One of my reviewers said something that got me grinning.
ReaperCB919 said, "S-class now stands for 'Saiyan'."
I love the way that sounds.
Chapter Five: Nine Little Psychos
"How did you do it?" Eidolon asked, "How did you do what thousands of other capes have tried to do for years?" The man was standing in an interrogation room. There was a steel table that was bolted to the ground, a two way mirror, and four folding chairs.
Sitting in two of the chairs were Danny and Taylor Hebert. Taylor was shoveling an insane amount of food into her mouth. She must have eaten twenty pounds of food already, and still kept going.
The hero supposed that, considering how she looked when she first came in with him- pale clammy skin, dilated pupils, limbs shaking, breathing ragged-, eating a metric fuck ton of food was far preferred. It didn't particularly matter what it was, either. As long as it was edible, she ate it.
She barely stopped long enough to answer, though thankfully not attempting to speak around a mouth full of food.
"I almost didn't," she said, looking into the glow of his hood, "I killed an Endbringer in seven seconds and everyone is celebrating it. If they knew what I knew, they'd be quivering in their boots."
The man in the green and white costume crossed his arms over his broad chest, "And what is it that you know?"
"I hit Leviathan with the equivalent of a supernova, give or take a few thousand nukes, and it took seven seconds to kill him. I had to charge that attack for forty minutes, and it only hit him because I knew exactly where to teleport to," she said, setting down her food for a moment, "If I had pointed that attack downwards, our planet would have been vaporized in one second. Do you honestly think I'll get such a clean shot at Behemoth? Or Ziz?"
Eidolon didn't quite know what to say to that. It was a valid question. He doubted that the Simurgh would just sit there and let Saiyan kill her. Behemoth would be even harder with his dynakinesis. Sure, Blasters weren't wholly ineffective against him, but who knew how much it would take for something like that to kill him.
Sending her against the other Endbringers at this point would just not work. Serious work needed to be done before that.
But that didn't mean there weren't any other jobs that she could be useful for.
Eidolon could think of nine particular people that needed a good bit of the Leviathan treatment.
"I have something in mind that I think you can help with, Saiyan. How long until you are battle ready again?"
"Another four hours. But, if you want me to be stronger, give me a week," the teen told him, "What is it that you want me to do?"
"I want you to kill the Slaughterhouse Nine."
-9001-
Lisa sat at Coil's desk, looking across at the little girl that was still twitchy from her brief times on the powerful stimulants.
"My parents are dead," the little girl said. It wasn't a had asked the numbers. She knew it was the truth.
"Yes, they are," the blonde teen said.
"You don't want to let me go," the little girl said again.
"No, I don't," Tattletale sighed, "I'd rather have you working for me. Our two powers could be quite useful when put together. For instance," she turned around the computer screen, showing the gathered info on the entire Empire Eighty Eight that Coil had gathered, "I can make a guess about how the E-Eighty Eight will react, but you could tell me the odds of it working in my favor if I outed them, anonymously," she shrugged and deleted the file, "That was Coil's plan. Dumb as fuck, if you ask me. The unwritten rules of the game make that a ploy that would have eventually gotten him killed. He probably would have asked the vaguest of questions about it, then used his power to see what would happen."
Dinah nodded. The chances of the Empire actually falling because they were outed were below forty percent. The chances that they would turn on the city violently, seventy eight point three three percent. Chances of Tattletale doing that, six point zero two percent.
"But I won't keep you here against your will. I know what that is like," she reached into her desk, and pulled out a stack of bills, "Instead, I'll offer to pay you for every answer I get. Ten thousand a piece. I don't care where you go, if you decide to leave. I'll still contact you, if you'll let me, and I'll still pay you."
Dinah stared at the stack of money, glared at it really, "You'd let me go live with my uncle? With a hero?"
"Certainly," Lisa smiled, "You could even tell him where my base is, if you want. I won't be here by the time he gets here, and I'll never contact you again."
The little girl glared at her lap, clutching the fabric of her pants in her hands, "Why?" it was almost a whisper, "The numbers. They keep giving me absolutes. Chances you're lying, zero percent. Chances you'll keep your word, one hundred percent. Chances of you doing what Coil did to me, zero percent. Why does that keep happening? What makes you so special?"
Lisa shrugged, "You saw that video of Saiyan killing Leviathan yet?" after the girl nodded, the villainess went on, "I will be able to do that too, soon enough. Having you on board would be a great help, but it isn't crucial, I can, and will, take over the underworld with brute force if I have to. I'm even thinking about awakening chosen among my mercs, if they prove loyal enough. I don't need you, I want you. And I'm willing to pay ten grand a question for you. Nothing more, nothing less."
Dinah released the grip she had on her pants, taking a deep breath, "Alright, I'll do it. But I want to live with my uncle."
"Splendid. I'll have Jacobs take you to the mall and keep an eye on you until your uncle shows up," she pressed a button on her desk, smiling, "Before you go, I do have one question." she pushed the stack of bills forward.
"What?" The girl reached up and took the money.
"What are the chances that Saiyan and I will fight in the future?"
"One hundred percent," not even a second of hesitation, "I can't say who will win. The numbers get weird when I try that, but you will fight. And one more thing," the girl said.
"Yes?" Tattletale asked raising an eyebrow, "What is it?"
"Don't use Saiyan's file. If you do, you'll lose," Dinah got up and left at that point, meeting Jacobs just as he opened the door.
Lisa frowned, looking at the briefcase full of notes on the teen that had just killed an Endbringer. What was it that was so dangerous? Why would she lose?
Was it worth the risk to find out?
-9001-
At the Protectorate HQ, Taylor Hebert was going through her usual workout routine. She had been at it for an hour so far, and sweat was pouring off of her. She was on the bench press now, genuinely struggling to lift the bar for yet another rep.
Now, you may ask what kind of Tinker Tech bs was she using that could give her the necessary difficulty to make it worth her time to even lift? How much must it weigh? What kind of gravity manipulating chamber were they letting her use?
The answer, not what you think.
"Ha, look at this," an unwanted voice said, "The big, bad Saiyan, Killer of Enbringers, struggling to bench a hundred and eighty pounds."
Taylor set the bar on the rack after just twenty reps and sat up, wiping her brow of sweat, "Hello, Sophia."
"Hello, she says," the black girl snorted.
"What?" the girl frowned, "What's wrong with saying hello? Does that offend you?"
"Nope," Sophia said, popping the p, "Not in the least," she pulled up a set of free weights, "I'm just in awe," she started curling thirty pounds on each arm, staring directly at the girl, "Bitch kills the unkillable, then acts like she's nobody special. It's weird."
Taylor shook her head, "No, it's really not. It was a fluke. Extenuating circumstances let me kill him," she took a sip from her water bottle, "I beat Lung, Lung fought Leviathan to a stand still. I thought that meant I could beat Levi-chan just as easily. I was wrong."
"But you killed him, didn't you?" Hess insisted.
"Yup," Taylor nodded, but didn't explain further, "And to answer your first question, I can turn my powers off, sorta-kinda. Makes it much easier to work out if I don't have to find something that weight a couple of gigatons every time I want to do some curls."
"Hmm," the other girl just hummed, looking rather skeptical, "Whatever. Emma wants me to invite you over to her place for dinner."
Taylor looked at Sophia with a stony mask, "I don't like you, Hess. I don't like Barnes, either. We are not friends. We are teammates, nothing more. You don't get to do the friendly dinner thing with me. You can tell Barnes to stay the fuck away from me. Just because you can't hurt me anymore doesn't mean I'm not holding a grudge." With that said, Taylor put her fingers to her forehead and teleported away with the usual twang.
"Damn it," Sophia cursed under her breath.
-9001-
Saiyan sat in a briefing room with Eidolon, Alexandria and Legend. She had to admit it, she was in awe. These were three of the people she had admired most when she was younger.
And they had come to her for help.
"The last sighting we had of the Nine was here," Alexandria pointed to a small town at the state border on a digital map projected onto the table, "They appeared to be going back west," she pointed to a jagged red line of dashes that showed their previous route, "They had been heading towards Brockton Bay, until you killed Leviathan," Taylor was getting tired of hearing about that, but doubted it would stop any time soon, "Jack Slash is a canny bastard. He's weak, especially compared to his compatriots, but he knows how to read a situation. We think he knows that fighting you is a losing prospect."
"Yeah," Legend, the most lighthearted of the three, smiled at her, "Don't really want to find out how a fight between us would end up, either."
"Right," Saiyan smiled back at the man, then nodded back at the table, "Who should I take out first? Jack?"
"No," Eidolon said, "He's the leader, but the biggest threat, all said, is Bonesaw. Her specialty is biological Tinkering. She can play with people's powers, raise the dead, even fuse two people together, if she gets the desire to do so. Kill her, obliterate her, before going after any of the others. Whatever you did to Leviathan, do it to her."
Taylor nodded.
"Siberian is… difficult," Alexandria said, next, "She is the absolute definition of invincible. Nothing hurts her. Nothing stops her. She doesn't eat, or sleep. She does breathe, but she doesn't need to. We don't know if your power will do anything to her, but don't risk it. Whatever defenses you have won't matter to her. Do not let her hit you."
"Right," again, the girl nodded. She had learned her lesson about underestimating her enemies. She would be taking no chances with the Nine.
"Finally, Hatchet Face," Legend said, "Word has it, he was killed by their newest member, Cherish, in Canada. Bonesaw resurrected him. His Trump ability will cancel out your powers, so you can't get close to him, or he'll put you back on the level of a regular human then use his still enhanced strength to end you."
"Where are they now?" Taylor asked. She wished that DBZ would have done a better job of showing them sensing the energy of others. They barely hinted at it, and that wasn't enough for her to pick it up. She had theories that she was trying to implement, but that would take months. Time she didn't have for this mission.
"We've got eyes on Crawler, for the moment, but the others might be traveling separately," Alexandria informed the teen, "From this point forward you are on call. We find them, you kill them. Anything else is to be dropped, I don't care what it is. Understood?"
Saiyan nodded solemnly, looking at the pictures of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Killing this band of freaks would be a victory for the world, just like Leviathan had been. It was kind of nerve wracking that it was all on her shoulders.
"For the time being, you are being relegated to monitor duty," the female member of the Triumvirate went on, "We feel that having you actively patrol would cause negative reactions from the local gangs, and it will be easier to reach you once the Nine are positively located."
The teen sighed, "I guess no good deed goes unpunished, huh?"
Alexandria's wry smirk was the only emotion she had seen out of the woman so far.
-9001-
For the first week, Taylor was sure that she was about to be called in, every other second. It was a real distraction, especially while on monitor duty. She almost missed a few crimes happening because of it.
Then the call finally did come in. The image of the town and its correlation to her current position were sent to her. Taylor pulled on her mask, took a deep breath, and put her fingers to her forehead.
Instead of popping into the center of the town, and hunting down the monsters, Saiyan appeared a few thousand feet above it. From there she could still easily see crawler, and descended slowly until she could make out the others.
She was rather surprised to find Jack waving to her, rather amiably, all said. She frowned deeper as she questioned how he had known she was there. She shook it off quickly, focusing on the mission. She descended to about sixty feet up.
"Well, hello," Jack grinned at her, "Here to kill us then, are you?"
"Yup," Saiyan nodded.
"And you really think you can?" his grin grew wider, "Better than you have tried and failed."
"No one like me has tried," the girl insisted.
"Arrogance doesn't suit you, poppet," Jack pulled a knife, "I bet this wouldn't hurt you, all powered up like that. But I wonder, what would happen if you couldn't use your powers at all?"
At some unseen signal, Hatchet Face came out of nowhere, leaping into the air and grabbing her by the throat.
Now, truthfully, the only thing that happened when he turned her power off was that she didn't have the immediate understanding of how everyone was moving around her. It did nothing to her learned abilities.
Still, she pretended it did, letting her Ki enhanced strength fade away for a moment, clutching at Hatchet Face's wrist as he landed.
"See, that's the problem with you hero types," Jack said as he approached, flipping a straight razor about in his hand, "You get one good victory and you think you're invincible. Did you really think that one little girl could succeed where hundreds of others have failed? Did you really think we only became so notorious as a fluke?" He flicked his blade absently, causing her shoulder to start bleeding. Just enough to hurt, really.
"I… have… a… question…" the girl gasped and gagged against Hatchet Face's grip, clutching desperately at his wrist.
Jack raised an eyebrow, still smiling. A hero showing some audacity? Tenacity even? This should be amusing. Even Bonesaw looked curious.
"Hatchet, my boy, let go of her throat. Grab her by the head, instead. If she tries anything, crush her skull," the madman ordered.
"Oh, oh! but not too much," Bonesaw said with a bright grin, "If her brain gets too damaged, it will be quite the hassle to get it working again."
The tall Brute nodded, switching his grip to the teen's head, instead of her throat.
"Ask away, poppet."
Saiyan visibly gulped, rubbing her throat, "How do you guys eat?"
"What?" That was actually from Siberian. The naked, black and white striped woman looking genuinely confused by such an obtuse question.
"Seriously," the teen hero went on, "I know, you guys are the biggest and the baddest outside of the Endbringers. You kill and kill and kill some more, just for shits and giggles. You probably steal your food from whatever is available, but really," she shrugged, putting her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, "The image of the infamous Jack Slash rooting through someone's fridge, bitching about the junk food, just strikes me as funny."
"Heh," Jack snorted, "Haha!" It turned into a chuckle, "Hee haw ha ha!" Finally, he started full out laughing. "Bonesaw!" he finally breathed out after a couple of minutes, "When you open this one up, make sure to leave that imagination."
"Will do!" the little girl chirped, "Can I do it now?"
"Absolutely, dear," the Englishman pat her on the head, smiling warmly at her, "You do what you do best. I can't wait to see your latest masterpiece."
Bonesaw summoned a few of her spider bots and started moving towards Saiyan, "Stay nearby, Hatchet," the little girl said with a big smile, "Don't want her getting her powers bac-"
There was a sound that could be compared to 'Pew! Pew!' and Bonesaw was suddenly a head short.
"What?" Jack looked at the headless corpse of his favorite and most useful protege, then at the one that killed her. His mind was stuck, trying to compute how Saiyan was immune to Hatchet Face's power. His Trump ability stopped everyone else's from working. That was why Bonesaw had the spiderbots with her. She had programmed what she was going to do to Saiyan into them, she was just there to oversee it all. The only one that had ignored it before was Siberian.
For the few short moments that the Slaughterhouse Nine were frozen with shock, Saiyan acted. Her next attack atomized her captor, bringing her Thinker ability back online.
By that time, Siberian was leaping at her, fingers extended like claws. Saiyan zipped away, faster than the naked woman could follow. She stopped near Crawler.
The giant regenerator roared at her and prepared to spit a veritable pool of acid at her.
"Ruby Balle!" She called out, hitting the monster with her signature attack. He was completely gone in under two seconds. She teleported away, half a second before Siberian could hit her.
This time she appeared in front of Jack and hit him with a generic ball of energy. Just like Bonesaw, he went down with very little effort. Missing a head was just too much for whatever improvements the Bio-Tinker had made.
Again, she dodged the Siberian just in time, this time going skywards as she blasted Burnscar and Cherish into ash.
"C'mon, bitch!" Saiyan called down to invulnerable woman, "Come get some!" She held her hands before her, making a triangle. She then waited until the woman leapt into the air, then blasted her, "Tribeam!" The parahuman was blasted back into the ground, "Tribeam! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The perfectly square shaped hole in the ground kept getting deeper and deeper. A few seconds later, Siberian shimmered into existence next to the newly created pit, and Saiyan gained new insight into her invulnerability.
"You aren't real," she narrowed her eyes at what her power told her was a projection, "Someone's making you, controlling you. No wonder you can't be hurt." She didn't even turn around to hit Mannequin as he snuck up on her. She just mumbled, "Ruby Balle," and destroyed the torso, where he kept his organs in a nearly invulnerable shell.
Shatterbird made an inhuman scream and class everywhere around them, for miles, shattered, then streaked at Saiyan. Another errant blast of energy killed the macrokinetic glass user.
"Now," Saiyan said, easily dodging another blow from the projection, "Where's your master?"
She teleported high into the sky, too high for the Siberian to jump and decided to try her hand at a sensor technique, hoping for the best. She closed her eyes and focused, before pushing a nearly imperceptible chi bubble outwards from her self. It was slow going, made slower when the Siberian started throwing vehicles at her.
After a few minutes, though, she finally started to get a read of the small town. Saiyan would describe it like seeing small, lit matches in a pitch black room. They seemed to have differing color, and there were very few after the S-Nine decided to give the town a visit, but there were still quite a few of them.
One, however, stood out.
The person was in a truck or van of some sort, and there was a… pulsing of his Ki. It looked like it was being dragged out of him, a very little bit at a time. The amount was so small and thin that she actually couldn't track it after a couple of feet.
She teleported over to him. Siberian formed half a second after she arrived, confirming her suspicion, but too late to stop Saiyan from hitting the Van with another Chi blast, blowing it sky high.
Siberian had an odd look on her face, like a mix of shock and disbelief, before she fizzled out of existence.
Saiyan stopped for a moment, then went back to the mostly intact corpses of the members of the nine, and atomized them. Wouldn't do for some idjit with delusions of grandeur to clone these bastards and start the problem all over again.
-9001
And then that happened.
Jack Slash- 20
Bonesaw- 15
Crawler- 320
Mannequin- 160
Hatchet Face- 135
Burnscar- 80
Shatterbird- 200
Cherish- 12
Siberian-?
Professor Manton- 6
Alexandria- 620
Legend- 450
Sophia/Shadowstalker- 35
Taylor/Saiyan- 1468
Cherish sensed Taylor, that's how they knew she was coming.
Please Enjoy.