It had been a long time since Victor had been genuinely angry. His inability to keep his temper under control had caused him no end of issues in his teen years, and he had worked hard to better himself after leaving his position at Thalrine. Staring at the bodies of those twenty-somethings that had died defending his home had made it difficult to keep the rational part of his brain in the drivers seat.
“I hope you weren’t waiting to join the fight just so you could make a grand entrance there Chief.” Lucas’s tone was full of relief, but Victor didn’t miss the accusation in his words.
Victor grimaced behind his helmet “I happened to be cycling my armor’s power coils, and once the process starts it isn’t smart to try and cut short unless you want to get blasted with enough radiation to flash fry an elephant. It seems they chose the perfect time to strike.”
A hail of bullets colliding uselessly with his shields, reminding them both that this was an active battle, snapping their attention back to the situation at hand.
“We can discuss this in more depth later. Get inside and help Kei with the wounded while I mop up here.”
Lucas looked at him for a moment, clearly debating whether to stay in the fight or listen to Victor. Thankfully, reason won out in the end as Lucas gave a curt nod before dashing back into the T&R. Victor turned his gaze back to the battle. The arrival of the mutant had allowed the attackers to gain a small foothold on the edge of the dock, something Victor vowed to rectify.
Watching Lucas almost die to the creation of a hack meta like Gator who was the last straw. He wouldn’t bother presenting these morons terms of surrender; they were just as likely to eat the paper as read them. Striding forward Victor activated the Wasp targeting software, setting the targeting parameters to wounding shots where possible. As much as he would enjoy going “all systems kill” he knew information would be key in the coming battles, and currently Gator had the information advantage. Victor figured one of the attackers would be willing to trade some knowledge for their survival once the battle ended.
Engaging the Wasps, he was treated to a high-pitched buzz followed by his attackers dropping to the ground, screaming while clutching wounded at ankles and knees. With a source of potential hostages secured Victor was increasingly liberal in his application of force, firing his fusion lance into a group of assailants with a wide horizontal arc. On some level Victor was glad this battle was happening in the evening, as the darkness offered some obfuscation to the horrific damage he inflicted on Gator’s men.
With the mutant dead and their forces decimated, Gator’s soldiers saw the way the wind was beginning to blow. The smarter members of the gang began to run the moment they saw Victor incinerate one of the mutants, heedlessly diving into the murky waters in a desperate attempt to escape.
The less cowardly attempted to form an orderly retreat from the docks, defending the eastern pier while a series of RHIB boats rocketed out from a waterlogged apartment building and charged down the flooded streets. They were clearly involved in the insertion of the attackers and wanted to salvage as much of the attacking force as possible.
Victor grimaced beneath his helm as he witnessed the desperate attempt at an extraction. A full charge into a defending force like this was beyond moronic, as they had no way to prevent Victor from destroying the retreating craft. They surely couldn’t be that stupid, could they?
“What on earth are they trying to pull h-“
Victor’s train of thought was interrupted as a brilliant white beam shot out from the approaching craft, catching him square in the chest. Despite being intercepted by his shield, the momentum of the beam sent him flying ass over elbows clear off of the docks and into the murky waters below.
Victor had to give the attackers credit, launching him into the water was a good plan. Often times the easiest way to disable a meta suit was to kill the person inside, and surprisingly few engineers included defenses for things like gas attacks and drowning when constructing their armor. Often times it was due to a simple lack of materials or funds rather than a lack of planning, and out here in the Stilts most meta suit engineers would find both in short supply.
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Fortunately, Victor had thoroughly accounted for the possibility of drowning when building his armor. After all, Victor both lived and worked over a massive body of water. Failing plan for an unexpected dip in the ocean when designing his armor bordered on the insane.
Quickly sinking to the bottom of the canal Victor quickly righted himself as he sank fifteen feet to the decaying streets that constituted the bottom of the waterway. Glancing upwards he quickly spotted the outlines of the agile RHIB boats his attackers were using to make their escape. In all honesty the ganger’s plan was actually quite solid, making ample use of the terrain to disable and possibly eliminate the cornerstone of the defending force.
All of it was executed as well as could be expected for as hasty retreat organized by a nontraditional force. Unfortunately for them, Victor had seen the pinnacle of power in New Columbia and liked to plan accordingly.
Hal scrambled away from the docks, desperate to escape the slaughterhouse that the soggy collection of salty boards had become over the last twenty minutes. Gator’s crew had promised power, protection, and a position at the top so long as they got in at the ground floor. It seemed like he was finally getting his big break; that he was finally receiving the opportunity to rise above the mediocrity that was his life. How quickly it had all gone to shit.
It wasn’t going to be anything more than a raid; smash some shit, kill anyone who fought back, and grab a few nobodies for that creepy doctor. Now they were running for their lives from some washout supervillain in fucking meta armor. Hal sprinted across the docks, watching as Mick and Reexa collapsed to the ground ahead of him, falling like puppets with cut strings. Dropping into a hasty slide, he covered the final stretch to the boats and slid in as fast as he could manage, thankful that out of the three, he alone had made it.
The driver clearly wasn’t waiting around any longer as the masked man pushed the throttle up to full and drove the tiny boat away from the carnage as quickly as they could. They set a rapid pace, driving in a serpentine pattern across the canal. Hal knew the boss was gonna be pissed when hey found out they failed, but Ruldov still managed to drown the armored asshole so he shouldn’t be too angry about the losses.
Glancing back at the docks, Hal noticed a weird yellow light shining beneath the water near the docks. Before Hal had the chance to put two and two together, a brilliant beam cut through the water, slicing three of the retreating craft in half. Hal could faintly make out the smoldering corpses of the boats occupants floating in the now boiling waters of the canal.
It was simply unbelievable. Even if the guy’s armor could keep him alive under the water how had he kept the thing working?
“Aren’t electronics supposed to short circuit in water?! What the hell is this shit?” Hal belted out to nobody in particular, his worry belied by the shrillness of his voice.
“You got that right kid, it really is some horseshit.” Hal glanced over to the speaker and spotted Rag, one of the gang’s older members. Rag was there before most of them started, and he was likely to be there long after they were gone.
Rag pointed to the haze of steam rising off the water where the armored giant had been submerged.
“Whoever made that suit is going to be one huge pain in the ass, that I guarantee.”
Hal could only nod. Maybe it was time to look for a less deadly line of work.
Victor was pissed. Admittedly he was mostly angry with himself, but there was still plenty of rage to go around. He had known Shiv’s cutter had been savaged by some kind of beam not far from his home and had just assumed it was some kind of black market tech. He didn’t consider even for a moment that the beam could be the result of a meta ability.
He had certainly paid for his oversight. He had been punted into the brackish canal water like a toddler, which while certainly embarrassing, was far from the worst of it. He had allowed the attackers to escape, which meant he needed to completely retool his plans for Gator.
His first thought had been to fight a war of attrition, relying on his ability to create force amplifiers like the rail rifles to whittle down Gators forces until he was either weak enough for Victor to kill him in a counter attack or drew enough attention to draw the capes down on his organization. With Victor’s rough capabilities exposed a static defense was completely out of the question.
Trudging along the bottom of the canal, Victor continued to mentally revise his plan until he noticed Reese repeatedly hailing him on the Radio.
“Victor, Victor are you there? Come on man, give us a sign that you didn’t just bite it in the first fucking fight.” Reese’s words were light, but she couldn’t quite keep the concern out of her voice. He quickly fiddled with the radio controls in his gauntlet.
“Yeah, I’m fine down here. A bit wet, but beyond that I’m fine. Did I even hit any of the boats when I shot from down here? I was aiming by thermal, but I could barely make out a thing on the surface.”
Victor made out some laughter over the radio at his question before Reese responded, her voice full of mirth.
“Are you kidding Victor? You cut all three in half, it was like Satan took a piss straight up from hell!”
Barring the needlessly graphic and incredibly on brand metaphor, Victor was pleased with the news regarding his unexpected accuracy. Continuing his march along the bottom of the canal he began to search for somewhere to haul his armor out of the water, as despite designing his armor to be proof against drowning he had not yet formulated a way to actually get out of the water after he had fallen in.