Author's Notes coming tomorrow. EDIT: Author's Notes are here, albeit late.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters used within.
A Winner Is Two: Chiaroscuro
Second Battle: With Mystique vs. Mr. Incredible and Kakashi
Where Loyalty Lies
Mr. Incredible could hardly suppress a roar of frustration as he prowled the hallways of the headquarters. Had the place always had this confusing a layout? Well, it hadn't helped that increasingly through the night, he'd come across a door that was sealed off or a hallway clogged with corpses from a battle long over. At best, he'd come across a few henchmen too wounded to fight. These people he had dutifully carried to the nearest sick bay and left there to wait their turn for medical attention. It didn't matter that they were working against him – that was mostly because he had seen the light about the guys writing his checks, and they hadn't. It didn't sit right with him to let them die.
Still, though, the joy of helping people was dulled by the fact that he kept just missing the action. He hadn't met anybody important enough to have their own dossier, aside from accidentally meeting Kakashi and Jade again several times each in the hallways (it had been unanimously agreed that they should split up), and meeting Commodore Smoker once. Smoker always seemed to Incredible to be like the classic 'bad cop', but the military super turned out to have been a victim of a double-cross himself, and when Incredible explained their situation, Smoker simply said he was going to go search the hangar and dock levels of the base.
Then he turned a corner and practically walked right into his greatest nemesis. The absence of the massive, flame-shaped plume of hair was jarring, and the scars were new, but the black-and-white costume, short, broad build and the burning blue eyes were hard to mistake. He seemed to have swapped out his futuristic array of gadgets (and his snazzy but ill-advised cape) for more traditional (if still very modern) military equipment. "Syndrome?" Incredible asked, picking his jaw up from the floor.
"And here I thought you were going to call me Buddy again," the man said with a twisted smile. "Seriously, Bob – yeah, I know your name is Bob, what of it? – did you really think I'd go away that easily? You thought little old Syndrome would get sucked into the jet turbine, suffer the old accidental Bond villain death, and everything would be rainbows and sunshine for you and yours? It ain't that easy, pal. I don't go away, no matter how hard you try to forget me – and you've obviously forgotten SOMETHING, since you got duped into working for villains on a volcanic island again. I mean, REALLY."
"How did you even get here?" Incredible asked, ignoring most of what came out of the man's mouth. "I mean, there's been a giant bubble up around the island until maybe last night. You're not with Solidus and the others, are you? That'd just be the icing on the villain cake. No… wait… you're one of the inmates, aren't you?" Syndrome made a face. "Please tell me you're an inmate. That would give me back some faith in the world."
"Inmates… I can't believe you still think these schlubs are inmates!" Syndrome laughed, although his eyes stayed on Incredible. "You're a card, Incredible. Nah, I got contracted by these BORED guys for some concealable recording equipment. You know they televised the whole thing so people could get their sick kicks, right? I got a free subscription with my payment – I thought watching you be Captain Oblivious would get old, but it just didn't. It was hilarious. Now, they should've hired me to do architecture, because seriously, building the command center above the lav-"
"Televised?" Incredible asked in sheer disbelief. Syndrome grinned like a Cheshire cat and nodded. "That's what this is about? Selling season tickets to some sick gladiator combat?" Mr. Incredible felt sick to his stomach. This wasn't some world domination plot or revenge scheme. This was human cockfighting on an enormous scale. He hadn't even guessed - but it all made sense now…
Syndrome continued to smile a brain-hurting smile. "Well, it's been real seeing my old hero, but I've really gotta bounce. Empires to rebuild, babies to kidnap – yours, in fact. He's not too old yet for another shot at that, and his little combo platter is just too good to pass up." Syndrome turned and left – not with a dramatic cape sweep, like he would have one ten-inch mane of red hair ago, but he RAN. He had kept his cool admirably, but even a righteous hero like Incredible knew fear when he smelled it.
Incredible took off at a sprint, hoping to catch up quickly to the shorter and less super-powered villain, but apparently he hadn't been the only one jogging since the Omnidroid incident. Syndrome was RUNNING from Incredible with a haste that was, all things considered, completely appropriate. The fact that he had come to monologue without Incredible being at all helpless was the strange part. Maybe Syndrome had gone off his rocker.
Syndrome turned at seemingly every corner he came to, keeping Incredible's top speed advantage at a minimum. At around the third turn, he tossed a live grenade back over his shoulder. Incredible batted the grenade away cautiously, but it was only a regular fragmentation grenade of the type armies had used for the better part of a century. "You're crazy if you think this would hurt me, Syndrome!" Incredible called out.
"Oh no, I'm a CRAZY bomb-throwing anarchist! I hope no superheroes come to subdue me!" Syndrome called back, scooting around another corner with a laugh. Incredible slid around the corner and saw Syndrome running into an elevator – a keycard-activated elevator, lending some credence to his story – and pressing a button. He was halfway to the door when it closed on Syndrome winking at him. Undaunted, Incredible wedged his fingers into the door and pulled it open by force.
There was nobody in the elevator. Incredible, however, had been around long enough to know a few tricks of the trade, and sure enough, when he looked up, a panel in the ceiling was still sliding into place. "Poor choice, Syndrome! Once you're in that shaft, you're trapped!" Incredible marched across the elevator and pushed the panel up. That was about when the floor fell out beneath him.
There was a long drop that pushed Incredible's stomach into his throat, and then a deafening crash. Undaunted, Incredible climbed out of the rubble, and dusted himself off. "That actually hurt a little," he admitted brightly. Then his mood soured as he looked up. "That looks like a lot of floors to climb back up."
Shadow was racing through the complex at his usual breakneck speed, but he was starting to see less and less people left alive. God damn it, I hope one of the BORED members is still alive and here. There's not going to be any other extraction points. His bandages stung against his raw face whenever he moved too fast, but he ignored it. I suppose I should see what happened to the communications tower.
Shadow's route took him straight through the command center. When he got there, he was greeted with the usual scattering of corpses. At this point, it was no longer surprising. However, Kakashi nonchalantly standing around as Jade tapped away at a computer terminal was a little different. "What are you guys doing in here?" Shadow asked. Kakashi immediately craned his neck to stare warily at Shadow; Curtiss showed no reaction whatsoever. "I don't think there's any point to keeping the cameras rolling now… or are you trying to get the comm. System back up?"
"Actually, I'm the one who brought the communications down," Jade said brightly. He steamrolled right over Shadow's cry of objection to add, "It's really quite simple when you know a few lighting-based Artes. I didn't even need to kill the Klokateers… that part was their fault, actually." Jade pulled a flash drive from the computer and slipped it into his pocket. "Here, watch. Spark Wave." A globe of crackling electricity surrounded the computer and shocked it repeatedly. The entire computer bank shorted out and began to smoke, although mercifully nothing exploded.
"What did you just do?" Shadow cried. "What did you just download? Why'd you destroy the computers? Why'd you bring down communications? There's a goddamn war going on around us, and you're sitting around vandalizing company property? What the hell kind of Enforcers are you guys?"
Kakashi blinked. "Nobody told you that many of us had decided to abandon BORED before they could stab us in the back?" Shadow could have hit himself in the face. Of course. Some of the other Enforcers were betraying BORED; Sakyo had mentioned it in passing. "I guess they thought you could figure it out on your own," the ninja said, drawing the same conclusion as Shadow. "Listen, you should come with us. They're planning to kill all of us so they don't have to pay us, and to tie up loose ends. Smoker and I said we'd had enough, and that didn't help either."
"I have the evidence we need," Jade added helpfully, holding up the flash drive. "The flip-side to BORED installing eyes and ears all over the place is it makes them painfully easy to incriminate. Even if I can't find the identities of the rest of them on this data, we have three of them proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be responsible for mass kidnapping, torture, extortion and murder. I'm pretty sure I saw other names implicated in here, too…"
Shadow made a dash for Jade, jumping and reaching his hand out to grab the flash drive. He was inches away when he felt a hand close around his ankle. Kakashi whipped Shadow around and threw him against a 240-inch projection screen on the far wall. Shadow grunted and looked up, rubbing the back of his head. The throw had left him at the bottom of the room's several terraced levels of computers, staring up at Jade and Kakashi. And Kakashi had clearly been holding back more than the crazy-looking red eye he was showing now. "I'd hoped you'd be willing to join us," Jade said, his omnipresent smile adding a chill to the words. "Can't you see these men are utterly reprehensible?"
"That's kind of a strong way of putting it," Shadow argued. "Especially since you're wrong. I don't think they're going to weasel out of paying me, since they already have." He pointed to his gems. "Priceless, no matter the exchange rate. How do I know you're not lying to me about more than their motive?"
"You've seen it!" Kakashi seethed. "You've seen the men and women – and dammit, even children! – out there fighting each other, dying, trying desperately to stay alive, all while BORED makes money off showing it to people around the world! It's not even their most efficient way of making money, according to the files!"
"BORED told me I was fighting criminals," Shadow snapped back, "and I have no reason yet to disbelieve them! The nicest person I've met was Beatrix Kiddo, and she was merely a loving mother in addition to being a vicious assassin. My other experiences with the Contestants have been two rounds with a man who I personally know to be after world domination, and three separate, crazed monsters with powers rivaling my own!"
Kakashi started to retort, but Jade put a hand on his shoulder. "Forget it, Kakashi. He's not going to listen." Jade strode out of the room; Shadow considered going after him, but figured Kakashi would pull the same trick again. And it wouldn't pay to repeatedly show his back to a ninja. "I'm going ahead to secure an escape route," Jade said. "We're flying out of here come daylight, so consider sunrise your five-minute warning." And with that, he was gone.
"Well, Shadow, I guess this means it's time for a battle." Kakashi formed an elaborate hand gesture, and then another, and then another… Shadow got to his feet in alarm when he saw the way Kakashi's hands were flashing. "You are fast… but can you outrun lightning?"
"Maybe I won't have to." Shadow grabbed all three of the Chaos Emeralds on his bandolier. They thrummed with power, and he called out to it. The emeralds responded inside his mind, filling him with a euphoric warmth and surrounding him in red glow.
"You don't know what you're in for!" Kakashi's hands stuck in one last position. "Raiton: Rairyūdan no Jutsu!" A thick column of cyan lightning flared up from Kakashi's back. It curved against the ceiling, coiling around the room's upper reaches. As the tip dipped back down towards Shadow, a pair of red eyes opened up, and the head of a dragon formed, opening its jaws to roar with a thunderclap.
"And here I was worried… well, I'm in the mood to be creative! Chaos Dragon!" Shadow concentrated all of the chaos energy into a single orb floating around the Emeralds, and forced it upwards. Like Kakashi's lightning, the red force took on the shape of a serpentine dragon, crashing head-on into Kakashi's as it started to drop towards Shadow. The two intermingled and started to dissolve, raining crimson bolts of energy around the room. Shadow took cover from the bolts, and from the secondary sparks of energy that the computers let off when the bolts struck them. "Where are you?" he growled, popping up as soon as the fury cooled.
A knee collided with his upper back hard enough to launch him off his feet, slamming him against one of the lower corners of the room. "For a hedgehog, you have a very forward-focused field of view," Kakashi mused. "So, are you going to keep trading fireworks displays with me, or am I going to see the famous speed you were hired for?"
Mr. Incredible thanked God again for his superpowers as he reached the top of the next stairwell. Any normal man would be having a heart attack about now. That had been a lot of climbing.
He almost turned right to the next stairwell, but a figure leaning against the wall caught his eye. There he was. "Seven minutes," Syndrome said. "Impressive. I'll have to try dunking you in the lava next."
"You're not Syndrome," Mr. Incredible asserted. "It was a good impersonation, I'll grant you that. But he was too proud to attack me with weapons he didn't design, and he wouldn't have bothered with an elevator drop that wouldn't kill me."
By now, the faux Syndrome had reshaped himself into a toned, fierce-looking woman with wine-red hair, blue skin and yellow slitted eyes. Mystique, another of the Enforcers. "You're paying attention. I'm glad I didn't trust the line in the dossier that called you a 'complete moron.'"
"Mystique," Incedible began. "Why'd you try to kill me? Don't tell me you haven't realized what BORED is doing? Of course you have, you told me when you were in disguise! Mystique, it goes beyond the prisoner thing. They're even planning to rub us out after they're done here."
"You don't give them enough credit," Mystique countered. "I've messed up once already, and I didn't get dropped into a shark tank. However, I did get a ticket to see Smoker die." Incredible blinked; he had only seen Smoker an hour ago. "They're trying to kill the Enforcers that ARE BETRAYING THEM. Shadow, Jiraiya and I are still getting paid. It's not like they're even the most evil guys I've worked for… I used to have a skull on my belt buckle as part of my uniform."
Incredible laughed nostalgically. "Really? That's classic!" Wait… he couldn't get sidetracked. "Seriously, I need to find those guys from BORED. I'm gonna go get them, capture them, bring them to justice. It doesn't even matter if they own this island, there are international laws…"
"You don't get it. I'm working for them. Present ongoing tense." Mystique's face softened. "Mr. Incredible… Mr. Parr… I've got a job to do, but I'm doing it for people like us. People who were born different… special. You had to go into hiding for years. You know what I'm talking about."
"Wait, let me get this straight." Incredible rubbed his temples. "You're doing dirty work for a bunch of rich, kidnapping, gladiator-arena wannabes so that you can raise money for a human rights group?"
"Mutant rights," Mystique corrected. "I know, my methods are too extreme to ever win your approval – I don't give a damn about that. I just want you to know why I'm giving you this deal – give up on this stupid, pointless quest to bring these men to justice through a system they own, and I'll smuggle you off the island with me instead of spending the rest of my night trying to figure out a way to kill you."
"I'm charmed, but unlike you, I have standards." Incredible cracked his knuckles. "And killing is below them, so I hope you don't mind waking up with a bump on the head and another failure to explain to those forgiving, savvy bosses. The ones who build their lair over a volcano."
Mystique shook her head, stripping off her ammo belts, weapons, and holsters. Incredible frowned. What's she planning now? The blue mutant tossed a pipe bomb into the air and dashed forward on all fours, shifting as she ran. By the time she made the leap, she was a full-sized tiger, and she caught the bomb in her mouth before her leap carried her right into Incredible.
Mr. Incredible's superhero experience paid off. He had been attacked by shapeshifters before, and he had been attacked by tigers before, so he unflinchingly grabbed the tiger by the torso and held it at arm's length. "Nice try." Mystique's slitted eyes flashed out from the tiger's face before her body changed again – this time to a moderately large snake, which was much narrower around.
His mouth opened in surprise, which was unfortunate. Before Mr. Incredible could regain his grip, the snake had struck, its face lashing into his and – wait, did she cram her head into his mouth? He grabbed her again and pulled her out, but he still felt a weight on his tongue – she had left the grenade in his mouth!
He reached to pull it out, but the snake changed again, this time into a hummingbird, and made a motion to peck at his eyes. He made a few grabs for her. She was too fast, and by his fifth or sixth fistful of air, she was back in human form by her weapons. "Please let this kill you," she muttered. Lucky she didn't prime the grenade, Incredible thought, right before she picked up her pistol and shot a round directly into his crammed-open mouth.
Shadow dashed backwards along the wall, locking into a slide as he drew a pistol and emptied half a clip in Kakashi's direction. Kakashi dove undercover as soon as he saw the pistol and popped back up as soon as the bullets ceased, tossing a trio of shuriken in an interception path with the speed and direction he had last seen Shadow move in. Shadow leapt off the wall to dodge, curled into a ball, and abruptly changed direction mid-air, slamming into the desk Kakashi was using as cover and cracking the particle board it was primarily built of. Kakashi cursed and leapt at Shadow with a kunai knife, abandoning his cover.
Kakashi was more grateful for his Sharingan eye than he had been for a long time. Granted, Shadow's Chaos techniques weren't exactly 'jutsu' and couldn't be copied, and granted, Shadow's hit-and-run fighting style didn't make enough eye contact for the suggestion to take hold. No, the truly useful part of his Sharingan tonight was the most basic component – the part that sped up his perception. There was a difference between reacting to the movements of a normal ninja – even a Jonin-level – and reacting to the movements of the life form known as Shadow the Hedgehog.
Shadow uncurled and parried the kunai with the top of his pistol. His free hand drew another pistol and emptied three shots into Kakashi's face, with a fourth ricocheting off his hitai-ite. 'Kakashi' was replaced in a puff of smoke with the two-hours-dead corpse of a Klokateer… with an exploding tag attached and just about to curl and smoke at the edges. Shadow kicked the corpse away with an utterance, and curled into a ball to ride the shockwave. He landed on one of the room's upper levels, and caught a flash of steel in the red glow of the floor-mounted emergency lights (the dueling dragons having knocked out all the regular lights a moment ago). A few bullets flashed out at the steel, perforating… another dead Klokateer with a sword across his lap.
It's fascinating… thought Kakashi. For all his strangeness, Shadow's technique is like a parallel evolution of the shinobi. He moves with extreme speed, flinging high-velocity metal projectiles against low-level threats. He's skilled at close-range combat as well, and uses fantastic energy-based powers to neutralize more skilled opponents. He hires himself out for jobs that require powerful individuals. We're really not so different, but I don't think he has what I have – the Will of Fire.
Kakashi dropped from the ceiling, his hands already flashing through signs as he fell. He grasped his right arm as it started to glow with power. "Raikiri!" Shadow saw the glow and heard the chirping before he heard Kakashi's invocation, and quickly dashed out of the way. Kakashi had been expecting this, and immediately started running when he landed, chasing Shadow. Nice try, but can you outrun the lightning cutter? Shadow dashed to the corpse, dropping one of his guns, and grabbed the sword, whipping it around in a desperate attempt to counter Kakashi's charge.
Kakashi's Sharingan allowed him to see and evade the attack, but the dodge carried him out of reach of Shadow's small frame. His hand missed the hedgehog by a couple of inches, and punched through the corpse behind him, all but tearing it in half. Shadow used the time Kakashi spent extruding his hand from the corpse to slash again with his newly-acquired sword. Kakashi spun backwards and parried the blade with a kunai in his left hand. Continuing his spin, he delivered a gore-soaked right hook to Shadow's face, which elicited a scream of pain and a stumble.
Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "You must have a pretty nasty wound under those bandages." As Shadow was straightening up, he slashed with the kunai. Shadow blocked clumsily and got a backhand to the face with Kakashi's free hand, laying him out flat on his back. Not one to waste an opportunity, Kakashi flashed through the hand signs for a kage bunshin, who jumped over Shadow and pinned his arms. Kakashi pinned Shadow's legs with his own knees, and pulled back his kunai knife. "I'm sorry it had to end this way."
The door behind Kakashi's bunshin, along with the frame around it, suddenly exploded as Mr. Incredible came charging into the room, swinging an I-beam like a baseball bat. He was coughing and rubbing his eyes, and Kakashi caught a diluted whiff of tear gas from the hallway. "Show yourself, you… you she-devil!" he yelled between coughs. Kakashi's distraction (and that of his clone) only caused him to slip a little – but that little was enough for Shadow to twist his sword and dig it slightly into the leg of the doppelganger. The clone grunted in shock and pain, squeezing Shadow's sword arm and making him drop the blade; however, Shadow was able to yank his other arm free and grab his Emeralds.
Kakashi backed off without waiting to see what Shadow was about to do, and this proved prudent as the hedgehog gave a shout of "Chaos Blast!" The technique put him in the epicenter of a powerful concussive blast, vaporizing the kage bunshin and fragmenting the nearby furniture and computer equipment. Even the sword and corpse were launched clear. "Chaos…" Shadow began, but it was a feint – he waited until Kakashi had already begun to sidestep, and then drew and fired another pistol. Kakashi turned his sidestep into a leap, but bullets were faster than any projectile he normally had to deal with, and he wasn't completely able to avoid being shot in the upper left arm and left thigh.
He rolled behind cover, cursing his luck. Those Emeralds were too much of a wild card. He would have to use that technique. He wasn't looking forward to using it right after Raikiri when he had already been in a fight that day, but he couldn't afford to pull any punches here. "Goodbye, Kakashi," Shadow said coldly. Kakashi turned in shock, and received a punch in the wounded shoulder, causing him to flinch. He'd lost his target, and Shadow had gotten behind him in the second it took him to assess his wounds and next move. A kick to his thigh suggested that Shadow was perhaps going for irony, and the next words confirmed it. "I'm sorry it had to end this way." Shadow raised two Emeralds in his right hand. "Chaos Ri-"
"KAMUI!" Kakashi locked his eye on a new target – the two Emeralds – with absolute focus. Space itself began to twist and distort around the Emeralds, causing Shadow to reel back in surprise. He shouted in another layer of surprise and reached back for the Emeralds, but it was too late… they were gone. "Don't bother looking for them. There's no trick." Kakashi's breath burned in his lungs from the massive chakra expenditure, but he forced himself to keep his cool as he stabbed forward with the kunai. Shadow dodged and punched him away, reaching for his last two pistols. "Your precious gems are gone – and they aren't coming back any time soon."
"You have no idea what kind of pain you're about to be in!" Shadow screamed, but Kakashi parried the guns with his knife and his bare hand, pushing them up and out of the way. He prepared to stab Shadow again, but more gunfire erupted, and he felt bullets tearing into the back of his vest, bruising his back and pressing him forward into Shadow's arms. In a vulnerable position, Kakashi vanished in a burst of leaves – the technique was all too easy for another ninja to track, but it threw off the less experienced Shadow and Mystique, giving him time to regroup under cover in the center of the room.
"Mystique!" Shadow shouted, "please tell me you're not with them." His heart was still pounding from the furious battle with Kakashi, and his wrists and ankles were still sore from the handhold Kakashi had on them. The ninja warrior was by far the fastest human Shadow had ever dealt with, held a massive arsenal of offensive and defensive tricks that kept him hitting hard and out of Shadow's crosshairs, and was just cold enough to get the job done. He had more options than Shadow or that 627 monster in a battle, and more raw power than Robotnik or the Bride. There was no question why BORED had hired him.
"I shot him and not you. I shouldn't have to tell you," Mystique grumbled. "I – oh, crap, nice face. I heard you were fighting Robotnik. I take it he did that to you?" Shadow nodded, frowning. He opened his mouth, but Mystique cut him off. "You walked away… did he?" Shadow shook his head. "Good man. I would've liked to have done it myself, but knowing he's dead is better than nothing. Hey, listen, I have to switch opponents with you."
"There you are, you witch!" Mr. Incredible's eyes had apparently cleared up somewhat, and he was marching down the stairs towards them with his I-beam ready. "You burned my uvula. Do you even know what that does to my gag reflex?" He swung his improvised bat, but both Mystique and Shadow ducked. Mystique flipped away to a lower level of the room, while Shadow rolled back and emptied a clip of ammunition into the 'i' logo on the hero's chest. "Yeah, that's not going to work on me!" Incredible shouted, bringing his beam down vertically. Shadow leaped clear and slid to a stop atop the tables.
"I can't do any significant damage to him with any of my weapons," Mystique explained. "He's more or less invulnerable to anti-personnel firearms and explosives. Your dossier says you can take down helicopters and small mecha unarmed, so I'm leaving this one to you. I'll take care of Kakashi." Incredible jumped down the stairs and took a swing at her, and she turned into a raven long enough to fly back up to the top of the room. "One more thing – he's pissed."
Shadow sighed, reaching for his Chaos Emeralds. "Son of a bitch!" he swore upon realizing he only had one. "Mystique, Kakashi made two of my Chaos Emeralds disappear somehow. He said there was no trick to it, but… if you find them, bring them back, okay?" Incredible had started after Mystique, and Shadow leaped into the air and hit him in the back with a homing attack.
This did absolutely no good – he wasn't even able to scratch whatever Incredible's costume was made of. In fact, it left him open for a 'tap' from Incredible with the I-beam. He was thrown across the room yet again, this time shattering the jumbo screen. As Shadow dashed away from the glass raining down around him, he got up to Mystique's position. She was smiling deviously. "What's in it for me?" she asked.
"Oh come on!" Shadow cried. "It's not like you can use them for anything." Mystique just smiled at him. "I'll buy you a chili dog or something! Anything!" She arched an eyebrow. "Ugh… yes, anything!" He saw Incredible toss the beam out of the corner of his eye and ducked as it impaled itself into the wall above him. "Chaos Spear!" the red arrow he shot from the gem didn't do much apparent damage to Incredible, but at least he acknowledged being struck by it, flinching back and almost falling back down the stairs.
Mystique laughed. "We'll work out our terms later." She pulled the pin from a fragmentation grenade and pitched it into the middle of the room. "Come along, Kakashi, or Jade will be letting the wrong silver-haired ninja onto the transport with him." The grenade burst in the middle of the room just as she slammed the door behind her. Not three seconds later, Kakashi dropped from the ceiling next to the door.
"It really is too dangerous to allow somebody with her powers to get out of our sight," Kakashi apologized. "Incredible, I need you to handle Shadow." He raced out the door, leaving Shadow alone with the huge superhuman. There was an uncomfortable silent moment between the two, punctuated by a crackle from the broken television screen. Shadow dropped his empty pistol and grabbed a morning star from another Klokateer corpse, swinging it experimentally. It was too big for him… just the way he liked it.
"Shadow, I don't want to fight you," Mr. Incredible said. "I'm not like Kakashi – I really, really don't like killing. Even in self-defense, it leaves an awful taste in my mouth. Look, we can talk this out – I'm sure you know what BORED does – Kakashi knows, Mystique knows. Much easier than fighting it out. And it's not like you can win – I mean, I've got a kid with your power, and about your size, and he's really something, but I don't think he could take me in a fight."
"If your experience with me is based on seeing my primary ability in the hands of a child, you don't have the data you need. Chaos Spear!" Shadow shot another blast at Incredible, who dodged this one and began taking leaping strides toward Shadow. Unfazed, Shadow ran to the side, ran up onto the wall rather than go down the stairs opposite the flight Incredible was on, took a few laps around the sides of the room to build up momentum, and slammed the morning star into the side of Incredible's head. Incredible staggered a little, but the weapon shattered without breaking the skin, the crack in Shadow's pelvis flared painfully, and his arm was nearly dislocated from the impact. "Ugh… damn…" Shadow spilled out on the ground, finding himself staring up at Incredible's very unamused face. "Heheh… who's up for an impromptu tour of the base?"
Despite the flashes of pain in his leg, Kakashi ran towards the planned extraction point. She couldn't possibly have found out the whole plan, could she? She wasn't present, and communications were down… she could've found out from Jade, but probably not by talking to him. It would be just like Incredible to blabber the whole thing to her… wait, did we even tell Incredible the whole plan? I know we glossed over the high-casualty parts… He slowed to a walk and looked carefully around, hoping he hadn't missed her. She could be any person or animal, after all.
Behind Kakashi, a Patriot corpse with her neck broken at a sick angle carefully moved her arm and fired, sinking a bullet into the back of the ninja's head. Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke and was replaced with another corpse, which flopped to the ground uselessly "Damn!" the Patriot jumped to her feet, her neck wobbling grotesquely until she pulled herself back into her original form. She lashed backwards with her elbow, knocking Kakashi off-balance and preventing her from snapping her neck for good. "How'd you know it was me?" she yelled, shooting wildly.
Kakashi dodged the first two bullets, but took the third and exploded into a puff of smoke. She turned again and spin-kicked another Kakashi away, knocking the kunai from his hand with a follow-up kick. This one appeared to be real, as he simply rubbed his hand while she pointed her gun at him. "You have a way of cloaking your scent… but you didn't add the scent of a corpse in its stead. You didn't smell like anything, which was suspicious… also, you're out of ammunition." Mystique hesitated and checked her gun, and he kicked it from her. "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" A huge fireball was launched from Kakashi's mouth, apparently passing harmlessly through his mask. Unusually, the fireball was burning crimson. "Huh…"
Either way, it presented the same amount of danger to Mystique. She vaulted into the air, decreasing her mass as soon as she left the ground to optimize her jump height. It worked; she cleared the fireball and touched the ceiling, which she pushed off of to come down foot-first on Kakashi. He blocked the first kick, but she spun her foot to send his arm flailing back and drove her other heel down onto his opposite shoulder, stunning his arm. He took a third kick across the temple, but dodged the final one as she fell to the ground. "At least you bleed. I was worried I'd need to find an artillery piece to deal with Incredible."
"You still might." Kakashi smiled under his mask. "With only one Emerald, I don't think that hedgehog has the power to bring Incredible down. And you're assuming you have the power to deal with me." Mystique nervously fingered the SPAS-12 shotgun she had been carrying on her back since she pretended to be Syndrome. Before she could make a grab for it, Kakashi threw a volley of shuriken, conjured a pair of kage bunshin, and charged in alongside them, each drawing a kunai knife.
Mystique leaned back low to avoid the shuriken and turned it into a full backflip, flipped back into the shape of a tiger, and sprang forward, punching through one of the doppelgangers immediately with her claws. One of the two remaining ninja went for her throat, while the other made to leap on her back. She reverted back to human form, tucked and rolled backwards, evading both. The one who had gone for her back spun to slash at her, but she blocked his forearm and delivered a disarming strike to his inner elbow. He grabbed her right arm with his left and flipped her over his shoulder, preventing her from grabbing the knife and bringing her down hard belly-up on the ground. She grunted, aware of the gun digging into her back, and saw the other Kakashi come at her, knife out and ready to disembowel.
"You'll have to do better than that!" Recalling the tiger form again, Mystique kicked out with her transformed back legs and gored the bunshin before it could return the favor, dismissing it. As her arm changed into a foreleg, her wrist became too thick for the real Kakashi to grasp, and he jumped back with a shallow cut on his forearm where her thrashing claws had slashed him. "Tell me, ninja, was that part of your plan?" Mystique asked as she took human form.
"Actually, it was," Kakashi said enigmatically. Mystique scoffed and drew her shotgun, but then she noticed a stir of movement in her peripheral. Another of the hallway's corpses got up and dashed at her, discarding its appearance and taking on the ninja's by-now familiar form. Another doppelganger! When did he plant it? By the time Mystique had dodged a few punches and kicks, lined up a shot, and blasted the clone out of existence, Kakashi had… gotten out a scroll of paper, gotten his blood smeared all over it, twirled it, done some hand signs, and slammed it on the ground. Whatever. Knowing those ninja, it's more dangerous than that would suggest. "Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuaiga no Jutsu!"
Mystique took aim and pumped out the spent shell, cursing the lack of a good semi-automatic shotgun in the BORED weapons locker. That half-second delay was too much, as it was all the time Kakashi needed. The ground rippled, and then burst as a pack of dogs wearing capes and forehead protectors matching Kakashi's erupted around Mystique. She blasted one of the dogs, which vanished in a yelp and a puff of smoke, but the others bit down hard all over her body, immobilizing her, forcing her to drop the shotgun, and threatening to drag her to the ground. "WHAT THE HELL!" Mystique cried out, struggling to move her arms. With this many sets of fangs, a combat animal shift would only leave her throat exposed, and an evasive shift would never escape in time.
"Fun fact," Kakashi said, making hand signs at a leisurely pace, "I needed my blood on your person for that to work. Raikiri!" He pulled back his arm, and it lit up with blood-red chakra. "… I see. Those Emeralds I took from Shadow seem to have affected my chakra somehow; I suppose that explains why it's been replenishing so quickly. I'd like to have a better idea of how this affects me… there's so much I don't know yet about Kamui. However, I don't have all day." He refocused on Mystique. "Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth!" He charged forward.
In the few seconds Kakashi spent contemplating, Mystique had thought of a plan. She reached her leg out to the shotgun, letting the dogs start to pull her down. However, the dogs apparently were trained to hold her in place for Kakashi's technique – to the contrary, after the first few inches, they actually held her up. Oh well, that wasn't the point of my plan. Gritting her teeth, Mystique shifted her leg into the shape of a long arm, changing her foot into a hand and reversing the direction of her knee. Grabbing the shotgun, she swung it up and pulled the trigger one-handed. As Kakashi desperately tried to decelerate in front of her, time seemed to slow to a standstill.
She hadn't used the pump-action after her previous shot.
She desperately shifted her other leg into another arm, ignoring the small terrier clinging to that calf as best she could. Kakashi understood what she was trying to do, and laughed. "I don't think so," he said. She primed the gun, bringing it back up to aim at him. He was standing only three feet from him now. "Kamui," he said as she started to pull the trigger.
Space began to warp around the gun… and then it began to warp around Kakashi's head. Dissipating his Raikiri, he reared back and grabbed his head, screaming as a column of red light shot from his eye. Mystique and the dogs both looked on in awe as multiple odds and ends were thrown out of the column of light. A severed arm fell to the floor, along with some pieces of clay… many kunai and shuriken… and two gems. The column faded as quickly as it had come, leaving only a trail of smoke. "Your eye is on fire," Mystique said with a harsh smile, and emptied a shotgun blast into Kakashi's abdomen.
Kakashi collapsed to the ground, clutching his wound, and all the hounds on Mystique disappeared, allowing her to fall to the ground. Groaning, she resumed her full normal shape and began shapeshifting her wounds closed. "Don't think this is over," Kakashi said, pulling himself up into a sitting position. "Raikiri…" the chakra he formed was once again light blue. Ready to counterattack, Mystique pulled herself back up to a standing position with a sigh. This time, she pumped the gun beforehand. "Lightning Hound!" Kakashi threw the Raikiri, which took on a lupine shape.
Cursing, Mystique avoided it by rolling to the side. However, the 'hound' followed her, changing direction and chasing her. She rolled away again, and noticed it was connected to Kakashi by a string of lightning. "This is just a desperation trick!" She dodged the hound once more and leapt onto Kakashi's chest, emptying a shell into his face. It was another clone, and it dissipated… into a lightning bolt. Mystique felt every hair on her body stand on end as she was shocked and tossed across the room.
When she got up, she found herself facing about forty of Kakashi. "Wounded or not, I was still given a great deal of chakra by those gems," they all said with a flurry of winks. Then they charged her, fists out. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Mystique shapeshifted into another of Kakashi, and charged into the sea. As she expected, by attacking in a way designed to create confusion, she was able to cause the clones to attack each other. Taking wild swings as she ran and dodging as best she could, she soon emerged on the other side to see the real Kakashi clutching his stomach and climbing weakly onto the back of the largest of the dogs he had previously summoned – a great black mastiff that had left tooth marks in Mystique's shoulder. "How'd you elude the clones?" Kakashi asked, surprised.
"I still mask my natural scent," Mystique said in her own voice, "but with your blood, I have the right scent to replace it. I don't know where you're going… that's a fatal wound anyway." She had lost the shotgun, but a corpse left over from Kakashi's use of it as a substitution puppet yielded a machine pistol from one of its two holsters.
"I've seen you survive about the same from Robotnik," Kakashi said with a weak smile under his mask. "At any rate… here's a parting gift." His hands flashed through some signs. "Rai-" his latest jutsu was interrupted by Mystique simply emptying an entire clip of ammunition into his head and shoulders. Kakashi dropped limply off the side of the hound.
Mystique marched over to him. "There's a lot you don't know about guns, but they really can be the simplest thing in the world." The dog stared at her balefully. "What are you looking at?" She kicked it in the head, and it vanished. "Stupid dog." The clones had, by now, dissipated as well, leaving her alone with Kakashi's body. "At the end of the day… at least one thing's simple. Just point and pull the…" she stared at the body. A Patriot body. Most definitely not Kakashi's.
The corpse she had just raided sat up and drew its other machine pistol. "Thanks for the instructions," Kakashi said, pulling the trigger. Twenty five bullets flew from the gun in rapid succession. As Mystique turned and sprinted toward Kakashi, fourteen went wide, one passed between her legs, and three simply grazed her. Two buried themselves in her right arm, one in each leg, and one in her left arm. Two hit her in the torso, although they missed her vitals. Not one was enough to prevent her from shapeshifting into the façade of a very infamous Canadian mutant, or from burying a set of bone claws in his heart.
"Chaos Control!" Shadow cried. Time slowed to a crawl, Mr. Incredible's running feet floating in midair. Shadow leapt up to the huge man's face and punched him repeatedly, kicked him, aimed for the eyes, the throat, the groin. He even tried slashing at the man with his claws and (although he wouldn't later admit to it) biting. Nothing worked; nothing could cut or bruise the giant. Feeling the strain, he jumped away and released the Chaos Control.
"Give it up, little man!" Incredible shouted. He ran towards Shadow – Incredible was, to give him credit, a fast runner, although not up to Kakashi's standards – and tried to slam his hand down on Shadow, pinning him in place. Shadow dodged, but he was getting sloppy. Mr. Incredible seemed able to do this all night. "Come on, I really don't want to kill you, but if you… you know, fall into the lava while attacking me, well, that's not my responsibility. It's happened to me before, you know."
Shadow ignored him with ease. He wasn't nearly as loud as he was strong. "Wandering Chaos!" Shadow created an orb of concentrated, destructive Chaos energy and sent it spinning at Incredible. The Super made sounds of annoyance as it buzzed along his skin; Shadow directed it with one hand, trying desperately to find a weak spot. Finally, Incredible backhanded it, splattering the orb into a mist of red particles that rained down gently around him. "Dammit…" Shadow dashed in front of a window.
"Oh, no, I know this trick. You're going to get behind me and try and knock me out the window when I get close. What am I, a bull?" Incredible instead began ripping out wall panels and flooring and tossing them at Shadow, forcing him to dodge-dance around them. "You're looking a little tired, kid," Incredible chuckled. "You want to take five? Maybe negotiate terms of surrender?"
"Sh-shut up!" Shadow powered himself back to the farthest end of the gently curving hallway, putting a good seventy feet between him and Incredible. He cracked his knuckles and began building up a Spin Dash. "Maybe a good old showdown…" If Shadow was waiting for Incredible to make a move, it didn't take long. Incredible tore down the hallway, with another piece of flooring ready to swing or throw. Upon sighting his target, Shadow tore straight at him.
Using the spin dash protected Shadow's body and allowed him to reach maximum speed with a little less stress on his pelvis. Even so, impacting with Incredible's forearm and grinding at it was more painful and fruitless than he could imagine. He rolled past the heroic brute, not deluding himself that he had hurt Incredible's arm more than his own back. Just for kicks, though, he shot Incredible in the back with a Chaos Spear as he turned around. "Ow… " Incredible rubbed his back. "Persistent, aren't you?"
"I am getting paid for this," Shadow pointed out. "I'm sure you've got some weakness or another, old man." He chuckled at the words even as he said them. Old man… I'm older than he is, I bet. "I'll find something!" He ran past Incredible, this time grabbing his arm. He dragged the hero back a step before Incredible pulled back forward in earnest, flinging Shadow back against the wall.
Incredible rubbed the back of his head. "Come on, man, you're just going to hurt yourself." A door burst open just past Shadow, and Kakashi strode in, walking with a purpose. "Hey, Kakashi, I'm just wrapping up here. Shadow seems about ready to run himself into unconsciousness. You, uh, you at least made it quick for Mystique, right?" Kakashi didn't answer, but tossed a blinking canister Mr. Incredible's way. He stared as it bounced up to his feet, his face blank. "This is me getting tear gassed for the second time in an hour." The gas went off, causing a stream of hacking and child-safe swearing to issue forth from it.
Mystique pulled the two Emeralds out of Kakashi's vest, which she seemed to have actually taken rather than shapeshifted. "Here. You can pay me back by getting this big oaf out of our face, and dragging me to the nearest copter if my wounds make me pass out." Beads of sweat were rolling off her chin from exertion. "Bite wounds and bullets were probably the last two things I expected from Kakashi."
"Well, he's a ninja," Shadow said, grabbing the Chaos Emeralds, "so if you didn't expect it, I guess he was doing his job. Alright… I could try sucking him into another dimension… but I saw how well that worked for Kakashi and against Eggman…" He rubbed the gems, feeling the power swirling around him. "Chaos Lance probably won't have enough penetration power either… Damn…"
Mystique slumped against the wall, looking at the tear gas cloud as it started to dissipate. "You need to make up your mind; people build up a resistance to that stuff after repeated exposure, and it was my last grenade." She pulled a fresh kunai knife from Kakashi's vest and started digging at the bullets in her legs, holding one of his scrolls between her teeth for something to bite down on. "Hey," she grunted through the wet paper and the pain, "can't you hurt him with momentum?"
"Not normally. I'll just break my hand. I'd have to be Super, but…" Shadow stared at the Emeralds. "I'm going to try something really, really dumb." He sucked all the energy he could out of the Emeralds, levitating them around him, and absorbed it all. Shadow allowed himself to lift into the air as a golden corona of energy formed around him. The black portions of his fur lit up and changed to glowing platinum, while the red and white parts of his fur retained their color. "Okay, I think this might actually work…"
Mystique looked him up and down suspiciously. Licks of red Chaos energy and gold… unknown energy swirled around his body, lighting up the entire room. Wind seemed to blow outward from him, dispelling the tear gas around Incredible. "Your dossier said you needed seven of those gems to do that. How long do you think you can hold it with three?"
"About five more seconds," Shadow admitted, his teeth chattering. "Get back!" He focused the full blast of his powers backwards and cocked his fist, getting ready to deliver the hardest punch of his life.
Meanwhile, Incredible could only see a shining golden blur in front of him. However, he could hear just fine, and he had a rough idea of what was happening. "Okay, that's pretty super," he admitted. "But let's see how it stands up!" He charged forward blindly, his fist ready.
Shadow rocketed forward. He didn't reach the speed of light, as Super Sonic had been rumored to do. However, he certainly surpassed Mach 10, reaching speeds that Mr. Incredible simply wasn't used to dealing with. Dodging Incredible's punch, he pumped all his available energy into his right fist –already plunged deep into Incredible's gut. "Chaos… Launch!" The blast of released energy propelled Mr. Incredible backwards through several walls and out of the volcanic cloud. It also shattered every piece of glass in the hallway and nearly knocked Mystique unconscious.
Shadow reverted back to his usual coloring and fell to his knees. His limbs felt like jelly, but he forced himself back onto his feet. "I still… have a job to do…" he panted. He staggered to a wall and felt the world spin around him. He wouldn't lose consciousness. He wouldn't.
Mr. Incredible survived both the punch and the subsequent Chaos Launch. However, he would not survive long enough to reach the zenith of his arc, as his path carried him into the primary rotor of the Dethkopter.
The entire ship lurched. "Whoa whoa whoa, what happened there?" One of the pilots asked. "We just nearly dropped out of the sky."
"I don't know, man," the copilot said. "Fuck! It feels like the rotor just chewed through a boulder." Almost as if on cue, a thick puree of blood and gore splattered onto the windshield. "A MEATY boulder."
"Dude, I'll run the industrial wipers," the pilot said. "But first I'm taking a picture. This is so brutal. How's the rotor?"
"It's at eighty-five percent. Kinda chewed up; we should have it looked at. It'll last us through the trip, though." The gas-masked pilot looked at the windshield. "Widescreen Windshield Full of Blood. Somebody should tell Lord Explosion that would make a good song title."
End of Chapter
Kakashi in particular kind of dominated this chapter. To be honest, I'm more comfortable writing Naruto-style fights than those of the other three canons, and he's probably the character I'm most experienced with.
Curtiss doesn't learn Spark Wave in-game, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he'd learn it. It's from other games in the Tales series. Lightning and Thunder Blade seem weird indoors.
Mr. Incredible is way damage resistant here. At least in my competitor's entries, Chaos Spear burns him or kills him; here, it only pushes him back a step. If I'd made him a bit less invincible, it may have been a better fight... ah well.
Kamui... right. Well, I wanted Kakashi using his most devastating trick, the properties of which happen to be largely unspecified in-canon. It teleports things into another dimension; nothing more is explained, so I assume Kakashi doesn't know much more about the trick. Well, in this case, the phlebetonium combination of Kamui and the Chaos Emeralds proves too much. The dimension is assumed to be a pocket dimension directly connected to Kakashi's eye, and by extension, his chakra coils. Chaos energy from the two gems overflows from this tiny dimension, so it leaks from the dimension and into his chakra. However, this also makes his Sharingan unstable because that's where the energy is pouring from; the next time he opens up the Kamui portal, it gets purged instead of working properly.
Shadow does go Super Shadow here... albeit in a very unstable form of Super Shadow. I have explanations for it somewhere in the forum. I think it's in the I Missed the Chance, But... thread.
Yes, to be clear, Kakashi gets shot in the abdomen and bone-clawed in the head. And Mr. Incredible gets stage-gibbed on the Dethkopter after getting punched at very, very high speeds.
Like Khellan, I'll provide a translation guide for Kakashi's Jutsu. Most of them are canon, although the first is a gestalt of canon jutsu.
Raiton: Rairyūdan no Jutsu: Lightning Release: Lightning Dragon Technique
Raikiri: Lightning Cutter
Kawarimi no Jutsu: Substitution Technique (unannounced)
Kage Bunshin no Jutsu: Shadow Clone Technique (unannounced)
Kamui: Might of the Gods
Shunshin no Jutsu: Body Flicker Technique (unannounced)
Henge no Jutsu: Transformation Technique (unannounced)
Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuaiga no Jutsu: Earth Style Summoning: Fanged Pursuit Technique
Raikiri Lightning Hound (no Japanese name was listed on the Naruto wikia)
Raiton Kage Bunshin: Lightning Release Shadow Clone (unannounced)
Tajuu Kage Bunshin: Multiple Shadow Clone (unannounced)