THE TECHNO QUEEN
1.2
Dennis was excited.
Just ten minutes ago, he'd been wary. Grim. He'd be facing a potentially life-threatening situation in just moments, faced against a villain, someone who had, for one reason or other, decided that they would not get what they wanted by working within the laws their government had asked them to follow. He, or his friends, might get hurt. They might die.
But now he was in the seedier parts of Brockton Bay, a place firmly in the E88's territory, and he was excited. Because, as it turned out, they weren't fighting Kaiser. They weren't fighting Hookwolf, or Cricket, or Stormtiger, or any of those Nazis.
They were fighting THE TECHNO QUEEN.
"-cower before my mighty intellect as I power up my Beam of-"
She was interrupted by having to frantically dodge out of the way of a blast from Kid Win's laser gun. After a brief fight between her legs and her cape she stood up again.
"Well! That was rude. Interrupting a super villain right in the middle of her villainous monologue! Harrumph!"
She actually said harrumph. Who did that? Who actually said harrumph? THE TECHNO QUEEN. THE TECHNO QUEEN said harrumph. Dennis honestly wondered if he was in love.
"Seize them, my minions!"
Suddenly the robots which they had been just moments ago effortlessly defeating dog piled them in a very efficient manner. Before he knew it, he was being held in an inescapable grasp, and if he used his power now he'd still be just as trapped.
"Anyways… as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, cower before my mighty intellect as I power up my Beam of-"
"You practiced this speech didn't you?" Shadow Stalker said.
Dennis turned his head as much as he could in the direction of her voice and saw her being pinned in place by at least seven robots, unable to phase into her shadow state due to being surrounded by electricity, the robots. She sounded very pissy about this fact.
THE TECHNO QUEEN paused. She then, in a very decisive way, turned away from them.
"What does it matter?" she said, in the sulkiest voice Dennis had ever heard in his life, and he'd babysat for four year olds, too. "It's not as if you'll listen. Honestly, I don't know why I bother at all. You don't care. You don't appreciate it."
Dennis, much to his horror, thought he heard sniffling.
"I know what you say about me," She said in a terribly choked up voice. "On the- the PHO, and the in-internet, and I- I-"
"No!" Dennis yelled, as surprised by it as his teammates were. Well, in for a penny in for a pound. He'd never hear the end of this.
"Not the Beam." He packed the single word with as much pure horror as he could muster.
"Clockblocker," Aegis hissed. "What are you doing?"
Dennis soldiered on.
"Please! Have mercy! Anything but the Beam!"
THE TECHNO QUEEN was quiet, but her breathing seemed to be quieting down.
"I- I have so much to live for! I'm too young!" He struggled to come up with more to say.
With a dramatic flourish of her cape, THE TECHNO QUEEN spun around.
"So! At last, you break! But you will find no mercy from me, heroic Clockblocker! Prepare yourself, as I power up my Beam of Doom-" of course it was called the Beam of Doom, "-and destroy all that you love!"
The gigantic beam in the middle of the street slowly began to glow an alarming red.
"Witness, as I turn every single piece of chocolate in this town into broccoli."
Indeed, she had managed to shock all of the Wards present into speechlessness, though from the sheer evilness of her plan it was not, though Clockblocker didn't see a reason to disillusion her.
She laughed in a maniacal, practiced way.
In the end, Browbeat arrived at the last second, having started his shift later than the others because of family matters, and freed them all, and they managed to destroy the Beam of Doom before it turned every piece of chocolate in Brockton Bay into broccoli, somehow. Clockblocker did just not get Tinker tech. From what he could gather, it was just complete and utter bullshit.
THE TECHNO QUEEN gestured some with her cape, made some speech about how this was not the last they would be seeing of her, singled out Clockblocker as her arch nemesis even though it had been Browbeat who'd actually foiled her, and then in a poof of smoke she disappeared, and somehow, while they weren't looking, every single one of her surviving thirty robots fled.
Shadow Stalker went sprinting ahead in her shadow phase, muttering grouchily about capes that didn't know what they were doing. Aegis and Kid Win flew ahead, and Vista did her… thing. And so it was that Dennis, Browbeat, and Gallant were the only ones left to walk back to the base like normal human beings.
"So," Gallant said, conversationally.
"So." Clockblocker said.
Slowly a rare mischievous grin grew on Gallant's face.
"Too young to die, eh?"
Clockblocker groaned, face palming. Gallant was teasing him! He'd never hear the end of this. But he didn't regret it, if just because one of the few villains that wouldn't actually hurt them hadn't decided to throw in the towel. The fact that hearing her voice upset made him feel guilty as all hell had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nope.
AN: OTP sorry not sorry
