Chapter 14: 『Intergang』
The quad of peeps made their way to the front of the department store. The Department of Extra-Normal Operation Agents had their weapons trained on the closest intergang bots. "There's eleven of them and about twice as many of us. I think we have the numeral advantage."
Agent Cadmus glanced over her shoulder towards the woman who spoke and shook her head. "Bad idea. They're faster when it comes to reactions than humans. You'll only get a few bullets off before they do the same thing they did to the man over there." She pointed to the man who looked like a popped paintball. The asphalt was decorated in red crimson, the smell of iron painted the nostrils of all who breathed, it was nauseating.
"Then what do you expect us to do?" Hank asked as he looked over at her. He had a general idea how this could all be handled, but he wanted to see the girl's intellectual side at work when it comes to tactics and creating stratagem.
『Milestone Quest: Intergang is attacking the Bank you defended earlier, destroy their robotic enforcers. Your Reward: 500 V-Coins and 500 EXP. No EXP is rewarded if your EXP pool is full, EXP will be exchanged for V-Coins instead if this is true. 』
Hekate stared at the bots, using her x-ray vision she noticed that there were more inside the remains of the bank. If the agents were to swarm, they'd be eliminated almost immediately.
"It seems there are more inside, we have to draw them out... So far it seems they're robbing the bank. It's likely this was something they thought humans could handle." She recalled the robbery from earlier at the bank when she had gone with Winn. "Sending these bots in a way was to make sure they got their hands on the cash."
Hank nodded slightly hearing her, seeing how the eleven outside were the only numbers visible to them in the moment. "How many of them are inside of the remnants of the building?"
"About twenty four more of them. Your... Our agents are outnumbered." She informed them with a sigh as she glared at the bots. They were in a close formation. If she was in a clearer area, she could wipe them all out. This would cause those inside to likely attempt to exfiltrate. The question was, how were they planning on doing that?
This place was virtually surrounded by the DEO's agents and officers. It was unlikely they'd be able to just storm their way out and go to wherever their post-target location was. "I'll wipe out the droids in the front of the building." She informed them, as she looked at Hank for a few moments, then towards the other two agents who accompanied him.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Hank asked as he looked at her, she was clearly bruised. From what he could see, she had been hit more than once, even before their arrival.
"I have assessed their capabilities and reaction time. They have a few seconds, all I have to do is be quick and precise. My Heat Vision charge and targeting time is too slow." She said as she was easily able to pick out her own flaws. It took several seconds to attack a second target, even without ceasing her heat vision after the first. It took even longer to turn her head while she concentrated, so that wasn't a good thing either.
She had to be physical, like how she was with some of the robbers from earlier.
"If I look like I'm being beat down, give me covering fire."
Nodding to her, they watched as Hekate launched herself from their cover and came crashing down between the bots. Two of them fell over from the shockwave that was generated from her impact.
Just as they went to get up, she stepped on the chest chassis of one of them, crushing their internals as she stomped down on it. "You're going to robot heaven, ya' fool!" As the other one got up and went to take aim and pull the trigger with the pulse rifle. She rolled forward and grabbed the gun before kicking off the legs from beneath the droid.
It fell to the ground, disarmed and dislegged. She grinned down at it as she picked it up by the thorax and knelt down. She used it as a shield as one of the other droids opened fire and blew apart its fellow man of gears.
Oil and pieces of electronics went in all directions as it exploded in her hands. She grinned deviously as she pulled her hood back up and lunged forward.
"Kill the Kryptonian!" One of them mechanically screeched an order as they began firing at her. However she was moving too quick for their targeting sensors to keep up.
All her movements brought dust up from the ground. Side to side, up and down. She used her capacity for flight to leap at her opponents.
With a running jump kick, she took off the head of the assumed commander of the bunch, which had given the order. This didn't stop them however, and it didn't seem to disorganize them either.
They all began to chant the same order over and over again. It was as if they were dead set on ending her. The droids kept on firing and she kept on dodging. The DEO began firing on three of them which were most visible. The bullets didn't do much other than obtain a distraction.
Sending her fingers through the chest cavity of an intergang droid, she tossed it to the side as it would then proceed to explode.
There were at least six still left outside. She looked towards the remains of the bank, towards the doors that lead inward towards the vault. The droids looked like they were about to start coming outside. They were gathering creates of what looked like money, jewels and gold bricks.
"There were gold bricks in the National City Bank?" Hekate was rather confused at this. However she continued to combat the other droids.
Rushing towards the three the DEO agents were firing one, she kicked one of the heads off while grabbing the other and twisting it. She tore the head off and threw it at terminal velocity at the one closest to it. The three of the droids exploded, leaving only three more left.
It was too late to just fight those as the other droids were beginning to pour out of the vault, their weapons at the ready. These weren't pulse rifles, these looked more like something from star wars. They were long black tubes with a grip and stabilizing handle. They smelled of burning ozone.
"Laser guns..." She muttered to herself as she launched herself forward again, however as she did so a red bolt of unknown energized gas left the barrel of gun. It burned right through her hood and left a mark on her cheek.
Her eyes got wide as she fell forward, holding her cheek. A burning sensation echoed throughout her body. Looking at her hand, it was painted in her own blood. Fear, pain, her eyes looked up at the bots.
They were armed with Kryptonian harming weapons. Hank wasn't lying when he had said they were equipped to harm Superman.
Taking in an extremely deep breath, she projected a massive shriek in the direction of the robots. Essentially being a sonic scream due to the Decibels rating. The first ten that came out of the vault rapidly convulsed and exploded along with their weapons.
Panting she looked over towards the DEO agents who were moving behind the surrounding debris and laying down covering fire for her. The droids themselves were moving behind the wedges in the walls and breaking through doors to take cover and return fire.
It was like the middle of a warzone in this small quadrant of the city.
"Agent Cadmus, move back. They're more powerful than the last wave, if they get any direct hits on you, they might actually kill you!" Hank shouted as he knew without the sun, her healing would be slower. But she didn't seem phased by that at all, on her face was true unadulterated anger.
Kicking off the ground as she charged in towards the droids, her suit's hood seemed to be repairing itself hexagon by hexagon. Each time she dug her foot into the ground with the kick, she sent chunks of rocks, debris and dirt into the air.
A red bolt hit her in the lower abdomen, burning a hole in her suit and causing the skin beneath to bleed from the pores. The wound would smoke, and the bleeding would halt almost immediately, clotting at a quick rate.
Leaping off the ground, she came crashing down on one of the bots with her fist traveling through its face. Sending bits and pieces in all directions she used her super speed to rapidly run through each of the machine henchmen.
Bashing her hands rapidly into their armored exteriors, breaking their internal hardware with blunt force. She took out another ten of them, which left at least four of them still inside the vault.
"Agent Cadmus, this is an order, fall back! It's a trap further inside! We've picked up K-radiation!"
When Hank yelled this out, she glanced over her shoulder before she felt something strange. She felt dizzy, nauseous. She placed a hand over her covered mouth and looked towards the vault. Backing up slowly, she made it to the exposed main floor of the bank. However before she could turn to make a run for it, she turned and tripped over a disembodied robot arm.
"What... What is this...?" She shook her head as she rolled onto her back, using her elbows to crawl backward. The four robots were emerging with the goods, a brick of Kryptonite in their hand. "Eh...?"
Hank couldn't help but stare at the cube of Kryptonite. There was no telling how much the enemy had or where they had gotten it. "Take out those droids! Agent Wilks and Josslin on me! We have an agent down!" He rushed out with the two agents towards her location.
Her veins were glowing a bright green, just like her one eye.
Collapsing onto her back as the one unarmed droid became walking towards her while the others were rushing away from the scene. She turned her head to look over at her approaching allies.
Picking up a pulse rifle from a downed robot, Hank rushed over and bashed the droid back, causing it to stumble. He then fired it once and sent it flying backwards, flying into a piece of steel reinforcement from a destroyed wall. The steel reinforcement impaled the robot, causing it to explode and send shrapnel in all directions.
Hekate who was hardly conscious reached up and had grabbed Agent Josslin who was attempting to drag her away with one arm. She pulled her down and got on top of her in an effort to shield her from the shrapnel.
A rather fleshy sound could be heard.
Agent Josslin stared up at the child who was shielding her, they weren't moving. There was a dazed look in her glowing eyes, she didn't see an form of breathing. She lowered the girl's scarf and pushed back the hood, Kryptonian blood was dripping from the girl's lips. "Agent.. Cadmus?" Josslin asked as she took off her helmet, revealing red-brown shaven hair. Sitting up, she moved her hand along the girl's back and noticed that there were several sharp pieces of metal in her back.
"Director! We need a medic! She's in need of immediate medical treatment!"
Hank spun around and looked at the limp Kryptonian in the woman's hands. Josslin was clearly freaking out, despite having been a bit harsh towards her in the beginning. Right now, he could see that all she saw in her arms right now, was a lethally wounded little girl.
"All forces fall back!" Hank ordered and gestured for his men and women to fall back towards their transports.
This was around the time Superman arrived, he looked over at the kryptonite which was on the ground in the remains of a robotic hand. Frowning at the design, he would look towards the girl in the supersuit being taken away face down on a gurney.
"Hank!" Clark Kent bellowed, "What's going on here!?"
Hank looked over towards Clark with a frown on his face, "Intergang set up a trap for her! They had Kryptonite. There are three more bots on the loose, think you can take care of them?"
Clark sighed and looked in the direction the bots had fled. "I can take care of them... Do you know where they got the Kryptonite?"
Hank frowned slightly, "I have a few guesses that I'm willing to make. It's funny... Agent Cadmus also wanted us to get rid of the Kryptonite."
Clark tilted his head slightly, he had heard about this new hero which appeared in National City, which he ironically knew who it was. "If you listened to my request, I doubt they'd have any of it to use against your allies." He could see the tinge of guilt in Hank's eyes, he chose to exploit it.
Hank nodded in agreement, he knew that if the DEO had this supply as a contingency, it meant that the government could acquire it from them. Or at least someone from the government who had connections to people such as Lex Luthor or Mannheim.
Clark nodded in return before blasting off towards their fleeing enemies. They weren't getting away, not after they had hurt another Kryptonian. The irony was that he had originally came to National City to offer his mentorship. It was an oddity that he'd find that she was working with the DEO, or at least cooperating with them. She wanted assets, he could tell.
Weekly Power Status
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