"Tigress is Wrath,"I said at last.
"What?!"
"She's betrayed us. The villains know we're coming - we've got to move!"
Majestic had frozen. I stood up. No more waiting.
"Let's go!" I threw the car door open and jumped forward, amping up and slamming my hands into the ground.
"HEARTBEAT DISTORTION!"
The railway cracked beneath our feet and a hole appeared, debris crumbling down into the driveway from the surface. It was a ramp angled downwards. I ran forward. The others were following on my heels.
"They drove some way in!" said Shoji. "We need to hurry!"
"Here!" shouted Majestic, who had caught up to us. Glowing rings appeared under our feet, lifting us off the ground and flying us down the ramp. "Keep your ears out, Tentacole and Earphone Jack! We're counting on you!"
I raised my jack and tuned it out. Shoji grew extra ears as we plummetted down, lit by Hagakure using her warp refraction to create reflecting lights for us.
"What the hell was that sound!?"
"It's the heroes - we've been made!"
"Morons! They'll be on us any minute - and now our best hideout's blown!"
"Best suit up and trigger up. Who's coming for us?"
"Best guess, their stealth squad. No real fighters to worry about - just take 'em down, Sloth."
No reply; I assumed Sloth had nodded. Damn, that's the big problem - Sloth. If she gets any one of us, we're done for.
"Sloth," said Shoji. "How do we handle her?"
"Can you knock her out with one of your parts, Lizardy?" said Majestic.
"Maybe. I don't know how to guarantee that she won't be able to put me to sleep from just a part - but I'll try!"
"No need," said a familiar voice. We looked - almost back, but then to the side. It was Iida. He'd caught up to us easily. And right behind him was the woman in green and white from his work study.
"Got your signal - why'd you guys go in?"
"They're onto us," said Shoji. "Our suspicions of MIss Tigress were correct. She's betrayed us."
"WHAT?!" cried Iida, for too loudly.
"Yes - and shh," said Majestic. "We feared it - but our security precautions were inadequate. Nobody could seriously suspect a career hero of being a traitor..."
"I'm gonna kill her," I muttered, pure rage seething through me. How? How could she do that - betray us, betray the world of heroes? What true hero would do that? And why!?
"Calm down, Earphone Jack," said Shoji quietly. "We must not let our emotions take over in this situation."
I glanced over at him. That's Shoji. Good at being stoic.
Iida's face was hidden beneath his helmet, but he seemed shattered; he would not look up.
"A pro hero - someone we all trusted...how can this be?" he murmured, in a somewhat fragile voice. I didn't really know what to say to him. Iida's normally so trusting of authority. Learning this must be shattering to him, more than the rest of us.
Thinking that only makes me angrier with her. You're gonna pay, you are...
"Ingenium," said Arrow, Manual's sidekick. "You say you have a way to beat Sloth?"
Iida looked up. He took a deep breath, then spoke as professionally as he could. "I have been testing my mufflers - they go fast enough that I believe I can reach her and knock her out before she can knock me down."
"That's risky."
"I'll try it first," said Tokage. "If she makes me, we'll let you take a whack at her."
"Understood," said Iida. His voice was still shaky, but more focus was coming into it.
"We're too close," said Shoji, extending a hand. We stopped, slowed to a walk. Shoji and I put our ears to the ground.
"Hurry up, they'll be getting near. Take em out, Sloth."
Majestic tossed us backwards, around a corner. "Lizardy."
Tokage broke off her arm and sent it around the corner, alongside her right eyeball. From a distance, we heard footsteps. Soft, slow footsteps. And then Tokage fell to the ground.
Shit.
Iida turned and without a word - vanished. i didn't even see or hear him activate his reciproburst, but he was gone - and then a "THWACK" and Sloth hit the ground.
I peered around the corner to verify and waved the others through.
Iida was still not visible. But I could hear him, faintly - running so fast that it almost seemed to precede sound.
Damn, Iida. You've been training.
We ran forward towards where the voices were saying, "What's taking her so -"
The doors burst open. The car had pulled into a vast garage, which doubled as something like a typical suburban garage - tool benches, gurneys, tools and devices...
And also like a morgue, with bodies on gurneys and bloody towels over the bodies.
Packing up what looked like research notes was a woman in a white shroud, tendrils of black hair hanging over her bound up face and goggles. Surrounding her were the remaining six of the seven deadly sins, all headed towards an escape car.
Lust with her long black hair. Greed in the glittering clothes, Gluttony oozing goop onto the floor, Envy leaning over the others, Pride with her arms folded...and Tigress, aka Wrath, in the same outfit she'd worn when we fought...although now I knew who was underneath that mask.
"Oh dear," sneered Pride. "It seems they found a way past Sloth."
No time to Let Tigress stun us again. I plugged in my jack and threw the sharpest soundwave right at her that I could before anyone could say another word, blasting her backwards through a window.
"Earphone Jack!" cried Majestic. The fleeting shape of Iida seemed to have kicked Pride in the head - but I didn't register. I blasted myself forward, running all out to find Tigress and make sure she was truly down.
"Jirou, wait!" I heard Shoji call as he ran after me.
Tigress was picking her sorry ass up from the glass shards when I turned the corner and caught up with her.
"We can hear you, Tigress," I told her. "We know who you are!"
She turned the wrathful mask to me.
"We meaning you six, I'm guessing? Then I guess I have to take all of you down."
She pulled off the mask and threw back the hood, revealing the hero face. "But I guess I don't have to hold back."
"Neither will I," I shouted, preparing to counteract her. Bring it on. I'm gonna destroy you!
She opened her mouth. I threw my soundwave at her. The two waves collided, like when I'd fought Present Mic. It created a shock wave and started blasting us both backwards.
I held my ground. You won't get away. You won't hurt anyone else. And I know what to do.
"Shoji, GET OUT OF HERE!" I shouted through the pain.
"I won't leave you!"
You so don't get it. "Save yourself, then," I told him, and tossed my left jack into the ground, with my right holding off the blast on its own. My heartbeat was going crazy.
Heartbeat distortion.
The ground beneath us again shattered - in front of me, under Tigress' feet. She fell. Shoji's extended arm caught her before she could hit the ground. I almost shouted at him - but caught myself. We don't kill. Right.
She saw his arm, and bit it, forcing him to drop her the few feet left to the ground.
"Don't you dare pity me, you pathetic child!" she screamed at us.
"How could you do this!?" I screamed back t her. "How could you betray your fellow heroes!?"
"You're a child," she snapped. "Idealistic and foolish. You don't have a clue what job you're signing up for. Do you have any idea how cutthroat the hero business is? How much you have to gallop at a thousand miles an hour, just to make enough to barely live on? To scrape onto anyone's radar, to break even? Some day, little girl, when you're in my shoes - when you're begging your landlord to take pity on you since you're out busting your ass saving people every day, because you picked a job to help people that pays squat if you're not the best of the best, when you're going your fourth day without food just to have a place to live? Then you get to judge me, but not before."
I looked away. For a moment I wanted to pity her, but the thought of what could happen to the others was too much. "So - what, you stabbed us in the back for money!?" I cried.
"Shove it," she snapped back.
I looked away - too late. My legs were suddenly behaving funny. Like I couldn't balance properly. I turned around to see Pride had arrived and was using her quirk on me - making me lose my balance.
Shit -
And I was falling, tumbling into the hole, as Pride leaped onto Shoji, preventing him from grabbing me.
Shit, shit shit -
And a rope was around my stomach, pinning my arms to my side and stopping my fall.
I looked up. Holding onto the other end of the rope - from the other end of the room -
Was Yaomomo.
