Today was supposed to be a nice simple Saturday. No school and a chance to stretch my legs with Julia as we 'scouted' the neighborhood. The most challenging part was keeping the multitude of birds, insects, and occasional stray dogs from being noticed, which was why I was practicing now. I didn't really expect much crime since most criminals preferred to work later in the day, so it was pretty relaxed
The conversation me and Julia had last night was a bit awkward, since Julia confessed that she did have some feelings for me. It wasn't exactly full blown sexual attraction, but she did confess wanting to be more "intimate" sometimes. The idea did sound nice, however we agreed to take things very slow and stay friends ("I like you too Julia, it's just that I don't think I would be a very good girlfriend for you. I've got a lot going on right now, and I need some time to process."). Of course that didn't mean we couldn't hold hands sometimes if we felt like it. Friends are allowed to do that at least.
Unfortunately the universe had different plans for us today. Because we had somehow found ourselves in a pissing match between some mad tinker and Lung. To make things even worse, my sister has bumbled into this mess as well (because Sam is a living trouble magnet) and she seemed as in over her head as me and Julia were. On top of all of that was that Dr. Jurassic had achieved what I had thought was impossible. He was being more annoying than Sam.
"ALRIGHT MR TOUGH GUY, LETS SEE YOU PUT UP YOUR DUKES AND WE CAN FIGHT FAIR. PROMISE NOT TO TRY AND THROW ME AGAIN AND I WON'T THROW YOU AROUND!" the maniac demanded, wiggling the mechanical T-Rex's body. I accepted that there wasn't anything I could do to stop the idiot from talking. There probably weren't enough bugs in the city to muffle his speakers at the volume he had them at.
Lung seemed to be unfazed, directing his attention at us and trying to figure out if we were actually a threat. I tried to gauge whether he would chase us if we ran but it wasn't clear which way we could go. It was terrifying, like finding yourself in a cage with a man-eating tiger and trying to determine if it was hungry or not. If he committed to catching us for daring to trespass in his territory we'd be overtaken easily.
"Please tell me your power is giving you something we can use." I desperately asked Julia.
"Unless you have something really fucking venomous ready to go the only thing I got is to run and find an alleyway Lung can't squeeze into." Julia suggested. I did have some venomous bugs but they topped out at black widows, and I'm not sure I had enough.
"Not sure what Julia's power is, but I agree with the running away part." Sam chipped in. Right, we still hadn't filled her in about Julia's power. We should really do that when we're not in mortal danger.
Unfortunately Lung made up his mind right then because he began to wind up like a baseball pitcher. My mind went blank as I tried to think of what to do now. But it was Julia's turn to save us. Her power let her warn us the second Lung began his attack.
"Move!" She shouted with absolute urgency. Both me and Sam followed her lead and sprinted to the left hand side of the street before Lung sent a small fireball where we had been standing. We were able to get clear of the target area just in time for the flames to impact and scorch the road. My heart was now racing from the fresh dose of adrenaline that I was experiencing.
"AH, YOU WANT TO STICK AROUND AND TRY YOUR HAND AT FIGHTING LUNG THEN? VERY BRAVE, I'LL GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO SEE IF YOU CAN BEAT HIM. DR JURASSIC BELIEVES IN GIVING YOUNG CAPES A CHANCE TO SHINE." the robotic T-Rex said.
After hearing that I hoped that when the protectorate catches this guy that they send him straight to the birdcage, both as a punishment to him, but for the other inmates as well.
Not being discouraged by missing, Lung sent another small fireball at us. Again I followed Julia's lead. I had learned that her danger sense was very useful for avoiding long range attacks. I made sure to pass this on to Sam.
"Follow her lead! She knows where to dodge!" I said frantically.
Thankfully Sam didn't argue, and the second fireball landed just a few feet behind her as she ran. To dodge the next fireball Julia literally had to stop and vigorously backtrack, physically grabbing us to pull us away, before it hit where she had initially been heading. Then before I could even reorient myself Julia literally pulled us to the ground.
That was to avoid a fourth fireball, which literally flew over our heads. While we didn't get hit I could feel the heat in the air around me. Trying to not lose any time we scrambled back up. As an attempt to buy us more time I got one of my pigeons into position just above Lung. As he formed his next fireball I flew the pigeon into his eye, causing him to throw his fireball into the air.
"GAAAHH" Lung shouted in annoyance.
"HA! SOME AIM YOU HAVE YOU BIG LIZARD. AS FOR YOU YOUNG LADIES THAT WAS SOME EXPERT DODGING! GOOD SHOW." the robot dinosaur commented, drawing Lung's attention again and causing him to pause as he rubbed his eye.
As annoying as he was, we tolerated Dr. Jurassic's obnoxiousness for a simple reason. If the doctor was annoying enough to Lung, then he'd be distracted enough to give us an opening to slip away. But that hope went out the window when I sensed a certain teleporting cape approaching rapidly as well.
"Guys, we have more company! Oni Lee is-" I cut myself off as I saw him materialize on the top of a nearby building, wearing his distinctive red mask and armed to the teeth with knives and grenades. Even more now, I felt dread at how bad our situation was getting.
Sam summarized our situation succinctly "Shit. Somehow I don't think running away from the teleporter is going to be an option."
As Sam said, Oni Lee's appearance basically sealed off any alternative. We would have no choice but to fight back. Seeing how well armed he was I suddenly felt very inadequate with the weapons I had: a single knife, baton, and pepper spray.
My only saving grace was that I had learned from my last encounter with the empire and I had upped how many bugs and birds I kept on standby. I decided now was the time to screw subtlety and pulled them in, consolidating them from across my range onto this street.
Dr Jurassic didn't seem worried by Lung getting reinforcements though "IF YOU THINK YOUR GOING TO WIN WITH JUST ONE EXTRA PARAHUMAN BACKING YOU UP THEN YOU'VE SERIOUSLY UNDERESTIMATED DR. JURASSIC."
I couldn't help but wonder if this guy actually believed his own hype or if he was just putting up a front. However Julia revealed a suspicion of hers that probably explained his bravado.
"I don't even think he's in that thing. It's probably remote controlled. It would explain why my power isn't getting anything off that robot." She revealed.
Sam seemed to agree "So like Dragon then, the key difference being she's a decent human being and he's a bastard."
Lung though seemed to be on his absolute last nerve, and began to growl deeply. I tensed because it was clear he was getting ready to attack again. He glanced at where Lee was, and with an imperious air he pointed at us.
I understood his meaning immediately. Given how ridiculously Lung outmatched us it probably made sense to just delegate us to Oni Lee while he dealt with the stupid robot dinosaur, which was good news because that meant we weren't fighting Lung anymore.
But the bad news was that Lee was a likely sociopath, and he wasn't going to bother holding back. Once Lee acknowledged this command with a nod, Lung refocused his attention on Dr. Jurassic and charged towards the robotic T-Rex.
"AH, MANO A MANO AGAIN! TIME FOR PLAN C THEN!" Dr Jurassic shouted, just before he dodged way faster than a robot that size had any right to. Lung missed him, with his momentum keeping him going forward. The doctor managed to get out a hurried "OLE!"
I stopped paying attention to them as their fight migrated away from us because Oni Lee made his move right then as well. With a *bang* he was suddenly among us, trying to stab the closest person to him.
Thankfully the person he went for was Julia, who immediately grabbed his stabbing arm with both her hands and flipped him straight onto the pavement. I couldn't help but be impressed at how quickly she had improved her martial arts skills.
Then Julia shouted "Grab his head and don't let him look up! We need to block his line of si-"
But she was cut off when a new Lee appeared several meters away. With my bugs finally arriving I immediately put a swarm between us and the new Lee. It was thick enough to ensure he couldn't see us properly. Julia still kept holding the Lee next to us down before it crumbled and disintegrated into white smoke.
In the distance I heard Dr Jurassic shout "AH, NOT SO EASILY HYPNOTIZED EH? THEN I'LL NEED TO MOVE ON TO PLAN E! TIME TO SEE IF YOU CAN BREATH IF ALL THE AIR AROUND YOU IS ON FIRE!"
With my swarm gathered and mobilized I now had a much better understanding of the area around me. Lung and the Doctor were squaring off further down the street now, but close enough I could still see them. As he said Dr Jurassic was in the middle of unloading a stream of fire aimed at Lungs head. Somehow I doubted it would even inconvenience Lung beyond making it hard to see for a minute, but I wasn't going to think too hard about it. We had our own fight to win.
Oni Lee however was not giving up and had now teleported to another nearby roof. We didn't bother to run, because trying to outrun a teleporter was a losing proposition. I decided now was a good time to consult the others for ideas.
"Did the PRT have any tips about fighting Oni Lee? Because those would be really helpful right now." I asked Sam. Thankfully she was on the ball.
"Like Precaution said, he needs a line of sight to his destination for his teleportation to work. You think that you could cover his mask with bugs?" she replied.
"I can try." I hedged and directed a large portion of my swarm to start chasing him. Even if it was ineffective in hurting him it kept him distracted while we could orient ourselves. I then asked Julia "Does your power have any suggestions? Would be great to have a backup plan."
"Only thing I can really suggest is keeping close to a wall so he can only come at us from one direction. It's also telling me we should try and surprise him." she replied.
"Somehow I think that'll be easier said than done," Sam commented.
But she didn't object to her suggestion to move, so we pulled back to the wall of one of the street-side buildings as my bugs chased Oni Lee around. It was condemned so all the windows were boarded up, which was convenient for ensuring he couldn't easily sneak up on us from within the building.
But as much as I had improved my control of my bugs, they still could only move so fast. Oni Lee only needed a split second and covering his eyes took several seconds, so the math was not on our side. My birds were even slower so I kept them high up to help watch where he was going.
I made several tries in rapid succession to swarm his face, with no success. He always teleported away just in time, and I was left swarming a body that would disintegrate just as my swarm reached him. I did notice some of my bugs were teleported with him, but only a few. He must have recognized our strategy and he was making an effort to wipe them off his mask every chance he got.
In the distance further down the street I heard that Dr Jurassic wasn't having an easy time either "HUH, SO IT SEEMS THE REPORTS THAT YOU COULD GROW WINGS WERE TRUE AFTER ALL. I GUESS PLAN E IS OUT AND PLAN F IS IN! ROBO-PTERODACTYLS, ATTACK!"
Checking their fight again, I saw that now several buildings around them were on fire. Lung was now preoccupied with swiping his clawed hands at the robotic fliers as they buzzed him as Dr Jurassic kept his distance now. But again, I had my own fight to worry about so I turned my attention away from them.
While I had a lot of bugs, I still didn't have enough. He was always able to find a place where my bugs were thinly spread. We needed to try something else, and since Sam was here it only made sense to see if her ghost could break the stalemate.
"Hey, now would be a really good time to try and possess him." I suggested. "I could even try and corral him to your ghost."
I saw Sam visibly grimace at that suggestion and she replied "If it was most other capes I could, but not him. Oni Lee's on the shortlist of people I'm not supposed to even try and possess."
"What? Why not!?" I asked hastily, because I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep this up.
"Because I don't know how our powers would interact! My possession probably wouldn't carry over if he managed to teleport, and if I'm in a body that disintegrates that could mean I'd-" *Bang*
She didn't get to finish her explanation, because suddenly Oni Lee had teleported amongst us again. I kicked myself for losing my concentration and giving him an opening. I turned toward where he was and to my horror I saw him pulling a pin out of a grenade. This was game over. Even if I blinded him now the grenade was already armed. We were doomed.
But just as I saw my life flash before my eyes though, Julia stepped in again. With a sweeping upward motion of her leg, Julia miraculously kicked the grenade out of Oni Lee's hand. The grenade sailed right past Sam.
Then without missing a beat Julia swiftly tackled the Oni Lee next to us to the ground just like the last one. As the grenade hit the ground several yards away it exploded, with the boom similar to a shotgun going off.
The Oni Lee Julia had tackled to the ground disintegrated into white smoke like the others, just as the shrapnel from the grenade came flying in our direction. I shielded my face in time, and I thought for a moment that Julia must have kicked it far enough for it to explode from a safe distance. This was supported by the fact that I didn't feel any fragments hit me immediately. But as it turned out I had only been lucky, because before I could finish my thought I then heard a scream of agony.
"AAAAaaaggghhhh! Fuck!" Sam shouted, and suddenly the momentary relief I had felt evaporated. I looked over to her, falling to the ground to her knees and watched her as she grabbed her right arm in pain.
"Are you alright?" I desperately asked.
"No! I have a piece of metal sticking out of my arm! Gah Fuck!" she shouted back in agony. She continued "Worry about me later! I can take care of myself, I have some bandages."
I quickly looked around and thankfully Julia seemed alright, picking herself up from the ground. To be sure I checked with her as well.
"Precaution, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just happy the grenade didn't blow up when I was kicking it. My power can throw out some crazy ideas sometimes and I wasn't sure if that was one of the bad ones or not." she replied, dusting herself off quickly.
Suddenly something grabbed her attention and she was looking past me. Following her lead I turned to where she was looking.
What I saw behind me was Oni Lee, over a dozen yards away nursing his arm and legs on the ground. I realized this wasn't a clone because he hadn't disintegrated yet. He must have actually been injured from teleporting too close to his exploding grenade.
If I had to guess, the psycho had teleported there to watch us get blown up, only to find himself too close to the blast zone thanks to Julia's quick thinking. His injuries seemed pretty bad because I could see his blood dripping onto the ground around him. But I could also see him trying to stand up now, so he wasn't out for the count yet.
"Get him, I'll help Manes!" Julia shouted, and I obliged by mobilizing my swarm to get him again.
Oni Lee must have amazing pain tolerance because he realized immediately that my swarm was coming for another round and tried to teleport away. But now I had learned one big swarm wasn't going to catch him. This time I was going to try something different.
Instead of chasing him around with one big swarm, I made sure to divide it up into parts so that whatever direction he went he'd run into one of them. Across the several blocks my range covered smaller swarms of bugs consolidated. These mini swarms weren't nearly as large as my main swarm, maybe 100-200 bugs each. It took some extra concentration but it immediately paid dividends.
At first he got away from the first part of my swarm, only for him to teleport near a second part. Then he tried again only to find a third contingent of my swarm when he teleported even further away. It must have dawned on him by this point that I had switched tactics, because he upped the tempo of his teleportation and started going in random directions to try and throw me off, teleporting even into buildings. I was ready each time though, and his teleporting began to lose steam as he must have been getting exhausted by his injuries.
It was about then I noticed that someone going very fast on foot had entered my range. He was then followed by a speeding van and two motorbikes. The Protectorate must have finally gotten its act together. They were headed right for where Lung and Dr Jurassic were squaring off. Seeing that they weren't headed in our direction I shifted my focus away from them. I wasn't going to let myself get distracted and give Oni Lee an opening again.
If I wanted to make sure Oni Lee was captured I would need to take the gloves off now. Before the grenade exploded his costume had protected the majority of his body, so I hadn't bothered having my bugs bite him. Now though his costume had been torn in several places so now I could easily reach many parts of his skin. So I had every insect I controlled bite him no matter where it landed on him.
I was finally able to get a critical mass of bugs onto his face, and he stopped teleporting. His injuries were slowing down his efforts to clear his vision from my bugs. Unfortunately he was close to where Lung and Dr Jurassic were facing off, but I doubted Lung could help Lee quickly enough. To ensure Lee was truly stuck I made sure to have bugs on and beneath his mask, so he'd need to unmask to get rid of them all.
It was unfortunate for him, because if he had teleported a couple dozen more meters away then he would've been out of my range. Now though I was going to make him pay. It might be cruel, but he had just tried to kill us. He had almost succeeded.
He had hurt Sam.
He could have killed her.
I decided that if he was playing for keeps then I wasn't holding back either. So I directed my bugs to start going for his open wounds for maximum pain.
As he was hurriedly trying to take off his mask to reach the bugs on his face I could tell his motions were getting more sluggish and erratic, probably from the blood loss. I drove my attack home as my flies, beetles, cockroaches, mosquitoes, and other bugs attacked his entire body. As he struggled, I could detect that he was beginning to scream in terror. I guess when a sociopath gets in a bad enough spot, even they can feel fear.
A little further away I could tell the Protectorates' little task force had stopped to disembark from their vehicles. From my birds I could tell nearly everybody on the local teams roster was present. It was probably why their response had been so delayed, so they could gather everyone together. Only Velocity wasn't with them, since he had stopped closer to the fighting. Probably to scout ahead.
However, while Oni Lee wasn't able to do much against me anymore, his screams did attract Lungs attention. He had been in the middle of putting the mechanical T-Rex in a choke-hold when he looked over to see Lee's distress. I'm not sure what was going through his mind but he immediately sent a wave of fire to incinerate a large portion of my bugs around Lee.
To my frustration, his fire was surprisingly precise. Within seconds I was reduced to the bugs I had on Oni Lee's body in that area. I could have brought in more but the Protectorate was almost there. I might as well quit while I was ahead and let them arrest Oni Lee. I withdrew my bugs and suddenly with my bird's eye view of his body, I realized I had done much more damage than I had realized.
His body lay prone on the concrete, covered in his own blood in many places. The parts of his skin that were exposed were thick with bug bites. His face was marred beyond description, his eyes swollen shut. I felt an urge to look away from what I had done.
I knew it was justified, he had just tried to kill us after all without a second thought. But would anyone else who saw him think the same thing? The only restraint I had shown was that I hadn't used anything venomous on him.
Before I could give Lee's condition any more thought the Protectorate heroes arrived at the scene of the battle in force. Lung gave one last look at his lieutenant. Then in an overwhelming show of force he picked up and threw Dr Jurassic's T-Rex robot to the side. When it hit a small two story building a hail of debris erupted, cloaking the entire street in a dust cloud.
Somehow Dr Jurassic was only slightly annoyed by this development. "DON'T THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY SO EASILY YOU COWARD! YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN PLAN H YET!"
My bird's vision was obscured by the storm of dust and my bug's senses were being disrupted by the flying debris. I'd need to wait a few moments for things to settle or for Lung to emerge from the cloud he had created.
I decided to take this momentary break in the action to check in on Sam. Looking over to Sam and Julia, I could see that she was still alive and awake. They were even having a lively discussion over how to correctly bandage her injury.
"Would you stop wasting time! It just has to cover the wound, nobody is grading you." Sam complained.
"I know what I'm doing, and I'm not going to half-ass this." She tightened the knot "There, done. Now it won't fall off."
Reassured, I turned my attention back to check in on Lung. Thankfully now that the dust was settling it was only a minor inconvenience to me. My birds and bugs could track Lung again as he emerged from the shroud of dust and ran away from the full force of the Protectorate heroes.
His behavior seemed strange to me though. He was already pretty ramped up and he had beaten the local team before. Was he just tired of dealing with Dr. Jurassic and wanted to leave him for the Protectorate to deal with?
But then I realized which way he was heading, towards us.
It occurred to me that I had just brutally injured his best lieutenant with my swarm right in front of him. Given how Oni Lee looked it's wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that Lung thought he was dead, which would explain why he left him behind. I'm not sure how much Lung actually valued Oni Lee, but I doubted he would take losing the only cape he controlled in his gang lightly.
This all led to one conclusion. We needed to run, now.
A/N
-Believe me when I say writing larger cape battles is very difficult work. Not only do you have to keep everything going at a believable tempo, but you have to account for how all the characters are acting. So if it seems like I sideline a few characters here and there you can just blame me trying to keep the battle comprehensible. Part of the reason I switched to Taylor's perspective in this chapter was that her power is a very nice excuse for giving a near-omniscient perspective of the battlefield. Next time it's back to Sam's perspective and our heroes are going to be making their last desperate stand!
-So when I was writing Lung here, I figured his strategy for dealing with the girls would've been aggressive but pragmatic. He would only be familiar with Manes' power-set since she's the local ward and vaguely aware of Zookeepers and Precautions at best. So he decided some longer range fireballs were a good way to start out and see how they reacted.
-I decided to introduce Oni Lee mostly as a way to give the girls something of a fairer fight before Lung fully committed to stomping them. Plus now that he's been lost, Lung actually has some motivation for wanting the girls dead. Before they were just an annoyance to him since they were in the way. Now they (Taylor mostly) have really truly crossed Lung by costing him his best minion.
-Please leave replies and feedback, it's the only compensation I ask for.