Chương 15: 15 The Plot Thickens
Commercial District North
September 30th, 18:30
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Circus doesn't call out to them, but from the way they simply jump into Mimic's phantom's waiting arms and allows herself to be captured shows her intent to surrender easily enough.
It's clear to Emma that Circus is just using them to protect her from the other Villain, but that is their job, and it just makes things easier if they only have to actually fight one of the Villains, instead of both teaming up.
Circus doesn't even fight when Mimic chucks a pair of cuffs to one of his phantoms, who then slaps them over Circus' writs. And even then, three phantoms are left watching vigil over her so she doesn't escape.
Mimic summons another half dozen phantoms to compensate.
It's only a short wait later that the newest Villain arrives, casually walking down the mostly abandoned street. They're lucky the road they are on is currently closed, as well as a few around them, thanks to some cape fight a couple of days ago, Emma isn't sure of the details.
"Yo," the man, who Emma belatedly recognises as Leech of the Red Hearts, greets them, running a hand through his messy black hair as he does, resting his other hand on his sword, just below the guard. "You mind handing that, uh..." he pauses, trying to figure out if he should say 'guy' or 'girl', before seeming to give up on guessing, "that hermaphrodite over?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," Mimic answers, voice hard, "Circus here is under arrest for theft, vandalism, breaking and entry and assault and battery."
"Don't forget arson." Circus' cheerful, but still difficult to gender voice cuts in, making them all stare at her, unimpressed.
Moving on, Leech shakes his head and lets out a sigh. "I'm sorry, but that is not an option for me. I can't let anyone else get them, I'm afraid."
"Why not?" Emma interjects, "I'm remembering your briefing now. You don't actually even have a criminal record, asides associating with a criminal enterprise, but that's not really something you can get charged with. As it stands, we'd have no reason to arrest you, but if you force our hand here, then that would change. What has Circus done that would be worth all that trouble?"
She ignores the look Mimic gives her, feeling rather annoyed at how he clearly wasn't expecting her to have enough competence to know when to dig for information instead of rushing into a fight.
Leech meanwhile, seems genuinely surprised at the news he doesn't have a record, but quickly shrugs it off. "It doesn't matter. I've already given up on longing for a normal life, having a record would change little. As for what she's done?" He pauses, seeming contemplative for a moment, before nodding his head, clearly coming to some kind of decision.
"I suppose it wouldn't harm me to tell you. I'm sure you've heard of a new drug on the street, TGT?" Emma freezes slightly, a feeling of anticipation welling inside of her. Ever since that first meeting where they talked about it, no progress has been made in investigating TGT. This is their chance to change that!
But that's no reason to let her excitement show, so she pretends only mild interest. "Perhaps we have, what of it?"
"Well, it's not ours, which is already weird, because most of the drugs in this city are ours," she feels herself scowl at his casual admittance, "it's coming from some outside source, and being given to independent dealers to pedal. That hermaphrodite," he points at Circus, who waves back, "was caught handling a case of TGT, supplying dealers in our territory without our permission."
With that revelation, Emma looks back at Circus in a new light, thinking that they might be able to give enough information that can point them in the direction of whatever new Tinker is making these drugs.
"All the more reason we should keep her. We are on the side of the law here, not you." Emma's words just make Leech sigh again and drag a hand down his face.
"I'd really rather not fight. Can you two be bribed?"
Her brow twitches at his audacity. "No. Legally, we have no right to arrest you right now, but we can legally bring you in for questioning, and if you resist, we can then legally arrest you. So, either leave, or surrender."
Leech doesn't really deign her with a proper answer, simply sighing again and shaking his head disappointingly, his scruffy black hair brushing over his eyes. "For the record, I really, truly, do hate violence."
The moment the final word leaves his life, everything changes. Leech's free hand snaps down to the handle of his sword, and at the same time, a pair of Mimic's phantoms rush forward, intending to quickly grapple him to the ground.
They never get the chance, as, in a blur of movement, Leech draws his blade and bisects both of the phantoms in the same movement.
Fast! Is all Emma can think as she subconsciously takes a step back, and before she even realises it, Leech is right in front of her, blade swinging. But her will is flame, and so she explodes into fire.
Time seems to slow down as her fire and his sword both approach each other, but, the very instant her flames reach his sword hand, she catches how his hand immediately starts to boil, as if her fire is molten lava.
Leech doesn't hesitate to abort his attack in the face of the overwhelming heat, jumping back a fair distance with only a grunt of pain.
The street enters a brief stalemate as they all stare at Leech's hand in surprise. Emma herself is shocked, as her fire has never burned anyone so fiercely before. Unfortunately, as a Hero, she realises that that means she can't attack him too much. If he burns that badly just from contact, he could probably only last seconds under her fire before dying.
"Ow," Leech says, taking his sword in his off-hand and shaking his primary. But before he can complain further, he is beset upon by a horde of phantoms, and it's only then that Emma looks around and realises that Mimic is going all out.
His power lets him create phantom copies of anyone he made contact with in the last twenty-four hours, including parahumans, even if the power the phantom gets is greatly weakened. And now, surrounding them, is an army over a hundred strong, with phantom copies of Miss Militia, Velocity, Assault and Battery.
She knows he could make a phantom of her at the very least, but he refuses to make phantoms of Wards. Not that is seems it will really be necessary, he's already summoned enough.
Turning back to Leech, she is honestly entranced by his sheer skill as he dances through the horde of men and women, most of whom are made up of PRT troopers, even wearing the black stormtrooper-esque armour.
Yet, Leech dances around them all with ease, dodging most blows and parrying the few he doesn't, all the while his sword lashes out constantly, every swing cleaving through at least one phantom.
Shaking her head, Emma stops admiring his skill and instead raises a flaming arm, tracking his form as he dashes about and taking a moment to properly direct her power. Killing him seems like a legitimate risk, she she can't actually let her fire wash over him.
But by that same merit, Leech won't simply allow himself to be consumed by flame, and since Mimic's phantoms aren't really real, they aren't effected by her fire. Thus, she can use her power to corral Leech, if not actually to incapacitate him.
With that in mind, her power bursts forth, washing over Mimic's phantoms and straight into the phantom that Leech was about to cut down, forcing him to abort the attack, lest he burn. Doing so leaves him vulnerable to an attack form the side, but he manages to block it with his injured arm.
Gaze hardening, Leech moves even faster than before, cutting down a dozen more phantoms even while keeping away from Emma's fire.
But that only lasts until the phantom of Velocity suddenly appears behind him, not moving nearly as fast as Velocity himself, but still moving fast enough to match Leech. Unfortunately, Velocity's power trades strength for speed, so the phantom's surprise attack is about as hard hitting as a particularly bristly feather.
That being said, it did serve perfectly well as a distraction for Assault's phantom to reach him, swinging down to deliver a heavy blow, and right before Assault's fist lands, he gets impacted on the back by a high-velocity rubber bullet shot from the Miss Militia phantom.
The fake Assault absorbs the kinetic energy from the bullet and pushes it all into his fist, which sinks itself directly into Leech's shoulder. A distinct crunch follows the blow, but even as he cries out in pain, Leech still manages to spin with the force of the hit to swing his uninjured arm outward, cutting into the phantom of Battery just as it appears, bisecting it with ease.
He wasn't even swinging that hard, which makes Emma think that his blade must just be incredibly sharp.
Leech manages to makes some distance by jumping back, his right arm hanging limply at his side as he grimaces at them, negligently cutting down the following Velocity, a task made much easier now that he was expecting it.
"Haaah, I really hate violence," he sighs, before looking up again, his face full of determination.
With a deep breath to brace himself, Leech charges forward once more. Only this time, he doesn't bother fighting the phantoms, only cutting down those that get in his way as he clearly intends to rush the two Heroes.
Seeing this, Emma creates a wall of flame between them, not wanting to learn how sharp his sword is personally. Unfortunately, her created wall of fire works against her, as it temporarily blocks her sight of Leech.
Because of this, she doesn't see as he jumps in a spin, dodging a shot from the Miss Militia phantom all the while his left arm snaps out, sending his sword flying like a javelin, through the fire and straight at Emma.
She has no time to dodge when she sees the blade pass through her fire, and can only widen her eyes and watch as it slams straight into her cut, piercing clean through her body like cutting warm butter.
The pain makes her lose control of her power, causing it all to dissipate. But she can't focus on that over the burning agony in her gut, crying out in pain as she falls onto her butt and stares down at the sword poking out of her body, blood starting to pool around the wound, staining her already red costume with a deeper hue.
She can barely form a cognisant thought through the pain. She's never been stabbed before. Cut? Yes. Stabbed? No. And it is so much worse than she thought it would be.
But even then, even through gritted teeth and shaking limbs, Emma forces herself to move her head back to the fight, just in time for Mimic to reach her.
"Redemption! Don't worry, everything's going to be okay, you're gonna be okay," he says, seeming more panicked than she is, which only really serves to piss her off.
And she welcomed the anger, it helps her focus through the pain. So she lets her repressed anger come to the fore, and forces herself to move.
"Redemption, don't force yourself, you'll just aggravate-"
"Will you shut up!" Emma interrupts her superior, "I'm not stupid," is all she says as she raises her arms.
She's not stupid enough to try and get back up, she doesn't need him telling her that. But that doesn't mean she has to just do nothing. She is a Shaker, not a Brute. She doesn't need to move to help.
And so, with a simple gesture of her arms, more to help with visualising what she wants to accomplish than any actual need, a bright wall of fire erupts from her form. It rushes ahead of her a short distance and then splits into two, moving in opposite directions and curving around her, until she, Mimic, and Circus are all trapped inside a dome of fire.
She makes sure to keep it thin, both due to knowing that Leech is especially susceptible to her fire and so that she doesn't make the mistake of taking her eyes off of him again.
Like that, she merely watches Leech fight, gritting her teeth in pain as Mimic does his best in tending to her wound without removing the blade. They both know doing so would give her only minutes of life, and help is likely already on the way. It's best to leave it in, no matter how much white hot pain lances through her body with every breath she breathes.
Even without his sword and with one of his arms useless, Leech still doesn't seem to struggle all that much against the constant onslaught of fighters, even taking care to dodge Miss Militia and work around Assault.
If the two were there in actuality, instead of just phantoms, he naturally would not have been able to sustain such a feat, but with their weakened powers, he finds no real struggle keeping up with the heat.
In no time at all, Mimic's army is down to a measly two dozen, but Emma can hear the sounds of approaching sirens and knows that time is almost up.
Yet, just as she's starting to feel celebratory enough to ignore the pain in her gut, the battle field suddenly changes.
Four lances of blood streak into the melee, piercing through nine phantoms at once, one of them being Assault's copy. Contrary to their own shock at this development, Leech merely lets out an audible groan, and as one, they all turn to the side that the blood lances came from.
What greets them is the sight of three people standing before an all-black SUV. Two of them are a pair of men in black three-piece suits, with black vests and red undershirts and ties. In their hands, they both hold a matching M4 Carbine, with a foregrip on the under-barrel, a laser attachment on the side and a hybrid scope and holographic sight.
Both of them are holding their guns at the ready, but not pointing them at the Heroes, merely standing at attention behind the third new presence.
Standing a step ahead of the other two, is a tall woman, inching close to seven foot tall. Dressed in a white sleeveless dress that contrasts with her tanned skin and has slits running down both sides of her body, showing off her toned arms and thighs.
Noticeably, her body is completely covered in scars, from her legs to her arms and hands. Even what is visible of her neck show more scars, with one jutting from just above her collarbone down to under her dress, and another cutting across her throat.
Her face is set in an impassive frown as she glances across the street, and Emma finds herself feeling uneasy as the woman's attention falls on her.
The woman's face, like the rest of her body, is scarred. There is a faint, graft-like scar on her left cheek, and a vertical scar cutting down through the left side of her lips. But the scars are hardly as disconcerting as her eyes, of which she has three.
And even then, that's just her left eye and a second eye underneath it that looks like a thin scar has been torn open to reveal the yellow eye beneath. The third eye however, stands out the most, the vertically split eye in the middle of her forehead serving as irrefutable proof of her being a parahuman.
But, on the right side of her face, where her eye should be, is instead a large, horrific scar that is mostly covered by her bangs of pitch black hair that turns blood red at its roots. She also has a pair of straight, gunmetal-grey earrings on her left ear.
However, contrary to what Emma was expecting, the woman simply ignores her and Mimic, and turns her disinterested eyes to Leech.
"You don't look like you're doing so hot, Yuta, need a hand?"
Leech twitches slightly at the name and the pun, giving his ruined right hand a brief glance, before turning his attention back to the tall woman, matching her yellow-eyed stare with his own dark orbs. "I wouldn't say no, Kleus, but I'd like to remind you, secret identities. 'Sides, I don't know how you're going to get through that wall of fire without just killing the brat."
Emma almost calls out at the nickname, but bites her tongue, while the now named Kleus simply rolls her eyes, clearly not caring much about the idea of secret identities.
"Doesn't matter. We're leaving," she says, surprising all three of them.
"What do you mean, leaving? With both of us here, we can handle this," Yuta argues with no real heat, seemingly just genuinely curious, and also not really seeming to mind the use of his name. The PRT already know it, after all.
"Because," Kleus rolls her eyes, "there is no point. You've already missed your chance." As she says that, she points to the dome of fire, and everyone follows her finger to behold...nothing.
Wait. Nothing?
"Where did they go!" Emma fails to refrain herself from exclaiming. She knows she saw Circus when she set up her dome of fire. Did they jump through it? In hindsight, she probably should have expected her fire to not work all that well against someone who came from the same place as Mary and Suzuya.
"Tsk," is the only sound that leaves Leech's mouth as he realises the same. Circus is gone.
"C'mon then, we need to get you patched up," Kleus says, motioning for Leech to follow her as she turns and walks back to the SUV, her goons taking up the rear.
Emma considers trying to stop them, but she's already bleeding out and doesn't want to risk it. Mimic seems to be of the same mind as they simply watch the criminals leave without a care.
Though, Leech does give his sword a mournful look before shaking his head and accepting the loss. He can always get another one forged, but that doesn't mean he wants to leave it behind.
Only once the SUV has turned a corner out of sight does Emma drop the barrier of flame, feelings of inferiority and incompetence washing over her mind as she properly comes to terms with her failure.
She didn't capture a single Villain, all she managed to do was get stabbed. She hasn't felt so useless in a long time, and she hates it. She hates it so much that she can feel the beginnings of tears gathering in the corners of her eyes and that just makes her hate everything even more.
With a sigh, she deflates, dismissing her fire as she does so. She almost falls to her back before remembering the sword sticking through her and remaining upright, suddenly wincing as the pain seems to double as she starts thinking about it.
Hoping to avoid that pain, she tries to take her mind elsewhere, such as listening to the gradually approaching sirens. Or turning her head up to stare at the twilight sky, vague questions that she can't even truly define, never mind answer, swirling through her mind.
But as she is looking around, she catches sight of something in the distance and focuses in on it. About a block away, at the top of a tall building, she spies the forms of two people. One of them is standing, while the other is sitting, their legs swinging over the edge of the building.
As she scrunches up her face and focuses on their figures, she manages to make out some distinctions.
The one standing is wearing a black jacket with a lot of silver bits, buckles? Maybe? He's also wearing a mask. Emma can't pick out any features form the mask, but is not sure if that is due to distance or because the mask is simply blank.
Unlike his monotone, the person sitting down is wearing a costume of varying red and teal, with a hat like a court jester of old, and as soon as that thought runs through Emma's mind, her blood runs cold.
Clowns. She's looking at a pair of Clowns.
Not like Circus, who is clearly just a cape dressing up as a clown, but actual, Clowns.
She watches the two of them, seeing as the sitting one seems to be clutching their stomach, as if they're laughing, while the standing one is holding his hand out like he's accepting something.
She watches the colourful one reach into her costume and pull out what looks like a handful of bills, handing them over to her partner before climbing to her feet.
Did they make a bet on this? Emma can't help but think as she watches the pair turn around to leave.
But, as if summoned by her attention, the colourful one suddenly pauses and turns around, and though she can't see their face, Emma just knows that they are staring right at her.
But all the Clown does is give her a wave, before joining her partner in disappearing behind the building.
Once more, Emma isn't sure how she's supposed to be feeling.
On one hand, she can feel that she is getting closer to unravelling the mystery that is the TGT drug, but on the other hand, she's starting to properly realise that the further she digs, the closer she might be getting to finishing her own grave.
Nothing good can ever come of having the attention of a Clown, this she knows well enough.
As the emergency sirens finally reach their street, she can only silently hope that things don't end up anything like Columbus. She shivers at the thought.
///
Subject Title: Leech
Subject Name: Yuta Orimoto
Power Classification: Brute 4 (Sub: Mover 1)
Affiliation: Villain, Red Hearts
Place of Residence: Varying, currently Brockton Bay
Date of Birth: March 7th, 1990
Status: Active
Height: 5'8
Weight: 160lbs~
Class S Threat: No
Appearance: Short, unkempt black hair, black eyes, pale skin, Asian features and a lethargic demeanour
General Assessment:
Grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Orphaned at two(2), he grew up in a foster home. Lived a fairly average childhood, with the notable fact that he befriended a girl by the name of Rika Okkotsu.
When he was six(6) years of age, Yuta witnessed his friend, Rika, die in a street accident (See: Page 17) which caused his trigger. He was eventually taken in by The Adepts*(See: Adepts) in New York, but was forced to leave some time in two thousand and six(2006), likely due to causing some manner of injury to fellow Adept members, though no details are known (See: Incident report: NekS-Nek160-3209-04A>L)
He eventually found himself under the employ of the Red Hearts(See: Red Hearts), often seen with the Tenth Suit under Ten(See: X) where he has remained.
General Personality:
Tired. He is lethargic and seems to carry a great weight on his shoulders. He is rather empathetic, but not enough to really try, though his morals won't allow him to kill needlessly or pointlessly traumatise people.
Despises people who breaks bonds, and is fiercely loyal.
Powers:
Standard Brute power, with a focus on speed and explosive power. Skill with a sword is likely natural talent.
Additional notes:
Only recently gained an actual criminal record(See: Incident Report: NeyR-Bry90-1121-L<PW>C)
*Wasn't officially declared a member of the gang, but was effectively raised by one of their members
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
OoOoOooOoOOo~ stuff is happening~ what does it mean!?~ Who were those Clowns! What were they doing there! Who are these mysterious Villains!~ What are Circus' goals!?~ Is Emma going to be okay?~
And perhaps the most important question, does Circus have a penis!?
Who knows~ :D
Also, those with a particularly discerning eye might have noticed the small jjk reference in this chapter...
(4)Advanced chapters on pat.reon, link in description and profile. Also, join the discord with this invite code! Pj3Dttwses
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