The Empire minions didn’t waste time waiting for orders and opened fire with the few handguns they had. I was a little surprised they jumped straight to shooting after just a few dramatics but I guess from their perspective they were the ones suddenly facing off against the cape that went toe-to-toe with half the heroes in the city and walked away.
I had no intention of testing how bulletproof I was at the moment though, so I kicked off the floor and flared my wings, moving fast enough that all the bullets passed harmlessly underneath me.
Magic sigils flared, lightning struck, and the minions’ guns dropped from their hands with the unluckier ones dropping to the floor unconscious.
I smirked at the panicking Nazis and was fully prepared to start taunting them when a fireball caught my smug ass square in the face, promptly knocking me out of the air as I tried and mostly failed to not hack up a lung due to the suddenly superheated air invading my airways.
“Get her!”
Despite Victor’s order, most of the remaining minions were pretty hesitant to rush me aside from from one or two of the more loyal ones.
Or the more stupid ones. Either or, really.
They barely got close enough to even try hitting me before I recovered from my short fall, dodged a few clumsy punches, and punched them back hard enough I felt ribs giving way.
That was too much for the last couple minions.
While they ran away, I turned back to the three Empire capes.
“Good help is hard to find nowadays, amiright?” I taunted, reaching up and inspecting a lock of hair for singes.
“We can deal with you without them.” Krieg snarled and jumped into the fight.
Despite my earlier thoughts about the three of them being a bad matchup for me, they were still veteran capes that had been in a lot of fights and it showed.
They really knew how to work together.
Victor covered Krieg by throwing fireballs that seemed to curve around the other man, either by skill or power interaction I couldn’t tell, and stayed close enough to Othala that he could have her swap powersets and tank any attacks I sent at them instead. And Krieg moved in a way that blocked my line of sight as much as possible while still getting close enough to try grappling me.
The fight-happy part of me that wanted to see everything the Empire capes could pull off was impressed, but considering I was here on a rescue mission and not to enjoy myself I wasn’t going to play fair.
[BOOST!]
I used my suddenly increased speed to circle around Krieg when he wasn’t expecting it and get a clear line of fire at Othala.
Victor clearly wasn’t expecting it either because he failed to react in time before a lightning bolt streaked past him and knocked the other female cape off her feet.
“Coward!”
I actually stared at him for that. “What the fuck are you talking about?! It’s three on one, and that’s after I took out the normals!”
“She’s a noncombatant!”
“She’s handing you powers to fight me, sounds pretty combative to me!”
I don’t know why I bothered arguing with a white supremist. They were notoriously hypocritical and resistant to facts or opinions that differed from their own, rather like politicians in that way, but something about being called a coward really rubbed me the wrong way.
While Victor and I had our brief screaming match, Krieg used that time to try getting close again. I had kept an eye on him just for that reason but he did something with his powers that made it feel like the air turned to syrup. I could still power through the effect but the momentary delay in my reaction allowed him to get a shot in on my ribs.
I had been hit harder, but Krieg still packed enough of a punch that I could feel my ribs creak a bit. It didn’t help that my own backhand decided to gently push him back instead of slapping him away either, allowing him to get a couple more hits in.
My head snapped back as an uppercut I should have been able to block slipped past my guard.
I tasted blood from a split lip and decided enough was enough. If I couldn’t punch Krieg into next week, I was going to fry him.
Of course that was when Victor joined the fight. He jumped in, hands whirling and targeting weak points, but despite the significant skill gap between me and him, I was a Devil boosted by the power of one of the strongest dragons around and he was just a very fit baseline human. Regardless of the weird resistance Krieg’s power was causing that slowed down my movements, I was still fast enough to lash out with a kick that caught the skill-thief unexpectedly in the chest…only to do nothing, because Othala must have been able to grant him invincibility right before I took her out.
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Fantastic.
Still, unlike Krieg, Victor didn’t have anything stopping my attacks from launching him across the room. So I was free to turn my full attention to his friend.
An extra large magic circle bloomed right over the Nazi’s head and just as he turned his head to look at it, a bolt the width of my forearm turned him into a lightning rod and knocked him out immediately.
Two down, one to go.
“Hey, Victor! You just wanna give up?” I called to the remaining villain pulling himself out of the ruins of a wall. “Unless you were pulling your punches, you can’t hurt me and as much fun it would be smacking you around until Othala’s power buff runs out or testing if my lightning could still hurt you, I have things to do today.”
Victor grunted and gave me what should have been a charming smile, but since it was coming from a nazi all it did was make my skin crawl. “Or you could just turn around and walk out. You beat us, no doubt about it, but there is no reason to make an enemy of the Empire over this incident. Walk away and we’ll leave the whole thing behind us.”
“Or…I could call the PRT and have three Nazi’s that danced all over the Unwritten Rules to recruit a tinker arrested and shipped out of my city.” I countered. “ I kinda like that option more.”
“I think you’ll be a little busy for that soon.” Victor said affably. The fact he was so calm was actually making me more nervous than when I was fighting.
“Why’s that?”
In one smooth motion Victor pulled out a gun, took aim at the still tied up form of Gloria’s brother Carl, and pulled the trigger.
I cursed as he twitched and a dark wet spot started spreading from his leg.
“Unless I missed my mark, you were here to rescue that piece of trash. He won’t bleed out immediately, but you should probably get him to a doctor.” The absolute asshole said smugly. He shrugged, “Or you could wait here to make sure we’re taken in. Your choice, Lucifer.”
Bastard.
I could actually feel the contract between me and Gloria flare up, my promise to do my best to rescue her brother urging me to do something as long as it got him to safety. There was no actual compulsion but that wound meant that I was now definitely on a timer, and I wasn’t willing to play around with gunshot wounds. I guess that meant I’d have to let the Nazi go…
“Fine, you get to run away for another day.” I scowled. “Grab the rest of your idiots and get lost…oh, but one thing before I leave…” I slowly walked over to Krieg and put my foot on his arm.
“...What are you–”
There was a wet snapping sound as the unconscious villain’s arm broke under my heel. No power effect active to stop it from happening.
I glared at the now nervous looking Victor.
“You get one warning. I don’t really try hiding who I am behind the ‘rules’, but if your gang of morons messes with me or my friends to try and pressure us, the gloves come off. Make sure James here knows that, kay?”
It was a bit of a risk using one of the few real names I remembered of the Empire capes. At the very least I was going to be on their radar for knowing Krieg’s and they were definitely going to want to know just how many others I knew. But with how cavalier he had been about using my name, I needed something to stop them from targeting the people around me.
Hopefully, they would be too distracted wasting time trying to figure out how I knew the one to bother my girls for a while.
Threat delivered I turned and focused on getting Carl out of the chair he was strapped to and getting him to a doctor because…he really didn’t look too good.
“Just hold on, buddy.” I murmured, “We’ll get you to someone who can help in just a sec.”
-o-
Some time later I was sitting in the lobby of Brockton General Hospital in casual clothes while Gloria anxiously paced back and forth in front of me.
I had called her immediately after dropping Carl off at the ER and let her know what happened. It didn’t take long before she had shown up at the hospital and now the two of us were just waiting for news.
The deal between us was complete and I could technically walk away, but leaving a girl alone in a hospital while she waited to see if her brother lived or not seemed like an incredibly dickish move.
So I waited with her.
Eventually a doctor came out to meet us followed by an incredibly tired looking Amy Dallon in her Panacea costume. She was noticeably more irritated than the last time I met her but she was also a bundle of angst and family issues that I didn’t want to poke with a thirty foot pole, so I would stay out of it while we were in public.
I could just tell Crystal how thinly stretched her cousin looked and let her deal with it.
“Is Carl alright? Can I see him?” Gloria practically teleported to the two of them, only for the doctor to sigh and raise a hand to try and calm her down.
Uh, oh.
“We managed to stabilize him long enough that Panacea here was able to fix most of the damage when she arrived.” The doctor said soothingly. “Unfortunately, the beating your brother went through caused some slight hemorrhaging in the brain. He’s alive, but there’s nothing more we can do for him. I’m afraid there’s a good chance your brother might not wake up again.”
“There has to be something…?”
“Sorry, I don’t do brains.” Panacea said bluntly. Which was a lie, Panacea was fully capable of affecting brains, she just limited herself because of a self imposed rule. “She’s as healthy as she can be otherwise. Just in a coma.”
“He.”
“What?”
“Carl is trans. He made the switch a few years ago.” Gloria explained.
Panacea grunted in a way that made it clear she didn’t care much. “Fine, he is as fine as he can be. I’ve gotta go, other people to heal and all that.”
And with that lovely display of bedside manner, she walked off.
“Haaah, sorry about that.” the doctor sighed wearily. “She’s normally not quite as…abrasive…as that, she’s been under a lot of pressure lately. But she is right, your brother is as comfortable as he can be. I’ll have someone give you his room number once we get him settled. Now if you’ll excuse me…” He trailed off and headed back through the door he came in from.
“...oh god, what are we going to do?” Gloria whispered before nearly collapsing in on herself. Only a quick reaction from me stopped her from dropping to the floor.
“Hey, it’s not all bad,” I tried comforting her, “he’s alive and safe. You just might need to be patient before he wakes up again.”
Gloria shook her head rapidly. “But what do we do about the Empire?” She hissed. “They won’t stay away forever. Kaiser wants a tinker way too much to just leave us alone. And since they think I’m the one with powers, they’re going to come after me next…”
I awkwardly patted her back because…she was pretty much right.
“Maybe go to the PRT now that he’s safe?” I offered. “They should at least be able to keep the gangs off of your family. Maybe call in another healer…”
“They’d expect him to sign up.” She pointed out. “And Carl had reasons not to join them to begin with. I don’t know if I can betray him like that if there’s another way…any other way.” She trailed off as her eyes widened. “...is there some way you can help him? If I made another deal?”
I grimaced as I felt my Evil Pieces burning a metaphorical hole in my pocket. The chance to snag a tinker for my peerage was actually pretty tempting.
“You have one!” Gloria noticed my hesitation.
“I do, but it's a permanent change. He can’t back out of the deal later, at all. No matter what anyone wants” I warned her. “We also don’t have to do this now. You could take some time to talk it over with your mom–”
“We’ll do your way.” Gloria said decisively, making me blink at the intensity of her voice. “And we don’t tell my mother anything.”
“...why?”
“I-I poked around some things at home while I was waiting.” Gloria’s voice cracked and her eyes started watering but she kept talking. “I wanted to know how the E88 f-figured there was a tinker in our house.” Tears started falling and I had a really bad feeling in my stomach.
“She sold us both out.” Gloria cried. “She found one of the gadgets Carl made me and gave it to the Empire as proof I was the tinker and let them know where to find Carl to use as leverage. I-I can’t…can’t go back there, neither of us can!” She cried.
I made up my mind.
“Alright, I’ll help your brother. On one condition…”