Queen of the Bay
1.2:
Trent 1-B
For a heart stopping second, Trent was sure that he was going to die. And not in a good way. He was going to be bug food. Literally devoured alive by the fucking Swarms of the fucking Queen of the Bay. She had done it before. Not like this! Oh God, not like this—!
Then L33t's voice broke in over the voices. "Hero incoming! I say again, hero incoming! It's Bumblebee!"
Trent felt like weeping as he sagged in relief. He knew of the B-Ranked Heroine by reputation. Beebee as she was usually referred to; was a freelance unaffiliated vigilante tinker who had popped up on the West Coast around two, two and a half years back.
She had quickly become known for her tendency to move around from city to city but in recent months had settled down in New Hampshire and occasionally popping up in the Bay. Not a good idea in his opinion. The Queen was well known for being prickly at times. And a do-gooder cape on 'her' turf who happened to share 'her' insect-theme?
Yeah. That could not end well. Everyone was betting that they'd find Bumblebee's corpse one day—probably half-cannibalized by the fucking Swarms. She shoulda stayed on the West Coast, he thought with a wince knowing that the biggest bug bitch of them all would make real short work of a mere B-Lister. One day.
But what was important right now was that Beebee was one of those capes who went for disabling criminals in a non-permanent and non-fatal manner like Legend. Awesome, he thought cheerfully. Jail was always better than the morgue or permanently crippled—something that occasionally occurred with hardasses like Alexandria and that psycho Glory.
The droning buzz changed in pitch and tone as Beebee came swooping down and he suddenly remembered her other nickname on the PHO boards as BubbleBod.
Seeing her in person made him realize just why she had gotten the handle … and why it stuck. She was taller than even him with shapely legs that went all the way up to a set of wide hips and well padded rear. Trent was not a butt man but he had to admit that she had one with just enough padding. With the stiletto heels, she had to be well over 6 feet and at least a 38-DD bustline. She was seriously fit too with a set of cut abs visible even through the armored suit. Over the droning sound of the frantically fluttering backpack mounted wings, she announced loudly, "Citizen's arrest! Lay down your arms and put your hands—YIKES!"
The last bit was the result of half a dozen weapons discharged at her from both Merchants and Trent's fellow henchmen, forcing her to juke down and to the right. Unfortunately, it caused her to veer too close to Trent's position … and Davy Jones.
Jones' gun went off with a high-pitched whine and a fast moving bolt of—something went and struck one of her wings. With a cry of surprise, Beebee went down and hard, smashing several plastic wrapped cartons with a yelped, "Owie!"
With a savage war cry, Jones charged towards the downed heroine, his clawed hand rearing back for a finishing blow. He was less than a foot away when Beebee's hand snapped out and the air seemed to shudder and the worst, most awful sound Trent had ever heard assaulted his eardrums. He could only imagine how it sounded to Jones who caught it point blank and went soaring backwards through the air, bowling over several gaping Merchants and Uber before slamming into several of the carton stacks.
"Yeah, that's right!" Beebee slurred as she staggered to her feet. "Big bully! Shooting down innocent superheroines!"
"Fuck you bitch!" Mush barked, his trash armor wrapping around his fist and forming a large sledgehammer like protrusion that he waved menacingly at her.
"Not without buying me dinner first! And for you—showering a few hundred times wouldn't hurt either!" Beebee retorted and her hands once more snapped out accompanied by the air distorting between her and Mush again.
Mush staggered but apparently was less affected to the sonic blast. Trent guessed it was a combination of Mush being a bit farther away than Jones—and the layers upon layers of heavy garbage wrapped around him, not only weighing him down but shielding him pretty effectively.
Beebee seemed to blink in surprise. "Oh that's not good," she muttered.
"Dinner's cancelled cunt. But—" Mush trailed off, his eyes running up and down appreciatively her form and he licked his lips, "—after dinner plans is definitely on!" he called out, lumbering forward.
"Crap, crap, crap!" Beebee turned and took off, able to run surprisingly well for a woman in stiletto heels in Trent's opinion. Her backpack unfolded open and a pair of nearly transparent wings peeled out from the storage space. With a droning buzz, they fluttered and then died like an old lawnmower engine failing to catch.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" she wailed, glancing over her shoulder at the sputtering wings. One of the wings was dangerously bent out of alignment—probably from Jones' earlier shot.
She spun around and clapped her hands together, almost prayerfully. Mush chuckled and then his giggling died as there was a high-pitched rumbling whine building up. A long veteran of Uber and L33t's fights against other capes, Trent did the sensible thing. He dove for cover and clapped his hands over his ears.
SSSSSCCCCCCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Despite the muffling, he could still hear the fucking sound reverberating in his skull. It seemed to last forever but then it finally faded away, allowing Trent to remove his hands and look around—finally spotting a naked and drooling potbellied man lying in a mass of cardboard, paper, wads of unidentifiable substances, and the like all strewn around him.
Trent hastily averted his eyes, not so much as to protect Mush's ID but rather because if he wanted to look at naked bodies—it most certainly would not be an ugly and overweight guy. There were people who desperately needed to be covered up as much as possible and Mush was one of them. Or at least some boxers to protect the world from being traumatized at the sight of Mush's … junk.
Beebee was panting and straightened up and surveyed the dock, "Now then … before I was interrupted," she cleared her throat and pointed a finger at the biggest cluster of Merchants, "Citizen's … no, wait, I already said that—right! Weapons down and hands on your—"
There was a loud clank as part of the monster truck was rotating around and revealed a huge gaping maw of a very large barrel.
"—HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER!" Beebee blurted out and dove to the side. Trent assumed the same pose, throwing himself as flat on the ground as he could. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
BOOOOOOOM!
The entire dock shuddered and a gigantic section just vaporized. Friendly fire my ass, Trent thought darkly. Sure, he didn't really expect the fucking cokeheads not to care if they waxed Trent or the rest of Uber & L33t's gang, but shit—he was fairly sure that at least three—maybe four of their own guys had been blown to smither-fucking-reens including maybe Mush. Asshole druggies.
The formerly lying prone Beebee uncovered her head and blurted out, "Are you guys NUTS? You could seriously hurt somebody with that thing! Why do you even need a tank cannon?"
"BECAUSE OF MOTHER-FUCKING CUNTS LIKE YOU!" Skidmark roared. He banged the cab of the truck, "YOU MISSED BITCH! SHOOT AGAIN!"
"It's reloading baby!"
"Hurry the fuck up! Goddamned slow-assed—"
Trent decided to ignore the byplay of Skidmark and Squealer's on-going argument as he briefly considered throwing himself off the side of the dock and into the frigid water of the Bay. He wasn't that crazy about the odds of him surviving the fall, hypothermia, and having to swim for shore, particularly since he never learned to swim—on the other hand, he was less than enthused about his odds of surviving a fucking tank round and the accuracy of a drugged out gunnery officer. Nix's job offer was looking better all the fucking time. God, he hated capes.
Trent resisted sighing as he needed all of the breath he could spare as he belly crawled as fast as he could for some half-decent cover. He doubted it would actually stop anything—but anything had to be better than thin air.
It seemed that Beebee was of similar thought as she was crawling for some makeshift cover as well as they were both heading in the same direction. Well, Trent made a mental shrug—at least the view is definitely better. Trent could see her shapely rear flexing through the sheer tightness of her leggings without any panty lines which indicated that Ms. Beebee either went commando or favored thongs.
Trent heard the turret gun clanking again, adjusting its aim in their direction. Shit, they weren't going to make it—
"ERRAAAGGGHHHH!"
Davy Jones exploded out of the broken mass of cartons, flinging several boxes off of him. Several of them, impacting the big rig like missiles and one by chance, struck Skidmark and sent him tumbling off the truck with a pained cry. Apparently, his misfortune distracted Squealer's aim because at the last second, the rotating gun barrel shifted a bit further than intended accompanied by Squealer's squawk of "SKIDDY!"
BOOOOOOOM!
The shell went whizzing through the air just missing hitting the dock. Seconds later, there was a huge thoom and a massive plume of water geysering up like a fountain that drenched Trent. He spat out water and continued crawling, shivering in his now soaking clothes.
"I'M GONNA TEAR DEY BITCH'S RIBCAGE OUT 'ND WEAR IT AS ME NEW HAT!" Jones roared, waving his gigantic claw around and staggering drunkenly as his eyestalks rotated around, each independently of one another as they searched for his target.
"Shithead!" Squealer shrieked. "He hurt Skiddy! Get 'im!" she yelled, causing several of the Merchants to open fire on Jones, small arms fire plinking off his armored shell.
Trent wanted to shake his head but right now, nobody was shooting in his direction which was a big step up in his opinion. On further reflection, Trent got the feeling that Jones wasn't even aware that he was being fired on at first. It wasn't until one of them tried a shotgun at near point blank range that Davy Jones finally reacted. The gigantic crustacean didn't even flinch from the booming roar of the gun, although he seemed to sway a bit from the double-ought buckshot. As near as Trent could tell, getting struck by both barrels didn't even pierce his built-in body armor. But it did succeed in attracting the dazed smuggler's attention.
He slowly turned and seemed to glare at the offender for a second. The wannabe assaulter with the shotgun actually took a step back, looking at the shotgun and clearly wishing for something bigger.
Dumbass. He should have backed up further because then Jones moved.
Something that big and that large should not be able to move that fast in Trent's opinion. But capes tended to ignore fucking shit like that because in an eyeblink, Jones had lunged forward and grabbed the shotgun with his pincher. In one deft move, yanked it out of the hands of the Merchant and simultaneously crushed it. His other hand came out and grabbed a fistful of shirt and hauled the Merchant up so that they were eye-to-eye—well, eye-to-eyestalk anyways.
"DID YEW JUST SHOOT ME?!" Jones bellowed, shaking him.
Trent spared the opportunity to get to his feet and haul ass. There was a concrete piling that he banged into and slumped behind as a make-shift barrier. Trent kissed it in relief. Better than nothing.
He quickly took stock of his person and gear. Small cuts, bruises, bumps, and scrapes but all four limbs attached along with all of his fingers and toes. His laser gun was gone. No biggee, Trent pulled out a regular snub-nosed .38 from his jacket pocket and a handful of shells and started loading the weapon. Uber and L33t might rely on their tinker-techie crap but he preferred good ol' fashioned shit that wasn't likely to blow up in his face.
The real loss though was his radio. He wasn't even getting static. He pulled the earplug out and examined it. It was in pieces with wires sticking out and barely attached to the speaker; Trent tried to close the case back together but it didn't stay and simply fell apart in his hands again. Fuck. And since the total extent of his technical abilities was changing the batteries in the remote, Trent was effectively without any comms. He had no idea what was fucking going on. As near as he could tell, Uber had gone down which meant L33t was in charge … for what it was worth.
That probably explained why we were acting so disorganized. Well—the fucking Merchies probably didn't help either. Trent trusted L33t. Well, to the extent that he wouldn't deliberately fuck him and the boys over. And that he wouldn't cheat us. But in a combat op?
He had a tendency to get distracted and confused. Which is why Uber tended to act as the coach and keep him focused. Without Uber? 60/40 chance, he would panic and the boys didn't have Nix or me to function as the quarterback to keep them fucking grounded.
Trent finished loading the .38 and risked a quick peek around. Right now, he saw absolute anarchy. The band of Merchants plus Squealer were attacking Davy Jones. And Jones was defending himself. Mush and Skidmark were down. L33t and Uber were MIA, but the boys were all milling around—clearly confused and needed some sort of fucking guidance. Beebee had gone to ground somewhere which wasn't good. If there was anyone who you did not want to give fucking time to get organized; it was tinkers.
"STOP THIS SHIT YOU STUPID PIGFUCKERS!" someone roared.
Trent saw Skidmark staggering up, rubbing his chest.
"THESE MOTHERLESS BITCHES SHOT ME!" Jones roared.
"WELL, YOU FUCKING CLIPPED ME!" Skidmark bellowed and started coughing and then, "WHY THE FUCK ARE WE YELLING?!"
"SPEAK UP DAMMIT, I CUN BARELY 'EAR YOU!" Jones screamed back.
Fucking capes. Trent sighed and leaned his head against the cool concrete post to try and stop his suddenly throbbing migraine. These were the people the PRT were hoping to kill the Endbringers with? Maybe I should spare myself and stick my .38 in my mouth and pull the fucking trigger…
TO BE CONTINUED…
A/N: Bumblebee is another OC character in case you were wondering.