My musings on appropriate snack foods were cut short as the bright golden glow of flame encroached into the alleyway before a man in the form of a dragon stepped into view.

Lung covered ground fast. I really should have expected that. He wasn't rushing things, there was no urgency to his movements, he was simply fast like all proper kaiju were. The sheer scale of his movements lending proportional speed to his movements. One step and he was in the place between the ally I had run from, and the one I had run into. One more and he was moving into the other.

Hookwolf and his martial artist friend had already made their entrance, and as such were about to have a very bad day as they found themselves sandwiched between Coil's base full of laser armed mercenaries and a very angry pyrokenetic regenerative monster of a crime boss.

...One who was still ramping ever higher in power with literally no end to just how strong he could get.

~Wait, seriously?~

Very seriously. Lung's power 'started' at a relatively low superhuman package. Slow regeneration, durability enough to survive, though not ignore small arms fire, augmented strength, senses, and minor pyrokinesis abilities. However the longer he was in a conflict the further all of those grew with literally no end to how far they could go. He had shrugged off attacks that had sundered small continents on nothing but raw, non-conceptual durability, and hit hard enough to shatter materials that by all rights should be even harder to crack.

~Okay that sounds pretty fun. But this time you don't have back up. Can you still take him?~

It was possible. His healing was through, but up to a certain point it was also pretty slow, his durability high, but I'd damaged tougher. As powerful as he was, he still was limited by what physics allowed. Infernal magic simply worked on a different level then parahuman powers.

Once he hit a certain point though I was pretty much screwed. His regeneration would kick up to combat applicable levels and I didn't have a way to inflict wounds he couldn't heal yet. That combined with his durability, plus the fact that augmented durability or no I'd be burning perfect dodges just to not get pasted by him, and he'd easily trump me in the long game.

~Okay yeah I can see how that'd be problematic. What if you just hit him hard and fast right now?~

I wasn't sure just how ramped up he currently was, I mean he was pretty damn big already, but he hadn't grown wings yet, that meant he hadn't hit the really dangerous point in his transformation yet. If I went for the quick blow I could probably bring him down with enough trauma to something debilitating. Maybe break his spine, or open up a lung then retreat so he stopped escalating. He was tough enough to survive that and come back later. Killing him would let his main competition, the Empire Eighty Eight, a group of neo-nazi's who were already the biggest gang in town run all but unopposed.

Yeah not a good thing. Lung was a monster, but a necessary one, and unlike Coil there was no decisive tactical disadvantage to letting him linger around until the end. I'd need to take a few empire capes out of play before I went for the Dragon himself.

~...If you want to take out a few empire capes why not just let him do it then?~

Well, politics mostly. If I let him do that unopposed then he'd gain a stronger reputation, more people would be willing to side with him, or at least, not against him when the time came.

Plus well... I'd lose out the chance to fight.

~Yeah but if you disable this guy in the middle of a warzone aren't the other guys just going to finish him off?~

I blinked.

Huh, hadn't thought of that. I mean if I went for Lung then Hookwolf and friends would probably finish him off. If I went to eliminate Hookwolf first, or even just let Lung fight them to the natural conclusion then he'd probably be ramped to high for me to take.

Either way I lose, either in the long or short term.

Shit.

On the other hand Exalts specialized in accomplishing the impossi...

~...~

Okay fine, spoil all my fun.

Still my demanding inner voice had a point. I could tangle with the would be bokuran dragon man almost any time. He was certainly the type to accept an open challenge if offered one. Right now I needed to focus on minimizing this minor turf war that Tattletale had kicked off.

I fished out the cellphone again and started typing onto it while looking around. 'I'm out. Hookwolf crashing Coil's base with backup. Lung following. Conflicts all around. Moving in to neutralize E88 or ABB conventionals before they hurt someone. Can you offer suggested targets?'

I hit the send button then started moving towards the nearest sounding exchange of gunfire. It was all pretty close, less then a block. I could probably make it in time if I ran.

Then sounds of weapons fire suddenly died out from my west as explosions began picking up the noise of explosions from the south.

My mouth narrowed into a semi frown as I realized just what that implied.

This was a lot less fun of a choice. Flying blind with multiple points of conflict all around me and an unknown amount of capes on the scene.

Fortunately there was a pretty easy way to deduce which one to pick.

I ran down to the sound of growing conflict.