I could hear the fight before I could make anything out through the smoke. The fires were still burning, but most seemed to have burned through whatever fuel sources they’d found. Beyond what was in the bombs themselves, anyways.
It was probably dangerous to be taking in too much smoke, both for me and for the beetle, but I had to be close.
There were crunching sounds and the noise of metal striking metal. I directed the beetle around one particularly thick cloud of black smoke and saw Weld hacking the cars to pieces, his arms a pair of oversized blades. Mannequin threw a car at him, and Weld lunged forward to slam it down into the ground with both hands. Mannequin used the opening to leap forward, his feet momentarily resting on Weld’s shoulders, before he hopped down to the ground. Spools of chain unfolded in Mannequin’s wake, and he bound Weld, dragging him away from his allies.
Weld had undone much of Mannequin’s setup, but there was still one flaming truck leaning against Cache. It was heavy enough to crush Legend’s teammate beneath it if Clockblocker wasn’t quick enough to reach out and freeze it.
Carefully, I positioned myself, noted the wind, and then grabbed a grenade from the sash that hung around my neck.
I really shouldn’t be using this without any training, I thought.
I pulled the pin free, then dropped it straight down.
Wind carried the grenade further than I expected. It landed somewhere a few feet behind Cache, rolled, then detonated. The car that had been propped up against Cache was thrown off, rolling onto its roof. The other debris scattered.
I felt a wave of relief that I hadn’t managed to hit them with the grenade just as they came out of stasis.
Mannequin backed away from Weld to stare up at me. Weld, for his part, had absorbed the metal of the chains and disconnected the excess from his body. When he reshaped his hands into weapons, it was faster than I’d seen him do it during our attack on the PRT headquarters.
Weld gave me a salute, using a knife-hand that was as long as he was tall.
We went on the offense, going after Mannequin. I used two more grenades to drive him out of cover and to stop him from flinging any more cars at the heroes, while Weld maintained the pressure by constantly closing in.
Both Weld and Mannequin had seemingly unlimited physical reserves. Both had equipment they could spring from nowhere – Mannequin had his concealed equipment and weapons, Weld had his crude shapeshifting abilities.
That wasn’t to say they were evenly matched.
Mannequin could have hit Weld with everything he had, and I doubted he would have even slowed Weld down. The opposite wasn’t so true – I suspected that one solid blow from Weld would leave Mannequin a wreck.
The problem was that even though Weld was strong, he was heavy, and this put him somewhere near the upper limits of what you’d expect an athlete to be able to perform. Mannequin, by contrast, was faster than any olympic runner, more agile than any gymnast. He could contort and slide through the space beneath a car, change directions on a dime, and that was without getting into the other advantages he brought to the table. I suspected he could see through the fire and smoke, and where Weld’s shapeshifting was largely limited to hitting stuff, Mannequin could use his arms like grappling hooks to cover more ground and keep his distance.
If we had any advantage, it was that we were buying time. Mannequin couldn’t stop to throw vehicles at the frozen heroes.
The counterpoint to that was that Crawler had heard the commotion and was approaching. He shifted from a walk to a head-on charge as he got a block away.
“Crawler!” I shouted the words at full volume. Weld snapped his head up to look at me, and I extended one arm out to inform him on the direction.
The problem was that Mannequin could hear too. He shifted positions and prepared to heave another car at the heroes.
I pulled the pin on another grenade and lobbed it in Mannequin’s direction.
Call it chemistry, rhythm, or just the nuances one picked up after fighting alongside someone else, there was a flow to working with a member of your team, a way I could trust others to have my back and vice versa. Weld and I didn’t have that. It was my understanding, my assumption, that the bruiser would take on the heaviest hitter on the opposing side, and the others in the team would focus their efforts on the secondary threats with using utility and technique. It was how the Undersiders tended to handle matters.
Weld… I don’t know what his assumption was, but maybe he was used to having people like Clockblocker and Vista handle the most threatening and problematic enemies, while he threw himself at the enemy ranks and drew the secondary fire. Maybe they were even tactics he’d been drilled on with his previous team. Maybe he was too focused on protecting his teammates from Mannequin and didn’t trust me to handle it.
I didn’t know what his reasons were, but Weld turned toward Mannequin in the same moment the grenade left my hand.
It was disastrous on two levels. Whatever surprise I’d hoped to retain was lost when I was forced to shout out, “Grenade!”
Mannequin abandoned his hold on the car as he leaped to one side to get clear well before it exploded. Weld, too, managed to stay out of the way, stopping in his tracks.
Crawler came tearing through the blazing parking booth and blindsided Weld. In terms of raw power, the junior hero might as well have been a powerless human for all the defense he could muster. Crawler’s claws tore into him, revealing bones in silver, organs in copper and gold.
Two grenades left. I threw one down at them. Mannequin backed away, and Crawler, though his head was directed at Weld, rose up onto his two hind legs and batted at the grenade with Weld’s body.
The explosive went off a second after the impact, and Weld was thrown free of Crawler’s grip. I saw him stagger to his feet, his wounds closing as he shapeshifted them. He couldn’t do much about the material that had been raked off of him.
This wasn’t going well.
Mannequin made a gesture at Crawler, fingertips of two hands all touching, pressed to his ‘mouth’, then he pulled his hands away, splaying his fingers. Crawler cocked his head and Mannequin pointed at the frozen heroes. I heard Crawler rumble with guttural laughter.
No.
What could I do? I was a bystander here, effectively powerless, but for my beetle. I had the gun, but it wouldn’t do anything to Crawler and I didn’t trust myself to hit Mannequin at this range. I had a single grenade, and I knew that wouldn’t even make Crawler flinch.
Crawler spat a caustic spray onto Cache and Clockblocker. I could see the mucus fizz and pop from my vantage point high above.
If I used a grenade, could I clear it away? Or was it too viscous? Would I be losing something I couldn’t afford to throw away?
I didn’t get a chance to see. Cache came to life.
I couldn’t even imagine what went through his mind. He went from disengaging from a fight with Jack and Bonesaw in a flooded parking lot to facing down Crawler and Mannequin in the middle of a sea of fire.
Maybe he’d anticipated that, but he couldn’t have anticipated the acid spittle. Holes began to appear in the fabric of his fireproof costume.
He managed to maintain his composure- I had no idea how. I couldn’t imagine how it must have felt to be down there, feeling the heat and smoke coming in through the widening holes in the fabric. He began using his power, calling up the shadowy geometry that would deposit the heroes onto the battlefield.
The two members of the Nine, it seemed, didn’t intend to give him the chance. Both charged for the hero.
This time, at least, Weld took on the heavy hitter. He leaped at Crawler from the side, his hand becoming needle-fine as he plunged it into one of Crawler’s largest eye sockets. I knew that Crawler could dodge Ballistic’s hits. He must have seen Weld coming and simply not cared. The needle barely penetrated Crawler’s eye, but Weld used the leverage to wrap himself around Crawler’s face.
I drew the gun and leveled it at Mannequin�
�s back. He was running in a straight line, I remembered to click the thumb safety, squeezing the handle with both hands to get the grip safety on the back of the gun, and put him in the crosshairs, leading just a bit. I could remember the tip you always heard in the movies. Squeeze, don’t pull. Exhale as you squeeze…
Visions of the dead Mannequin had left in my district flashed through my mind’s eye. The paramedics, the bitchy old doctor, the people he’d gassed. My people.
I could feel the recoil jolt its way through my arms to rattle my body at its core.
Mannequin fell.
How the hell did I manage that? Between the recoil and the shock of what I’d just managed, it was all I could do to stay seated.
I aimed and fired again at his prone form, the shot going off just before he rolled to his feet. I couldn’t make out if I hit or not.
Crawler was distracted just long enough for Cache to bring out the first heroes. Glory Girl, Prism, Miss Militia, Triumph…
Weld tumbled to the ground, and switched targets to the retreating Mannequin. Maybe he’d coordinated something with the others. I couldn’t say. Glory Girl, in her all-concealing fireproof suit, certainly seemed ready to serve as the frontline defense.
I was so busy tracking Mannequin, looking for an opportunity to shoot him again, that I nearly missed what happened next.
Crawler got close enough for Glory Girl to swing a punch. She took the bait and swung, then twisted in mid-air to deliver a kick. He pulled just out of reach of both hits, then opened his mouth to retch spittle and bile all over her.
It had the same effect on her costume that it did on Cache, only far, far faster. In moments, she was down to the skin-tight costume she wore beneath her white and gold dress, her forcefield protecting her.
I pulled a grenade free. Maybe it could distract him long enough for her to-
Crawler surged forward, slamming his head into her. Like a spiked volleyball, she slammed hard into the ground.
I could see her skin turning red, then black, where the spittle had covered it. Flesh melted away to reveal muscle, then the acidic vomit began to eat away at that. She screamed, frantic, thrashing, oblivious to the flaming patches of ground that she was rolling into.
The bugs I’d placed on my teammates told me they weren’t close. Glory Girl and Cache were down and needed immediate medical attention – Cache had managed to call in the rest of the Protectorate and the remaining Wards, but he’d collapsed into the arms of one of the adults.
Crawler paced forward with an almost anticipatory slowness. I could make out his tongue, licking around his lips.
This was going south fast, and I wasn’t sure what I could even do.
14.06
“Wards!” Weld hollered. “Crawler and Mannequin, like we discussed! Close ranks around Victoria!”
His words broke the spell that the scene had over Vista and Flechette. Surprising that there were so few Wards here, on a level. Kid Win wasn’t in sight, nor was Chariot, and Clockblocker was under the sway of his own powers. Shadow Stalker, Aegis, Gallant and Browbeat were dead or gone.
The final sorta-maybe member of their group, Glory Girl, was being eaten alive by Crawler’s acid.
Vista and Flechette moved to positions just behind and to either side of Weld. The group blocked Crawler’s view of Glory Girl.
Miss Militia directed the adult heroes with a series of short commands and hand signals. Ursa and Assault led the way with Miss Militia, Prism, Battery and Triumph following, clearly aiming to flank Crawler and close the distance between them and Mannequin.
Crawler spat, and Vista used her power, reducing the distance the spit traveled to a tenth of what it might have been. Crawler leaped, and she widened the distance between him and everyone else so he stood in the midst of a clearing.
Flechette fired a bolt straight into Crawler. It penetrated his face and stuck there. Little surprise on that front; I’d seen her stick Leviathan with one of those giant needles. Crawler’s face bubbled around the wound where it was rejecting the foreign object. Almost imperceptibly, it began to slide out.
He rumbled with a low, guttural laugh, mocking. Was he enjoying himself? He was a masochist, and it was the rare thing that could hurt him.
Miss Militia interrupted his gloating with a shot from a rocket launcher. His claws dug deep into pavement as he resisted being knocked over. She used her power to reload the rocket launcher and shot him again, uprooting him. Triumph used a full-power shout to send Crawler sliding across the clearing Vista had made. Vista widened the distance by stretching the landscape.
Prism and Battery went after Mannequin. Prism split into three copies of herself, complete with fireproof suit, closing in as Battery used her power to cross the distance and trade blows. I was only peripherally aware of Prism, given how she was based in New York, but seeing her in action reminded me of how she operated.
She was a self-duplicator, always producing two other versions of herself, but there were nuances. So long as one duplicate lived, she would survive whatever happened to the others, but they didn’t last long. She could also expend them to enhance herself.
It made her an effective partner for Battery. Both were all about the setup followed by execution. Prism formed her duplicates and spread them out while Battery attacked, then drew her duplicates back into herself in a flash of light before delivering a crushing strike.
Mannequin was holding his own. The hits that did land seemed to have little effect, as he went limp and bent with them. It seemed he was keeping to the old adage of a supple willow bending in a hurricane that topples a sturdy oak. Even when Battery was moving at super speed, he was quick to take the advantage of a kick that went too high or a sweep aiming to knock his feet out from under him. He ducked beneath the former and hopped over the latter, then using his grappling-hook hands to haul himself a distance away.
He managed to get close enough to cut down two of Prism’s duplicates, then pointed his hand at her third self, extending a blade from the base of his hand and firing it like a harpoon. Battery used up her charge and swept it aside before it could strike home and finish off the heroine.
Ursa, Triumph and Assault were getting into the thick of things with Crawler while Miss Militia and Flechette aided them from a distance. Ursa was creating forcefields in the rough shape of bears, two at a time. Weld stood, defending the two female members of the Wards. Glory Girl was looking worse for wear with every passing second.
“Weld!” I shouted, drawing the beetle as close as I dared with the heat and smoke beneath me. ”What can I do!?”
“More bombs on Mannequin!” He shouted.
“I’m out!” I replied.
“Then get out of here! You’ll be one less person we have to protect! Our front line’s pretty thin!”
Weld half-turned to glance back at Glory Girl, and I could see his expression change as he saw how bad she was. It was reaching the point that we might have to leave her for dead. There were spots where the muscle had necrotized enough that I could make out her internal organs. If the redness was any indication, the acid was extending to her vitals.
“Evac Victoria and Cache on your way out!”
Evac. The last time I’d had a scale to check, months ago, I’d weighed a hundred and eighteen pounds. With my gear, my costume, maybe that added up to one hundred and twenty. I had my doubts the beetle could manage me if I was even ten pounds heavier. How could I carry someone larger than me, in addition to myself?
Maybe I didn’t have to.
Had to think out of the box. If I could get her out of here, and if the beetle could manage her, I could remotely pilot it to Amy. Those were two pretty huge ifs. No, couldn’t pin my hopes on that.
I saw Cache using his power on himself. He was barely able to crawl, but he surrounded himself in his dark geometry, disappearing as it condensed down to a point. He’d taken himself out of this dimension. I wasn’t sure if it was a journey of no return or a way to get some respite.
>
But his use of his power gave me another idea. Glory Girl had powers too.
“Can she fly!?” I shouted.
“What?” Weld asked. He glanced up at me, then turned his attention back to the fight. His body was tensed and ready to act the second Crawler made a move for his teammates.
“Ask her if she can fly!”
“She’s insensate!”
“Try!”
He turned back to the superheroine and said something I couldn’t make out.
If she responded, I didn’t hear it.
Weld extended his arms into two long poles. They extended ten feet, then fifteen, then thirty. Reaching back, he caught Glory Girl with the ends, bending the tips to encircle her body.
“Wait!” I said.
He glanced up at me, then over at Crawler. The villain was spitting at Assault, who slid on the ground to evade the spray. Crawler took advantage of the gap in the defensive wall to stampede toward Vista and Flechette. Vista increased the distance, but not as fast as Crawler crossed it.
Under pressure, choosing the protection of his teammates as his top priority, Weld ignored my plea for a moment to think. He twisted his entire body to haul Glory Girl into the air, throwing her at me like a catapult might throw a boulder.
I changed my orientation so I’d be ready to catch her. Rather than try to wrap my arms around her, I moved so we were racing alongside her as she arced through the air. It gave me only a second or two to make the call about grabbing her. I didn’t want to get that acid on me.
I grabbed at the two things that seemed safe – the intact portion of her lower costume and her hair. I pulled back, hauling on both, but the beetle wasn’t able to offer the necessary lift.
She was insensate with pain, and she struggled at what I was doing to her. I momentarily wondered if she’d hit me or the beetle with one of those punches that could crush stone. Worse, if she grabbed me and I couldn’t break away, I’d plummet to the ground with her.
“Fly!” I screamed the word. ”Lift up, Glory Girl!”
Her face was melting on one side, her eyes a ruin, her ear and the surrounding area of her head a bloody mess. I wondered if she could even hear me.
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