The room was dead silent for what felt like far too long. I blinked, unsure how to take that news. Madison had gone stone still, but there was clear horror on her face. Theo was the one to break the silence. A drawn out groan of despair and frustration leading into a word.
"Fuck!" He shouted. "How the hell did you piss off Lung of all people?!"
"I'll explain later, but we seriously need your help. Grue is barely holding on and I don't think Bitch or Regent can keep distracting him for much longer."
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and flicked Madison's ear to bring her back to reality. I was sure I could take Lung by myself if I beat him fast enough, but the others definitely weren't ready to take on someone like him. At least not without outright killing him, and we didn't need that quite yet. It would be a good rep boost to beat the guy who solo'd the local Protectorate his first week in town, but I knew there would be problems. Especially if they'd already started fighting him. The problem with Lung wasn't his strength, but that he kept getting stronger. If he was a flat Brute, that'd be one thing, but the more he fought the stronger, bigger, and harder to beat he got. That was the problem. His escalation.
"Suit up." I said to the others and turned to Lisa. "How far gone is he?"
"He was a little past eight feet when I came to get you. You don't have to fight him, we just need to hold him off until the heroes show up and we can bail."
I snapped my fingers, fixing Grue back to perfect health.
"You can do what you want. We're taking him down." I said as I slipped my mask and outfit on. "But you're explaining this later."
"Where the hell…?" Grue looked up.
"Worry about it later, Grue." Lisa said.
"Alright, we're starting with an already pissed off Lung." I said to Samael and Nihilus. "When we get down there I'll stretch the area. I need bubbles as support ASAP and explosions to knock him off balance. I'll try to knock him out so we hopefully don't have to move to the big stuff. If you fire a Cero, don't do it towards the buildings. Ready?" They nodded after I laid out the game plan and we ran through the Garganta as quickly as we could.
By the time we show up it's already Hell. Lung was ten feet tall, covered in scales and fire. Regent was holding out alright but Bitch and what I assume are her minions were hurt. I fix them up as I drop down to the ground and stretch the alleyway to the size of a large ballroom.
That seems to get Lung's attention as turns his head, probably searching for Vista.
"Bubbles." I order, and the area fills up with them. Nihilus placed them around the area with gaps that would let an average sized person through with ease, but not the ten foot monster that Lung had become. He laughed at the bubbles at first. Then half his finger got blown off when he poked one.
We learned pretty early on that Nilihus' bubbles contained air pressurized to the point that they could annihilate solid concrete without leaving any debris. Touching them was a bad idea. Letting her fill the area with them was worse.
Lung roared but didn't immediately come after us. Theo set off an explosion behind him, knocking him forward and blowing several holes in his scales as he hit the bubbles. He roared again and started charging, apparently not caring that he wasn't regenerating fast enough to be fully recovered by the time he got to us. I took this as my cue and dashed towards him. I appeared in front of him in an instant, standing slightly off the ground. He didn't have time to stop or rear his fist back to hit me, but that was fine. I thrust my fist out and hit him in the solar plexus. That stopped his momentum cold, but didn't do a lot of damage. He swung his claws at my face but they went right through and I jumped up, kneeing him in the chin.
Lung stumbled back from the blow then was pushed forward as an explosion went off behind him and I hit in the stomach again. That seemed to piss him off enough. He got even bigger, more scales covering his slowly healing wounds. His fire flared, heating up the area around him and causing all of Nihilus' bubbles near the flames to pop.
That was certainly new.
He roared again as more fire spun up around him before leaping for Nihilus. Probably hoping to take her out before she could make more bubbles. He was blown back towards me by a large explosion from Samael. I grabbed him and threw him into the ground, stomping on him and cracking the concrete under him. He stood up, tossing me off and fired several balls of fire towards Samael. One of them hit him, but the others missed. Samael took the hit and his chest turned red from the blow, but he wasn't seriously hurt.
"The Protectorate is almost here! 5 five minute ETA! We're gonna take off! Meet in Las Noches later!" Lisa shouted.
"Got it!" I said, appearing in front of Lung again. He swiped at me and I phased through it, round housing him in the face. Theo blew his legs out from under him and I kicked him in the face, knocking him into the air. I followed after him, hitting him as he reeled.
"Why! Won't! You! STOP?!" Each word punctuated by a powerful punch to his torso. That didn't help. It actively made it worse. He got bigger, at least thirteen or fourteen feet now and he had grown a set of steel wings that unfolded from his back.
Great.
I phased through one of his wings, slicing it off. He started falling and I peppered him with bala's as he got closer to the ground. When he was close enough I sped down and heel dropped his face into the concrete.
"Nihilus, Negative zone!"
"Right!" She said.
The feeling of being engulfed in the Negative Zone was already disorienting, but doing so in a fight was even worse. I was just glad I was immune to it's effects. And boy did it have effects for days. The most noticeable of those was screwing with your sense of gravity and making it hard to move around. But she could also use it to floor tilt like I could, negate powers, or even reverse their effects. Such as she was doing with Lung.
The Dragon of Kyushu stood up, dizzy from both the assault and the Negative Zone. I dashed at him, phase slicing through his legs and one of his arms. He roared and screamed from the pain and thrashed as his transformation reversed, his incoherent vowels becoming full on screams of rage and curses.
"That should be enough." I said.
The effects went away as the zone was dropped and it was only then that I saw members of the Protectorate standing at the end of the alleyway.
"Shit." A sighed, looking at the heroes, up in arms and ready to fight. "Nihilus, drop the bubbles." I said, knocking out Lung and putting his mask back on him.
The bubbles faded away and I picked up Lung and we started towards the heroes.
"What are we going to do?" Samael asked.
"Be cool. Don't say anything stupid and relax."
"Hero or villain?" Armsmaster asked, halberd clutched in his hands. Assault and Battery were there with Miss Militia, Dauntless, and eve Velocity. They really brought everyone out for this.
"We're just independents." I said, dropping Lung in front of them. "We heard Lung causing problems and came to see what was up. There was another group here, but they bailed towards the end."
"The Undersiders?" He asked.
"I wouldn't know." I shrugged.
"Well, you certainly did a number on him." Assault said.
"Was all this really necessary?" Miss Militia asked.
"It's Lung. If there was a better way to stop him than amputation, I don't have it. They'll grow back, right? Speaking of, we did stop his healing factor for a bit and we hurt him pretty bad, so I don't think sedatives are a good idea right now. Not that he's going anywhere." I explained.
"Names?" Armsmaster asked.
"Ah. To my right is Nihilus. On my left is Samael. I," I gave a slight theatric bow, "Go by Sacrosanct. We're The Espada."
"Espada…"
"You look like teenagers." Battery said. "You know the Wards would be the safest place for you to go. Especially after you managed to take out Lung. The rest of the ABB will be out for you and the Empire might try to get their hands on you. Especially from what we've seen of you. Capes as powerful as you seem to be don't show up often."
"I appreciate the offer, but we'll have to decline. We aren't looking for anything… formal at the moment. And I think we'll be able to hold our own for long enough."
"Well, we won't try to force you, but independents, even the strong ones, don't last too long. They usually end up dead or recruited by six months out in costume." Dauntless said.
"We'll take our chances." I said. "Nihilus, if you would?"
She drew her finger across the air and opened a portal, causing some the Protectorate heroes to cock their heads in interest.
I snapped my fingers and the alleyway went back to its original size.
Samael and Nihilus stepped through the portal and I stopped short.
"Consider Lung a gift. A token of good will, if you'd please. I'd like to avoid trouble with the protectorate for as long as possible. Enjoy the rest of your night." I say as the Descorrer snaps shut.
I let out a sigh of relief as we start back towards Las Noches.
"That fucking sucked!" I shout.
"I can't believe he popped my bubbles with his fire!"
"Those explosions would have killed anyone else! He just ate them like breakfast!" Shouted. "Lisa has a lot of explaining to do."
"Yeah she does."
We step into Las Noches to find Lisa and her team standing. Well, everyone except Alec is standing.
"So, mind explaining what the fuck just happened?" I asked.
"Okay, I know you're upset, but we really needed the backup. You said we'd help each other, right?" Lisa asked.
"I did, but some warning would've helped!"
"What did you even do to piss off Lung?!" Theo shouted.
"We've been hitting some of his safe houses. Stealing money, stuff like that." Grue answered. "Who are you, by the way?"
"I'm Sacrosant. That's Nihilus and he's Samael. We're the Espada. I'm guessing you're the Undersiders?"
"Yeah, I'm Grue, that's Bitch, that's Regent, and you already seem to know Tattletale. And how do you know them, Tattletale? Or, better question, how did you even get us here? Where even is this place?"
"In reverse order, we call this place Las Noches and I'm pretty sure it's a sub dimension, I got us here because I kinda got new powers and they were all here when I got them." Lisa explained.
"New powers?"
"They're… Conceptual in nature. I haven't been able to figure out much more than that. They're a real trip though. We all have pretty standard brute powers, some blaster powers, and then even more personal stuff on top of that."
"You know you really should have come to us before Lung started turning. We could have played it off as having been in the area like we already did. Jumping into a fight with him is intense even when you know he can't do much to you." I sighed, flopping down into my throne.
"I wasn't expecting it to get that bad." She sighed.
"It's fucking Lung! The human dragon! It's always going to be bad! The dude took on an Endbringer! A fucking Endbringer!" Madison slid into her own seat.
"You know you have to tell me these types of things, Tats. If I'd known we had back up from the start this could've gone differently." Grue sighed.
"I know, but I couldn't find a good time to tell you. I don't want the boss knowing about them. Especially since they weren't supposed to make their debut like this."
"Why wouldn't you want the boss knowing?"
"Lot's of reasons. But mainly because…" She trailed off, instead making her mask appear on her face. "I don't need him knowing I have two Cape identities. The less he knows about that, the better I feel about it."
"Jesus Christ, this whole situation is just a massive cluster fuck."
"You're telling me!" Alec shouted.
"Shut up, Regent!" Lisa and Grue said in unison.
"No respect." He sighed dramatically.
"Listen." I sighed. "It's been a long night. You guys almost died. How about we go home, get some rest, and we'll meet over lunch tomorrow to talk it out. That okay with you, Grue?"
He sighed, but nodded. "Yeah, that works. Where?"
"We'll meet at a Pizza place a few miles north of Winslow High. It's on Crescent. Kinda hard to miss if you're looking for a pizza place in that area. Meet around noon. You can order the pizzas if you get there first."
"Alright. You can get us home, Tats?"
"Yeah. Come on, Regent. Time to go!"
"Finally!" Regent slipped off his throne and slinked after the rest of the Undersiders.
The portal shut behind them as they left.
"… Alec is such an asshole." Madison said.
"Yeah." I sighed.
"Tonight was intense." Theo sat in his throne, tapping his foot.
"This was a hell of a way to make a debut. I was super nervous dealing with the heroes." I melted into my seat and lit a cigarette.
"Yeah, you got all formal. It was super weird." Madison said.
"Shut up. You wouldn't have done much better."
"We'll see. Bet I do better next time we talk to them."
"I hope that's not for a long time."
"Well, this night has been absolutely ridiculous. I'm gonna go home and sleep." Theo stood up.
"Same!" Madison sighed.
"Yeah, I'd like to go to bed and relax."
"Wait, can I come to the meeting tomorrow?" She asked.
I shrugged. "Don't see why not."
"Thanks." She took off for home.
I flicked my cigarette into the void of the Garganta as I made my way to my own bed.