*Warning! Chapters 19-23 were all posted back-t0-back. Returning readers make sure you pick up where you left off!*
Chapter 22: Oh, There’s the Storm…
Alyssa’s quick reaction prevented immediate injury as the wall disintegrated, but it might not have been enough if Nico Minoru, Talia, and Victor Stone weren’t all three veterans of numerous ambushes. The follow up wave of automatic gunfire found itself no-sold by a shield of magic snapped into place with a wave and a word from Nico, and Talia had instantly grabbed Dinah and teleported both of them to the roof. A Canary Cry was joined by fire from Victor’s sonic canon as his arm shifted, punching out as the snap-cast shield faltered.
The two counter attacks scattered whoever was attacking, and Alyssa had formed a stripped-down version of her armor with her creation ability in the instants since her first telekinetic counter. It lacked her thermaoptic camo or advanced ECM, but she’d practiced forming the stripped-down version for emergencies just like this, and it was just as protective as ever. Which let her smash through the smoke, absorbing what little gunfire was still on target after the counter-fire…and take a punch to the side as she cleared the smoke. One that was strong enough to hammer her into the next building over. She’d sensed it coming, but equally sensed that moving would have resulted in the attacker following through to hit Cyborg instead.
Despite Alyssa getting hit out of the way, the additional delay had been enough for Nico to teleport and Victor to come charging out behind her. It was Cyborg who responded to Clayface, who had struck Alyssa with a giant ass mace formed from the end of one arm. A point-blank shot from his sonic canon splattered a good chunk of the villain’s body, though it immediately began to reform.
Unfortunately, Alyssa didn’t have time to deal with that, as her danger sense screamed and she reached out to telekinetically stop three more shoulder launched missiles that must have been what originally blew the wall. The explosion from those happening right in the middle of the street brought a very brief few moments where everyone was staggered by the shockwave. Which was enough for Alyssa to at least take stock of what the hell they were up against.
A quick sweep showed her that Clayface wasn’t the only meta on the field. Hookwolf and Cricket, the two primary enforcers for the Falcone family, were also present. As was Omerta who was a known bodyguard of the Penguin, and a half dozen ‘Inked Men,’ the heavy muscle of the Cassamento crime family, whose tattoos gave them powers. Considering that Clayface was last known to be associated with Two Face’s group, that meant three separate crime families and one of the Costumed Crowd in the form of Two Face had grouped up and committed to this hit.
Not good. Very not good, since Clayface, Hookwolf, and Cricket at the least, were likely to slaughter a bunch of civvies if Overwatch simply ran. It was a known favored tactic for Hookwolf and Cricket, as it forced their targets to engage, and Clayface was just that utterly unstable. Worse, at least Omerta and Clayface were both very hard to injure, each possessing super strength and their own annoying forms of invulnerability. Nor was the collection of metas the only problem, given that there were at least two dozen mooks with guns. Though half of those were on the ground from where Black Canary’s ‘Cry’ had slammed into their group.
The Crime Families had clearly decided to make a firm statement by eliminating Overwatch with a heavy hit, and Alyssa leaned hard on her accelerated thought, trying to figure out how to handle the group. Making several snapped decisions, she called out orders and hoped they’d be followed.
“Nocturne, normals! Canary, suppress Omerta! Cyborg, Clayface is weak to electricity! Nico, contain the Inked Men! Their tattoos grant them powers!”
That left Hookwolf and Cricket for Alyssa and she launched herself at them without hesitation, firing a spread of Starbolts to force Cricket to dodge, even as she slammed unhesitatingly into the swirling mass of hooks and blades that was Hookwolf. Cricket had dodged, of course, and tried to counter with a disorienting pulse of noise. Thankfully, the only piece of her full Star Knight gear she’d been wearing was her visor, and the systems she’d built to help protect her sensitive hearing mostly no-sold the sonic pulse. Not entirely, but enough to push herself through the attack as she slammed Hookwolf into the concrete of the street hard.
Thankfully, after a moment of hesitation as they all processed her commands, the others went to work. Talia teleported in among the still-standing normals and hammered two of them with hex-bolts, grabbing a third with her tail to pull him off balance. Cyborg, who Alyssa had very much doubted didn’t have a way to produce electricity, proved her right as his free hand formed into a cattle prod. He jabbed a reforming Clayface with the oversize taser and the meta screamed as he flew apart this time, his pieces moving only very sluggishly to reform. Read the latest chapters at novelping.com.
Nico and Dinah were just as on the ball, with Dinah immediately focusing her Canary Cry on the mostly-invulnerable form of Omerta. Thankfully, invulnerability doesn’t protect the senses, and the man cried out and went to one knee, even as he slammed his hands uselessly into his ears, trying to block the noise. Canary wouldn’t be able to sustain it for longer than a minute or so, but that would be more than enough to eliminate some of their other problems.
Nico, meanwhile, had pulled the Staff of One and was pointing it at the Inked Men as they charged. She was chanting, only seeming to be using the staff as a focus, rather than the source of the spell, and chains of magic caught all six enhanced men and bound them. Two of the six proved to have the ability to go intangible, and a third shattered the chains in some fashion Alyssa didn’t manage to track. But Nico was already casting again and she had her own fight to focus on.
She was strong enough, and had held back little enough, that many of Hookwolf’s blades and hooks had shattered. They were already reforming, shifting into a much larger mass of blades this time, though one that lacked his signature metal-wolf form. Still, he’d keep for a moment, and Cricket was foolishly charging back in. Aware of just how supernaturally agile the woman was, Alyssa wasn’t about to get into a fist fight with her and caught her mid-leap with the telekinesis she’d barely shown off so far.
The woman clearly hadn’t been aware of it, snarling as she was caught midair, and Alyssa shattered the cage around the woman’s face with a Starbolt. A follow-up bolt launched her into the concreate wall of the car park across the street, where the initial attack had been launched from. The woman slumped, either stunned or knocked out, Alyssa wasn’t sure which.
An instant later, she was forced to brace as Hookwolf’s amorphous mass of blades hit her. She’d formed her full hard-light helmet by this point, and the attack was honestly pointless as a result. It would run her power cells in the helmet down eventually, but it wasn’t enough to break it outright and the rest of her armor was far tougher. Nor was even her flesh honestly vulnerable to cuts and stabs anywhere but, possibly, her eyes.
The fact he wasn’t a threat didn’t necessarily mean that Hookwolf was easy to put down, though. Focusing on her Force senses, she managed to isolate his ‘core’ and started blasting and bashing her way through his regenerating mass of metal to get at it. He realized quickly what she was doing and tried to pull back, only for Alyssa to push forward into the blades faster than he could retreat. A half dozen Starbolts and several punches in, she hit something that caused him to cry out in agony…and shift back into the form of a bleeding bare-chested man with a clearly shattered arm. Another ruthless kick with her foot knocked him out, and she had a chance to take in the rest of the fighting.
Cyborg and Nico had put down or restrained their respective targets in the minutes it had taken for her to deal with the hook fetishist, and Talia had easily handled all the regular mooks. The entire group, aside from her, was now focused on Omerta, striking and fading, trying to figure out how to put him down. Even magic was being shattered or failing to affect him…but when she reached out with her telekinesis it worked just fine. She quickly forced him into the air, negating his ability to move for the moment. He struggled, his strength making it hard to hold him, but Nico took the chance to enact a much longer chant that finally seemed to have an effect, causing him to slowly weaken and pass out.
A quick glance around showed he’d been the last one moving…though Alyssa tisked as she realized Cricket was gone. Apparently, she’d either only been stunned or had recovered from being knocked out quickly. That was annoying, as it meant the groups that had arranged this were going to get an accurate report. Of course, they most likely had spotters out anyway, so that was probably a given. Irritating, since she’d managed to keep her telekinetic abilities largely as an unknown ace in the hole until now, but not a major issue.
Not, at least, in comparison to the scale of the attack in the first place.
“Has anyone called the GCPD? Pretty sure they have containment procedures for most of these idiots, given they’ve all been caught before. Except Omerta, at least. How did you knock him out, by the by? His invulnerability is pretty comprehensive, from what I’ve read.”
Nocturne spoke up first.
“I alerted the GCPD after I took the regulars down, they should be on their way.”
“Pulled the oxygen out of his lungs. He still needs to breathe.”
Yikes. Efficient, but yikes. Thankfully, not something that would work on Alyssa herself, given she was fully capable of sustaining herself off her powers.
“Right…well, let’s deal with the cops, then we can get back to the sales pitch, assuming this hasn’t scared either of you off.”
Nico shook her head, and Cyborg actually laughed.
“You kidding? This was badass! I was mostly only still worried I might bring too much heat on the team from Arasaka and few others if I stayed in one place. But, after this? I seriously doubt they can take us! Though, I’d want to add a secure place to stay as a requirement if I’m joining up.”
Alyssa nodded.
“Good. And that shouldn’t be a problem. There’s the two small rooms at the base you can crash in for now, since it’s well hidden. Like I said, expanding it to have room for all of us is going to be a priority anyway. Doubly so after this attack. If they found us out in public like this, they’d eventually clue into the shared apartment complex even if we were careful…”
Scowling at that, Alyssa mentally hoped her civilian ID hadn’t just been compromised. They had probably followed either Victor or Nico, given how long it had taken for them to attack. But she wasn’t sure if they’d had something that could get an image of her through the smoke, before she’d deployed her visor. Hopefully not. She seriously wanted to keep the whole ‘fame’ thing limited to her heroic persona.
She shook that thought off as she heard sirens approaching. Time to deal with the GCPD. Hopefully, the shakeup the police had gotten meant they’d be able to hold onto their captures better than had happened in the past…
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A/N 1: Another part of getting Worm characters involved is working in some of their villains. In the attack group we see that in Hookwolf and Cricket, who I always see as more in it for the violence than ideology, so here they are working for a mob family. Likewise, there's a couple of Marvel characters like Omerta mixed in...along with the person who provided the Inked Men their tats, though I'll leave that for people to guess at/figure out until it's revealed in story ;-).