Exposed
SitRep: Omen attack in the New Chicagoan Badlands. Involved Ursa Major Personnel: Commander Persephone De Luca. Report: REDACTED Outcome: Dismemberment
Fuck,” I cry out, sliding a few inches. Whoever hit me bounces off with a masculine grunt.
I turn to see Percy get laid out as well, her more human body cartwheels deeper into the backstreet. She slides a few feet before laying still. Panic flashes through my mind before my senses take over. She’s alive. That much I can tell.
“No one here to save you now,” a voice growls from the mouth of the alley. “No supers to rescue you.”
My eyes adjust to the darkening light as four figures filter into the passage. Each looks larger than the one before—and at the front is one I know all too well.
“Triggerman,” I say, trying my best to sound cowered. With any luck, we’ll get out of this with only a few bruises. They only want information—they can have it.
“Oh, no quips about my name tonight?” he scowls, voice reedy but not radiating the fear he’d shown last night.
“Wait,” I say, glancing down at his right hand.
Sure enough, he’s yet to get a prosthetic.
A gun-looking device has manifested in his remaining hand.
It’s still shakier, but I imagine he’s capable of causing damage all the same.
“We don’t want any trouble. Whatever you’re wanting to know, we’ll spill it. ”
I look behind me at where Percy lays. Her chest moves slowly, but her eyes are still closed.
The other three goons around Triggerman chuckle darkly.
One looks to be made almost entirely of flesh-colored rock. Pebbles fall off his body as his shirtless torso ripples and flexes. His hand idly rubs at his left shoulder like he’d struck something.
“You the one who hit me?” I ask, turning my attention on him.
He bares his teeth at me, looking more like a humanoid boulder than anything sentient.
“Right,” I say, taking that as a confirmation.
The other two look more human. They’re both huge men, but the flames licking at the fingertips of one and the frost coating the hands of the other lead me to believe their powers are more elemental.
“This time,” Triggerman says, redirecting my attention to him, “we’re going to bring you in. And then we’ll let them torture you. Have their way with you.”
His eyes gleam with a sadistic pleasure.
“And then we’ll kill you,” he shrugs. “You had your chance last night to do this the right way.”
He gives Percy’s unconscious body a long look. She stirs slightly, fleshy hand coming up to brush back the bangs covering her eyes.
“What the fuck?” she groans out, bionic elbow coming back to rest on the ground behind her, propping her up.
Triggerman backs up a step as the other three dash forward. I step between Percy and human boulder. His fist lands directly into my gut and I make a show of doubling over.
In reality, the blow doesn’t even register.
I grab onto his fist, twisting with it as I roll off to his side. He doesn’t follow, instead his entire fist shatters from the wrist with a sickening crack.
“Fuck!” he bellows out, staggering back a few feet, clutching at his maimed wrist. “She took my fucking hand!”
I glance down at the rock in my hand. It begins to disintegrate and the remaining sand and pebbles trickle from my fingers.
The fire guy lets out a grunt, loosing a stream of fire. Beside him, Triggerman fires wildly into the inferno.
I dive to the side, landing just beside Percy who gets to her feet.
The barrage of bullets and fire singe the back of my head and neck. An acrid smell of flesh and hair meets my senses as Percy grabs me around the bicep. She pulls us further back into the alley, making space between the assailants and us.
“I’m going to call for backup,” she says, hunkering down behind a dumpster. She draws her service pistol, checking the settings along the side before holding it at the ready.
I glance over the edge of our metallic covering.
Fire guy and ice guy are making their way down the alley—the smoke from the torrent of flame clearing slowly.
Triggerman stands further back, his remaining knuckles white as he grips the gun.
Beside him, the rock guy looks like he’s regrowing his hand.
“Fuck,” Percy hisses out, the phone hitting the dirt with a crunch. “There’s no signal down here.”
“Probably intentional,” I whisper, peaking around the dumpster again. “We’ll have to fight our way out.”
Percy’s silent for long enough that I turn to look at her. Her eyes are pinched slightly as she studies me.
“With what? Your fists and my gun?”
“Do you have a better solution?” I hiss, finally annoyed with this. If she weren’t here, I’d have already incapacitated or killed these idiots. Hell, Triggerman already got his second chance last night.
He’s forfeited his life now.
The bolt of ice strikes me squarely in the chest. Like the blindside before, it catches me off guard and I tumble backwards. My head strikes the stone behind me.
Lights flash in the semi-dark. A bright kaleidoscope of color beats alongside my heart rate. Even as I scramble to my feet, I hear the crack of Percy’s gun as she fires back at the other two Remnants.
The first shot goes wide right, almost clipping Triggerman who raises his gun again. The second shot strikes true, catching the fire guy in the shoulder. He drops back, hissing in pain. Whatever Percy has loaded as munitions is clearly Remnant-oriented.
The ice guy closes in on us, and I step between him and Percy. I catch his first swing with my forearm and retaliate with a right hook. My fist catches him squarely in the temple and he staggers back with a swear.
Percy fires off two more shots. One pings off the stone beside the rock guy’s foot. The other catches Triggerman in the thigh. He yells out something sounding like “cunt.” His wild shot, though, strikes me in the chest.
“Arya!” Percy cries out, but she’s too late to get to my side before I drop to one knee. Ice guy’s fist catches me directly along the jaw and lights dance in my vision.
Time freezes as the bullet from Triggerman’s manifested gun saps at my strength. I can feel the way it pulls at power far greater than it’s capable of carrying. The manifested metal dissolves into nothingness as the spread of his power does its best to pull at the reservoir.
The world catches up when I hear the clatter of Percy’s gun beside me. Lights flash again as Triggerman puts two more bullets into my back.
I can tell Percy is yelling something, but her words are muffled as my body tries to fight off the power. I push some of my shadows into the wounds, hoping that, in her terror, Percy doesn’t notice the wafting darkness.
The ground rattles around us. I can feel something tugging at my gut. Like when a spirit really has something vital it wants to say but can’t. Like my own soul might be trying to extract itself from my body.
Soul.
Fuck.
I drag my head up, feeling the world rock a little as my counteracting shadows pull at Triggerman’s siphon. And I see him.