Chapter XXI
"Fight to the last gasp."
–Shakespeare, King Henry VI, part 1, i, 1
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"Alright then," and I held her tight in possibly my last embrace.
"Go give them one for Teddy," my face faltered as we parted and I began jogging off before I became overwhelmed with guilt...
Then I thought of my dad...
And realized that I should be praying for them. I'm coming...
On the other side of a store window a goon was beating some random man. Sprinting I smashed through the glass and he stopped in surprise. Other goons stopped beating or harassing whoever they were attacking as well.
This one however I stuck his foot in the floor with my powers and sidekicked him; snapping and dislocating his leg. Another tried a big boot and I pasted his back leg down, and caught his kick. I then ran into him for an embrace, causing his hem strings to tear as his foot was now next to his ear. Two were already down but more were coming...
Another came at me with a switchblade and, dodging his swipe, I spun into a inside crescent kick while sticking his back leg to the ground. The kick landed square in his square jaw and caused him to twist his leg broken. I gently pushed him down and the others watched me carefully; maybe even fearfully.
"Well?"
One charged me with a board and I sidestepped him. I snorted as he tried in vain to take his weapon out of the ground and then I swiftly ripped his exposed throat out. They all backed away in surprise...
To be honest I surprised myself...
Then they all decided to charge at once and I used their shoulders as steps; secretly balancing myself with my gravity powers I literally ran over them. That, and the place I stepped was a large nerve patch on the neck that caused some discomfort but nothing significant; just enough to where they might not grab at me. I did that sidekick setup to one before running for the shut down escalators.
I was at the top before them and picked up a mannequin. They were coming up the escalators and I pasted many of their legs in place and threw the mannequin, snapping many of their legs and piling them up for a few moments.
"All about that footwork..." I joked in my head...
Then a bright blue light flickered and a man was atop a metal clothing rack looking at me expectantly like the villain from China. A second later another blue light invaded my vision and the man was atop the escalator with two knives. Slashing with wild but skillful and precise movements I barely dodged his attacks while getting a few minor cuts. To stop the mad flurry of ducking and dodging I managed to get one of his feet on the ground but when he felt it another blue light flashed and he was down the hall at the end of a walking rail. He fled but the goons had caught up with me...
I was against the wall...
... I can literally walk up walls.
I dodged a swipe of some sort of club and started up the wall the ceiling was high and the lights were off so I was shrouded safely in darkness to those below.
Then there was the blue flash accompanied with a unique buzzing sound at a chandelier. The man was the electric-teleporter, he stood on the chandelier and aimed his knives out into the darkness. Goons panicked below,
"Move!"
"He's gonna arc the place!"
Then as if on cue electricity shot from his outstretched knives in arcs. However it acted more like lightning in the way that it shot at incredible speeds and blew stuff everywhere. Then suddenly as he teleported I'm: dazed, warmer, falling, my clothes got charred as my hair tried to stand on end and I was... seeing starfish goldfish? Do those even exist? My brain is fried and I was going to need a second...
*My eyes began to close*
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Thread Walker
Earlier...
"Go!"
AllFall nodded, fear for me in her eyes, and fled among the throngs of people. I hope I hadn't made a mistake in sending them away. I peeked around the corner and my eyes met blood, bodies, and hunks of meat and other body matter.
"You heard DeadLead; no half-measures. But, preferably-"
Typewriter's teeth shone in the shadows, "round them up and line them against a wall with their backs to me. No survivors."
I tried to slip through the shadows before the goons got to close. I passed through a few stores unseen; screams and Typewriter's gunfire invaded most of any noise to be heard. I slipped into a changing area and put my purse down that carried all the gadgets I had:
A few gel pens...
A ball cap (with a I❤️*Deadpool* emoji on it)...
And some sweet gauntlets that automatically threw self guided ninja stars that would automatically reload after the energized star of death went through its target and-
A lot of other stuff but that's not it. The hat is a special weighted hat, usually sold in self-defense magazines, but Alien added a shock feature to it. The mints? (There ARE a few MUCH needed mints in there...) the mint boxes are rigged explosives, usually the box would provide two flavors but the other half is equivalent to a 10mm or 20mm explosive. That and if I cut the film off one side it becomes a sticky bomb I can activate with my phone or these gauntlets.
I strode out, hat on, gauntlets ready and mints ready for later. The mob was lining people up when I saw them but most of the others (and thankfully Typewriter) were no-were to be seen.
"Well," one goon said walking up to me with a leer, "what have we-"
Then I shot a star through his mouth. In the stunned silence he, with much effort, grabbed the front and back of his head. He looked at me disbelievingly before he crumpled on the ground, choking on blood. Then another, foolishly enough, charged me. I engaged the blades on the gauntlet to my left hand and activated the magnetic string on my right. The string attached a star to it that I could swing around, rap around limbs, and maybe even grapple something with.
He tried to swing a bat but I blocked it with the blades and whipped the string around his hands, the blade automatically locking once the smart computers in the star detected that it had wrapped around something alive. Pulling, the energy blades cut his hands off...
He screamed and I began shooting the stars in my left gauntlet. The first one went into the screaming man's face, the smart star adeptly went around any pillars to reload itself. Once I started dropping all my enemies they began running. Someone charged from behind me and I flung the stringed star behind me without looking; I didn't need the shower in blood to know that I cut his throat.
Another person was behind me and I flung it back again...
But it hit home and stopped...
I slowly looked back into a red clad enemy with the string caught in his hand...
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Sarah
"Baron! Baron!" I screamed into Fluffy's ball, now clear over the person I'm talking to and black around the edges...
Yeah! I can contact anyone I want with my weird magic ball got a problem?! Sometimes everyone uses me for logistics...
Whatever that means...
Anyway when Alien's drones can't sneak in I can get a bird's eye view over a situation with my weird ball...
I wish it could bounce or search the web...
It's really boring sometimes...
"Sarah! What's wrong!"
"We're locked in the galleria and DeadLead's goons are-"
A scream echoed from somewhere nearby within the hearing of both of us...
"I'm sending help now! Sarah?"
"Yeah?"
"Whatever you do be-"
"Careful?" A monster-like voice said from above me. We both kinda looked up at him and then after a silent moment the Baron hissed,
"Gekko!"
Then I turned him off, Fluffy's figurine which constantly spins was leering expectantly at the monster above me.
"Hi!" I said with a evil smile, "I'm SO glad you came!"
"Oh?" He said with cockiness, "And why is that goldfish? Ready to be flushed?"
"See," I said as my hair blackened from its normal dirty blonde, as my eyes turned blood crimson, "I forgot my phone out there," my skin was now white and my teeth sharpened, and my voice darkening demonically, I smiled, "but we're going to be having SO much FUN!"
He cussed in shock as I blasted him with a dark matter blast from my mouth...
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Elizabeth (AllFall)
A shock went through my body. There was a press of a button and another beeping sound before another shock caused me to vomit whatever lunch I had earlier. I coughed as someone sighed in relief,
"Thank the saints..."
"Who-" I croaked and coughed, "who are you?"
I began spitting on the floor to get the vomit taste out of my mouth and I began ripping away the probes of the automatic defibrillator he used to revive me.
"Your alright Knight Elizabeth;" my breath caught and I slowly looked toward him, he arched a brow at me, "you are in good hands."
I heard Typewriter's gunshots. I cast a glance toward the sound, he seemed to grimace,
"For now."
I got up, leaning heavily against a bathroom stall and then I recognized him,
"Marcus?"
He smirked, he was always a serious type with red hair and the narrow small frame of the swift and accurate among the Angels,
"Quick. Updates."
I told my fellow squad mate as much as I could as fast as possible. I still didn't know about the big operations but I knew enough to get profiles on the villains such as powers, behaviors, free times, and the war:
"He's been planning for months and I don't know what."
"It's big, I'm sure 'gabe' will like to know what. Another fellow agent is coming to help you in this-" we glanced at the sound of a scream, "predicament."
He met my eyes, "Stay alive Knight. No. Matter. What." Then he added dismissively, "Now, if you don't mind? I'm going to 'cower in fear'. Go Knight."
I hobbled out of the restroom and into the chaos of a mall. Some of the goons apparently had Molotovs and began torching the place, bodies of men, women and children were everywhere. I tripped and as I pushed myself up and glanced at what I tripped on...
A little girl...
No, a dead half-headed girl...
I got to a corner and peered around it. The goons were hold a line of people hostage and I heard them begging or crying uncontrollably. Then there was the bark of two Tommy guns that put them into the wall. Then I saw what was in the fire...
The goons were burning bodies...
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Thread Walker
DeadLead threw me and wasn't worried about making chase but walked towards me calmly. I concentrated all my attention upon him as he got closer and closer until he flicked his head at me and left. Once a stick broke against my head I knew he was flicking his head toward someone else.
In a daze I managed to stay up and looked behind me. Even though it was dark and everything blurry I could tell by the sounds the man was making that he was going in for a kick. I sidestepped it and wrapped his back foot, cutting it off and basically causing him to fall on his crotch.
I shot another man coming at me and saw a giant mob before me. A frightened kid and a gun toating, cigar smoking villain stood out front.
"Well, well, well," Typewriter mumbled, the cigar interrupting his speech, "look what the bloody cat dragged in."
A roar echoed throughout the mall making the chandeliers shake...
Sarah...
Typewriter freed a hand by giving one of his goons a (magless) gun and he took out his cigar. He looked at me a moment and smirked pointing with his cigar hand as if in normal conversation,
"So, your the Baron's girl hm?" He sighed, getting ready, "He knows how to pick his women." As if to end it all he nonchalantly flicked the cigar at the kid, killing him, and gripping his single Tommy gun charged at me.
I began launching stars at him as fast as I could but then the unexpected happened...
He began dodging them unnaturally...
As in flipping around occasionally, most of the time he was on the ground but sometimes he'd jump back and flip off the wall, then he might vault over a table or obstacle in a way to dodge my attacks. Whenever he returned fire I might do the same thing but differently, I might cartwheel or somersault among other things. The army of thugs watched on as the epic battle ensued.
Then he fell down awkwardly after a jump...
His foot was stuck in the ground...
I rushed forward to plug the smart stars into him but stopped when all but the two I launched were shot mid-flight by silenced gunfire from a ledge where DeadLead was contently watching the whole time.
"Entertaining," he said dryly, "now go help Viral Taze and Gekko, Typey."
Typewriter got up fuming, "Let me kill'em! Now!"
He dismissed him with a pointing finger to where the sound of Fluffy fighting was. Red in embarrassment and rage, he pushed his way through the mob, taking both his guns to fight Fluffy.