Ben was out of his mind.

Michael was slipping into critical condition, Katherine just drove the entire team off the deep end with Papa mole, and Mama mole was still fighting with Olympia.

"One thing at a time," Ben chided, and he turned his attention to Michael.

Ben pulled his phone out and called emergency services while stealing what he needed from the carnival fair ride to patch up his team member. The 911 call was unhelpful, but they were tracking his phone and could use it to find Michael, so he could turn his attention to other things.

Once his condition wasn't getting worse, Ben turned his attention to the most immediate problem: Mama supervillain that was actively tearing into Olympia. If he could somehow take Mama out of the equation, he could get Olympia to heal Michael. But there was no way to take down such a strong hybrid superhuman without raising suspicion.

So he just had to be sure that any suspicion raised wasn't directed at him.

Now that he had some time to spare thanks to Olympia healing all damage and tanking hits from Mama, Ben could grab a few things to be better prepared. The first thing he did was go straight to the police tent where the advanced power sensing system was hidden. The police and heroes do different tasks, so they all fled with the other civilians, but their van had some modern firearms inside. Nothing that could penetrate the hide of mole Mama, but it was the deadliest thing they had. Standard issue police firearms inside a locked safe with the passcode written on a sticky note stuck to the underside of the safe itself.

Ben grabbed one pistol and holster, using the holster to stash two spare, pre-loaded magazines. He reached for the shotgun, loaded it with shells, then slotted spare 12 gauge into the side rack. Five buckshot in the gun, six shells in the side rack, Ben most likely had enough firepower, but he stuffed six extra shells into his pockets for safe keeping.

The village councilman was going to have to play this cool. He couldn't be too effective or risk being exposed, but he had to end the fight with the minimal firepower he had.

"Let's rock," he said, racking the shotgun to put a round in the chamber.

Ben burst out as Olympia took a hard swipe to the knee that blew out her tendon. She was a healer tank, so she didn't scream, but it was clear the constant injuries were starting to take a toll on her mental state. She was getting sloppy, whiffing punches and ignoring smaller wounds.

Ben came out of the police tent armed and dangerous, jogging back to the bleachers to see Olympia on her knees in front of a hard breathing Mama.

'Let's see how good my acting is,' Ben thought, seeing Olympia getting her ass kicked from just around the corner. He took aim like a movie he'd seen about professional assassination, then approached in an awkward crouch that just dropped his hips a little. Once the mole lady was in view, they locked eyes right as Ben pulled the trigger on the shotgun.

The hot spray of lead pellets caught the mole woman in her thick neck, penetrating just under the fur and burning her from an inch deep. She screamed with the echoing boom of the 12 gauge, but her reaction was more exaggerated than Ben wanted, so he fumbled with re-racking the shotgun to give her a second to recover. By the time he had the next shell in the chamber, Mama mole was already clawing her way towards Ben when another shotgun blast caught her in the shoulder. She yelped and spun backwards as if punched in the side, then another shotgun blast caught her in the rump.

Mama mole didn't waste another moment in the open and dug her way underground, just fast enough for a shell to go over her hind. Ben was able to track her through the ground with his sight, but he turned around cluelessly so that the camera made it look like he'd lost her. She dug towards Ben, following the sound of his confused footsteps until she was within Ben's range of sight, ready to pop out of the ground.

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Ben jumped up a little, blowing the next shotgun blast straight into the shoulder that already had some buckshot. Mama mole shrieked, but her attack still went through, clipping Ben's heel before he could escape. He used his good leg to bounce off her head, then rolled towards Olympia whose healing aura was projecting just far enough to ease the pain of his severed sole.

"OLYMPIA!" Ben roared without taking his eyes off the digging hybrid. "I NEED SOME HELP!"

The heroine's twisting flesh was still wrapping its way around her throat, so all she could do was gargle in response.

Ben backed up towards the regenerating hero, pretending to lose tracking of the mole person and back up closer to the gaping hole. The aura extending out of Olympia was clearly visible by the ring of rapidly growing grass, which Ben backed into without bumping. He felt his heel healing, but he kept his attention on Mama as she charged for another attack.

Ben hesitated for his next shot, causing the mole woman to dodge at the wrong time and catch a shotgun blast to the opposite shoulder. While her thick hide soaked up the buckshot, the hot, searing pain of lead blasted into the body was starting to take a harsh toll. Mama's breathing was becoming more labored and her eyes were less focused. She was taking longer to gather her wits as Ben evaded and countered. Her blood loss was minimal, none of her organs had been damaged, but her heart was five times stronger than a normal human's, and was pumping blood vigorously.

Blood full of adrenaline, platelets..., and lead.

Ben watched as the buckshot piercings were pulled into the bloodstream of this mole hybrid, reaching the kidneys of an animal whose digestive system always filtered heavy metals through the stomach.

Mama mole was slowing down as the heavy metal poisoning became toxic. Her claw hands wavered as the chills started, and her agility drastically decreased as numbness spread through her arms and legs.

An unintended side effect, but a welcome one.

She swiped a deadly claw at Ben, but it was so lethargic, he could have avoided it even without his dimensional sight.

"W-what did you do to me!" she screeched like a banshee.

"I must have hit something important," Ben breathed with a fake sigh of relief, then racked the last shell in his gun and fired directly into her face.

The force of the impact knocked her backwards like a punch from Mike Tyson, catching airtime before slamming her back into the grassy field. Her entire body flopped a bit as the mole woman screamed. The shot was dead-centered to strike that powerful skull for a concussion on top of her lead poisoning, but some of the buck went wide and dug into her eye.

Now that she was down, Ben backed up towards Olympia while loading shells, preparing for further hostility.

"How are you doing?" he asked the superheroine.

He could see she had only healed the outer layers of skin and was only just now getting to internal injuries, but she grinned and said, "Peachy. How's the mole woman?"

"Something was happening that made her slow," Ben said, sliding the last shot into the holding chamber, "so I got a good shot to her face. I think I might be able to finish her off."

"NO!" Olympia shouted reaching out for the shotgun. "Heroes don't kill!"

"I'M NOT A HERO," Ben shouted, pulling away. She reached for his ankles, but Ben danced around her grip.

Olympia panicked as he racked his next shot, and she kept her healing going while injuredly lunging at Ben. She managed to get hands on his shirt, pulling him in as he wrestled to keep the shotgun out of her reach.

As the hero and councilman tussled, the mole woman was nursing her wounds while rage seethed through her heart and mind. Narrow minded by fury, she noticed that both of her adversaries were clumped very closely together. The heroine was weighing over him, using her body weight to push him down and get the firearm, and the proximity of their bodies was almost singular.

Using their distraction as an opportunity, the Mama got into a sprinter's position, digging her claws into the ground for additional grip. Ben could tell what she was about to do and had to stop from smiling.

He was planning to orchestrate some cock-eyed scheme to tackle Olympia down the hole, using her body to cushion the impact and her healing aura to recover afterward.

If Mama was going to fulfill this role, it was almost too perfect.

For his part, Ben managed to turn the wrestling around, facing his and Olympia's backs to the mole woman as she prepared for take-off. Hopefully she was faster than her kid, who waddled like a penguin to try attacking him.

To Ben's relief, Mama launched like a rocket. Her powerful arms and claws in the ground boosted her at breakneck speeds.

Like the van that took her husband over the edge, Mama rammed into Olympia's back, skull to spine as the force took the wind out of both the heroine and the man she was trying to disarm. The force carried them all over the edge, and Ben was the only one who was happy about it.

'Now I just have to figure out how to ride this down to the kids,' Ben thought, gazing into the abyss as the air from the fall started pulling at his face.