch and her dogs kept watching.
Lisa grimaced: "I need to talk with the knight."
"What?" Grue asked, half outraged and half disbelieving, just as the knight somersaulted the swipe of the Lung's tail only to deliver a punishing kick to its solar plexus, gaining just enough space to swing the sword-club-like-statue-thing, removing clearly the dragon man's left arm.
"Yeah, she... she's a she? Doesn't seem to be having problems, but we still need to go!" he insisted, yanking heavily on Tattletale's arm, who glared at him in turn.
"She's..." Tattletale began to reply when she heard a familiar rumble that barely managed to peek through the chaos of the battle between the knight and the dragon-to-be.
"Shit!" Grue hauled her on the back of one of Bitche's dog, throwing up his darkness on one side of the street in order to let them retreat into an alleyway, only for Lisa to rattle against a service door: "Here!"
"What the hell are you doing!?"
"The place is surrounded, the PRT waited in order to form a perimeter, Armsmaster is going to jump the gun." Lisa spoke quickly, her hands already at work in order to open the locked door.
"This wouldn't have happened if..."
"If what?" Lisa replied without even looking, finally managing to open the door: "If we didn't hit Ruby Casino? Get real, risks are a part of the game! Bitch, let your dogs go small, we hide inside, we'll leave by the roofs on your dogs if needed."
"I'm the leader, am I not?" Grue gritted out, his hand clamping down on Tattletale's shoulder, who didn't pay attention to her power, which nevertheless proceeded to inform her about the 'leader' s insecurities and freak out because of Lung.
"Only when you don't lead us in prison." Lisa hissed, entering the back of what was clearly a laundromat under the protection of the ABB, "We need to go up, from the upper floors we'll be able to watch the fight and now when to bolt."
Grue audibly gritted his teeth, but nevertheless followed Lisa's lead, soon imitated by Bitch, that dropped Regent unceremoniously on her leader's awaiting back in order to dedicate herself to return her dogs back to normal.
Soon enough, the Undersiders were able to watch the battle going on in the small plaza from the third store of the commercial building, safe from prying eyes while ready to bolt to the roof, and from there, Bitch's dogs could carry them the rest of the way back to base. Lisa however, was far more interested in studying the new cape, that thus far presented the standard package of a brute, coupled with some form of immortality (or at least Lisa's Thinker Power thought so), and something else, something that brutes generally didn't have: skill.
It was remarkably difficult for that kind of cape to learn hand to hand of any kind, mostly because when in a fight a brute met another, it went down to who could take more punishment, and otherwise the brute was able to break through whatever skilled resistance he encountered.
There was some nagging worry at the back of Lisa's mind when she confirmed once more that the Knight wasn't pulling all the stops, waiting to see how far she could push Lung. [hoping to obtain a bigger prize if he's stronger]
That didn't make much sense, but Tattletale recognized, through the pangs of her budding Thinker Headache, that she likely lacked context. So she simply resolved to observe the cape, that occasionally left behind her sword as a distraction for Lung only to engage with a shield that had no business at all in parting the scales of the Dragon of Kyushu with such ease.
Even more extraordinary, was the apparently subconscious manner in which the Knight held Lung in position. For all of his growing, his ramping up speed and strength, the steadily warming flames that he was sprouting, he was being forced to turn mostly on himself, unable to bring his much greater frame to bear. [experienced with fighting monsters of all sizes]
Then Armsmaster entered the fray, abandoning his motorbike at the edge of the plaza, just behind a corner in order to avoid it being struck by random swathes of fire, that somehow the new cape was managing to keep contained by offering a convenient target just in the nick of time.
The armored Tinker ran on the edge of Lung's range, disturbing the rhythm that the Knight had managed to build and causing something that had yet to happen: the dragon, which now had sported the second set of wings and counted a total of 6 legs, turned to face the incoming threat with all the speed he was capable off, abandoning his previous attack all the while moving his tail powerfully in a tight, whipping motion.
The new cape was, for the first time, caught by surprise, and had to brace herself behind the small shield she had used thus far only to deflect the incoming blows. Needless to say, the ground didn't provide enough grip for her, and she was tossed off at speeds resembling those of a bullet.
Armsmaster engaged Lung with no hesitation, the blade oh his halberd skidding off the thick scales of the beasts ineffectually while he attempted to create an opening of some sort. [has tinker tech tranquilizers] Tattletale's power informed her, [wants the credit for the defeat of Lung].
The experienced Tinker weaved and dodged, until he misstepped. The concrete of the road, that with the heat of Lung's flames had turned into something resembling tar, and Armsmaster slipped.
With a serpentine motion, Lung's X-shaped mouth closed on the suddenly screaming figure of the cape in blue armor. And just like that, Armsmaster died.
Then the sky broke apart, yellow lightning falling like rain from a circular, slowly turning a sequence of symbols that Lisa couldn't make either head or tails of. Each small lightning resembled a sunray cloaked in electricity, and their effect on Lung was devastating.
Where the lighting struck, scales exploded, revealing deep gouges in the dragon's flesh that didn't heal, spouting fountains of steaming hot blood. Lung, far from being dead, whipped his head towards the Knight, that was back into the fray, this time with her shield secured once more on her back, and the strange dragon-shaped hook with the white ampoule-whatever attached to its base. [weapon used for the lightning attack]
[wasn't going all out] [is pitying Armsmaster] Tattletale's power informed her unnecessarily of the Knight's situation even as she sidestepped the last attempt of Lung to bite her in half, swishing down punitively with her stone-club-sword on the outstretched neck, faster than ever.
And just like that, Lung was dead, leaving the new and largely unknown cape to walk around, looking for something. [feels no guilt for killing Lung] [is irritated by... Lung's weakness?] [would have kept him going if Armsmaster hadn't butted in] [always confident in her ability to strike him down]
"We'd better go now." Grue spoke from her side, "The PRT will fall on her like a ton of bricks, giving us an opening."
"Listen, if we escaped before, we would have slammed right in the face of the PRT, and now that Armsmaster's dead we'll be implicated anyway, do you want the potentially friendly cape that could go toe to toe with an Endbringer to go on her merry way and leave us to the sharks?" Lisa snarked while she turned already hopping merrily down the stairs: "Go ahead, I'll meet you back at base."
[isn't used to talking] [isn't used to social interaction] [enjoys social interaction] [is disinterested] [plans to go back to waiting] Tattletale could feel her own smile almost ripping her cheeks apart even as she sprinted along the street.
"Well, hello there!" she greeted the massively powerful cape.
A second later, the sirens of the PRT blared loudly to their senses.