“Awright, Unicorn Legion, listen up!” I said as I came in over the burning part of the shantytowns and stopped in midair above the center of them, crackling very loudly with lightning dancing all around me. “I have been sent here by the Golden Hag to clean you up! You will immediately gather up beneath me in good order and stop your rampaging about!
“If you choose not to obey this order, please continue your rampaging, it makes it faster to locate you. I expect the disobedient to cease to be a problem within one minute!”
“Fuck you, lady!” was the immediate response from one close by, and a beam of force lanced up and exploded against me.
I barely felt it. I glanced that way, and Specs lit up. There was a flash of light, and the guy was divided in two from hip to opposite shoulder, looking a little startled as he fell apart.
“Eighteen are now seventeen.” Another explosion went off, and I zipped over there at Mach 10, effectively teleporting to all who saw it. Another beam flashed out and cut him in two. “Sixteen.” Boom, boom! Flit, flit. Zrrrt, zrrrt. “Fifteen! Fourteen!”
The explosions and energy beams abruptly stilled.
“Oh, don’t even THINK about trying to run. Those radioactive batteries and the weapon system on your head are leaking so much hard radiation you idiots stand out like light bulbs in a dark room. You’ve got one minute to get your degenerating asses over to me or I’m just gonna burn you down before you go batshit crazy.
“Oh, by your expressions you didn’t know that. Huh. Yeah, the hyperactivation treatment you’re using was invented by a renegade Czech by name of Masaryk. It hyperactivates your cells, but doesn’t give you the fuel to keep going, so you end up consuming yourself from the inside-out. You’ve got three months to live, tops, without a very expensive biotic treatment your bosses are certainly not going to know or be able to give you, and that’s if the leaking radiation from those Unicorn Horn systems you’re wearing doesn’t kill you first.
“Let’s go, Unicorns! You’ve got thirty seconds to make up your minds before I kill you. I know you can all see me, being covered in lightning like I am. Get moving and don’t make me wait!”
There was one more beam coming up to attack me from a defiant guy. I saw it coming, Red Eyes are good like that, and we basically exchanged attacks. He lost his head, I just let his bounce off me.
“Thirteen. Whoever wants to live, fifteen seconds. Whoever wants to die, feel free to go crazy and save us both some time.”
Almost despite themselves, they were coming this way. Well, all except one. “Hey, we’ve got a runner there. You sure you don’t want to blast some more shanties or helpless civilians?” I Voiced to him, and he stopped in place. “Five seconds!”
Swallowing, he turned around and ran urgently my way, totally able to feel my eyes on him.
In basically another minute, the scattered Unicorns were roughly gathered in the clearing below me. I could see they were looking at one another, wondering if a combined attack might be able to do me in.
“Go ahead, attack me all at once if you like. It will REALLY speed up resolution of this incident for me.” I floated there above them at an angle, making myself a really nice target for them, lightning crackling green-white around my dark crimson suit, arms crossed in front of me.
“That-that’s Dynamo...” one of them men pointed out. Oh, someone had a brain. Yeah, I was still in Wrecker mode. “What’s she doing down here?”
The last one arrived, falling in with his fellows.
I descended to just above the ground, looking them over. They weren’t all Caucasian, but they all looked paler, and they had on religious paraphernalia underneath their green and black uniforms.
“First thing. Take off those belts and that helmet, boys. You’re pumping gamma rays into yourselves, particularly your heads. You might have lethal doses already, depending on how much you used them, but hey, that’s your fault.”
I sat there in mid-air, staring at them, clearly uncaring what they did. “S-Senora, is what you said true?” one of the braver ones asked hesitantly. “Are we going to die?”
“Everyone dies, senhor. It’s just you thirteen are going to be dead within either three months or a couple weeks, depending on how much radiation you’ve absorbed. You’re going to go batshit crazy as you do, probably tear yourselves apart trying to eat your own flesh, but hey, there’s always hope someone might take pity on you.” My voice didn’t have a lot of it for them. “And don’t even think that magic will cure it. We might be able to deal with the radiation poisoning if there’s a decent Shaman around, but that degeneration is going to continue for the rest of your lives.
“Whoever keeps you tanked up is basically going to have you as a slave, and make no mistake on it.”
They all swallowed as they looked up at me and my indifferent voice. “What, what do we have to do?” the talker asked in a much fainter voice.
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“Lemme make a call.” I tapped my ear, input a number that Specs sent through my Vaccine, and waited as it rang. “Isabella! Hello. It’s Dyna, I have a small problem you may be able to help me with. There’s some rampaging marauders here who were setting Goinania’s slums on fire, killing and blowing shit up. Probably hired and treated by some local idiot who got some hands on cast-off Crux technology, they’re using the Unicorn stuff.
“I know, right?
“So, could you use thirteen mutates for some work? It’ll be expensive having to dunk ’em every couple weeks, but I’m sure you can get your money out of them.
“Oh, you can? Well, that will certainly relieve the local prisons. I’m sure these fellows would just be executed out of hand if I brought them in. You still in Brasilia? Fantastic, which building? Uh-huh, uh-huh, got it on GPS. Be there shortly.” Specs hung up politely.
“Isa, Isabella Cartier?” one of the men there, looked like a German immigrant, asked in disbelief.
“You know Isabella?” I asked in return, making a circle with my finger. “Ring up, boys. Tighter now, I don’t care about your modesty.”
I still had Sersi’s Matter Manipulation powers. Without any ado, I made a stone cage around the lot of them, complete with a lid and carrying grip. “One sec, I have to go pick up after those dead guys leaving radioactive materials around.” I zipped off in a crack of lightning, was back in ten seconds with their helms and belts. Their bodies were burning vivic behind me in the streets.
Vier yanked all the discarded helms and belts over into a pile, and I MM’d them down to inert dust in a concealing blast of lightning, leaving nothing behind. They all gawked at how easily I’d disposed of the things.
“Senhora Cartier is, is a very dangerous woman!” the German got out, and they all shouted in surprise as I grabbed the top of the cage and rose into the air. It was effectively weightless to me at this level of strength, and I started picking up speed, Elemental Command dealing with the air in front of me to reduce horrible wind resistance down to a draft.
“She totally is. She’s perfect for men like you, right?” They didn’t know what to say to that, except maybe to swallow. “She’ll be waiting for you in Brasilia. She’s actually rich enough that she can afford to keep you alive. Of course, if you cross her, you and your families are probably dead, and I’m sure she’ll have all sorts of questions for you that you’re going to answer to the best of your ability, starting with the names of who did this to you.
“I’m sure your first mission will be to go back and show your appreciation for whoever sent you out, and deliver some messages to his business operations and family about being under new management and things, but that’s the way things go in your world, right?” I watched them swallow silently as they hung onto the bars, while we tore through the sky faster than the speed of sound, scarcely a breeze bothering them. “Rest assured, I’m sure she’ll placate the authorities, and all the people you killed don’t have any power to do anything to you.
“On the other side, you’re probably going to be her slaves for the rest of your lives. Hope you don’t have family who were relying on you, right?”
Oh, that got them grimacing.
“So, don’t be confessing to me, I don’t have any legal authority here, just like you, and I’m bringing you to someone who doesn’t have any, either. I’m sure you’ll all get along with her famously. I understand she treats her loyal people well, and those who displease her just vanish into nowhere. So, watch your tongues. You’re costing her money to keep you, so you best prove you are worth it.”
----------
She was standing outside a warehouse at the edge of town, the lot around her completely empty even as the other side of the building was rumbling with moving trucks.
She was also standing two feet off the ground on sparkling cold mist, a tall and leggy blue-eyed classy blonde in white who fairly radiated her sobriquet, the Ice Queen.
Actually, the Icy Bella of Diamonds, Isabella Cartier.
I clunked down the cage a little hard, and it went poof into dust as it did, leaving no sign it had existed. The men just looked at the show of power, imagined it was them again, and said nothing.
“Isabella, how have you been.” We kissed cheeks formally, then turned to face the very nervous muscular men standing there.
“Fine, dear. Keeping busy with all sorts of wonderful projects.” Building her personal empire, construction projects, taming underworlds throughout Brazil. Busy, busy, busy. “What have you brought me here?” She could have been taking about melons.
“This scruffy bunch of mass murderers and arsonists have been subjected to the Unicorn treatment. You know, Masaryk’s hyperactivation nonsense?”
She rolled her eyes. “Idiotas! You can go online and find out what happens to those who take that treatment! Ugh, so you bring me stupid men, too?” They all flushed hotly under the cold blaze of her eyes, especially as the humid temperature dropped sixty degrees. She gestured away. “Go, inspect the lab. Let me get some details from these... Unicorns.”
The wonderful way she dripped scorn just had them wanting to be anywhere but there.
‘Inspect the lab’ was a euphemism for ‘Make me one while you have Sersi’s powers, and completely bypass the multi-million-ruble requisitions and delivery time, thank you.’ I went over to the edge of the building, a ‘stone cover’ slid away to reveal ‘the stairs’ below, complete with a ‘door’ there, and humming to myself, I began to make her a lab as I walked.
Having only half of Sersi’s power was fine. It was more than enough to do what I needed to do, especially with the level of control I was bringing to the table.
Make the room, make the immersion tanks, set up the raw materials, tubing, pumps, attach to the water supply, monitor banks, inspection tables, lockers, blah blah blah. I walked ‘up one side and down the other’, the lab flowing into place all around me, and if I got a bit of a headache doing everything so precisely, it was because I could and this was kinda cool.
Could totally see why Mimic loved her powers.
I walked up back outside, seeing that thirteen Unicorns were now twelve, and some shattered ice was melting rapidly on the hot concrete.
“That dumb?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow as I drifted back up to them.
“He was rude,” she waved indifferently, and all the men swallowed again, petrified with fear. They were supposed to be big and strong and bulletproof, and she had just shattered him with a glance, like brittle ice. “How is it?”
“Looks good! Surprised you have something like this ready!”
“Preparation for the unexpected, dear. Although not exactly what it was meant for originally, doubtless.” Considering it had been filled concrete, I had to agree. “Well, let’s go, let’s go! I will finish with you idiotas when your gamma-soaked brains and disintegrating cells are put on hold for a short time, and I have thought of ways for you to earn me my money back.” Ice swirled behind her gestures, and the men hurried towards the stairs.
“You are going to have fun making an Ice Core, aren’t you?” I asked her in amusement.
“It will be slow but fun, although I must say rapidly gaining a high Core will make it much easier. After this lot are safely bathing?”
“Of course.”