A Storm of Blades
Lung, the Dragon of Kyushu, was used to fighting alone against what most would term insurmountable odds. He had stood his ground against Leviathan and walked away, he had stood against the ENE Protectorate when he arrived in Brockton Bay and emerged victorious, and in the years since he had arrived, he and Oni Lee had built the ABB into a force to be reckoned with, regardless of the numerous Capes of Kaiser's little Empire, the self-destructive big three of the Merchants and even the other little gangs and villains that floated around, like Coil, the Undersiders, Uber and L33t and Faultline. Not to mention the PRT and Protectorate again.
So when the Undersiders had had the temerity to rob the Ruby Dreams Casino, his casino, he had set out to roast them alive.
Instead, he was in the Docks area facing someone who was wearing a black costume with what looked like blade patterns outlined on it in white and silver. Her mask was a silver full face affair and was also patterned with blades. Despite the flatness of the figure's chest, he could tell she was female. She had also beaten down the thirty ABB gangbangers he had had with him. Easily. He had to give her props for that.
"I am Lung." He said, the metallic dragon mask making his voice echo menacingly, "Stand aside now, or I will crush you."
Threats issued had to be blunt and to the point. No fancy language, no dramatic bullshit or rhetoric, like that idiot Kaiser was fond of putting into all of his speeches. If you had power, intimidation came from the knowledge of it rather than uselessly flexing your muscles and flapping your jaw. Not to mention the knowledge of what you had done with said power.
He was Lung. Enough said.
"I am Carnwennan." The girl answered steadily. There was no tremble in her voice, no hesitation in her speech. She knew who he was, what he could do and what he had done, and stood against him regardless. Again, it was impressive. He estimated that she was no more than seventeen at the outside. The Undersiders wouldn't be able to maintain this sort of composure before him. Neither would the Wards. Hell, even the full members of the Protectorate spoke to him warily, as if he were a bomb ready to go off at a moment's notice.
At the same time, there was no disrespect in her words. She acknowledged what he had done and wasn't dismissing them or him. She was, if not wary, alert for signs of his tell-tale transformation. She knew what he could do and had some sort of plan to deal with him.
"I will not let you rampage in my city, Lung." Carnwennan said firmly.
He twitched. She wouldn't let him? Who did she…?!
As a result of his anger, his powers activated, fire licking along his hands and he grew by about a foot, scale patterns growing over his skin.
"For that," he said calmly, "You will have to be punished."
In response, the girl raised her hand and pointed up. Unwittingly, his gaze followed her gesture and then his eyes widened at what he saw there. The sky was becoming dark as countless daggers appeared in explosions of shadow. He absently noted that they all had pure white hilts.
With a simple pushing gesture of one hand, Carnwennan fired all of the daggers at him in an unending rain of blades. Lung barely had the time to bring up his arms to protect his head and his heart, the two locations that were most vulnerable until he got ramped up fully, before the blades were upon him.
The feel of the blades piercing his flesh was pure agony. They hurt more than when Leviathan had ripped off his arm. They hurt more than when Armsmaster tried to cut his spine out with his halberd. They all eclipsed all of those instances of pain without even trying.
And still the blades fell. He was ramping up, becoming a massive dragon that towered over the girl like a building, but that just gave her more room to lodge in those accursed daggers. His scales became thicker to try and stop the blades from piercing him, but then he realised that some of the old blades had vanished from his flesh and the daggers were attacking the still-healing wounds!
The girl was still just standing there, now her arms were refolded across her chest as she stared flatly at Lung with single-minded determination. His blood boiled at this. She thought that she could take him down alone?! She thought that she could beat him?! He! Was! LUNG!
Fire blazed along his arms before the Rage Dragon launched it in a massive fireball at the incoming array of daggers, trying to burn them to a crisp. In a flash of shadows, they vanished, only to reappear right in front of him, moving at the exact same velocity.
'She can change the point of origin of these accursed daggers without hesitation?!' he thought in shock as more daggers slammed into his chest, the force and number of them actually making him step back once and then twice.
Most powers that created weapons, such as Miss Militia's, were usually fairly flexible, but usually required the origin point to be the same one, such as Miss Militia's hands. The fact that she seemed to be able to outright teleport both the daggers already in motion and the point of origin of the creation of her weapons gave her a level of utility and an array of options that the Protectorate heroine didn't have, despite the greater destructive force of the modern projectile weaponry that she had access to.
Lung realised he was in a bad position, so tried to retreat, but then he was attacks from every side at once, forward, back, left, right, above, below and from every direction in between. Each blade that bit through his flesh caused him pain such as he had never felt before this day and now the wounds were not regenerating!
Held in place by a constant barrage of daggers from all sides, bleeding, regeneration seemingly defunct, in pain enough to kill a handful of elephants, Lung was still full on enough rage to push past the pain and try to break out and get at his tormentor. He almost made it.
Then two daggers flew into his eyes and blinded him. The pain spiked and Lung fell into blessed unconsciousness.
Carnwennan, otherwise known as Taylor Hebert, breathed a sigh of relief as Lung finally collapsed. She willed away the anti-regeneration daggers and the pain daggers to allow the man to heal. That had been a lot harder than she had anticipated. She could materialise up to three-thousand daggers with dual effects at once now, but that had proved to be insufficient.
Dematerialising the daggers already in his body and ramming new ones home instead had been the way to go once his scales had proven to be resistant to her daggers, and once he was large enough, shifting the daggers in mid-flight so that they struck him between the scales had worked splendidly.
Still, villain or not, she didn't like causing someone so much harm. It wasn't the way she wanted to be known. Anyone who hadn't been Lung, except maybe Crawler of the Slaughterhouse Nine, would have died in that barrage of hers.
Turning around, she left the scene quickly. She had only come across Lung by happenstance and luck and had no desire to still be here when the police or the Protectorate arrived.
With the Undersiders
"Holy shit!" Regent whispered, "She took down Lung!"
"We saw, Regent." Grue said in a subdued manner.
"I know, I just have to say it aloud to make sure my eyes and my mouth are in the same reality." The Master Cape shook his head, "I say it again: she took down fucking Lung and made it look easy!"
"It wasn't." Tattletale answered with a frown, "She was pushed to her limits in order to hold him in place. Had she been unable to create as many daggers as she had or she wasn't able to Trump them with regenerator inhibitor powers, she would have been burned to death. As it was, the strain of creating, maintaining and dismissing so many daggers in such a short timeframe was going to overwhelm her. I'd have given her five more minutes before she started bleeding from her nose."
"Shit, hear that?" Grue cocked his masked helmeted head, "Halbeard's motorbike. We need to be gone. Now!"
Bitch, who had been silent until then, whistled her dogs over and the team of teen villain galloped off, safe from Lung's wrath, at least for now. As they rode, Tattletale, Lisa Wilbourn as she called herself now, found her thoughts returning to the hero that had taken down Lung, Carnwennan.
'She was nervous as hell but wanted to stop Lung.' The Thinker thought, her power working overtime, 'She was born and raised in Brockton and hates the big three gangs with a passion because of the way they have been destroying it. Knows about how the gangs take advantage of those without work. Has utter confidence in her power, has almost none in herself. Triggered as a result of potentially life-threatening incident. Triggered as a result of extended stressful situation lasting at least a year. Almost no qualms about dying in the line of duty. Sees own life as expendable, doesn't value it other than how her actions will be beneficial to Brockton Bay.'
The throb of a Thinker Headache stopped her. Lips thinning, Tattletale frowned and sighed. She had been unable to stop her brother committing suicide, resulting in her Trigger. She was now in the possession of information that told her that this Carnwennan person was a martyr in the making. She also knew that, cents to dollars, Coil, the backer of the Undersiders and the one who held the metaphorical Sword of Damocles over her head, would want her to recruit the new Cape by hook or crook.
There was no way she could prevent Coil from trying to recruit Carnwennan. What Tattletale didn't know was whether or not he (or rather, the Undersiders) would be successful. Every time she had tried to flee, he had caught her, claiming that his power was the ability to make what he wanted to happen, happen, but he knew next to nothing about Carnwennan. If he was unsuccessful, then that would be a chink in his armour that she might be able to exploit.
If he was successful, then at least she'd be able to try and mitigate whatever the hell had happened to Carnwennan. Trigger events were always traumatic for First Generation Capes, and by the looks of the girl, her Trigger had been worse than most. Resolving it would likely be impossible, but mitigation was possible, most of the time.
She'd just have to see how things turned out.
OK, so. Carnwennan, for those of us who are not folklore and mythology buffs, is the dagger given to Arthur in the Welsh Arthurian Legends. Carnwennan, meaning Little White Hilt (not to be mixed up with Dyrnwyn [White Hilt]), is a dagger that has been attributed with the ability to make its wielder become shrouded in shadow, and was used to somehow cut a Black Witch in half. You can probably guess why I chose this name for her.
Brute: 4 (Is at peak human fitness and possesses superhuman flexibility, durability and strength, with a small healing factor thrown in.)
Shaker/Trump: 8 (Is able to create any kind of dagger, knife, bayonet or short blade. Can create a maximum of 3000 daggers after three months of intense training. Is able to grant powers to the daggers within limits. Can grant Brute, Stranger, Breaker, Striker, Blaster, Mover, Changer and Shaker powers to the daggers, but only up to three at once. The more powers that the daggers have, the weaker the powers become. Can telekinetically control the daggers and accelerate them to high speeds given enough of a run-up. Can have the daggers created anywhere within 100 meters of her and can control them to strike within a few millimetres of their intended target. Can teleport the daggers and origin point of dagger creation whilst maintaining inertia and speed. Can create multiple creation locations, but the mental strain is quite taxing without suitable training. Can vanish any number of daggers at will.)
Thinker: 2 (Is aware of her daggers on an instinctive level. Knows the location of each without conscious thought and is somewhat aware of their surroundings.)