Pick Your Poison

Heat 5.3

[Sunda, December 5, 2010]

As soon as we piled into the Skiff, we took off at speed and nearly flew into a 50-foot tall playboy model level of beautiful and sexy woman in a plain blue blouse and short skirt who was sprinting through the city, and we had thankfully ascended higher after that to avoid being hit by her twin giantess sister. "What the fuck?! What're those two Neo-Nazi bitches doing at a time like this?!" Skidmark demanded as we watched while the pilot continued towards Haven.

"Well what do ya know…." Trainwreck mused as we saw Fenja and Menja run into the bay and swim towards the sinking Rig. "Guess even Nazis have hearts." At this, I opened my phone and dialed Miss Militia's temporary contact number that the heroes established for our collaboration.

"Who is this?" Militia demanded of me, and I ignored the heat in her voice at not recognizing my burner, which I'll have to 'burn' after this is over if the rumors of her eidetic memory were true.

"Dealer. We just saw Fenja and Menja sprint for the Bay. They've jumped in and are swimming for the Rig in nothing but their civvies." Now that I considered it, those two might die from this stunt. That water is just above freezing this time of year.

"They must be trying to save Othala and Cricket. But there is no way they can know which part of the Rig to tear off...I'll arrange for emergency services, thank you for the heads-up." Militia sounded conflicted at the news, but her feelings were none of my business.

"This is our city too Militia. The more we work together, the better things will be." I hung up, and braced myself to try and fight a supposedly unstoppable killing machine. "So...how are we going to go about this?"

"I need to see her to get more information, but what I've gathered from extrapolation says that she'll be nearly immune to most forms of physical conflict." Tats informed us, and we all sighed.

"Great, and us without our Masters." I grumbled. Taylor and Danny were both in Karachi right now, helping with search-and-rescue. They both had huge areas of effect, and both could find people just by being ferried around. Damn. If Danny was here, he might've been able to swap bodies with Coco and render her helpless long enough for us to launch her into space or over Antarctica or something.

"Well...Regent stayed at Haven…." Tats mentioned with worry in her demeanor, and we all steeled ourselves moments before the blinding psychedelic effect of entering Haven's dimensional pocket kicked in.

"OH SH-!" The pilot never got to finish his statement, because almost immediately after we finished entering Haven, a length of train track rail speared through the cockpit, taking his head along with it and jerking the Skiff moments before it's gravity system failed and we plummeted the few stories of height we were at to crash straight down into the ground. It was really disorienting, and painful. Like being in a bounce castle full of rocks. It was worsened by how the Skiff crumpled atop us, some jagged bits dug into my back but failed to pierce my coat.

I groaned, but before I could even begin to move, a nearly indistinguishable iridescent hand just punched through our prison, grabbed Trainwreck, and pulled him out without barely a hint of resistance. Seeing my companion getting taken must've gave me a huge surge in adrenaline, because I suddenly found the strength to rip myself out of the wreckage, and practically felt my pupils contract into even smaller slits and my heart stop at seeing a 10-foot tall vaguely feminine pile of rags stab her hand into Trainwreck's chest, which obviously killed him if him ragdolling meant anything.

The monstrous bitch then tossed aside my massive friend's corpse like he was nothing, and I felt all my hackles raise in pure fury. Behind her, the entire yard was littered with half-eaten butchered members of the crew. The nearest one was...Robert...he was just a mechanic...he had grandkids…. "Duérmete niño, duérmete ya….Que viene el Coco y te comerá. Ha ha~!" The monster sung in Spanish, before idly grabbing a limb from Robert and raising it to her head, which seemed to split open her tattered rags from the top of her skull to her upper chest with a massive vertical jaw, and she swallowed the arm whole.

"You absolute bitch!" I screamed, drawing my revolver and shooting her with four pellets of Knockout, which seemed to surprise her if her stumble meant much, but then she snarled and jumped at me, which I dodged my jumping over her, shooting her twice more before I rolled forward and kited her away from my still trapped companions.

Okay, what am I going to do?! She's nearly invulnerable, but she showed a reaction to Knockout. Damn it. Does she breathe? Why don't I-yes! I just remembered I still have the partially empty Knockout fogger from when I fought Chupacabra yesterday! I dodged a Jeeper's corpse that Coco threw at me, and proceeded to fish in my pockets for the fogger, finding it quickly. I tabbed it open and kept running, and she didn't bother to avoid it.

"Fucking seriously?!" She just ran straight through the green cloud. Sure, she stumbled, seemed dizzy, but she recovered far too quickly. Frustrated, I spun around and performed a roundhouse kick with my talon leading, which interestingly caused the towering iridescent monster of a woman to hiss as I carved a line through her stomach, and I rolled away before the retaliating swipe came.

"Me pregunto si sabes a lagarto." Mumbled the woman, seemingly to herself, before she picked up a rock and tossed it up and down, almost tauntingly as I watched the angry slash across her abdomen just fill in as if she'd never been cut.

"Save your breath lady. I don't speak Spanish." I then started rapidly reloading my gun with more Knockout. If she's a high-speed regenerator, then her body must simply be attacking the Knockout too fast to fully effect her. If I can overload her body, she'd be a sitting duck at least long enough for me to decapitate her. I barely had time to dodge the rock she threw with such force it might as well have been launched from my slingbow. I hissed as it punched through my hood and snapped a few quills.

I returned fire with the full salvo of my revolver as fast as I could pull the trigger, which again caused her to stumble and seem weary for a moment, but she just sighed and rushed me again, so I turned tail and ran away to reload more. Fucking high-level Brutes! "Detén eso ahora. Solo déjame comer." My response to whatever she said was to drop a fogger of Air-No, which still nearly invisible, so I saw her stagger, grasp her throat, but then calmly keep chasing me. What? Does she not need to breathe after all?!

"Dealer!" Tats called to me over the small radio in my mask. Thank goodness she's alive. "Get away from her! She's like a mini-Endbringer!" WHAT THE FUCK?! "Her power is cascading herself across multiple dimensions simultaneously! It's why she is affected for a moment, then just shunts the effect off on another dimension or like with that Air-No just now, replaces whatever part of her is affected with an unaffected part!"

"So how do we kill this bitch then?!" I demanded as I shot Coco more sparingly, watching how each shot made her temporarily dazed, only to recover after a few seconds. It seemed there was a timer on her ability though. The time between impact and recovery from my pellets seemed to be between 2 to 5 seconds, while that huge gash I gave her stomach earlier took somewhere from 8 to 10 seconds. Does the timer get longer the worse the perceived injury is? Or is it the other way?

"The worse the effect, the quicker the recovery. We could try to go for the old thousand cuts method, but I don't think we'd last that long, and she'd recover regardless." Tats mused as I ducked and rolled under another of Coco's frustrated swings at me, using my tail to trip her, which was like trying to trip a compact semi-truck, but she was still sent to the dirt and I ran further away towards the end of the warehouse line. Fuck. There's nobody here at all. I hope some survivors are hiding in places or managed to escape Haven on a Skiff or van.

"Besides, she had the whole standing force of Jeepers here to contend with along with all the non-combatants. If getting assaulted by a damn battalion of lethal low-level Brutes wasn't enough, there's no way we can do this ourselves." I commented as I neared the edge of the Haven pocket dimension, and the moment I hit the invisible solid boundary, I ran up it, and bemusedly watched Coco pass under me and punch through realities like a bullet through paper, only for the hole in the fabric of dimensions to quickly seal itself. "So obviously she's a Breaker with the ability to ignore effects on dimensional space, but also negate effects on herself given time."

"My power agrees, so do I, but there's gotta be a way to stop her. This can't be impossible like it is with the Endbringers. She's just one woman, regardless of her power." Tats insisted as I backed away further, watching Coco walk through the dimensional barrier like it was a privacy curtain.

"Well I'd like some suggestions, because she'll never tire out, and I will." I kept backing away, and Coco seemed to enjoy it, keeping pace casually even if she rubbed her hands together. Then she suddenly ate shit, and cursed as she tried to get up, only to keep jerking uncontrollably and fall back down. "Holy shit…." I turned my head up towards the roof of the nearest warehouse, and standing there in his white renfaire costume was Regent, still sans most of his left arm, glaring intently at Coco as she constantly failed to get full control of her faculties.

"This is causing me a major fucking headache! The bitch's nervous system keeps changing! I can only keep her busy for maybe a half-hour before my head explodes!" Regent screamed surprisingly emotionally. It's my understanding that he's a genuine sociopath, so something must've triggered him if he's so pissed it shows so clearly.

"Tats, Regent can only keep Coco occupied for a while. Any ideas?" I urgently asked as I occasionally shot Coco with more Knockout, but I'm running out of it, I only had enough for 6 or so reloads. I'll have to dip into my Sick pellets and I don't want to see human remains coming from that bitch's enormous maw if they'll even work that much.

"Aside from hope and pray that Overseer gets back with us trying to get the gate on this end turned on with the original crew operating it dead? Not really, just keep stalling." Tats growled, and I hissed at feeling so helpless, looking at our likely death with fear. I'm only alive after tangoing with the bitch because my concoctions were serious enough that it stalled her even if only for a few seconds each time. But if she's susceptible to Master effects, it would explain why she was always partnered with Siguanaba and Cipito in the same city. We can only hope Danny gets here soon.

"Hey fatty!" I blinked and turned around to see Emma Barnes of all people striding towards us, full of confidence and her usual shit-eating smirk on her face, wearing a rather racy tan sweater with a 'boob window' paired with tight jeans and had her long red hair done up in a ponytail. "What's the matter? Did he not like that your man-eating snatch would've ripped off his dick? Or how about the fact your ugly face looks like something Lovecraft shat onto paper?" What? Just...what?

"HOLY SHIT?! What're you doing?!" Regent demanded as he visibly jerked and grabbed his head with his only hand while Coco wordlessly shrieked in fury and redoubled her efforts specifically to attack Emma, who calmly kept smirking and backed away with me as Coco continued to try and fail to even stand up.

"Oh? Did I touch a nerve? No wonder everyone always leaves you. You'll never be good enough for anyone. It's why you're here, wallowing in the dirt instead of doing something worthwhile, like fighting Endbringers. She'd be so ashamed you know, to see what you've become. You're not her Little Rainbow anymore." This time, Emma's words made Coco actually cry a little, screaming in Spanish so fast I couldn't even catch individual words. "When did joining the Maras stop being to protect her? Oh right, when she died because You Weren't There. You've fallen so low she wouldn't even want to see you again if she was still alive."

"Emma, what the fuck are you doing?" I whispered in confusion and curiosity as we continued to back away from the iridescent woman who was starting to tear off her rags and cry as Emma focused intently on her. What is she doing? Seriously? What is her power?

"I'm doing what my power wants me to do. It digs into their past, pulls out the most painful bits, and I can use it to dig at them with words while I pull it to the fore, even tells me what hurts the most. Think of it like the ultimate guilt and depression trip. I never fully used it on Taylor. I wanted her to break out of her shell, not break." Emma whispered back. "So now you're an ugly, man-eating bitch that nobody loves. Good job." Emma shot at Coco, who was practically sobbing quite pitifully into the gravel.

"Whoa. So you're like Tats tuned to 11?" I asked in shock, only for Emma to shake her head, not taking her eyes off of Coco, who seemed to be recovering, but slowly.

"Nope. I can only dig at the bad things, and only things in their memories. Tattletale can use her power for nearly anything, I'm stuck with hurting people emotionally and mentally." Emma muttered, and then blood started trickling down her chin from her nose, and I felt worry start to bloom for the former enemy of Taylor. "So how does it feel? Being the bottom bitch that nobody even wants to fuck? Why haven't you killed yourself yet? Oh right, you're unkillable. So you're stuck being a piece of shit your whole miserable life." Emma snarked, her eyes starting to twitch and her smirk gone into a pained grimace.

And, shockingly, Coco stabbed her hands into her chest, ripping open her ribs, only to be back to normal a few seconds later, sobbing as she tried again, and again. Holy shit. I felt pity for this bitch and I still want her dead. This is such a fucked-up and complicated feeling. Also, Emma had the power to drive people to commit suicide for over a year and a half by now? We're lucky she didn't decide to go Carrie on anybody, because she could make it seem to be the victim's own intentions. But it clearly had a limit, as Emma wobbled and I held her up. "You okay?"

"Fuck no. I've gotta stop before I give myself an aneurism. Hope that bought some time." Emma weakly said, before she turned and left with an exhausted trudge, and almost instantly, Coco was back to screaming in fury as Regent took back over keeping her pinned. In all, she bought maybe five minutes. Those were five minutes we didn't have before.

Damn it.

I feel so useless. If I maybe made something that causes hallucinations? A sort of Fear Toxin? Hm, maybe. Perhaps something that-. "Whoa!" I jumped back as my musing had distracted me and Coco had gotten close enough to nearly swipe at my legs. Whatever, wouldn't matter for this situation. She'd just shrug it off and swap heads with one of her cascades. I shot her, and sighed as I popped open my revolver to load it with Sick pellets now. Not looking forward to seeing the effects.

Then suddenly, before I would've had to find out what regurgitated human remains looks like, Coco suddenly stopped moving. She was breathing, so she was still alive. "This is painful." I heard the woman's voice in English for the first time, and she looked up at me with her hard-to-comprehend iridescent face. I can't keep this up for long. It's like I'm spreading myself thin. Let's get this cannibal to the gate."

"Overseer? Please, say something that lets me know this isn't Coco pulling a fake language barrier." Seriously, I get that Danny's power is all kinds of Bullshit, but to just swap places with Coco in an instant like this? For all I know Danny had just gotten through the gate.

"I still want to kill you for having sex with my daughter on Thanksgiving." I felt a shiver of mortal terror that Coco failed to instill in me, and knew this had to be Mr. Hebert.

"Uh...okay, that's proof enough for me." I then sprinted towards the Bay Platform with the Overseer controlled Coco hot on my heels. When we got there, we found Overseer's body, garbed in his costume of a full helmet and straightjacket screaming obscenities in Spanish while further restrained by Bebop and Rocksteady. "Train?!" I shouted in relief at seeing Trainwreck at the gate console, fine save he was slimmed down. "I thought you died!"

"Nearly did. Bitch hit a little too high though. Did you forget my body doesn't work like most people's?" Trainwreck asked as his damaged voice module whistled with a few exposed pipes clearly having been damaged. "So where are we sending the bitch?"

"Can the gate reach the moon?" I asked, and everyone looked to Trainwreck, who as at least a part of the gate's construction and he shrugged.

"It reaches Karachi, which is basically the other side of the planet, the moon isn't much of a stretch. It'll be hard to aim though."

"Doesn't matter, just aim for the moon, if she misses, she'll just fucking fly off into space anyway." Skidmark commented as he moved to the end of the Bay Platform and began putting up layers upon layers upon layers of his barriers heading towards the gate as Trainwreck worked the console and we moved behind Skidmark.

"Piedad, piedad para mí!" Coco screamed and struggled in Overseer's body, but I don't think any of us understood, or cared. She's slaughtered so many of us today, and earlier than that. She deserves no mercy. We ignored her obvious pleas while Skidmark made the most powerful railgun he could, and stopped at the end of the Bay Platform.

"Sorry Coco. But you brought this on yourself." Tats stated with pity, what did her powers tell her about the woman, who as I looked over, I...almost had a heart attack. On her lower back, just above her buttocks, was a lopsided Omega symbol. Signature of Case 53s. The same people Cauldron has created, that they want me to help rehabilitate for society. How callous of them. This bitch was one of theirs?!

"Is it set?!" Trainwreck's response to Skidmark's question was to fire up the gate, and I moved to restrain Overseer's body while Bebop and Rocksteady picked up Coco by her arms and legs with Overseer setting her face in a determined sneer.

"Toss me good boys, the moment I'm airborne, I'm switching back with her." Overseer warned, and with that, my lieutenants reared back and tossed the naked 10-foot tall iridescent Case 53 woman into the purple-blue barriers, and Coco started screaming in fear from her own mouth as she was launched progressively faster down the line, and through the opaque white film of the portal, which Trainwreck shut down as fast as possible.

We stayed silent for a moment, before we all slumped in various stages of exhaustion and relief, along with sadness and grief. Skidmark was actually the worst in that respect, choking back sobs and punching the gravel with his temporary prosthetic while rubbing his eyes with his good hand. "We've lost too many. Half the crew, at least. How can we recover from this? How do we make their sacrifice worth it?"

I just plopped onto my back. Trying to think of what to do. Firstly, Cauldron now owes us. Big. Whether or not they intended it, one of their little experiments has royally fucked us. I'll see what I can bargain for regarding damages later. Also, yeah, how can we recover from this? Coco just killed over half of the Jeepers, who numbered at around 200 members just a month ago and where whittled down by conflicts since. Behemoth has robbed us of a fifth of our Peepers. Only the Creepers and most of the non-combatants are left untouched.

Then, for the first time in a while, my power slammed my brain so hard I jolted to my feet and looked a bewildered group of my allies and friends in the eyes in turn. "I need a jellyfish."