The force of the explosion was enough to send me to tumbling to the ground. I couldn't see or hear anything as the world around me shook and screamed. I had to force the wraith to heal me so I could stand back up. With the ringing in my ears having subsided I could hear a series of explosions. Flashes of light revealed what was happening.
Stalker was being chased through the warehouse by a teleporting explosion. The man or 'Lee' as his friend had called him, seemingly appeared in two places at once, each of his prior clones would detonate mere moments later. He would track Stalker in his attempts to predict where'd she go and teleport near that spot. Stalker for her part was constantly moving in either of her forms. Lee had needed time to see where she was headed, but that in return had allowed her the chance to alter her course.
Even as a shadow, I could make out stalker recoiling from the explosions she only barely avoided. The two of them followed each other with rhythm almost like a dance. But Stalker was out of weapons, out of options I could try and help but I had my own problems to deal with.
The taller man had stood motionless, only moving to smoke his cigarette as he watched me pick myself up. The burst of light combined with that of his own cigar had revealed that hadn't bothered to wear a shirt. I didn't know his powers, but he was huge standing just above six feet, his chiseled body form his neck to lower abdomen were tattooed with various images dragons from eastern myth. The only thing he wore that could be considered a costume was the ornate reptilian mask shaped more like a dragon than anything else.
This man had seemed familiar, years ago I recalled seeing a picture of his face on the news with the advisory to avoid at all costs. He was one of the few parahuman's my parents showed me growing up, used as a cautionary tale of how dangerous parahumans could really be. He was the only person to take on the entire protectorate and specifics of his power weren't widely known to the public only that he was strong and dangerous. In the bay he was the warlord, he was Lung.
All the while my tattered bullet riddled costume fell to pieces. I wasn't anywhere near immodest, but I was approaching the point where my bargain bin costume looked more and more like homeless rags.
I got into a fighting stance and could feel that something was off, like I was somewhat unbalanced and had also raised my hands a little too high. I felt like a caricature of what a fighter should be, the smirk that formed around his mouth didn't help build any confidence either. He spat out his final puffs of his smoke and began to casually walk towards me.
He got close enough to me that I could punch him only for him to slap them away as I did so. My powers only enhanced what I had, unfortunately, physical combat wasn't in that category.
With an almost casual flick, Lung had tossed the cigar towards my face, its dwindling spark suddenly bursting to life. I immediately released the wraith from my face quenching the fire before it had even more of a chance to burn me. I jumped back to make some distance between us.
For sure I knew Lung was a pyrokinetic I currently had a counter to that, but my wraith was limited. I needed to use it wisely. The red mist from earlier was still floating mid-air at my discretion. It congealed into yet another wave but instead of attacking Lung it only briefly blocked his vision. More than enough time for me to jump forward with a punch that landed squarely in his jaw. I could feel the crunch as his jaw had given way to my fist.
The small victory was short lived however, with the area around Lung suddenly being engulfed in flames. I tried to pull my hand back, but it was yanked forward before I could. Lung used my arm to drag my entire body forward and up raising me into a toss before slamming me to the ground. I was aware of the cracks that formed around my dented crater. This was the second time I had been hurt as Wendigo.
Lung didn't wait for me to get up, through the remaining mist I could sense his fist incoming towards my head. I'd managed to roll out of the way but not quick enough to completely avoid the blow. Short of breath I scrambled up to me feet. Lung stood near my crater a few yards away. He was different now taller for sure, additionally his muscles seemed unnatural for a regular man to possess.
One of Lee's explosions shook the building.
Lung had seemed to get faster and stronger the longer our fight progressed. I could keep up for the time being but eventually that would cease to be the case. The fight would devolve into regular Taylor versus a fucking monster. I could always try to escape but if that failed the latter scenario would occur even sooner.
Lung approached this time however he moved with a quickness that left me exposed. He delivered a solid hook to my temple causing my vision to blur. He followed up the attack with another that sent me skidding back to the ground. I tried to defend myself with a blind kick but that only resulted in him knocking it away to get on top of me.
Why weren't my hands up? I needed to do something before he beat my face in, his flame aura from earlier was still active but I pushed past it. Reaching out to the rest of the building, I found every trace of the wraith and pulled it back into my body.
The additional blood couldn't make me significantly stronger, but it would keep me in my prime for longer. I needed more time. As if he were also a telepath lung moved his hands around my throat, pressing his full weight down on my windpipe. It became hard to breathe, but now I had enough strength to break one of his wrist with both of my hands.
The bones didn't so much break, as they did bend as a durable metal would under intense stress would. Though the end result was the same. Lung recoiled enough that I could kick and climb my way out from under him. He'd begun to rise but for once I was faster. I landed several blows to his head using a desperate combination of hands and elbows.
I gave up on trying to harm him with any technique, if I was going to win I had to do so quickly. Even as he fell under my attacks I wasn't confident that any of it would matter in the next few seconds. With each passing moment I could feel my blows affect him less and less. His muscles grew denser, his bones healed faster, pain cried out from my hands as they pummeled his changing form.
I jumped back not a moment too soon, as burst of fire appeared from thin air where I was just standing.
"Bitch!" Lung shouted as the fire grew around him.
His flames were large enough to cover most of the building now, they climbed the wall blocking off the doors and windows behind him. Stalker and Lee carried their fight behind me, by now pieces of the ceiling had collapsed in their wake. I could leave but there was no way id let Stalker face these two on her own. We were trapped.
Lung stood to his full height which was now around nine feet tall, enough that he towered over me. I noticed from the fire that gleamed off of it that his skin had gained a metallic quality to it. As he moved I could only make out the fire as it trailed behind him.
I tried to dodge but to no avail, he caught me by the leg. I could hear my skin sizzle at his touch. I didn't have time to wallow in that pain however as Lung used my leg to slam the rest of my body into the ground.
Unlike the previous time he didn't let go, instead he raised me again to throw me back into the floor like a rag-doll. After the second throw, I could feel something in my knee give. He continued to swing me against the floor like this several more times.
Eventually, I was able to focus enough to escape by slightly reverting back to Taylor.
Unfortunately, I did this mid swing causing me to be thrown up into the air. I still managed to aim a large piece of my wraith towards his eyes; most of it died to the surrounding heat but enough had made it that I could blind him. The shock of having all the blood sucked out of his eyes was enough to distract him as I fell back onto the hard ground. I crawled away slowly, I needed time to heal my wounds.
Lung roared with rage, spewing fire with every shout. Even as I felt my connection to his eyes wither, I still knew that I had succeeded in buying myself a few moments. The wraith worked form the inside out healing my internal injuries first, like my concussion and ruptured organs. I felt my reserves drop about a quarter from where they were before.
Apparently Lung had done a lot more damage than I first thought. I stopped my healing mid way, forcing the rest of it on my knee and nothing else. My other injuries could be handled later i needed to ration every bit of my powers.
I rose to my feet with a sharp breath, apparently that was enough for Lung to find me. So I could add super hearing to his list of powers. His eyes were still the dried out husk, but the rest of his body kept on evolving. His skin was now covered in overlapping layers of metallic scales, fire danced between them melting them into a molten slag that was replaced by more scales. His face shifted to accommodate the new pair of fangs that seemed too big for his jaws, transforming it to be more on more animalistic than human.
What the fuck? I needed to think but staring at Lung I could only draw up blanks. He pounced to where he had last heard me. I didn't make a sound but my burning skin was enough to give me away. He nearly grabbed my arm, but I jumped away into the fire behind him. I sacrificed some of my wraith for more breathing room but the fires were too fierce and the space I had cleared was barely enough for me to stand on.
Suddenly a voice was yelling something in a foreign language one of Lungs flunkies had woken up and was trying to warn their boss. Before they could finish speaking however, Lung had shot a wave of fire in their direction, He would've immolated all of his goons had I not shot out a blast of my own power to intercept it. Even with my intervention some of the flames still landed on the bodies.
I didn't have time to address them as Lung had already fired another blind shot only this time where I was actually standing. I leapt towards it using my wraith to protect me through the wall of flames. My previous feats left the wraith at about half capacity I had begun to struggle to prevent my form from slowly slipping away.
Lung was too hot for me to touch so I doused him with the wraith instead. The smell of burning blood filled the air. I focused it on areas where Lung still had exposed skin, but his fires evaporated them before they could do any real damage. With nothing else left, I resorted to my fist. I punched him with all the force I could muster breaking my hands in the process.
My wraith continually poured out of me extinguishing his flames just as fast as he could produce them. I could have used some of the blood to mend my split knuckles but my power couldn't focus on both healing me and attacking Lung.
Through the wraith I could sense how he was going to attack in advance giving me enough time to dodge. I was winning the battle, for now at least. It was happening incrementally but both of us were changing.
The power of my punches was diminishing, probably due to the pain in my hands and my transformation back into Taylor. At the same time Lung was growing, it was taking more of the wraith to cover him. Lung stopped trying to hit me and simply rushed into me sending me crashing into the ground.
I tried to roll away, but he was too big, one of his hands pinned down the left side of my body. I pulled the wraith back in, bracing for what was coming. His massive fist rammed my head into the concrete. I raised up my free hand to protect myself, but it only fell away too his next blow.
The taste of copper filled my mouth as black spots filled my vision. The rest of my body lay prone on the ground, all of my focus to commanding the wraith to heal my head. At any moment I felt as if it would burst under Lungs assault. My burning skin was barely noticeable, only a slight pain at the edge of my consciousness.
At some point Lung had raised me up by my neck, he was standing now holding my throat between his fingers. Blood flowed freely from my swollen head. Lung stood as if he wanted to stare into my eyes with his blind ones, he slowly squeezed. He attempted to smile with his over sized teeth, apparently he was savoring the moment.
This isn't how I thought I would die, beaten to death in the middle of a burning warehouse by a literal dragon.
Suddenly one of the windows behind Lung shattered as someone on a motorcycle jumped through it. They trailed a wide jet of foam behind them that managed to put out the fires to most of the warehouse and the burning thugs.
Lung maintained his tight grip around my throat as he turned towards the noise. For his trouble he was shot with several dozens of tranquilizers from what looked to be a pole-arm of some kind. He was still standing, however, so I released the final vestiges of the wraith from my body and sent it towards him. The tranqs were enough to cease his fire leaving Lung defenseless against me.
He dropped me to the ground as the wraith fell upon him. I feed on every ounce of blood in his body leaving him a shriveled husk. I wasn't sure if he was dead and in that moment I couldn't muster the energy to care.
Shortly afterwards the explosions that had been chasing Shadow stalker were suddenly absent. The building that was so loud a moment ago seemed still now.
I could move most of my body to some degree but not much, I was able to somewhat transform into Wendigo but only enough to obscure my identity. It wouldn't last for long though, most of my power was going into healing me, I had a few solid minutes left of my transformation.
Turning my head I caught a glimpse of Shadow stalker. She had collapsed to her knees while she gasped for air, her mask was partially raised for the to breathe revealing part of her face in the process. The rest of her costume didn't look much better. Bits of her cape were either signed or completely gone, and several of her pads were heat warped. Her clothes stuck to her body and looked to be drenched in sweat. Her half of the warehouse was unrecognizable with most of it having been reduced to rubble.
Next to her stood the man from the bike, he was holding out a bottle of water for her to drink. When it became clear that she wouldn't immediately grab it he placed it next to her on the floor. He walked toward me ready with another bottle in hand.
He was definitely a cape it was obvious from the blue and silver power armor he wore. His face was concealed with a helmet and visor, only leaving his lower jaw and trimmed beard exposed. I knew I'd seen him somewhere before but the memory was slow to surface with my concussed head. He had apparently seen what I had done to Lung, dropping the water bottle he quickly produced his halberd, pointing it towards me.
As he got closer, I could make out further details of his armor like his emblem it was a silhouette of his visor over a silver background. That same emblem was on the pair of underwear my parents had grounded me for buying years ago. The memory clicked, the cape that was brandishing his weapon towards my face was the hero Armsmaster.
My night just kept getting better.
"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can be used against you-" Armsmaster was cut off by Shadow stalker.
She removed her mask completely revealing her face,"We aren't the bad guys here!"Sophia Hess said."If you just listen to us-"
I stopped listening. In that moment I recalled every instance of manipulation and deceit. The months of torment at her hands alone. Blood boiled in my veins the wraith responsive to my mood
"Fucking why?!" I said with all the venom I could muster.
I moved faster than I thought possible in my current condition. Charging past Armsmaster I went directly for Sophia. Punching her with a vicious uppercut I wished I could inflict months worth of pain in that single motion.
Oddly enough she didn't phase to avoid it, when it connected it had enough force to carry her into the air.
I didn't have long to savor the moment as I soon felt something stab into my back. Turning around I caught Armsmaster fire another tranq into my abdomen. I could barely feel the second one as the world suddenly became one huge swirl to me.
The last thing I felt was a giant something grab me in its jaws and then a lurch as it leaped into the dark sky.