5.19 Carcosa
13th of May, 2011
Her teeth gritted and her fists balled at her sides as she hovers in the sky above Charlestown, the constant retort of gunfire drowning all sounds and the smoke choking the air, Rebecca is taken with a sudden and extremely powerful urge to wring Contessa's neck.
The… purging, for lack of a better word, was not going well, not going well at all, to say the least. The clones left in the wake of the Butcher's escape had not remained idle after overwhelming the barricades set up by the PRT, and the presence of the Triumvirate as a whole hadn't stopped them from slipping through the net. They had turned what should've been a mop-up operation into a constant slog of pseudo-guerilla warfare, where the odd cloned cape's attacks were made all the more deadlier by the fact that they could hide amid dozens of unempowered mooks who weren't above breaking and entering civilian homes, steal clothes to make themselves less conspicuous, and worst of all, taking said civilians hostages to use as human shield afterward! It was like they had been given a step by step plan aimed to cause as much chaos as possible, and it was working.
She had been forced to order the creation of new chokepoints and barricade further from Charlestown, but it has been barely better than putting a bandage on a pegleg; giving the clones more room to breath was only making the whole thing even harder to handle, the fact that the PRT had dismissed comfoam launchers in favor of live rounds notwithstanding.
And all of this… waste could've been averted if only their precog had seen it to warn them about the threat earlier in the day!
"This is Nightflyer," a priority message rerouted by Dragon reaches her, stopping her from going back into the fray once again as the oddly, slightly creepy, too neutral voice echoes in her ear, "She cannot slow down the convoy any further, and it is about to enter Somerset proper. She has successfully identified what she thinks to be a clone of known villain Accord, which she cannot take out on account of the Butcher staying by its side at all times. This little Nightflyer will make one last pass, but she really needs backup, now."
That actually explains a lot, Rebecca seethes in the privacy of her mind while looking down at the slowly crumbling district in front of her, but now I have to take care of another fire.
"This is Alexandria," she clips while mechanically bringing a hand to her ear by force of habit, "Did you secure a spot for teleportation, Nightflyer?"
I can not believe, she inwardly growls, that my best choice at the moment is to trust a twelve year old too smart for her own good with this absolute clusterfuck!
"This little Nightflyer did," the alleged silver bullet quickly rattles a set of coordinates.
"Copy that, Nightflyer," Rebecca replies curtly, "Strider will be here shortly with some backup."
"Thanks, Miss Alexandria," the child chirps, "Nightflyer, out."
***
Frakking finally, I bitch to myself while looking down the convoy, painfully trudging along toward the twenty-something thousand inhabitants town, just took her five Throne-damned minutes to stop sitting on her ass!
My efforts at stymying the convoy hadn't gone well, not gone well at all. Mostly because through my scanners, the whole thing looks like a sea of overlapping Shaker effects aimed at busting my ovaries!
…I'm exaggerating, mostly. It took me a couple of passes freely dumping lasgun rounds onto the engine blocks from above onto the engine blocks of the bus and the three humvees trailing it to properly understand exactly what the frakk was going on. In short, said school bus has been rendered impervious to any damages by some kind of Striker effect, while the rest of the convoy keeps… regenerating, for lack of a better qualifier, even under a constant barrage of lasers.
I only understood why once I finally managed to get a better look at the convoy's innoccupants. Apparently, Echidna didn't just get her hands onto Accord during the assault on his territory; no, she got her hands on the entire Ambassadors contingent! And if what my gut and my understanding of how Noelle's power works tells me is about right, then I'm getting outplayed by a Citrine and a Lizardtail clones. I'm pretty sure I'm not that far out of the mark, considering the absurd amount of clones PHO alludes she released onto Charlestown; it would have needed for her to boost her output, and a power interaction with a Citrine clone would certainly fit the bill.
I silently grit my teeth under my mask while going over my options.
Thing is, this entire thing wouldn't be an issue if I could just blast the whole lot to kingdom come, but I can't, because the Butcher is sitting pretty inside that Throne-damned bus, and I'm not betting against him gleefully jumping into a plasma-railgun shot taken at the humvees just to frakk me over. After all, if he dies, I'm the one who loses.
"Fine," I growl under my mask while dismissing my lasguns for something more up-close and personal, "The hard way it is."
With a flap of my wings, I aim for the centermost humvee as I fly down at an absurd speed.
***
A thunderous crash followed by torturous screams of metal forces Cody to look away from the window and at the back of the convoy proper, just in time to catch the second car getting sent tumbling away from the two others, only his blood-sense telling him that someone is responsible for this – probably the same fucker who destroyed the bridge and has been using them for target practice since they left the interstate.
The voices screams in his head as he watches the humvee get torn apart in great arcs of white-and-blue lights, and, with a scowl on his face at getting his Teeth men killed, gets ready to teleport there–
"Do not," Discord's voice and the not-man's hand on his shoulder stops him in his tracks.
"What?" he snaps, side-eyeing the half-mangled face of the clone as the hazy figure in his blood sense takes off, the barrage of actinic red lasers quickly resuming on the other two cars, killing their engine blocks in short order, "Fucker is slowing us down! I gotta take care of them, make them pay!"
"Because it can very well be a bait," the not-man calmly reasons while Cody shrugs his hand with a snarl, "Sitting Pretty is doing a good job at keeping us alive for now, but it's possible that our opponent has some other tricks in her sleeve. We're clearly being targeted by a Tinker, or someone with heavy Tinker support, after all."
Ignoring how the not-man apparently christened the clone resting against Noelle's back with her hand extended upward to touch the bus' ceiling while he had his own back turned, Cody's mind zeroes on one particular detail in his warning.
"'Her', you said?" he asks.
"I have my suspicion about our current opponent," the not-man hums, staying close to him while looking through the bus' windows, "She lives rather close-by, in Brockton Bay to be specific, and she and her patron have shown a tendency to… meddle, when villains enter the play. Since there aren't that many capes capable of turning invisible and of flight at the same time, she's a shoe-in for this little upset."
The not-man pauses as a chorus of 'ping-ping-ping-ping' shakes the bus, a hail of red-colored lasers ineffectually hitting at the engine blocks and doing fuck-all to stop them, courtesy of their multi-purpose Striker.
"My predecessor had been keeping an eye on the two of them at a remote after they arranged the death of a valued coworker, and got away with it," Discord explains further, "So I'm rather familiar with Nightflyer's capabilities. The lasers used as artillery barrages are new, admittedly."
"Don't exactly hear why I shouldn't go kick her ass," Cody shoots back.
"Because our opponent is a very dangerous combat Thinker armed with enough tinkertech weaponry to bankrupt a PRT HQ twice over," the not-man spears him with a Look, "Her patron has apparently zero compulsion against equipping what looks for all appearances like a twelve year old with his gear, and I wouldn't put above the man to have given her something non-lethal to deal with you."
"Twelve year old?" Cody blinks, before guffawing in concert with the voices in his head, "You scared of a preteen of all things?"
"...The last time someone underestimated her, she killed four of the most dangerous and resilient capes of the Bay by herself in less than five minutes and with no backup," Discord replies a little flatly, making him pauses a little as the voices suddenly clamor their interest, "Now if you still want to tango with her once we secured a new beachhead in Somerset, do as you will, but I won't see you jeopardize this operation while we're still in transit and under heavy-fire."
As if to prove his point, another hail of laser beams fall down from the sky, illuminating Cody's immediate surroundings in blood red lights.
For a moment, he finds himself tempted to just… punch the not-man's head off because how dare he give him orders? Him, the Butcher! but he ends up staying his hand after taking a moment to breathe and rolling back the voices in his head a few times.
"Fine, I'll play nice!" he scowls, "But the moment we're secure, I'm going on a hunt for that cunt!"
"...I'll create an opportunity for you to do so," the not-man nods before looking away.
{Your funerals,} Mars snidely whispers in his head.
Cody pettily rolls back his own time a dozen times for that.
***
Chevalier doesn't exactly have a hard time pin-pointing where the action is currently happening as he steps away from Strider in the town of Somerset accompanied by a contingent of five other capes with more already getting rerouted on their way. Mostly on account of having made to teleport two streets down the road linking said town to the interstate and the death from above currently raining down what he's almost certain is the Butcher's convoy.
"This is Chevalier," he clips in his communicator, his eyes quickly zeroing on the invisible cape's 'shadow' high in the sky, "Nigthflyer, do you copy?"
"This is Nightflyer," the young villain answers, her shadow nearly instantly zeroing down on him, "She copies."
"Give me a sitrep, Nightflyer," he asks more to the benefits of his detachment than his own, since he already got briefed by Alexandria herself, the hero already gesturing to his detachment to follow him on the double while they close the distance toward the running – or is it flying? – battle.
"This little Nightflyer successfully took out the tail end of the convoy, but she was unable to further slow down the bus currently ferrying the Butcher, Echidna, one identified Accord clone and one possible Citrine clone, as well as others, unidentified clones, toward Somerset. She theorizes the possible Citrine clone has made their transport impervious to her current level of damage, and she's been reluctant to use her heavier weaponry on account of the Butcher's presence," which was more than sensible, in Chevalier's opinion, and one good look at the Braga bridge in the background ascertain that this was undoubtedly the best call to make, "What's left of the convoy is about to enter Somerset proper. She apologises for her failure."
As he and his detachment run to intercept, he risks a closer look to the girl's shadow dancing in the sky, his traits going a little grim once he understands what he's truly looking at. A titanic, multilimbed, dark figure, topped by an ovoid, featureless 'face', whose right side shows multiple concentric rings juxtaposed to each other, behaving a little like those cinema cameras with the way they whirl, twirl and zoom on everything that happens.
More importantly, this one good look paints a picture that he doesn't really like; the young villain has all the hallmarks of a Tinker, and he now understands why Alexandria had been oddly insistent about her being a combat Thinker.
Shaking the thought away, he quickly answers:
"Don't be, Nightflyer, you did the best you could," he says, "The cavalry will soon be here."
***
"ETA five minutes, ladies and gents," their current pilot informs them through their headset, Vicky's own chafing almost painfully against her tiara, "Better get ready, because the dropping is going to be definitely hot."
"Thank you, Pilot Langhorn," the immovable figure of the PRT ENE Protectorate leader answers, looking almost unbothered by the events, before addressing the rest of them.
And Vicky quickly finds that she cannot really focus on what everyone says, her own thoughts far, far away from the dry – if undoubtedly important – briefing, as she balls her fists in her lap.
The Butcher and Echidna apparently are going after Panacea, Amy, her sister, and she doesn't know how to cope with this knowledge, the fact that she's long been extracted from the Bay proper notwithstanding. Worse even, the only one who had been willing and ready to find a way to slow their advance had been her recently obtained, pint-sized nemesis, and she really doesn't know what to make of this. The only certainty she has is this feeling of inadequacy curling in her gut, one that sounds and feels like the rhythmic thumps of a basketball and the squeaky sounds of her shoes against the laminated flooring–
She takes a breath, before slowly exhaling, stopping herself from giving her mother a side-eyed look as she tries her hardest to look unflappable, even as she feels anything but.
Instead, she gives the Brockton Bay contingent a roaming glance as they all sit in the helicopter's cabin. Everyone looks tense, but focused, a focus she cannot share, and it makes her feel… less. Inappropriate. Like a waste of a hero, almost.
She dips her head and scowls in the general direction of her lap, even as a little voice whispers inside her ear:
This is Nightflyer's fault, ridiculing you in public like that, it says, and she doesn't find it in herself to naysay it, she turned you into a joke to them, and a failure to your mother's eyes.
And again, it probably wouldn't be so bad if the subject of so many of her rants to Dean these days hadn't been the one who flew off as a vanguard to stop the villains from reaching the Bay, to reach her home. Instead, Vicky was here, sitting pretty and feeling useless, while anxiously waiting for her time to shine come, and–
"We've arrived," the pilot's voice wrenches her out of her funk, forcing her to blink in realization when she notices that the bulkhead is open once again.
"Like we discussed, fliers first," Armsmaster's voice cuts through her own hesitation, and she jumps out of her seat, without unstrapping herself first to her shame as she just tears through her harness.
Blessedly, nobody comments on it, busy as they are as they make ready while she joins up with aunt Sarah, Eric and Crystal at the door's threshold.
"Like Armsmaster said, close perimeter," her aunt clips, looking dead-serious as she looks down at the ongoing brawl occurring maybe a hundred meters under them, "We escort the rest of the team to the rally point, then we fly on overwatch. No heroics, this isn't a game."
Vicky distractedly answers as another certainty coalesces in her bosom.
She'll show them that she isn't a joke, that she's a hero, and that she shines.