Little Hunter
Nanku caught her shuriken from the air and swung the blades through the gun.
The metal gave easily and the barrel dropped. One man had the sense to shoot her way but his aim was lacking. The bullets struck the corpses at her feet twice and the window behind her once.
Not all of the crowd who fled the building were still fleeing.
Two slipped into a van and stripped out of their clothes. Both women. Adults. Nice figures.
Were they getting bigger? Two growing things powers in one night. What were the odds?
"Fenja," Nanku guessed. "And Menja."
She'd wondered where the capes were. Why else set an ambush for Bitch? They couldn't have thought the guns would do the job.
That would be interesting.
Maybe one of them could lead her to Iron Rain. She'd be sure to ask.
Nanku took her spear in hand and removed it from the corpse. Amid Dusk and Dawn's attacks, the loss of their leader, and a renewed attack. Bitch pushed Cassie onto Sunny's back, using shouts and whistles to direct the other animals. The beasts charged forward, breaking through the vehicles and their guns amid the confusion. On one flank, Dusk, Dawn, and small patches of bugs broke up the attack.
On the other, Nanku stepped down from the bed of one truck and drove her spear through the wheels of another. The vehicle jerked and Nanku leaned into her weapon. The metal didn't bow and the truck flipped forward and threw the men on the back.
Another truck rolled forward. The driver was dead at the wheel and a man was trying to pull the body out while keeping up with the vehicle.
Nanku stabbed him in the leg and when he fell her shuriken cut through his throat.
"The fuck—"
The man trying to aim the gun jerked and Nanku used her spear as a lever to throw him off.
Nanku continued down the line of disorganized vehicles, stabbing, cutting, and piercing. One truck gave up the fight and tried to drive away. Another crashed into a wall.
Chaos.
And that was just the side she waded through.
On another, Dusk and Dawn cut a swathe through the gunners and a constant assault of distractions kept anyone from seeing more than a flying shadow. Nanku wanted to laugh when she thought she heard 'Shadow Stalker' amid it all. What the hell had that woman done to so terrify everyone?
Bitch's dogs overran the vehicles fleeing from the front. The machines were stomped, crushed, and turned by tooth, claw, and tail. The dogs were still growing. Becoming ever larger as Bitch continued to pour her power into them.
Nanku wasn't sure she could kill one if she tried.
Angelica was as large as a big truck. The kind used to haul trailers. Within minutes the guns fell silent save three. Dusk and Dawn took two with their jaws and talons. Nanku took the third. She grabbed the gunner and wrenched him from the vehicle. His throat was cut before he hit the ground and Nanku's spear pierced the driver through the spine as he tried to escape.
Nanku glanced over her shoulder, checking that the dead were dead.
It wasn't much of a hunt.
More of a slaughter.
Pe'dte warned her about that once.
That bad bloods didn't die because they were weak, or evil. They died because they were chaos. A 'disbalancing' force that had to be contained.
There was glory in balancing, and there was cruelty. Death without honor. Without respect. Death because it was necessary, not because it was earned.
Nanku didn't understand then.
Looking over her shoulder amid the carnage, she thought she started to see it. The line between hunting and enforcing. It conjured a twisted feeling in her stomach. Something like what Taylor felt the first time she understood that when someone died she'd never see them again.
A realization of the gravity of living.
The patter of a gun drew her from her thoughts and Nanku ran across the lot.
One man—his leg crushed by one of Bitch's dogs—aimed a gun at the parahuman's back. He must have seen her cloak shimmer because he turned the weapon. Nanku sliced his hand off and cut his throat before running on toward the other flank.
The last few trucks started racing. Their engines revved as they pulled out of the lot and onto the road. Bitch's dogs chase. One third directly behind, and two others forming wings that tried to catch the fleeing gun carriers.
Nanku focused her gaze on a van near the exit.
It burst open just as Angelica ran past and an armored woman exploded in size and swung a sword down from above.
She grew far faster than Nanku anticipated. In a blink, she was fifteen feet tall, with a sword and shield to match. Angelica twitched just in time, and jumped aside as the sword came crashing down.
The two giant women bore glistening armor of gold and silver. Impractical in more ways than one, made for show rather than function. Odd-looking metal wings that served no purpose sprouted from their helms and shoulders. The one with the spear wore an armored skirt that didn't look easy to move in while the one with the sword and shield wore greaves with yet more wings.
Nanku felt self-conscious about her mask's ornamentation looking at them, but her armor wasn't so ludicrously decorated.
The two women barged through all obstacles. Their steps kicked trucks and cars aside. One dog lashed out on instinct and was thrown with a flick.
Bitch came about, calling and signaling without hesitation.
Angelica launched, the giant dog crashing into the giant woman and snapping teeth over an armored arm. Thrown to a back foot, the sword woman moved to the side and made room for the spear woman to trust.
Dogs met the weapon. Their jaws clamped onto it and they dragged the weapon down before it struck. A dozen more attacked from all sides, snapping and whipping with their tails.
Cassie led other dogs after the trucks, chasing them one after the other and using the sheer weight of the beasts to knock them over or crush the beds underfoot.
The means of the trap were clear to Nanku.
Pin Bitch and her dogs with heavy gunfire. Even if it didn't put them down, it hurt and limited them. A stray bullet might strike Bitch and kill her, or Cassie. In either case, Nanku guessed Fenja and Menja felt safe wading into a fusillade. With the dogs pinned and injured, they could capture or kill Bitch themselves.
A decent enough trap, if lacking in even an ounce of creativity or personal talent.
Surrounding prey with dozens of little idiots with guns and simply mowing it down.
Nanku shook her head at the thought and decided she needed no further offense.
She didn't care to know which of the giant women was which.
Spear woman flung the dogs from her weapon and brought the butt around in the same motion. Angelica pushed off to avoid the blow too late and Bitch braced to be thrown.
The blow missed.
At the last moment, a swarm of wasps, bees, flies, and mosquitos flew into the spear woman's helm through the holes intended for her eyes. She jerked and tossed. Then she yelled and cursed. There was nothing to sting or bite despite Nanku's efforts. The woman's skin didn't feel like skin. It was too hard. Too solid.
Her power no doubt.
No matter.
Blinking and jerking back was a natural instinct when one's eyes were assailed, and Nanku plugged bugs against the sockets.
Her feet pounded against the asphalt. The sword woman realized something was wrong. She dropped her shield till the tip pierced the stone. She ran it across the ground and forced the dogs back while calling to her sister.
"Fucking bugs!" the sibling snapped back.
Nanku tucked her spear under her arm with three fingers and used the index to tap at the controls of her wrist computer.
The sword woman paused. "Bug—"
Nanku raised her wrist and fired.
The dart spun through the air with a whistle and the sword woman turned toward the sound. It popped at the same moment dogs attacked her legs. Cracking the armor and forcing her into a fall. She didn't fight it. Her sword dropped and the free hand reached to grasp at her throat.
The dart didn't penetrate her skin, but it didn't have to.
Prongs shout out from either end when it struck. The weighted ends continued forward and when the line ran out they met behind her neck and twisted together. The mechanism in the dart whirled to life and the lines began retreating.
A loud gurgle filled the air and the sword woman dropped onto her back with a crash. She started shrinking rapidly, racing to get ahead of the rapidly tightening line choking her out. As she did, Nanku kept running, slipping between two of Bitch's dogs as she tested the woman's power.
A sting got through as the Nazi shortened.
Good enough.
At full sprint, Nanku spun her spear forward and ran up one dog's back. She leaped, hurling herself through the air and swinging her legs forward for balance. The woman shrank to an almost child-like size to escape the line and had only just grown back to what seemed her normal height.
Nanku's spear sheared through her shoulder.
The woman screamed, turning toward the source of her pain and receiving Nanku's fist to her throat. She gagged a breath and staggered.
Her blue eyes were wide, searching. They noticed the flicker of the cloak first. Followed it from her bleeding shoulder along the length of the spear to Nanku's arm. Then higher, to the outline of her head.
Nanku flashed the eyes of her mask and released the blade of her shuriken for a kill stroke.
The woman's eyes went wider still with pure terror.
"You."
Nanku flinched.
The delay lasted only a moment but it was enough.
The spear woman brought her weapon around and caught Nanku in the side. Two dogs still clung to it, but she'd grown nearly twenty feet tall and towered over the lot. The dogs biting and snapping at her feet found no purchase and Nanku's back struck the ground as she rolled end over end.
"It's off!" a voice called.
"Says who?" the spear woman called back. She came about, facing Bitch on Angelica while a truck in the distance was torn apart by Sunny and two other beasts.
"Orders!" the first voice said. "We're out! NOW!"
"Menja," the sword woman said as she started to backpedal. "Menja, that's—"
"I saw!" The spear woman glared down at Nanku, the rage in her eyes palpable.
She didn't want to leave.
She wanted to fight.
She wanted to fight and Nanku jumped to her feet. Her cloak was still active despite the blow. Her bones rattled and one rib ached painfully. The blow hit her hard, but she could still hunt.
And she had a new target.
"Let's go!" the sister who must be Fenja snapped and she grabbed her sword before falling back.
Menja snarled. She tore her eyes off Nanku and swept her spear over the ground. Bitch's dogs were forced back and a forceful kick tossed the two clinging to the armored giant's ankle and foot.
She turned and the ground quaked.
She ran.
Nanku snarled.
She ran after the pair and drew her swarm to follow her. Dusk and Dawn leaped into the sky on mental command.
Bitch looked left and right. She briefly rested her eyes on Nanku. She looked back toward the old Medhall building. The kennels inside where the dogs still were. They were the reason she'd come, not the Nazis.
Let her.
Nanku didn't care for setting dogs to fight and Bitch didn't like it either. Fine.
But Fenja and Menja.
You, she'd said. With a haunted sort of recognition.
The way Menja leered at her like she hated Nanku more than anything in the world.
Impossible. Nanku had never met them before… but Yautja had come to Brockton Bay once before. Pe'dte, and her sons. What did those two know about it? Why did they know about it?
Nanku focused. She only absently noted the other car rapidly driving toward them with four people inside.
She took aim and fired another dart. Aimed low.
When it deployed its line, they snapped around Fenja's legs and sent her face-first into the ground. She started growing, the opposite of before. It snapped the line but Nanku cleared a line and slid to a stop. Dusk and Dawn flew from the other side and swiped at Menja's head.
It distracted the woman. Sent her swiping at the air.
Nanku raised her shuriken and set the angle.
Menja didn't need legs to talk and she was shrinking again.
Her leg twitched.
No.
The shuriken flew at a bad angle and veered off target.
NO!
Nanku tossed her spear in the air and caught it in reverse. She reared back, aiming for the sword woman's spin low on her back. A crippling wound. Nonlethal.
Her arm betrayed her, spasming and costing her the chance.
The two women retreated to one of the trucks. The man on the back fired and bullets pattered all around Nanku as she crashed to the ground.
The engine roared as the women climbed into the back. Dusk and Dawn dove but the gunner saw them and turned the gun up. Nanku directed them away and her swarm was finally closing in.
The truck sputtered. Tires spun against the road and the vehicle lurched forward at a race and sped away.
Nanku pulled herself up and caught her shuriken as it returned.
"Nothing personal," the boy in the stupid white carnival mask said. "Just following orders… Huh. Bit ironic at the moment, isn't it—"
Nanku spun on him, wrist blades sliding forth and aiming for his throat.
"Enough!"
The voice was strangely familiar.
The girl wore a costume with flared pants and riding boots. Her jacket was fancy and her mask the sort of thing she'd wear to a fancy party. She pointed a thin sword at Nanku's neck and held a series of throwing daggers in her other hand.
"Foil to the rescue," Regent mumbled. "Than—"
"Shut it."
"Bitch." Another girl crossed behind them, dressed in a frilly dress with a doll mask over her face. She held up a phone. "Tattletale says you can't ignore this one."
Nanku snarled.
'Foil' was dangerous.
She saw it in the way the girl carried herself. And her power. Something about armor piercing.
And her sword was at Nanku's throat.
"So." Imp appeared at Nanku's other side. "Can we like, not have a throw down? Cause I mean, we can take you but..."
She looked toward the lot littered with ruined cars, bullet casings, corpses, and destruction.
"But I mean that sounds like work and I just don't really want to?"