Cruel
"Alright, this is fucked. I declare parlais and I want to speak to your boss", Dust Devil declared to Regent.
"What?!" Regent and Shadow Stalker spoke in unison.
"Parlais, it's French for talking, like negotiation", Imp answered. "It's from thePirates of the Caribbean movie".
"Yeah, I know French, but - what? Why does he want to talk to our boss?"
Skitter did her best to amass a large swarm but it seemed the Bat chick left standing orders for her tiny bats to continue to circle the area and eat the bugs out of the air. Any crawling insects that started piling up over a few inches would get set upon and devoured. Hopefully she'll wake from her fall soon and call them off.
"What do you want to talk about, Dust Devil?" Skitter asked and pulled her combat baton, but didn't extend it.
"Nah not you, cojones or not you still betrayed them. I want the real Boss, the brains, ya know the one who knows how a straight up gangsta shows they got nuts without flexing 'em. I want to talk to Imp."
Skitter looked at Regent and motioned at Ray, "Why haven't you attacked him yet with Sophia?"
"I didn't expect banter. I kinda wanna see where things go. I mean we outnumber him anyway", Shadow Stalker started pacing around Dust Devil, her loaded crossbow trained on him.
"Shhh you two! Your boss is about to speak!" Imp hissed. "Well, what do you want, you Devil?"
"You're not th-"
Ray answered over Taylor, "Look, I get it. You got the drop on me, I got no clue what other surprises you set up when you were using your stranger thing but I will back off if Regent gives me back Shadow Stalker."
Regent's expressionless mask turned to Imp and shook no.
"No deal, she was warned not to come back to the city. Stalker girl here got a fair deal."
Alec laughed, "She's epically pissed".
"That's cos she knows what I'm going to do if you don't let her go", Dust Devil countered.
Shadow Stalker took the crossbow off her belt's carabiner and pointed the tip of the bolt at the eyehole of her mask.
"Or I can have her put a bolt straight into her brain through her eye socket?"
Dust Devil froze in place, "Don't".
"Hmm, interesting, I think he cares about Li'l Miss Throat Slasher", Imp chimed in, dropping the faux boss act. "Why do you even care what happens to her? She's a psycho bitch, we've seen how she worked with the Wards. She's about as popular with them as a bachelor party blow up doll the next morning."
Alec chuckled, "Eww, nice".
Ray kept silent, behind his mask his eyes switched from watching Sophia to glancing at Regent.
"They both know who I am", Taylor filled the silence. "And despite what you told her Regent, she came back with reinforcements."
"Great, so they're both threats. Let's go borrow a couple guns, make 'em sit on the toilet and get it to look like they got shot to death by a gang while poo-"
Regent flew backwards off his feet and Dust Devil was gone. Shadow Stalker loosed a tranq dart into Regent's exposed neck as he smashed into the pavement then dematerialised as Imp charged through her with the bolt cutters. Sophia rematerialized behind Imp and landed a straight kick between the villain's shoulder blades knocking the tool free from her grip
Imp disappeared.
Skitter's baton scraped the bridge of the mask's nose Shadow Stalker wore as it glanced off its target. Behind Skitter, Dust Devil wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side. Her body's insects automatically started crawling and biting the vigilante.
"Hold her!" Sophia growled.
Skitter bucked and tried to leverage her weight as she thrashed her legs but despite the venom being pumped into her captor he held her tight, his size and build much like Grue's. Yellowjackets made a bee line for Shadow Stalker but became a quick snack for more bats.
Taylor's control of her insects amped up with every step Sophia took. Her swarms grew in the distance and closed in, she chose more aggressive species biting and poisonous ones whether they flew or crawled. Spider silk helped the non-flyers be carried as venomous bait for the bat creatures. In the surrounding area the bats started dropping from overwhelming bites and the sheer mass of insects and arachnids crawling over them.
Sophia pulled a bolt from her armguard and tore Taylor's mask from her head. A look of grim determination was cast across Taylor's face. Behind her own mask Sophia grinned in approval.
"So this is it, Sophia? You finally get to finish me off the rest of the way?"
Shadow Stalker plunged the tranq dart in the side of Taylor's neck, "No, you get to live, Hebert. Lessons are finally over."
The ground around Ray and Taylor's feet began to collect fallen insects and puddled with bloody fluids. Ray's legs buckled as Taylor slumped forward in his arms.
"You alright, Devil?"
"Can't see so good, woozy, finally figured out how to let the bug venom pass through me though. Still hurts when they sting me again, puta madre."
"Just drop her and let the bugs pass through y-" Shadow Stalker writhed as Imp jabbed her in the chest with Regent's cane, the current from the hidden taser wracked her body.
Ray diffused into his breaker form letting Taylor drop as well as all the bugs on his body, and rematerialized with a strike connecting to Imp's stomach, bowling the demon masked villainess over. Shadow Stalker collapsed into a crouch on the cracked pavement of Skitter's territory.
"You alright, Shadow?"
"Fuck me, it'd be easier if we could just kill them all at this rate", Sophia growled again as she caught her breath.
"Jesus, I forgot about Imp", Ray said as he helped her back up.
The demonic duo helped steady one another as they surveyed the scene. Skitter and Regent were down. Batty Boom down. Imp reappeared and was stirring. Ray diffused the pair and moved them quickly close to Imp to stick her with a tranq as she reached out for Regent.
The pair turned their attention on the fallen Master, the kill order on their mind.
"He took me again, I told you it's not safe so long as he lives."
A gunshot sounded and a round skipped across the pavement between them and Regent. Shadow Stalker rematerialised and leaned against Dust Devil. Tattletale stood in the distance as she held her arms up, pistol pointed up into the air.
"I want to talk about the kill order".
"Her thing is talking Devil, knock her ass out or let me bolt her. Don't let her talk."
"Alright, I'm going to take your indecision as an okay to talk. The reason they have a kill order on most of The Undersiders is because they have kill orders on any cape who is a potential threat, it's why they locked you two up so quickly."
Ray looked to Sophia who was still leaning on his shoulder, her breathing steady, body primed to dodge or attack.
"And how do you know that?"
"C'mon, we hit the PRT base with your partner here, we hacked their files enough before Dragon shut the building down to give us almost everything. Ray Alcaraz, Sophia Hess, we know how they set you both up to fail. Even now, this is just them dusting off plans to turn you into fall guys to get a PR win. I don't know exactly if you offered yourselves up or they convinced -" Ray and Sophia's bodies shifted just slightly, "Okay, so you both offered yourselves up willingly for a rip roaring rampage of revenge for what happened to Sophia here. Stupid, stupid move, but hey I get it. She's pissed and you give an actual shit she's pissed, there are worse matches where kiss and kill goes waaaay beyond foreplay."
"I think you should bolt her", Ray murmured.
"Alright, alright, look I'm just saying we know everything about you two, and even after all the shit Shadow Stalker here put Skitter through - not once did she ask us to fuck Stalker up or kill her. Even when the rest of them offered."
"Enough time wasting, say what you mean to say",
Tattletale lowered her arms and placed her pistol by her feet, "You have Bitch and Parian. The PRT thinks it has leverage but Bitch wouldn't expect to be rescued. She'd say it would be to do dumb and she'd escape on her own. And Parian, her heart isn't in being a villain. She's not a criminal, she's just trying to scrape by for her loved ones like the strongest family member does for the weakest."
"Parian came in on her own. Got The Wards to talk her down." Ray replied.
Tattletale nodded, accepting the response, "What I am trying to say is - We do in fact have a boss. He's going to fuck us over first chance he gets, and he's going to kill Skitter, because out of all our criminal doings, she's only in this to save a kidnapped little girl."
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