Taylor took a seat at the table, placing a tray with drinks and pastries down as she did. Lisa turned from watching the sparse crowds and took one of the cups, taking a deep breath before she drank down half of the abomination she called coffee. Taylor eyed the third member of their group as she took her green tea hesitantly, knowing that some comment would be forthcoming as soon as she took a sip. Rather than wait it out, she decided to bite the bullet and took a sip.
“This is nice,” Chrissie said. “It’s almost like the two of you are taking me on a date.”
Taylor knew it was coming and still choked on her drink.
Chrissie and Lisa both laughed, then had the nerve to bump fists. She wanted to be angry, to chide Lisa for playing games like this, but deep down she was enjoying the attention, she just wasn’t about to admit it out loud. Even Lisa knew better than to voice that truth, but she doubted Chrissie hadn’t also picked up on it if that sparkle in her eye was anything to go off of.
Taylor flipped them both the bird, then took another drink to hide her own smile. After so long of having her self-esteem stomped down, it felt good for someone to actually be interested in her. Lisa hadn’t been an exception, though she had the suspicion that Lisa was prodding Chrissie into action for whatever reason.
Of course, they weren’t on a pleasure trip, they were waiting in the event something went wrong with what was about to transpire. They were near Brockton General, where Amy was to make an appearance to help the next batch of victims from the rally. The Nine would of course not be able to resist Amy being out in public, and she had Assault and Battery tipped off that Amy was playing bait.
They hadn’t been happy with that, but upon hearing how many capes she was keeping on standby, they became less against the plan, but still frowned upon it. Motoko was on overwatch, Sophia was perched opposite to provide better coverage. The Undersiders were spread about, Alec and Aisha also in civvies while Grue and Rachel waited with the dogs.
She had what looked like a solid plan for an ambush, it might have even worked if the objective was actually to deal a blow to the Nine. The objective was to get Miss Militia back in a way the public could buy, then use that to further disgrace Armsmaster. She also hated that part of the plan ended with Riley injured, but it had been the girl’s own idea.
She wanted an excuse to get a cybernetic arm.
Riley could have just asked, it wasn’t even that big of a deal, but Jacob and Kurt had rules about what she could do to herself intentionally. So, she suggested Motoko pop her arm with a sniper round as she retreated and released a mild plague, which was only deadly to people that had been infected with her earlier flesh eating one. Naturally, Motoko came to her, then Jacob and Kurt discussed it before agreeing to the plan. Riley might have been her little sister, but there were lines of trust best not crossed.
Especially when Jack Slash was your therapist.
“There’s Amy,” Motoko said as Vicky landed and set her down. “Everyone, get ready and play your parts. We need this to be convincing.”
“Yes, mom,” Aisha whined.
“Technically I’m like a month or two old,” Motoko said with a groan.
Alec snorted. “You’re old at heart.”
Taylor resisted the urge to sigh, or roll her eyes. Co-opting the Undersiders was overall a good decision, recruiting Aisha made sense given she was Grue’s sister. Chrissie… It remained to be seen if she would be going with the Undersiders or joining Sophia on Motoko’s growing strike team.
“I’ll be fine, Vicky,” Amy said, her comms open. “It’s just a bunch of routine healing and I have Taylor watching over the place with her team. You can go patrol with your boyfriend, I’m as safe as I can be.”
“Well, excuse me for being worried that my sister was nominated by the fucking Nine!” Vicky exclaimed, tossing her hands in the air.
“Say that louder,” Amy hissed, gesturing to the people lined up in the distance. “I don’t think the one at the far end quite heard you.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Aisha joked.
“I heard her just fine, and I had my earpiece out,” Alec added.
Moments like this certainly did test Taylor’s patience, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t enjoying the company, even with the stress involved. Lisa’s smile was radiant and infectious, Chrissie was laughing at the joke the two had just shared, and Taylor was watching Riley and Jacob approaching from out of an alley they hadn’t been in a moment earlier.
“Thirty seconds,” Motoko said. “Mask up.”
Lisa and Chrissie grabbed their domino masks, Chrissie winking at Taylor after she slipped it on. Taylor didn’t bother, she wasn’t going to engage in combat, and was going to get grabbed by Kurt in the supposed chaos. That would lead into fucking with Emma, which Taylor had to admit she was more than a little giddy about.
It might not be a healthy way to deal with past trauma but goddamn would it be cathartic, especially after she dropped off the radar some months back. Taylor never did get the full story behind that, just a firm look from Melissa and an assurance that things were dealt with. Was it bad that the idea of the Butcher making a house call warmed her heart?
Vicky waved goodbye to Amy, flying off as she did. She would be returning, but a bit late to help if the timings all worked out. Mostly because she would be blocking Vicky’s phone from getting messages for the next five minutes. Amy crossed the distance to the hospital entrance, white robes fluttering in the breeze when one of the men waiting began to seize.
That wasn’t planned.
“Fentanyl overdose,” Amy said, having gotten hands on the guy. “He was also exposed to the virus yesterday.”
“You can fix him, right?” a bald man asked.
His swastika tattoos were more than obvious, and Taylor could tell that Motoko was tempted to take a shot regardless. Taylor tried to comfort Motoko as Amy worked, no doubt flushing their system and alleviating the worst symptoms.
“Already done,” Amy said. “Your boyfriend will be fine.”
“He’s not my—”
Amy barked out a sharp laugh. “I’d be more than happy to tell you about the other thing I fixed up, or how your DNA was in a rather sensitive area. Don’t tempt me.”
Amy stood and turned on her heel, leaving the bewildered man gaping as some of his fellow Nazis turned on him, no doubt very curious as to what Amy had implied. It didn’t even have to be true, just having said it would be enough to make their buddies suspicious.
“That girl can be vicious,” Chrissie said, biting her lip.
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“Down girl,” Lisa said. “Save that for the after party.”
Chrissie poked Lisa, who swatted back, but Taylor’s attention was on the red fog rolling across the ground. A Bonesaw plague.
“Contact,” she said.
Bonesaw skipped out of the rolling crimson fog, stopping Amy where she stood. The people in the line began to hack and cough, some spitting up blood as the most feared twelve-year-old in the world stared down one of the world’s most well known healers. It would likely make the front pages across the country if anyone was still able to stand and take a picture.
Idly, Taylor considered making a spare shell for Riley just so Bonesaw and Surgeon could have an encounter and improve her little sister’s cover. She even started to draft up the schematics as she watched, though she might just prefer it if Amy grew her a second body that could grow up properly, leaving her Bonesaw flesh stuck at twelve.
Amy’s hand passed through the fog, cupping some of it as she raised her arm up. “Really? Modified ebola is rather rudimentary, don’t you think?” She then dropped her hand back down and the fog’s color started to shift to bright blue. “Also shockingly easy to counter.”
“Darn,” Riley said, her voice noticeably higher than normal. “See, this is why you’re my pick! You neutralized a super virus in an instant, that’s amazing!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Amy said. “Look, can we get on with this? Where’s Militia?”
“She’s around,” Riley said. “Probably looking at you right now.”
“I suppose I should smile?” Amy asked. “Thankfully, I have a Major advantage right now.”
Motoko fired and the cover Miss Militia was perched behind gave out as the Undersiders all moved into action. Sophia was on her before she could recover, and darted her twice, taking Miss Militia out of the action. Rachel’s dogs rounded the corner, Brian and Rachel atop them.
Aisha was under her power’s influence, but anyone with a cyber brain would have no issues tracking her, Riley included. Jack stepped from the fog and slashed with his knife. Brutus stumbled, his leg severed as Rachel fell to the asphalt.
Amy didn’t sit still, rushing towards Riley with her hand outstretched. The spiderbots emerged then, swarming after the healer only to run into a wall of Chrissie’s razor sharp force fields.
Motoko jumped from the roof, rifle slung over her shoulder and landed. As soon as her feet hit the ground, flames burst forth. The Butcher stood there, massive fuckoff handgun at the ready. The Major didn’t miss a beat, launching herself into hand to hand combat against their mentor. It was a well practiced dance, with each of them moving impossibly fast for it to be anything but a duel between super humans.
Guns barked, a knife flashed, and slowly the Major had to give ground. Despite everything, Melissa had her completely outclassed and Motoko knew it. What Taylor hadn’t expected was for Assault to broadside the Butcher and launch her down the street and into a car.
The Major took the opportunity, unslinging her rifle and lined up the shot. She fired. The bullet on a clear trajectory towards Riley’s extended arm when a man stumbled into the path and took the bullet instead. Taylor paused at her table, wondering where the hell they came from, only for them to start getting back up.
Blades sprouted from their form as they stood, extending like a serpent, rising two dozen feet into the air. Hookwolf had never shown a form beyond the wolf, but it wasn’t impossible to assume he could take other forms.
“MAJOR!” the serpent roared. “Finally, you show yourself, coward.”
“Says the pansy that pretended to die,” Motoko yelled back. “So what will it be? Break the Truce and get put down, or help us drive back the Nine?”
“I have but one goal here,” Hookwolf exclaimed. “Your death.”
“Trucebreaker it is,” the Major said. “I’ll have it engraved on your gravestone before pissing on it.”
“Everyone, focus on the plan,” Taylor said. “The Major can deal with the unexpected company. Is Militia secure?”
“Out like a light and zip cuffed,” Sophia answered.
Taylor nodded. “Chrissie, use your force fields to hem Jack and Bonesaw in, keep them from advancing on Amy.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” she yelled. She’d picked up a few cuts, but didn’t seem bothered by them as she continued to manipulate a storm of translucent blades around Jacob who was dodging them with insulting ease. He could escape with Riley easily enough, so that wasn’t a worry, and Chrissie knew to make a damn good show of it. Amy had already promised to fix all of them up, and Chrissie wanted to see how she stacked up against Jack Slash.
Melissa was dancing around Assault and Battery, deflecting hits, dodging strikes that would kill a regular person. She was a force to be respected, as her rampage through the Anders’ mountain villa demonstrated. That just left Kurt and Vivian.
“They seem suitably distracted,” Lisa said, downing the rest of her coffee. “Think it’s time?”
“Yeah,” Taylor said. “You’re up, Kurt.”
Kurt had been quite clear on the instruction, and she wasn’t sure why until a golden iris opened and the man himself stepped through and grabbed her. Lisa brought her gun up, leveling it on the mullet wig atop Kurt’s head. Taylor screamed, putting on a show for any witnesses as he pulled her through the opening and the iris winked shut.
“So dramatic,” he said, laughing. “You good?”
Taylor straightened her shirt out and took a quick look around at the rundown room. “Yeah, I’m good. Are you gonna explain what that power was and why we don’t use it all the damn time?”
Kurt looked off to the side, and Taylor had to resist the urge to laugh at his mullet wig. “The Toybox portals are almost as good, as such we try to not bother Doormaker unless it is important. It doesn’t help that he’s aligned with the other faction.”
“Other faction?” she asked.
“You know that Legend and Hero back our operations,” Kurt asked and Taylor nodded. “Well, Alexandria and Eidolon are aligned with a different subset of behind the scenes schemers. You would recognize them as Cauldron, also known as the sellers of powers and the source of all Case 53s and the nominal Section One.”
Taylor’s mind ran through the multitude of implications, from the fact they were telling her to just what the existence of such a group would mean on the larger scale. Selling powers implied there was a source to harness, which meant many things, none of them good. She needed to learn just what that was, and more importantly, if it was potentially hostile.
As her mind swam, the Major dodged a bladed tail of the serpent. There was no way anyone would buy that this wasn’t Hookwolf, but it was just obscure enough to claim so if the Empire had survived. He must have come hoping to get at Amy, and walked right into a fight with the Nine as a result.
She was going to regret being so keyed in to Motoko’s systems, doing so always left her soupy afterwards, but it was necessary to keep apprised of the situation. Lisa and Riley’s feeds would only tell her so much.
Taylor knew that a gift wrapped Hookwolf would be a great present for her little sister, but delivery would be tricky. With so many witnesses, if Riley ever deployed a metal creating monster, it would be obvious where she got it from.
Oh well, problems for later.
The Major ducked, firing off a shot from her rifle as she did, blasting away a chunk of the monster. It wasn’t working long term and Motoko was running low on options for how to handle the present situation. She pulled a grenade from her belt and tossed it, Hookwolf saw it coming and attempted to bat it away, but it exploded on contact, the sticky foam expanding exponentially on contact with the air.
Confoam grenades certainly had their uses, and they did make it to the black market with surprising regularity. It was the solvent that was difficult to come by. Watching the blades attempt to cut through the agent that acted as both solid and liquid at the moment was almost amusing, but she knew that he would get free eventually. Motoko pulled the supposed last Bakuda grenade she had from before the woman joined the Nine and tossed it into the foam.
Hookwolf flailed, ripping a portion free just as the grenade detonated, crystal bursting from the foam as it spiraled and snaked like a virus outward. Hookwolf shifted, his form human once more as he stumbled to his feet with an aborted scream, metal left behind. Motoko was on him, rifle raised and put a round into his skull.
The impact dented the side of his head inward and the Major frowned, she pulled back on the rifle, loading the next round even as she ran forward and fired again. The kick of the rifle made her stumble, but she wasn’t about to let him get away again. The last of the Empire was going to die today.
The roar of an incoming motorcycle told her that time was limited, and as she reached the downed cape, she crammed the barrel into his slack jaw and pulled the trigger one last time. Gore painted the scene, his head now nothing but a stump. The Major didn’t need to breathe like a normal person, but she still found herself panting as Armsmaster stepped off his bike and surveyed the scene.
Looking down at the very dead Nazi, Armsmaster frowned.
“Was that necessary?”
Motoko flipped the bastard off.