Vicky really hated Tattletale.
It was a conclusion she had come to after no more than fifteen seconds in the villain's presence, and was made worse by the fact that she had no justification to punch the other girl in her stupid, smug, face.
It wasn't just that she wouldn't shut up - which was a problem most of the villains in the city had actually. It was that she wouldn't shut up about things that she absolutely shouldn't know up. Case in point;
"So, trying to stay in the new Capes good books huh?" The other blond mused at her from the open window of the truck she was currently carrying. Accepting that it would probably be dangerous to get caught by the Trump in the air, she had opted to merely push the truck forward very quickly at first, ensuring that she wouldn't be under it if her super-strength vanished. That, however, had only lasted until she had gone far enough away that Tattletale had confirmed they were likely out of the enemy's range. Which was a pity. It was a lot harder to hear the bitch from behind the truck.
"Yeah, and? She's nice." Vicky defended instantly, shifting her grip slightly and jostling the vehicle above her in an attempt to make Tattletale shut up.
"She's a nervous mess that's going to take her frustrations out on everyone else the minute her restraining bolt is gone. Remind you of anyone?" Tattletale continued unphased.
"No. Shutup or I'm leaving you." Vicky shot back, then immediately frowned when Tattletale's smile merely widened.
"Uh, Tattletale? We're kind of... really high up?" That blond kid with no costume said nervously, interrupting the two's conversation. Vicky didn't know what his deal was but he seemed just a tad too friendly with the other Undersiders. He also had a tendency to stare at her or Tattletale when he thought neither of them was looking which was just... ew. She made a mental note to warn Taylor away from him in the future.
"Ssh. She won't drop us. She's a Hero after all. Not a murderer. Mostly. Just out of curiosity, does she know you've been Mastering her? Or that she scares the shit out of you?" Tattletale continued on blithely.
Now, this was familiar ground. The number of times she'd had to defend her aura to people had exceeded the double digits within a week of getting her powers. Sure it made you respect her when she was in the room, to a degree anyway, and she definitely had a few close calls with addicts who had weak hearts when she was utilizing it for fear - but a Master effect it was not. It granted her little to no long term control of the people around her. She'd tested it with the PRT and everything.
Not that it stopped people from occasionally bothering her about it though.
"I'm not a Master. Now be quiet." She growled.
"Just going to ignore everything else I said huh?" Tattletale called back smugly.
Victoria made the smart choice and just stopped talking at that point. It wasn't like she could double arrest these idiots.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Tattletale added.
Then the truck was sharply yanked out of her arms and deposited on the road next to her.
"What the-" She yelped, but swiftly darted to the side as a fast-moving object plowed through the tarmac where she had just been floating.
"Hey um. Sorry about this." The object said.
With her voice.
It looked like her. It looked exactly like her. Only it was wobbling in the air slightly, and holding a posture distinctly not her. Quickly darting her eyes to the side, Vicky checked the Undersiders. Hellhound, Regent and Tattletale were helping a stumbling Grue out of the damaged truck, and the blond kid was-
Vicky whipped her head around to stare at the duplicate of herself. It was still just sort of hovering there, watching her watch it.
"Later Glory Hole~" Tattletale crooned as the street began to fill with inky black darkness. She tried to blitz the teenage villains before they could escape, but was swiftly sideswiped by her doppelganger plowing into her from the side. The two of them bounced along the road, into and then back out of the Undersiders smokescreen before coming to a stop.
"Ow. What the fuck, aren't you invincible?" The doppelganger complained, standing up and wobbling slightly when it couldn't fly - because both their shields were down.
"Fuck," Vicky growled, quickly rising to her feet and rushing the fake. When she was halfway to her target her shield reasserted itself, and she took off with her flight, her fist colliding in with the duplicates jaw and popping both of their shields just in time to stop it from taking off and attempting to escape. However, unlike the fake, Vicky had long since been trained in how to fight like a normal person. Mostly boxing really. Which was apparently more than her enemy had, because it completely failed to block her follow up punch to its face, which caused it's head to rock back from the impact and left a bloody mess of her - it's - nose.
"Villain huh? Taylor will be disappointed." Vicky mused aloud. Maybe if she was lucky the guy would take the hint and let her chase the rest of the villains. She was pretty sure he hadn't actually done anything yet - well except body snatch her which she would be bringing up later - so if he would just -
"I've got a good reason for that." Her doppelganger tried to explain, flickering slightly and then appearing with an unbroken nose and no visible blood on its face.
"There's really no good reason for being a supervillain." Vicky pointed out.
"Agree to disagree." Her dupe said with a bitter expression on its face, before turning to sprint back into the expanding cloud of inky blackness that had continued to spread after they had exited it. She tried to follow, she really did, but the second she made contact with the cloud her sense of direction went haywire. If she landed she could walk in a straight line, but flying she basically completely lost track of which way was 'down'.
When she eventually emerged on the other side of the cloud, next tot he broken truck and with approximately zero Undersiders in sight, she nearly screamed in frustration.
Then she heard the roar of a motorcycle, and Armsmaster flew past her and into the cloud. A feral grin spread across her face, and she pulled herself up and flew overhead, acting as a spotter. No way was she going to let these guys get away when Taylor had gift-wrapped them for her.
A/N: Gregs got one of those catch 22 powers that isn't a Trump power but will probably be classified as one anyway. An accurate PRT descriptor of him would probably be something awkward to say like Phylactery. It's kind of looking like the Greg interlude is going to win the vote so I look forward to inevitably explaining this.
Would you friggin believe that I wrote about half of this when the vote had 'Accept' winning, then checked again and 'Decline' had pulled ahead? The Undersiders were going to get away clean because The PRT were all busy at the time. Which is fairly normal with the Undersiders for some reason.