Chapter 22: Crush
MissBrainProblems
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Chapter 22: Crush
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If only we could have run even faster, though; the moment that we turned to escape, Rune was already after us, flying as fast as a Liberty Lady or an Adamantium could. As she hit the rear of our pack, she tapped the two of our members that were slowest to react, levitating them off of the ground: Leet and Trainwreck. "Shit! Open up on her!" At Grue's orders, we all stopped in our tracks and turned back to where Rune was floating next to our two Tinker team mates, Leet and Trainwreck struggling as unseen telekinetic forces strained on their bodies.
All of us in the warehouse began using our various abilities on the Empire woman, but nothing seemed to have any meaningful effect. I piled rats into a small hill to reach where Rune was levitating, but even once they reached her, their teeth and claws only found some sort of forcefield surrounding her body, preventing their attacks from reaching her flesh. Chariot fired his repulsor rifle onto Leet and Trainwreck, in an attempt to knock them out of whatever Rune's new range might have been; unfortunately, Rune's hold on our allies was strong enough that they barely budged an inch each time Chariot's shots hit them. Circus brought out several throwing knives, directing them with perfect aim at Rune's neck, only to watch helplessly as they plinked off the Nazi woman's telekinetic shield; Biter's punches as he circled around to a rear strike experienced no better luck, the force from his blows not even enough to set Rune off-balance. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit." Barker next to me was hyperventilating, gas coming out from between his lips in large bursts as he desperately tried to figure out a way to apply his power without harming Leet or Trainwreck in the process.
Regent was swinging his arms that way and the other in an attempt to apply his ability to Rune, but the Empire woman used her powers to right herself each time she was set off-balance by the Master. Grue was desperately attempting to blind Rune with his darkness, but the telekinetic was somehow managing to push even that power away whenever it touched her. As a knife began to stab itself into the Nazi woman's back - to as little avail as Circus or Biter had managed with their attacks - Bitch sent her dogs charging in whenever there was an opening; while they managed to either push, shove, or toss her away, no damage was caused by their teeth or their claws, and she kept pulling her two captives along with her wherever she went. As Leet began to scream in pain while his spine twisted horrifically, Uber shouted in fury, pulling out a pistol from his holster. "Fuck this!" Opting for full lethality, the combat Thinker began firing onto Rune with as many bullets as his guns could hold.
As if on Uber's cue, the rest of us pulled out our own firearms - myself included - before opening up on the Nazi leader whenever we had a clear shot that didn't threaten to hit Leet or Trainwreck; unfortunately, hot lead didn't seem to have any more effect than knives, monstrous dogs, or gigantic knuckle dusters had, as all of the bullets simply lost their momentum the moment they hit Rune's forcefield, and a second later, a snapping noise was heard from Leet's body, the Tinker's upper half twisted at a 90 degree angle to the side. As Uber screamed in dismay at the sudden, horrifying death of his partner, us of the Entwined could only watch helplessly as Rune stripped away the power armor that Trainwreck always wore. "H... He... Help me! Please!"
I reloaded my pistol as Chariot swapped out to his teleporter rifle, apparently hoping that if he got our team mate far enough away from Rune, that her ability would cease quite literally tearing Trainwreck apart; the Empire woman, for her part, simply moved Trainwreck that way and the other, preventing Chariot from being able to get a proper bead on our Tinker friend. "Please! Chariot! Help me!" Our commander clenched his jaw as he began taking pot shots with his teleportation gun, hitting nothing but pieces of scrap scattered around the warehouse; as the rest of us continued sending whatever offensive power we could toward Rune, she managed to strip Trainwreck down to his "real", amorphous blob body that I had seen here and there during my time with him.
"Disgusting." Rune sported a sneer on her face that suggested that she felt like she was looking at nothing more than dogshit while she examined Trainwreck's monstrous form. "This is why the world needs the Empire. To rid society of filthy mongrels like this." Trainwreck froze stiff for a moment, and none of us understood why until blood began flowing out of his nose a second later, our friend's head dropping limply down.
"No! Trainwreck! You... You fucking bitch!" Barker had to be actively constrained by Biter as the anger he felt at seeing our team mate sadistically killed right in front of us began to overwhelm the fear and anxiety that had arrested him just a moment early.
"Fall back!" Grue's voice cut through the din, as Bitch's dogs formed up a rear guard to allow the rest of us time to complete our escape from the warehouse. "Fall back, regroup! We're on the back foot right now! Get out of here!" Bitch visibly tensed up as Rune reached for one of the monstrous hounds, but no immediate effect was visible as the dog snapped impotently at the Nazi leader; with a click of her tongue at seeing her power not work on the hound, Rune thankfully, graciously, fell back to where Theo's body was still suspended on the cross, eyeing the rest of us dangerously.
"Barker! Come on! We have to go! We can't fight her like this!" Chariot had grabbed our team mate even as he seemed ready to go fist-fight the crazy, Davis Limit-breaking telekinetic that had just killed three people in as many minutes; even as Barker continued to curse and shout in Rune's direction, though, we remaining members of the Entwined grit our teeth, clenched our jaws, and rushed back out of the warehouse to our van.
Right before I was out of ear shot, I heard Rune speak up again. "And you three. You failed to assist me. You failed to assist your leader. You are not fit to defend the white race with me." A second later, the sound of Cricket's gargled, muted, raspy scream could be heard, before we were gone.
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"He's dead. He's dead. Trainwreck. He's dead. Danny. Trainwreck's dead. He's dead." Barker's eyes stared ahead at nothing, his voice weak and raspy while Chariot drove as quickly as he could away from that damned warehouse.
"Barker. Barker, listen to me. You need to get a hold of yourself." As I grabbed onto Barker's shoulders, Biter - on the other side of his friend - gently cradled the black kid's head. "This isn't over yet. We're going to get her, okay?" As I spoke, I noticed Circus sitting on the other side of the van, their eyes closed and jaw clenched as they rapidly cycled throwing knives through their hammerspace; all of us had coping mechanisms, I supposed. "We're going to get her back for what she did to Trainwreck, okay? We're going to get revenge. We're going to kill her, okay?" I could barely believe the venom in my own words. There I was, Danny Hebert, actively declaring that I was going to participate in the death of another human being; I doubted that anyone could blame me, though, not after what I had just seen Rune do to three other people. If anything, the woman was a mad dog, far more vicious than anything Bitch could ever make, and in desperate need of being put down before she hurt anybody else.
"This is Undersiders actual, on all channels." Grue's voice came over our headsets, prompting all of us to perk up and pay attention. "Fox, please for the love of God tell me you were watching that, and please for the love of fucking God tell me that you know what that shit was. Over." It was odd, hearing the normally composed Brian clearly feeling rather out of his element with what had just happened in the warehouse.
"Yeah, I was watching it." What was even more odd was the sheer panic in Tattletale's voice, an emotion that I never would have imagined that particular woman was capable of possessing. "Your helmcam didn't show me everything, but, uhh... Okay, let's see. Second trigger, obviously. Broke the Davis Limit, obviously. She can TK herself, obviously. Uhm. Weight limit now, that she didn't have before; survey says it's... Three hundred pounds? Maybe a bit higher. She won't be hitting Bitch's dogs or throwing cars around, at least." I let out a slightly sardonic scoff at that; after what had happened to Steinn, Leet, and Trainwreck, I wasn't sure if having trucks tossed at us was what we needed to worry about. " She can only tag two things at a time, same as before. Limited amount of force that she can exert across all objects she's marked, and- Shit, ouch, fuck, hold on a moment."
With a curse, Tattletale continued listing off all of the information that her power was giving her. "Headache. Fuck. Ow. Alright. Okay. Her personal telekinesis is a lot stronger than what she applies to other things, so her shield is going to be really hard to get through with physical attacks. Chariot's repulsor and teleportation guns will still affect her and her marked objects, since there's no projectile being fired, just an effect. Uhm, let's see... She's still affected by Master and Stranger effects, as Regent and Imp showed us; sadly, we don't have any mindcontrollers in the city right now, so that's kind of useless to us... Shit. Christ almighty. Who'd'a fuckin' thought she'd go and have a second trigger like that? Fuck me." If the situation wasn't so screwed beyond believe, I would have more than delighted in hearing Tattletale sound as stressed out as she was. "Accord!"
Without missing a beat, her apprentice's voice came over our headsets, already detailing out a course of attack against Rune. "Assume that energy based attacks can penetrate her telekinetic shield. Grue's tendrils were deflected, but we don't know yet if lasers or fire will be. Laserdream, Browbeat and Shielder are assisting the PRT against Spitfire's crew; explain to the heroes what the situation is - they won't be content to let a Davis-broken telekinetic freely rampage around the city, to say the least - and have the Undersiders draw Rune to where Laserdream and Spitfire are while the Entwined make their way over on their own. If energy based attacks don't work against Rune, then..." I felt my heart clench up for a moment as one of the three villainous masterminds in Brockton Bay found himself at a loss. "...we gather information and plan again from there. Over."
"Spitfire here." The mercenary woman's voice came through our headsets, the sounds of battle in the background. "We'll try to get the heroes to play nice, but they're apparently really pissed after what happened at Winslow. A lot of them are still over at the school running damage control, but a lot of them are still here, too." I winced for a moment, remembering that Alan and my mom were still unaccounted for, on top of everything else that had been going on. "The sooner we can get backup over here the better. Over."
Chariot spoke up, audible both in the van and on our radios. "Entwined actual here. We're on our way, Spitfire. Sit tight and hold out." A brief second passed, before Chariot chimed in again. "And Coil? Not your fault. Don't even think for a moment that it was, or I'll beat your ass when this is all over." We hadn't heard our leader speak over the radio, but we knew that Coil was likely there with Tattletale and Accord, had likely seen the moment that Rune crushed Trainwreck's internal organs and brutally murdered him; everyone in the van darkened a little bit, even as Chariot continued to rush off toward where Spitfire's crew was.
"This is Undersiders actual. We'll have Rune there shortly. Be ready for when she arrives. Over." With Grue's transmission, our radios went silent; the only sound that any of us in the van could hear was the noise of Chariot gunning his engines as fast as they could safely go, interspersed briefly by a quiet sob or a soft curse from Barker. As I stared at the seat that Trainwreck would normally have taken, I felt the rats that quickly entered and then left my range as we drove along scream in fury and anger during what few seconds I had control over them for.
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"Dropping us in three... Two... One... Dropping." As Chariot counted down, those of us left in the van tensed up, preparing ourselves to be dropped right in the middle of the fight between the Palanquin mercenaries and a combined PRT and New Wave Team; to say that it was chaos would have been an understatement. Labyrinth's power had turned the surrounding battlefield into something like a Greek temple, with marble pillars and statues of various gods likely known only to the Shaker herself; Faultline was running around and collapsing the towers of marble in the direction of the heroes, with Labyrinth creating more each time her team mate brought one crashing down. Spitfire was opting for a "spray and pray" tactic, sending her napalm fire out all across the half-temple, half-city area and keeping pressure on the heroes; as Newter jumped around and attempted to tag those of his enemies who had skin showing, Gregor played interference by throwing balls of goop wherever the heroes tried to advance.
The PRT and New Wave were keeping as much pressure on Spitfire's crew as the Palanquin mercenaries were pushing onto the heroes themselves; in addition to Laserdream, her husband, and her brother, Victory Man, Gallant, and Clockblocker from the Protectorate were engaged, as well. As Laserdream and Shielder shot beams of light that Gregor frantically blocked with his slime, Browbeat and Clockblocker desperately tried to catch the far too agile Newter in either a power hold or a time stop; Victory Man and Gallant attempted to handle Spitfire, but the zoning that her flames and Faultline's collapsed pillars caused prevented either from getting a proper bead on any of the other three mercenaries.
"Stop!" As soon as we landed, Chariot shouted out an authoritative commanded, shooting his repulsor rifle into the air for emphasis; the heroes and the Palanquin crew both paused their fighting, looking toward us of the Entwined even as they remained tense and ready to get back into the conflict at a moment's notice. "In case you hadn't heard, heroes, we have much bigger issues at hand than this little playground bullshit."
As Chariot stopped to see if the heroes would cooperate with us or not, I noticed Clockblocker with his helmet-covered head turned my way; I wasn't sure if he was looking directly at me, but as he spoke, he removed all doubt. "Hey, kid." Everyone turned to me as Clockblocker pointed, and I gulped and nodded in response. "Do you remember what I told you when we met in the PRT offices? That if you turned villain, that I'd treat you like any other villain?" As the time-stopping hero stepped forward, the other members of the Entwined drew up around me, pointing their respective weapons toward Clockblocker. "That I'd beat your ass and haul you in? I don't give a shit if we're outnumbered right now or not; give me one good reason not to do that right now."
I pushed forward through Circus and Biter, moving closer even as Chariot put a hand on my shoulder to try and stop me; I felt my swarm of rats grow larger, ready to descend upon the battlefield if it became necessary. "Clockblocker, sir, please, just listen to me, alright?" The hero folded his arms, but didn't interrupt me, either; taking that as permission, I continued speaking while new marble columns slowly grew nearby via Labyrinth's power. "Steinn is dead." That caused the other heroes to freeze, the eyes that I could see focused intently on me. "Leet is dead. Trainwreck is dead." I heard Barker behind me make a small noise of dismay and anger. "I'm pretty sure Cricket is dead, too. Rune's had a second trigger event. She's broken the Davis limit, and she's gone insane. She's killing everyone in sight, saying some shit about how she's the only person worthy of leading the Empire, and some other Nazi fuckery, I don't really know." I stepped forward, holding my arms wide in a peace gesture. "Nothing we tried worked against her. Not bullets, not knives, not Bitch's mutant dogs. Accord says that our best bet right now is energy based attacks." I pointed toward Laserdream, then Shielder, then Spitfire. "Please. We need you to cooperate with us, or Rune's bodycount is going to keep rising. Please, Clockblocker, sir."
Clockblocker looked back to where his allies were standing, seeking a response from them; after several seconds, Laserdream nodded, followed by Shielder, and then the rest of the heroes. Turning to me, the time-stopper nodded, his voice still sharp as he spoke. "Fine. Temporary truce. Give me a second, I need to call this shit in." The hero pressed a hand to the side of his helmet, waited a few seconds, and then continued speaking. "Clockblocker, highest priority message." Another several moments, before continuing. "Director. Rune's broken the Davis limit. She's already killed Steinn, Leet, Trainwreck, and Cricket. I need you to designate her an A-Class threat and issue a kill order for her, effective immediately. I also need you to have the other groups establish a field truce with the villains they're engaged with." Several seconds, followed by a nod. "Thank you, Director. Clockblocker out." Looking to the Entwined and to Spitfire's crew, he spoke up so we could all hear. "Alright. All of our efforts will be directed to stopping Rune, before she kills anybody else. What happens after she's been neutralized is a different story, but-" The sound of mutant dogs howling interrupted Clockblocker, and we all turned our attention to where the Undersiders had appeared on a nearby rooftop.
"She's here!" Chariot shouted out even as Rune appeared in the midday sky, moving as fast as Laserdream or Shielder themselves could have hoped to; as Bitch's hounds landed in the midst of Labyrinth's marble temple, unloading their passengers, everybody prepared to engage with the telekinetic.
And then I noticed something, or rather somebody that wasn't supposed to be there, that was out of place. "Max?! What the fuck are you doing here?!" Using my rodents to keep an eye on the situation, I rushed over to where the Empire teenager was curled up behind one of the pillars; Chariot watched me go, but neither he nor anybody else moved to stop me. "I thought you were back at the warehouse?!"
I heard the sounds of battle start to erupt, but knowing that neither my rats nor my pistol would have any effect, I focused on Max as he spoke. "Mom, she said... She said I... That I wasn't fit to be her son..." The teenager spoke, his blue eyes wide with fear as he shook from fright. "No powers... Not... Not worthy for the Empire... She was going to..." Max looked up at me, grabbing onto my arm and squeezing it tight. "She was going to kill me, Gnaw. She... She was going to kill me." He swallowed past a heavy lump in his throat, a slightly unhinged smile on his face as he continued. "I... I grabbed onto one of the dogs, I... I had to get away, didn't know what else to do... I... Dad... Mom..."
As surreal as it was to watch the Max Anders - sociopath extraordinaire and leader of the youth wing of a skinhead gang - be on the verge of a breakdown, I had to turn my attention to the fight. When I did, part of me wished that I hadn't; the energy attacks weren't working. As much as they managed to knock Rune around, and prevent The Nazi woman from approaching any of her opponents, neither the beams of light from Laserdream and Shielder nor the flames from Spitfire were causing any real, noticeable damage to Rune; the lasers didn't do much but keep her off balance, and the napalm that Spitfire threw out just slid off of Rune's body, dropping to the floor without any meaningful effect on the white supremacist leader. It wasn't working. Jesus Christ. Nothing was working against her. Was she immune to everything? Was there nothing that could hurt her? Even Victory Man's Tinker weapons and Gallant's emotion orbs were having no effect, whenever they managed to hit.
In desperation, I pulled my pistol out, taking shots at her that I knew would be utterly ineffective; I had to try something, though, couldn't just sit there and do nothing, had to hope that maybe, somehow, one of my bullets would penetrate her forcefield, would just... Something, God damnit! I immediately regretted my choice of action; turning her attention to the new source of attack, Rune laid eyes on me... And on Max. "Maximilian. You naughty, naughty boy." A beam from Laserdream knocked Rune through the air a few feet, but the Empire woman righted herself and continued floating slowly toward where I and Max were. "You ran away from your mother. Not only are you useless and worthless to the Empire, to the cause, to the white race, you are disobedient, as well." As Rune began to speed up, I saw a crazed look cross her face as she bared her teeth in our direction. "I'll make sure that your punishment is especially excruciating, Maximilian!"
Right before Rune reached us, something appeared between Max, myself, and the Nazi cape. It was a blue blur, at first, as it landed in front of us, but once my eyes took stock of him and the barrier he erected between himself and Rune, I recognized the man: Shielder. "Get out of here, you stupid kids! Go!" Not needing to be told twice, I grabbed Max - assisted by Biter, who had rushed over to help me - and retreated away from where Shielder was holding off Rune.
"Pathetic." One word from Rune, before I heard a low zap of energy, the sound of a shield dissipating; turning around, I saw that the woman had marked Shielder, the New Wave hero floating off the ground, his face contorted in pain.
"No!" Laserdream screamed in fury and terror as she began throwing every last beam of light she could manage; Browbeat looked on helplessly as his brother-in-law's arms and legs began to twist at unnatural angles, the Brute unable to try and deal with Rune lest he get in range for her to tag him, as well. As I reloaded my completely useless and pointless gun, I saw Chariot level his teleportation gun at Shielder; as our commander attempted to draw a bead on the hero in question, Rune dragged Shielder along with her in the air as Laserdream's attacks shoved the Nazi cape around. "No, no, no, no!" Laserdream continued yelling, her attacks managing to throw Rune that way and the other, but not disorienting the Empire woman enough to force Rune to let up her grip on Shielder. Faultline was attempting to collapse Laybrinth's pillars on top of Rune, but the Empire woman dodged each one with ease. The next few events happened in rapid succession: Chariot growled, I heard several of Shielder's bones cracking apart, and then the New Wave hero's body teleported, close to where Spitfire was; the man was limp, unmoving, not breathing. "Nooo!" Laserdream's cry was blood curdling.
"Tattletale!" Grue's voice came loud over our headsets, completely ignoring the protocols that we had previously established for communication. "For fuck's sake! We need something, and we need it now!"
"Her forcefield doesn't let anything in unless she wants it to." The sound of the Undersiders' strategist speaking came next. "Not objects, not kinetic force, not your darkness, not even energy or things like Gallant's attacks, except if she chooses to allow it. She can let air in from outside, can let in heat if she needs it, but nothing else gets in unless she allows it. There's a limit to what her field can take from a single, individual source - it's why she allows herself to be knocked back by the lasers being shot at her or by Bitch's hounds, to keep their full force from hitting the shield and getting through it to cause actual damage - but it's nothing that we can possibly manage to penetrate with anything we have. Would probably take Scion or an Endbringer to get past it. It's that strong." Even as Tattletale gave us the information her power had granted her, Rune returned to the fight, aiming for Laserdream with a sadistic expression on her face. "God damn fucking headache! Okay, here's the important part. She can control what enters her barrier, but she can't control what leaves it, in turn.
"Okay?! What fucking good does that do us?! If none of us can get into her field, then how can any of us pull anything out of it?!" Grue sent a tendril out to touch Laserdream, copying her powers to help add to the firepower being sent in Rune's direction.
"When a warm object is placed in a cold environment, its heat naturally migrates out and into its surrounding area; the chill itself doesn't actually 'enter' the object, so Rune's shield won't be able to mitigate it." Accord's voice, talking calmly, and clinically; I was glad that Tattletale's apprentice, at least, was staying steady. "That being said, we need to produce a flash freeze around Rune; her forcefield won't be able to keep her body's heat from escaping, and she'll enter a hypothermic state, either rendering her incapacitated or killing her."
Everyone tapped into the communication and not otherwise engaged with zoning out Rune turned to the one individual in our group capable of creating a burst of cold like that. "Barker." Coil's voice, that time, with a heavy, solid, and meaningful intonation.
The boy in question looked at all of us with an expression of sheer terror and overwhelming apprehension on his face; as he fell back a step, his legs trembling as he did, he shook his head, muttering a weak protest out in a quiet voice. "Nuh uh. No way. No way in fucking hell." As lasers fell elsewhere in the temple, we stared pointedly at Barker, as he himself stared back at us with fear and anxiety; as much as his body shook from the increasing horror, he knew as well as the rest of us did that there was no other choice. Whether anybody liked it or not, Barker was our only salvation, our only hope against the crazed, maniacal Nazi woman that had been tearing our ranks to shreds; what a fucking situation we had gotten ourselves into.
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Edit: Modified some sections to clarify the limit of Rune's new powers.
If only we could have run even faster, though; the moment that we turned to escape, Rune was already after us, flying as fast as a Liberty Lady or an Adamantium could. As she hit the rear of our pack, she tapped the two of our members that were slowest to react, levitating them off of the ground: Leet and Trainwreck. "Shit! Open up on her!" At Grue's orders, we all stopped in our tracks and turned back to where Rune was floating next to our two Tinker team mates, Leet and Trainwreck struggling as unseen telekinetic forces strained on their bodies.
All of us in the warehouse began using our various abilities on the Empire woman, but nothing seemed to have any meaningful effect. I piled rats into a small hill to reach where Rune was levitating, but even once they reached her, their teeth and claws only found some sort of forcefield surrounding her body, preventing their attacks from reaching her flesh. Chariot fired his repulsor rifle onto Leet and Trainwreck, in an attempt to knock them out of whatever Rune's new range might have been; unfortunately, Rune's hold on our allies was strong enough that they barely budged an inch each time Chariot's shots hit them. Circus brought out several throwing knives, directing them with perfect aim at Rune's neck, only to watch helplessly as they plinked off the Nazi woman's telekinetic shield; Biter's punches as he circled around to a rear strike experienced no better luck, the force from his blows not even enough to set Rune off-balance. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit." Barker next to me was hyperventilating, gas coming out from between his lips in large bursts as he desperately tried to figure out a way to apply his power without harming Leet or Trainwreck in the process.
Regent was swinging his arms that way and the other in an attempt to apply his ability to Rune, but the Empire woman used her powers to right herself each time she was set off-balance by the Master. Grue was desperately attempting to blind Rune with his darkness, but the telekinetic was somehow managing to push even that power away whenever it touched her. As a knife began to stab itself into the Nazi woman's back - to as little avail as Circus or Biter had managed with their attacks - Bitch sent her dogs charging in whenever there was an opening; while they managed to either push, shove, or toss her away, no damage was caused by their teeth or their claws, and she kept pulling her two captives along with her wherever she went. As Leet began to scream in pain while his spine twisted horrifically, Uber shouted in fury, pulling out a pistol from his holster. "Fuck this!" Opting for full lethality, the combat Thinker began firing onto Rune with as many bullets as his guns could hold.
As if on Uber's cue, the rest of us pulled out our own firearms - myself included - before opening up on the Nazi leader whenever we had a clear shot that didn't threaten to hit Leet or Trainwreck; unfortunately, hot lead didn't seem to have any more effect than knives, monstrous dogs, or gigantic knuckle dusters had, as all of the bullets simply lost their momentum the moment they hit Rune's forcefield, and a second later, a snapping noise was heard from Leet's body, the Tinker's upper half twisted at a 90 degree angle to the side. As Uber screamed in dismay at the sudden, horrifying death of his partner, us of the Entwined could only watch helplessly as Rune stripped away the power armor that Trainwreck always wore. "H... He... Help me! Please!"
I reloaded my pistol as Chariot swapped out to his teleporter rifle, apparently hoping that if he got our team mate far enough away from Rune, that her ability would cease quite literally tearing Trainwreck apart; the Empire woman, for her part, simply moved Trainwreck that way and the other, preventing Chariot from being able to get a proper bead on our Tinker friend. "Please! Chariot! Help me!" Our commander clenched his jaw as he began taking pot shots with his teleportation gun, hitting nothing but pieces of scrap scattered around the warehouse; as the rest of us continued sending whatever offensive power we could toward Rune, she managed to strip Trainwreck down to his "real", amorphous blob body that I had seen here and there during my time with him.
"Disgusting." Rune sported a sneer on her face that suggested that she felt like she was looking at nothing more than dogshit while she examined Trainwreck's monstrous form. "This is why the world needs the Empire. To rid society of filthy mongrels like this." Trainwreck froze stiff for a moment, and none of us understood why until blood began flowing out of his nose a second later, our friend's head dropping limply down.
"No! Trainwreck! You... You fucking bitch!" Barker had to be actively constrained by Biter as the anger he felt at seeing our team mate sadistically killed right in front of us began to overwhelm the fear and anxiety that had arrested him just a moment early.
"Fall back!" Grue's voice cut through the din, as Bitch's dogs formed up a rear guard to allow the rest of us time to complete our escape from the warehouse. "Fall back, regroup! We're on the back foot right now! Get out of here!" Bitch visibly tensed up as Rune reached for one of the monstrous hounds, but no immediate effect was visible as the dog snapped impotently at the Nazi leader; with a click of her tongue at seeing her power not work on the hound, Rune thankfully, graciously, fell back to where Theo's body was still suspended on the cross, eyeing the rest of us dangerously.
"Barker! Come on! We have to go! We can't fight her like this!" Chariot had grabbed our team mate even as he seemed ready to go fist-fight the crazy, Davis Limit-breaking telekinetic that had just killed three people in as many minutes; even as Barker continued to curse and shout in Rune's direction, though, we remaining members of the Entwined grit our teeth, clenched our jaws, and rushed back out of the warehouse to our van.
Right before I was out of ear shot, I heard Rune speak up again. "And you three. You failed to assist me. You failed to assist your leader. You are not fit to defend the white race with me." A second later, the sound of Cricket's gargled, muted, raspy scream could be heard, before we were gone.
"He's dead. He's dead. Trainwreck. He's dead. Danny. Trainwreck's dead. He's dead." Barker's eyes stared ahead at nothing, his voice weak and raspy while Chariot drove as quickly as he could away from that damned warehouse.
"Barker. Barker, listen to me. You need to get a hold of yourself." As I grabbed onto Barker's shoulders, Biter - on the other side of his friend - gently cradled the black kid's head. "This isn't over yet. We're going to get her, okay?" As I spoke, I noticed Circus sitting on the other side of the van, their eyes closed and jaw clenched as they rapidly cycled throwing knives through their hammerspace; all of us had coping mechanisms, I supposed. "We're going to get her back for what she did to Trainwreck, okay? We're going to get revenge. We're going to kill her, okay?" I could barely believe the venom in my own words. There I was, Danny Hebert, actively declaring that I was going to participate in the death of another human being; I doubted that anyone could blame me, though, not after what I had just seen Rune do to three other people. If anything, the woman was a mad dog, far more vicious than anything Bitch could ever make, and in desperate need of being put down before she hurt anybody else.
"This is Undersiders actual, on all channels." Grue's voice came over our headsets, prompting all of us to perk up and pay attention. "Fox, please for the love of God tell me you were watching that, and please for the love of fucking God tell me that you know what that shit was. Over." It was odd, hearing the normally composed Brian clearly feeling rather out of his element with what had just happened in the warehouse.
"Yeah, I was watching it." What was even more odd was the sheer panic in Tattletale's voice, an emotion that I never would have imagined that particular woman was capable of possessing. "Your helmcam didn't show me everything, but, uhh... Okay, let's see. Second trigger, obviously. Broke the Davis Limit, obviously. She can TK herself, obviously. Uhm. Weight limit now, that she didn't have before; survey says it's... Three hundred pounds? Maybe a bit higher. She won't be hitting Bitch's dogs or throwing cars around, at least." I let out a slightly sardonic scoff at that; after what had happened to Steinn, Leet, and Trainwreck, I wasn't sure if having trucks tossed at us was what we needed to worry about. " She can only tag two things at a time, same as before. Limited amount of force that she can exert across all objects she's marked, and- Shit, ouch, fuck, hold on a moment."
With a curse, Tattletale continued listing off all of the information that her power was giving her. "Headache. Fuck. Ow. Alright. Okay. Her personal telekinesis is a lot stronger than what she applies to other things, so her shield is going to be really hard to get through with physical attacks. Chariot's repulsor and teleportation guns will still affect her and her marked objects, since there's no projectile being fired, just an effect. Uhm, let's see... She's still affected by Master and Stranger effects, as Regent and Imp showed us; sadly, we don't have any mindcontrollers in the city right now, so that's kind of useless to us... Shit. Christ almighty. Who'd'a fuckin' thought she'd go and have a second trigger like that? Fuck me." If the situation wasn't so screwed beyond believe, I would have more than delighted in hearing Tattletale sound as stressed out as she was. "Accord!"
Without missing a beat, her apprentice's voice came over our headsets, already detailing out a course of attack against Rune. "Assume that energy based attacks can penetrate her telekinetic shield. Grue's tendrils were deflected, but we don't know yet if lasers or fire will be. Laserdream, Browbeat and Shielder are assisting the PRT against Spitfire's crew; explain to the heroes what the situation is - they won't be content to let a Davis-broken telekinetic freely rampage around the city, to say the least - and have the Undersiders draw Rune to where Laserdream and Spitfire are while the Entwined make their way over on their own. If energy based attacks don't work against Rune, then..." I felt my heart clench up for a moment as one of the three villainous masterminds in Brockton Bay found himself at a loss. "...we gather information and plan again from there. Over."
"Spitfire here." The mercenary woman's voice came through our headsets, the sounds of battle in the background. "We'll try to get the heroes to play nice, but they're apparently really pissed after what happened at Winslow. A lot of them are still over at the school running damage control, but a lot of them are still here, too." I winced for a moment, remembering that Alan and my mom were still unaccounted for, on top of everything else that had been going on. "The sooner we can get backup over here the better. Over."
Chariot spoke up, audible both in the van and on our radios. "Entwined actual here. We're on our way, Spitfire. Sit tight and hold out." A brief second passed, before Chariot chimed in again. "And Coil? Not your fault. Don't even think for a moment that it was, or I'll beat your ass when this is all over." We hadn't heard our leader speak over the radio, but we knew that Coil was likely there with Tattletale and Accord, had likely seen the moment that Rune crushed Trainwreck's internal organs and brutally murdered him; everyone in the van darkened a little bit, even as Chariot continued to rush off toward where Spitfire's crew was.
"This is Undersiders actual. We'll have Rune there shortly. Be ready for when she arrives. Over." With Grue's transmission, our radios went silent; the only sound that any of us in the van could hear was the noise of Chariot gunning his engines as fast as they could safely go, interspersed briefly by a quiet sob or a soft curse from Barker. As I stared at the seat that Trainwreck would normally have taken, I felt the rats that quickly entered and then left my range as we drove along scream in fury and anger during what few seconds I had control over them for.
"Dropping us in three... Two... One... Dropping." As Chariot counted down, those of us left in the van tensed up, preparing ourselves to be dropped right in the middle of the fight between the Palanquin mercenaries and a combined PRT and New Wave Team; to say that it was chaos would have been an understatement. Labyrinth's power had turned the surrounding battlefield into something like a Greek temple, with marble pillars and statues of various gods likely known only to the Shaker herself; Faultline was running around and collapsing the towers of marble in the direction of the heroes, with Labyrinth creating more each time her team mate brought one crashing down. Spitfire was opting for a "spray and pray" tactic, sending her napalm fire out all across the half-temple, half-city area and keeping pressure on the heroes; as Newter jumped around and attempted to tag those of his enemies who had skin showing, Gregor played interference by throwing balls of goop wherever the heroes tried to advance.
The PRT and New Wave were keeping as much pressure on Spitfire's crew as the Palanquin mercenaries were pushing onto the heroes themselves; in addition to Laserdream, her husband, and her brother, Victory Man, Gallant, and Clockblocker from the Protectorate were engaged, as well. As Laserdream and Shielder shot beams of light that Gregor frantically blocked with his slime, Browbeat and Clockblocker desperately tried to catch the far too agile Newter in either a power hold or a time stop; Victory Man and Gallant attempted to handle Spitfire, but the zoning that her flames and Faultline's collapsed pillars caused prevented either from getting a proper bead on any of the other three mercenaries.
"Stop!" As soon as we landed, Chariot shouted out an authoritative commanded, shooting his repulsor rifle into the air for emphasis; the heroes and the Palanquin crew both paused their fighting, looking toward us of the Entwined even as they remained tense and ready to get back into the conflict at a moment's notice. "In case you hadn't heard, heroes, we have much bigger issues at hand than this little playground bullshit."
As Chariot stopped to see if the heroes would cooperate with us or not, I noticed Clockblocker with his helmet-covered head turned my way; I wasn't sure if he was looking directly at me, but as he spoke, he removed all doubt. "Hey, kid." Everyone turned to me as Clockblocker pointed, and I gulped and nodded in response. "Do you remember what I told you when we met in the PRT offices? That if you turned villain, that I'd treat you like any other villain?" As the time-stopping hero stepped forward, the other members of the Entwined drew up around me, pointing their respective weapons toward Clockblocker. "That I'd beat your ass and haul you in? I don't give a shit if we're outnumbered right now or not; give me one good reason not to do that right now."
I pushed forward through Circus and Biter, moving closer even as Chariot put a hand on my shoulder to try and stop me; I felt my swarm of rats grow larger, ready to descend upon the battlefield if it became necessary. "Clockblocker, sir, please, just listen to me, alright?" The hero folded his arms, but didn't interrupt me, either; taking that as permission, I continued speaking while new marble columns slowly grew nearby via Labyrinth's power. "Steinn is dead." That caused the other heroes to freeze, the eyes that I could see focused intently on me. "Leet is dead. Trainwreck is dead." I heard Barker behind me make a small noise of dismay and anger. "I'm pretty sure Cricket is dead, too. Rune's had a second trigger event. She's broken the Davis limit, and she's gone insane. She's killing everyone in sight, saying some shit about how she's the only person worthy of leading the Empire, and some other Nazi fuckery, I don't really know." I stepped forward, holding my arms wide in a peace gesture. "Nothing we tried worked against her. Not bullets, not knives, not Bitch's mutant dogs. Accord says that our best bet right now is energy based attacks." I pointed toward Laserdream, then Shielder, then Spitfire. "Please. We need you to cooperate with us, or Rune's bodycount is going to keep rising. Please, Clockblocker, sir."
Clockblocker looked back to where his allies were standing, seeking a response from them; after several seconds, Laserdream nodded, followed by Shielder, and then the rest of the heroes. Turning to me, the time-stopper nodded, his voice still sharp as he spoke. "Fine. Temporary truce. Give me a second, I need to call this shit in." The hero pressed a hand to the side of his helmet, waited a few seconds, and then continued speaking. "Clockblocker, highest priority message." Another several moments, before continuing. "Director. Rune's broken the Davis limit. She's already killed Steinn, Leet, Trainwreck, and Cricket. I need you to designate her an A-Class threat and issue a kill order for her, effective immediately. I also need you to have the other groups establish a field truce with the villains they're engaged with." Several seconds, followed by a nod. "Thank you, Director. Clockblocker out." Looking to the Entwined and to Spitfire's crew, he spoke up so we could all hear. "Alright. All of our efforts will be directed to stopping Rune, before she kills anybody else. What happens after she's been neutralized is a different story, but-" The sound of mutant dogs howling interrupted Clockblocker, and we all turned our attention to where the Undersiders had appeared on a nearby rooftop.
"She's here!" Chariot shouted out even as Rune appeared in the midday sky, moving as fast as Laserdream or Shielder themselves could have hoped to; as Bitch's hounds landed in the midst of Labyrinth's marble temple, unloading their passengers, everybody prepared to engage with the telekinetic.
And then I noticed something, or rather somebody that wasn't supposed to be there, that was out of place. "Max?! What the fuck are you doing here?!" Using my rodents to keep an eye on the situation, I rushed over to where the Empire teenager was curled up behind one of the pillars; Chariot watched me go, but neither he nor anybody else moved to stop me. "I thought you were back at the warehouse?!"
I heard the sounds of battle start to erupt, but knowing that neither my rats nor my pistol would have any effect, I focused on Max as he spoke. "Mom, she said... She said I... That I wasn't fit to be her son..." The teenager spoke, his blue eyes wide with fear as he shook from fright. "No powers... Not... Not worthy for the Empire... She was going to..." Max looked up at me, grabbing onto my arm and squeezing it tight. "She was going to kill me, Gnaw. She... She was going to kill me." He swallowed past a heavy lump in his throat, a slightly unhinged smile on his face as he continued. "I... I grabbed onto one of the dogs, I... I had to get away, didn't know what else to do... I... Dad... Mom..."
As surreal as it was to watch the Max Anders - sociopath extraordinaire and leader of the youth wing of a skinhead gang - be on the verge of a breakdown, I had to turn my attention to the fight. When I did, part of me wished that I hadn't; the energy attacks weren't working. As much as they managed to knock Rune around, and prevent The Nazi woman from approaching any of her opponents, neither the beams of light from Laserdream and Shielder nor the flames from Spitfire were causing any real, noticeable damage to Rune; the lasers didn't do much but keep her off balance, and the napalm that Spitfire threw out just slid off of Rune's body, dropping to the floor without any meaningful effect on the white supremacist leader. It wasn't working. Jesus Christ. Nothing was working against her. Was she immune to everything? Was there nothing that could hurt her? Even Victory Man's Tinker weapons and Gallant's emotion orbs were having no effect, whenever they managed to hit.
In desperation, I pulled my pistol out, taking shots at her that I knew would be utterly ineffective; I had to try something, though, couldn't just sit there and do nothing, had to hope that maybe, somehow, one of my bullets would penetrate her forcefield, would just... Something, God damnit! I immediately regretted my choice of action; turning her attention to the new source of attack, Rune laid eyes on me... And on Max. "Maximilian. You naughty, naughty boy." A beam from Laserdream knocked Rune through the air a few feet, but the Empire woman righted herself and continued floating slowly toward where I and Max were. "You ran away from your mother. Not only are you useless and worthless to the Empire, to the cause, to the white race, you are disobedient, as well." As Rune began to speed up, I saw a crazed look cross her face as she bared her teeth in our direction. "I'll make sure that your punishment is especially excruciating, Maximilian!"
Right before Rune reached us, something appeared between Max, myself, and the Nazi cape. It was a blue blur, at first, as it landed in front of us, but once my eyes took stock of him and the barrier he erected between himself and Rune, I recognized the man: Shielder. "Get out of here, you stupid kids! Go!" Not needing to be told twice, I grabbed Max - assisted by Biter, who had rushed over to help me - and retreated away from where Shielder was holding off Rune.
"Pathetic." One word from Rune, before I heard a low zap of energy, the sound of a shield dissipating; turning around, I saw that the woman had marked Shielder, the New Wave hero floating off the ground, his face contorted in pain.
"No!" Laserdream screamed in fury and terror as she began throwing every last beam of light she could manage; Browbeat looked on helplessly as his brother-in-law's arms and legs began to twist at unnatural angles, the Brute unable to try and deal with Rune lest he get in range for her to tag him, as well. As I reloaded my completely useless and pointless gun, I saw Chariot level his teleportation gun at Shielder; as our commander attempted to draw a bead on the hero in question, Rune dragged Shielder along with her in the air as Laserdream's attacks shoved the Nazi cape around. "No, no, no, no!" Laserdream continued yelling, her attacks managing to throw Rune that way and the other, but not disorienting the Empire woman enough to force Rune to let up her grip on Shielder. Faultline was attempting to collapse Laybrinth's pillars on top of Rune, but the Empire woman dodged each one with ease. The next few events happened in rapid succession: Chariot growled, I heard several of Shielder's bones cracking apart, and then the New Wave hero's body teleported, close to where Spitfire was; the man was limp, unmoving, not breathing. "Nooo!" Laserdream's cry was blood curdling.
"Tattletale!" Grue's voice came loud over our headsets, completely ignoring the protocols that we had previously established for communication. "For fuck's sake! We need something, and we need it now!"
"Her forcefield doesn't let anything in unless she wants it to." The sound of the Undersiders' strategist speaking came next. "Not objects, not kinetic force, not your darkness, not even energy or things like Gallant's attacks, except if she chooses to allow it. She can let air in from outside, can let in heat if she needs it, but nothing else gets in unless she allows it. There's a limit to what her field can take from a single, individual source - it's why she allows herself to be knocked back by the lasers being shot at her or by Bitch's hounds, to keep their full force from hitting the shield and getting through it to cause actual damage - but it's nothing that we can possibly manage to penetrate with anything we have. Would probably take Scion or an Endbringer to get past it. It's that strong." Even as Tattletale gave us the information her power had granted her, Rune returned to the fight, aiming for Laserdream with a sadistic expression on her face. "God damn fucking headache! Okay, here's the important part. She can control what enters her barrier, but she can't control what leaves it, in turn.
"Okay?! What fucking good does that do us?! If none of us can get into her field, then how can any of us pull anything out of it?!" Grue sent a tendril out to touch Laserdream, copying her powers to help add to the firepower being sent in Rune's direction.
"When a warm object is placed in a cold environment, its heat naturally migrates out and into its surrounding area; the chill itself doesn't actually 'enter' the object, so Rune's shield won't be able to mitigate it." Accord's voice, talking calmly, and clinically; I was glad that Tattletale's apprentice, at least, was staying steady. "That being said, we need to produce a flash freeze around Rune; her forcefield won't be able to keep her body's heat from escaping, and she'll enter a hypothermic state, either rendering her incapacitated or killing her."
Everyone tapped into the communication and not otherwise engaged with zoning out Rune turned to the one individual in our group capable of creating a burst of cold like that. "Barker." Coil's voice, that time, with a heavy, solid, and meaningful intonation.
The boy in question looked at all of us with an expression of sheer terror and overwhelming apprehension on his face; as he fell back a step, his legs trembling as he did, he shook his head, muttering a weak protest out in a quiet voice. "Nuh uh. No way. No way in fucking hell." As lasers fell elsewhere in the temple, we stared pointedly at Barker, as he himself stared back at us with fear and anxiety; as much as his body shook from the increasing horror, he knew as well as the rest of us did that there was no other choice. Whether anybody liked it or not, Barker was our only salvation, our only hope against the crazed, maniacal Nazi woman that had been tearing our ranks to shreds; what a fucking situation we had gotten ourselves into.
Edit: Modified some sections to clarify the limit of Rune's new powers.
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