“I am going to make you pay for his death”

Crysa felt a chill run up her spine as she heard those words uttered from the woman in front of her.

It was calm, pointed, but the message was clear.

Crysa had made a grave mistake.

She took someone Chimera cared about.

Crysa gritted her teeth as she charged her body further with the dregs of Ricochet’s power.

It matters not, even with all the power that thing has, I can absorb it.

With a flex of her legs, Crysa launched herself at the beast in human form.

A flurry of blows cascaded over the woman as Crysa utilized her gift and martial arts to land blow after lethal blow.

It seemed to be working at first as the blows deformed the creature in front of her, causing some blood to spurt out.

At least, Crysa assumed that it was blood.

She finished with a roundhouse kick to the face, which decapitated the woman.

“Hah! Fool, that is what you get for messing with my brother. “

Crysa smirked at the head.

And the head smiled back, a creepy smile that reminded her of her hated sister.

“You’re the fool.”

The body moved, smashing into her like a bullet, as another woman appeared next to her.

It was an identical copy, right down to the creepy smile.

Then, another copy appeared, and copied her kick, trying to take her head with the strike.

Another did a leg sweep.

Followed by a shot from a gun that a fifth one fired at her.

Crysa dodged the bullets, the blows and everything else.

But they kept coming, and they multiplied.

One shot lightning at her,

Another still blasted her with an air cannon.

It hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

Soon the area around her was being pulverized, and the neaby buildings were crumbling to concrete dust around them.

The rocks around her tried to entomb her underground, but she was able to push herself into the air.

Finally able to breath, she tried to launch herself at the clones, only to be surrounded by four different versions of the woman.

One with wings.

The other with a glowing body.

The last two were floating on water, morphing water into sharp pieces of ice.

How?!

She grabbed onto the two with water, sucking the energy out of them to increase her energy reserves.

They exploded before she could get enough to keep going, only getting half of what she needed.

The women surrounded her as electricity charged through them.

Crysa tried to grab them, but unlike before when she took energy from the electricity from the city, this stuff burned her insides as it entered her body.

It was painful, but the energy was still there.

“This is pointless, you cannot defeat me, even with your powers!”

She spoke with confidence, but inside she was sweating as she tried to come up with a plan of attack.

She has so many skills and powers. Even if I can absorb them, my body won’t last if I simply absorb all of that energy.

It was a deep flaw with her power, but one she never had to worry about before, since most of her fights ended in less than thirty minutes.

Her stamina wouldn’t improve by a large factor when she absorbed powers from others, so while she might have all the energy she could ever want to fund her power, she couldn’t fight forever.

This thing! It could, that was the feeling that Crysa got as she continued to destroy clone after clone from the powerful woman in front of her.

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“You don’t have a chance, I can do this all day!”

The woman smiled back, the one that was supposed to be a little scared hero grinned like a madwoman.

“You can’t, not forever.”

“And we can.”

“As long as the sun is out.”

“We can fight forever.”

“And even if it wasn’t”

“You can’t escape us.”

“You’ll be ours.”

“Your powers.”

“Your energy.”

“We’ll take as much.”

“As you took from him.”

Crysa stared in horror as the woman multiplied further, tens, no hundreds of clones flew from the main body and each of them had a power that they were sporting.

The trees that she now noticed started to grow roots from the concrete to reach out and trap her.

Robots that she spotted on the roofs opened fire on her, regardless of the clones in the way.

Crysa roared as she grabbed and popped as many of the clones as she could, sucking the dwindling energy from the bodies.

It wasn’t enough.

It just wasn’t enough!

“I surrender! Please stop!”

“No, we do not accept.”

“You killed Mr. Freddy.”

Crysa panicked as her powers started to flare, a sign that her energy was running low.

More skills launched themselves at her, and she dashed to the nearest powerline she could find.

The power there could help her, all she had to do was reach it!

The wires surged for a moment, just as she was about to touch them.

And the street lights turned off.

Crysa tried to grab a hold of the energy, but all that greeted her was the empty feeling of missing power.

No!

She tried another transformer, to no avail.

She ate a few more clones, but the drawbacks started to pile on her.

She could feel herself becoming sluggish, the drain on her stamina increasing as long as she kept her power active.

And she had to, because the speed of the clones was ramping up, and the powers were getting trickier.

Sleep rays.

Golems.

Super speed.

The powers were too much, she just couldn’t deal with all of them.

“Please! I’m sorry!”

“We do not forgive you.”

“You hurt my brother! You’re not some hero, you’re a monster!”

“Yes, we are.”

“We will avenge our death.”

“And end Dr. Pox and his death children.”

“Or neutralize them, if they should decide to change their ways.”

“But you?”

“No surrender.”

She felt ice prick her arm, making a cut along the shoulder.

“Ahh!”

A rock that felt like a barbell smashed into her foot.

“Hnnng!”

Blow after blow from super powered attacks assailed Crysa’s body as she screamed out in pain, the last dregs of her power fizziling out with each assault.

“P-Please…”

“Did you need to kill him?”

“He was a nice old man, didn’t even hurt the rats when they came.”

“And you killed him.”

She kept begging, the blows becoming faster and faster.

“The power that you used, the power to increase your body’s strength, agility, endurance, and power, and you used it to end someone’s life.”

“He was a hero! Those bastards don’t see me or my family as people. We’re nothing but villains to them!”

Crysa screamed out her answer as the blows started to slow down.

“You may be right, but it doesn’t excuse what you did.”

“When your only other choice is being experimented on by those ‘hero’ scientists after they capture you? You damn right I kill a hero when I can, because the only other option is to be inside a test tube!”

Crysa’s heart remembered the pain of the needles her father stabbed into her shoulders as he experiemented on her ability. The stress tests as he burned her flesh and repaired it with electricity coursing into her skin.

He was a hero scientist too.

“I hate Heroes. They’re the biggest hypocrites in this whole damn city!”

“So, you’ll kill them all? Even if they might be good.”

“Good?”

She turned to look at the woman… no, she was a girl now.

The girl was staring at her, a judging look filled with confusion.

“You… didn’t know?”

“Hero scientists only use what they figure out to catch bad guys.”

Crysa sunk to the ground, the earth opening to take hold of her legs.

“Hero scientists are just that, scientists! You ever think that the people who claim to be good, might just be doing shady shit in the background? Did it never cross your innocent mind?”

The girl was staring at her, but Crysa caught the look of disbelief.

She really doesn’t know… and she’s supposed to be a hero?

Crysa opened her mouth to speak, just as the girl approached her.

“We’ll see if you're telling the truth.”

Crysa looked on in horror as the girl turned into a red blob, and proceeded to sift inside her nose and into her brain.

...

It can't be true.

Sarah, now in control after Chimera's episode of pain brought her back from the depths of their shared mind, shook her head in disgust as she sifted through Crysa's mind.

It felt wrong, but she didn't have time to worry about that.

If Crysa was fighting her, then it was likely that Gideon was after Meghan.

So Sarah worked fast, pushing into the thoughts to see what Crysa saw.

She can't be right about the scientists... she just can't be!

...