Blueprint 3.2
Leecifer
(Fan)Fiction Writer
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Blueprint 3.2
Armsdick was almost five minutes late, of course, and we were safely sequestered in a nearby alley as his motorcycle pulled into the empty lot. I'd tapped into a few beetles and placed them to get a better, if still blurry, view of what was going on.
"Damn, I wish we could see this. It's gonna be good," Herb laughed.
I shook my head. "Can't risk him spotting them if they're broadcasting. Listening to Taylor will have to do. Also, Taylor, don't respond to us. Even if you're quiet, he might be able to pick up your responses to us."
I saw her start to nod before catching herself, luckily it looked like Armsdick had turned his back so he didn't notice.
He strode over, halberd in hand, stopping a good ten feet away from her. "You said you wanted to meet and talk. Talk," he commanded, voice thick with annoyance, sounding like he was doing her a favor she didn't deserve.
"He's not gonna tell her he's recording this?" Herb asked.
"No, makes more of a psychological impact to tell them after they've been talking so they have to mentally go back and make sure they haven't said anything damning, and even then they might be worried that they forgot something. It's a good one-off tactics that completely poisons any further interactions with that person for a win in the moment. Against a Villain you're planning to arrest, useful, against a possible ally, it's stupid and toxic. Classic Armsmaster," I responded. Taylor stiffened at this, "You need to respond to his question," I told her, as Armsmaster said "Well?" impatiently.
"I've," she started, finding her feet. "The Undersiders sent me a message. They want to talk, and I think they want to recruit me. I was thinking that I could join them, find out about them, then turn the info over to the Protectorate." I winced. If she'd said turn it over to him he might've gone with it but now. "They've ment-"
"Absolutely not," he cut her off gruffly. "Your irresponsibility has been proven, and you couldn't be trusted with something as difficult as-"
"Wait, what irresponsibility?" she interrupted, outraged, her voice a little saddened. I felt for her. It was one thing to be told your heroes weren't heroic, but it was entire different thing to see it for yourself. "I took down Lung with just a little help!"
"Don't interrupt!" he admonished.
"Didn't he interrupt her first?" Herb asked, smiling.
"Yeah, but he's both an adult and knows better," I responded, tone dripping with sarcasm, "the hypocrite." I listened to hear what Armsdick was telling her, my bugs seeing he'd taken a few steps closer, so that he was looming over her. Real mature I thought, physically intimidate the girl who asked for help. God, I hate the Protectorate.
"Your reckless use of your powers nearly killed Lung, if I hadn't gotten him medical help you would have killed him, and there'd be an order out for your arrest!" he told her, betraying nothing of the whopper of a lie he'd just dropped. Not necessarily a lie as some would understand, it, but a willful misinterpretation of the truth. Technically, any technique strong enough to drop a person nearly killed them, so that was technically a truth, and if Lung hadn't gotten medical attention the dragon might have died, but only because of what the 'hero' had done. And then, if Lung had died, and Armsdick lied, there would be an order out for Taylor's arrest, but because of the Protectorate team lead's lies, not because of anything that Taylor had actually done. If I hadn't told Taylor to expect this, she'd probably be on the back foot, but we'd nixed that play already.
"Why did that happen?" Taylor asked, feign confusion, knowing why but laying a trap to see if he'd hang himself, given enough rope, "He was fine when you got to him!" The hurt in her voice could have easily been worry, and Mini-Man obliged.
"Are you trained in parahuman toxicology?" he asked, as if he was, and like that even mattered to the argument, though the response of 'no' would have given him an opening, which Taylor didn't take, forcing him to respond by turning his question back on him.
"Are you?" Taylor shot back. Herb high-fived me as we listened.
"You are responsible for the effects of your powers, even if they look 'fine'!" he retorted, getting more upset, trying to take the position of the superior rightfully stripping down one of his charges. And, again, what he was saying was true if taken out of all context, but the implications, that it had been Taylor's actions that had caused the problems, were outright lies. And even if he hadn't been lying, mind you, he wasn't doing anything else that a superior officer was supposed to do, like council the people under his command, which Taylor wasn't. No, he was just doing the things he wanted in order to cover his ass.
Herb frowned, "He ducked the fucking question, right?"
"Yep, and he's pretending like he didn't do anything either, probably hoping she'll forget about the tranq," I responded.
Taylor gave a start, probably having done just that. "Wait, what about the tranquilizer you gave him, maybe it was that?"
He crossed his arms, and if the tilt of his head was correct, he was literally looking down his nose at her. "My tranquilizer was specially designed for his biology and checked by experts. Your venom is what rotted his flesh," he pronounced like that was all that mattered, the infallible word of God that could not be questioned.
Taylor though, was all over that. "So it was designed for him healthy? I told you I had my spiders bite him, you knew he was poisoned! You knew that would've thrown it off if, you were an expert on 'parahuman toxicology'!" she finished, throwing his assumed title back in his face.
"Point, Taylor," I grinned, looking over at Herb, who was shaking his head. "What? She's right!"
"Nah, she backed him down," he told both of us, Enter manifesting behind him, a vicious smile on its crocodile face, at odds to Herb's worried expression. "He's gettin' ready to fight!"
"If it wasn't for your reckless use of powers that wouldn't have been a problem!" He practically roared.
She flinched backwards, swarm massing behind her. I tapped into my bug control and tried to send her feelings of support and confidence, not sure if it helped. "He said he was gonna kill kids!" She shot back, just as heated, but controlled in volume.
Armsdick snorted, contempt dripping from his tone. "He was going after villains, and now you want to run off and join them. Tell yourself that you're doing it to help people, but that's not going to happen. I have software in my helmet that tells me when people lie. I should arrest you right now, assuming the people you poisoned last night haven't died, then it might be the Birdcage."
I could feel her emotions, the self-doubt, the panic, the overwhelming fear as she stood her ground, not speaking, but not running like she felt like she should with every fiber of her being. Yes, I thought. This strength, this is why I'm recruiting her. "He's lying," Herb said. "Fucktard!"
"Worse, he's making unrelated, misleadingly-true statements," I overruled. "Like a mobster saying you have a nice shop and it'd be a pity if something happened to it. Both are true, but not what's implied. He has software that does predicts if a statement is 'true', and he's obviously trained to throw it off himself, but it's not perfect, especially with you, Taylor, and the software doesn't do shit for future predictions, despite him implying it does. He's leaving out all the context, to make even a selfless and heroic act sound cowardly. It's not that hard a game, and one easily uncovered if you know what he's talking about, but he leaves it vague to fuck with you."
"Taylor," I stressed, "he's trying to make you scared. He wants you to panic so he can take you down, so he can hurt you, and shut you up. Then he'll make up a stupid story to tell the authorities, who like him, so they'll believe him over some nobody they don't care about without a second thought, without checking to see if it's true, just punishing people because he said so, just like Emma." I finished, practically hissing the last part in anger as the connections were made in my mind, flowing forth like tumblers falling into place, unlocking terrible understanding.
How had I not seen the parallels before? I thought. He's popular, and in authority, using it for petty ends. For him it's making the world a better place, he's stopping people he's deemed villains before they can hurt anyone, even if he breaks the rules he himself hides behind. For Ms. Barnes it was trying to get Taylor to lash out, she's trying to get her to prove herself strong like Emma did before Sophia would bother to save her, even if it means torturing someone she called a friend. For both of them though, it's perverted its original purpose, moving from misguided help to vicious self-aggrandizement. I swear to god if I didn't know he had a chance of being redeemed, I'd kill him myself!
Herb looked at me in concern, my intentions probably written across my face. 'You good?' he mouthed. I nodded back sharply, mouthing 'get ready to move', jerking my head in the direction of the confrontation. He nodded, still looking at me in concern, as Taylor's voice came over the comms, seething with the rage I felt. "You. You asshole!" she bit out. "I tried to save kids, and now you're threatening me with the Birdcage? I checked the laws, I was in the right! I-"
"Like someone your age knows the laws," the false-hero scoffed, so full of prideful dismissal, so sure that he had complete control of the situation. He was wrong, and if, no, when he stepped over the line, as he would when he didn't 'win', he'd pay for his arrogance. "I have access to them right now and I-"
"Are. Lying!" She spat, the swarm agitating around her. "Arclight, 94. He fought the Red-Gaters when he thought they'd taken a school bus hostage, and a couple of them died. He was cleared of charges because they'd said they were going to kill their hostages, even though it was a bluff! I'm trying to be a Hero and-"
"You are too dangerous to be allowed to go free. You obviously can't control your powers and are a danger to those around you," His tone of voice was odd, his haughtiness and twisted anger mostly suppressed, almost clinical. The disconnect confused us all for a second. It was like he wasn't talking to her anymore. Like he was speaking to the camera almost.
"Taylor, run!" Herb shouted into the comms, figuring it out moments before I did. "He's gonna-" but the man who claimed the title of hero had already taken something from his belt and tossed it at her, the bugs I had watching him blinded by a white light as the crackle of lightning sounded from the empty lot. The comms captured her cry of pain as the presence of the swarm around her vanished in a moment of shock and twitching death. A cold wash of panic flooded me as I felt Taylor's power dim like an ill-snuffed flame, barely embers remaining.
Herb was off like a shot, Enter right behind him. I flew up to come in from above. As I crested the roof, I saw Enter barrel into Armsmaster who was turning to face him in surprise, Taylor prone and unmoving, the ground dark around her, hopefully with insects, not blood. The Stand dodged around the halberd's blade, planting a haymaker across the 'hero's' face. Herb followed his Stand as Armsmaster stumbled backwards, slamming his fist into Armsmaster's breastplate, sending his foe backwards as Herb pulled his hand back in pain. The broken finger's on my friend's hand quickly righted as his Stand's copied power of vampirism healed him slightly, in accordance with the damage done to Armsmaster.
Swooping towards Taylor I pulled the costume off of my finger to heal her if I needed to. Coming down kneeling next to her, I smelled burnt hair and fried insects, but not the distinct metallic scent of blood. The ground crunched under me as I picked her up, checking her for injuries. There was electrical scoring on the chitin plates, but the grey silk that made up the majority of her suit was unblemished. Right I thought, spider silk, like at the Gala, good insulator.
Her hair was frazzled, and bit of her ends were burnt, but I couldn't find any more obvious injuries. As I held her, she started moaning in pain, her presence in my bug sense brightening as she woke up. I reached with my uncovered hand and pressed my finger to her scalp, willing my healing power to do the general 'Get Better' package, hopefully healing the damage I couldn't see. "What?" she asked, starting to struggle, weakly at first but gaining strength.
"Break and Enter are taking care of Armsmaster, you okay?" I asked, standing and letting her up.
"Yeah, what was-" she asked, cut off by the sound of electricity. Both our heads snapped over to see Armsmaster throw a ball at Enter, similar to the one that had fallen next to Taylor, lightning striking out from it like it was an overactive tesla coil.
Enter caught the baseball sized device, arcs playing over the Stand's body to no effect as it gave the Tinker a saurian smile, it's Second Trigger Immunity power negating the electricity. It crushed the device as bolts scored the cement dozens of feet away, tossing the sparking device negligently back at its creator, Armsmaster rolling away as it exploded. Enter pursued him through the explosion, Herb running to the side to cut off his escape.
Taylor started to form a swarm, but I stopped her from sending the gathering to help, pulling them back. Her head whipped around to look at me, a shocked expression probably on her face under her mask. "Let Break and Enter take care of this," I told her, watching the fight. "You getting involved will let him claim that you 'attacked him', whereas this is us defending someone who was attacked for no legal reason. We're registered heroes, and we can say we heard you scream in pain, to find Armsdick attacking a girl in an empty lot, who, as of now, has no charges against her." Taylor wasn't happy, bristling at being denied over the Bug Control sense we shared, but she kept quiet as we watched the fight.
Armsmaster had done something, and the blade of his halberd had shifted ninety degrees and started spinning like a demented circular saw, the disk blade warding off Herb. Taking two steps back he shifted his grip and the blade reset itself, launching away from the fight to plant itself in the wall of a nearby building, pulling himself up and away as Herb charged, grasping hand missing the Tinker by inches. Enter leaped upwards, form molding and shifting into the leathery wings of a Pteranodon as it gave a single powerful flap, accelerating towards Armsmaster in a dark blur.
The Tinker reached the top, using his weapon to leverage himself up to the rooftop in a smooth, practiced jump, armor cracked and blackened but still intact. His leap, however, sent him on a parabolic arc which Enter arrowed in on, shifting back to human form as he reached his target, momentum conserved as the Stand flew above the escaping cape, fist impacting the back of Armsmaster's helmet. The Protectorate goon was dropped, his head to impact the ledge, and fell the forty feet back to earth. The armored figure impacted the ground, back first, with a metallic crunch, frantically reaching for his halberd as Enter descended, aiming to impact Armsmaster. His halberd grasped, the Tinker twisted something in the handle and pointed it straight up.
The halberd gave the whine of something powering up and the blade glowed with a crackle of plasma, before the it was launched at high speed, catching Enter straight in the head, bisecting it into a burned bloody mess as the body impacted Armsmaster, the murderous Tinker giving an 'oof' on impact.
Taylor gave a shout of fright, and tried to send the swarms down at him, only to be pulled back by me again. "Don't you care!" she yelled in my face. "He just killed your teammate!"
"Did he?" I asked, as Enter, reformed, ran in from an alley, catching up to Herb as they ran towards Armsmaster, who had pushed the corpse off of himself and was struggling to his feet. They both reared back and kicked him in the chest, lifting him up as they knocked him back, Herb grabbing and tossing the halberd away as Enter landed on his chest, pounding away at Armsmaster's head. The 'hero' struggled under the blows, electricity arcing up over Enter, doing nothing, followed by several darts, a white gas, and then a burst of fire, all useless. The blows rained down as Armsmaster's struggles got weaker and weaker, stopping entirely.
"Enough" I called, striding forward. Enter gave the armored poor excuse for a man one more punch before standing up, spitting on his killer as he ambled away. I walked over to the Tinker's downed form, using the bugs with me to swarm him, getting a sense of his armor in three dimensions. Motioning Enter over, I had him help me pry the armor apart, the Stand growing claws to help him pry open the crushed metal.
Armsmaster's armor opened like a high-tech can and we pulled him out in his under-suit, dragging him over so I could put my unarmored hand on him, giving him the "Get Better" treatment enough to stop his bleeding, no more. No sense to have him die on us when we meant to humiliate the shit vigilante with good PR.
Enter moved past me with Herb, the two grabbing his motorcycle and dragging it across the empty lot. Dropping it next to the broken armor, Herb shot his Stand a look, who morphed into something large and armored, the reptile slamming its clubbed tail into the bike over and over again, various defenses going off and doing absolutely nothing as the high precision vehicle powered by tinkertech was reduced to a heaping pile of scrap, as well as the remains of the armor. Flipping over the pile, Enter smashed that as well, repeating the process several more times, the pile seeming to grow in size each time, which made no sense. Fucking Tinkers.
I walked over to Herb glancing at Taylor before glaring at the downed Protectorate Leader. I shot Break a look. "He's certainly being thorough," I commented dryly.
"Fucker tried to kill Enter!" my friend responded hotly. "Hero my ass!"
I shrugged, using the collected bugs to retrieve my cameras, stopping the recordings and storing them. "Luckily for us, Enter's hard to kill." The Stand snorted in agreement.
We looked down at the bloody body of the leader of the Protectorate and I Knew him. Primary power was the mess of locked knowledge that indicated a Tinker, specializing in the Miniaturization of other tech, with a barrier to the integration of Tinker-made Tech. Secondary Power, Spatial Warping, with a range limit, subconsciously controlled, and limited to non-biological material in the warped space. I had no qualms as my power reached out and took the second one, adding it to my roster.
Looking down at his unconscious form, Herb said, "You know, I'm gonna need to recycle this, because it's wrong to litter trash all over the place. Don't worry, we'll clean up your mess." Enter rolled the wreckage over to an alley, stuffing it in the cans. "We'll call an ambulance for you, maybe."
With that Herb turned on his heel and walked off, the three of us following him, indifferent to the last piece of trash we left behind.
Armsdick was almost five minutes late, of course, and we were safely sequestered in a nearby alley as his motorcycle pulled into the empty lot. I'd tapped into a few beetles and placed them to get a better, if still blurry, view of what was going on.
"Damn, I wish we could see this. It's gonna be good," Herb laughed.
I shook my head. "Can't risk him spotting them if they're broadcasting. Listening to Taylor will have to do. Also, Taylor, don't respond to us. Even if you're quiet, he might be able to pick up your responses to us."
I saw her start to nod before catching herself, luckily it looked like Armsdick had turned his back so he didn't notice.
He strode over, halberd in hand, stopping a good ten feet away from her. "You said you wanted to meet and talk. Talk," he commanded, voice thick with annoyance, sounding like he was doing her a favor she didn't deserve.
"He's not gonna tell her he's recording this?" Herb asked.
"No, makes more of a psychological impact to tell them after they've been talking so they have to mentally go back and make sure they haven't said anything damning, and even then they might be worried that they forgot something. It's a good one-off tactics that completely poisons any further interactions with that person for a win in the moment. Against a Villain you're planning to arrest, useful, against a possible ally, it's stupid and toxic. Classic Armsmaster," I responded. Taylor stiffened at this, "You need to respond to his question," I told her, as Armsmaster said "Well?" impatiently.
"I've," she started, finding her feet. "The Undersiders sent me a message. They want to talk, and I think they want to recruit me. I was thinking that I could join them, find out about them, then turn the info over to the Protectorate." I winced. If she'd said turn it over to him he might've gone with it but now. "They've ment-"
"Absolutely not," he cut her off gruffly. "Your irresponsibility has been proven, and you couldn't be trusted with something as difficult as-"
"Wait, what irresponsibility?" she interrupted, outraged, her voice a little saddened. I felt for her. It was one thing to be told your heroes weren't heroic, but it was entire different thing to see it for yourself. "I took down Lung with just a little help!"
"Don't interrupt!" he admonished.
"Didn't he interrupt her first?" Herb asked, smiling.
"Yeah, but he's both an adult and knows better," I responded, tone dripping with sarcasm, "the hypocrite." I listened to hear what Armsdick was telling her, my bugs seeing he'd taken a few steps closer, so that he was looming over her. Real mature I thought, physically intimidate the girl who asked for help. God, I hate the Protectorate.
"Your reckless use of your powers nearly killed Lung, if I hadn't gotten him medical help you would have killed him, and there'd be an order out for your arrest!" he told her, betraying nothing of the whopper of a lie he'd just dropped. Not necessarily a lie as some would understand, it, but a willful misinterpretation of the truth. Technically, any technique strong enough to drop a person nearly killed them, so that was technically a truth, and if Lung hadn't gotten medical attention the dragon might have died, but only because of what the 'hero' had done. And then, if Lung had died, and Armsdick lied, there would be an order out for Taylor's arrest, but because of the Protectorate team lead's lies, not because of anything that Taylor had actually done. If I hadn't told Taylor to expect this, she'd probably be on the back foot, but we'd nixed that play already.
"Why did that happen?" Taylor asked, feign confusion, knowing why but laying a trap to see if he'd hang himself, given enough rope, "He was fine when you got to him!" The hurt in her voice could have easily been worry, and Mini-Man obliged.
"Are you trained in parahuman toxicology?" he asked, as if he was, and like that even mattered to the argument, though the response of 'no' would have given him an opening, which Taylor didn't take, forcing him to respond by turning his question back on him.
"Are you?" Taylor shot back. Herb high-fived me as we listened.
"You are responsible for the effects of your powers, even if they look 'fine'!" he retorted, getting more upset, trying to take the position of the superior rightfully stripping down one of his charges. And, again, what he was saying was true if taken out of all context, but the implications, that it had been Taylor's actions that had caused the problems, were outright lies. And even if he hadn't been lying, mind you, he wasn't doing anything else that a superior officer was supposed to do, like council the people under his command, which Taylor wasn't. No, he was just doing the things he wanted in order to cover his ass.
Herb frowned, "He ducked the fucking question, right?"
"Yep, and he's pretending like he didn't do anything either, probably hoping she'll forget about the tranq," I responded.
Taylor gave a start, probably having done just that. "Wait, what about the tranquilizer you gave him, maybe it was that?"
He crossed his arms, and if the tilt of his head was correct, he was literally looking down his nose at her. "My tranquilizer was specially designed for his biology and checked by experts. Your venom is what rotted his flesh," he pronounced like that was all that mattered, the infallible word of God that could not be questioned.
Taylor though, was all over that. "So it was designed for him healthy? I told you I had my spiders bite him, you knew he was poisoned! You knew that would've thrown it off if, you were an expert on 'parahuman toxicology'!" she finished, throwing his assumed title back in his face.
"Point, Taylor," I grinned, looking over at Herb, who was shaking his head. "What? She's right!"
"Nah, she backed him down," he told both of us, Enter manifesting behind him, a vicious smile on its crocodile face, at odds to Herb's worried expression. "He's gettin' ready to fight!"
"If it wasn't for your reckless use of powers that wouldn't have been a problem!" He practically roared.
She flinched backwards, swarm massing behind her. I tapped into my bug control and tried to send her feelings of support and confidence, not sure if it helped. "He said he was gonna kill kids!" She shot back, just as heated, but controlled in volume.
Armsdick snorted, contempt dripping from his tone. "He was going after villains, and now you want to run off and join them. Tell yourself that you're doing it to help people, but that's not going to happen. I have software in my helmet that tells me when people lie. I should arrest you right now, assuming the people you poisoned last night haven't died, then it might be the Birdcage."
I could feel her emotions, the self-doubt, the panic, the overwhelming fear as she stood her ground, not speaking, but not running like she felt like she should with every fiber of her being. Yes, I thought. This strength, this is why I'm recruiting her. "He's lying," Herb said. "Fucktard!"
"Worse, he's making unrelated, misleadingly-true statements," I overruled. "Like a mobster saying you have a nice shop and it'd be a pity if something happened to it. Both are true, but not what's implied. He has software that does predicts if a statement is 'true', and he's obviously trained to throw it off himself, but it's not perfect, especially with you, Taylor, and the software doesn't do shit for future predictions, despite him implying it does. He's leaving out all the context, to make even a selfless and heroic act sound cowardly. It's not that hard a game, and one easily uncovered if you know what he's talking about, but he leaves it vague to fuck with you."
"Taylor," I stressed, "he's trying to make you scared. He wants you to panic so he can take you down, so he can hurt you, and shut you up. Then he'll make up a stupid story to tell the authorities, who like him, so they'll believe him over some nobody they don't care about without a second thought, without checking to see if it's true, just punishing people because he said so, just like Emma." I finished, practically hissing the last part in anger as the connections were made in my mind, flowing forth like tumblers falling into place, unlocking terrible understanding.
How had I not seen the parallels before? I thought. He's popular, and in authority, using it for petty ends. For him it's making the world a better place, he's stopping people he's deemed villains before they can hurt anyone, even if he breaks the rules he himself hides behind. For Ms. Barnes it was trying to get Taylor to lash out, she's trying to get her to prove herself strong like Emma did before Sophia would bother to save her, even if it means torturing someone she called a friend. For both of them though, it's perverted its original purpose, moving from misguided help to vicious self-aggrandizement. I swear to god if I didn't know he had a chance of being redeemed, I'd kill him myself!
Herb looked at me in concern, my intentions probably written across my face. 'You good?' he mouthed. I nodded back sharply, mouthing 'get ready to move', jerking my head in the direction of the confrontation. He nodded, still looking at me in concern, as Taylor's voice came over the comms, seething with the rage I felt. "You. You asshole!" she bit out. "I tried to save kids, and now you're threatening me with the Birdcage? I checked the laws, I was in the right! I-"
"Like someone your age knows the laws," the false-hero scoffed, so full of prideful dismissal, so sure that he had complete control of the situation. He was wrong, and if, no, when he stepped over the line, as he would when he didn't 'win', he'd pay for his arrogance. "I have access to them right now and I-"
"Are. Lying!" She spat, the swarm agitating around her. "Arclight, 94. He fought the Red-Gaters when he thought they'd taken a school bus hostage, and a couple of them died. He was cleared of charges because they'd said they were going to kill their hostages, even though it was a bluff! I'm trying to be a Hero and-"
"You are too dangerous to be allowed to go free. You obviously can't control your powers and are a danger to those around you," His tone of voice was odd, his haughtiness and twisted anger mostly suppressed, almost clinical. The disconnect confused us all for a second. It was like he wasn't talking to her anymore. Like he was speaking to the camera almost.
"Taylor, run!" Herb shouted into the comms, figuring it out moments before I did. "He's gonna-" but the man who claimed the title of hero had already taken something from his belt and tossed it at her, the bugs I had watching him blinded by a white light as the crackle of lightning sounded from the empty lot. The comms captured her cry of pain as the presence of the swarm around her vanished in a moment of shock and twitching death. A cold wash of panic flooded me as I felt Taylor's power dim like an ill-snuffed flame, barely embers remaining.
Herb was off like a shot, Enter right behind him. I flew up to come in from above. As I crested the roof, I saw Enter barrel into Armsmaster who was turning to face him in surprise, Taylor prone and unmoving, the ground dark around her, hopefully with insects, not blood. The Stand dodged around the halberd's blade, planting a haymaker across the 'hero's' face. Herb followed his Stand as Armsmaster stumbled backwards, slamming his fist into Armsmaster's breastplate, sending his foe backwards as Herb pulled his hand back in pain. The broken finger's on my friend's hand quickly righted as his Stand's copied power of vampirism healed him slightly, in accordance with the damage done to Armsmaster.
Swooping towards Taylor I pulled the costume off of my finger to heal her if I needed to. Coming down kneeling next to her, I smelled burnt hair and fried insects, but not the distinct metallic scent of blood. The ground crunched under me as I picked her up, checking her for injuries. There was electrical scoring on the chitin plates, but the grey silk that made up the majority of her suit was unblemished. Right I thought, spider silk, like at the Gala, good insulator.
Her hair was frazzled, and bit of her ends were burnt, but I couldn't find any more obvious injuries. As I held her, she started moaning in pain, her presence in my bug sense brightening as she woke up. I reached with my uncovered hand and pressed my finger to her scalp, willing my healing power to do the general 'Get Better' package, hopefully healing the damage I couldn't see. "What?" she asked, starting to struggle, weakly at first but gaining strength.
"Break and Enter are taking care of Armsmaster, you okay?" I asked, standing and letting her up.
"Yeah, what was-" she asked, cut off by the sound of electricity. Both our heads snapped over to see Armsmaster throw a ball at Enter, similar to the one that had fallen next to Taylor, lightning striking out from it like it was an overactive tesla coil.
Enter caught the baseball sized device, arcs playing over the Stand's body to no effect as it gave the Tinker a saurian smile, it's Second Trigger Immunity power negating the electricity. It crushed the device as bolts scored the cement dozens of feet away, tossing the sparking device negligently back at its creator, Armsmaster rolling away as it exploded. Enter pursued him through the explosion, Herb running to the side to cut off his escape.
Taylor started to form a swarm, but I stopped her from sending the gathering to help, pulling them back. Her head whipped around to look at me, a shocked expression probably on her face under her mask. "Let Break and Enter take care of this," I told her, watching the fight. "You getting involved will let him claim that you 'attacked him', whereas this is us defending someone who was attacked for no legal reason. We're registered heroes, and we can say we heard you scream in pain, to find Armsdick attacking a girl in an empty lot, who, as of now, has no charges against her." Taylor wasn't happy, bristling at being denied over the Bug Control sense we shared, but she kept quiet as we watched the fight.
Armsmaster had done something, and the blade of his halberd had shifted ninety degrees and started spinning like a demented circular saw, the disk blade warding off Herb. Taking two steps back he shifted his grip and the blade reset itself, launching away from the fight to plant itself in the wall of a nearby building, pulling himself up and away as Herb charged, grasping hand missing the Tinker by inches. Enter leaped upwards, form molding and shifting into the leathery wings of a Pteranodon as it gave a single powerful flap, accelerating towards Armsmaster in a dark blur.
The Tinker reached the top, using his weapon to leverage himself up to the rooftop in a smooth, practiced jump, armor cracked and blackened but still intact. His leap, however, sent him on a parabolic arc which Enter arrowed in on, shifting back to human form as he reached his target, momentum conserved as the Stand flew above the escaping cape, fist impacting the back of Armsmaster's helmet. The Protectorate goon was dropped, his head to impact the ledge, and fell the forty feet back to earth. The armored figure impacted the ground, back first, with a metallic crunch, frantically reaching for his halberd as Enter descended, aiming to impact Armsmaster. His halberd grasped, the Tinker twisted something in the handle and pointed it straight up.
The halberd gave the whine of something powering up and the blade glowed with a crackle of plasma, before the it was launched at high speed, catching Enter straight in the head, bisecting it into a burned bloody mess as the body impacted Armsmaster, the murderous Tinker giving an 'oof' on impact.
Taylor gave a shout of fright, and tried to send the swarms down at him, only to be pulled back by me again. "Don't you care!" she yelled in my face. "He just killed your teammate!"
"Did he?" I asked, as Enter, reformed, ran in from an alley, catching up to Herb as they ran towards Armsmaster, who had pushed the corpse off of himself and was struggling to his feet. They both reared back and kicked him in the chest, lifting him up as they knocked him back, Herb grabbing and tossing the halberd away as Enter landed on his chest, pounding away at Armsmaster's head. The 'hero' struggled under the blows, electricity arcing up over Enter, doing nothing, followed by several darts, a white gas, and then a burst of fire, all useless. The blows rained down as Armsmaster's struggles got weaker and weaker, stopping entirely.
"Enough" I called, striding forward. Enter gave the armored poor excuse for a man one more punch before standing up, spitting on his killer as he ambled away. I walked over to the Tinker's downed form, using the bugs with me to swarm him, getting a sense of his armor in three dimensions. Motioning Enter over, I had him help me pry the armor apart, the Stand growing claws to help him pry open the crushed metal.
Armsmaster's armor opened like a high-tech can and we pulled him out in his under-suit, dragging him over so I could put my unarmored hand on him, giving him the "Get Better" treatment enough to stop his bleeding, no more. No sense to have him die on us when we meant to humiliate the shit vigilante with good PR.
Enter moved past me with Herb, the two grabbing his motorcycle and dragging it across the empty lot. Dropping it next to the broken armor, Herb shot his Stand a look, who morphed into something large and armored, the reptile slamming its clubbed tail into the bike over and over again, various defenses going off and doing absolutely nothing as the high precision vehicle powered by tinkertech was reduced to a heaping pile of scrap, as well as the remains of the armor. Flipping over the pile, Enter smashed that as well, repeating the process several more times, the pile seeming to grow in size each time, which made no sense. Fucking Tinkers.
I walked over to Herb glancing at Taylor before glaring at the downed Protectorate Leader. I shot Break a look. "He's certainly being thorough," I commented dryly.
"Fucker tried to kill Enter!" my friend responded hotly. "Hero my ass!"
I shrugged, using the collected bugs to retrieve my cameras, stopping the recordings and storing them. "Luckily for us, Enter's hard to kill." The Stand snorted in agreement.
We looked down at the bloody body of the leader of the Protectorate and I Knew him. Primary power was the mess of locked knowledge that indicated a Tinker, specializing in the Miniaturization of other tech, with a barrier to the integration of Tinker-made Tech. Secondary Power, Spatial Warping, with a range limit, subconsciously controlled, and limited to non-biological material in the warped space. I had no qualms as my power reached out and took the second one, adding it to my roster.
Looking down at his unconscious form, Herb said, "You know, I'm gonna need to recycle this, because it's wrong to litter trash all over the place. Don't worry, we'll clean up your mess." Enter rolled the wreckage over to an alley, stuffing it in the cans. "We'll call an ambulance for you, maybe."
With that Herb turned on his heel and walked off, the three of us following him, indifferent to the last piece of trash we left behind.
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