13 13 Cape Fight! 2 Electric Boogaloo

"𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘱 people? You are a 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘳, how can you stand there and act like you're a good person!?"

Redemption's voice is thick with contempt and an undercurrent of anger that is slowly but surely bleeding away any of the nervousness she had before.

It almost makes me laugh.

"Now now Red~ I think you're misunderstanding something.~" I respond with a singsong voice, clearly annoying her with my nonchalant attitude.

Red wastes no time taking the conversational bait, completely ignoring my shortening of her name.

"Then enlighten me." She commands.

I allow myself to roll my eyes at her childishness, but I answer nonetheless.

"Well~ I only said it's nice to help people, I never said anything about being a good person."

It is adorable the way she tries and fails to understand what I'm saying, and I'm just hoping she will give me the opportunity to explain, after all, I can only go into more detail if she asks, otherwise I would lose the game.

Thankfully, my prayers are answered and she continues entertaining conversation.

"What does that even mean? Stop dancing around the point!" She all but pouts.

I honestly half expected her to stomp her foot on the floor in indignation.

"What do you think it means to be a Hero?" I ask, to which she just gives me a dry, annoyed stare. "Humour me."

She does.

After thinking to herself for a moment, still with an annoyed frown on her face, she responds.

"A hero is someone who saves people." She practically spits the words out through gritted teeth.

I pretend to consider her answer for a moment, rocking back and forth on the heels of my feet, before I snap my fingers.

"Wrong!" Is all I say, forcing Red to respond.

"Then what makes Hero?" She grinds out, her words seeming to inflict physical pain on herself and I am more than happy to explain my thoughts.

"It's quite simple really, a Hero sacrifices. Be it time, effort or their very lives, a Hero sacrifices for the sake of others. So a Hero doesn't have to be 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥, so much as they have to be willing to sacrifice."

My words bring her to a stop as they both pause to process what I said, and I can see how my words are having an effect, not a large one granted, but an effect nonetheless.

All that they really need is time to process and rationalise what I say and they will find themselves thinking subtly differently.

Man, this 𝘪𝘴 fun.

"Stop avoiding the point! What does any of this have to do with you killing people!" Red half shouts as she decides to simply push the thoughts in her head aside to deal with later, focusing on the now.

"To call yourself a hero and yet be unwilling to kill is pathetic. Are you such a coward that you would rather spill the blood of innocents, than risk getting even a drop to dirty your own hands?" I accuse.

I can see the way my words anger Red. Honestly, she really needs to learn to control her facial expressions, she is very readable.

I think that at this point she is only continuing this little debate out of pride and a refusal to admit defeat.

"So what are you saying? That a hero has to be a murderer to be a hero?"

"Must you see everything is such white and black? Let me give you an easy example, if Jack Slash was in front of you, vulnerable, would you kill him, or would you fight to subdue?"

Silence is my answer, so I keep talking.

"Naturally, you should kill him, that is why kill orders exist in the first place, for government sanctioned murder for the greater good. Now, we all know how awful Jack is, but there are plenty of horrible people out there, and every time you spare someone's life, then every life they take after the fact is blood on your hands."

Unfortunately, right as Red opens her mouth to speak, our conversation is interrupted by an explosion in the distance.

Our heads all snap to the side where we see a small plume of fire in the distance.

Turning back to the others first, I speak up before they can.

"So, how about we put this lovely little conversation on hold for now?"

In lieu of answering me, Pop takes a step away and puts a finger to her ear where she is presumably listening to orders from above.

Seeing the opportunity to push little Red a little further, I take a step closer to her before whispering, hopefully low enough that the mic I assume she has doesn't pic it up, though I don't really care if it does.

"See, a hero doesn't wait for orders before moving to help people, do they?" Is all I say before I am running to the source of the explosion.

Truthfully, I don't really care about being a hero, nor do I even want to be a hero.

Then again, as a cannibal I somehow doubt that I could be a hero even if I wanted to be.

But either way, it's fun to fuck with people, and who knows? Maybe my words will have some effect on her?

That would be interesting to see.

But for now I have to focus on the present.

It doesn't take me long to make it there and the situation swiftly becomes clear.

Down on the street below stand four capes.

Well, it could be three capes and a bear, but I'm assuming the bear is Morrigan of Red Branch, since her power is to shapeshift into animals.

She is looking to be in a pretty bad shape, her fur all singed and stained by some small amounts of blood.

There are also a few bodies lying around that look like they were normal gangsters that didn't get out of the way of the cape fight soon enough.

Standing opposite Morrigan is three Street Saints capes.

First, the ones actually fighting Morrigan and apparently a rather well known pair, Matchstick and Dovah.

Matchstick looks like he's younger than me, dressed in street clothes with a motorcycle helmet that has flame decals on it while Dovah is wearing what looks like genuine half plate armour and a helmet that has a horn sticking out of each temple.

Apparently he's based off of some video game character, but I don't really play games, bar my two favourites of course.

The two of them aren't too powerful by themselves, Dovah's power being an air canon and Matchstick being a relatively weak pyrokinetic, however the two of them synergise really well together.

It was probably the mixing of their powers that caught our attention in the first place.

That leaves the final Street Saints cape, Dynamite. His name threw me off a little when the boys were giving me my crash course on Columbus' capes because I assumed he was some kind of blaster, but apparently he was named after some boxer.

Theo seemed genuinely upset that I didn't know who the boxer guy was, but even now I literally can not care enough to remember. Either way, apparently this guy is a fan.

Dynamite is wearing a full face wolf mask and is for some reason shirtless. His power is rather debated, all that's really known is that he seems to temporarily make his surroundings turn into steel, or at least something analogous to it.

The effect is already somewhat pronounced in that there is about a three foot ring of steel grey surrounding him in place of the roads tarmac.

Now, the question is how should I interfere, because I am obviously not going to just 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦, that would be 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨.

So far it just seems to be Dovah and Matchstick bullying Morrigan whilst Dynamite watches for some reason.

Maybe this is supposed to be training or something? Or just a flex.

I don't exactly know how gang politics work, so I'm just going to focus on the math.

There are four of them. I wanna kill them all. Three are fighting one.

So I could either help quickly finish off the one, and then probably have to fight a very uphill battle, or I can join forces with the one to fight a more even battle.

...Fuck it, that seems reasonable enough and all this thinking is annoying me because they are still fighting and I want to join in.

The ideal is obviously a two against two, then I can turn on Morrigan afterwards, so with that in mind, I start sneaking around the fight, keeping to the rooftops and looking for an opportunity to take out Matchstick before anyone knows I'm here.

'Plan' in mind, I wait and am quickly rewarded as Morrigan repositions herself, changing from a bear to a crow to fly across the street, closer to Matchstick.

This causes him to rotate his position, making him even closer to me.

Seeing the opportunity for what it is, I give in to the itch in my back and allow my extra limbs to bubble to life behind me.

Slowly, from my position crouched on the roof, I angle my ribbons, pointing both of the tips at Matchstick's chest.

I'd rather get both Dovah and Matchstick at the same time, but Dovah is simply too far away for me to reach.

One is enough however, so I waste no more time and send both of my purplish tendrils of blood-muscle shooting forward as fast as I can.

Even from this distance I can see the way his body locks up once he notices my sneak attack.

I feel like I can 𝘴𝘦𝘦 how his heart skips a beat as he realises that he cannot dodge.

And then, just like that, it's over.

My ribbons pierce straight through his torso and out his back, immediately bringing the fight to a halt as everyone stares at his body as my ribbons heft his body back up to the roof with me.

With everyone's eyes now on me, I stand up fully on the edge of the building.

"Hellooo!~~" I yell, taking a theatrical bow, "I am Tear! Terribly sorry to interrupt, but if you'd be willing, Miss Morrigan, I believe you could use a hand?~"

Instead of getting a proper answer, Dovah points both of his hands in my direction, but before he can launch his air cannons at me one of my ribbons snap out to wrap around a streetlight.

Right as his pair of air blasts slam into the building, I am being pulled by my ribbon until I am dangling upside-down under the streetlight.

Ignoring the angry Dovah, I turn to Morrigan, however she speaks up before I can reiterate my offer.

"Oi, aren't you the bitch that killed Clay?"

...Ah.

Even through the strangeness that is talking to a bear, I feel a little concerned at this turn of events.

"...no?"

Apparently that wasn't the right answer as Morrigan's next words ruin my plan.

"Oi, Dovah. We've both lost people to this bitch now, how 'bout a temporary truce. You in?"

This really isn't ideal.

Dovah seems angry enough that he struggles to even grunt in affirmation, but Morrigan gets enough confirmation when he launches yet another blast of air at me.

I don't get any time to recover from my dodge before a bear paw smacks into my side, sending me rolling to the side and before I even stop rolling, Dovah's other hand sends another air blast at me, launching me into a wall and cracking it.

Ow.

Dropping to the ground, I land on my feet and stumble a little before my regeneration properly kicks in.

Looking up, I see Dovah and Morrigan on my right and a still silent Dynamite to me left, standing in a larger circle of steel than before.

Twisting my neck to get that satisfying 𝘱𝘰𝘱, I prepare myself for a tough battle, still confident in my lasting power enough that I think I've still got a chance.

Then, as I take a step forward, I hear a 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨 and suddenly everything changes.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

hahaha cliffhanger!! lolololol git rekt scrubzz ahhaha.. sorry.

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