Amelia Claire Lavere
Amy bitterly realized that maybe she had bitten more than she could chew.
If she had to describe her fight with Oni Lee in a few words, none would be more apt than a "complete and total stomp". The assassin was relentless attacking no-stomp with his arsenal of bombs, knives, and blades. A few times she had tried to attack him fighting back, trying to dish more damage than he could and heal back. All her efforts had been worth just a fist full of ash, literally so because every time she thought to have got him, he simply dusted away, reappearing and striking from one blind spot, sometimes multiple blind spots at the same time.
She had been wrong, Oni Lee wasn't a Demon, not at all, Oni Lee was the entire fucking Hell, each of his clones a different jailer, tormentor and torturer, Minos, Cerberus, Plutus, and the Furies, all the nine circles rolled into one man-sized package.
She should feel worried, feel scared for her life. She should scream, calling for help… A part of her mind wanted to run and scream away… This wasn't a fight with a beast, this was her first and proper cape fight. She never fought directly against any other cape before. But exactly because it was her first fight, she couldn't ruin it by running away...
Also, for one screaming was quite complicated with the blade that was currently lodged inside her throat. The Demon had tried to put an end to the fight by severing her spine with a knife through the neck. She had barely managed to move her head enough to avoid the blade meeting her spinal column but now she had to deal with a blade inside her neck. It didn't bleed that much, so she saved vials for worse injuries. And she had stolen a blade from Oni Lee, the real one. She was closer to victory, wasn't she? Oh, no he is pulling out another one, oh fuck…
Eight vials consumed, six left. So far, he stabbed me five times, two times in the stomach, one in the back and one in the neck, he had made himself blowing up three and almost severed my right leg.
Oni Lee dashed again with his knife in hand aiming for her eyes, the Hunter sidestepped on the left, before turning her back and raising her weapon to block the second copy's overhead slash that she knew was coming. He had tried this trick before. The handle of her axe and her short blade of the ABB Killer met in a small explosion of sparks.
Unfortunately, she couldn't stop the third copy to blow itself up over her back. Fire and heat scorching it, as searing shrapnel dug through her flesh. The roaring sound of the explosion temporarily stunning her mind and robbing of her hearing. The Demon didn't waste the moment, a fourth copy appeared and swiftly plunged its blade through her stomach. Amelia powered through the pain and the burning strain of her molten back muscles, pulling out her Hunter's Gun firing right into the middle of the monster head. The projectile met her target, but as the body fell, again it disappeared into that carbon white ash before it could meet the ground.
At least she had a moment to respite, a moment to crush not one vial but two, the damage she had taken was too much for a single one, she took an instant to savor the feeling of her back repairing itself, the small still bright-red hot shrapnel shards slowly being pushed out her back by her regrowing flesh.
It was like a warzone, the entire second floor of the building had been ravaged by Oni Lee kamikaze onslaught, reeking with the smell of burning flesh. The explosions hadn't been kind to Newter's corpse and flames were rising with such intensity, too much intensity, was Lung here too? Amelia's breath was coarse, black smoke, and the blade inside the throat made it hard to fill her lungs with precious air. Sweat and blood, still dripping from the wound in her neck that refused to regenerate until she had removed the knife, mixing into a sticky solution that made her clothes (which had taken the consecutive explosions surprisingly well) cling at her body like a second skin. Her ears still ringing, her head spinning. An implacable devil, always attacking, never backing down, never stopping, not even in death. This is war, this is hell. I died and now I am in hell…
Had she died? When she died? Maybe it was the first time, back in Chalice when she had been blasted by fucking cannon. Had been everything a pre-mortem hallucination? A lie? An illusion? She died in Chalice and went to hell. Everything was hell. Skitter. Mother. Father and, now, Oni Lee. She chuckled mirthlessly. Carol was so right…
…Only when she went to hell, she had started to feel alive…
She returned her Axe to her smaller compressed form, the Demon was back, his blades, his knives, aiming for her heart. She put her right arm in front of the blade, in an effort of blocking it and maybe finally pinning down Oni Lee. Her left hand acted simultaneously swinging the much larger axe toward the Assassin's neck. The weapon hit the spot but blood never spilled… even the knife lodged into her arm disappeared...
…Again, that accursed ash…
Above you
She could only dash, with a blade still lodged both in her neck and in her hand, as the clone blew himself up. Her body avoided most of the damage, only a few shrapnel shards lodging right into her shoulder.
What I am missing…
Was it power? No, she was sure that she was physically stronger, Oni Lee wasn't a brute, he was a mover. Speed? How could be faster than a teleporter whose only limit was eye contact? Intelligence? How could she outsmart something that didn't think? In this few… minutes? Yes, it has been probably a few minutes… She had made quite a picture of Oni Lee, he was a killer, plain and simple and he had a few tricks but damn if he didn't know how to abuse the shit out of them. Hide, teleport, copy kamikaze, teleport again, stab multiple times…
It was simple. It was brutal. It was effective.
She couldn't help but admire him. He was just so effective. How could she not respect such a well-polished machine? She would have loved to spent an afternoon, just watching him work, killing worthless vermins… Watching his victims trying to run away with no avail…
It was intoxicating. Even now, yes it was frustrating but damn if it wasn't fun. Her heart was beating no stop, the sweat, the pain, the excitement, the rush when weapon met flesh, both him and hers. Who cares from where the blood flows, after all?
Oni Lee…" She growled, her voice sounded metallic and barely human, thanks at the blade lodged inside her neck. Talking hurt, each time her throat moved, the blade moved too. "GIVE. ME. YOUR. BLOOD!"
She dashed at the Demon, thirsting for the red in his veins. She wanted to see him spill blood, just once. He had seen her, bleed so much it was only fair for him to do the same of her. The crow-feathered cape tried to split the Demon in two with a single overhead strike. She knew she had already teleported and this was only a copy… When she felt something lunge at her from her right, she was ready.
Changing the attack on the fly, Amelia activated the trick mechanism, inside her weapon, and spun the now longer axe on her right. "FOUND. YOU!" She screamed as the blade met only what she could hope was the body of the ABB killer.
Yes, I did it. I hit him. I did it. I… Why he is turning to ash? Oh, fuck, not again….
How did they say? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, but fool me thrice with the same fucking trick? Really?
Amelia could only bitterly welcome the explosion and the second copy of the Demon blew himself up again, scorching the left side of her body, sending small fragments of hot metal right in her eye, through the hole in the mask, and even moving the blade lodged into her neck. That still hurt just as much as having the entire left side of her body being set on fire.
It was a miracle that the blade did fly out from the force of the explosion, beheading her for good.
Amelia, mustered all her strength to try to raise herself on her feet, she couldn't see any more from the left eye, the right one was useless. The whole right side of her body was screaming in pain for the burns. Her costume was charred, the messengers will a lot of work to do to fix it this time. Turns out that those cute little things are excellent tailors. Her ears were still ringing for the explosion. She was pretty sure that her left ear didn't work that much anymore. Yes, her ears were ringing and… crumbling?
No, that crumbling sound didn't come from her head, it came…. She looked up at the ceiling.
Well, turns out that a building can take only so many explosions before collapsing. Who would have ever thought…?
The Bio-tinker used her last ounce of energy to dash towards the fire-exit, she had no idea if the entire building was going to collapse of just the second floor, maybe only the part of the ceiling, she was nearly completely blind, and she didn't want to test her luck. Unfortunately, in her rushed escape, she tripped and she came down the last part of the fire-proof stairs rolling like a large ball of charred feathers… It was undignifying, it was humiliating, it was painful, especially each time the blades lodged into her hand and neck moved.
Again, she rose on her feet: a blade in her neck, a large cut in her arm at least 3 broken ribs, one eye blind, and one ear that didn't work anymore, how could this go even worse? Well, for starting Oni Lee escaped from the collapsing floor too and he is bolting towards you from the back…
…Amelia fell on her knees, it has been fun, a lot of fun, she loved fighting and she was grateful with Oni Lee for the fight but there was no doubt: she had been defeated… utterly so…
She didn't manage to land to a single hit, on the assassin. It wasn't like with the beasts on the Chalice, usually in those cases, she was simply killed in one single hit before the fight could even start. But no, this fight had been prolonged and yet, she failed to land a hit on him all the same…
Well, at least I will learn if I am immortal in the Waking World too, it will be a LEARNING experience…
What I am missing?
Amelia braced for a blade, lodged into the back of her head, for a final explosion that tore her body to shreds. It never came, instead, there was only a bang…
Oh, right I had completely forgotten that we came as a team. Amelia thought as she fell to the ground, landing on her back. With her hand, the one that she could still move, she looked for a vial...
A figure approached her.
Is that an angel? She remarked in her mind, trying to look with her damaged eyesight at the figure that had just appeared. The angel knelt in front of her and was holding her head and her back. Was it an angel? Was she dying? Wasn't she already in hell? She stared at the angel with her only functional eye… She stared at the black cloud-like winds, the long air, the orange lenses, the sleek design of her carapace…
Hold on, this is not an angel. This is just Skitter…
To be fair the cloud of bugs behind her looks like some kind of wings…
Using the newfound lucidity, she crushed a vial of blood against her tight. She felt her body regain strength, her mental faculties returning, her ear and eyesight adjusting. As she felt her body regenerating, she also realized that Skitter was calling her…
"Panacea, answer me, Panacea, everything is alright?"
She wanted to answer back, but she found out that the recent scuffle and falling down the stairs, had made her voice, from coarse, rasped and metallic, to completely intelligible. Realizing that it was time to remove that blade that was stuck in her neck from only god knows how long, she simultaneously grabbed one of her last to vials and the hilt of the blade…
"Wait, don't touch it…"
Too, late she had already removed the blade from her neck and injected a second vial before she could bleed out over Skitter's wonderful armor. She gasped as she felt air: cool, fresh air finally returning to her lungs. She rose on her feet, while her costume was nearly destroyed, the body underneath it was restored almost to his prime.
"How do you…"
Skitter could only stare in disbelief at the crow-feather cape that only a few moments ago seemed about to die on her lap.
"It's bio-tinker bullshit. It works only on me and my mother…" Amelia answered still, massaging her neck. It felt weird to don't have that blade lodged into it any longer, she had gotten used to it. A part of her couldn't help but feel annoyed, her throat had regenerated perfectly. There was no scar or sign of the previous injury anymore. That was the problem… There was no scar. She had just dueled to the death with Oni Lee and tomorrow she would be good as new like it never happened.
It was frustrating. She wanted proof of her valor, a badge of her hunt. Maybe she could tattoo a scar on her neck? No, that was ridiculous but the idea of tattoos wasn't so bad... She had to think about it later…
"What happened?" The former Healer asked.
"Told Labyrinth, that Newter was dead. Big mistake. Sundancer is down and I had to knock Labyrinth out. Gregor is coming to pick her." The Undersider replied. "Lung is here, Bitch, Good Hunter, and Kaiser are fighting against him."
"Oni Lee is still around, so watch out…" And as the Demon had just been summoned by Amelia words, he appeared right behind Skitter, with a flash of steel aimed towards the bug girl's neck. Skitter was fast enough to avoid it, moving so slightly so that the blade ended up meeting only the carapace and spider silk of her shoulder. Again, the Demon was stopped by a firing salvo from the sniper team perched on a roof. Amelia, after fighting him, didn't even have to look to know that he was just a copy.
Oni Lee and two copies lunged at the two female capes. Amelia whipped out her Axe's once again, happy in that moment that the Chalice had taught her to never drop her weapon, even when she was in a mind-shattering pain, Skitter did the same with the bugs hidden inside the costume and baton and knife combo. The assault was repelled but it was only a diversion for another two copies attack them from their back. The crow-feathered cape had already turned herself ready to fend off the assault she knew so well that was coming for, to her surprise Skitter did the same, baton and knife blocking and clashing with weapons of the Demon, until he disappeared in a cloud of ash and smoke.
"I can track him." Skitter told the smaller cape.
"How?"
"He teleported with some of my bugs on him. They were copied with him."
"Now, where is he?"
"Over there!" She pointed at the roof, where Oni Lee had just materialized. He was after the sniper duo. The sniper-rifle wielding one quickly found himself with a knife lodged inside his armor, right into the chest, his body fell like a rag-doll, while his partner, the spotter, was unceremoniously thrown from the building, with a copy of the ABB killer. His head met the asphalt first and Amelia swore to hear the sound of his neck snapping from here.
"He must have some weakness. He never teleports exactly over you, always a few meters near. Probably, he has some kind of cooldown before he can teleport again..."
"How do you know?"
"I am not. I am hoping for it because otherwise, I don't see how we get out of this… Behind you!"
Oni Lee bolted toward the cape from the behind, just time for being shot in the face by Amelia's Hunter Pistol, unfortunately, by the time she was lunging at her with her claw to rip and tear his entrails, the copy had already turned into dust.
"HERE NOW" Skitter screamed pointing on her left, wherein that same moment Oni Lee materialized. Was she expecting her to do? But Amelia was never able to process this. For in that very moment the only thing that Amelia could ear was a loud bang that pierced the air as Oni Lee's right leg exploded…
For the first time that night, Amelia heard the Demon scream. She fired her Hunter's gun again but for when the bullet met the devil-grinning mask. he had already teleported away, the copy taking the bullet for him.
Yet, she had seen him bleed. She had seen him finally bleed. But she didn't anything. All efforts were for naught… She looked above at the roof, at the sniper that had fired the shot. He probably thanking who had built the armor that had saved his life from the assassin knife. Also, ten out of ten for the dead body play. Although she doubted that the other guy was playing it with that twisted neck…
"I can't sense him anymore. Must be out of range…"
"Great…"
"I think that for this night, he is gone. We stopped him."
"No, you did it. I did nothing. I've been just a burden…" As the excitement for the battle slowly died out, Amelia could finally start to grasp how much she had failed. Hadn't been for Skitter and Coil's Sniper, she would be dead… Maybe. She would have run out of vials and eventually died under the Demon's onslaught.
"Panacea, you kept Oni Lee busy for five minutes. I still don't understand what the hell happened, but if it wasn't for you, I would have to deal with a grief-stricken Labyrinth and Oni Lee."
"Well, Newter and I arrived on the second floor. I subdued a thug… I was going to patch him up at the hospital this morning… but he got distracted. Oni Lee ambushed us and well…"
"No, I meant, what the hell happened to you?"
"What?"
"One week ago, you were swinging a held hostage in a bank, now you are swinging a massive axe and you just walked out from a mano a mano with Oni Lee sporting numerous life-threatening injuries… And you are still breathing"
"It's a long story…" She shrugged. By the way, Skitter was staring at her, she supposed that she wasn't satisfied with her answer at all, probably. "Can I ask you a thing?
"What?"
"What do you think I am lacking?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean… I fought Oni Lee for what 5 minutes and I didn't manage to land a single hit, then you come in few seconds, you have already picked out a strategy and ripped one of his legs off… If there somebody that can know what I am doing wrong, it is you…"
Skitter turned toward the cape, orange lenses never leaving the crow-feathered cape. "Panacea, have actually tried to use your power during the fight?"
"Uh? Well, I messed up with the biology of that thug before…"
"Okay, but I mean: Your power can work any kind of organism, right? I remember the way you messed up with the bugs at the Bank. You didn't had to necessarily touch Oni Lee... You could have done something like... knockout gas out of my bugs?"
"Uh… Do you mean…" She paused as she realized the meaning behind Skitter's words. She desperately tried to act cool and collected but she couldn't stop herself to release the dumbest "oooooh" of her entire life. Skitter was probably thinking right now, how could she have such awesome power and screwing it up, by something as simple as her lack of creativity. Wow... I really suck at this, don't I? I didn't even think about it until she spelled it out for me.
"I think that you are still too rigid. Did you actually plan during the fight, over how to beat Oni Lee? Or you just rushed against him? It's like at the Bank when you charged me with a fire extinguisher. But at that time you had Vicky, backing you, now you don't..."
"How, how do I get more... creative, then?"
"Do you remember when I set up all those explosions in the warehouse?"
Amelia nodded.
"I made a series of swarm clones that triggered Bakuda's traps. I learned this trick from Grue. Learning from watching other capes, maybe heroes instead of Villains?" Was she still trying to redeem me? I thought that she had got the message!
Then again, she was right about everything. She had rushed too much and she hadn't even thought of using it against Oni Lee. She had completely forgotten that she wasn't in the Dream. Her power worked in the Waking World. She had treated Oni Lee, like he was another beast, instead of a cape and paid the consequences.
What Skitter was asking her to do wasn't that different from what she had already done with Bitch's power: copy what she founded useful and adapt it to her fighting style... Maybe portable living matter that she could alter on the fly? She was already starting to have some idea... Hell, she didn't have to forsake her Hunter's fighting style. Maybe she could find a new weapon: an adaptable living weapon that she could tweak and alter to suit the situation. She had a lot of research to do...
"What we do now…" She asked at the Undersider.
"For now, we check out Labirynth and Sundancer, Coil's Sniper will look after them."
"Then we go to help Bitch and stop Lung…"
Turns out that to find a Dragon-man isn't a hard task: you have just to follow to the trail of scorched asphalt, metallic blades and gigantic footprints. After having assured that Sundancer and Labyrinth were fine, the duo found Lung already more dragon than a man fighting against Bitch, Good Hunter, Fenja, Menja, and Kaiser. Amy just like Oni Lee had heard stories of Lung, sweeping through the Bay and kicking singlehandedly the entire ass of Protectorate.
But seeing it in front of your very eyes, was an entirely different matter...
Lung was covered in slashed and wounds from which spilled bright red-hot blood. Yet those wounds were healing fast, faster than Hunter's blood-induced regeneration. One of Bitch's Dog had charged against the ABB Leader with his open jaws. The Silver Aberration didn't move of an inch, instead, he simply stopped with his massive already clawed hands, Angelica's charge (or was it Brutus?). Asphalt cracked both for the heat and the pressure as Lung lifted the massive canine in the air over his head, the dog feet not touching the ground anymore and then slammed the mutt against Good Hunter that had tried to seize the momentum to plunge her weapon, covered in… electricity? She had to ask her later how she did that…
Another one of Bitch's dogs lunged towards the dragon while her owner barked orders. Lung didn't bulge nor he dropped the dog. Instead, he used the augmented mutt as a blunt club slamming it against the other dog one, two, three, four times until both canine monstrosities stopped moving.
Bitch was seething in anger, screaming all the profanities she could think at the ABB Leader which probably thought that was the right moment for free himself from his new oversized dog-club, by throwing it at the Undersiders' Powerhouse that's it.
The bio-tinker wasn't able to process what was happening, for her attention was completely transfixed on the figure of the already ramped-up Lung: It was so beautiful. The sheer majesty of that figure was stealing her breath. Those powerful thighs covered in hard silver-metallic scales that grew stronger with each passing moment, metallic vicious claws that could tear through flesh like butter, those spikes on his back, embryos of a pair of wings that screamed "fuck you, square-cube law, I am a dragon and I do what I want!", the sinuous neck that went all the way up, the long, muscular, tail. It was too much. Too much for her young Biotinker mind that had just started to bloom…
The edges of her mouth were wet… was she drooling? God, she was. Drooling, while fantasizing of what she could build if she were to crack Lung's power… But she couldn't be seen in such a state. She was the daughter of Marquis. She had to keep her appearance. What if Skitter saw her shamelessly ogling that... Strong, powerful, irresistible draconic... For god's sake, snap out of it! In the spurn of the moment, she swallowed up all the drool, hoping that nobody had noticed her, focusing over the ensuing fight. She never regretted something more…
…Because she was sure that everybody heard that loud, loud, way too loud slurp.
She was even wearing a mask. Why? WHY?
…No, Skitter was staring at her. In silence.
"Did you just…"
"IT'S A BIOTINKER THING OKAY?!" Amelia screamed, her face red, redder than the flames of Lung, which, to be fair, were starting to turn white for the heat. Now, she was really grateful for wearing a mask.
Unfortunately, the sudden squeak of the Biotinker attracted the attention of the ABB Leader on the duo. Her fiery bright orange eyes of the monster set instantly on the Undersiders' Cape.
"Ooooo…"
Dropping whatever he was doing before, the monster charged, running on all fours and enveloped in a cloak of fire, toward Skitter. The sheer power behind his movement, tearing the asphalt below into bits. Amelia was still gawking. It was so different compared to Oni Lee: Oni Lee was a silent blade, striking from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, using clones and blind spots to confuse and disorient his victims. Lung, instead? He was a super-star. Every single movement, even the simple act of breathing, drew on him all the attention. You could see him come from a mile, but having the power to stop him was another story...
Yes, Oni Lee and Lung were to completely different monsters. But they were both wonderful in their own way…
The charge of the monster was suddenly halted, just in time because a wall thick blades emerged from the ground between the two capes and the ABB Leader. Three similar walls emerged, trapping the draconic aberration in a cage of metal.
Kaiser had stepped in.
"Fenja, Menja" The King clad in metal, ordered. Behind him, one of the two Valkyrie-like capes, the spear-wielding one, started to grow to a massive size. The gigantic Valkyrie, almost three stories tall, aimed the spear towards the caged dragon. With nowhere to run the ABB leader, tried to block the hit with his bare (well, not exactly bare considered the tick layer of metallic scales) claws as he did before with Hellhound, but the power behind the previous canine onslaught and the Giantess' was nowhere comparable.
And yet the Dragon did not yield.
The Giantess continued to push the spear and Lung continued to push back, his silvery arms trembling just as the tip of the spear was doing too. Amelia could swear to hear the ripping sound of Lung's muscle tissue tearing down under the stress. Muscle fibers tick as cables, breaking and collapsing, only for regenerate instantly, better, faster and stronger thanks to the phenomenal healing power of the ABB Leader. Lung was holding the ground thanks to a combination of healing factor, sheer willpower, and earth-shattering rage. The standstill lasted a few seconds until Lung simply decided to blow up.
The explosion of fire, ripped out a few metallic blades and melted the most, the kinetic energy more than enough to finally break the standstill with Fenja (or Menja?) and Lung emerged from his former prison, bigger, stronger and tougher, multiple eyes were starting to grow over his body and the already inhuman catlike head was starting to unfurl in flower-like petals, the wings finally emerged, massive draconic wings covered in those silver scales.
If Oni Lee was Hell, Lung was definitely Lucifer, emerging straight from the deepest pit of Hell. The Brightest Angel, how fitting…
The Giantess was already preparing her counterattack and her sister was growing to a similar size but Lung, now more a monstrosity than a dragon, never left them the chance. He threw a fireball right at the face of the giant cape. The sphere exploded throwing the giant back, even if she looked completely undamaged. The other one, together with their boss, was stopped by a massive wall of flames, actually more than a wall, it was an ocean of raging waves of fire…
…Lung flew with his new wings above the melted blades, ignoring the E88 capes and focusing only on the cape responsible for his previous defeat. Only, on Skitter.
"Panacea, run." Skitter told the smaller crow-feathered cape. "Is me that he wants, not you" She trying to look cool and collected, and she was doing a pretty good job. But Amelia was pretty sure that nobody would have been able to stare at whatever the hell Lung had become right now, without being scared shitless. Well, expect for nightmare fetishist Biotinkers… Like, well, her.
"The hell that I am leaving you with that thing…"
"This is not the right moment to become a hero again…"
"Who's talking about heroes? I am not going home without a piece of that sweet dragon meat!" Amelia grinned under her mask.
"Are you crazy or what?" Skitter almost screamed. She had enough of the crow-feathered antics.
"If the rush I am feeling right now means that I am crazy, then I don't want to be sane anymore!"
Lung lunged at the duo charging much faster than before and much less human. Probably, he wanted only to swap the crow-feathered away to "play" with Undersiders' cape. Like the villain do when they have finally caught their archnemesis. Skitter and Panacea braced for the impact….
…the impact that never came. The Dragon froze in the middle of his charge for the second time.
Both the monster on four and the duo stared down at the electrified blade that had been plunged in the chest. Good Hunter had materialized, right in front of the ever-growing cape. The ABB Leader was stunned by the fact that somebody had managed to pierce through his scales, and Good Hunter didn't waste the shot, removing the blade and plunging his hand inside the wound, before it could regenerate, digging in the mutated flesh and ignoring the heat.
Then she ripped something out, a massive chunk of flesh and something else: something big and warm: a massive bloated heart. Lung rose on the legs, screaming, roaring in pain. There was nothing human in that roar. Then the roar died out and the dragon fell back…
...for exactly three steps.
Lung stared back at the Hunter, looking positively murderous. In front of their very own eyes, the massive hole in the ABB Leader's torso started to regenerate, an entire heart regrowing in a matter of seconds, before being covered by layer after layer of thick flesh that looked much tougher than before.
"Well, that was unexpected…"
Good Hunter muttered before being blasted by a massive wave of fire, big, ridiculously larger than every previous Lung's pyrokinetic display, most importantly: too big to being dodged. And then, for good measure, the wave exploded, with a roaring sound almost like if the very sky was crumbling to pieces. The charred corpse of the Hunter flew in the sky, so far and so fast that duo quickly lost track of her.
Lung turned again toward the Skitter, cold hatred burned inside his eyes. The act having your heart carved out your body seemed to have made him snap. He seemed to don't care about playing with the Undersider anymore, now he wanted to just burn everything to a crisp.
Amelia stared at the monster, even if he seemed to don't care about her in the slightest. Kaiser and the cape twins were still blocked by the flame wall (which Lung had ramped out for good measure); Bitch seemed to have been knocked out by the act of having your over-sized dog thrown over you (an understandable reaction). Her mother was either dead or simply too far away to intervene in time.
That left her and Skitter, she could probably run and Lung wouldn't have cared. Hell, even Skitter would have probably understood. With Lung busy with Skitter and the others, there was a good chance that Lung wouldn't have chased her. Yes, I can run back home, to Vicky… How the hell I could think that? I am not abandoning Skitter. And I want that dragon's data!
No more running, no more going back into the hospital, not more going back to Victoria. This was HER fight. Lung was HER prize (well, technically it was Skitter's fight but whatever…).
The heat was immense. Much more than the Watchdog's flames. There was a good chance that her brain will simply fry before she could even touch the monster. She had to make a simple choice:
Either to go back, forget everything and not die of a horrible burning death.
Or.
Juicy Fire Dragon Data
A very simple decision actually.
"I AM GOING TO BUILD A DRAGON!" Amelia screamed cackling, as she abandoned the last remains of her sanity dashing towards the ABB Leader. Every fear, every sense of preservation finally washing away. "HERE BE DRAGONS! HERE BE DRAGONS!"
"Panacea, no!" Skitter screamed, without avail trying to grab the faster crow-feather cape.
"PANACEA YES" Amelia roared back. This was so much fun. To simply abandon one's restrains. Like with Oni Lee. The rush, the clash, the jolts of electricity down her spine. No Stress. No anxiety. No fear of snapping, no fear for the future. Just brutal, savage, violent FUN. She was LIVING THE MOMENT.
Tonight, Amelia Claire Lavere, among the flames, DIES. IN. GLORY.
The dragon barely registered her assault, with a simple twitch of his clawed hand, the Bio-Tinker found herself set alight. The fire burned, burned so much. Amelia instantly registered a pain like nothing she had ever felt before. Her flesh was instantly carbonized...
...But her body still resisted. Her mind willed herself to stay conscious. Even Lung was surprised as the corpse on fire didn't slow not even for a moment, while Skitter stared dumbfounded at the cape that had just thrown her life in front of her very own eyes.
For that moment of surprise, Lung paid dearly.
Amelia lunged, jumping and grabbing the Dragon deformed head. Pushing her power out. Letting the information of Lung's abnormal biology flow into her mind.
If I am in hell, I died and I went to all for all my sins… then… then…
…then, I am going to carve my own kingdom. OF SINEW AND FIRE.
…for now, I know what I am. Not a hero, not a healer. A queen. A QUEEN!
She absorbed every bit of information she could muster, as the dragon tried to shake away the small human, swinging his long snake-like neck. The chemical composition of his scales, how his body managed to circumvent the square-cube law, even his pyrokinesis. Lung's power was an open book for her. Even, then the flesh of the ABB Leader was unwillingly to change, just like Bitch's dogs, pulling biological mass out of nowhere. She couldn't kill him unless she wanted to break her rules and alter his still surprisingly human brain. Even when her mind was in haze, barely understanding anything over the searing pain of the body, anything besides the urge to feed that hunger for more data she had developed, she couldn't bring herself to break her own rules, they ha had become a part of her..
This didn't mean that she couldn't leave a little present in his body
Amelia, loosened her grip, letting her body being thrown away by Lung's warped head and neck. Just as she flew past, Lung started to scream in pain for the second time. His arms, his legs, his wings, and his tail started to fall on the ground. Amelia had just given Lung the same necrosis she had inflicted on the thug, adapted to Lung abnormal biology and tweaked so it would work much faster.
Amelia's costume was a mess. The wonderful cape of crow feathers had been reduced to a charred skeleton of her former glory. Leather and clothing were fused with scorched remains of her body. Her mask was melted over her face, her eyes destroyed. Her hand was clutching the partially melted last vial of blood. Only the eldritch properties of it, preserving it from simply evaporating away. She just needed the strength to crush it and absorb it.
She had charged Lung ready to die, not knowing if she would have returned or not, but this didn't mean that she wanted to die. Maybe before, but not anymore. Not now that she had started to enjoy her life, not now that it had started to make sense, not now that she had something that vaguely resembled a not-related-to-Victoria friend.
Unfortunately, her muscle had turned to ash and her bones to cinders. She couldn't break the vial, she simply couldn't.
Fortunately, as she landed on the ground prone, mother Earth was kind enough to break it for her, as her body fell over the vial and crushed it with its weight. An impromptu ministration, but a ministration nonetheless, her brain was brought back, back from the brink. Even if her body was completely disfigured, her muscles were restored enough to move, her eyesight returned, the teeth that had melted in her own throat, regrown so she could speak, her tact sense partially restored so she could use her power.
The first conscious thought of Amelia was that everything hurt like hell. The costume was attached to her flesh and the melted mask on her face. But at least she was alive.
Meanwhile, overwhelmed by the pain of losing all your limbs at the same time, Lung couldn't maintain the wall of fire that blocked the E88 capes. Fenja or Menja seized the moment, dashing at Lung again and striking him with her sword and spear. But even in that state, Lung's scales where enough to block the most the damage. The hit served only to rekindle his rage. The now serpentine dragon fought back with flames and teeth, buds of growing flesh appearing over his amputated arms: soon they will grow back, soon he will be able to murder that bitch that did this to him.
Skitter, at that moment, couldn't care less about Lung, she could only care about the cape that, to her eyes, had given her life to defend her, that was in that situation because of her. She rushed at her side, gently raising her head, hoping for breathing, hoping somehow for a chance to fix this mess.
Amelia, much to Skitter relief, coughed ash and smoke.
"Don't worry, Skitter, I'll live." Her voice was coarse, her vocal cords still partially burned, but she could talk.
"How could… How could you be so fucking stupid?" Wow, she sounds really worried...
"Relax, it's nothing, just a minor sunburn…" Amelia joked and was sure to have heard Skitter mutter under her breath something like "fucking tinkers".
"So, what did you discover?" A third voice interrupted the touching moment. Kaiser strolled in, while Fenja and Menja were holding back the dragon that had almost regrown his arms and tail. The man of iron seemed completely unaffected by the fact that a girl had almost burned to death, simply staring down at her with both his arms behind his back.
"What" The charred cape coughed back.
"Your power, what did it discovered? We have spies in both the Central Hospital and the PRT, we know that you can understand everything about an organism's biology with a touch. Does he have any weakness?" Kaiser inquired.
"She needs a doctor…NOW." Skitter yelled back.
"I'm fine." Amelia waved with her hand while lifting her torso and looking at Kaiser. "Well, to answer your question. Brute strength is pointless against him. He will simply continue to grow: more strength, more fire, more regeneration. I forced him to return to a smaller state but it will ramp his power more again…"
"I ask you again: Does. He. Have. Any. Weakness?"
"Well, he needs to breathe."
Skitter stiffened, almost like she had been struck by lightning. She looked at Lung for a moment and then at both Kaiser and Panacea: "That's it. I know how to beat him. But you will have to do everything I say…"
"The Empire will not take orders from…"
"Don't underestimate me, Kaiser. You will do as I fucking say. Understood? " Skitter seethed with a cold fury that made even Kaiser step back. Almost as he had just been scared into compliance by the younger cape, the King in Iron didn't reply nor he fought back, which Skitter took as okay to go on...
"Do you know the Greek Tale of Bellerophon and the Chimaera? My mother loved Greek myths…"
"The What?" Amelia only recognized the word Chimaera, which if she recalled correctly, was a fusion of multiple animals. She could build one of those…
"I do and I think to understood what you want to do" Kaiser replied, glancing at the Dragon. "Will you take care of executing it?" Seriously, can someone explain it to me?
"I'll do" Skitter nodded.
"Very well" With a rippling and sound of grinding metal a massive spear, long as Skitter was tall emerged from the ground. Skitter grabbed the spear and wielded it with some unease, while the Empire Leader turned toward Fenja and Menja barking a simple command, which somehow the twin capes managed to perfectly understand, something that irked Amelia to no end. Why does nobody want to explain anything to me?
The two capes grew to an even larger size and dropped their weapons, starting to wrestle with Lung which had already grown back both his arms and legs, but not his wings. He was closer to when he was still fighting against Hellhound but he seemed to ramp-up faster than ever.
One of the twins locked Lung's head pinning it at the ground and forcing it open While the other blocked the rest of his body. Lung fought back with fire, trying to burn the two capes with his pyrokinesis but Fenja and Menja didn't yield even a moment, even with the evident burn marks.
Then Skitter pointed the metal spear towards Lung and everything became clear. Did she want to skewer his brain with that metal pole?
"Wait" Amelia rose herself up, ignoring the pain of her strained muscles. The old blood could only heal so much.
"What?" Skitter answered back.
"Let me help, please..." The Bio-tinker asked, offering her hand. Skitter took a moment to understand what Panacea wanted to do, then nodded and Panacea placed his and over much taller girl head. It was awkward, but it was the fastest way to have her powers work to her.
Last time they had met, she threatened to give her cancer, obesity, to have everything taste like bile for the rest of her life. Now, she had a chance to do it… Yet, she didn't think about it not even for a moment.
"Wow" Skitter muttered, "It feels much lighter…" She now held the massive spear of metal with much more ease.
"Don't worry, I didn't turn you into a brute, it's just an injection of adrenaline… Mothers can lift cars to save their children and whatever… Aegis does this all the time" Which reminds me: next time I see him grab him, strap him to a table and vivisect him until I understood how that marvelous adaptational biology works.
"What did you to my hair?" Skitter noticed how her hair looked like covered in some tick oily grease.
"That? It's a highly-heat resistant grease. Being burned alive gave me some idea of how to avoid the same to happen to your hair. You care a lot about them, I guess? I mean you are so practical and yet you don't wear a helmet..." There are nowhere as fabulous as mine, by the way.
Skitter didn't answer instantly, simply staring at the scarred Biotinker for a moment. "Pan… No, Amelia… Thank you". It was probably one of the most sincere thank you Panacea had ever received.
"Kick his ass"
"Best of luck" Kaiser grunted. Skitter simply steeled herself, pointing the spear toward the still-growing dragon that the giantess duo struggled to submit, now completely covered into burns. They will probably be able to block only for few other seconds.
Skitter charged dashing like a pole vault athlete, fueled by Panacea's adrenaline, the spear pointed towards the dragon. Lung noticed her nemesis' charing at hi, unable to fight with his claws, he resorted to simply throw fire at the cape, that took no damage thanks to the costume and Panacea's tweaks.
"OOOOO…." Lung roared, a second away from finally freeing himself from the E88 Twins.
"Yeah, me" Skitter replied.
Skitter shoved the metal spear down the Dragon's mouth forcefully opened. With the help of Fenja (or Menja), the Heroine managed to shove it all the way down Lung's throat to the point that he would have to tear his head off to remove it.
At that point Lung finally freed himself from the grip, exploding again and throwing away the heavily burned E88 Capes, as well as Skitter. The ABB leader was surrounded by a cloak of flames and had finally grown back to his previous massive proportions, his wings unfurled again. He stared a Skitter with fiery murder in his eyes. He summoned as much fire as he could. No more games, no more pushing around, he was going to burn this little cockroach and the entire city to a crisp. He would remove that fucking spear from his body, once everybody was dead.
This was his fatal mistake. More fire. More heat.
Because while his body was immune to his own fire, the metal of the spear inside his sinuous neck wasn't. And surrounded by all that heat Kaiser's spear started to melt, slowly dripping from his throat into his lungs.
Only, when he started to cough, an inhuman grotesque cough, Lung finally realized what he just has done.
Quickly, Lung suppressed all the fire around him, with his pyrokinetic abilities but it was with no avail. The metal inside him was already melting. Desperately he tried to claw his way to his lungs, ripping them out and regenerating it, clean. But the scales made hard for him to hurt himself and the healing factor that made him such a threat now was working against him. He was still growing, his body craved for even more oxygen than what his metal-filled lungs couldn't give.
He started to vomit metal, but it was too much. Too much had already seeped into his lungs. He stared again at the girl that just defeated him twice, his eyes, once filled with fury, were now filled with fear.
As he kept vomiting molten metal, as his cough got more and more frenetic, Lung started to shrink growing smaller and smaller until he was human again. And so, not with a bang but with a rattle, the ABB Leader collapsed on the ground suffocated.
"Can you fix him?" Skitter asked Amelia, that had walked, well wimped, toward her, as the surviving capes were slowly checking if the fight was over.
"Well, it will be complicated. I have to remove all the metal inside him. Maybe he will end up in a coma but considering that is Lung who we are talking ab-" She never finished that phrase, for a massive spear of metal interrupted her, impaling the unconscious body of Lung and pulling out a large part of his entrails, out his body.
"Well, I am certainly impressed..." Kaiser walked in, his arms crossed behind his back, admiring how he had just skewered a man now, that he couldn't fight back. "But now, if you would excuse me, step aside. I have a dragon to slay…"
The King in Iron inclined his chin and smaller spears started to appear all over the larger one, piercing and impaling the defenseless body, aiming in particular for the brain. As the blades grew in size, they started to tear off the fallen ABB leader piece by piece, until the remains of the cape were spread all over what looked like a grisly and grotesque mockery of a Christmas Tree, made out of blades and with Lung's body destroyed beyond repair for decorations...
"What have you done?" Skitter yelled at the Empire's Ruler.
"You have my word, Skitter, I am not trying to steal your credit. The Empire will make sure that you will receive all honors that are due. I'll even let the dogfighting thing slide. But I would never leave that animal in hands of those imbeciles of the Protectorate so that they can help him to escape again..."
Well, he has a point.
"He was…" Skitter tried to reply.
"…An animal and he died as such." Kaiser interrupted her, then he turned towards Panacea. "Now heal my girls and we shall depart, for the Empire is done here…"
Skitter looked like she really wanted to pull a Clockblocker on Kaiser but she probably realized what horrible idea was to piss off the current leader of the, now, strongest Parahuman organization of the Bay...
Kaiser maintained his word and once her giantess was healed, he departed without saying a word. Then Amelia helped Skitter to free Bitch who was still trapped over the massive canine. Fortunately, she had not received any brain damage, just both legs were broken and a minor concussion. Something that was easy to fix. Amelia healed her dogs too, once she woke up.
They even helped to recover Newter body, once Gregor arrived to pick Labyrinth up. Part of her wanted to steal a piece of his body for her to experiment on, but as her eyes set on Gregor trying to console a heartbroken Labyrinth, not even her could bring herself to do such a thing. It's weird to know that I still have some sense of morality left… for now.
"So, we want to go? The heroes are going to burst her soon…" Good Hunter asked her daughter, having returned seemingly unscathed. When Amelia had asked her if everything was alright, she simply shrugged, telling her that "she survived worse".
"One more thing…" The still brutally scarred girl replied while glancing at Skitter who was still staring at Lungs remains up over Kaiser's metal tree.
"Hey…"
"Hey…"
They stared at each other in silence.
"So, still mad at Kaiser?"
"No, I am just… I didn't wish to this end this way…"
"Skitter, you did great. You kicked Lung's ass twice. And Oni Lee too. You did more for this city, today, that most of the heroes combined in their entire life…" Especially more than some cheating BITCH that I don't want to name, right now…
"Yeah…"
They both stared at the metal tree in silence.
"Nothing I am going to say will stop you from going full villain, right?"
"Considering that I had more fun today than in my entire life before, you are probably right…"
"You got turned into a human pincushion by Oni Lee and set on fire by Lung… And you call that fun?"
"As I said: the best night of my life…"
Skitter looked conflicted between the urge to understand just how the fuck Amelia had become this messed up and the sheer stupidity of a girl that found fun to risk her life twice in a day fun. She really needed to understand someday just what the fuck had happened but at that moment, she could only feel incredibly sore for the massive effort of shoving a metal pole long as her down the throat of giant dragon monster-cape. And Panacea had forgotten to mention, the nasty aftereffects of her injection of adrenaline. "Just... Just try to don't get yourself killed…"
"No promises are made…"
Skitter sighted and departed with Bitch.
"Now that you have made it out with your new best friend, can we go?" Her mother again complained.
"She isn't my best friend…" Technically, she is the only one, besides Vicky's friends. "Just a moment, it should be somewhere…"
She looked around searching for something. Until she found it: Lung's silver tail she had severed during the fight, was still here. She walked towards it, excited and ignoring the pain. The Bio-tinker lifted it and scanned it with her power. Yes! It had worked, it was still alive, thanks to the tweaks she had done while altering Lung's Biology. She could work with this.
Despite the injuries, Amelia couldn't help but sport the dumbest grin of her entire life.
She turned towards her mother, holding the massive tail, like a 7 years old brat would hold his very first fish caught at the lake, during the family trip.
"Mom, can I keep it?"