22

Explosion 4

I had to rearrange my extra brains to get my range to extend from the hospital to the meeting spot in time for when I was supposed to meet with Tattletale. I sacrificed a good portion of my vision of the south side of the city, but that was more Empire territory and the least likely spot where Bakuda could have been anyway. All of this bot movement took up part of my attention, but it didn't detract from the work I was doing from the hospital.

Mainly because most people coming in were already dead, and not just injured. Bakuda's bombs weren't just explosives, they were lethal in ways that only Tinkertech could produce. Even Panacea couldn't heal people who had partially been turned into stone like some kind of fairy tale; their bodies were converted into inorganic matter with no organs left to heal. Half the time they died from shock on the way here. It only strengthened my resolve to actually catch Bakuda. Not just try to heal the people who survived the blasts.

The Undersiders were mostly huddled behind a boxcar when they came into view. "See that building? I'm almost certain she's there," Tattletale was saying, pointing at an old train service building. "Bitch, you're going to have to keep your distance. She sees the dogs, she might cut and run. Keep patrolling the perimeter in case she does run, you can stop her. Grue, your darkness might help us get closer."

Bitch nodded and took her dogs further away. They prowled along the mostly-empty road.

"Hey, we found the psycho, job's done. Why aren't we just going back and taking our pay?" Regent asked.

"Because she's got a million-dollar bounty on her head," Tattletale said. "Boss isn't going to match that one."

"Okay, I like money, but I'm not stupid. We don't have the firepower to take out the entire ABB coming at us with mega-grenades," Regent countered.

"I've called for backup," Tattletale said with a knowing grin.

As the final neuro-bot brain was formed, I took control of the bots in the area and started to survey the Undersiders' situation. While Abyssal's robots approached them, I kept the cheap surveillance bots watching but didn't see any guards at all. Then again, maybe they were hidden inside instead of patrolling outside. The Undersiders had crept up a hundred yards closer, still carefully watching the building when the bots arrived.

It was strange that we were here, in the Trainyard region. I remember that New Wave had swept through this area a while ago, as did the Empire, and the Protectorate. It was a semi-obvious location to hide a workshop for the ABB, being close to their main territory and lots of abandoned buildings and hiding spots to work with. That was why every major power in the city had swept through the area, and found nothing but a few low-level gang members carrying scrap. Probably just gathering materials.

Then again, Tattletale seemed sure. Thinkers tended to have a reputation for overconfidence. She already knew I was there before I started assembling him into his full body. "Excellent. The cavalry has arrived."

"Who? Whoaaa!" Regent turned and freaked out at the sudden presence of a thousand pounds of armoured knight behind him. Grue just nodded. In the distance, Bitch looked at her.

"Oh yeah, you missed out last time, Regent." Tattletale seemed to take a little extra pleasure from snarking at their fourth member.

"I stand by my decision," Regent said. "Video games are more important than puppies and no money."

"Don't let Bitch hear you say that," Tattletale said.

"So you're here to take out Bakuda too?" Grue asked.

I made Abyssal nod.

"You sure he ain't just going to turn on us?" Regent asked. I made Abyssal glared at him as much as a dark helmet without a face could glare. He shrank back.

"Hey, Regent, try not to piss off the guy who can kill you by sitting on you. Just some general life advice, really," Tattletale said. Turning to Abyssal, she said, "Bakuda's base must be in there. Underground, or hidden in some other way. Cloaked? Ugh, it's giving me a headache trying to figure it out. I know she's here, I just need a little more info. Grue can sneak us in close."

Abyssal nodded.

I moved the cheaper bots ahead of us for better scouting while keeping Abyssal's bots with the Undersiders. Grue kept us under the cover of his darkness, so Abyssal was basically blind. I had to watch using the bots outside his cloud of darkness.

While the outside of the building looked dark and deserted, I could see the people patrolling on the catwalks inside the building. There were no lights on inside; instead they appeared to be wearing night-vision goggles or something like that. Close to a dozen guards were up above, and another dozen at ground level. This had certainly not come up when New Wave last patrolled this area.

Bombs were wired to the doors. There were weird devices on the windows as well, possibly bombs, maybe laser tripwires or something. Although I still couldn't find Bakuda anywhere inside, it certainly looked like a valuable location. We needed a way in, and doors and windows weren't the way. At least, not for the Undersiders.

Abyssal motioned for them to stop. I dispersed his bots into the air, moving them through the ventilation systems and spreading themselves throughout the interior. It wasn't difficult to find every single guard - none of them were capes. The ABB didn't have many capes as it was, and since Lung was imprisoned and Oni Lee was probably busy trying to free his boss, Bakuda only had regular footsoldiers to guard her workshop.

My bots had no problems entering their bloodstream. I'll be honest, I made absolutely no attempt to keep them sterile – I didn't quite care about what infections they ended up with. None of them noticed. Each of them only felt a tiny pinprick or an itch at most. I waited until every single one of the guards had my bots inside their bodies, and then I cut off the blood supply to their brains simultaneously.

Within seconds, every single one of them collapsed. None of them had any time to notice the others were collapsing too, so no alarms were raised. Peace and quiet. The bots swarmed over the rest of the building to make sure I hadn't missed a hidden corner with another goon somehwere. Nobody conscious, but there were booby traps on the inside of the doors. I couldn't figure out how to disarm the thing without setting them off.

Abyssal motioned for them to move to the side, a section of wall, far away from the booby-trapped doors. I drew his sword, making sure to line the edge of the blade with the diamond tool tips of my bots.

Tattletale realized what I was going to do. "Grue, we need your darkness to be extra thick here. Muffle everything, just in case Bakuda's listening."

I had taken out all the guards, but I had forgotten that Bakuda might still have monitoring devices. I didn't find any, but then again, Tinkertech.

He nodded, spreading his power until it was pitch black. Abyssal slammed the wall with his blade, and not a sound escaped. Huh. I didn't realize Grue's power also blocked sound that well. I guess I hadn't been paying enough attention last time. I slashed at the wall again. The force definitely smashed through the cinderblock wall easily, but the extra force from the swing also damaged some of the diamond tips. I shifted the bots around the blade so it had a fresh edge, and sliced at the wall a few more times.

Then I realized I didn't have to do it so slowly. By continuously cycling the bots through so that the edge of the blade was always fresh, I would be able to have an extremely sharp blade. In fact, if I did it faster... it would act like a microscopic chainsaw as I cut.

I found it to be exceptionally effective. Instead of hacking away at the wall over and over, I could cut smoothly through the wall. After having weakened the wall enough, I didn't bother cutting, and just sent Abyssal's body smashing through the cinders.

Grue's darkness had done its job; I didn't see any change inside. If Bakuda had been monitoring us, then she either hadn't reacted or didn't notice. Nor had any silent alarms been set off; I didn't notice any ABB members in the surrounding area coming to reinforce this building. All of us snuck in through the newly-created side entrance into a utility room.

"How are we taking out the guards?"

Tattletale looked at Grue, then at Abyssal. I gave her an okay signal. "They've already been taken out."

"What? No way."

He cautiously opened the door and peeked into the main area of the warehouse. Then he opened it wide and walked forward, continuing to spread his darkness. Upon seeing what the interior looked like, he retracted his darkness and glanced at Abyssal.

"Damn. He can do that? What the fuck's the point of the sword?"

Regent whistled as he surveyed all the unconscious guards. He immediately grabbed one of the night-vision goggles from them. "Nice loot."

"We still need to tie them up and gag them. They're just knocked out, they'll wake up in a few minutes," Tattletale explained.

While the rest of them were tying up and disarming the guards, I spread as many robots around the building as possible for a more thorough search. I was able to get into every single nook and cranny. There was no hidden room or secret trapdoor. Even when we started shoving boxes and junk out of the way, there was nothing below.

"Hey, Tats. You sure it's supposed to be around here? I'm not finding anything," Grue said.

Tattletale was thinking hard, massaging an oncoming headache. "Yes, it's here. It has to be here. I'm sure of it. It's just not..." Her eyes snapped open. "She's using a pocket dimension. Lung must have paid for something from Toybox."

"Toybox? Sounds like a kid's store," Grue said.

"If you're the kind of kid who can afford to pay five million dollars for a laser sword, sure," Tattletale said. "Or a stable pocket dimension. Fuck, Lung must have considered Bakuda a more valuable investment than I thought."

"How do you know it's Toybox?"

"Doesn't matter," Tattletale said. "Toybox or some other Tinker willing to sell. Bakuda can make pocket dimensions with her bombs, sure, but stable is not her game. It's definitely a pocket dimension though."

"How do we force her to open it? We can't just camp here and wait for her to blow up the city."

I was almost willing to give up. My machines were small, but there was no way I could make them rip apart the fabric of space-time. My Tinker powers were completely blank on the matter, too. I could build bots that were small, but not small enough to squeeze between the dimensions of reality. Screw that.

"Nothing can force her. She can probably hunker down and live off of supplies for a month," Tattletale said. That was something I could do. Simply keep bots here permanently – covering the entire city, and beyond, was already part of my plan. If it came down to laying siege, I would win against her, but how long would it take?

"I guess that's it, then. Call it a night," Regent said, stretching and yawning. "I'm gonna go play some Battlefield's Call."

"No, wait!" Tattletale said. "We can still get her tonight. There's a way..."

"Come on, spit it out."

"We draw enough attention that other people who can open it will flock here. Vista might be able to, or Armsmaster if he has a bit of time to analyze it."

Regent crossed his arms. "You've gotta be kidding. You want to call for help from the heroes?"

"Not like we know any villains who could help," Tattletale said. "You want to save the city or not?"

"Naw. I'd rather have the money. If I have to split the bounty with everyone, and the heroes, it ain't worth it," Regent said.

"You can be on bomb-checking duty every night until Bakuda's dead or captured, then," Grue answered. "I'm not letting this city get turned into a crater."

"Aw, fuck that. It'll cut into my gaming time," Regent replied. "You seriously think we can take her out now? Why not just camp here and starve her out?"

"And give her more time to build what she needs? We have the advantage now. We need to use it," Tattletale said.

"So how do we actually lure her out? Or get the heroes here?" Grue asked. "I don't think they'll come running just because gave them a phone call."

Tattletale pointed at the booby-trapped doors. "We set off the bombs deliberately. Everyone's bound to notice."

Abyssal got up and motioned for the rest of them to go. Tattletale understood and moved them to a safe place, far away from the building. While they were running off, I also buried my brain-copies in the area deeper underground for protection, along with most of Abyssal. With the cheap and disposable bots I had, I sent them crawling all over the bombs that trapped the entrances. I didn't know much about triggering bombs, so I used the bots to simply chew through wires randomly.

It seemed like foolish random tampering was enough. Six explosions went off simultaneously. The explosions seemed to be directed outwards, towards whoever would have been standing by the door. While the damage to the building was minimal, there was enough of a shockwave that broke most of the windows and sent up a massive cloud of dust and dirt.

I paused to check my bots monitoring the rest of the city. Yes, the blast could be heard from that distance. Whether or not the other capes were actually paying attention was another question.

As my bots dug their way back to the surface from underground, I heard a young woman's voice ring out across the building.

"Who the hell was that?" It was probably Bakuda, although it sounded different from the voice that had been playing on the evening news. I would chalk it up to the spacetime-warping mechanisms, or just bad microphones. What surprised me was that she hadn't known we had taken out all her guards. Maybe her bombs had been her only alerts? I suppose the cell phone reception into a different dimension must be pretty limited.

The Undersiders had made their way back to the building as well, looking cautiously optimistic.

"Ha ha ha! You idiots think you can stop me? You're a bunch of dumbasses standing on my turf, and you think that means you have any chance of getting into my vault? Fuck, you guys are stupid. Now die!"

Space warped a little bit, and a bomb popped out of nowhere. I sent Abyssal running for cover. When it exploded, it wasn't so much an explosion as it was a ball of electricity, sending sparks and shocks in random directions. Thankfully the Undersiders were still at the entrance to the building, and the only things that got fried were the unconscious ABB guards.

"So, how are we supposed to survive this?" Grue asked. "We can't shoot at her in there."

"We fall back for now. Unless Abyssal here can..." She looked at my knight, but I wasn't sure about what she wanted me to do. I still couldn't warp space. If she kept throwing bombs at us, I wasn't sure if we could survive long enough for the heroes to actually arrive.

Bakuda's voice rang through the warehouse again. "Not dead yet? Well, have another! Fucking cockroaches! I promise it'll hurt less if you stay still!"

Space warped again, and another bomb appeared from the distortion. This bounced up and down while spinning, and sprayed acid everywhere. Some of it splashed on the unconscious guards - it rapidly dissolved through their body. They woke up from the extreme pain and screamed in agony before they quickly succumbed to the injury.

Shit. Bakuda didn't even care about her own guards. Given how she forced recruits with implanted bombs, I shouldn't have been surprised. But the callousness of her tactics disgusted me.

"We can't stay in here for long. If she throws a bigger one, we're dead. This is too much. We're leaving," Grue ordered. "Let the Protectorate do the job. A million ain't worth dying to that."

Regent nodded in agreement.

Tattletale gave a pleading look to Abyssal. Why was she so desperate to take out Bakuda now? Something she knew that I didn't? It seemed important to her though, and I was pretty sure it wasn't her civic pride.

Even though the Undersiders were making their way out, I knew Abyssal could take plenty of punishment. At the very least, if Baukda wasted all her ammo trying to "kill" him, she would have less to use on others, right? I didn't mind helping Tattletale out since it was right in line with what I wanted to do anyway. I just needed to know how.

Another bomb popped out, this time it pulsed outwards. Absolutely nothing happened to Abyssal, but the few guards in the ground who were still alive started screaming and spasming in agony. Tattletale, who was behind the other two screamed and fell. That bomb had an even bigger blast radius than the others.

"Regent! Regent, numb me! Numb everything! Auggh!" she screamed out. She collapsed and continued to writhe on the ground. Damn. I had to assume that bomb worked directly on the nervous system. Abyssal picked her up and helped move the rest of them out the door, while Regent did whatever he did.

While I was carrying her, Tattletale whispered directly into the bots that made up Abyssal's arm. "Get your 'smoke' inside there when she throws the next bomb, or talks. If it's ready when it opens, the portal should be two-way."

So that was what she meant. After I dropped her off outside, Abyssal ran back in and dispersed the bots into the air. Hopefully Bakuda's space-warping followed some kind of logic. If her bombs could come out, my bots could go in, but only at the moment Bakuda opened up a small portal for her attacks. I didn't know where the bombs would be coming from, so I dissolved Abyssal's body and spread the bots around the entire building.

"What the fuck? He's going back in?" Grue asked. "He's either crazy tough or just crazy."

"I'm sure he can take it. We need to stay out here in case Bakuda escapes. Be ready," Tattletale said. Her body was completely paralyzed at the moment; she was only talking and breathing. Grue had to carry her alone while Regent focused on keeping her numbed. They moved very slowly, trying to reach Bitch and her dogs.

"You say that like you're sure he can win."

"Maybe."

Abyssal was far tougher and replaceable than any of them. Any one of Bakuda's bombs would have been deadly to them, but only a few of them could truly stop Abyssal. I just lay in wait until Bakuda tried her move one more time.

I didn't know if I could control the bots through to the pocket dimension. I had a limited range already, and I doubted that alternate dimensions were included in that range. That meant I couldn't use the bots for anything complex, like disarming Bakuda or stealing her remote controls or anything like that. I don't know how much of a window I had to work with, but if the door bombs were any indication, messing things up at random was a perfectly decent way to mess up with bombs – if you wanted them to explode.

Bakuda surely had a huge stockpile of bombs inside her workshop, and she could blow herself to hell for all I cared.

Disarming bombs carefully was difficult. Disarming them recklessly was not. If Bakuda was a careful person, she would have designed her bombs with plenty of safeties, ensuring that whatever fuelled their explosions would simply fizzle out if other parts of the bomb started to malfunction. I certainly wasn't claiming a Thinker rating, but I was pretty sure 'careful' wasn't a good word to describe Bakuda.

"Fuck you, why didn't that hurt you? Some kind of Breaker bullshit? Just fucking die already, you dipshits. You can't touch me, but I'll definitely find something that'll kill ya! Don't try to mess with the world's smartest fucking tinker!"

I was glad that Bakuda just couldn't stop talking. It gave me longer to find the portal where the bomb would be coming from. While it was too small to push bots through just yet, I just had to wait until she widened it to fit a bomb in. I only managed a million or so on my first try, and made them roam around and cut every wire they came across until I lost control of them.

Meanwhile, I had to make Abyssal dodge a freezing bomb. Ice crystals grew across the floor, walls, and even the high ceiling. Water pipes cracked and burst with ice almost immediately; the guards on the floor were frozen solid like popsicles. I could feel Abyssal slow down - while the cold wasn't good for him, his body had no water to freeze or any true vulnerability to cold.

"Had enough yet? Try this one! You'll make a good test subject! Haha!" As Bakuda talked once more, I got another glimpse of what was inside. Apparently my power could "connect" even if the portal wasn't big enough for an actual bot to fit, as long as the portal was there. There weren't enough bots to see properly, but I could "feel" lots of chemicals, wires, tubes, and containers. They cut, drilled, and sliced away at everything.

Bakuda launched another bomb at Abyssal, and I managed to sneak in another few million bots inside. With a slightly better view of the interior, I had my bots move towards what looked light it might be sensitive or valuable before my control of them was cut off again.

This bomb that came through seemed to be some form of gravity bomb, lifting things way up into the air by reversing gravity, then slamming them back into the ground at quadruple earth gravity.

At least my microbots could survive those esoteric effects easily. The remainder of the guards did not. Boxes shattered, bones were pulverized. The guards who were frozen literally shattered. I didn't want to see what happened to their bodies after they thawed, but at least they probably didn't feel what had happened to them. Unlike the ones that died to the acid bomb.

"FUCK. YOU."

Another portal opening. Another few million bots sneaking their way in. Another glimpse inside. Several containers were leaking. Chemicals mixing. Several things were cut. I saw sparks. And fire. Probably good.

The message was brief. The bomb was not. Somehow, Bakuda had managed to create a bomb that exploded over and over. The first explosion was so normal that I was almost disappointed. And then the bomb exploded again, scattering my bots. And it bounced, and exploded again. And again. And again. That single thing kept going and going, damaging enough things that the building was about to collapse.

I anticipated another bomb and another portal, but it didn't come. I waited a little longer. Maybe my bots had done the job. Maybe she was out of ammo. The bouncing, continuously-exploding bomb was still going.

There were no more bombs, no more gloating from Bakuda. Nobody was sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe she was dead, maybe she had decided to hunker down. We couldn't know.

I reformed Abyssal outside the building as it started to crumble, and caught up to the Undersiders.

"Tats? What does this mean?" Grue asked. "Did he kill her? I'm still hearing explosions."

Tattletale shook her head. "No. The building's coming down, though. Get ready, I think she's going to try to escape."

A gigantic portal opened up on the outside of the rubble. A Jeep came roaring out of it, followed by many, many explosions, electricity, flames, and chaos that followed behind. My bots had done even better than I expected. Bakuda, with her gas-mask and a bandolier of grenades, was driving in a panic. She smashed straight into a crate, swerving wildly to avoid another and nearly flipped her vehicle.

I couldn't see inside the portal; all the bots I had in there were destroyed. But the good news was that everything else inside there seemed to also be destroyed. The dangers of being a bomb tinker, I guess.

I tried to get Abyssal to take a swing at her, but she managed to swerve out of the way again. She fired a grenade from her grenade launcher, but between driving and operating the huge gun with one hand, the shot flew off harmlessly into into the distance. I saw wood rot and metal rust almost instantly where it hit. My bots in the area instantly burnt off into carbon dioxide. That was actually a deadly one to Abyssal; I was glad she had wasted it.

Grue spread his darkness in front of the car, obscuring her vision. He couldn't get enough of it out there fast enough before she drove straight through. Her wheel must have hit something in the darkness, as her car bounced up and nearly flipped on its side. She drove right past us on two wheels, finally landing back on all four as she hit the gravel roads beyond the train tracks.

"Shit! She's getting away! Let's hope Bitch can pin her down," Grue shouted as they ran out of the building, trying to chase the vehicle on foot.

I had an alternative. Even as I sent Abyssal running after her at full speed, I made a second copy of him out of my cheap robots further down the road, behind Bitch's dogs. It was merely a hollow shell, with no strength, no weight behind it. It was just enough to hopefully scare her as she approached.

I saw the explosions that Bakuda used to keep the demon dogs at bay. They bravely followed the commands to "fetch" the car, snapping at the bumper and tearing at the sheet metal with their massive jaws. Still, Bakuda managed to just barely fight them off, blasting parts of her own car with her grenade launcher. She gunned the gas pedal as soon as the last of the dogs lost their grip.

She saw the copy of Abyssal on the road ahead of her, and again tried to swerve, but the car wasn't handling very well after all the abuse it had suffered. I made the fake-Abyssal jump in front of the car. As the car struck, the shell basically splattered across the car like a paper mâché doll.

"What the fuck? That thing was just a hologram or something?" I heard Bakuda curse. No, Bakuda, it wasn't. While the cheap robots couldn't do as much as Abyssal's primary bots, they could mess things up easily. The ones that stuck to the car crawled all over the vehicle, cutting as many things apart as they could. Fuel lines, electrical lines, brake lines, steering fluid, coolant hoses, whatever they could get their little tools on.

The engine sputtered as fuel failed to make its way into the cylinders, but instead leaked all over the outside of the burning-hot engine block. The car burst into flames, obscuring the windshield with thick, oily smoke. Bakuda tried to steer, but found it difficult when the power steering mechanism failed, all while her tires were leaking air. She lost control, and slammed on the brakes in a panic. Brakes that no longer worked.

Seconds later, the car flipped over, on fire, and Bakuda was crawling out through the window. Luck must have been the bomb tinker's secondary power, because she not only managed to survive the impact, she also just managed to avoid a secondary explosion from one of her misplaced grenades. She was thrown clear of the wreckage with her weapons in hand. She stood up and loaded up the grenade launcher, then continued hobbling down the road.

"Backup! Where the hell is my backup, you idiots?" she was shouting. "I'll kill all your families if you don't get the fuck over here right now!"

We managed to catch up to her before she got far. Bitch had gone back to pick up the rest of her team with her dogs, while Abyssal walked up to face Bakuda on his own.

I had Abyssal motion for the Undersiders to stay back. Bakuda was still armed with very lethal ammunition. If they tried to take her on, it could easily be fatal. If Abyssal was destroyed, I could still rebuild him.

Abyssal approached Bakuda carefully. He was still spreading out like smoke, hopefully to surround her. I personally doubted that his main body could survive all her grenades; I would use it mainly as a distraction instead. On the other hand, she had some pretty thick clothing on, including a gas mask and what looked like a bombproof suit. I couldn't just jab my bots into her skin like all the other mooks, it would take time to get through her costume.

"I know your trick. You're not even real! You're some kind of hologram or projection!" Bakuda shouted. "Which one of you is controlling it?" She aimed her grenade launcher at the Undersiders.

Time to prove just how real Abyssal was. I made him run more quickly towards her. As he passed the crashed Jeep, I made him tear off a broken door and hurl it in her direction.

"Fuck! Fuck, what is that?" Bakuda shouted as she jumped to the side. She another grenade at Abyssal. He dodged it, partially. Part of his arm and leg was caught in a sphere, completely stuck. I lost control of those bots, but they didn't move. Even the bots that were in the air didn't fall to the ground or anything. They were frozen in time. Wasn't this Clockblocker's ability? Damn, she could just about put any ability into bomb form. Whatever. It wouldn't matter when she was dead.

"Gotcha, you dumb fucking brute! Next, you're gonna -"

I simply disconnected the robots that made up his left arm and leg. Using the internal robots, I reformed those parts of his body and charged at her again. Sure, he lost a bit of mass, but against a hundred-fifty pound woman, the difference between a thousand pounds and eight hundred pounds of bots charging at her was not important.

She hastily fired her next grenade. This one caught Abyssal's legs. I could sense the bots were frozen in ice, but still perfectly functional. The temperatures would have instantly killed a person, freezing the water inside their cells and such, but Abyssal had no such weakness. I had the bots simply move and vibrate, breaking up the ice that stuck them together and soldiering onwards.

"Oh, I know what you are now! I have just the thing for you!" Bakuda snarled as she palmed multiple grenades on her bandolier. She took a bit of extra time to load up the grenade launcher. I had Abyssal rush towards her, because I had no idea what it was she had.

Right as she shot at Abyssal, her arm jerked downwards, causing it to hit the ground only a few feet ahead of her. The explosion wasn't big, nor was the bomb very lethal. It seemed to spray another kind of aerosol; a thick foggy substance. Abyssal leaped over it as best he could. I noted that the bots that did touch the fog got stuck – they clumped together. This stuff was even stronger than epoxy, maybe stronger than containment foam. My bots would be able to break through it eventually, but not quickly.

Funny how her least-lethal bomb was going to cause Abyssal the most trouble. After he landed, I just shed the stuck bots. There was still a few hundred pounds of him left.

"No! Fuck!" The glue bomb, exploding so close to her, had managed to get her foot stuck to the road as well. She was trying to untie the boot and escape.

I was glad she was scared. It meant she was focused on Abyssal's body, and not on the small bots i had circling around her, crawling up her body and her bandolier. Like I had said with my other bots, I just instructed them to mess around with the explosives she had. I didn't want to knock her unconscious and send her to jail.

The victims I treated at the hospital wouldn't be living the rest of their lives in the comfort of a jail cell. In fact, right in front of my actual self at the hospital, I was tending to a burn victim. One limb missing, third degree burns over half of his body. It was hard to feel even a tiny ounce of sympathy for her right now. Bakuda deserved a taste of her own medicine.

I wondered if Bakuda put more care into the grenades she had strapped to her body than the bombs she had lying around inside her workshop. A few snipped wires managed to set off a chain reaction and flush her out. If she was as smart as she thought she was, my bots would, at best, just disable the grenades. If she was as dumb as I hoped, the results would be a repeat of what happened a short while ago.

Bakuda noticed something was wrong with her grenades before they went off; she immediately disconnected the bandolier and threw it aside. Once again, her arm twitched, and the bandolier didn't go nearly as far as she intended.

She rolled in the opposite direction, but that wasn't enough to save her from the effects of multiple bombs. Not only were there normal explosions, but intense heat, and a localized earthquake. Her own costume appeared to explode a little, protecting her from the bulk of the damage. Ablative armour. Of course a bomb tinker would make that.

Still, it didn't protect her from the other effects of her other grenades.

As the ground shook, she lost her balance, and fell down and rolled into the crater with the burning napalm flames. Part of the ground as well as the lower right side of her body and leg were turned into glass. The transmuted glass melted from the heat. The upper right, including her entire arm and part of her chest, were suffering from massive burns. She clawed at the ground with her left arm, gasping in pain but she still managed to laugh maniacally between gasps of breath.

She ripped off her gas mask, probably to help her breathe better. "Even... when I... hrkkk lose... I win," she said with a smug, contorted smile. I wasn't sure if I should kill her quickly, or let her suffer. She nearly killed Panacea; she didn't deserve a chance to be healed. She was going to die either way.

"We can't let her die! She's got a dead-man's switch rigged to her heart!" Tattletale shouted from behind. "All the bombs in the city are going to go off as soon as her heart stops beating!"

Bakuda just let out a wet, gurgling laugh. That was probably her lungs filling up with blood.

Now you tell me? I wished I could glare harder at Tattletale. If she had to survive, only one person could actually save her. Panacea. And that was the reason I wanted to kill Bakuda. Practicality won over my desire for revenge, though; I couldn't let all the bombs in the city go off.

I had Abyssal grab her and yank her up. His massive hand had a firm grip around her neck, and nobody noticed the bots that forced their way into her body through her many gaping wounds. His bots were basically the same as the ones I used for medical procedures, so I got to work.

I sterilized the wounds as much as I could so that she would survive the trip, and I didn't do it very carefully. Bacteria infection in her throat? I just sliced her larynx out and sealed the wound with bots. One lung collapsed and bleeding? I could seal up thousands of tiny blood vessels, or just chop of the lung and seal off two big blood vessels. She didn't need both of her lungs to live. Internal bleeding? I just clamped off the renal arteries. Her kidneys would fail, but that wouldn't kill her right away. All she needed was her heart, her brain, and oxygen for a few more hours. Everything else could be sacrificed.

I had no sympathy for her. There were still dozens more in front of me lying in agony. The morgue was full. She'd hurt Panacea and sacrificed dozens of her own people. If she thought she "won" by prolonging her life, I would show that so-called genius how stupid she was. I made sure the blood flow to her nerves were fine until I was finished with "cleaning her up" though. I wouldn't allow her the luxury of numbness.

Panacea could probably rebuild most of her body. In fact, she'd feel obligated to. But Panacea needed the patient to have enough body mass to do so. Chopping off her arms and legs meant that she wouldn't have enough biomass for anything other than repairing the critical internal organs. No arms meant no Tinkering. Panacea didn't have to feel bad about being unable to fully heal someone when the biomass simply didn't exist.

I sent billions of bots surround her heart to force it to keep pumping no matter what. The bots could see the intricate wiring she had implanted on herself; I was careful to make sure my bots didn't touch them. There. Now she couldn't die even if she begged for it.

I had an excuse ready by the time Abyssal made it to the medical tent outside the hospital. All of New Wave was still guarding the patients when we came riding in on Bitch's dogs. I could see through my own eyes how fearsome he looked, a giant armoured man riding a giant demonic dog. I couldn't blame Brandish, Lady Photon, Shielder, Laserdream, and Manpower for all gathering together in a defensive line in case of trouble.

Abyssal jumped off the dog and held up Bakuda, or what was left of her. She had long since gone unconscious. I was actively forcing the heart to pump now. I needed Panacea, fast. I made sure that Abyssal just stood there, holding Bakuda, not making any threatening moves.

With my actual body, I walked up to the front lines, hoping nobody panicked and sparked a fight.

"Eunoia! Stay back! We don't know who this cape is, but he's working with villains!" Glory Girl shouted.

Since nobody seemed to recognized the mangled, bloody mess that was Bakuda, I decided to clue them in.

"BAKUDA," his low, bassy voice boomed out.

"Huh? Wait, really? That's Bakuda? What the hell did he do to her?" Glory Girl exclaimed. She didn't lower her guard.

"Why bring her here? If he wants to claim the bounty, he needs to go to the Protectorate, not the hospital..." Laserdream said.

"Well, she definitely looks like she needs medical attention," I said. "I'll check it out." I walked forward, too suddenly for any of them to stop me. I just hoped that I wasn't being suspiciously reckless.

I made Abyssal kneel down and lower Bakuda in front of me. Hopefully that move would make them understand he wasn't hostile. I put my hand on Bakuda, and didn't bother injecting any more nanobots. I just kept the bots that Abyssal had inside of her already keep doing what they were doing. I just faked a few moves like I was doing some readings with my partly-broken healer costume.

Abyssal simply stepped back and dissolved away in front of all the witnesses. I didn't need him any more.

"She's got some kind of wiring and tech around her heart! I can keep it beating for now, but we need Panacea! And a bomb squad!" I explained to everyone.

Author's Note:

Well, that's all for Bakuda. Not sure if I made Taylor a little too brutal, but hey, she got to see the victims personally.