“Trap!” Amy exclaimed.
All the Major could do was groan, she was getting tired of walking into those. She had Dragon’s full attention and no doubt the entire building had been alerted to what she was attempting. Theft of a corpse would not look good on an arrest report, or a newspaper headline after all.
Miss Militia twitched, a low groan coming from the woman, but she wasn’t in any condition to help with the escape. The Major turned to the door, pulling the cable from her neck and connected to the systems within the room. Dragon had anticipated that much, quickly shutting Taylor out as she did.
She cursed and instead decided to be a bit more direct and shot the control panel on the door instead. The door shorted and slid open. Dragon’s avatar blinked in surprise. It wasn’t her fault really, but fire and safety concerns meant that any malfunction should default a door to open rather than closed.
“Can you get Militia on her feet?” the Major asked even as she moved to the hall and took a look down both directions.
“Maybe,” Amy said. “Her mind is damaged from oxygen deprivation. I’ve encouraged regeneration where I could but I’m not directly fixing anything without Cranial’s help.”
“It will have to do,” Taylor said. “Stalker, do you have any weapons?”
She raised an eyebrow and patted herself down with as much blatant sarcasm as possible. “Darn, my crossbows must have fallen out of my non-existent pockets.”
The Major snorted, a soft smile on her face despite the urgency of the situation.
“Smartass,” Aisha said, then pulled a pocket knife from her own pocket. “I’m armed at least!”
“Good, then you can help me when we get into a fight,” the Major said, checking her pistol. “Stalker, you’ll get the first weapon I find, but for now, help Amy carry Militia.”
“I saw them bring her in,” Stalker said as she moved to help. “Armsmaster insisted she was dead, that he’d checked himself.”
“His instruments confirmed her injuries were fatal,” Dragon said. “I just didn’t tell him the time frame.”
The Major couldn’t help but smirk at that. For whatever hold Armsmaster had on Dragon, it wasn’t ironclad if she could offer up some limited defiance when it suited her. She had some suspicions, but they were so far-fetched they didn’t want to entertain them until Lisa was back on her feet.
Movement caught her attention and several PRT troopers rounded the corner, she ducked back into the infirmary and replayed what she had seen. One trooper had a foam sprayer while the other two held rifles. The Major grinned as she aimed around the doorframe and fired, striking the hose of the sprayer and sending the trio of troopers into a panic.
She rushed forward, firing two additional shots that struck the hands holding said rifles. She knocked one aside then kicked the man into the expanding foam. The third trooper grabbed her by the waist and attempted to pull her down with him. He was unprepared for her almost five hundred pounds of prosthetics.
She reached down and hooked her pistol into a loop on his belt and used the leverage to fuck up his footing. His center of gravity shifted, the Major moved with it, and hip checked him down the hall, right to the feet of Aisha who had his rifle in hand. He didn’t even seem to notice her, fixated on the one-armed cyborg as he was when the young girl beaned him over the head with the gun.
“What just happened?” Shadow Stalker asked.
“Me being awesome, that’s what happened!” Aisha exclaimed.
Both Amy and Stalker recoiled in surprise, and the Major realized she must have used her powers, which didn’t work on her. Her cyber brain seemed to make her immune to any mental effect that a Parahuman could produce. She would need to test that further and see what limits existed.
“Well, miss awesome,” the Major said. “Give that gun to Stalker and grab the other. You can cover us.”
“They gonna be okay?” Amy asked as they walked past the glob of foam blocking most of the hall. They were being careful to not drop Miss Militia as they slid by.
“Not our problem at the moment,” the Major said. “More incoming.”
The Major pulled ahead, falling into a sprint as troopers came down the stairwell at the end of the hall. She heard muffled cursing as they brought their weapons up but she was faster. Three rounds impacted the lead trooper in his faceplate, no doubt Tinker-designed given it survived the ammunition. That didn’t mean it wasn’t effective, as the man promptly fell back, knocking over the trooper behind him in the process and holding up the entire line of troopers.
Then the Major cloaked herself.
“Stranger!” One yelled, but she was among them.
She couldn’t afford the stairwell getting foamed, it would prevent her exit and cost too much time to find a way around. Instead, she lashed out, using her gun and limbs to disorient as well as take down the soldiers methodically. She was working her way up the stairs when a shadowed figure leapt from below, landing amidst the troops a bit higher up.
Shadow Stalker fought with experience, using the trooper’s greater strength and bulk against them to great effect. Together they made short work of the stairwell and left a dozen troopers in heaps of limbs at their back. Sophia was panting, looking at the Major with wide eyes and a brilliant smile.
“Fuck that felt good,” Stalker said, offering her fist.
The Major snorted, thankful she couldn’t blush as she bumped her remaining hand with Taylor’s former tormentor. She ejected the magazine and fetched another. One-handed reloads wasn’t something she actively practiced but she managed all the same.
“You may as well give up,” Dragon said through the intercom. “Armsmaster is on his way and I don’t think you are a match for him.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The Major frowned. Dragon was warning her he was coming in her own way. She rolled her neck, not that it did any good. Armsmaster was considered one of the top heroes in the country for a reason and the man never missed an Endbringer fight. He wouldn’t go down easy, no matter what she attempted. Armed with little more than a pistol and a handful of riot suppression shotguns, they wouldn’t do the group much good.
“Stalker, keep Amy safe, we need to get her out of here with Militia,” she said, then switched to her comms. “Grue, you guys ready to get out?”
“We’re way ahead of you,” he said a bit frantically. “New Wave’s here and they’re giving us hell.”
“Shit,” the Major said. “Amy, your adoptive assholes are out there.”
“Goddamn it,” she cursed. “Nothing I can do there. They’ll have to get out on their own.”
“Grue, go dark. Get back to my base if you can,” she said as she moved up the stairs.
She was now on the first level of the basement, and the stairs didn’t go higher. She would have to fight her way up one more flight than find an exit point unless she could locate the source of the subspace disruption that was preventing her from opening further portals. No doubt Harry was looking for a workaround, but that would take time, which she didn’t have much of at the moment.
The floor plans told her there were three ways to the ground floor from her current level, yet she couldn’t be sure which one the heroes would be defending. It was best to assume the heroes were prepared no matter which way she went, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t abuse that assumption.
“Amy, go with Stalker and Aisha,” she said softly. The three girls startled as they all looked at her like she had grown a second head or lost her mind rather than an arm. Given the thoughts in her head, she might actually be losing it, given the Major could feel Taylor there in the back of her mind. “I’m going to draw their attention with a running gunfight, you three need to get upstairs and talk your way past whoever tries to stop you.”
“That’s crazy,” Amy said. “I’m not a fighter.”
“You could be,” the Major said. “You could easily make a knockout virus that Aisha and Stalker are immune to. Once you get outside, go straight to Toybox and wait for me.”
“Wait, what about Dinah?” Aisha exclaimed. “I won’t just leave her here.”
“Trust Vista to keep an eye on her,” the Major said. “They won’t do anything blatant as long as she knows Dinah is here and we can always make another attempt once regrouped.”
The young girl glared defiantly before spitting off to the side. “Fuck, fine. Let’s get this done so I can yell at you for how stupid this is later you insane bitch.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she answered. “Good luck.”
“You’re the one that needs it,” Stalker said, looking as though she was hesitating. Her hand raised up, then paused before finally bumping the Major’s shoulder. “Fight well.”
The Major grinned and ran off down the hall towards what she hoped would be the best place to cause the biggest distraction. It didn’t take her long to find a group of troopers blocking off a path. She cloaked briefly, closing the distance as they blindly fired beanbag rounds down the hall. She did her best to avoid them, but one clipped her leg and disrupted the cloak just before she made it to them.
Not wanting to waste time, the Major shot one of their foam grenades and continued on, leaving the troopers to deal with the mess instead. She moved quickly, reaching the next staircase and could only grin at the sight of blue armor waiting for her, halberd planted firmly like a guard of old.
She stopped and elected to lean against the wall. “What, not gonna say ‘you shall not pass’?”
“Major,” Armsmaster said with a monotone voice. “You’re under arrest.”
“Gonna be hard to put me in handcuffs,” she said, wiggling her stump. “Besides, I’m not really into older men, or men in general for that matter.”
“I expected you to be more professional,” Armsmaster said, twirling his halberd into a ready stance. “If you won’t surrender, I’m afraid you leave me little choice.”
The Major snapped her arm up and fired a shot for his exposed chin, only for a plate to slide over it, covering the last bit of skin visible. She grit her teeth as he charged forward. She holstered her gun and ducked his swing, then punched his armor with her full prosthetic output.
Armsmaster was launched off his feet, and she saw several warning signals flash across her HUD. Several joints in her fingers had been damaged by the impact and a quick check of their movement set off another warning. A slugging match wasn’t an option, but she was happy that she could actually move the tin can with her hits.
On the other note, she didn’t need to actually fight him, just distract everyone long enough for Amy to bullshit or power her way out of the building and he was easily the most likely to manage it. Taylor didn’t like Sophia, but the Major trusted her to protect everyone she was entrusted with. It was the task given to her by the Major who had come to help get her out, she wouldn’t risk messing that up.
“Status?” The Major asked as she circled the man.
“Almost out,” Amy answered. “Clock saw us as we tried to slip through the lobby, Stalker’s dealing with him.”
“Good enough,” she said. “Well Armsy, it’s been fun but I have places to be and people to piss off.”
“No,” he grunted. “I think not.”
She was quite happy to see his armor was dented from her fist and she almost decided to attempt another round, but that wouldn’t be productive even if it would be cathartic as fuck. Instead, she took a step back and let her cloak envelop her. It wouldn’t surprise her if Armsmaster had something that could pick her up, but it would still give her an edge, even if just for a moment.
She stepped left, pulling another grenade from her belt, her last, then tossed it away while running in the opposite direction. Armsmaster spun, tracking the device, which burst without a sound. Then the wind picked up. The Major was going to have words with Vivian about her crazy ideas, because unless she was mistaken, that was a fucking black hole.
Armsmaster slammed his halberd into the floor and braced himself against the growing suction, and she wasted little time moving up the stairwell. Atop, she was surprised to find Kid Win watching the exit with a ray gun at the ready. She could see the grief written on his face and Taylor felt sorry for her friend.
Stopping for a moment, the Major leaned in and whispered something she knew to be true. “Taylor is alive.”
He jumped, spinning to face where she had been, but she was already gone. She didn’t even try anything on the first floor, darting up to the second where she knew there were a bunch of generic offices and meeting rooms for the day-to-day operation of the organization. She entered the first open door she saw and drew her gun.
She didn’t have time to second guess herself because it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out what she had done. She shot the window, emptying the magazine then ran forward and crashed through the weakened ballistic glass.
The drop was less than a dozen feet, and the distortion was finally gone now that she was outside the walls of the PRT building. The Major aimed the transponder at the ground beneath her, the concrete rippled as she fell through along with a mess of broken glass.