Two days earlier:

I sat at the library computer and sipped my Coke. Back home, using the internet was like smearing yourself with bacon grease and going for a dip in piranha infested water. Here? It sort of rocked. I'd just completed my third boardwalk performance, and the videos were 'going viral,' as internet users liked to say. I'd made an account, even if it was just a throwaway to get Purity's attention.

I wanted to do big things to this universe while I was here. Maybe it was just a way to distract myself from the awful fact that I had no clue how to get home, I don't know, but I'd been prepping to save the world since I was twelve and I sure didn't see a reason to stop now. So far, I'd done jack squat. Sure, a few of the ABB weren't walking quite so lightly, and sure, I had a vague idea of a merchants group I could hit, but everything I'd done so far? I think the term is sandbagging. Beating up mortals was fun in its own way, but there were bigger fish to fry.

Overall, there wasn't much I could do for the moment other than research. Research, which meant reading, which would make my head hurt. Still, it had to be done. I wasn't going to bumrush the Slaughterhouse Nine without at least reading their wikipedia articles. Not for the last time I wished I had Annabeth with me. Her laptop could automatically translate anything on the web into ancient Greek, and plus, she was always better at this crap. Sure, I can improvise my way out of Tartarus, but give me a massive list of targets with no clear approach and I flounder. Annabeth would probably already be in talks with the Triumvirate about the proper approach to kill the Endbringers. Me? My current plan was: 'beat up bad guys until we get word on how to go home.'

A van screeched to a halt just in front of the library, and I looked up sharply. I'd chosen my seat because I was well away from most of the windows, on the off chance someone figured out my location, but even from my position I could make out a small crowd of young men wearing ABB colors pouring out of a van. I bit the inside of my cheek. The ABB. How exactly they'd found me, I couldn't tell, but unless this was the ABB's book club I sure couldn't think of any other reason for ten of them to show up at a public library. The few library patrons that had looked up were visibly distressed but most people were still browsing. Really, I was perfectly fine with throwing down against as many of the ABB as wanted to come at me, Lung included, but I didn't want to fight with this many potential hostages. Another thing I missed about home: the monsters usually left the mortals out of it.

The gang members were still filing out of the vans when a swarm of roaches, flies, and spiders exploded from the floorboards and walls. That got everyone's attention. I grimaced. Had Lung gotten a bug controller or something? Sure enough, the bugs were definitely moving with a human intelligence directing them. They layered themselves over every surface, again and again, spelling out the same message with their bodies:

LUNG. LEAVE. BACK DOOR.

The crowd reacted by hurriedly and orderly making their way to the back of the building. A few pushed and shoved, but most helped others along and moved without much friction. I wondered if they did 'cape fight' drills here just like the fire drills back home. I took a long drink from my Coke as the building emptied and started tapping a beat on my knee. The bugs retreated for the most part, except for a small number who danced frantically on the table in front of me, trying to direct me to leave. I saw another group gathering at the doorway Lung was about to walk through, and I began squishing them methodically. The absolute last thing I needed here was for a new cape to get involved.

The doors flew open and a carpet of dull smoke rolled in across the floor, Lung eating up the distance between us with steady, confident strides. He was dressed only in loose canvas pants and a hideous metal mask, showing off a muscular torso riddled with old scars and tattoos. Smoke wisped off of him as he walked, flowing into a cape of gray air. The bugs retreated from him, and I let out a small breath. Good. Bug controller had figured it out. "Riptide," Lung called out, his voice low and hard. "You've insulted me by operating within my territory without my permission, you've inconvenienced me by the destruction of my property, and all this," His voice twisted with rage. "All this you did after killing my subordinate." Fire pulsed from his hand. "Perhaps, you thought that you could get away with this, because others have killed my subordinates in the past and lived. Miss Militia. Hookwolf." He pointed at me. "But you, you are alone. You are traceable. You," He pointed at me. "You are already dead."

The Coke fizzed over my tongue as I sipped, savoring the taste. The can clinked as I set it down on the table. "Hey," I stated. "Gotta say, death isn't so bad so-"

I hit the ground hard as I dove under a hail of bullets that cut through the table I'd been sitting at half a heartbeat earlier. The gunmen stationed just outside the windows stopped firing, but I wasn't so foolish as to raise my head to see if they'd left. My table had been visible from only two of the windows, but that had been enough.

Lung chasing me down had been inevitable ever since I killed his number two. There was no way a guy with a rep and ego like Lung's would let a dead subordinate slide. I figured that same ego would make him try to kill me in person. So far, I was batting .500. His ego demanded he be there in person, but if it was a gunman that got the last shot off, it didn't matter much.

Of course, I hadn't expected he'd come after me so soon, either. He'd tracked me despite the mist, somehow, which was scary as all Hades. The rules here weren't the same, and I'd been counting on the magic to cover up my weaknesses. Maybe I'd been overconfident. Either way, it didn't matter much. If there was one situation I knew how to handle, it was the sort of situation I hadn't been expecting.

On the off-chance that Lung really did have extra-powerful senses like PHO thought he did, I hadn't fled with the other people in the library. People died when Lung fought, and I wasn't much good at avoiding collateral damage myself. Lung jumping me in a crowd full of civilians wasn't the worst case scenario, but it was close. I'd give them a few seconds head start and then break out of here myself. It was more of an afterthought than anything, but bug-controller would probably get targeted if I just split and ran after the warning. I didn't want Bug Guy's first action as a hero to earn him Lung's ire.

Footsteps pounded the floor as more of the ABB trooped in, but I didn't sit around to watch. My feet stumbled in a half-running, half-crawling motion as I dodged behind a row of bookcases. All around me, books exploded off of the shelves as the ABB opened fire. "Hey!" I called out. "This is a library! Keep it down!"

I might have been hit a couple times, but I couldn't afford to take notice. Sure, I would die to gunfire eventually if I just stood there in the open like a chump, but at the moment the name of the game was 'Don't get turned into lunch by the fire-breathing monster.' I mean, sure, big, ugly, and fire breathing wasn't anything new to me, but with no sword and no convenient ocean/lake/river nearby, I wasn't confident I could kill him fast enough that his regeneration wouldn't kick in. Also, going two-for-two on fatalities in the cape fights I'd been in really wasn't a great heroic debut.

The strategy was simple: Run like Hades until the Protectorate showed up. Lung got stronger the more he fought, which meant that by the time the Protectorate showed up to fight him, he was already way too tough to put down. I figured if I could avoid fighting him, he'd stay small and when Armsmaster showed up we could kick him on his scaly ass. Alternately, when Armsmaster and the others didn't show up, I could just continue running until I found water.

In the rear of the library stood my target: one of those nice steel and glass spiraling staircase thingies. I dashed down the aisle, and as I crossed a gap in the shelves I noted four or five guys in ABB colors walking in from the back of the building, pulling up their weapons as they caught sight of me. My heart threatened to pound out of my chest as I ran, adrenaline running hot. I took a deep breath. "Parkour!" I leaped from the aisle to about halfway up the staircase, reached out with one hand, caught the pole in the center of the staircase and swung into a run. The gunfire clipped at my heels and I caught myself laughing like an idiot.

"Incompetents!" Lung's voice rang up the staircase as the ABB trooped after me in single file. The first whose head came into view got a copy of Atlas Shrugged to the forehead and went down cursing. The second got a face-full of The Fountainhead and stumbled onto the second floor in a daze. The third got Dragons of the Dwarven Depths right between the eyes and just stood there, stunned. Presumably he'd been expecting something more high-brow.

The bookcase itself was one of those overbuilt wooden pegboard creations that weighed a ton and probably could have doubled as a bomb shelter in a pinch. I grabbed hold of it, heaved, and the whole mess - books, bookcase, and Dewey Decimal system - came falling earthward. Letting go, I dashed ahead of the crashing wave and kicked a fourth Azn Bad Boy in the face as he became visible. The shelves crashed over the low fence that had been built around the landing and came apart, wood and steel splintering into so much kindling.

The barricaded staircase had bought me seconds at best. There were staircases at each side of the building. I had barricaded one, Lung's head was emerging from another at the other end of the building, and ABB members were piling out of the other two. My options were dwindling. My eyes darted to the window, but there were still way too many people milling about, getting into cars. I could charge either of the groups of gang members, or Lung. However, the only way I was getting away from here without a prolonged fight was through a window, which meant the front of the building. Which meant Lung.

Well, so much for the 'do not confront Lung directly until the Protectorate arrives' plan. Lung roared and ran at me, already faster and stronger than any mortal opponent I'd met so far. A breath in, a breath out. Nowhere to run. I bounced on my heels and charged Lung. The heat from his claw grazed my face as he struck out at me, but I knocked his hand upward with my forearm and stomped on his knee.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and Lung, even without fully transforming, was as big as any human out there. He crashed to the floor with a howl of pain, and I tore off toward the front of the building. I closed my eyes as I tumbled through the glass, landing in a roll on the pavement as shards of glass shattered around me.

The street had been largely abandoned, which, you know, made sense, considering the giant fire-breathing monster, but it still felt weird to me. Usually civilians steered clear of fights between demigods and monsters, but mortals here were understandably more practiced in the art of making themselves scarce. All of which to say that although the fight hadn't started more than a minute ago, I was pretty much wide in the open as I hoofed it down toward the bay. I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty sure I could leave an olympic sprinter in the dust. Within half a minute I was already back in the less-abandoned streets.

I sighed. The problem with trying to keep civilians out of your grudge match with a giant lizard is that civilians are freaking everywhere. I dodged down an alleyway and drew on the mist as I ran. By the time I emerged on the next street over, no one gave me a second look.

I almost stepped on the ladybugs crawling at my feet. There must have been hundreds of the little red bugs, drawing themselves to form words on the pavement. Right, the bug-controller again. Whoever he was, he must have had a wicked long range to control bugs both here and at the library a whole city block away.

'What are you thinking? Leave! Don't draw Lung here.' I guess it doesn't make sense to say it, but the bugs seemed to have a pretty urgent tone.

I blinked, then looked up, trying to get my bearings. Directly across the road from me was a three-story piece of decrepit city architecture with a big sign out front reading 'Winslow High'.

Ah, shit.

Two large vans screamed to a halt just in front of the school, and Lung, along with a dozen of his cronies, poured out.

I turned to run, but before I could, a third van blocked off the alley I had just come through. I turned back to Lung. "You'd seriously start a fight right outside a school? What, did you run out of puppies to torture or something?"

Lung smiled. I mean, I think he did. He still had the mask on, but boy, did his voice sound like he was smiling. "You were the one that chose this ground, Riptide. I won't allow you to just hide behind children."

I sighed. Anger wasn't my friend here. If I could talk him down, it would be best for everything. "Lung, we're both men of power. You know what happens if this fight gets out of control. That's how you get a kill order, Lung, and even you know better than to bring down that kind of heat." I mean, honestly I wasn't sure. I had no idea if Lung did know better; by all accounts he was kind of nuts. I also wasn't privy to how kill orders got issued, but they seemed like they were reserved for the puppy-eating, moon-blow-upping sorts of villains. Where Lung fell on that scale, I had no idea, but I figured I was about to find out in a real hurry. "Let's just take this fight somewhere else."

I got the idea that he'd just keep coming after me, damn the consequences, and that was annoying. If that was how things were going to be, I pretty much had to kill him, sooner or later, and better sooner than later. For the first time since I'd come to this world I felt real anger boiling up inside of me. It wasn't just an anger at Lung, or at the city, or even at my own situation. I was just pissed at everything and everyone. Nothing ever changed. Everywhere I went was just ruled by whoever was the biggest bully on the block, whoever could play the system the best. It was all the same, whether it was this world, my world, or the schools I'd escaped from back in the day. I made my mind up right then and there that if I had to kill the bastard, I might as well do it right here and now. If the PRT came down on me for it, well, to Hades with them. Lung was willing to risk a buttload of innocents over his own ego, and in my book that was enough.

" I do not bargain with dead men, Riptide." Lung laughed, "You will make a fine example." His gunmen opened fire as he rushed me.

I was already in motion as the guns went off. I might have been hit a few times, I'm not sure. But I stayed alive for a whole second, and that's all I needed. Water exploded from a hydrant next to the school, sweeping all the gang members up in a surging torrent.

I threw my arm back, sweeping the wave into Lung's back. Big and strong as he already was, he couldn't disobey simple physics, and the water lifted him off his feet and into the air. The fire in my gut burned bright, exultant in the moment.

The water formed a whirlpool in the middle of the street, a tiny storm surge to a my own personal hurricane. Lung floated helplessly at the center of it, buffeted from every angle by bullets of water that burst from every angle, punching holes in him. He gasped for air, but only water filled his lungs. It was the single most taxing thing I'd ever done with my water, and I could feel the strength running from me in a river.

It wasn't enough.

Even as Lung bled freely into the water, he was changing. The wounds closed over with silver scales, a tail grew from Lung's elongated spine, and massive claws formed where the man's fingers had been. I reached into the surge and grabbed the face of his mask. He came free with a gasp, but it was a short lived relief, as I grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed his face into the pavement over and over again. The mask shattered at the second impact, and the third came up bloody. Lung flailed, growing stronger by the moment, but still not as strong as me yet. Not strong enough to break free from me, in any case.

It still wasn't enough.

A scream filled my lungs as a lance of fire cut out at my side, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. The instant I did was the instant the tempo of this fight reversed and I effectively lost. I couldn't let that happen.

But then, without my permission, it happened anyway.

Leverage, along with the advantage in strength I'd started the fight with, had been enough for a while. I had his right arm locked up with one hand and I slammed his face into the curb with my other. His arm started getting too big for my wrist to fit around and I dug my fingers in ever harder, driving them into the flesh underneath the scales, grabbing his tendons directly. As the arm got longer I rose and instead of slamming his face into the curb I just kicked the back of his head in over and over again, bracing against his arm. If we'd been normal humans, I don't think he ever could have broken the lock I'd put his right arm in. As it was, once Lung's clawed arm found purchase on the ground he simply used it to throw himself over onto his side and swipe at me. That his right arm tore out of its socket in the process seemed to barely inconvenience him.

I jerked out of reach of his claw and threw a jet of water into his face. The jet knocked Lung back a bit, but mostly it just blanketed the area in a thin layer of steam. "Styx." The curse escaped my lips as I turned and beat a hasty retreat.

Just because I couldn't see through the fog I'd thrown up didn't mean that Lung couldn't. I could clear the fog, probably, if I focused for a second, but that was a second more than I had to spare before Lung barreled out of the fog cloud, a steaming, bleeding, fiery mess.

Lung. The guy was about the size of a Mack truck already, and while his arm hadn't fully healed up, it was hard to see what impact I had had on the guy. His huge, metallic muzzle flashed in what I think was supposed to be a grin, and a wave of heat washed over me. Lung took a slow, measured step forward.

I didn't have any witty comeback. I just got ready to run. I'd had one good shot at him and I'd blown it. I didn't know whether or not I could outpace Lung like this, but it was worth a shot. He sure wasn't getting back into his van, as big as he was now.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Some stupid kid frozen against the side of a car, clutching a cell phone, directly behind me. If I ran, Lung would barrel past me straight through the car, the kid... Hades, he'd probably make it into a classroom before he stopped.

Lung bore down on me and I drew back my fist. My back was against a wall now. I couldn't run. I grimaced. Guess that meant I had to kick his ass.