Pathogen 4.3

Thursday

Huh. They weren't kidding about the dragon guy.

I had to move quickly, but I still took a second to appreciate how cool that power was. Yang was going to be so, so jealous when she found out. Lung wasn't quite as scary as he'd looked in the recordings they'd shown me, but I knew he'd be getting bigger the longer the fight went on. If he had an upper limit, nobody had ever seen it. Too bad that power had been given to a criminal like him.

I appeared in the fight and spared another glance toward the opposing side to make sure nothing important had changed. Lung was still charging, but he wouldn't be here for a few more seconds. I then looked around at the gangers surrounding me that hadn't quite managed to react to my presence yet. Krieg wasn't immediately visible, which meant he'd probably run off when Lung showed up. I picked two at random, laid a hand on each of their shoulders, and scattered all three of us in order to rocket down the street and around the corner.

Standard procedure when Lung was involved was to take down everybody else, remove anybody that might be at risk of collateral damage, and then run away before he could pick a fight with us. As long as he was fighting other gangs and not interested in property damage, it worked great. I hadn't had the chance to ask what the plan was when he was going after civilians.

When we reappeared, I kept the guns scattered for just a moment, until the waiting officers could cuff the two guys I'd grabbed, then dropped them and started running back. Not the most exciting way to win a fight, and a lot harder to pull off without the element of surprise, but hey, if it worked it worked.

On the next trip, I tried it again, but only managed to secure one of them; they'd noticed me last time, and one of these guys managed to throw himself away from me fast enough that he reformed before I could scatter him completely. The rest of them seemed divided between aiming at me, aiming at Lung, now only feet away, or continuing the retreat they were apparently in the middle of, so I denied them the choice by getting out of there, running back down to the police and dropping off bad guy number three.

By the time I got back there, Lung had caught up to them. I couldn't tell how many were still alive, but he seemed to be ignoring them as threats at this point, so we could worry about them later. He continued walking into former Empire territory, forcing me to run ahead. As much as I wanted to just fight him and bring him in, I could see the logic in this one. It'd be safer to try and dissuade any defenders until he had to pack up and go home.

Didn't make this fun though.

Friday

"Scatter! Down here, we've got wounded!"

The voice distracted me from the view of the damaged street, and it only took me a moment to find the paramedic, down at ground level. By the time I got there, I could see the triage center laid out inside a small gym. A dozen or so injured, mostly stab wounds by the looks of it. "How can I help?"

The medic waved me inside, rushing to the people closest to the door. "We can handle most of them, but these three need a hospital. The roads outside are too rough for an ambulance. Can you get them there?"

I looked down. They were in pretty rough shape. I'd seen some stuff over the years; the Grimm didn't tend to be clean when they got to you. This was still pretty bad. Hookwolf again, apparently. I fumed internally, but forced myself to keep things positive. "Yep! Best if I keep it to one at a time though, which one's the most urgent? And can you let them know I'm coming?"

She nodded, and pointed toward a man in his early 40s with deep cuts in both his hands and arms. He was going to end up with some pretty nasty scars. As I put my hand on his shoulder, he looked up at me with tears in his eyes.

"Don't worry, you're going to be okay." I scattered him carefully, making sure to remember how he was positioned so I could reform him the same way without aggravating his injury. Once I'd finished, I looked to the medic and confirmed I'd be back, and scattered.

People jumped back in surprise as I appeared in the hospital waiting room. Surrounded by scattered petals of the man I hadn't reformed yet, I guess I made a bit of an impression. I appeared next to the check-in desk. "I've got one wounded in stasis, lacerations to hands and arms. Bleeding's pretty bad, can we have doctors ready before I bring him out?"

The person running the desk stared at me wide-eyed for a second. "Um. Oh, yeah, yes! I'll call them up."

She'd barely picked up the phone when an empty stretcher was rolled into the lobby. "Scatter, we got a call you were coming. Drop him here, there are two more stretchers behind us."

Right, Console probably overheard and called ahead. "Here," I said, reforming the man onto the offered bed. "I'll be back in-" I was interrupted by screaming as soon as the patient reformed.

"What just happened? It was so dark, I- I thought…" His voice left him, and he was reduced to simple sobbing.

Damn. I hadn't thought about that. The doctors gave me concerned looks. "I'll… warn the next two before we leave. I'll be back in maybe sixty seconds."

I scattered out the door before they could respond. I was so used to this, to going blind and deaf to the world while scattered, that I hadn't considered the effect it might have on somebody else, especially for that long. I might have just scared him even more.

I'll do it better next time.

I reappeared at the triage center, and the second victim was waiting. "Hey, can you hear me? I'm Scatter, and I'm gonna get you to the hospital, alright? You're not going to be able to hear or see anything for a minute, but you're going to be just fine…"

Saturday

The Wards were out today, and apparently, somebody had to keep an eye on them no matter how safe of a patrol they were on. Vista, Aegis, and I were on the boardwalk, just about the only safe patrol area left. I'd been sent with strict orders to keep my interactions with the public to a minimum, which was nice. It did leave me even more bored and antsy than I might have been otherwise though.

Of course, the Wards felt even more stir-crazy up than I did. Vista piped up almost as soon as there was a break in the crowds, "I know why we're here, but why are you here?"

Before I could respond, Aegis cut in. "Vista, we're in public." With Triumph graduating to the Protectorate in a few months, Aegis was getting ready to lead the Wards, and had started easing his way into that role during our training. His tone was a bit sharp though.

"It's alright. Let's give it a moment though." Another wave of people was approaching, and I slowed a bit to let the kids take the lead. Once we were through, I nodded toward a side street with fewer people. "We've all got to do our part to remind people that they're safe. The more scared the public is, the more problems we'll have to deal with."

Vista looked unconvinced. Even Aegis was giving me a confused look. "...Really? Even now?"

"Yep! Especially now. The more worried people are, the more reassurance they need."

"But wouldn't we be doing more good by actually solving the problem?"

"Sometimes, sure. But this isn't a problem that you can punch until it stops. If it was, somebody would have done it already."

Aegis piped up now. "Somebody has to do the punching though, right? Why can't somebody else do this part?"

Good question. I took a look around to be sure there wasn't anybody eavesdropping before answering. "Who else? If it's anything like back home, the Huntsmen are trusted a lot more than the leaders. Maybe the police, but the Grimm, or I guess the supervillains are our job, not theirs."

Neither of them looked convinced. I wasn't convinced either. I was glad we made it into a more public street before they could ask anything more, because I didn't have the answers. This patrol was almost over anyway, hopefully the next one would be more interesting.

"Console, Scatter. Just checking in, nothing seems wrong from the outside of the building. Heading in now."

No major fights yet today. Mostly, I'd just been running back and forth across the city, responding to just as many 911 calls as I could, just so we'd have somebody there quickly enough to handle any capes that showed up. And, of course, to show the flag some more, and remind people that the heroes were still here. It was almost like the villains were taking the weekend off. This one had been a report of some crazy screaming from a disused warehouse, and I was definitely hearing it now, but that apparently wasn't uncommon in this part of town. Somebody had to respond, and I was closer than any of the police.

The main door was locked, but more than loose enough to Scatter through, so I did that. There were plenty of gaps in the walls and ceiling to let in some natural light. That light was enough to see the people inside. At first glance I caught probably twenty of them, all dressed in chains and spikes, with a general color palette of brown, yellow, black, and red, with hints of white. This wasn't any of the regular gangs. Throwing a party, apparently; no music, but plenty of alcohol, plenty of noise, plenty of food, and so many guns. Was this a new gang or just random, well-armed people wanting to throw a party?

Time to find out. "Hi! My name's Scatter, you might have heard of me. I don't think this warehouse belongs to you. Can I convince you all to move along?"

My voice was mostly drowned out, but somebody passed out on a ratty couch at the outskirts noticed me after a second, and before I knew it I had a dozen guns pointed at me and everyone was yelling.

Welp, that answered that question. Still though, I didn't see any unique costumes. These guys were flamboyant, in a gross, Grimm-y kind of way, but nobody really seemed to stick out. Probably no powers then, just a bunch of weirdos. No problem.

I Scattered up toward the ceiling, leaving them all to gape at where my silhouette seemed to vanish, and reformed behind them. I took just a moment to tap a text to Console to tell them what I'd found before lunging forward and tackling the first guy through a table.

The first four guys went down without a problem. By the time I got to five and six, the gang had figured out what was going on, but they still weren't a problem. By the time I got to seven, number eight had started vibrating, and before I could get to him there were two more of him, then another four, and then three more. Inside of five seconds, he was surrounded by at least twenty of himself, all holding different weapons and throwing themselves toward me.

Before I could even wrap my head around what was going on, I heard a sound behind me like someone sloshing through a mud pile, and glanced behind me to see number eight in the process of transforming into some kind of giant lizard-dog thing. Most of the rest were running, but a few were hanging around.

Okay. They did have powers. This…could be a problem. My aura practically screamed a warning and I launched upward toward the ceiling again as the lizard-dog yelped like it had been hurt, and a visible cone of energy left its mouth and passed through the space where I was.

The ceiling was crossed with beams and crossbars, plenty of places to hide for a second. "Console, Scatter! I've got at least two villains here, and maybe more! I could use some backup."

After just a moment, Gallant's voice came through. 'Copy Scatter, Armsmaster is on his way. Any further information on them?"

A column of thick gray sludge was hurled upward into the rafters, and I jumped backwards before it could touch me. "Scratch that, make it three villains. A self-duplicator, a shapeshifter with a sound attack, and some kind of Blaster that-" I got cut off by a squeal of static.

Now was not the time for this. I jumped out of the way of another attack from the lizard-dog, which my Aura again was telling me could do an incredible amount of damage for all that it didn't seem to be breaking anything. I looked back toward where I'd come from, and realized that the gray sludge had solidified, blocking any travel in that direction.

"Console, are you there?" Nothing. I'd never had a problem with the comms before now, so something must have been interfering with them. Another bad guy?

There was a boom, echoing through the building. My aura began to prickle, which was a weird feeling. Something behind me, and it hadn't been there a second ago. I turned around. The man standing there was really big, in a way that meant Aura or superpowers rather than just muscles. The moment I saw him, the prickling got more intense.

It didn't take me long to place that feeling, although it had been months since I'd felt it. My Aura was warning me of the potential danger of the person nearby, even though they hadn't actually started attacking yet. Every time I had, it had preceded a really, really bad fight, even with Team RWBY behind me. Atlas, Relicta…

And I didn't have any backup.

Time to go.

I scattered, hurled myself backward, and felt an aura flare as he followed.

Gah. I'm not very happy with this one. Shorter than normal, late, and I don't know how well it holds up quality-wise. Incidentally, sorry about the delay, real life showed up hardcore a few weeks ago and only recently let up again. I'm not going to try and make any promises this time, but my goal for the next chapter is the end of April. I'll try to keep my profile up-to-date with regard to the next chapter.

I hope you all enjoyed! As always, yell at me about things which need yelling about, and I'll see you next time!