I hadn’t been completely unprepared for reinforcements to show up. Something had told me that there might be more of these guys’ friends out in the surrounding neighborhood. After all, it definitely wasn’t my luck to just happen to confront this gang while every last one of them just happened to be right there in a convenient group. I’d expected that about as much as I had expected… well, as much as I had expected us to actually get out of this whole situation without a real confrontation.
So, when the sound of running footsteps and shouts announced the imminent arrival of several more of these people, I looked toward the alley they were arriving through. That quick glance let me activate the green-blue paint I’d left along the ground, followed quickly by the red paint I’d covered several more trash cans, an old wooden pallet, and a couple other bits and pieces with. Immediately, the air was filled with startled curses and cries as a handful of the new arrivals were launched upward, flailing and dropping their weapons. Others were struck by the random objects I’d painted and either fell to the ground or spun to frantically scan for an unseen attacker.
One guy actually made it all the way through the alley, racing right into view with his shotgun raised. Or at least, he came into view for a second. Then he stepped on the black-pink circle I’d left there and instantly fell halfway into the ground, just like several of the other guys in this little parking lot area already had. Unlike them, however, he actually managed to hold onto his gun and took aim with it. Which lasted just long enough for me to hit the barrel of the thing with red paint to yank it away.
“Dude!” I blurted reflexively while chucking the gun up to the roof, “you must be like, the honor student, curve-wrecking, teacher’s pet member of the gang! Make it all the way through an alley while your buddies are being flung around like bowling pins, fall halfway through solid ground, see a giant fuck-off lizard-grizzly playing bongos with your other buddies, and you still keep your eye on the ball and try to shoot us? Whatever your boss is paying you, it’s definitely not enough. You need to ask for a raise.”
“He gets by.” That dry response wasn’t from me, or Pack (Dani, my distracted brain reminded me), or anyone else I’d been aware of. Instead, it came from the nearby wall, where a figure had been completely silently running along it. I only noticed them belatedly when they spoke up, just before launching themself off the wall. They flipped over in the air, leg extended before it slammed into my side. The impact was much more than it should have been, enough to send me rocketing across the parking lot. I barely had time to activate a couple orange circles along my shoulders before crashing hard into the overturned dumpster there, where Mars Bar had flung it. Bouncing off the metal side, I rolled out of the way along the pavement instinctively. Which turned out to be the right move, as my attacker bounced inhumanly quickly off the ground, went back into the air, and then came down with their knee right where my stomach had been just a second earlier. Before they could recover, I snapped my leg out to kick theirs right out from under them.
They fell backward, but managed to flip over, catch themself on their hands, and then push off that way into a flip that allowed them to land rightside up in a sort of half-crouch to face me as I was scrambling back to my feet as well. Which gave me my first real chance to get a good look at the person who had come out of nowhere and kicked me across the parking lot. And yes, ow.
The person was female, that much was clear. My guess was that she was maybe three years older than me. She wore a sleek, dark red bodysuit with black swirl patterns that showed off rather generous curves. A gold sash was tied around her waist and hung longer down her left hip. A cloth mask covered most of her face, leaving only her short, spiky black hair exposed. The whole thing was clearly meant to be distracting. Especially considering the way she held herself even then. Everything she did, the way she moved, stood, her clothing, it was all carefully calculated to draw attention and make people stare. Probably right up until she jumped over and kicked them across the fucking parking lot. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t going to forget that anytime soon.
After taking all that in, I found my voice. “Lemme guess, you're the gang’s tax accountant and you're really pissed about all the unapproved deductions they've been taking so you decided to take it out on anyone who gets in your way.” I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, honestly. But talking, even if it was basically nonsense, gave me a second to put a few more spots of paint on my suit. Not to mention the opportunity to actually catch my breath a little bit. Given the sounds going on in the background, Pack and her lizards were still fighting, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off this woman long enough to check on them. Not considering how quickly she was obviously able to move. If I gave her any sort of opening, she’d be on me in an instant.
Hang on, wait a minute. Come to think of it, maybe that wouldn’t actually be such a bad thing. And no, I didn’t have that thought just because of how well she was wearing that tight bodysuit.
“Mmm, sorry, I pay someone else to do the taxes,” she informed me even as that thought jumped into my head. “Leaves more time for me to have fun, if you know what I mean.”
“Did you actually, literally just say, ‘if you know what I mean?’” I demanded in disbelief before making a disapproving tutting noise. “If there isn’t already a law against that, there oughta be.” My head cocked to the side, glancing back toward the spot where Pack and her lizards had the other guys pretty well in hand. “Though to be fair, I guess you wouldn’t really care about any--”
And that was when she took the bait. It was about time, given I was starting to think I was going to have to actually turn around and put my back to her completely before she’d jump at me. Once I looked over toward Pack, the woman launched herself my way, leaping up and spinning into a kick that was designed to take me right in the stomach. Except when her foot should have collided with me and put me on the ground, it went right through. She launched herself up and through my entire liquid-paint body. The startled yelp that escaped the woman as she passed completely through me and out the other side was probably fairly understandable, under the circumstances.
After flying through me, she actually managed to recover pretty quickly, landing on one foot before spinning back my way. But that was when she was met with another surprise: herself. When she passed through me, I shifted to look like her. Now, as the woman pivoted back to face me before stopping short in brief confusion, I offered a shrug. “Tell me the truth, do I pull it off?”
“Not in the least,” she informed me before her hand snapped out. I caught a brief glimpse of something on her wrist glowing, before a blast of concussive force slammed into my arm and literally blew it off at the shoulder. Sure, it was a liquid arm and the droplets just sort of briefly burst out in every direction like a water balloon popping before snapping back into place, but still.
The next thing I knew, she hit my other arm with a second blast to make that blow apart, before lunging to put herself right in front of--no over me. She leapt up and over, foot lashing out on her way to go through my face. But her boot glowed in the process, and right when she made contact there was another burst of concussive force that made my head burst for a second before I managed to focus enough to make it come back. And yes, that was still a really awkward feeling. When my head burst like that, it made my vision go wild, since I was seeing out of every little droplet at once, in every direction. Which at least gave me a good enough view to see the figure land behind me before whipping around to take another shot at my shoulder. At the last instant, I managed to twist away so the concentrated wave of force shot right past me.
This obviously wasn’t going to stop. Whether it was some sort of Touched-Tech on her costume, or part of her power, this girl kept hitting me with repeated concussive bursts. But I did figure out what she was doing. She’d hit my arm with that blast just to make sure it wasn’t lethal or permanent to me, and now she was trying to hit me repeatedly, enough to break me apart so it would take longer for me to pull myself together. I wasn’t even sure if that would work, but I definitely didn’t want to find out. Especially not like this. It was not what Paige would’ve called a controlled experimental situation.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to just stand there and take it. With a thought, even as I was dodging that last shot, my body was already shifting back to my normal shape. Well, my normal shape turned completely green. I was still liquid, but suddenly, I was three times faster than I should’ve been. Fast enough to twist around and throw myself that way while she was still adjusting her aim after that miss. I didn’t give her the chance to finish correcting before my own fist collided with her face. Which, yes I was liquid at the time, but she still felt it. And she felt the follow-up punch even more, since I shifted my body from green to purple. Being smacked with liquid didn’t exactly feel like nothing, especially when that liquid was hitting you really fast or really hard. Just ask any person who ever happened to jump off a three-story roof and into a swimming pool.
It might’ve hurt her, but it didn’t put her down. She was already snapping her foot up to kick through me. But I made my paint-self orange. Which didn’t just make me not liquid, it kind of did the opposite and made my entire body as hard as a stone statue. Her foot, even with that concussive burst thing she had going on, rebounded off me as she gave a startled curse.
That gave me the opening I wanted, which I used by--well by headbutting her in the chin with my orange self. She had been nice enough to at least make sure her attack wouldn’t kill me, so I didn’t hit her quite as hard as I could have. But still enough to make her cry out even louder than before and recoil. Now she had a sharp pain in both her foot and her face. All I had to do was--
Uh, get kicked again, apparently. No sooner had some part of my brain started to point out that her yelp of pain didn’t sound quite right, than she abruptly did just that. Her foot collided with me. Only that time, even though I was still orange, I was lifted off my feet and sent flying. It was just like when she had jumped off the wall and jump-kicked me. The impact she hit me with was much greater than it should’ve been. I was pretty sure it wasn’t just super strength, but something else. She was magnifying impact force or something. But whatever it was, the blow launched me a good thirty feet before I hit the brick wall with enough force to crack both it and me. Eesh, apparently I’d annoyed her a bit.
Well, she was going to be even more annoyed soon enough. I caught a brief glimpse of her form flying toward me as she hurled herself clear across the lot in a single jump, moving much further and much faster than she should’ve been able to. But just before she would have slammed into me, I turned myself red and flung both hands out to hurl globs of… well, myself both at the incoming woman and past her. She was basically inches from slamming into me, already glowing with that concussive energy to blow apart my liquid form, when I activated that paint. Instantly, she was snapped backward, flipped around, and flung to the ground with a yelp.
Unfortunately, before I could congratulate myself on that, or do much of anything at all, another new voice bellowed, “Oy!” The next thing I knew, an enormous hand came down, grabbed me (the fingers basically covered my entire body), and flung me out of the way. Yet again, I was flying through the air, though this time I managed to invert myself mid-flight and use red paint to yank myself down to the ground. Which gave me a chance to see what turned out to be a giant guy who seemed to be made out of bricks, asphalt, random pieces of a few cars, and even a fire hydrant. The whole humanoid figure was about seventeen feet tall, I could barely make out a human face set in one of the eyes, protected behind a couple layers of windshield glass. There was a black guy in there, using layers and layers of junk as a sort of mech suit or something. He was also very angry with me, taking a quick step forward before pointing with one of those giant hands. “Hands off the babe, ya little shitcunt! Or Ah’ll see just how well a Paintball can splattah.” He sounded very Australian.
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Pack, by that point, had moved up beside me, reaching down to help pull me back to my feet. She had Tuesday perched across her shoulders, while Holiday prowled in front of her. Mars Bar was just a bit to the side, growling low. I wasn’t sure where Twinkletoes was. “I’ve got a better idea,” she called up to the man. “How about you take your babe, and the rest of these guys, accept the L, and walk away? We don’t have to do this, we don’t want to do this. This ain’t my job. Your people stole something they shouldn’t have, and now it’s over. Fuck off and get out of here while you still can. I’m not exactly eager to play superhero and help throw your asses to the Shields.”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be on vacation,” I pointed out, giving a sharp look toward the scattered gang members who were doing their best to look as unthreatening and innocent as possible right then. “Get your people up, walk away, and we’ll just call this whole thing a draw. You get to leave.”
I may have been able to say the words as though I was confident and assured, but the truth was that I was breathing heavily. I hadn’t expected to get into a fight at all tonight, and after the shock of finding out about Dani, then having to reveal myself to her coupled with the emotional turmoil of her lizards being taken… it was a lot. To be thrown straight from that to a fight with one Fell-Touched who was able to blow my liquid-form apart repeatedly (which itself seemed to be pretty taxing on my body), and now another one in a giant brick and metal mech suit? To say nothing of who or what else might show up as this went on. I just needed this to be over. I really needed them to accept the truce.
From the annoyed sound the woman made, she definitely didn’t like that suggestion. Not one bit. Neither did the big guy, given the way he made his giant hands close into fists. But I didn’t really care what they liked. I just wanted to be done with this so Pack and I could get out of here. So Dani and I could get out of here. That little detail was what I wanted to focus on. Dani was Pack. I’d known her for--yeah. We needed to talk about everything, not spend all our time fighting these assholes in a completely different city. I just wanted all of them to go away.
Instead, the armored giant snapped, “And what exactly are you fuckwits gonna do if we don’t? This ‘ere’s our place, you don’t belong.”
Dani, for her part, gave a low, dangerous chuckle. “Oh, I’ve been trying to play nice for the benefit of the Star over there. But if you don’t walk away, I’ll just have to knock you down to size.”
That made the giant-man laugh. “Oh you will, huh? I don’t think your teddy bear over there can do the job.”
Dani didn’t blink, simply shrugging. “If you make me, I’ll just have to use my secret weapon.”
“The gorilla?” That was the woman, who had put herself near the big guy’s left foot, eyes darting back and forth. “He doesn’t have what it takes either, believe me. My buddy here can stop a truck.”
“Actually,” Dani replied without missing a beat, “I kinda thought I’d just hit him with my elephant.”
That was apparently a cue, because something came tearing out of the building where these guys had been holed up. It ripped right through the remains of the metal rolling door, stampeded past me, and slammed into the giant mech-suited guy so hard he fell sideways into the other building nearby, losing several bits of his junk armor in the process. His violent, surprised cursing filled the air as he flailed, broke several windows of that building, and finally had to slump down into an awkward sitting position. His cursing was cut off by a loud trumpeting sound.
Uh, yeah, it was an elephant. A lizard-elephant, which stood twelve feet tall at the shoulder, a good twenty feet long, and had to weigh over five thousand pounds. It was covered in very thick, tough-looking armored scales that looked tough enough to stand up to basically anything these guys could dish out. Which was all intimidating enough on its own, before you added in the fire. Yeah, while the elephant-lizard was waving its trunk around, bursts of actual fire kept shooting out the end of it like miniature fireballs. Its trunk was a flamethrower.
Well that got their attention. The big guy and his partner, and all the remaining troops scattered around, stared in shock. I heard a few muttered curses and prayers.
“Like I said,” Dani snapped, “I was playing nice. I wasn’t even gonna let my new friend here join the party. Bumbershoot was having fun breaking your stuff in there anyway. But no, you had to push this to the next level. Now he doesn’t get to set your couches on fire like he wanted to, so maybe you should think twice before giving him some other target to burn.”
That time, the two Fells, and their Prev troops, didn’t hesitate aside from the quick glance they gave each other. It was the women who spoke. “Right, the location’s blown anyway. Let’s go!” She gave a sharp whistle, flinching visibly as the sound made the elephant-lizard point his flamethrower-trunk that way.
The big guy picked himself up, backing off slowly. As did the woman herself, though she lifted her chin, giving me a long look. “So let me guess, you want us to leave all that fine booty we spent so long pulling together too.”
My voice was flat. “You can do whatever you want with your booty, lady. But as for all the stolen merchandise, it stays here. We’ll get it back where it belongs. You’ll just have to start over. Feel glad you have the chance to do that with your entire gang intact. Err, well, mostly intact, anyway.” My words had immediately been met by several rather pained groans from the assorted troops. Those who hadn’t already fled for the hills anyway, who happened to be the worst-injured amongst them.
“Nope, nope,” the Fell woman agreed, head shaking quickly with a quick glance toward the smoldering giant reptile. “Totally fine. We’re good over here. Take everything you want, enjoy.” Her voice cracked slightly, and she was rather frantically backing up the whole time.
The big guy grunted, backing up along with her to squeeze his way out of the alley. Well, he squeezed at first. With every step, he was getting smaller, as pieces of his large armored body seemed to fold in on themselves, shrink, and disappear. Soon, he was only about seven feet tall, covered in what looked like mostly broken bricks and a few pieces of metal from lampposts or something. Instead of his face being behind a windshield, it was half-covered by a ring of asphalt. “Right, fine,” he informed us, “but don’t think this is completely over, tourists. I’m pretty sure we’ll see each other again before you get out of here. Especially if you’re gonna stick around through the games.”
“Damn straight we will,” the woman agreed. “We’ll have to play again, real soon.” Her eyes were on me. Honestly, in that moment neither of them seemed like they were threatening us with death or anything. It was more like someone promising to win the next game between a couple sports teams. They were annoyed by the whole situation, and already planning some sort of revenge. But not the ‘horribly murder you’ kind. Which went along with the fact that the girl had checked to make sure being blown apart in my liquid form wouldn’t kill me or anything to prove these guys were just thieves, not total monsters.
Pack, her lizards (including the freaking giant elephant), and I just stood there, watching them leave. It felt awkward, and part of me wondered if I should actually be trying to do more to stop them and turn them in. But we’d made a deal, and promised to let them go if they just left their stolen merch and walked away. Besides, like I’d said, I was supposed to be on vacation. I’d already violated that by coming this far, but what was I supposed to do, just let Pack’s lizards be stolen?
Once they were gone, Riddles flew up to keep an eye on the surrounding area just in case any of them got the bright idea to try sneaking back to take us by surprise. Meanwhile, I found myself staring at the elephant-lizard. “Uhh… didn’t know you had a new friend in that bag. You said his name was Bumbershoot?”
“That’s right,” she confirmed easily, running her hand over the figure in question. As she did so, he shrank down, gradually becoming slightly more manageable in size. Even without her help, he was a six-foot long Komodo dragon. So yeah, still not exactly tiny. My mouth opened to ask how something like that fit in the bag, just as she opened it, held the bag in front of him, and make a clicking sound with her tongue. First the Komodo dragon poked his head into the bag, then lifted it out and made a snarl-hiss sort of sound.
“Yes, yes, we can get beef jerky,” Dani assured him. “I promise.” She glanced to me, “Some rich fucking prick had him stuck in a personal petting zoo for his toddler to ride or something. Way and I… liberated him together. Like I said, I wasn’t going to let him get in a fight yet, until I can train him more. But he does intimidating pretty well, and we needed intimidating right then.”
Her promise of getting jerky was apparently enough, since Bumbershoot made a noise of contentment and anticipation before crawling into the bag. And yes, that six-foot long reptile somehow disappeared into the two-foot long bag. Not that I should’ve been surprised at all, considering my own costume bag. Touched-Tech was wild.
I wanted to know more about that whole ‘Way and Pack liberated the Komodo dragon from a rich asshole’ thing, but it wasn’t exactly at the top of the list of topics we needed to get into.
Soon, all the lizards aside from Riddles had shrunk down and joined their newest sibling. Taking a breath, I turned from the bag to look toward my companion. Pack--Dani had taken off her mask by that point. She was just standing there, staring intently without saying anything. I wasn’t sure what exactly was going through her mind, but she was obviously having some very deep, conflicting thoughts right then. I knew I sure was.
“Well,” I finally managed in a voice that cracked just a little, “I guess we have a few things to talk about, huh?” God was that ever an understatement. Yes, Eits already knew who I was, but somehow this felt different. Maybe because I had intentionally made the choice to reveal myself. Sure, it was a choice made in the spur of the moment, a rather intense moment at that, but still.
Dani, for her part, gave a soft snort while shaking her head with a wry, “Well you definitely have understatement powers. Tell you what, I know your superhero senses are tingling right now, so why don’t you go ahead and call this in so you can tell the local Shields where to come pick up the uhh… booty? Get them on their way, then we can get out of here and find a place to talk.”
I could tell, despite how casual the actual words might have been, that it was taking everything the other girl had not to just grab and start violently shaking me demanding answers. She knew as well as I did that standing here talking about everything we needed to get into was a bad idea.
So, I used the Doephone app to submit a report about there being a bunch of stolen tourist stuff in that building, dropping a pin for them to find the exact location. I described the gang and the Fell-Touched we’d fought as well as I could so they’d know who they would be dealing with. I left the whole thing anonymous, not wanting to have to deal with answering more questions right then. I definitely didn’t want to get into details of why I had shown up there alongside Pack.
Finally, she shrank most of her lizards back to normal, and the two of us quickly left after making sure the coast was clear. We didn’t go that far though. After I changed back to my regular clothes, we left the alley and made our way to an all-night Mexican food place with a few tables in the parking lot. We got some tacos (as well as several takeout containers full of hamburger, steak, and chicken that she stuffed into the bag for the lizards to enjoy), went to the far corner where we wouldn’t be overheard, and sat together. Riddles, the only one who wasn’t back in the bag, flew high over our heads, still keeping an eye on that place until the cops showed up.
Which left me sitting there next to Dani, as she gave me a long squint. “So,” she started slowly.
“Where exactly should we start?”