Small Steps 1.1
Fang
"I can't believe it," Alec said to no one in particular. "We've haven't been in a city for half an hour and we're already up to our old tricks. No wonder Cauldron had to send us to a whole other planet."
Everyone ignored him.
The Undersiders were on top of a warehouse roof, across the street from what Lisa had suspected was a criminal base of some kind. They went over the plan again. First, Taylor would do recon to confirm that they would be kicking out criminals, or at least other squatters in an abandoned warehouse, and not legal owners of the warehouse. They had done many questionable things and outright criminal acts in Brockton Bay, but this was a new start, and Brian, among others, was hoping to avoid outright villainy if they could. She would also be keeping an eye on the inhabitants, and causing any mischief she could manage without anyone noticing. Other insects would be hidden around the building, ready to enter when it would cause the most chaos. Taylor's third, and perhaps most important goal, was to identify any potential threats and point Lily in the right direction to…remove them. Her power let her throw simple, unstoppable rocks in straight lines, making it easy to point her in the right direction. Brian hoped she wouldn't need to do that.
While Taylor's tasks were the most diverse, the others had tasks which were no less important. The first action planned was unleashing one stray dog under the effects of Rachel's power in the middle of the base. Rachel was supposed to sneak into the base, use her power, and run. Between Remnant humans seeming to be at least a bit tougher than Earth humans and a hope that that uncertainty and the vague resemblance between a transformed dog and Grimm, they hoped to provoke flight responses more than fight responses; the Undersiders hoped this would prevent unneeded bloodshed. In any case, Aisha would follow, adding general mayhem into the mix. Brian himself would enter once things were well underway, his darkness and any powers he could take hopefully convincing the stragglers that hell had come to their little warehouse. Alec, Sabah, Lily, and, as much as she could, Taylor were charged with making sure no one could successfully attack those on the roof if they somehow worked up the coordination and enthusiasm to identify and remove the source of the madness, while Lisa was supposed to make sure nothing went wrong.
Everyone going into the warehouse—Aisha, Rachel, and Brian himself—had beetles on their shoulders that Taylor would use to warn them if things were going badly, if they needed to run. Lisa assured that they shouldn't need to be used. Hopefully. Arguably the biggest difficulty of all came before they even entered the warehouse.
"I'm pretty sure they're White Fang," said Taylor. "Faunus only, Grimm-looking masks, weapons. I think it's just a bunch of low-level grunts, but there's no way to know." The White Fang was sympathetic in the way someone killing people to feed his family was: You could see where they were coming from, but could they really not think of a better way to achieve their goals? They worked by vandalism, theft, and terror, retribution against those who especially discriminated against or exploited faunus; there were even rumors that the White Fang had killed people for the singular crime of being human.
Lily glanced at Lisa. "Still not omniscient." Lily nodded in response. "Taylor, how many are there?"
"I'm not sure…a few dozen, at least. I'm not seeing much in the way of living quarters, so it's probably being used to store stuff."
Alec frowned. "I think…maybe we could convince them that Rachel's a faunus? I mean, if you just act like you belong and don't stick out like a sore thumb, most people won't question you."
"I'm not an actor," Rachel said.
"You shouldn't need to act too long. Especially if…" Lisa got a grin which came when she got an idea she considered exceptionally clever or unexpected. It usually meant that someone was about to get screwed. "Sabah, think you can improvise a hood for Rachel?"
"I guess, but I'd need some cloth. I'll need most of it to make the changes of clothes."
"See if you can make it with scraps or something. Or a spare garment. I'm almost sure there are plenty of faunus who cover up their heritage, especially in the White Fang. Good way to avoid prejudice, and suspicion. She might not even stand out."
Sabah quickly improvised a garment which looked like it could fit with the rest of Rachel's outfit, while also hiding both her face and lack of animal ears. It didn't look terrible, either—probably a benefit of being a fashion student with complimentary superpowers. Rachel donned the hood, took the stray, and went down the stairs leading to the roof. Brian checked to make sure that Aisha was following her, and realized he didn't know where she was. Good, he thought, part of his mind recognizing how utterly bizarre his life was when not knowing where his little sister was, especially when they were about to get in a fight with one of the most infamous criminal groups in the region, was a good thing.
Another bug, a fly of some kind, landed on Brian's hand. It would take off when he was supposed to go in. He went downstairs, readying his darkness and otherwise preparing to enter the White Fang warehouse. He suddenly wished he had one of his helmets from home. Then, instead of seeing a tall, dark-skinned man surrounded by darkness, they'd see a demon surrounded by darkness. It wasn't enough to just scare these White Fang members, today; they had to scare the White Fang enough to make them think twice about ever trying to reclaim the warehouse. The Undersiders were good at hit-and-run, they were almost unparalleled in Brockton Bay at scare tactics, but in a straight fight…they had Lily now, but her power didn't have much flexibility or crowd control, especially if she had to fire blind, and aside from her, they basically had whatever dogs Rachel could train, whatever bugs Taylor could find, and giant stuffed animals. If the White Fang made a serious attempt to retake the warehouse, chances are they would succeed.
Brian waited. Surely, if something had gone wrong, Taylor would warn him, tell him to retreat? If Aisha or Rachel needed his help, wouldn't she have told him to go in? But what if it was something in the middle, where Taylor wasn't sure if he should run or not? What if, what if, what if? Brian was relieved when the fly left his hand. Time to get to work.
Brian kicked in the door, darkness spilling through after him, followed closely by swarms of insects. Inside, there was already chaos. Faunus were running for exits, spinning around when they saw him and crashing into each other, swatting bugs, screaming. Some were grabbing weapons, armor, possessions, but some of these discovered they were falling apart or otherwise undesirable, the delicate mechanisms of guns pried at by beetle jaws, the cloth cut, or simply a number of insects lurking underneath or within, flying out to terrify anyone who tried to find some control over the situation.
Brian searched through his darkness, seeing if anyone had a useful power. He thought he sensed one, but it slipped his grasp, and he quickly forgot about it. Instead, he simply chose to deal with things in a more old-fashioned method. Brian scanned the crowd for someone who looked ready to try fighting, intending to use him as an example. Minimum harm for maximum fear. He saw a tallish man, perhaps a couple inches shorter than Brian and probably an officer of some sort. He had tattoos on one arm and a sleeveless, high-collared shirt; his only protection was offered by a standardized-looking half-face mask and a pair of metal guards on his arms. The officer grabbed and started a chainsaw, which gave Brian a few seconds of concern before it made a loud crunching noise and the chain flew off. Evidently, it had some delicate components that a large bug could damage. The Fang cast aside the ruined weapon and looked at Brian, largely unafraid. "Bring it on, human. You don't frighten me."
Brian entered a fighting stance, advancing cautiously. The Fang circled around, looking for some opening. Brian thought he sensed a power, which distracted him for a fraction of a second, enough for the Fang to think he had an opening. He charged across the floor, knocking a flimsy chair out of the way, and prepared a blow. The technique was sloppy at best; the Fang telegraphed his attack, left himself wide open, and had his thumb inside his fist. Although to be fair, poor technique might be unremarkable in a world where a chainsaw was an acceptable weapon.
These thoughts passed through the back of Brian's mind; the rest was focused on the incoming attacker. Both back and front of mind were pleasantly surprised when the Fang tripped over his own feet and began stumbling forward, trying to regain his balance. Brian took a half-step out of the way before planting a knee in his gut to make sure he wouldn't get up. The back of his mind noted that something didn't feel right, but decided it wasn't wrong enough for Brian to pay attention. The officer got up quickly—too quickly, given how hard Brian had struck him in the stomach. He aimed a punch at Brian, slow and obvious. Brian dodged and aimed a punch directly at the center of the Fang's chest. He had stumbled back a bit, but didn't look even slightly winded.
Shit. I picked a fistfight with a Brute. In a fair fistfight, Brian could defeat most people with ease. He was big, strong, and most importantly, knew what he was doing. The officer was tougher than normal, and probably stronger, too. Brian's only advantage was that he knew what he was doing in a typical street fight, which helped more against overconfident white supremacists than anyone with actual powers to supplement their combat prowess.
The Fang staggered, as if someone slung a large weight on him. Brian took advantage of the opening. The best weak spot is probably the eyes...if I can get the mask off... Brian lunged for the officer's face, grabbing at the mask, yanking on it, using his other hand to get leverage with the Fang's throat. The mask came off, the Fang was off-balance, but Brian's other hand hit something that didn't feel like a throat. He thought he heard something, but everything but Brian's fight with the officer quickly fled his mind.
One hand: A mask. The other hand was empty. He threw away the mask, backed up a few steps, blocking a punch from the Fang. It hurt, and Brian decided to try dodging when he could. The Fang didn't have a mask anymore. He staggered forward, with the weight that seemed to be on his shoulders seeming to fall off, then charged again; Brian took a step to the side at the last second and grabbed the Fang's fist and shoulder, bringing up his knee.
"…of foot, toes. The elbow, too, if you can do anything with it."
"Whatever."
"Try to pay attention, Alec…"
Brian discovered that he couldn't do much with the Fang's elbow. He seemed to be in pain, but recovered quickly, and his elbow was still in one piece. The Fang's other fist came at Brian's head, hitting him in the skull. Painful, briefly disorienting, but hardly the worst. Brian broke off, circling.
The beetle bit him, started flying around his head. Run. Brian quickly backed up, trying to orient himself. The officer was somehow between him and the door, most of the other Fangs had fled or backed off. The other Undersiders knew what they were doing, and the darkness everywhere helped.
Suddenly, a noise. A hole appeared in the wall, a crate, and the floor. The Fang was in the middle. He collapsed…briefly. He staggered up, in more pain than he was from anything Brian did, and made for the door.
The beetle returned to his shoulder. Taylor wanted me to back off, not to run, Brian realized. He glanced around, realized he was surrounded. Most of the Fangs had fled, routed, especially once they saw how the one Brian had been fighting got injured. Despite this, there were still three ready to fight, vaguely defining two-thirds of a rough circle, maybe ten or fifteen feet away. Crates largely blocked the last third.
"You're a bad dog! Bad dog! Come get me!" Brian spun. He had enough time to wonder what the fuck Aisha was doing with her power down when he saw Rachel's dog chasing her. Suddenly, it was just the dog, running at the Fangs and Brian. They decided that, even if they were willing to fight a big shadowy man-thing when he had support from something that could punch through walls with ease, an oversized dog-monster on top of that was more than they were ready to deal with.
Leaving Brian to deal with said dog-monster. It wasn't as big as Rachel usually made her dogs—maybe the size of a big St. Bernard—but it was still big enough, and nasty. Normally, the dogs Rachel sent into battle were used to being several times their normal size, skinless, and whatnot, not to mention well-trained, but this one…wasn't. Brian took some solace in the fact that its flesh already looked loose—soon enough, the meaty outer shell would be sloughing off. Brian just needed to endure that long.
He leaped onto one of the smaller crates in the warehouse, hoping to get out of reach, but as he was clambering up onto the next he saw the dog chase him. Brian's first plan failed, leaving him Plan B, which was dangerous. He lept onto the dog, twisting so he grabbed it around the shoulders. The dog thrashed in his grip, the bony plates pinching his skin, ripping it when the dog moved, and the smaller spines lacerating it. Much better than what would happen if the dog's jaws, not so far from Brian's head but thankfully on the wrong side of its head, could reach him. Brian let go with one arm to grab the beast's head, whipping his hand away as the dog tried to bite it, adjusting his grip, taking another opportunity. The dog's head was in his grasp, the jaws caught between his shoulder and forearm.
A few more minutes were spent struggling with the increasingly weak creature, until it had fallen apart enough to be inoffensive, at which point he let go. He felt a bit drained. A brief fight with a man significantly stronger and tougher than him, followed by a long struggle with one of Rachel's smaller monster-dogs, and likely compounded with some blood loss…not surprising.
"You're done?" Lisa said, walking over. "I really hope most of that blood isn't yours."
"Shut it, Alec," Brian grumbled, distracted and making sure he didn't have any severe injuries.
"I didn't even say anything this time!"
