Dragon's Progeny: Chapter 77

Last chapter felt unfinished so I went back and worked on it a bit. Not much has changed but there's enough that I'd recommend going back and reading it before you read this chapter.

~~~

The world was a chaotic blur of grey concrete and white dust. We fell for a short distance that felt much further, before landing upon the hard, unforgiving ground.

We hit the floor with a series of bone-jarring thuds that echoed off the empty walls around us. In my gargoyle form, I barely felt it, but the others weren't quite as sturdy and required alternate methods of descent. I caught the flash of Tammi's red coat as she used her power to ride the dumpster down alongside Tattletale and Skitter, while Bitch and Regent used the cape’s monstrous dogs as a buffer for the descent.

Glitz and Glam just fell, though they didn't seem worse for wear as they rose in sync, dusting themselves off and shaking rubble out of their costumes and marching towards me.

Unfortunately, the dust hadn't even begun to settle when a loud, blaring alarm rang throughout the room, setting us all on edge. I turned my head towards the door across the hall, just in time to watch as two automated turrets turned in our direction, barrels spinning with lethal intent.

My wings snapped open with the sound of cracking stone, just in time to catch a barrage of high velocity rounds aimed at the capes at my back.

“Behind me!” I roared, my voice a grinding rasp that was barely audible above the gunfire.

I didn't have to tell them twice and soon enough, even Bitch’s dogs were huddled beyond the living shield I had made with my wings. My teeth shook in my head as the bullets peppered me, sending vibrations thrumming throughout my body as my rocky form withstood enough firepower to suppress a small battalion.

The situation was then immediately made worse as several men brandishing rifles emerged from the doorway directly behind the turrets, setting themselves up out of the line of fire and taking aim. Their weapons glowed with an unnatural light that spoke of danger, and I knew instantly that I wouldn't be able to block them all alone.

Luckily, I wasn't alone. And those behind me weren't remaining idle as I took the brunt of the fire for them.

A plague-like cloud of insects stormed in from the hole outside, surging toward the soldiers and setting upon them with stingers and mandibles. Their armor let them shrug off most of the assault, but their twitches spoke of their discomfort and the sheer number of bugs made it almost impossible for them to see, much less aim.

At the same time, Glitz and Glam stepped out on either side of me, arms glowing with bright yellow energy that they sent toward the turrets in a duo of blinding beams. Metal turned molten as the Blasters burned through them and reduced the miniguns to slag in only a moment of sustained fire.

With the turrets dealt with, our path opened up. A sharp whistle came from behind me and Bitch’s dogs bounded forward, snarling rams of muscle and bone. They crashed into the mercenaries who by that point had been completely overwhelmed by Skitter's swarm, and bowled them over completely, crushing them under their immense weight or shaking them in their massive jaws.

As the room cleared and Bitch’s dogs took up a position by the door, I let my transformation dispel, returning to human form as we regrouped. I looked around. Nobody seemed hurt, only slightly shaken by the fall and subsequent assault. Regent was combing rubble out of his hair without a care in the world.

A thud followed by footsteps came from behind me and I turned to find several of my own men follow us down into the hole. There were six of them in total, heavily armored and carrying full kits of automatic weapons and other tactical gear. I nodded to the leader as he stepped forward, shouldering his rifle 

“Miki, is your team ready?”

The man gave a sharp nod, “Yes, Yosei-sama. All of us are geared up and ready to take the fight to these bastards. We'll cover your six and make sure none of these pricks try to take you from behind.”

Behind him, several members of his team nodded. They were the very same members who had been with Kon on the day that he had been taken, and they were clearly eager to take part on the operation that would hopefully get their friend back.

I turned to Tattletale, “Do you know where we are? Where to head next?”

Tattletale glanced around, her eyes darting across the dark atrium before a small smirk came to her face. “Looks like we got lucky; we skipped right past the entrance and dropped past the first checkpoint. Heading deeper from here is easy, if you don't count the mercenaries and whatever other nasty surprises Coil cooked up for us.”

And so the hunt begins.  “Skitter, Bitch, clear the stairs,” I ordered. “The rest of you, behind me. I’m taking the point.”

I headed towards the stairwell. No doubt Coil knew we were in his house now. He likely had cameras in every corner of this base that would let him monitor us as we descend into the bowels of his burrow. In other words, what had occurred up above had been the easy part. Mercenaries, more automated defenses, as well as whatever Agnes cooked up, there was no telling what we would face.

But we wouldn't let that stop us. We had come here to end this and that's what I intended to do.

~~~

Miss Militia's rifle barked a sharp rapport in her hands as she took down an armed combatant trying to get a bead on one of her colleagues. Across the street, she watched as a blue blue raced across the sidewalk, bowling over a group of men taking cover behind a car.

The blue stopped a few feet away, resolving itself into the familiar shape of Battery. The woman turned and tossed a con-foam grenade as they tried to rise, sealing them away and removing them from the fight, before crouching down behind the same car to recharge her power.

A little ways away, Assault had just finished taking out his own group while up above, Dauntless’s Arc Lance flashed brightly, sending streaks of crackling lightning down upon the men below as they tried and failed to shoot him out of the air.

Combined with the drones flying overhead as well as the men on the ground exchanging fire with those still inside of the building, it was safe to say that this dilapidated area of Brockton Bay could be considered an active warzone. 

Miss Militia couldn't believe that a force like this was hiding right underneath their noses all this time. Coil’s men were numerous, well-armed and worst of all, well-trained. They moved with a professionalism that spoke of a military background, sticking in tight formations and keeping their heads low even as they returned fire.

She shifted her weight, adjusting the strap of her rifle slung across her chest. She looked toward the alley where the ABB’s forces were finally spilling out of their transport vans, and suppressed a grimace.

She hated this. Brockton Bay may have been a disaster zone, a city being cannibalized by its own rot, and she knew that the government was already drafting the papers to condemn the entire city, but it was still her city. Working with the ABB like this should have been a means to an end, but instead felt like a passing of the touch.

It was a proclamation of their failures, that in the vacuum of their retreat, the PRT was effectively handing the keys to a benevolent tyrant and the organization left to her by a man locked up in the worst prison known to man.

Miss Militia hated it, truly, but she had her orders, and she wasn't one to go against the chain of command for the sake of personal values. Not anymore.

A man stepped out from the lead ABB van, filing behind the better-armed men with a cool confidence. He wasn't someone that Miss Militia recognized, but she could tell by his bearing that he was important. He moved with a calm, practiced authority, and gestured to the armed men behind him with the efficiency of a seasoned executive.

He spotted her and made his way towards her, striding through the active warzone as if the idea of him being a casualty of a stray bullet was a fantastical notion.

“Miss Militia,” he greeted her with a short bow, maintaining eye contact all the while. “I am Hiashi. Director Piggot said you’d be cooperative. I trust that means you won't get in our way?”

“I have been briefed on our circumstantial alliance,” Miss Militia replied. “That being said, use appropriate force or we will have to intervene.”

“Appropriate force? These are mercenaries commanded by a villain whose plans have fallen apart and who has been backed into a corner. The most appropriate thing to do would be to wipe them all out.”

Miss Militia frowned deeply, “We may be allowed for now, but if you start executing people, we won't hesitate to stop you. We're here to drive out Coil, not paint the streets in blood.’

Hiashi stared at her. “For a woman being shot at with live ammunition, you are oddly merciful.”

“And for a man willingly working for a gang that propagates slavery, you find weird hills to die on.”

The conversation was cut short by a fresh eruption of violence. The mercenaries that they were slowly cleaning out were only the first wave as from the derelict storefronts and shadowed side streets, more figures emerged, armored similarly to the ones already on the field.

“Contact! North side!” Miss Militia spoke into her comms, her rifle shimmering as it reshaped into a tactical carbine and she ducked into cover alongside Hiashi. The agents around her turned to face this new threat, as did the ABB soldiers nearby, and soon enough they were fighting a battle on two fronts – those in the buildings and those down below.

Miss Militia’s rifle barked in her hands. Three men went down, clutching their ribs or faces as the rubber bullets slammed into their fragile skin. As his friends ran around him, the heroine adjusted her aim, tracking a figure emerging from the ruins of a nearby shop, only to pause. The man she sighted was wearing the same charcoal-grey tactical gear as the professionals, but the way he moved was wrong. He was stumbling, his rifle held at a sloppy angle that would do more harm than good if he accidentally discharged it, and instead of ducking into cover behind the reinforced pillars of the storefront, he stood in the open, screaming something unintelligible.

​She fired a round, catching him in the shoulder. He went down with a loud, panicked shriek, dropping his weapon and clawing at the asphalt, and her face tightened.

​“Assault, watch your six,” Miss Militia barked into the comms. “But be careful. Some of these bogies aren’t mercenaries.”

​“Copy that,” Assault’s voice came back, punctuated by the sound of a jaw-clenching impact. “And yeah, I noticed. This guy I just tossed didn't even have his safety off and sported an interesting tattoo on his neck. I didn't think Coil recruited former skinheads.”

“I guess times are tough.” ​Miss Militia ducked behind a concrete barrier as a fresh volley of fire erupted from the north. She watched a group of four men try to advance across the open street. They weren't performing suppressing fire or even alternating their paths so they didn't get shot. They were just running towards the fighting whole shouting shouting, their voices high and jagged with a fear that bordered on hysteria. One of them tripped over a piece of rubble and remained on the ground, curled into a ball, while his comrades simply ran past him into the line of fire.

​Conscripts, she thought with an angry jolt.

​These weren’t Coil’s elite mercenaries; they were the leftovers. The remnants of the Empire 88 and probably the Fallen too, scooped out from the gutters, kitted out in surplus gear, and shoved onto the front lines. 

They weren't soldiers; they were meat meant to buy time, and as the realization settled in her guy, it was accompanied by a cold surge of pure rage.

​“He’s throwing away lives,” she hissed, her jaw tightening. “Hiashi! Your men are being too aggressive!”

​The ABB leader, still standing near her with a chillingly calm demeanor, didn’t look her way. “They are clearing the way, Miss Militia. If these men chose to wear the colors of our enemy, they chose their fate. We do not have the luxury of sorting the professionals from the pretenders.”

​“They’re panicking!” she countered, her rifle shimmering as it shifted into a high-capacity tranquilizer rifle. “They’re not even a threat!”

​“A man with a gun is always a threat,” Hiashi replied. “Whether he is crying while he pulls the trigger or not.”

​Before she could argue further, the air above the street seemed to vibrate. The hum of Dragon’s drones, usually a comforting constant, suddenly pitched upward into a mechanical scream.

​“Miss Militia!” Dragon’s voice cut through the tactical net, sharp and urgent. “Multiple parahumans detected North-west of your position! On the roof, they–!”

​A sound like a thunderclap without the lightning tore through the intersection. One of Dragon’s drones suddenly swerved in midair as its right thruster was shredded and bloomed into a shower of glittering sparks.

​The drone began a slow, agonizing spiral, trailing thick black smoke as it slammed into the roof of a parked armored transport, the impact rattling Miss Militia’s teeth.

​“Blaster!” Dauntless roared from the air, his shield flaring as he intercepted a projectile that moved too fast for the human eye to follow. He dropped down towards the street, moving erratically to avoid gunfire “North-west rooftop!”

​Miss Militia turned, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the skyline until she found them. A single cape, male, with a broad build encased in bulky black armor covered in pouches. 

Next to him, a woman in a black and red costume emblazoned with small suns watched the sky, hands twitching by her sides as Dragon's remaining mech circled them carefully.

Miss Milita's mind returned to the briefing and she pinged her communicator. “Attention, all units! The Travelers have engaged! I repeat, the Travelers–!”

Her broadcast was interrupted by the shriek of tearing metal. Miss Militia ducked just in time as the hood of a car went soaring over her head, crashing into one of the vans parked at the edge of the lot. A hulking monstrosity that vaguely resembled a moss-colored mutant gorilla roared, flapping leathery wings as it tore another piece off of the car in its grip. 

Clutching a door this time, the monster turned and threw it at Battery as she approached, forcing the woman to cut her path short and roll out of the way. Assault approached from behind, but the monster – Genesis, Miss Militia realized – whipped around revealing a scaly tail that slammed into the hero’s chest and sent him flying away.

Alongside the capes, yet another group of mercenaries arrived. This group was smaller than even the initial group, but Miss Militia could tell at a glance that they were actually trained, and bolstered by the presence of their Parahuman compatriots. They began running interference, pushing back the ABB line and forcing the PRT agents to scramble for better cover.

Dauntless tried to dive toward the pair on the roof, but a single gesture from Ballistic had him backing away. Dragon's mech dove down, but Sundancer raised a hand and sent a blistering orb of fire the size of a single fist at the drone, causing it to swerve off course.

As the mechanical beast flew around to re-engage, Miss Militia gripped her weapon harshly.

“All units, refocus!” She yelled into her comms, her rifle shifting into a much bulkier model as she took aim at the creature terrorizing a group of agents. “Squad A, focus on the capes! Priority Target: Sundancer!”

Miss Militia fired a shot at Genesis but it just glanced off of her hide, earning an angry roar from the beast. As her weapon reformed in her hands, the woman wondered how things were going down below