27

Trump Card

Part Twenty-Three: Serial Escalation

Tattletale's voice crackled in my helmet. "We're nearly done here. What's happening up there?"

I was still tapping her power, so I was able to answer with a fair degree of certainty. "Lung's outside, but he's not trying to get in. Which means that he's either ramping up until he's certain of getting in quickly, or he's waiting on backup."

"Which means Oni Lee."

"Which means Oni Lee," I agreed.

"I don't like that idea."

"Pretty sure that none of us do."

"I'm thinking that we should go with Plan B. Like, right now."

"Plan B will put us not all that far away and the teleporter makes for a nice big flash when it arrives. If someone notices, they could easily catch up with us while you're doing your best to manhandle me, in unpowered armour, out of there."

"Yeah, I had noticed the flash. So you're thinking Plan D?"

"The boys have armour too. We'll lead the fight outside, then you can evac with the panicked mob. Once you're away, we'll disengage."

"Easier said than done."

"If I can zorch Lung before the fight starts, it should -"

In the next second, there was a loud BANG, and a splintered hole appeared in the door at about head height, four feet away from me. I jumped, staring at the hole. In my earpieces, a medley of voices all demanded to know the answer to the same question; what had that been?

"Shotgun," I answered shakily, gleaning the answer from Tattletale's powers. "Solid slug. Missed by a mile."

"Keep away from the door," Tattletale warned. "They may be trying to get you."

"It was only the one shot," I replied. "If they were trying to probe for me, they would have fired more." But something was nagging at me; they're trying something, but what?

My HUD was currently running the targeting reticule for the stun rifle; on instinct, I flicked it over to the cape detector, and jumped again; an instant before the picture had firmed up, my power had placed a parahuman just outside the door. Worse, the detector agreed with me. "Shit, there's a cape just outside!"

"Who is it?" demanded Über.

Before I could answer, before I could even decide to pull the light-spot from Tattletale and place it on the cape outside – who my borrowed intuition was telling me was Oni Lee – it happened. Between one eye-blink and the next, the cloaked form of Oni Lee was standing right in front of me; I couldn't see his face due to the red-and-green-painted demon mask he wore, but I did see the round black object that he dropped from his hand.

"GRENADE!" I screamed, not caring who I deafened, hurling myself backward and away from the innocuous-looking object. I could leap some distance in the armour; unfortunately, I was still in midair when the grenade went off. I may have been flung further back; I wasn't sure. My hand came up instinctively to protect my eyes from the blast, then I hit the floor with a tremendous crash.

At least, I got the impression that it was a tremendous crash; I felt the impact, but my ears were ringing badly from the detonation. Rolling over, I tried to get to my feet; it took me two tries. Vaguely I saw, through my one good lens, Über making a kicking motion; a second or so later, the cashier's cage disintegrated from within. L33t was swinging at Oni Lee, but the ABB cape was already collapsing into the white ash that was his trademark.

Where's he gone? I looked around, saw him at the door, undoing the heavy locks. I brought up the stun rifle, tried to trigger it, but all I got was a HUD full of error messages. Either the grenade or the leap to safety had jarred something loose and the stun rifle was now out of the picture. And then it was too late; the door was open.

Lung stepped inside.

I took a deep breath and flicked the light-spot to Oni Lee; if I could harness his teleportation the way he did, it might assist greatly in the fight. But the concussion from the grenades going off must have affected me more than I had thought, because before I could focus on the powers, Lung was right there in front of me.

He was already grown to about eight feet tall and was starting to cover himself in the metallic scales which were his trademark. His eyes were visible behind the metal mask that he wore. I could swear that they were glowing with an internal fire.

His fist came around and I reacted too slowly to block it; the impact smashed me in the ribs, driving me across until I hit the wall. If I hadn't been wearing the armour, I would have lost all the ribs on that side of my body; as it was, the breath was driven forcefully out of my lungs. Error messages sprang up in my single working HUD lens, detailing problems with my armour.

Dragging myself to my feet, I forced my thoughts to focus. My head was still swimming from the blow, but I couldn't let him pin me down where he could rip my armour apart. There was another explosion, but I didn't see where it was or if the boys had been hurt; Oni Lee was standing in the doorway. Then he crumbled to ash once more.

Have to use his powers.

I looked at them properly for the first time and shuddered. No. Not like that. Every use had a price; infinitesimal at first, it gradually eroded his intellect and his will, making him duller and less intelligent as time went on.

Lung slashed at me with razor-tipped claws; I deflected the blow with difficulty, but I managed to do two other things at the same time. The first thing I did was switch the light-spot to Lung. The second thing was to switch over the teleport disc to its secondary function; teleport jamming.

Lung was more than a little surprised when he realised the identities of the three thieves in his casino. Über and L33t were no more than a step above common street scum in his estimation; they had lost out so many times in their career that the authorities did not have the heart to put them away for good. Of course, since they had gained their third member, their fortunes had turned around. He hadn't thought them suicidal, however.

Oni Lee had done his job well, getting Lung into the casino. From this point, of course, he was to keep two of the three busy while Lung engaged and defeated the third. It would only be a matter of time before all three were either dead or at the mercy of the ABB; the result would the same in the end.

The armour that they were wearing came as another surprise, but he supposed that it was to be expected; L33t was a Tinker, after all. That the armour had not exploded or failed to work altogether was a step up from L33t's usual capability, but Lung saw no real difficulty in winning the fight. The armour could only be so tough, after all. He would win. It was merely a matter of time.

Lung's power surged into my body. My head cleared almost instantly, the lingering pain in my ribs clearing up as if by magic. Across the room, on the other side of the ruins of the cashier's cage, Über's plasma rifle went off, followed by an explosion. I heard it clearly, because the ringing in my ears had finally cleared up as well.

"Fuck!" That was Über. At the same time, both my power and the cape detector saw one of the power-spots just fade and disappear.

"Are you guys all right?" If L33t was dead ...

"Yeah. Oni Lee just blew himself up. Are you all right?" That was L33t, chiming in on the same channel.

"Getting that way," I panted, facing off against Lung. I wanted to be sorry about Oni Lee - well, sort of sorry - but Lung shouted something obscene and lunged at me. Now that I was actually thinking straight, I took his arm and flipped him. God, he's heavy. He crashed into the wall, but rolled to his feet without pausing.

Now, however, he was wreathed in flame. This is not good. I took a moment to listen to the stream of data coming from his powers and figured out what was going on. His power hinges on aggression … no. Anticipation of combat. Looking forward to it. Wanting a greater challenge. Needing it. Anger helps, but is only a component, not the whole of it. I need the whole thing.

Anger … was not a problem for me. I had nearly eighteen months of material to work from. I thought of Emma's sneering face, of the look on Sophia's face when she tripped me in gym class, of the gleeful snickering that told me Madison was behind what had just happened to me. Taking a deep breath, I let all of that flood into my mind. Now I wanted a fight.

On top of that, I had been tense, ready for battle since we teleported in. That was already part of my mindset. I poured the anger into that, stoked it from readiness to eagerness. Lung was just another bully. One that I was going to fucking pummel.

Lung heard the grenade go off, but thought nothing of it. Oni Lee routinely 'killed' himself in battle; it was his greatest strength. Besides, he had an opponent to defeat; the armoured figure before him was actually providing a challenge. Being thrown like that was humiliating.

He lunged forward, swinging his claws; the armoured figure blocked the blow with a strength that was frankly astonishing, then returned with a body punch that drove him back a few feet. Again he slashed, scoring down the arm of the figure; this drew a shin kick that hammered into his ribs. Two broke, even within the armour of scales in which he was covered.

They began to heal almost immediately, but that wasn't the point. This person was far stronger than when he had first attacked. Perhaps they had been disoriented due to the grenade blasts, but the returning blows were now hard enough to hurt. No matter. He would soon be so large and so strong that he would overcome all opposition.

It took him a few moments to realise that his opponent was growing with him.

I let the emotions surge through me; in conjunction with Lung's powers, they revitalised me, boosted me. Fire blossomed deep inside my gut and spread to every nerve ending, every fingertip. I snarled wordlessly inside my helmet as I felt my strength grow, felt my power increase.

He struck at me, slashing at my armour. I felt the metal part, but I returned the blow with a kick to the groin. As big and strong as he was, that still hurt him, made him double over. A two-fisted blow to the back of his head drove him into the floor, but he bounced to his feet almost instantly.

He was now at least nine feet tall, maybe ten, but he didn't tower over me. With a shock, I realised that I was well over seven feet tall myself and still growing. The armour still encased me, gave me strength, protected me. How is this possible?

And then I watched as the torn section of the armour, lacerated by his claws, folded back into place and repaired itself. Red error messages gave way to green status messages, showing up on the left lens of my goggle-mounted HUD – the lens that had been shattered. Which had since fixed itself without me noticing.

Holy shit. The Manton field generator. It has to be.

But I had no more time to think about it; Lung was back on the attack. Snarling, he blasted flame at me. I took it, then sent it back at him twofold. Neither of us was burned, but the surroundings were distinctly more flammable and the spectators now in danger. Okay, gotta fix this.

We were still growing; he was still taller than me. But while he had started out in a high-end human form, I had started out in power armour. Glancing down at myself, I could see silver scales covering my armour, making it even tougher. And I could call on the fire myself. This is kind of awesome.

But before I could win this fight, I had to take it away from the so-called innocent bystanders. Never mind that they had been trying to kill me not so long before. I had to prove that Hax was a better supervillain than they were, or something of the sort.

Lung charged at me once more; I threw him, but this time I followed him down. He landed on the floor with a tremendous impact, with me on top. Before he could recover, I had both of his arms held, then I stood up, lifting him with me. Around we turned, around and around, faster and faster. He roared and struggled; I gritted my teeth, riding the visceral urge to fight, to contest, to win. Pushing it harder, feeding it with my anger. Feeling it make me grow even larger.

Our heads were bumping the ceiling – or rather, we were bringing down chunks of it – when I released Lung. More to the point, I threw him. At the wall. As hard as I could. He flew straight and hard, striking the brick barrier and bursting through it. I followed, scrambling up into the night air.

Even that brief respite had been enough for Lung to get back on his feet; being manhandled must have given him a boost to his determination, for he grew another twelve inches before my eyes. Well, I could match that; I focused on the memory of my mother's flute and the condition in which I had found it. My need to best him in combat grew even stronger. I saw his eyes widen as I matched his growth spurt, adding another six inches on top before I was done.

But it didn't deter him; we closed, smashing blows at one another. My armour now had claws as wicked as his and the flames washing over me were just as intense. I was ignoring the finer points of the martial arts I had learned; I was just hitting him with everything I had. He was returning the favour, but I fancied that I was hitting him and hurting him, just a little more than he was doing to me. At the very least, he was bleeding more than I was and my armour was self-repairing almost as fast as he could damage it.

His men scattered as we rampaged back and forth, in between trading blows with the now-monstrous Lung, I saw people pouring from the casino; smoke was coming out as well, but it seemed to be lessening. Good. I couldn't see Über and L33t, but that didn't mean that they weren't there.

Lung took advantage of my momentary distraction and smashed me back against another building. Only slightly winded, I recovered in time to duck my head aside; his fist smashed through the brickwork instead of through my head. I returned the favour, driving him backward with a series of body blows, followed by an elbow to the face. His claws raked at me; I felt them slide off of the scales that now covered my armour, making me look ever more draconian.

And then he hunched his back; the scales there split and wings emerged. These were made of the same gleaming metal of which his scales were composed. He roared at me, blasting flames over my armoured body; this did me no harm at all of course, considering that I was already covered in fire. But I had an idea; tapping into his powerset, I looked into options and picked one out.

It seemed to me that Lung was used to just going with the flow, adding automatic upgrades to his form as he got to certain levels of size and power. I could have pushed for wings as well, given the amount of searing anger with which I was working. But instead I went for another option.

It felt odd to be growing a tail, especially when my HUD included status updates for it, but it worked for me. As Lung worked his wings, building them toward full flight capability, I lengthened and strengthened my new tail. Back and forth behind me it whipped, gaining speed and power with each pass. We were still battering at each other, but he kept his wings out of my reach and I didn't strike at him with my tail.

Not until it was complete, of course. Lung didn't realise what I'd done with it until he had spread his wings, preparing to lift into the air. I stepped back and swung my whole body; my tail whipped around and smashed into him, lifting him off the ground and dropping him on to his side. But that didn't do the real damage; that happened when the the array of heavy spikes protruding from either side of the tail tore into and through his wings.

As part of my turn, I pulled the tail back, tearing great shreds from his wings. Blood spurted, the coppery smell sharp in my nostrils. I wasn't quite sure how I was smelling it, given that the suit wasn't designed to take unfiltered air from the outside, but I was willing to accept that it had grown a nose, given that I already had scales, claws and a tail.

He was fast, too fast for his size. I had not yet retracted my tail when he grabbed it, latching on with an iron grip. Almost before I could react, he swung around, dragging me off of my feet. I went momentarily airborne and not in a good way; this ended with a stunning impact with a wall. The wall crumbled, of course. I went straight through it, into the abandoned storefront beyond. There were people squatting in here; I caught a glimpse of them scrambling away from me before Lung hauled on my tail again, dragging me out through an undamaged section of wall. Red error messages bloomed once more on my HUD, but winked out almost as fast as they came up; the Manton field generator was treating my armour as a part of me. And with Lung's power, I could regenerate.

This time, he swung me up and over his head; the ground on the other side looked very hard and uninviting. So I disconnected the tail – which was the other improvement I had built into it – and let myself fly free. The landing was hard and I rolled some little distance, but it was better than being slammed into the ground with all of Lung's considerable strength.

Coming to all fours, I skidded to a halt, baring my teeth inside my helmet as I levered myself up and moved toward him. The armour on my back parted as my own wings began to work themselves up and out; there were improvements that I could carry out on them. At the same time, my tail started to regrow.

"Okay, what's it look like out there?" Über's voice crackled in L33t's earpieces.

"Oh, uh, they're beating the living crap out of each other." L33t's voice was hushed. "This is fucking awesome."

When he spoke again, Über's voice was a little exasperated. "I meant, with Lung's guys. Is it clear to go?"

L33t checked the feed from the Snitch. "Uh, yeah, they're scattered to hell and gone. We stick to the shadows, nobody should bother us."

"Good." That was Grue. "We're coming up. People are moving out?"

"Will be in a second." The fire that the brief fight had started inside the casino had gone out, so the people had kind of settled, but they didn't want that. They wanted people outside, to allow for a getaway. Thus, Über moved toward the back of the room and fired a series of shots into the ceiling. His external speakers amplified his already resonant voice. "All right, Covenant scum, this is an evacuation. Move toward the exit in a panicked and hurried fashion. Get out of here before we bring the place down around your ears." To give emphasis to his words, he fired a shot into a slot machine and another into a roulette wheel. The latter disintegrated, revealing the mechanisms that allowed the casino operators to cheat, but nobody was paying attention; they were surging toward the exit.

"Isn't that supposed to be 'in a calm and orderly fashion'?" asked L33t as people screamed and shoved and pushed at each other.

Über shrugged. "Would they have listened?"

"Hm. You got a point."

Behind them, the Undersiders reached the top of the steps and fell in behind the armoured pair. Grue had a large duffel slung over his back and was carrying two more. Regent and Tattletale were each carrying one. Wordlessly, they handed over their burdens; while the Undersiders should be able to sneak out in the confusion, it would become a whole lot harder if they were carrying their ill-gotten gains.

"So how's Hax doing?" That was Tattletale.

"Well, she and Lung are beating the living crap out of each other, but I think she's ahead on points," L33t told her.

"You're shitting me." That was Grue.

L33t felt a grin stretch across his face. "Fuck no. You know how the Coil deal went viral? This is gonna go supernova."

"Yeah, well, it won't be helpful to us if we don't get ourselves out of here," Tattletale decided briskly. "See you guys on the other side."

Über, with one bag over his shoulder and another in his left hand – L33t, wearing the powered armour, was taking the other three – nodded. "See you then. And good work."

The three teen villains merged with the crowd; Über and L33t followed them. The more confusion, the better.

Outside, the battle raged on. L33t would have described it as a battle royal, except that there were only two people involved. Screw it, it fits anyway. They're doing enough damage for ten people, not two.

Lung took to the air, beating his repaired wings strongly. His legs had become digitigrade and I suspected that mine had too. No longer resembling boots, my feet were now three-toed claws, not unlike those of a velociraptor. I had no idea what this was doing to the appearance of the Master Chief holocloak, but right at that moment, nor did I care. All that mattered was the fight. Winning. Beating Lung at his own game.

I spread my own wings; they were longer than Lung's and wider. I was lighter than him and so I lifted off more easily. He came swooping at me, arms outstretched and claws ready to rend me limb from limb.

His rage was incandescent, but then, I was pretty damn angry too. I was angry at having been pushed down and bullied for so long when none of it had been necessary; I was angry at having to become a supervillain just to do what needed to be done, when the PRT could have just done what I wanted in the first place. But now I had an opponent whom I could face; someone who could take the worst beating I could hand out. I needed this.

With the wings came a whole new series of status messages and what looked like an autopilot of sorts; I followed the prompts and tilted my head. The wings responded, pulling me into a smooth roll which slid me past Lung, mere inches from his reaching claws. He had a tail now as well, not as well-equipped as mine had been; I suspected that he was adding upgrades to his form from instinct and not from a menu, as I was.

As he passed me, his tail came within my reach; I grabbed it, much as he had done mine. His massive weight nearly dragged my arms from my sockets, but then, I was much stronger now, with his power working within me. With all my strength, I back-winged, destroying his forward momentum, then I dived. Taken aback in every sense of the word, he was dragged backward and downward, his wings frantically beating to regain forward speed. But he wasn't designed to fly backward and he couldn't get purchase on the air as I did a risky forward loop, coming perilously close to the ground.

Of course, Lung did a lot more than come 'perilously close'; I released him on the bottom of the loop, driving him downward with quite some force. He impacted with the ground, throwing rubble in all directions, as people came spilling out of the casino. He ignored them, as did I; we had our fight to deal with and they had no part in it.

Roaring incoherently, Lung clawed his way skyward once more. I climbed myself, drawing him on, not going as fast as I could. He would have chased me anyway, pursued me across Brockton Bay and back, but I wanted him to get close.

I wanted him to get what was coming to him.

"Hax."

I ignored the radio; I had a fight to win.

"Hax. Answer, goddamn it." It was L33t's voice.

"What?" I growled. Lung was getting closer. It was almost time …

"We're away. We're all away. If you can teleport, do it now."

Sparing a fragment of attention for the armour's power supply, I blinked. It was verging on full. As I watched, it crept up another increment. This fight wasn't depleting it, or at least not as fast as Lung's power was replenishing it.

"In a minute. I have to win this."

"There's gotta be PRT on the way. Let them deal with Lung. And Über grabbed your stun rifle, okay?"

I felt my anger ebbing, cooler thoughts taking over. He was right. This was just one fight. I could crush Lung later, in such a way that everyone in the world would see it and know that I had beaten him. For now, I would leave him with a going-away present.

He was within seconds of grabbing my tail for a second time when I flipped, end for end, in a loop that he would never have been able to duplicate. We came together, far above the ground, in an impact that broke several bones and caused error messages to light up across the board. I felt the bones mending at the same time as the status messages went from red to green. More error messages came on as we ripped and tore at one another, flame billowing around us.

My wings enfolded his and we fell; the improvements I had added showed themselves as the razor edges shredded and tore once more at his pinions, destroying the metal-scaled flying membranes. Some of my dragon armour shredded away as he raked at me, exposing the power armour beneath. I punched my own claws through his scales, into his skin, ripping a gash where blood flowed free.

We were still falling, gaining speed; I went to pull free. He divined my intent, clung on, his claws puncturing through even to my body beneath the armour. I felt my own blood flow, tore free of his claws, striking at his eyes and throat. The wounds healed, but the ground was close now. Far too close. He still hung on to me, intent on sharing the impact with the ground. He would strike first, but it would hurt me just as much.

So I teleported.

I didn't go far, only about fifty feet up; far enough to slow my plunge to a controllable speed. That done, I dived toward where Lung had just impacted once more with the ground. He was just beginning to pick himself up when I arrived, piledriving him into the dirt once more. Rolling him over, I ground his face into the rubble. He struggled under me; ruthlessly, I held him down and made him eat dirt. Leaning my head back, I bellowed for all to hear, "HAX!" Enraged, he struggled, growing larger and stronger; the flames now roaring around us melted asphalt for yards in all directions. I jammed his snout into the gravel one last time and then I teleported away.

Danny watched Taylor – even now, knowing what he knew, he could not think of the girl before him as anyone or anything other than his daughter – with a certain amount of concern. She had fallen quiet, answering only in monosyllables, as the meal went on. It reminded him uncomfortably of the time before she had gotten her powers, when she hadn't wanted to talk to him about the bullying.

"Taylor?" he ventured. "Are you okay?"

She took a breath, looked up at him. " … yeah, I'm fine," she replied. "That was rough. I was fighting Lung."

He blinked, hard. "Lung?" he repeated without meaning to. "You mean Lung Lung?"

"Yeah, that one," she agreed quietly. "I won, though. I'm okay. It's just … wow. I never knew how much hurt I had inside me."

"What do you mean?"

Her lips quirked in an almost-smile. "Lung gets tougher by … well, a huge simplification is that he gets stronger by getting angrier. So I had to dig into my anger to motivate myself into getting tough enough to beat him. And I'll give you one guess as to who gave me all that anger."

"Ah." He didn't even need to say it. "Right."

"Yeah, well. That got a bit darker than I expected." She drew a deep sigh. "But it's done now."

Danny pulled out money and put it on the table, then got up. Taylor got up at the same time and they headed for the doors. "So how do you feel?"

She took a few moments to consider her answer, during which time they located the car in the parking lot. "I think … better. Yeah. Getting it out makes it easier to deal with. I don't normally get angry, but it helped here, I think."

"Well, that's good," he told her as he unlocked the car doors. "I'm glad you feel that way."

She climbed into the car and fastened her seatbelt. "Yeah," she agreed. Her smile was wider. "Getting mad and beating up on supervillains acts as rage therapy. Who knew?"

He snorted. "I just hope you don't have to do it too often."

"Me too." Her tone was fervent. "Let's go home."

I arrived a few yards from the van, no doubt flooding the area with light for a split second. More than ten feet tall still, I felt decidedly awkward as I looked down at the van. We had only parked a block away but the teleport had broken the link with Lung's power anyway. Not that I wanted to maintain it; with it roaring through my head, it was all too easy to maintain the need to fight that had sustained me throughout the battle.

I was still gradually resizing and reshaping back down to my normal proportions when I heard the footsteps. While I had not retained Lung's super-hearing – it only apparently worked over a certain level of development – my armour had sufficient audio pickup capability to identify them as belonging to Über and L33t. A few moments later, they came trotting into the empty lot where we had stashed the van; I looked up and gave them a wave.

I was still around eight feet tall at that point; while the tail had been retracted – and don't ask me where it had gone – the wings were still in the process of folding themselves away. To the boys' credit, they didn't hesitate; coming straight over, they looked me up and down.

"Holy crap." That was L33t. "If I hadn't seen it, I would not have believed it."

"I didn't see it," Über complained. "Well, not most of it."

"That's okay," L33t assured him. He held out his hand and the Snitch dropped into it. "We have absolute pure gold right here." When he turned to me, he was jittering with excitement. "How you doing? You okay? You just kicked Lung's ass."

The wings finished folding themselves away; the status messages winked out. I was almost down to normal size by now. "I'm okay. I hurt all over and I think I need to have about a three hour shower to get all the sweat off of me, but yeah, I'm okay."

Über shook his head. "Trust me, you've earned it." He opened the back of the van and started loading duffel bags into it. "But I don't think we should be hanging around here for much longer. It's likely to get unhealthy."

"Yeah," I agreed, climbing into the front seat of the van. "Let's go home."

End of Part Twenty-Three