Dragon's Progeny: Chapter 37

Lee had been a member of the ABB since its conception all those years ago. He had been the Dragon's right hand and second-in-command for nearly as long.

As such, he had been privy to a great deal that most remained ignorant of, hiding in his master's shadow. He knew of the venom that was hidden behind civility, of the greed and corruption that was barely kept in check by the Dragon's firm hand…

And of his daughter. His heir. The woman who would transform the ABB as her father had once transformed the warring gangs that had called Brockton Bay their home. From the day that he had met her, Lee had recognized the potential in his master's daughter and knew that when the day came for her to take the dragon's place, that he would follow her without hesitation. Just as he had for Lung-sama.

That day came much sooner than any of them had expected, but Lee had not been worried. Yosei had already proven herself a capable leader under Lung-sama’s rule. She would do nothing but flourish in her new position.

And flourish she did. Much had changed in the days since Lung-sama's incarceration, most of it for the better. The chaos that had always dwelled deep within the ranks for the ABB had been quelled, and order had been established under the firm, but gentle hand of his new master. The changes had been drastic and some were displeased by their new rule, but just as her father, Yosei had brokered no disobedience from the people who she had been destined to lead. It was magnificent.

Though it was a sight to see, Lee personally couldn't care less about the state of affairs within the ABB. He was a tool, a weapon to be pointed at the enemies his master dictated. It had been that way since Lung-sama had brought the fractured gangs together under his banner, and it would be that way until Lee no longer drew breath. He knew his purpose, his reason for existence, and he was content with it. There was no greater purpose than devoting oneself to their betters.

Now, his purpose would be fulfilled once again. His master was in danger, and it was his job to ensure that she could get to safety. A mission that he would sooner die than fail.

The Empire believed themselves their betters, that something as inane as the color of their sin made them inherently superior. As always, the Oni proved them otherwise.

Plying his trade, the demon cut his way through the building they had holed up in, silent as a ghost and just as unnoticed. The location was one he was familiar with, a hotel with long hallways and many rooms to hide in, and like always he utilized it to full effect. Their ‘superior’ flesh offered just as much resistance to his blades as sheepskin to a wolf’s teeth, and their awareness was just as dull as their wit.

Floor by floor, he ascended, cutting down all those who crossed his path and staying unnoticed all the while. And as he continued, he took note of something odd.

For one there were many more foes than he had originally thought. His scouting had led him to believe that there were perhaps a dozen people hiding within the building, but now he realized that he was mistaken. There were at least thrice that many, and each of them was much more well-equipped than the Empire trash he had fought thus far, with vests of ammunition and well-maintained rifles.

Not only that, but he had already passed several rooms with even more spare munitions, placed as if they had been set up ahead of time. Had they planned this assassination attempt? Or had the Empire simply been better prepared for a conflict with them than anyone believed?

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for his master's safety.

He continued his task, picking off the enemy one by one, striking from the shadows when they least expected and darting back in before he was noticed. He managed to eliminate five more of them before he was noticed, a lower number than he was hoping for.

As they finally caught on to his presence and alerted their fellows, Lee was forced to flee from the bullets seeking to do him harm. He darted in and out of bedrooms, utilizing his power to its fullest extent as he created moving decoys to take eyes off of him so that he could strike back while they were distracted.

It was more difficult than he was used to. These skinheads were much more competent than most Empire members Lee had faced. They moved with coordination once they realized he was in their midst, watching each other's blindspots and making it difficult to continue his assault without getting hit in the process, something he couldn't afford.

Eventually, they managed to pin him down in a sparsely furnished bedroom at the end of the hall, pinning him in with suppressive fire and making escape almost impossible. Not only that, more of them were approaching and soon he would have his hands full with more than even he could handle.

He calmly looked around, searching for a way out of the bedroom, and immediately locked onto the nearby window With a glance and a mental flex of his power, Lee retreated into the building across the street.

He appeared in a darkened office and immediately crouched down out of sight of the window that had supplied his escape. He looked around, finding that the place he had ended up in was seemingly empty. At the very least, he couldn't see any lights on, nor could he hear anyone nearby. That was good.

Reaching up to his face, Lee pulled his mask off, knowing that the bright red color would give away his position when he did what he was about to do. Placing it on the ground, he reached into a pouch on his vest and pulled out a small pair of binoculars, before slowly creeping back to the window.

Gazing across the street, he found the room he had just been in just in time to see three skinheads burst inside, guns held at the ready. He backed deeper into the shadows around him, staying out of sight as he observed them silently.

Just as he had noticed before, they acted much more professionally than he had expected them to. They cleared the room in an almost militaristic style, checking corners and watching each other's backs as they searched for him, even going so far as to open the closet he had disregarded.

After a moment,they seemed to realize that they had lost them and holstered their weapons.. Lee's eyes narrowed as one of the men pulled out his walkie-talkie and spoke into it, nodding at the words on the other end. Putting the device away, he gestured to the other men around him shouting something that Lee couldn't hear, before they disappeared back into her building.

So not only were they somewhat competent, but they were also being coordinated by someone, someone competent enough to know that searching for Lee would be a futile task. That didn't bode well. If he couldn't keep them distracted then his master would bleed out before she could receive help.

That couldn't be allowed to happen. It was time to deal with this trash once and for all.

Putting his binoculars away and his mask back on his face, Lee checked his bandolier, taking stock of the grenades held within the straps as he did some mental calculations. After a moment, he nodded in satisfaction. This amount would be sufficient.

He would need to use all of the grenades available to him and even with his power, placing the explosion in the right place would definitely be difficult with his enemies on high alert, but that didn't matter.

He didn't matter. So long as his master could escape safely

~~~

Vicky stayed tense as she eyed the buildings across from them. The gunshots had stopped a while ago, or at least they had stopped hitting the shield. She could still hear the distant popping of people shooting something, just not them. Looked like Oni Lee had managed to get their eyes off of them.

“They stopped shooting at us. Should we go?” Eric asked her uncertainty, ready to lower his shield.

Vicky immediately shook her head. The shooters might not have their attention on them right now, but they didn't know how easily that could change. “Let's wait for his signal. We can't see them so we don't know what they're doing right now. They could just be waiting for us to put the shield down.”

Almost exactly as she finished speaking, the gunshots suddenly died down, the park going completely silent in the wake of their disappearance. Vicky looked around, a nervous feeling entering her as she wondered whether or not the sudden silence was a good thing.

‘Did they get him? Or did he get them? I can't see what's going on over there.’ She bit her lip, wondering what the man might be doing.

And then a building exploded.

The three conscious capes flinched at the noise and sight of one of the floors of the building they were being shot from erupting into a fireball. It blasted out the walls and windows, setting off a chain reaction as the floors inside of the building collapsed, sending dust and debris flying everywhere.

Vicky recovered from her surprise first, immediately bursting into action, “I guess that's the signal! Let's go!”

Vicky leaned down, grabbing Yosei from her cousin's lap and picking her up in a bridal carry. She ignored the blood soaking into her costume as best as she could as she lifted off the ground in preparation to escape, waiting for the other two to do the same.

Following Vicky's lead, Crystal moved to grab Eric, lifting her brother up onto her back like she was giving him a piggyback ride. For once, Eric didn't complain about the position, and once he was secure, he gave Vicky a nod, before lowering his hands and deactivating his power.

The shield around them shimmered before disappearing altogether as he stopped powering it and left them completely vulnerable in the process. The moment it was gone, Vicky shot into the air, flying upwards as fast as she possibly could on the off chance that the Empire was still watching them. Her shield might be able to tank a hit from a rifle but she'd rather not have the villain in her arms get shot again.

Crystal followed after her, moving much slower since she didn't have super strength to help her carry her passenger. Eric kept them both safe from any potential shots by projecting a small shield around the both, but it was clear that the effort was extremely draining. He was running on empty from keeping his shield up for so long.

Luckily, no shots came their way. Whatever Oni Lee had done kept the Empire's eyes off of them as they fled the park. Not a single shot came their way, and they managed to get away completely unmolested.

Once she was sure that they were all safe, Vicky fell back a little, reducing her speed until she was flying alongside her cousins.

“I'm gonna go ahead to the hospital!” She shouted over the rushing wind, “Yosei isn't looking good!”

“You think she's gonna make it? She looks pretty bad!” Crystal shouted back as Eric dropped the shield with a relieved sigh.

“I'm not sure but I've got to try! I'll see you guys there!”

“Okay, I'll call mom and tell her where we're going so she can meet us there!”

“Thanks, see you there!”

Vicky was the fastest person in her family and probably the second fastest flyer in the entire Bay, third if you counted the woman in her arms. That meant that even though the hospital was almost a mile and a half away, she was there in less than five minutes.

She set down outside of the hospital, drawing the eyes of a few people standing outside. One of them screamed as they caught sight of her bloody woman hanging limp in her arms, but she ignored them all as she marched straight into the ER lobby.

“Can I get some help?” She called out to the receptionist, drawing every eye in the lobby to her in the process.

The woman seemed too stunned to speak for a moment, before she suddenly burst into action, reaching over to an intercom beside her computer and speaking into it, “We need people in the lobby immediately, we have a patient who needs to be stabilized immediately. Code Blue!”

Vicky wasn't sure what a code blue was but it must've been important because It didn't take longer than a minute for the doors of the lobby to burst open again, four doctors wheeling a stretcher into the room with sufficient urgency.

They didn't say anything to Vicky as they grabbed Yosei from her arms and put her on the stretcher, immediately diving into a flurry of medical jargon that the blonde didn't even try to understand. Two of them strapped her down while another checked her pulse before turning to his colleagues, “Her pulse is weak! We need to get her on an IV stat!”

“Lets bring her to 205. That one's already prepped.” Another one replied

Vicky didn't have the chance to say anything before they were rolling her out of the room, disappearing further into the hospital. One of them stayed behind, walking up to the secretary that had called them down to question her. Vicky looked after Yosei, before walking up behind the man.

“Hey, so is she gonna be alright?” She asked. The man turned to her with a dismissive look on his face, which quickly changed as he got a good look at her.

“Glory Girl?” He asked, before he noticed the blood covering her, “Ah. You're the one who brought our newest patient I assume?”

Vicky nodded, “I did, yeah. Is she gonna be alright?”

The doctor hummed, scratching his chin “It's hard to say. Gut shots are notoriously tricky to deal with and her pulse is extremely weak. With how much blood she's lost, it'll be hard to stabilize her enough for an actual surgery. We might have to ask Panacea to end her break early

Vicky froze at his words, “Wait, Amy’s here?”

Now it was the doctor's turn to be surprised, “You didn't know? She's been here since this morning.”

“I dropped her off at Brockton General, though. Did she transfer over here?”

The doctor nodded, “ She did. We’ve been extremely short staffed today and your sister graciously decided to come help us out. She's been here since around ten, I believe. Do you want me to take you to her?”

Vicky nodded immediately. She had a feeling that the doctor was right. Amy was probably the only one who could save Yosei at this point. Not to mention, she kind of wanted to see her little sis after such a stressful ordeal.

The doctor led Vicky to where Amy was, bringing her to a small break room wedged in the corner of the hallway. As Vicky walked inside she was met with what basically amounted to a large supply closet with a table and chairs. There was a fridge next to a tall filing cabinet, and a microwave sitting on one of those foam-topped fold-out tables that always broke way too easily.

There was also a window, which was currently open to let the smoke from her sister's cigarette flow out into the city instead of fogging up the break room. Vicky frowned as she saw this.

“I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be doing that in here. Or at all, actually.” She spoke up.

Amy jumped at her words, not having heard her come in. She was so startled by her words that she actually dropped her cigarette out the window. She tried to grab it,but it slipped out of her fingers and fel to the street below.

“Shit!” She cursed, before turning towards Vicky, “Vicky! What are you-OH MY GOD IS THAT BLOOD!? WHAT HAPPENED!?”

Vicky flinches at her sister's scream, backing away as Amy rushed over to her in a panic. Somehow she had completely forgotten that she was pretty much dripping with Yosei's blood. “Uh, yeah. B-but it's not mine! I have a patient for you!”

Amy paused, her fingers inches away from grabbing Vicky's wrist, “A patient? What?”

Grabbing Amy's hand, Vicky pulled her sister out of the room, “No time to explain, just follow me.
If we don't hurry, I'm pretty sure she's gonna die.”

“Who’s she!? Vicky, what's going on?” Amy demanded as she was dragged after her sister.

“Yosei!”

“HUH!?” Amy immediately dug in her heels, stopping her sister in her tracks. Vicky could have kept going, but she didn't want to hurt Amy by forcing her to move so she stopped, giving her sister a confused look.

Amy returned her look with a glare, “Yosei? Leader of the ABB, Yosei? Vicky, what the fuck!? Why’d you bring her to me!?”

Vicky could understand where she was coming from but also knew they didn't have time for this. She had come so far to keep Yosei alive and she refused to fail right at the end, “I didn't know you'd even be here! Look, I really can't explain everything right now, it's like a whole thing. What I can say is that we need to go right now or she is gonna die.”

Amy didn't look happy that she was being asked to heal a supervillain, but the urgency on Vicky's face and in her voice must have won her over because her glare softened slightly.

Amy groaned, “Fine, whatever. It's not like I haven't been healing Nazis and crackheads all day; what's one more criminal? Where is she?”

Vicky’s happiness that Amy had agreed to help was almost immediately dampened by the fact that she didn't actually know where Yosei was. She blushed in embarrassment, “Uh… the doctor said 205?”

Luckily, Amy didn't notice her pause, “That's not too far. Come on, let's go heal a gang boss.”

Together, they made their way to the room Yosei had been assigned, with Amy leading the way this time because she actually knew where they were supposed to be going. It wasn't very far luckily, which was good because they were running out of time.

Eric was there, leaning against the wall just outside of the room as he tapped on this phone, but Crystal was nowhere to be found. He looked up as they approached, “Hey, Amy. Vicky, Crystal said mom’s on her way here with dad. She's on the phone with aunt Carol right now so she'll probably be here soon too.”

Vicky nodded, “Thanks Eric. You can go find a place to rest, if you want. I think I can watch Yosei.”

Eric gave her a tired smile, pushing off of the wall, “Yeah, I think I'll do that. Yell if you need anything or, you know, if our friend wakes up and decides to continue the family business of property destruction.”

“I'm sure you'll hear it first if that happens..” Vicky snorted as she followed Amy inside the room.

Yosei was lying on the bed, an oxygen mask on her face and an IV already feeding into her arm to replace her lost fluid. She wasn't bleeding as much anymore but that wasn't saying much considering she had already probably ruined the mattress she was laying on. Even with the IV, she still looked horrible. Her skin was even paler under the fluorescent lights, and Vicky could actually see some of the veins running under her skin.

“Huh. She's a lot younger than I thought she'd be.” Amy commented as she saw the woman, not concerned in the slightest about her state.

“I know, right? I thought she'd be Crystal's age,not barely older than me. Running a gang makes you seem more mature, I guess.”

“I guess.” Amy agreed, stepping up to the bed. Yosei didn't stir at their voices, proving that the woman was well and truly out of it right now. Leaning down, Amy put a hand on the side of her neck, humming lightly as Vicky walked up beside her to keep an eye on the unconscious cape just in case.

Amy's eyes widened slightly as she touched the unconscious cape, “Wow, you weren't kidding, she's in rough shape. She's got a bullet lodged in her liver, hollow point judging by what I'm feeling, so that's not good. It also clipped her celiac artery so there's a ton of internal bleeding on top of everything that we can actually see. I'd say she has maybe three minutes before she bleeds out.”

Vicky winced, “Told you it was bad. She dropped like a rock after that shot and she doesn't seem like the type who can't handle pain.”

Amy hummed in agreement, before her brow furrowed in concentration. Vicky watched as Yosei suddenly twitched on the bed, the first movement she'd made since she passed out. Amy's power began to work its magic as quickly as it always dod, repairing her damaged organs and closing the wound.

As Amy worked, there was a small plink, and Vicky looked down to find the bloody bullet responsible for all of the damage rolling on the ground by her shoe. Her face twisted and she stepped away from it as Amy pulled her hand back.

“Alright, she's all patched up.” She said, wiping her hand on her robe as if it was dirty, “She didn't really have all that much excess fat to use so I had to improvise. Her muscles are gonna be a bit weak until she can get them back to normal but that's probably better for us anyway.”

Vicky sighed in relief, happy that Yosei wasn't going to suddenly croak on them. She gave her sister a tight hug, “Thanks Ames, you're the best.”

“Uh-huh. No problem.” Was all Amy said, squirming like she always did when Vicky hugged her too tightly. Vicky took pity on her and let her go after another second of sisterly affection.

Amy, coughed as she was let go, smoothing out her robes, “I also gave her a healthy dose of anesthesia. She shouldn't be waking up for a few hours at least. That should be enough time for the PRT to get here and haul her ass off.”

Vicky hesitated, “I'm… not sure they can do that, actually. She was attacked in her civilian identity. I'm pretty sure everything she did counts as self defense.”

Amy raised an eyebrow at her words, “Including running a gang known for its slavery and forced sex-work?” She asked dryly.

Vicky conceded her point. No matter how fuzzy things could be in situations like this, there were some things that overruled the Unwritten Rules. “True. I guess I'll call Dean and ask him if they're still trapped in the Rig.”

Amy looked startled at the news, “Wait what? Who's trapped on the Rig?”

“Basically everyone that's not us.” Vicky said, pulling out her phone, “Dean said that something went wrong with the defenses and it locked them all in.”

“So what, there's just no heroes in the city right now?”

“Miss Militia and Triumph were on patrol so they're still around. And I bet some of the other Wards were off or not there when it happened. I'll have to ask.”

Amy huffed, looking exhausted, “Well let's hope so. I don't want to know what's gonna happen when the rest of the ABB finds out someone shot their boss, I'm already swamped enough here as it is.” She glanced at a nearby clock, “Speaking of which, I need to go. We have some people in the burn ward that I still need to get to. I'll see you later, Vicky.”

“See ya, Ames! We can grab dinner or something when I pick you up as a thank you!”

“Sounds good. Don't forget, you still owe me that explanation.”

The door clicked shut behind the healer and then it was just Vicky and an unconscious supervillain to keep her company. The ticking clock and Yosei's soft breathing were the only sounds in the room and Vicky slowly turned to look at the woman who had caused all of this trouble.

Yosei already had some color back in her cheeks, and the small grimace that had been perpetually on her face had smoother into something more peaceful. So peaceful in fact, that were it not for the massive bloody patch in her shirt and on the bed around her, Vicky would say that nothing was wrong at all.

The thought of blood brought her to another realization, and the blonde quickly looked down at her, only to groan in dismay as she finally noticed all of the blood that had soaked into her clothes. She was wearing white too!

“There’s not enough hydrogen peroxide in the world to fix this! And this was a ninety dollar top, too!” She whined as she realized it was ruined.

Wait, did she get blood all over Amy when she hugged her? God she was going to be pissed too!

She glared at Yosei, “I hope you're happy. Now I'm gonna have to spend like fifty dollars just to smooth her over at dinner. Bet mom will yell at me too.”

Yosei didn't respond of course, but Vicky was honestly glad she didn't. She'd caused enough trouble and the blonde wasn't sure she'd be able to resist knocking her right back out if she suddenly woke up.

The heroine sighed, sitting down in a cheap plastic chair near the bed. Today had started so well too. But now she had a headache, blood all over one of her favorite outfits, and the leader the most dangerous gang in the Bay lying on the bed in front of her, one wrong move away from death.

Her mind went back to what Amy had said. What was the rest of the ABB going to do when they learned what happened?Would they try to get revenge on the Empire? Would they storm the hospital and try to get their boss back? Would they even care!?

Was Oni Lee still alive? None of them had seen him after the explosion,but that was kind of his thing. Would he try to come get her back if they kept her here?

Vicky didn't know the answer. But whatever it was, she had a feeling that things were about to get a lot worse for everyone in the city.