Chapter Text
Lisa Wilbourn
“Are you sure this will be enough?” Regent asked me, standing over the newly defeated and mercifully unconscious body of Oni Lee. The faux ninja himself was lying face first in the ground with his mask showing a mean crack that split his smile. Out of respect, and to avoid retaliation, none of the Undersiders peeked at what could be underneath. I sighed and rolled my neck.
“Yeah, Oni Lee isn’t who we’re after, we’re just picking off Lung’s backup” Regent gave me a short nod before stepping away from the comatose body and moving closer to Grue. Why was he acting strange? He was nervous, why? Oni Lee resisted his control, no. Oni Lee couldn’t resist his control Regent simply couldn’t control when he teleported, that was still in Oni Lee’s ballpark. Regent didn’t like that fact one bit.
I sighed and turned my attention to Bitch; she was crouching down near one of her dogs and inspecting a mean gash from where Oni Lee slashed it. The cut was more of a gorge, he was trying to reach something vital, now Bitch is equally as nervous as Regent was. “Is it ok?”
Bitch gave me a mean look, why? Because I called the dog an it. I sighed, Bitch rarely brought the dogs over and only gave us one introduction to them, we forgot their names and were too afraid to ask. Bitch patted the dogs head and stood up before pacing closer to us and speaking in a hushed tone “Judas got a serious cut, the wound will close when we get to Lung but I’m not putting him into the fight, Brutus will take lead” there was a groan of disproval. Between the four of us the dogs were our best chance to put damage into Lung, we still have one, but we’ll be banking more on Regent’s control than brute force.
I turned my attention to Grue; he’s still the captain after all “What do you think? Should we hold off? Take this guy hostage?” I gently kicked Oni Lee’s body, as if I was avoiding waking him up.
Grue went silent as he did the calculations in his head before getting distracted by Regent, it’s very clear that he wanted to go fight the big scary dragon without the extra certainty “Bitch, are you sure you can go into this fight with just one dog?” Bitch grunted, she was positive, and Grue gave a nod of his head.
“Ok, Oni Lee was enough of a mess and we took him by surprise without him knowing about our powers, I’m not sure if we can do that again with Lung on high alert and the ABB breathing down our throat, we’re going to pursue Lung” Regent he moved instinctively towards what must be Brutus, the dog bowed to let the little man clamour on top.
Grue was next to hop on top of Brutus, he spoke with confidence, but I didn’t need my power to tell he was unsure. It’s fair I suppose, if Brutus went down and Judas couldn’t enter the fight it was Grue that had to hold off Lung and who knew how much he would’ve grown to rise to the challenge by then? Should I say something? No. that would just spoil the morale and we certainly need a lot of it for the upcoming fight, no, yes… yes, we can do it.
Bitch made a gesture for me to hop onto Judas; I guess I was considered light enough to ride the dog in its current state before she joined Grue and Regent on Brutus’s back. I wanted to lean down and pat Judas, she was a dog after all, but I held back. Given all the spikes and how dark it is I’d just get a cut and then we’d be at even more of a disadvantage. The dogs got weird when our blood was shed.
Brutus, being the leader, was also given the honour of tracking down Lung. Obviously, we didn’t know exactly where he was beyond the assumption that he knew Oni Lee was in trouble and that he’d be meeting with people to come deal with the mysterious attackers. I cringed thinking about it, we let a goon escape unharmed with a phone. We weren’t killers, yet at least, but having someone get away and make a phone call was the kind of amateur business that got us in these situations and grew a lack of respect.
Brutus led us through several back alleys and over the top of buildings, Brockton Bay was an ugly place, I think. Almost nowhere seemed to be clean, even when you walked through the richy parts of town there was a pile of muck and trash scattered across every third street. It was more than that though, Brockton felt a lot like a place that had given up on hope, I suppose that’s what happened when the average man has to deal with the likes of the ABB and the Eighty-Eight. Despair would just come naturally.
We reached a high vantage point before Bitch brought the dogs to a stop and brought us to the side of the building. Something about how her powers rewrote her brain made her more capable of understanding the nuance in her dogs’ movements, she didn’t need to search or ask for more clues about where the dog thought something was, she simply knew. It came in handy for situations like this where the target was further away and harder to see.
“They’re down there, talking amongst themselves?”
“About what?” Regent was awkwardly crouched to look down, almost teetering off the edge really. Grue had a hand on his back to keep him from falling and sounded frustrated when he answered.
“About us, probably how they’re going to attack”
“Do we wait for them or strike here?” Grue was considering my question as he watched the discussion below.
“Tattletale, what are they thinking?” It was my time to shine, watching the group below was difficult due to the lighting but from the rough movement of their lips I could tell Grue was right. They were talking about dealing with those ‘kids’, kids? Rude. From the looks of it the plan was for the people to support Lung, duh. What was their plan to support him? Guns? Ok, not too bad of an issue, Grue’s darkness makes guns useless, and Judas should be able to take care of the non-powered capes without issue, the real problem was Lung. He was angry, we attacked Oni Lee so that makes sense, he was excited, for what? The fight? Yes. He was happy to test out his strength again. Troublesome.
“From the looks of it, Lung is going to attack first, the gang members around him are armed, your darkness and Bitch’s dog should be able to handle it but with how excited Lung is, I don’t know if we should really spare the dog”
“What are the chances they split to get to us? Go for a flank?”
“Slim”
Grue went silent for a moment as he considered his answer “Ok, right now they’re in a wide alley, we can’t let them get out in the open, too much space for Lung and the gun men could be able to exit the shadow, we fought Oni Lee in an alley so assuming they’ll come our way we wait for them to go through one of the narrower passages or maybe if we’re lucky run into a dead end, we take them by surprise from above, an unpowered Lung can’t shake off the dogs and won’t grow fast enough so hopefully Regent can take control and end this fight early” It was a smart plan, though it hinged on Lung entering via the alley and us not being spotted first, all that we needed to do now was wait and-
Who was that? A strange girl was at the end of the alley leading to the road from Lung’s gang. She was wearing black, so it was hard to make out but from the silhouette alone it was a dress of some kind, rather old fashioned one at that. She wasn’t doing anything, but my mind was reeling just from looking at her, so much information, too much information and yet my mind came up completely blank. It was when I felt Grue’s hand on my back that I realized I was curling up from the headache.
“Are you alright”
“Y-yeah, that girl, what is she doing?”
Grue didn’t have time to turn around before Regent cut in “She’s just, watching… Lung and his men have noticed her and are saying something, but I don’t know, she doesn’t seem to register it? Is she a drug addict?”
I finally peaked back over the edge of the building to take in what was happening, the girl was silently staring while the gang were all but shouting for her to leave. Something was wrong with the gang members bar Lung, they were acting out of fear more than frustration, they sensed something was wrong too. “What do we do?”
Grue seemed unsure watching the argument play out “I don’t know, we could wait for her to leave? I’d rather not fight them while they’re on alert, Lung looks about ready to begin growing-“ he was stopped when one of the gang members approached the girl and struck her, the young woman was thrown to the ground “Shit! never mind, we’re going in now” Grue was acting out of frustration, the violence reminded him of something, what? It didn’t matter.
We were more frantic climbing onto the dogs than we were before, it was the same distribution with me on the back of Judas while the other three hopped on the back of Brutus. There was no time to waste as the other gang members were approaching the girl now, likely to join in the beating. There was an instinctual hatred amongst them that was even taking Lung by surprise, I didn’t like it.
Judas took me to the roof overlooking the alley, easier for me to get an overview while the other three jumped directly on top of Lung before sliding off. The non-powered humans were already gathered to one end, so all Grue had to do was cloak them in darkness and let Judas handle them while Brutus held Lung down for Regent to begin working his magic. Lung was flailing around aimlessly; did he have a plan? No. Good.
He was saying something to his gang members, but it was in Japanese, what was he saying? It was something along the lines of ‘Stop fucking around and come help me!’ Lung asking for help? No. I was interpolating that; it sounded tougher in Japanese apparently. Judas was still out of view dealing with the gang members, there were a few of them, so I assume they spread out, and Judas was trying to keep up without being lethal.
This was going well, better than expected. I should really thank that young girl; I wonder if she’s ok? Looking at the bubble of darkness Grue was using I didn’t see anyone running away? Was she unconscious? What would we do if she was unconscious? Probably leave the PRT to help her out and clean up the mess, that was our goal after all.
Brutus suddenly unleashed a great yelp that took my attention away from the fight, it seemed Lung was growing ready for the fight. Though from the way his hands were splayed out rather than propping him up Regent was still in control of his limbs and tripping him up, good. It was then that from the darkness someone came lying out, a gang member Judas probably shoved aside, he flew into the wall before landing roughly on the ground. I realized he was still conscious before I realized he was still armed.
“Gunman!” I shouted down and their attentions shifted quickly, Regent had to keep focus on Lung and so did Brutus which left Bitch and Grue to handle the gun man. Both wanted to approach and knock him out, but the gang member trained his weapon on them, he was darting around and changing targets quickly as if unsure of who to shoot. Grue could use his darkness to block out his vision but that would cancel out the other area of darkness and leave them open to more gang members.
The gunman was nervous, good. Well actually that’s probably bad. He was unsure of who to shoot, good. He was afraid, why? He thinks that if he shoots Grue or Bitch than the other would kill him, ok? He doesn’t think his gun will do anything to the dog, good. He doesn’t want to shoot Regent because he doesn’t want both Grue and Bitch to attack him. So, what was his decision? He seemed stunned.
Lung said something in Japanese, what? By the time I translated the phrase it was too late “Lung!” I warned but it was soon drowned out as the gang member unloaded a clip into his boss’s body.
Lung had already been built up to the point where he was hardier than bullets, meaning that the gunshots were nothing more than a slight power boost. But as Grue closed the distance and planted a knee into the gunmen’s face, Lung got all the help that he needed. Within an instant his hand reached up and took Brutus by the paw before tossing the hound off him and down the alley.
Regent was already backing up as Lung demonstrated that at this point, Regent’s control was no longer in effect. Mercifully, Grue was able to grab Regent as both were flung backwards. The darkness was shifted to surround Lung and hopefully by us a few seconds, revealing Judas surrounded by a group of incapacitated gang members and the strange girl from before. She was lying there, not unconscious or even damaged. It was almost like she was lost in th-
I felt a strong heat along my back and knew immediately what it was. I was getting distracted again, that girl, what was wrong with her? The head of the Bad Boys, who had clearly noticed me and wanted to get another Undersider down, struck me across my back and sent me flying off the ledge. Bitch reacted almost instinctively, ordering Judas to get into a position that helped shield my fall but not by much, the mutated dogs were hardy things, and their skin was hardly soft.
I ended up crumpling along the gravel face first, someone was running to check up on me but I waved them off. Lung was still an issue they had to deal with after all. Judas left my side and it took me a while before I finally crawled into a position where I could see the fighting and it was not looking good.
Judas had to join Brutus in trying to hold down Lung but at the rate he was growing he’d be able to toss the dogs soon, Regent had been knocked down somehow and Grue’s shadow was only keeping him at bay for so long. Bitch was backing up the alley towards me, why? She wanted to keep an eye on her dogs, was that all? She didn’t want to get knocked unconscious and her dogs reform. That didn’t matter as soon Brutus was launched into Grue and Bitch, they weren’t knocked out but they were pinned to the ground.
What was going to happen? Probably the PRT would find us and take us to prison. From the looks of it, Lung didn’t want to stick around, something about a giant flaming dragon being easy to spot? I groaned at the thought of being captured so soon when I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to meet the mysterious girl from before.
She was a strange thing now that I looked at her more closely, she was dressed in a more Victorian garb, black with swirling patterns I didn’t quite understand and a small veil that covered her eyes. From behind them I could tell something was wrong but not what. Otherwise, she was pale skinned, tall and had long black hair, when she spoke it was an almost soft voice “Hey, are you ok?”
I groaned in response and the girl took that as an answer “Why did you choose to fight them here?” she was expecting an answer.
“Needed to face Lung” I was trying to keep my words as short as possible. The girl looked to the fight between Lung and the dogs; Brutus was getting up but Bitch and Grue were taking longer. Regent was still not up.
“But why here? It isn’t a good place to do it”
Even she knew that huh? “Didn’t want to see you get beaten”
“You did this, for me?” She seemed almost mesmerized by the answer, she was a ditzy thing, I think. Like she was just moving through life rather than living it, though there was something else. Something heavy behind the way she talked “You should help people who help you” she said that more of a statement of fact, like she was teaching someone a lesson.
Slowly the girl stood up and stood behind me, lightly angling my head not to see her before she finally spoke up in a gentle voice “Hey” there was something strange about that. As if she was whispering it and shouting it all at once. Lung turned his attention to the young girl who stood perfectly still.
“C’sng’wahl phlegeth vugtlaglin”
A bright light emanated from her in a colour I couldn’t recongise and just as I thought I could figure it out, the light disappeared. Lung stood still in his dragon form for a long period of time before finally he slumped over and fell to the ground like a statue. Brutus and Judas went to bark at her, but Bitch silenced them as I slowly tried to rise to my feet but still had the wind knocked out of me.
“Yor ingered, ill take ye horme” The girl was speaking in a strange, muffled voice as she slowly lifted me up to my feet and approached Regent, dragging us in a weird position that made her elbows touch the bottom of her mouth.
“Why are you talking like that?”
“Muth schplit opan”