Ambush

Layla was giving John a ride home from the last day of his internship, when a black mist rushed over the car.

Before they had time to process this, her car was tackled by a huge demonic dog.

Luckily, John had time before this to run <nerve> imbuement, which gave him even more time to react and create a <fat> bubble wrapped in <bone> plates to protect them. As a result, Layla and John were only jostled around a little. That beautiful car of hers was totaled though, which is a tragedy.

John then took in their opponents looking like power rangers with their matching outfits and motorcycles.

Blackout was a tall broad-shouldered individual wearing black motorcycle leathers with a matching helmet.

Baskerville was a stocky young woman who wore a tan moped helmet, leather jacket, jeans, and knee-high boots. She was surrounded by her demon dogs. Huge monstrous canines with tan leathery skin with spike jutting out all over the place.

Puppetmaster was a slim man wearing a blue dress shirt and jeans. No helmet though, which seemed pretty reckless.

John already knew their plan of battle as there can only be so many ways for them to potentially win this battle.

Baskerville's dogs were going to be both the sword and the shield of their side.

Baskerville herself will just be twiddling her thumbs with Blackout as they were just there because it was necessary for their effects to be in range.

Puppetmaster will just be causing little mistakes at critical times as this fight won't last long enough for him to gain any meaningful control.

So, John knows what his response will have to be.

"Retreat" (John)

"What?! I'm not leaving you alone here." (Layla)

"It's the way to go. Our two sides are the same, one sword and shield and one saboteur. Our disadvantage is that there is only one of me and three of the dogs. The best and easiest victory condition is for me to spear through the dogs and take the three of them down. If you stay, I can only be a shield and stall for time. The last time I went into battle with that mentality I almost suffocated and I was made a murderer." (John)

Layla saw the truth in John's words and agreed. He covered her retreat by rushing the other side.

John assumed his <bull> form and rushed the group. The dogs charged him back.

John punched the center dog in the face and did some real damage to the dog.

The right dog chomped down on his arm, while the left dog slashed at his other arm.

John proceeded to break the right dog's jaw. It was healed almost immediately.

He couldn't be dragged down with the dogs, as time drags on, Puppetmaster will cause him to make more and larger mistakes. Currently it was barely even a twitch, but that will change with time.

John used his new energy he obtained after his fight with Lung, <adrenaline>. It was an orange energy that could not be imbued in the body, but he could imbue his constructs with it. It like lung increased the construct's attribute more and more as long as a combative mental or physical state is maintained. It had two major downsides; it was incredibly obvious when in use and the energy drained more stamina as the power increases.

John needed his <muscle> construct's strength the most in this situation. So that is what was imbued with <adrenaline> which caused the pink artificial muscles to gain orange vein patterns.

Time for round two.

John rushed the dogs again, this time when he punched the central dog. This time when he knocked the dog down, it stayed down.

Afterwards, He used his leg muscles to rush past the other two dogs. The dogs ended up entangled with each other after they mistakenly attacked someone who was no longer there.

He almost tripped when Puppetmaster caused his right leg to jerk but was able to recover his stride.

When he reached the three metahumans, it was like a wolf in the hen house.

They also stayed down like that one poor dog. They were all metahumans who should fight at range, but decided, well more likely whisper decided, that I should know who was responsible.

It showed that for all her intelligence and wisdom, she was as likely to be taken low by her arrogance as anyone else.

Luckily, that black cloud covered all that occurred here today, so my secret was still relatively secret. However, a bell can't be unrung. Even If I escape from here with my face covered today, my identity is going public. It may be today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month, but it's coming out. So it's time to plan my exit strategy.