March 21st, 2011 - Monday
Late Afternoon

Taylor and Cameron entered the usual meeting room, to find everyone except Martin already inside. Jennifer raised her eyes off the papers she had laid out on a table and gave them a faint smile.

"Hey, girls. Martin got in my range a moment ago - he'll be here in a minute, then we can begin."

True to her word, the Tinker went in through the door a minute later and nodded at everyone in greeting.

"Alright, let's begin. Have you all heard about the mess in Cornell a couple of weeks ago?" Jennifer asked without waiting for someone to prompt her. Taylor wasn't certain, but she seemed a little more tense than usual during briefings. After a round of nods, she continued.

"The Tinker responsible was a new trigger, Alice Nakamura. From what we know about her, she's a bomb specialist and an egomaniac, and was ruled out as a recruitment opportunity despite a promising power. She's due to be transferred to a more secure holding facility in New York on Wednesday."

"We're not trying to break her out, are we?" Martin asked.

"We definitely aren't, but information leaks have been tracked. We suspect Lung will personally come to recruit her - this would be disastrous for our current and future operations in the Bay even if Lung keeps her under control - but if she manages to take over, half the city will be a crater. Our goal here is to make sure Lung doesn't bring her back to the Bay. Any questions?"

"Are we taking Trevor with us?" Lim asked.

"No, not yet. If we have to offer an explanation, say we didn't want to take someone new and barely-trained into a situation that dangerous. Here's the plan..."

~o~o~o~

March 23rd, 2011 - Wednesday
Evening

"They're turning right. No sign of trouble yet," Webweaver's voice cut through the quiet. They were driving along a street that ran parallel to the one the prison transport was taking, about half of her range behind and to the right. Martin took the next turn right, to keep out of sight. They weren't expecting trouble to start until they left the city, so for now caution was what mattered. Taylor's leg bounced restlessly, and she could tell her teammates were tense as well. She wasn't sure if she was more concerned with the upcoming fight, or that among the crates of insects in the back of the van, one carried a batch of Webweaver's new bombardier beetles. She didn't care how many times the woman swore the bugs aren't volatile until they've spent a few minutes "arming", it was still a crate of exploding insects.

Taylor hoped for a brief moment that it won't come down to a fight. Maybe Lung will miss the transport. Maybe the PRT knows about the leak too and will change the transport's route before they hit the ambush.

A few minutes later, the transport left city bounds and continued down the highway to New York. Webweaver's calm voice as she told Dynamic how to correct the speed to keep the right distance from the transport wasn't helping Taylor's nerves about fighting the villain that single-handedly defeated the entire Protectorate ENE when he first arrived in the Bay.

As the transport exited the highway half an hour later to follow the leaked route, Webweaver spoke up again in a far less calm tone.

"They're stopping. Something's..." she trailed off, before shaking her head. "Ash all over the vehicle. They ran over an Oni Lee clone. Get ready, everyone!"

They stopped their van at the side of the road and started approaching on foot - even if it did cost them some time, their getaway vehicle becoming collateral damage in the fight wasn't in the cards. Web looked at Taylor.

"Eris, get there as fast as you can. They have a cape riding escort, some kind of Striker by the moves, but they're not going to hold Lee for long."

Taylor nodded, grabbed a fingertip Jigsaw offered and broke into a sprint as Web's swarms started flooding out of the van. It didn't take long to see Oni Lee fighting a blue-clad hero. The guard's punches left bright, blue-white afterimages, and when his fists collided with either Oni Lee's knives or clones, a burst of ice appeared. He was fast, but before Taylor could get in range, a clone managed to get past his guard and stab him in the arm. The clone's own arm was frozen solid by a burst of ice, but as the rest of the clone burst into ash, another appeared behind the hero and plunged a knife into the small of his back. The hero cried out as he fell to the ground.

The assassin was fiddling with the transport's back door when he heard Taylor's footsteps. As he turned to look at her, she pushed her power towards him. Can't risk letting him use grenades.

Oni Lee charged her, just as she felt a flicker of anger appear behind her, fading. She leapt to the side as a knife flew past where she stood and the furious Lee next to the transport burst to ash, and came face to face with another one. She pulsed her power at him and punched, the next swirl of ash joining the one from the previous clone as another fading pulse of anger appeared to her left. She was momentarily distracted when her anger sense noted someone else barreling down the road ahead towards them - and Taylor was fairly certain who that was.

The momentary distraction was enough for three more Lees to appear around her, while the first of Webweaver's swarm started to descend. Taylor slammed herself into one of them to clear some space while trying to anger the other two with her powers, and cast Jigsaw's fingertip into the air the moment she had the space to do so. The friendly teleporter appeared midair and took a backhand swing at the head of a Lee that appeared immediately behind him. That one didn't burst into ash instantly.

"His teleports throw off my power!" Taylor shouted, before focusing on the Lee that had appeared next to the transport again. He stumbled and another one appeared next to her, mildly disoriented. He managed to teleport again before she struck him. This whack-a-mole game was not the plan!

The assassin was, however, slower than before he got smacked in the head, and even more so compared to how he moved against the hero. Taylor realized that even if Lee's teleportation cancelled her power, the brief bursts of anger were still distracting him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lung come in view and start charging. She pushed her power at every Lee in sight and immediately kicked backwards. The blow connected at a very painful height and she punched the doubled-over Lee in the temple. He collapsed, and Jigsaw jumped in and started wrapping a blindfold around his mask, then rolled down the neck of Lee's costume when a gold widow arrived, seeking a spot to bite. Dynamic and Cameron finally caught up, and the Tinker shot Lung in the knee, causing him to stumble. The dragon-man's emerging scales scraped against the transport's side, and Taylor thought she heard a muffled yell from within.

Vortex's field sprang up around him the moment he regained his balance, tugging him away from the transport and closer to the encroaching swarm. They weren't certain how Lung's regeneration would work against venom, but they all agreed the best chance to find that out was before he ramped up to the point of being permanently on fire. However, for every few stumbling steps the field forced him to take, he grew several inches and it took longer to knock him off balance the next time. Vortex looked at Dynamic and nodded. As the Tinker raised his weapon, the field suddenly shifted behind Lung, the sudden change in direction nearly causing him to fall over backwards. A shot to the left collarbone cracked scales in a burst of blood, knocking him to the ground completely. The dragon-man stood back up, going along with the green field's continued movement - he realized the pull is strongest at the edge.

Once back on his feet, the now nine foot tall Lung charged out of the field, only stumbling when Vortex pulled the field up - even if the pull wasn't strong enough to lift him off the ground as he was now, it messed with his footing enough. The four scattered to dodge a gout of flame headed their way, and Lung started chasing after Vortex. She dismissed her field and recreated it in front of herself for additional speed, and a curtain of bugs coalesced behind her, hiding her from sight. The next fireburst scattered burnt insects, and revealed Vortex using her field to... "flying" didn't describe it as well as "falling mostly upwards."

Vortex dismissed the field briefly to dodge a parting fireball from Lung, and floated far enough away after catching herself again that Lung decided to find himself a new target. Dynamic took that as his cue to repeat his "walking on the air" trick Taylor had seen him do the day she first met the Elite.

Does everyone on this team except me have a flying trick? Taylor thought in exasperation as Lung decided she was a better target than the teleporter and charged, roaring and setting the road on fire with his footsteps, eating the distance with every bound now that he was approaching twelve feet tall. She turned to run, and heard Web's voice again.

"The widows will just burn now. Plan B - lure him to your 9 o'clock."

Taylor did so, turning to run in the general direction of the van. Lung elected to throw more fire after her instead of chasing, and Taylor felt the heat as she barely dodged it. A reflexive breath felt like it was about to burn her lungs out, but she managed to dash another dozen feet before the coughing fit came. Lung wasn't chasing her... why wouldn't he? It's not like...

Then it hit her. He knew she was luring him into a trap. She remembered how her own regeneration removed her need for glasses.

"He has enhanced hearing!"

"I see. There's one last trick I can think of. Keep away from him."

Taylor decided to listen to that and started backing away from Lung. He had lost the mask, and she could see him scan the area. As his eyes fixed on the van, he raised a hand and started gathering flames in it. Taylor chanced a look, and saw Jigsaw toss a fingertip in Lung's direction. Lung barely spared it a glance as it passed a foot above his head.

Jigsaw reappeared there for a split-second, and was gone before either Taylor or Lung could react.

The bombardier beetles that had been clinging to his costume, however, remained.

Taylor realized what was about to happen just as the beetles started sizzling in Lung's fire, slammed her hands over her ears, closed her eyes and dove to the ground.

The THUMP rattled her ribs, and as she shakily got off the ground, she saw Lung on the ground, most of his flesh stripped to the bone. His fires had gone out, and the swarm of insects that surged forth reached him without much trouble. A handful of gold widows bit down where the flesh wasn't covered in scales. Looking carefully, Taylor could see the scales were receding, but the bleeding was stopping as well. Webveaver spoke again, voice calm even as Taylor sensed her controlled anger.

"Either that keeps him down until the heroes show up, or the only way we're winning this fight is if we execute him now. We need to go."

The team gathered back at the van. They found Webweaver had laid Jigsaw across the back seat, cutting the burnt pieces of his costume off with a knife. Most of the burns were around his hands and chest, but he seemed to be breathing fine.

"He didn't get caught in the blast, just a split-second in Lung's flames," she spoke, preempting the question. "He'll heal, but it'll almost certainly scar and infection is a possibility. Now stop gawking and drive."

They drove away, a tense silence only broken by Web's phone ringing an hour later. She read the message, not showing an outward reaction, but her anger subsided at least a little.

"Lung and Oni Lee were still out of it when the heroes showed up. They were both apprehended. The Tinker had managed to get out of the car, but she didn't get very far before they found her. Mission success, I suppose."

That seemed to ease the atmosphere a little. Jigsaw spoke up from the back seat.

"So, what was that flight trick, Vortex? Don't think I've seen you pull that one before." He sounded tired.

"Oh, uh, that's another reason I can't really use my field in melee. I... suspected I can do that, but I never tried. Don't laugh, but... I'm kinda scared of heights." She sounded a little embarrassed at that.

"Guess an angry dragon is even scarier, huh?"

"You don't say?"

Everyone chuckled at that. Webweaver seemed lost in thought, though it was hard to tell in her concealing costume. Eventually she spoke up.

"If that's the entire ABB's cape roster in custody... the Empire's going to make their move. Call your father when we get back, Taylor. Things won't be quiet in the Bay for long."