章 606: 45
Date
2011 February 5th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
Vicky was angry.
No. Beyond angry. She wanted to rip apart these lowlifes that dared to threaten her sister.
Mush was still in front of her, radiating stench and smugness somehow in equal amount.
"And then we will use her… hehehe," continued the soon-to-be dead man. The rest of the Merchants behind him and in the truck laughed with him.
Vicky just glared back angrily, refusing to engage the scum.
"But don't worry honey, we will take good care of her!" continued Mush, while the man holding the gun to her sister's head began to gesture her to move.
Amy glanced at her, and she could see the terror in her eyes.
She wanted nothing more than to take the guy out then hug her sister, but she knew no matter how fast she was, the guy with the gun only needed a second.
She was about to say something when her phone rang, but she ignored it. Mush just smirked at her.
"You just have to stay here like a good girl, while we take your sister for a ride. If the fucking PRT deals, you get her back in one piece!" exclaimed Mush while not looking away from her.
"What do you guys want? You know if you hurt my sister you are dead, right?" she asked the villain angrily.
Mush leered at her. "Who said anything about hurting her?"
She was about to bash his head in for that when several gangsters gasped and she had to look away from him.
In the middle of the street, standing before them, was a tall woman in gray armor, and she could sense the anger wafting off her.
She hoped she was here to help because she had nothing.
For once her prodigious strength was straight up useless.
Date
2011 February 5th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
Taylor was angry and scared. And a little happy, but she would never admit it to anyone.
Finally, a fight in real life. She could use everything she learned in the virtual space. And prove her mettle. Granted, it was against the Merchants, and not even against the main parahumans, but it was a fight and she was going to win it.
She was scared because if she fucked up in the best-case scenario, Panacea gets taken away and she didn't even want to think about the worst case.
Even though she practiced hostage situations (being the hostage-taker, negotiator, or even the hostage) it was so much different when she knew it couldn't be reset on demand if she made a mistake.
And she was angry because while she wouldn't say they were full-on friends with Amy, she still liked the girl. And even then, if she didn't know the girl who was taken hostage, she would be angry on general principle.
But she had the power to change things, and she was going to use it. She would show everybody what she was capable of.
She took a deep breath, steeled herself, shook her limbs to get them warmed up, and turned her attention to the screen in her mask.
She already received a message from Tess about the situation. Apparently, there were other fights in the city, but one of them ended and the other was only between gangs. She also told Taylor that she only had to save Panacea, and Dragon was ready to apprehend everybody else if that was done.
She replied with an affirmative, then extended her sense while closing her eyes…
She first looked for additional explosive devices while keeping an eye on what the Merchants were doing, especially the guy who was holding the gun.
She found one more explosive, fixed to the underside of the manhole cover suspiciously exactly in the middle of the boxed-in street.
Using her Tinker knowledge, she went through the device in detail looking for a way to disable it. She used her power to break down the solid explosive, while at the same time draining the battery of its charge. After she was sure the explosive wouldn't go off, no matter what, she marked it on her HUD for Dragon to retrieve at a later time. She then turned her attention to the events.
She marked everyone with her power. Then she went over the Tinker truck the villains came.
It wasn't geared towards armor; it was more about speed, so it was probably not made by Squealer. She used her sensing power to find the power source and figure out how to disable it.
Taylor didn't immediately disable it but made sure that when she had to, she could at a moment's notice. Not that it would matter with Dragon setting up a perimeter, but her training beaten into her demanded that she made sure that everyone was taken out as fast as possible.
Then came the people.
First the unpowered. Most of them were what she expected of Merchants: bums wearing ratty clothes that probably smelled with weapons in appealing state. However, there were several people intermixed with them who were dressed the same, and their weapons even looked the same but their weapons were in excellent shape, they were also wearing body armors under them and were equipped with some kind of communication devices in their ears.
She marked them and sent the details over to Dragon, who immediately began her investigations.
Knowing that was in excellent hands, she softly enveloped all the weapons, paying special attention to the gun at Amy's head, with her power ready to act.
She then turned her attention to the capes.
The fact that she could do this much at the same time was amazing. It was one thing to do this in simulation, but to see that it worked the same in real life made it so much real.
When Admin told her that her main power was multitasking, she dismissed it. But now she could see where he was coming from. Using her multitasking power to prepare the field before battle was so unfair to the bad guys.
But in the end, they were bad guys, so she didn't really care.
Though she made a note to thank Admin when they next talked, it was a really useful power.
Aside from Amy and Vicky, she found two parahumans.
One of them was driving the Truck clad in futuristic armor. More than likely Tinker. She tried to remember if she had heard any Tinker who wore armor like that, but she came up empty.
Not that it mattered. She sought out the power source of the armor and marked it for when she had to disable it.
The other was Mush.
Unfortunately, he didn't even have a phone on him, so she couldn't really simply disable him. Even the trash covering him was far from the usual from what she heard. Instead of random trash, it was filled with durable metals and even some durable plastics, no random squishy trash or paper. It seemed he prepared as much as he could for a fight.
Pity it was against Taylor.
She watched the events unfold a little, making sure that nobody could fire their gun, waiting for an opportune moment to intervene. However, when the criminals began to move Amy, the decision was taken out of her hand.
With a simple flex of her power, she flew up in the air and descended as fast as she could in front of the group.
They immediately noticed her and looked in her direction, some of them yelling out in surprise.
As a side effect, everybody, including the not-Merchant escorting Amy, froze.
Mush, much more on the ball than it was advertised, began yelling at her. "Who the fuck are you, you fucking nun reject?"
She toggled the mask's voice distortion ability before answering. "Let the girl go and surrender."
Don't ask, demand, according to Admin's lessons.
Mush's response was to laugh at her, while Vicky was throwing confused glances at her and worried ones at Amy.
"Hahahaha! Or what, you depressed nun?" he chuckled a little, then without looking away he yelled out to his cohorts. "Shoot the bitch!"
Taylor said nothing, waited until the criminals aimed, then for theatrics snapped her fingers, while using her power she jerked every weapon out of the hands of the people, including the one aimed at Amy.
Then threw them behind her, into one organized heap.
"Sorry, try again?" she responded, trying to sound calm while hiding her giddiness. This was so cool; she couldn't wait to review it from the recordings.
There was a ten-second silence while everybody worked through the realization that they lost their weapons.
The first one to react was the Merchant next to Amy lunging for the frozen girl, only stopped by a lightning bullet flashing in front of his face.
"Glory Girl, get Panacea and get out of here!" Taylor yelled at the confused blonde. "I will take care of this!"
The heroine nodded, and with impressive speed headed for the healer, picked up her, and flew away while everyone watched.
A few seconds later she got a confirmation that Dragon saw them and was heading to intercept them.
She nodded slightly to herself, then turned towards the visibly furious Mush. "Once again, please surrender."
This time the response was Mush charging for her, while the people began to run in every direction possible.
With a simple thought: an electrical cage appeared around the wannabe kidnapper, and disabled the truck, then punched the giant pile of debris in front of her.
Mush flew backward a few meters, but still landed on his giant metal feet. Because she only wanted to create a small distance between them.
While Mush was shaking off the punch, she reached out with her magnetic power and began tearing off the metal parts from the parahuman.
A piece of material flew off the Mush's trash gauntlets, landing next to the guns. "Still not surrendering?"
Another piece was wrenched from his greaves. Then another, and another, while Mush was incoherently yelling insults and threats at her.
The other parahuman was at the same time stuck in his armor and impotently raging, trying to escape.
After a minute tearing debris off the parahuman, he was shivering in front of her, clad in a dirty wife-beater, shorts, and a simple mask, mercifully silent.
"A final time, Mush, surrender!" she spoke with her most authoritative voice. She left the 'or else' hanging in silence.
The cape, shivering on the ground before her on his back, nodded so fast she feared he would knock himself out.
"Yes! Yes! I surrender! Please!"
She nodded and encased the man in another cage, then called Dragon to collect them.
"Stay there and behave yourself," she told the terrified villain, then jumped in the air, vanishing from sight.
She flew around the scene then returned to the same place Vicky threw her and changed back into her civilian clothes, sat down, and began to wait to be 'rescued'.
Date
2011 February 5th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
He watched as the events progressed and couldn't help but feel disappointed.
Yes, he caused enough chaos to distract everyone, but because he couldn't really use his powers to make sure everything went as planned, he was stressed as hell.
The fight he engineered between the ABB and Empire fell flat thanks to Armsmaster, so he simply told the mercenaries to retreat and dump their gear before leaving the city. They could return later when the heat died down.
As for the fight between the Merchants and the Empire, the less said the better. Without his power, he couldn't really experiment with trying to involve the watching PRT troops.
The loss of Trainwreck didn't really matter. The man was unstable and basically useless as a Tinker. Though he could probably use his death to cast a negative light on the PRT when the time came.
However, the Panacea kidnapping plan at least gave him some additional information.
He made sure to have a stream going, showcasing the event to the world. If nobody showed up and Panacea got kidnapped, that was extra chaos, if she had gotten killed even better.
But instead, a new electricity using parahuman showed up, took the entire assault force apart in two minutes, then left.
It was frustrating, but still not a total loss.
He now knew about a new parahuman that was possibly Serenity and the world also knew about her, so if she wanted to keep a low profile that was so not happening.
Though the power she showed was mildly concerning. And even the armor showed that she was definitely not an amateur.
Serenity was a Tinker, so she might have crafted that.
Knowing that his power was on the fritz, he still tried using it one time.
While the mystery parahuman was talking to Mush, he ordered one of his snipers (after the bomb he had placed under the manhole cover didn't respond) to take a shot.
The shot went off and he watched as it connected to the parahuman. However, the moment it reached her she vanished in a puff of glitter and streamer, while a great scroll unrolled where she was.
On it, a simple, short word: No.
Hiding his rage, he calmly turned off his power and went back to observing.
And now all he had to collate the data he received and decide how to continue his plan.
He sat down in his very comfortable chair, input his code, and prepared to start when the lights went out and the computer turned off.
He sat in the ominous darkness for a few seconds before uttering one word.
"Fuck."
Date
2011 February 5th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
Tess said goodbye to Colin, then turned her attention towards the situation unfolding near the Boardwalk.
Her drones had already set up a perimeter when she got the notification that Taylor was 'online'.
She emoted a smile, pitying the villains.
Then got the information about the suspicious Merchants, and at the same time found the stream about it.
She immediately began to trace both the stream back to its source and the frequency that the earpieces used.
It quickly became clear to her that both of them were disguised, but it was nothing to her. While it took her a few minutes, she managed to pinpoint the final endpoint to a place under the city.
After a quick check, it became clear that the origin point was where Admin said Coil could be possibly found.
Tess, while assigning one of her forks to take care of the captured Merchants and help with the cleanup, began concentrating on finding, then infiltrating the villain's lair.
Silly humans, nothing can stop a competent (and sane) AI.
Date
2011 February 5th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
Emily watched as the new cape effortlessly took the remaining Merchant cape apart, and couldn't help but feel trepidation.
A new cape, just as the Merchants were taken out? Nothing good would come from that.
At least Panacea was unhurt. She could hardly imagine what New Wave would do if the girl got hurt.
"Director, Armsmaster, and Dragon are at the entrance."
"Good. Test them, then send them to the servers. I want to know who fucked with us."
"Yes, Sir." said the agent, who immediately reached for their headset to forward her orders.
Another agent came up to her, and she just knew she wouldn't like what she would hear.
"Director, the stream is viral."
Date
2011 February 5th - Saturday - Earth Bet Time
Vicky soared in the air holding her sister by her armpits, neither of them saying anything, only for a few seconds before she saw one of Dragon's drones.
The drone projected a bright arrow that was pointing down, so she followed it and a few others before landing next to a PRT van in an intersection.
Ignoring everything and everyone, she immediately hugged her sister.
"Amy! Are you alright? Did you get hurt?" she asked rapidly while holding her sister close to herself.
Amy mumbled something, but she couldn't really understand it. She let her a little go but still held her. "What?"
"Taylor!"
She blinked in surprise, then blanched. "Oh shit, I totally forgot about her! We have to get her!"
She let go of Amy and turned around to fly back, only to be stopped by a familiar voice.
"No need to worry, Miss Dallon." came the calm voice of Miss Militia. "If you are talking about Miss Hebert, Dragon found her, and she is already being checked by one of the medics."
"Oh, thank god!" exclaimed Vicky, relieved. "Can we check up on her?"
"I'm afraid first I need to ask a few questions about what happened. As soon as finished, you can go and talk to your friend."
Vicky glanced at Amy, who nodded, then turned back to the heroine and answered. "Okay, but make it quick."
She watched as Miss Militia opened her mouth to start, but another voice interrupted her.
"Vicky!"
She turned around only to see her mother carried by her aunt, followed by the rest of the family.
Miss Militia was swept aside by the entire New Wave, and Vicky and Amy found themselves enveloped by their family, all of them hugging them, asking questions about what happened.
Hours later, both of them were sitting bundled in thick blankets, watching the replay of the fight.
After their family made sure they were alright and listened to them retelling the event to Miss militia, they immediately took them home, refusing them the opportunity to make sure Taylor was okay.
Though Miss Militia told them she was alright, maybe a little shocked, they still wanted to talk to her personally. But Carol was adamant they return home where they could protect them.
She told them that for today they were to rest, and tomorrow the entire family would get together and talk about what happened.
Vicky sent a message to Taylor telling her she would call her later and then concentrated on making sure Amy was alright.
The entire event shook the healer up something fierce.
She barely talked, letting Vicky describe everything, mostly just clinging to her.
As they finished the video for the tenth time, Amy reached for the tablet and turned it off.
"So that parahuman…" she spoke up slowly.
"Yes?"
"That was Taylor, right?"
"Totally."
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