Bab 152: Helplessness #152
"This thing is my responsibility. I made a mistake, and I intend to fix it," the sometimes heroine, sometimes villainess resolutely said, and I honestly didn't have the energy or leeway to be paranoid.
"Whatever. I'll take all the help I can get right now," I said as I raised my gun and resumed firing before Brimstone could gather his bearings and continue attacking Crush.
"Thank you," Enchantress said as she flew ahead of me, wildly gesturing with her arms, to which a portal opened, and a gigantic dragon-like creature emerged from within it.
It was gigantic, a couple of sizes larger than Brimstone. The creature's size immediately got the latter's attention as he ignored Crush, Enchantress, and me and charged the giant lizard, clearly feeling threatened.
The dragon took to the sky to avoid Brimstone's attacks, and the latter raised his hand, attacking it with concentrated beams of heat that didn't hit as the dragon flew around with incredible agility.
Looking at this scene, I frowned, finding something weird, and it didn't take long to put my finger on it. "An illusion?" I muttered, connecting the dots after noticing several peculiarities.
It had to be an illusion of sorts. Otherwise, how could such a gigantic creature generate no wind and not stir up the dirt and debris when it took off the ground? It was also weird how the dragon was only dodging without counterattacking.
"It is," Enchantress replied, raising an eyebrow. "The illusion should keep Brimstone busy and deplete some of his stamina..." she added, turning towards the crater where Crush was getting battered earlier.
"In the meantime, we should make sure your friend is fine, regroup, and prepare to counterattack," she concluded, and I could only nod as I made my way towards Crush.
"You okay?" I asked as I stood at the edge of the crater, looking down on Crush, lying on the ground in three pieces (literally) with fleshy tendrils sticking out of them, wriggling as they reached for each other.
It was a sigh that, under normal circumstances, would make me lose my lunch, but I was too tired and distressed by the flaming giant chasing behind a dragon in the background behind me to care.
"I will be once you put me back together," Crush said, grinning as she looked at me. "So stop staring and help me up," she added, causing me to sigh as I reluctantly jumped into the crater.
"What's got you all bothered...?" Crush teasingly said as she looked at my uncomfortable appearance holding her torso. "Haven't seen a pair of knockers before? Or is it the guts hanging out of my stomach?" she asked, her grin growing more pronounced at the frown I gave her.
"No, it's mostly your fucking mouth, so please keep it shut," I said, feeling the urge to drop Crush's torso to the ground and leave, to which she just chuckled as I put her torso down next to her lower body.
"I can take care of the rest," Crush said as she used her left arm to attach her torso to her lower body and stood up as the two body parts joined immediately.
She looked around and quickly located her right arm a distance away. Grinning, she walked towards it, picking it up and attaching it to her shoulder before cracking her fists.
"Let's get back to crushing," she concluded, leaping out of the crater and towards Brimstone without waiting, to which I could only scratch my head and follow reluctantly.
...
Gotham
Wayne Enterprises
"I hope you don't mind me saying so, but you look like hell, Bruce," Lucius Fox, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, said, raising an eyebrow as he sat behind his office, staring into Bruce Wayne's eyes.
"I know," Bruce Blankly replied. "Can you build this for me?" he asked as he retrieved the schematics he received from Deadshot and offered them to Lucius Fox.
"Let's see," Lucius said, putting on his glasses as he took the schematics and examined the design. "For the 70-foot monster wreaking havoc outside, I presume?" Lucius asked, raising his head to look at Bruce, and he received a nod of acknowledgment.
"I'll see what I can do," Lucius said, returning the nod as he opened the laptop and started looking for the materials needed to create the rifle, having already memorized the design.
"I have good news and bad news..." Lucius said after fiddling with the laptop for a minute. "We have the required materials to create the rifle, however..." he added, sighing as he trailed off at the end of his sentence.
"We can't build it," The CEO went, causing Bruce to frown wordlessly, prompting him to continue speaking. "It's not out of our creative range..." he added, shrugging his shoulders.
"However, the facilities necessary to assemble such an advanced piece of technology were destroyed by that thing's rampage," he concluded with a helpless shake of his head.
"Fine, prepare the materials then. I'll think of something," Bruce replied as he contemplated the issue after watching Lucius nod and excuse himself, leaving the office to get the materials.
His first thought was to contact Ted Kord and get his help to assemble the rifle, but he dismissed the idea as that would take too long since Kord Omniversal was too far away. It would take too long for him to get here and vice versa.
If The Flash were present, the idea would have been plausible. However, the speedster was off-world fighting a terrestrial threat along with most of the League's heavy hitters.
Bruce contemplated and dismissed many ideas until he settled on one that was more of a gamble than anything else but was all he had, so it had to suffice.
"I have everything you need here, Bruce," Lucius said as he calmly walked into the office, moved behind his desk, and put a black suitcase on top of it.
"The schematics are inside as well," The CEO added as he sat down, gesturing for Bruce to take a look, but the latter wasn't interested, picking up the suitcase without peeking first.
"Thank you, Lucius," Bruce said as he stood up and picked up the suitcase before heading towards the exit.
...
"Is this fucking thing even beatable...?" I murmured, gritting my teeth as I watched the fucking tsunami Enchantress created evaporate in front of my eyes before hitting Brimstone.
No matter what we did, including hitting Brimstone with everything we had, energy attacks, brute strength, magic, a rainstorm, and tsunami, it barely staggered the flaming giant, and he'd immediately recover as if nothing happened.
Still, the rain clouds Enchantress summoned seemed to slow him down somewhat and didn't allow him to accumulate enough heat to use that flame wave thing he used earlier, but we still had no means of harming Brimstone.
'The police should have evacuated everyone by now...' I thought to myself, contemplating my options as I tried and failed to find a method to defeat Brimstone.
I could barely distract the flaming giant whenever he managed to pin Crush or Enchantress, as he was beyond my weight class, literally and figuratively speaking.
I might have been able to do something about Brimstone if I'd known about him and had time to prepare countermeasures, but I didn't, so buying time and shifting his focus was the best I could do for now.
I felt so helpless that my obsession with power might come back if I made it out of the fight alive, which I could if I turned tail and fled. But what good would that do?
I'd ruin my reputation and be known as a coward for the rest of my life. I could live with people calling me a coward, but I'm not sure I could live with repeating my first encounter with Firefly.
The images of those people burning as they ran around crying for help were still fresh in my mind, and it was more than enough. I didn't need an entire city's worth of melting chees faces showing up in my nightmares, thank you very much.
I didn't get to overthink the matter any more than I already did, anyway. The roar of an engine broke my line of thought. I looked around and immediately noticed the Batmobile speeding towards us from the distance.
'Boy, am I happy to see you, for once...' I mused, bitterly smiling at the sight of Batman jumping off his car, a black suitcase in hand. If anyone knew how to beat Brimstone, it had to be the caped crusader.
Sure enough.
"Take this," Batman said as he threw the suitcase in my direction and went on as soon as I caught it. "Inside are the schematics of the experimental rifle Deadshot used to defeat Brimstone and the materials to create it."
...
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