"Lisa?"
"Hmm, yes Taylor?"
"Where are the others?"
"They've gone to get some body stockings so that they can gate crash a dog fighting ring and become xenomorph animagi."
"Lisa, did you actually listen to what you just said."
"Hmm?"
"Lisa, Medhall stocks are at an all time low."
"Uh huh, I'll buy some later."
"What are you doing?"
"I've just got into the DOJ computers and I'm tracing all of the payments that Judge Jude has taken, and where he's stashed them."
"Who's Judge Jude?"
"The Judge presiding over Canary's trial. According to his phone, he sent his daughter to Heartbreaker because she had powers. I've sent the information to the office already. The prosecution is a paid up member of Humans First, as are 5 members of the jury."
Taylor shakes her head and starts to grow a new ovipositor to put in the corner while she keeps an eye on the others on their way to the dog fight.
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Amy shivers as they approach the warehouse. It's not the temperature instead it's the fact that she can already hear the dogs whining in the back of the warehouse, and they can't even see it yet. It was exhilaratingly fun to pop from rooftop to rooftop on the way here, like flying over the city with Victoria. Except without her arms holding her. Which is weird, as she's not been thinking about her sister nearly as much as she used to. Taking a deep breath she asks, "Ready?"
Missy shakes her head, "No, but I'm going to do this because I owe him for last time."
Aisha looks back at Missy, "Remember, you're Missy tonight, you don't have any powers that the rest of us don't."
The four of them appear in the centre of a cage that has two human fighters rather than the expected dog. The pop of their arrival is drowned out by the cheer of the crowd as the fighters come together. Standing back-to-back, they all drop their invisibility.
Taylor says over the hive link, "Would now be a good time to point out that this probably won't work. Or that I can't come to help because I'm growing an ovipositor? Or that when you die, they're just going to kill you again when you're a baby.
"Just saying. So, at this point your only hope is that you can become xenomorphs, but you blew it because that's exactly what you came here expecting to happen. Don't worry though, I'll eat the evidence once I'm finished here, and you'll just be 4 missing teenagers."
Aisha tries, she really does, but her body language goes from confident, I'm going to kick your arse, to oh shit I screwed up and I'm going to die. As it does, the door to the cage opens and a bare-chested blond man, wearing a metal wolf mask, stalks into the cage.
Hookwolf looks them all up and down and sneers behind his mask, "Well, well, well, what do we have here. 4 wannabe heroes that have just realised that they're in deeper than they expected. Did your mover bugger off leaving you in the lurch? Or maybe you were expecting dogs?"
Behind Aisha, Dinah whimpers as her power refuses to answer any questions about this situation.
As Hookwolf continues to stalk forward, he calls to the fighters, "Take them down." Before deliberately slowing down his shift into a far more terrifying display. His hooks and plates first spread out over his body, and he slowly morphs into a wolf. The two fighters both take steel scaffolding pipes, that are being passed through the chain link fencing, and start to approach the terrified teenagers, who can't seem to take their eyes off of Hookwolf.
Each one of the children drops to the floor as Taylor shoves the memories of a newborn warrior at them, trusting that their instincts will kick in. This has the added side effect of making the men and crowd stop to laugh, before they continue their menacing approach. Weakly, Amy looks around and sees the younger girls still struggling with the memory dump.
Staggering to her feet, she stands in front of them, and reaches her hands up to take her mask off. As she does so, one of the men lunges forward and pokes her in the solar plexus with the end of his pipe, before bringing it around and smashing her back to the floor, where she hears a loud crack as a few ribs break. As time seems to slow down, her mind latches onto anything that might keep her alive while she's gasping for breath. She's vaguely aware of the steel pipe coming down again, when her mind and magic find a solution and she blacks out as her mind links tightly with the other three.
At the same time, the other man comes around from the other side and kicks Aisha in the stomach as she's getting to her hands and knees. This spins her over onto her back and he follows it up with a jab to her solar plexus with his own pipe. Now assured that she can't fight back, he brings the pipe around and breaks her jaw. Aisha doesn't remember anything after that.
Missy knows what's going to happen as soon as she realises that there's no dogs in the ring. Her mind already running over the memories of last time she soloed Hookwolf. When Taylor dumps those memories on them, she grasps at them like a drowning man to flotsam, her own mind and magic responding to the new instincts and memories.
Dinah freezes as only a 12 year old innocent can. She doesn't have the experience of Missy, the street smarts of Aisha, or the exposure of Amy. All she did have is her own power telling her the odds. Odds that are now producing nonsensical results, so when Amy reaches out for her hive mates she grasps at the direction and allows the instructions to pull her along.
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Hookwolf stops his advance and completes his change as fast as possible. In front of him a Xenomorph hunting pack stand up to their 7 foot height, their domed foreheads giving way to bony ridge plates with patches of skin, similar to the forehead, between the latticework. Their clawed fingers and toes tearing through the concrete floor as they rise in the centre of the cage. A whimper from the man that attacked the largest girl catches his attention, and he sees him twitching on the end of her long bony tail. Somewhat redundantly Stormtiger calls from the back "They've triggered, they've all triggered everyone get out."
Glancing over, Hookwolf sees that the other man is reeling back, clutching his stomach as the one who's jaw was supposed to be broken throws a chunk of skin and guts to the side. Carefully he moves in to feint with his tail, judging how they're going to react. When they split up, with the two at the sides jumping for the walls of the cage, the one he attacked flinging the fighter off her tail at him while doing a standing leap to the top of the cage, and the last one leaping backward and crouching down with her tail pointed at him. Part of him notes the saliva hisses and pits the concrete as it lands on the floor. This is far down his list of priorities as he's far busier making space between him and them. Three of them are starting to flank him from the walls and ceiling, while the one in front looks to be trying to ensure his attention is on them. A fact that becomes painfully apparent, when he glances up and she lunges forward almost faster than he can react. He ducks low and to the left under her claws and takes a hit to the side as her tail spears in from above while she's dancing backwards. His side hisses as the tail withdraws from the attack, telling him that it's coated in something. Striking out with his own tail, he tries to manoeuvre the fight so that they're all in view.
A pair of air blades pass through the space he just vacated, and the parahuman in front of him does what should be an impossible dodge, leaving the blades to slam into the back of the cage, and catch a few spectators that haven't yet retreated far enough.
Cricket lets out a disorientating scream as she joins the fray. Her target seems to be unaffected, showing that she is far more agile than even Crickets power assisted agility, as she dodges the sharp strikes from her karmas.
Over the next minute or two, the fight becomes more and more desperate for them, as whatever the 4 girls turned into has far more stamina than they do. Hookwolf doesn't even have time to spare a thought for the two dying fighters, as he's been singled out by two of the parahumans. Normally, he wouldn't mind, but they've worked out that his eyes are his vulnerable location and have started spitting whatever it is they produce at them.
He doesn't have time to look at what ever has changed behind him, as the unpowered members start to stream away from the cage and out of the building with screams and shouts. There's an alien scream, and the two that have been harrying him break away and slice through the cage as though it was tissue paper. As he looks around to evaluate the situation, he steps back as the parahuman that took on Lung, and was supposed to be dead, backs away from the fighter that's missing part of his stomach. Looks towards him, and then follows the other four parahumans.
Once they've gone, he tiredly returns to his human form, and goes to check on his fighters. To his amazement, their wounds are already healing, and neither of them is going to die today. Cricket comes over, and fishes her buzzer out of a pocket.
"What do you think that was about?"
Hookwolf shakes his head, "I have no idea."
Stormtiger limps over, holding a hand to his leg, "I do. Cluster trigger. Did you see how green those 4 were? When they arrived, they looked absolutely confident in what was going to happen. Then they realised that the dogfighting was over, and all of their confidence changed. The big one must be a mover and dropped them in here to bounce off us as well as it."
Cricket nods, "That would explain how they could track me so well. I swear they knew where I was even when I was behind them."
The lookout calls in while they're still talking, "PRT raid ETA 90 seconds, everyone bug out, everyone bug out!" The three of them look at each other and Hookwolf grabs one fighter while Cricket and Stormtiger grab another and hoof it through one of the pre-planned exit routes that the unpowered members aren't told about. One of the lieutenants grabs the security tapes and leaves himself, only to get accosted by Miss Militia and a PRT Trooper alone, in a back alley.
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Amy slowly comes back to her own awareness as the 5 of them are running across the rooftops towards the sea. The sensation is amazing as her sisters jump and clamber over each other in a game of tag, the Queen running ahead of them and setting the pace. The world around her is so vivid in sounds and sensations. The electrical signals from the people below them triggering tiny burst of radio waves that she can see, along with the radio bouncing off of the cars and buildings as they go past below. She's vaguely aware of Hannah and Susan shouting at them over the link, but it's so hard to understand at the moment. The Queen dives into the water with only ripples to show her passing, so the four of them follow and they race out over the continental shelf and down into the depths. While they're playing, Amy becomes more and more herself, though she continues to enjoy the games through the water.
Eventually, there is a call that the Queen, that Taylor heeds, and they all teleport into room with Director Piggot and Mr Hebert. Turning to approach them, she gets two steps before the director has drawn her service pistol and emptied the entire clip into her head. There is a vague sensation of fire and…
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Emily is standing in one of the larger testing chambers with Danny waiting to tear into Miss Dallon and the 3 children that are actually her responsibility. Danny has assured her that they are not causing any trouble at the moment, just playing.
There's a flash of fire and all 5 of them are standing there, dripping water onto the floor. Intellectually, she knew they'd changed, and she'd seen footage of Taylor before, she'd even had baby Taylor in her office. However, she can't help but take a couple of steps back. Especially when one of them menacingly turns to face her and starts to stalk towards her, malice dripping from it's mouth and claws.
Suddenly she's retreating from Ellisburg, and her XO has just been taken down. Reflexively she draws her side arm and empties the clip into the monster before slinging her XO over her shoulders and staggering out of the area. She knows she's reached safety when the two of them are sprayed down with containment foam. SOP for anyone that might be carrying spores.
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Whatever is it was that she was expecting when a Hannah Washington called her into the PRT about her daughter for the second time in less than a month. Being handed a grumpy looking baby, a container of baby formula, diapers, car seat, and a changing mat, wasn't it.
"What's this?"
Hannah sighs, "This is your daughter. She, along with 3 others, discovered a changer ability this evening. From talking to Mr Hebert, who was with the Director when this happened. They were intending to have a strong word with them for deliberately putting themselves in danger, almost getting themselves killed, and then almost killing to non-parahumans. Amy approached the Director presumably to speak to her, but she was still in her changer form. We currently think that the director had a PTSD attack, and emptied a clip of 9mm fmj into Amy's head."
"Gnnngh! I want to shout at you, take Amy home, and beat the tar out of the director."
"I understand, and it was quite a shock to us as well. We have detailed records of her triggers, and typically keep her clear of those situations. However, she is currently under observation, as most medication is contraindicated due to her injuries."
"What was she even doing with a weapon in such a situation?"
"I cannot answer that question, you'd have to submit it to the PRT in writing."
"I think I will. What if it was a normal changer that this happened to? You'd have a dead body on your hands."
"Director Piggot isn't allowed to attend testing, due to her PTSD. The only reason why she was there is that one of the girls is her foster child."
"I believe that you will be hearing from my lawyer."
"Please wait a couple of days so that you can talk to the Director in person."
After another 30 minutes of talking, during which time Amy fell asleep in her arms, Carol finally leaves, unsatisfied with the results of the conversation, but willing to wait a couple of days. Strapping the baby carrier into her car, she climbs into the drivers seat and calls Victoria while she's driving home.
"Victoria!"
"Yes Mum?"
"I need you to babysit your sister tomorrow, as I've still got things I need to finish in the office."
"Mum, Amy's a big girl, she doesn't need babysitting."
"If you want to make a bet of it, set your phone to recording your reaction when I get home. If it's not priceless then I'll take her to Aunt Sarah's, otherwise you babysit her for the next 3 days."
"Mum! You know that I want to go to that party with Dean."
"I have just spent two hours at the PRT, don't you think there were things I wanted to do?"
"Fine, I accept."