Allegro 2
Coil fought to keep calm as he sat at his desk, ignoring the wailing of the alarms around him, as well as the hails of his lieutenants attempting to inform him of the situation. He was already well aware of the extent of the situation, and he was already taking steps to rectify the issue.
In his own way.
~o~
In another life, Thomas Calvert's SUV rumbled down the streets of Brockton Bay's suburban area, making his way towards the I-95 interstate as fast as he lawfully could. As much as his instincts screamed, screamed at him to slam the pedal to the metal, he knew that speeding would only draw undue attention to himself and waste time he simply didn't have.
Thomas grit his teeth as he was forced to slow to a stop at the red light of an intersection. 'Tattletale...' He thought furiously. 'I don't know how, but somehow, somehow that little bitch is behind this. The second I'm free and clear, I am going to track her down, and I am going to make her pay. And then... I'll do it again. And again, and again, and again after that.'
He scowled and shook his head. 'Keep calm, Calvert, don't overreact. Alright, just need to get out of the city, fallback to safehouse 12, and see what I can salvage. Also, need to get in contact with the Number Man and get a few vials. I need my Parahumans to be more reliable, seeing how outsourcing has not been all that productive.'
Calvert strummed his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently as he waited for the light to change. 'Come on, come on... I need to get out of here before they-!'
His blood froze as a wall of murky haze fell straight down on the road, covering his car in his entirety.
'Oh. Shit.'
Before he could react further, something rammed into the side of the SUV. Something very, very big. The world became a blur of motion and pain. All he could hear was the crunch of the asphalt shattering, the groan of the reinforced frame crumpling, the hiss of the airbags as they expanded and slammed into him and the blood flowing through, around and out of his ears.
When the car finally came to a halt, it was in such a way that Thomas had to grab at the wheel and anchor his legs beneath the steering column in order to keep from sliding out of the drivers seat and onto the shattered glass of the passenger window waiting below.
Before he could attempt to extricate himself from the wreckage, the remains of the driver door were bodily ripped out of their frame, and an armored hand reached through down, grabbed him by the front of his suit and ripped him out of the seat.
When the blur of motion ceased, he found himself staring into Dauntless's cold, furious helmet.
"Hello, Coil," The hero intoned darkly.
Despite the alarm-bells ringing in his head, Calvert hastily composed himself. "C-coil!?" He stammered in what he desperately hoped was a thoroughly accurate reproduction of fear and desperation. "I- th-this has to be a mistake! Please, let me go! I-I'm not even a Parahuman!"
Dauntless jerked him in so that they were inches apart. "Let's check that fact, shall we?" His free hand grabbed Coil's right arm and jerked it out to the side.
Calvert followed the motion, and paled in fear when he recognized Panacea standing at his side. Before he could react, she grabbed his arm. A moment later, she let go and nodded definitively.
"He has a Gemma," She confirmed with no small amount of venom.
Thomas's breathing accelerated as he tried to come up with a response, any response. "I- y-yes, fine, I'm a Parahuman! That's not illegal, I don't have to tell anyone! You don't know I'm Coil, you don't have any proof!"
Dauntless shrugged indifferently."Even if you're not Coil, our intelligence at least links you to his actions in forcibly outing the identities of Parahumans. That's proof enough for me. Now then..."He turned on his heel and hefted Thomas away, throwing him into the middle of the street. "She would like to have a word with you."
Thomas grunted painfully as he rolled to a stop. When he finally got his arms and legs beneath himself, he slowly pushed himself up...
And stared into Cricket's grill-covered mask.
A blur of steel flashed towards his head...
~o~
And Coil jerked back in his seat, gasping desperately. "Well... shit..." He muttered weakly.
Without wasting any time, Coil hastily recentered himself and started to think. "Alright, alright..." He breathed. "I... I need to get out of here... and I need to get my pet as well... alright, let's do both."
Coil stood up and started to walk towards the door to his office.
~o~
-tapped a button hidden on the surface of his desk, causing a panel behind his chair to slide open.
Coil turned his chair around, stood up...
"Well howdy, ya damn snake!"
BANG!
"GUGH!" The air whuffed out of Coil's lungs as something all but kicked him in the chest, flinging him back into his seat. Stars danced in front of his eyes until he finally gained enough focus to notice the myriad of colors painted across his chest.
Cursing in his mind, Coil hastily regained his breath and tried to sluggishly lift his head. "L-look... South, r-right? You're not... you're not a killer, you don't-!"
"Hey puss-sucker! You not recognize me you damn shit-snorting-"
"Oh will you just shut the hell up!?"Coil snarled furiously, the grating voice pumping a tad of energy into his mind.
Skidmark scowled as he stepped up to the supervillain. "You still think you're better than me, cunt-licker?! Let's see how long that lasts!"
Coil choked as a very familiar cylinder was rammed into his throat.
"Say 'ah', you-!"
~o~
Coil cursed under his breath and stumbled slightly before hastily accelerating his pace. 'Killed by Skidmark...' He shuddered in revulsion. 'The horror.'
Coming up on an intersection, he made a swift decision.
He turned left-
~o~
-right, and increased his pace, now running for his life.
The next nearest exit was down the next corridor, maybe if he hurried he could-
Coil's train of thought ground to a halt as he rounded a corner and caught sight of a squad of his men ahead of him.
Or rather, what was left of a squad, seeing how the last one standing was only being held up by the hand of a dark man in an army coat.
Slowly, Krieg's head turned, and his crimson goggles seemed to flash with recognition. Without fanfare,he released the last trooper's throat, allowing him to drop to the ground.
Coil inched his foot back towards the corridor he'd come down...
When he was nearly bowled over by a soldier coming down the exact same corridor. "Sir! Extreme perimeter breach, we need to-!" He cut off when he noticed Krieg. "Get behind me!" He whipped his gun up.
Coil only had a second to notice that the soldier, like the others at the end of the corridor, was toting a conventional rifle instead of tinkertech. "Wait, do-!" He was cut of by the bark of the gun letting loose a hail of lead at the intruder.
Meanwhile, the whole time that the soldier had been speaking, Krieg had slowly raised his arm up so that it was parallel with the ground, palm pointed at the two of them. Though the bullets crossed the length of the hall in less than a second, the instant they came even remotely close to Krieg... they halted, full stop.
The soldier blinked numbly as the pieces of metal hung in the air. "W-what the-?"
Coil groaned and kneaded the bridge of his nose through his mask. "He's a kinetic manipulator, you idiot."
Krieg slowly cracked his neck back and forth ominously.
Coil scrunched his eyes shut. "This one's going to hurt."
Krieg waved his hand down, the bullets continued to move in the opposite direction almost twice as fast and-
~o~
Coil stumbled again, almost bouncing off of the wall before he found it within himself to keep moving.
He didn't even spare a second to think. Instead, he merely rammed his fist into a specific section of the wall-
~o~
Broke into a sprint, abandoning all pretenses of caution as be bolted down the base's hallway.
He was at the door to his pet's room in less than a minute. A quick press of a hidden section of the doorframe and-
CRUNCH!
Coil gurgled painfully as his back hit the door, blood fountaining from his shattered jaw and nose.
His hand scrabbled momentarily to find purchase before getting crushed under a large boot, causing him to let out another choked gasp of pain.
"You know..." Manpower growled as he knelt over Coil's prone form. "At first, I was a little hesitant about the fury with which we attacked you. I didn't really want to kill anyone. Hell, I was planning on just capturing you and dragging you to the PRT. But after seeing this..."
He was silent as Lady Photon flew out of the room he'd left and made her way down the corridor they'd come from, clutching a girl to her chest the whole way.
Manpower scowled before grinding his boot into Coil's hand. "Oh, my doubts are long gone. But..." He stood up and stepped back. "I won't do it. You know why?"
Coil tried to draw in a gasp of breath, but was cut off by a large hand encircling his throat and lifting him up the wall by his neck alone. Through the pain, Coil was able to make out a lion mask that was far more angry looking than it normally was.
"Because anything he does to you will be far worse than anything I could come up with."
Triumph crunched Coil into the wall as he leaned in so that they were face to face.
"You. Kidnapped. My cousin." He growled under his breath. "Suffer."
Triumph took in a deep breath-
~o~
Coil let out a grunt of breath as he fell to his knees, instinctively whipping a hand to his jaw.
Coil spared a few precious moments to regain his breath-
~o~
-powered through the pain, staggering to his feet before stumbling down the cramped passage's confines. He tripped and accidentally crossed his feet a few times before finally managing to get his feet beneath him and actually start to run.
He only got about two dozen feet...
FWOOSH!
Before the sound of flames in front of him forced him to a halt.
Psycho leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Eight orange tails flicked and flickered behind him furiously.
Coil worked his jaw beneath his mask furiously. "Oh you have got to be-!"
And everything became FIRE.
~o~
Coil's head snapped up as the sound of a raging inferno roared down the corridor.
Acting fast, Coil threw himself to the side and into another hidden passageway, ramming his shoulder into a button just behind the doorframe and triggering the failsafe, causing a six-inch thick barricade to clamp down just as the heat of the fire licked at his back.
He didn't take a moment to wait. He slammed his palm into the floor, popping open a hidden hatch and lowering himself into the stone tunnel-
~o~
-crawled to his feet and staggered down the hall, dragging one foot in front of the other.
He didn't even make it a minute, and he didn't flinch when the blade shot out of the wall and pierced his diaphragm, angling itself to miss his lungs entirely.
"Coil, let me be totally and utterly honest with you..." Kaiser drawled as he tapped a blade in his hand. "I am going to thoroughly enjoy this."
Coil gasped in a desperate breath of air-
~o~
Coil coughed and grunted furiously as he dug his hand into the wall, his knees nearly buckling beneath him.
He took a second to recover his breath before stepping forwards again-
~o~
-And stopping dead in his tracks as the sound of a gun's hammer clicking back rang in his ears.
Coil slowly raised his head-
~o~
-and stared at the person pointing a gun at his head in disbelief.
He didn't see the gun. He didn't see what the person looked like, or even their gender. He only saw one thing.
~o~
That grin.
That fucking grin.
"You... fucking... bi-!"
~o~
"Surely we can come to some kind of agreement, right Tattletale?" He swallowed nervously.
The grin grew several molars wider. "You have absolutely no idea-!"
~o~
"-how long I've waited for this day!" She cackled, revelling in the fury he was expressing.
"You will not get away with this!" Coil ranted, spittle coating the inside of his mask. "Do you hear me, you bitch!? You can't do this to me! I own you! I OW-!"
~o~
"-onsider you to be a very valuable part of my operations!" Coil raised his hands in defense as he slowly backed away. "P-please, we're both logical people! Maybe we can come to some kind of agreement or-or-or-!"
"Oh Coil..." Tattletale crooned sickeningly.
"You know there's only one thing that I want, that I've wanted ever since I first met you..."
~o~
"Your head," She shook with ill-suppressed glee. "On a silver. Platter."
"You don't even realize what you've done, do you?" Coil seethed. "I have connections! I have allies! They will come for you, and they will burn you, and the Undersiders, and this whole fucking city, TO THE GROUND!"
Tattletale considered this for a moment before shrugging carelessly. "Meh, we can take 'em. Now then..." Her grin was inches from splitting her face. "Get on your knees. And beg."
"I will never beg, do you hear me? NE-!"
~o~
"-lease, Tattletale! Look inside yourself! You're not a killer. You know that you aren't!" Coil pleaded desperately.
"Correction, Calvert..." She pressed her gun against his temple. "I wasn't a killer. Congratulations. You made me one. Goodbye, Coil. For what it's worth?"
~o~
"I hope you burn in hell."
Coil lunged at her, roaring in inhuman fury as he-
~o~
-grit his teeth and awaited his fate.
~o~
Tattletale pulled the trigger.
~o~
An earsplitting bang rang out through the tunnel.
~o~
And Thomas Calvert died.
-o-
Tattletale breathed heavily as she took in the villain's corpse.
For the longest time, she just stood there, her powers still catching up to events.
And finally... "Ha... ha ha..." she started to laugh.
"Hahaha...hahahaHAHAHAHAHA!" She laughed and laughed and laughed, her body shaking violently with hysterical mirth. She even collapsed against the wall, pounding at the wall furiously.
"I'M FREE! HAHAHA! I'M FUCKING FREE! SUCK IT YOU DAMN BASTARD, BECAUSE I! AM! FREE! WHOO!"
She carried on like this for about a minute before finally starting to calm down and come off her high, wheezing out her laughter in short, final gasps.
At last, her laughter finally died down and she started to compose herself.
"Alright... alright..." she breathed to herself. "Now... gotta work fast... need to secure his assets, keep his contacts from realizing that he's dead so that I can milk them for all they're worth, renegotiate with those who figure it out... geeze, I seriously need to negotiate with his backers, yeesh. Alright, alright..."
She turned her eyes heavenwards as she ran her hand through her hair.
"Am I forgetting anything?"
-o-
"Are you two sure that this is a good idea?"
"Positive!" "After all, what else would a supervillain keep in a vault in their top-secret base?"
"Come on, Battery! This job is off the books, what's so wrong with skimming a little extra cash?"
"I really don't know about this..."
"Tough cookies! We're getting in, one way or another!" "Speaking of, how's it going, Victor?"
"Almost there, just need a bit more... rgh, damn it. Othala, hit me with the hypersensitivity again, would you?"
"Victor, I'm not sure-"
"I seem to recall something about you wanting a... what was it, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme machine? How'd you like that and the expansion pack?"
"... make it fast."
"Gladly! Now, just... a bit..."
CLANK!
"Jackpot!"
"Pay day has come early!" THWAP! "OW! Puppy!"
"Oh yeah!" "Come to papa!"
Creeeeeak...
"...what the shit?"
"...h-hello? W-who are you? What... are you doing here? How did you open the door?!"
"Uhh..."
"What's going on? Why can I hear fighting? What happened to the Travellers!? Where is Krouse!?"
"Dearest brother." "Yes, dearest sister?" "We're utterly screwed, aren't we?" "Oh, most definitely."
"GROOOAAAAAARRR!"
"DAMN IT, ASSAULT!"
-o-
"GROOOAAAAAARRR!"
Tattletale paled as the earth shook beneath her feet. "Ohhh... riiiight... forgot about that." She flipped out her cellphone, taking a second to thank her stars for opting for the tinkertech upgrade before dialing a number and pressing the phone to her ear.
"Hello? Composer? Yeah, don't be mad, but I might have forgotten to tell you something... no no, don't worry, it's a minor issue."
"GROOOAAAAAARRR!"
"On second thought, make that a major situation! Get everyone to the main entrance! HURRY!"