(PROFESSOR UZUMAKI) BATTLE AT THE BANK II

On the other side of the ceiling, with the Undersiders spread out beneath her and the hostages huddled together in a frightened knot, Shadow Stalker narrowed her focus until the rest of the world seemed to fade away, leaving only the scene below and the choices she had to make.

The first order of business was obvious: Bitch’s dogs.

They were the real threat here, not Grue’s darkness or Regent’s irritating tricks, at least not yet. Even with chakra augmenting her strength and speed, she knew better than to believe she could take monsters like those head-on. They were brutes in every sense of the word, all muscle, teeth, and raw power, and if even one of them managed to land a clean hit, the fight would be over before it really began. Facing three of them at once would not be a fight at all. It would be a mistake she would not get the chance to correct.

Which meant they had to be removed from the equation.

The question was how.

Her fingers brushed the familiar shape of the mini crossbow strapped against her thigh as she considered her options. She had come prepared, as always, with both lethal and non-lethal bolts, but she was under no illusions about what those could realistically accomplish. Against human targets, they were more than sufficient. Against Bitch’s empowered dogs, creatures that could shrug off small arms fire and tear through concrete like it was wet cardboard, a bolt might as well have been a splinter.

But that did not mean they were useless.

Her eyes lingered on the massive shapes below, on the steady rise and fall of their chests and the way thick hides shifted over slabs of muscle as they paced and growled, alert but restless. She could picture their anatomy well enough. She had studied enough and fought enough to know, at least approximately, where a heart should be, even in an animal and even in something that size.

So if she phased the bolts...

The idea settled into place with a cold, almost comforting clarity. If she let the bolts shift into their shadow state as they flew, they would phase straight through flesh and bone, ignoring all that brute durability, and then she could unphase them once they were inside, exactly where she needed them to be.

It would be a gamble, of course. She would have to judge the depth and angle perfectly, and there would be no room for error. But if she succeeded, it would not matter how tough the dogs were. No amount of muscle could protect against something like that.

It would also mean killing them.

Shadow Stalker did not flinch from the conclusion.

They were weapons, she told herself, not innocent animals. Weapons that belonged to a villain who used them to maim and kill without hesitation. If she remembered correctly, Bitch already had a body count to her name, and letting her keep monsters like these was only inviting the next one.

Better to take the weapons away.

Better to end the threat now.

Satisfied with her reasoning, she shifted her attention briefly to the rest of the Undersiders. Regent still lounged on the counter, lazy and exposed, and Tattletale was nowhere in sight, which meant she was either hiding like the weak coward she was or coordinating through comms, neither of which made them an immediate concern. Grue was the real objective after the dogs were dealt with, and without them to back him up, isolating him would be far simpler.

The plan formed quickly and cleanly in her mind: remove the dogs first, then turn her attention to the rest of the team.

Shadow Stalker eased the mini crossbow into her hands, steadying her breathing as she passed the attributes of her power into the bolts, preparing them to phase at her will while she lined up her shots from the ceiling above. Fortunately, the hostages were clustered well away from the animals, which gave her a narrow but workable window, and she would have been a fool not to make use of it.

There was no more reason to wait.

She made herself known by letting loose three lethal bolts in rapid succession, each one streaking down toward a different dog.