Finn surveyed the area as everyone processed the unexpected outcome of that attack, and it was apparent that this one change in tempo gave a lot of heroes some much needed breathing room, however brief it may have been.
Viperia didn’t remain still for longer than a second. If the question of Viperia’s lucidity had been up in the air before, Finn was certain she was coming to her senses now. Her sole remaining eye swept over everyone present, then her tongue snaked out of her half-ruined maw, tasting the air. The viper swiveled her head in his direction, locking onto him.
Then, over the noise of the battlefield, in a slurred, hissing tone, she began to speak.
“Yyyyyyoooooooooouuuuuuu…”
While he was sure there wasn't any power effect attached to the word she’d uttered, various people present nonetheless froze in terror as they looked on.
Of course, Finn himself had never stopped moving. Even the interception of Viperia’s venom breath had been conducted in midair when his grappling hook was pulling him towards another rooftop. This method of travel was particularly useful now because he was considerably faster as long as the power he temporarily held was applied to his body.
That feeling of the air suddenly having less of a hold on him, the sensation of his feet leaving the ground so lightly and yet leaping off so much farther than should be possible, the sudden transitions to having his body become more real to weather the impact of his landings in order to save time with his increased resilience, it was all difficult to get used to and somehow felt intrinsic to his being in spite of that. Regardless of how much he hated the idea of losing this power when the battle was over, in the here and now it was going to do good work. Finn would make sure of it.
So when he pivoted and changed course in response to Viperia’s mad charge, the only thing he felt was a muted sense of wonder, now overshadowed by the calm focus he was going to need for the fight ahead of them.
One step, two steps, a hand on the ledge pulling him up lightly, clearing the way for a demented snake monster to crash through. He already had multiple signals going out towards the other heroes, highlighting positions of weak structural integrity in the structures around them, pointing out where Viperia was most injured, and to top that off there were small indicators of where her attacks would land whenever he could manage it.
Which wasn’t often. She slithered forward with her focus on Finn, determination unerring and her pursuit unceasing save for swatting away anyone brave enough to stand in her way. They were quickly reaching a similar level of chaos as before over the course of this short chase, Finn doing his best to find an opening and not having much luck in keeping all assailants from getting injured by the serpent.
Unfortunately for her, she didn’t quite succeed in batting Nar aside. After nearly ending the fight with the power of Shiftseeker, the rising star had endured a blow that would have killed most other heroes present, and he was already back for more. His power spawned golden panes of light—a familiar sight at this point—but this time around they were smaller and more numerous than any previous attempt. They dug into the open wounds on the gang leader’s side, digging into her musculature and causing her to spasm to the left. She couldn’t move away from her position.
In response, she tried to shoot more poison, but Finn was already bolstering the barrier lock and preparing to weaken her breath again. She didn’t get to fire it though.
Beefdom came in with a body slam strong enough to sound like a cannonball the size of a small asteroid, rocking the surroundings with tremors so great the building Viperia smashed into actually collapsed under her weight, a rain of concrete and metal and dust burying her massive body for a moment. Just a moment.
It wasn’t three seconds later when she broke free, hissing and lunging for Finn again, teeth bared in a manner he was growing used to, primed to release more of her devastation on the world. She didn’t get the chance. Her mouth was suddenly filled with a giant block of… was that hay?
Yes, it was, he realized. Mountpin was standing below with her arm outstretched, her transformed arm extending into that reptilian mouth. The Unbound bit through it with ease, only for it to be replaced with more. And more, and more and more, making the street look like the inside of a barn as the excess hay fell down. Viperia kept her jaws clacked shut, but more hay entered from the opening in her exposed skull between the teeth that Mistral had made, forcing them open.
It looked vaguely comedic, Viperia almost vomiting a wheat golden stream, simultaneously furiously shaking her head this way and that. More powers joined. Finn did his utmost to make them more real, ensuring they would hit harder despite the fact that he knew most of them wouldn’t do any meaningful damage whatsoever. They would keep the pressure off of him, that was what mattered here.
“Shade! What do you need me to do?” Lyra asked next to him. She’d caught up to him and joined him in an arc over to the next building circling the area.
Upon landing, he turned to face her, which was technically unnecessary since they both knew he could sense every cell in her body regardless of the direction his head turned. This was more about acknowledgement than perception. Despite her behavior being expected, he was impressed with how quickly she was able to switch from panicking about a strange power effect erasing him from existence and standing ready to engage a supervillain with an unbound power in combat, simply because he had made his priorities clear. No superfluous questions about his well-being beyond silent, concerned glances. No attempts to distract him with things that could wait until the battle was over. Just readiness to jump into the action. During the time they had spent together, Lyra had become experienced and professional in her own right. Calliope was a reliable teammate to have.
“The next time Viperia charges, I want you to throw her off with a shockwave from the ground,” he instructed her.
“Okay.” Lyra jumped off the roof and channeled a considerable amount of reverberation through the ground, considerably more power than he’d ever seen her use before. More than he thought she was comfortable with, but her aura had returned to a relatively stable configuration. She really had come a long way.
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Finn addressed his friend next. “Gridlock.”
“What, you going to explain what happened back there?” his friend said over the comms.
“My power is better for the time being. That’s all that matters. Do you know how long it’ll take for reinforcements to get here?”
“Couldn’t tell you, sorry. I don’t know why they’re dragging it out so long, since they should know what’s going on here. And I can’t get to the bottom of this right now.” His friend said that last part in a growl, sighing and then continuing, “But if you can win this before then, we won’t have to find out.”
He was planning to. But it was easier said than done. Even the barrage currently buffeting Viperia wasn’t enough to hold her down indefinitely. She slowly gained ground, a repeat of the same pattern that had been repeating itself over and over throughout this fight. Finn just didn’t have a good way around it yet. They had a decent finisher in Damsel, if she was able to get some more hits in. The issue was that getting her close was going to be a risk because he couldn’t directly shield her or weaken Viperia’s physical attacks due to his inability to alter the colors of living entities in his range. And he doubted Damsel would be able to survive a faceful of venom either way.
In terms of warrior types, Beefdom was the strongest hero present, and his punches weren’t doing as much internal damage as the Junior Ace girl. From the more unique powers, Holderbar was a wildcard, and not one that had shown off a capability to kill Viperia so far. All the people who’d been firing projectiles and failing to do any lasting damage were right out. So who did that leave him with? Nar? Out of the powers he had stored, only Dad’s would be able to decisively end the fight. It would’ve been the preferable option if the older boy could control that ability.
Snapping a hand out, he reinforced a pile of debris in front of Gossamer, protecting the last member of the local DHD team from splashes of acid with a flex of will. Lowering it back to his side, Finn resumed his thought process.
Mistral’s power might be the answer here, as it was more reliable in these circumstances with who exactly was using it, but he didn’t know if Nar could muster the power required to end this. The district captain hadn’t been able to even with his arm up to the elbow in Viperia’s eye socket, after all. Most likely, Aiden had considered all of this and would’ve brought it up or taken action if he had the means to put a stop to the bloodshed.
And now he was back to square one, with no visible entrypoint to the fight. Ironic how even with his power boosted, there was no way for him to win aside from sitting on the sidelines and pulling the strings or whatever. It felt annoying. He wanted to go down there and punch those scales himself. The reason he didn’t was that he had tested his own new force output and found himself lacking.
Casey didn’t seem to be growing impatient, at least. He took that to mean she wasn’t dissatisfied with his performance, not that she didn’t know what was going on. The latter piece of information he knew from asking her clarifying questions about her power whenever he got the opportunity. His lip reading skills were good enough to make out her answers. She wanted him to act as a coordinator of sorts. And it turned out he wasn’t in danger of leaving her range, so there was that.
The fighting raged on. Viperia managed to gain ground by scoring another surprise casualty. She was beaten back down, but not as far as before, shaking off the heat lasers pelting her in favor of a tail swipe. More heroes down, more ground given. Ultimately, Finn had two options. He could stall, or he could take a risk.
The choice was made for him.
By some stroke of insane luck or skill, Viperia managed to do her weird, undulating dance thing that weakened superhumans in her vicinity which the entire contingent of heroes had specifically been preventing her from doing.
Beams flickered, flails went limp, chains gave slack, people slumped, and all that saved Viperia from killing nearly everyone around her was the fact that Nar miraculously recovered first, again, and tossed her into the air. But Viperia didn’t miss a beat, turning the motion into a roll and heading straight for Lyra.
When the building-sized juggernaut approached, Finn had to admit he felt a spike of tension shooting through him the moment he registered she was doing another dance to disable them.
What none of them expected was for all three of them to remain perfectly alert. The thing in Lyra’s aura roused, and the glow surrounding Finn dimmed a bit, but that was all. Lyra triggered the shockwave underneath Viperia with the force of a small earthquake, utilizing the tremors caused by the snake’s movement.
Both of them were in motion as Viperia steadied herself, Finn firing his hook near Lyra, reeling himself with reduced air resistance. He scooped her up and started running from the monster behind him, who was readying a nasty-looking breath attack. This one was black, unlike the darker green ones before.
Instead of chasing him again she fired her poison. Finn already knew from the muscle twitches in her body and the positioning of her head where it was going to be, meaning the best possible route to dodge was apparent to him. Lyra fired a shockwave from her position in his arms to prevent any splatter their way.
Like an angry train, Viperia barreled ahead to cut Finn off from his planned route over the road, forcing him to brush past the black smoke and look for a better place to disengage. He gritted his teeth. He knew they couldn’t keep this up. Despite the power granted to him, despite being a literal beacon of light in the darkness, he had no chance in a straight fight.
Looming multiple stories over them, Viperia tracked them cautiously, and Finn prepared his colors in the hopes of zipping away successfully. The rest were too far back to get here in time. His eyes were wide, alert, observing the tiniest changes in her body to predict where she would—
A giant rocket cracked the air, exploding on Viperia’s head. It sent her rolling over the asphalt, shaking the earth violently.
She came to a stop a good distance away from them, far enough that Finn had time to pay attention to whom it was that came to save them. And when the vehicles came into his range, he was stunned. He recognized those uniforms.
Homeland.
The district’s other villain gang had come to help?
There were about half a dozen cars racing up the road, with the frontmost one carrying Bodkin and a massive mounted device that had presumably fired that weapon earlier.
Finn blinked. Normally he never focused on the specific faces of the thugs in a gang; there were too many of them. But there was one face he did know, in the passenger seat of the rightmost car. His gym teacher.
He could still recall the last class they had, a perfectly normal affair. He remembered the day when the man had broken up his confrontation with Jules after that dodgeball game, too, even though that felt like a lifetime ago.
And more importantly…
Why was Mr. Cotherman wearing Trooper’s costume?