Dragon's Progeny [Worm/ABB OC]

[Honoa51]

She was right about one thing though, it's just a day. What was the worst that could happen?

Click to shrink...

Oh dear. You're facing Coil. So unless he's not ready, quite a lot can happen.

Does he have Dinah? I think so. So in her daily questions they'll know she's not prepared. And with the E88 also preparing? Yeah. I can see Coil sending Night and Fog at her, civilian forms be damned while hitting a double-prong attack against the ABB while their capes are occupied.

Which also puts the E88 afoul of the unwritten rules. As they're definitely attacking outside of Cape form and outing Yuko.

 

[Sadguychet]

My hands were steady and my breathing was slow as I slid the brush along the outer edge of the canvas in front of me with the utmost care, making sure not to smudge of mark anything that wasn't completely necessary lest I have to start all over again.

It has been quite a long time since I had gotten the chance to indulge in one of my favorite hobbies like this and I had forgotten how soothing such an action could be. There was something calming about the way my paintbrush glided along the canvas, each stroke working towards the finished product I had imagined in my mind. It was… satisfying.

Unfortunately, I wasn't doing this out of enjoyment. No, there was another motive behind my current task, one that most people wouldn't understand even if I explained it to them. This work, by his piece of art that I was carefully crafting, was my way of coming to terms with what had been lost to me forever.

A small sigh escaped my lips as I let out the breath that I was holding, and I leaned back slightly to observe what I had done, before moving to re-coat my brush in paint once more.

My morning so far had been a somber one as I allowed the emotions that I had been keeping under wraps to flow freely. Without the mountain of work to distract me from things, my mind was able to finally deal with what had happened and my heart was heavy with sorrow as a result. My entire mood had been completely skewed, sadness and loss the predominant emotions within me, and nothing seemed to be able to change that.

Still, I stayed as strong as I possibly could, knowing that if my father were here, he wouldn't tolerate me breaking down like a child. He would tell me that I had a duty to uphold the image of strength and power that he had once held in my position, to be the pillar of strength that the ABB had always needed. And like always, I would obey.

Which was why I pushed down the tears that wished to come to the surface as I once again dipped my brush back into the paint. My father was gone and there was nothing that I could do about it, but as long as I remained to carry on his legacy then he would never truly disappear.

Still, it would be nice to have more to remember him by than just his belongings and the empty house he had left to me, which was the true reason behind my current task. Was why, despite my current mood, I was holed up inside of my studio, working diligently to create a monument to everything that Lung, that Kenta Araki, had been to me.

He had been fearsome and powerful, the kind of man that you wouldn't want as your enemy or even sometimes as your ally and yet to me, he had been so much more. He had been a guiding presence, a force that shaped my life and kept me safe in the darkest times of both of our lives, and I wanted to put that onto the page as best as I possibly could.

After some deliberation, I had decided on a portrait piece, or at least that was the closest thing that I was able to equate it to. Using a small photo of my father on a nearby stool as reference, I began putting my vision onto canvas.

Half of the canvas would be the visage of my father as he had been to me, the human underneath the mask, with black hair and a steely gaze set into a stony expression. If one were to look at this side alone, they probably wouldn't even recognize him and that had been my desire, to separate the man from the beast he had come to be known as.

The other half of the portrait on the other hand, was to be the exact opposite. It would be my father as the Bay had known him, the monster leading the ABB, with his silver mask glinting in the light of the fires he had created, making the snarling visage of the Dragon of Kyushu even more intimidating than before. All of his primal power and instinct made manifest.

That was my vision for the piece at least. Work like this took time, weeks of diligent work even with my skill and I had only been at it for around six hours. When everything was said and done though, I would hopefully have something that I would be proud to hang on the wall right behind my desk.

Stepping back, I took in the work I had managed so far. It was extremely rough, with the details that I wished to put into it only just now coming together, but for the time that I had put into it, it was more than enough. I then looked towards the small containers of paint sitting on the stool nearby and frowned as I took in the small amount that was left.

"I suppose this is a good place to stop for now…" I said as I placed my brush into the container of water sitting by the easel, swirling it around. The foundation of what I wanted was there and I only needed to fill it in, which I could do later once I could find the time.

And I would find the time. This small break away from my duties had shown me that I had been working far too hard the past few weeks. Taking a step back, even for a little while, had given me a new perspective on things that I hadn't even noticed before.

Nana and Hiashi were right, I had been slipping and I hadn't even known it. The days of work without break had caused me to miss things that I definitely would have noticed before and I had made decisions that I would have never made if not for the constant flow of responsibilities coming my way. It was slightly disheartening to know that I had made several mistakes in the moment that I would certainly have to fix, but that was for later. For now, it was my day off, and I had several things I still needed to do.

I looked down at myself, taking in the paint staining my fingers and clothes, "I think the first thing I need to worry about is a shower. I doubt Tammi would appreciate me showing up to our date looking like this. After that, hmm… the mall?" I looked at the clock on the wall, taking note of the time, "...Yes, I should get more paint while I have the chance. Our date isn't for another few hours so I have the time."

I put my things away and washed my brushes in the nearby sink, making sure that no dried paint remained hidden within the bristles before putting my apron away. The painting itself remained on the easel though I made sure to put it against the wall and out of the way of the sun drifting in from the nearby window just in case.

I then grabbed the picture I had been using for reference off of the nearby stand and just… stared at it for a moment, taking it in.

This was the only way I would be able to see my father's face now and likely for the rest of my life, on a tiny sheet of laminated paper held behind a glass frame. How depressing.

I ran my fingers over the glass, emotions welling up from deep within me as I did so. I took a shuddering breath, staring at the stoic visage of the man who raised me.

"...I'll miss you, father, but I promise to be everything you raised me to be and more." I promised the photo quietly.

"The ABB will flourish under my rule. I swear it."

~~~

The art supply store in the mall was surprisingly well-stocked, especially for Brockton Bay of all places. Every time I came here, I half expected it to have a sign announcing its imminent closure due to bad business, and every time I was surprised..

I walked through the aisles, one hand hooked into a handheld basket that already contained several things I needed as I looked through the various colors and brands of paint lining the shelves. I stopped as I spotted one that was an intense shade of red, studying it for a moment before shrugging and tossing it into my basket with the rest of the things I had picked up and moving on to another aisle.

Perhaps it was the general vibe of the store or something else entirely, but as I shopped I had felt my mood lifting slightly. The proverbial raincloud of bad emotions that had been hanging over me had just a bit earlier had abated, and I actually found a small smile coming to my face as I came upon an aisle full of beginner level drawing supplies. Good quality colored pencils, stencil sheets, exactly what I had been searching for.

Tammi hadn't quite gotten the hang of my, or I suppose it would now be our, hobby by the end of our last session together, but her interest in art was just as keen as it had been before, if not more given that she seemed to enjoy learning what I had to teach. Unfortunately, the few supplies that she had gotten on our trip to boston had dwindled down to almost nothing by now and she had an odd issue with using what she perceived as my own personal set.

Which brought me to my current idea. If she didn't want to use my supplies, then why not buy her some of her own. It wasn't exactly the kind of gift one would ordinarily expect to see on a second date but our relationship wasn't exactly ordinary. She'd prefer something practical over vanity.

"Getting into drawing, huh?" A voice came from behind me as I looked for a set of colored pencils that Tammi might like.

Without turning, I shook my head, grabbing one of the sets from the rack. It was the same one that I used so Tammi should be fine with it as well, "No, I've been doing this for a while now. These are just gifts for my…girlfriend."
My voice trailed off slightly as I turned to look at who had spoken and was met with a freckled blonde teen giving me a vulpine grin. Almost automatically, my eyes went down to her clothing, searching for anything that might identify her allegiances, but she seemed to notice this and put her hands up in surrender.

Still grinning as I eyed her warily, she gave me a wink, "Don't worry, despite my looks, I don't have an issue with who gets your motor running. I won't tell a soul."

I eyed her, not responding to her words as I searched for the truth in her expression and she rolled her eyes, "No, seriously. You don't have to worry, I'm just here to grab some stuff, same as you. Promise."

She stared at me sincerely and as far as I could tell, she was telling the truth. That, or she was a phenomenal liar. I nodded slowly, a small amount of relief filling me at the knowledge that she wasn't the Empire member who might cause a scene or something similar. As if she had noticed the tension leaving me, Lisa's grin was back on her face almost immediately.

"Now that my status as a racist has been hopefully debunked…" She held a hand out asher cheer returned, "I'm Lisa. Nice to meet you."

Slightly amused by her demeanor now that the suspicions had been laid to rest, I grasped it gently, giving it a light shake, "I'm Yuko. A pleasure to meet you as well, Lisa."

She raised an eyebrow, "Ooh, you sure talk fancy, don't you?" She said, though her grin let me know that she was just teasing. She looked me up and down, confusing me slightly, "Talk fancy, dress fancy, what's someone like you doing in a place like this? You strike me as the type to shop in the ritsier part of the boardwalk instead of this dingy old mall."

I blinked, looking down at my clothes. Did I really give off that sort of vibe? Or was this girl just oddly observant? Either way, I just shrugged at her question, "I've been coming here for longer than I can remember. It has a surprisingly wide selection as well so there's never been a reason to go anywhere else.."
Lisa nodded, "That's true. I don't know anywhere else that sells this many different shades of red yarn." She said, holding up her own basket. A glance down into it revealed that indeed, it was full of several rolls of yarns, all a different shade of bright red. Alongside the yarn were two packs of pins, like the type you'd put in a wall to hang up a poster or something similar.

I raised an eyebrow at the odd selection, "You're into knitting?" For some reason I couldn't imagine a girl like this having such a mundane hobby. She seemed too… lively.

Lisa laughed, seeming startled at the question. She shook her head, "No, it's just for a hobby."

"Like knitting?" I asked, slightly bemused.

"More like… conspiracy theories." Lisa said in an odd tone, looking down into her basket, "Red string, cork boards, tiny black and white pictures framed by newspaper clippings you can barely read, all that jazz. It's sort of my thing"

"People actually do that?" I asked in surprise. I thought that was just a movie thing.

"You'd be surprised at just how many." She said as she turned to make her way out of the aisle. Finished with my shopping, I trailed after her, "Most of the people online couldn't figure their way out of a wet paper bag with instructions, but I've been to a few forums where people actually have their shit together."

"And they all use the cork boards with string?" I asked, thoroughly intrigued by the topic.

She shrugged, "Eh, some of them do. For me it's more of a visual thing. A way to mal out all of the pieces in a physical space and make it easier to connect them all in a way that works. It's actually amazing the amount of connections that exist between seemingly unconnected things."

"That makes sense." I nodded, "Have you made any big connections yet? Cracked any big cases?"

"No. Like I said, it's more of a hobby, really." Lisa shook her head, "That said, I'd like to think I've been right more often than not. I've got an eye for people with big secrets and there's nothing more satisfying than figuring out a good mystery." She finished, smiling secretly.

I chuckled as we reached the checkout, "Well it certainly sounds like an interesting hobby. If I had the time for it I might take it up."

"But you don't." Lisa said in that knowing tone once again. At my questioning glance, she just gave me a smile and a shrug, "Anyway, I'd love to keep chatting but I'm not done shopping and you probably have a certain someone waiting for you. I'll stop yapping your ear off now. Stay safe Yuko."

She went to walk back into the depths of the store, but stopped just before she turned and gave me a serious look that gave me pause, "No seriously, be careful out there."

"I'll… make sure to?" I gave her a confused look, wondering what the cause for the sudden shift might be. Lisa didn't bother elaborating, instead giving me one last smile and disappearing down the aisles once again.

"Well that was weird." I couldn't help but comment as I turned to the cashier, placing my basket on the counter for him to ring up.

He shook his head as he began pulling things out, "She's not wrong though, is she? I mean, she's probably paranoid because she's a conspiracy theorist, but not wrong."

I raised an eyebrow at his words, "Were you eavesdropping on our conversation."

He shrugged unrepentantly, "I get bored and I can hear pretty much everything in this store. It'd be harder not to overhear you guys talking."

True enough, I supposed. I glanced back to where Lisa had disappeared to, a small frown coming to my face as I recalled the girl's words. They had seemed innocuous enough, the gentle concern of one friendly stranger to another.

Even so, I couldn't quite shake the feeling she knew more than she was letting on.

~~~

Clutching the bag full of my purchases in one hand, I made my way through the enclosed parking garage on the outer edge of the mall at a leisurely pace. The dim lights flickered overhead, making an annoying buzzing noise that had somehow persisted for months since it had begun. The longevity of fluorescents, I supposed.

This route was faster than walking through the entire mall to the front, though not by much. It was a minor shortcut, but it was one I had taken so many times that it was pretty much second nature to me by this point.

Only… this time something was different. I noticed it the moment I left the mall, an odd
feeling in the air, a tension that sent my hairs standing on end and raised my proverbial hackles.

Slowing my stride, I looked around into the empty parking spaces around me. It was getting late and the flickering lights in the garage did little to illuminate the darkness, and as I gazed into said darkness, my mind went back to what Lisa had said to me in the mall.

No seriously, be careful out there.

Had she actually known something like I had suspected? This feeling I was getting wasn't just the normal unease that anyone gets when faced with place like this. It was deeper, more primal.

My unease peaked as a male voice suddenly emerged from the darkness, "Excuse me?"

I whipped my head towards the noise, unable to see anything in the thick darkness. I flinched as there was an ear-grating sound, like the scraping of glass on concrete, only this time coming from behind me. Whirling around, I was once again met with nothing but darkness.

The buzzing and flickering of the lights above me were the only thing I could hear as I strained my ears, hoping to identify whatever I couldn't see. I clenched my bag tighter, my power building inside me at this unseen threat.

"Hello? Are you there?" The voice came again, this time to my right. Looking in that direction once again yielded nothing, and I was starting to get more freaked out than I would like to admit.

My power bubbled underneath my skin but I held it back as I slowly backed away from where the noise had last come from. I wasn't Yosei right now, I was Yuko. I wasn't going to risk outing myself by transforming right now, not unless I had no choice, at least.

With that in mind I turned on my heel, beginning to face back towards the mall exit as fast as I could. Even if whoever was behind me was determined enough to actually follow me I might be able to slip into the crowd that was waiting on the other side of those doors and disappear.

Unfortunately, my plan fell completely apart less than three feet from where I started as a dense cloud of white suddenly surged out of the darkness at me. I just barely managed to stop my sprint before I ran into it, my sneakers skidding on the concrete underneath me as I scrambled backwards to get away from the fog that had seemingly come out of nowhere.

As I did so, the mist coalesced in front of me, bunching together to form a pair of legs, then a torso, then arms and finally, a head, until there was a complete person standing in front of me.

One I didn't recognize. The man was clearly Empire affiliated given the symbols on his white spandex costume and his bright blonde hair, but apart from that I was completely in the dark about this man's identity as well as the danger he might pose.

"Leaving so soon?" He asked, gazing down at me with a slightly too-wide smile. His eyes sent my heart racing and my power churning harder than ever before. They looked wrong, almost dead, as if there wasn't even a person behind them and the man in front of me was just the husk of a person.

As if sensing my fear, his smile widened even more, before he turned his head to the right as the skittering in the darkness grew closer. My pulse quickened and I stepped back, my eyes darting towards the noise in preparation to see what horror was making it, only for it to suddenly stop just before exiting the darkness and into the light.

Instead, what appeared was a woman dressed in an all-black costume, the polar opposite of her partner. It was baggy instead of skintight, with a black cloak draped over her shoulders and sliding along the ground behind her. Several grenades were attached to her belt, and I had enough cognizance to recognize the lack of actual explosives. They were simply smoke grenades and flashbangs.

As she approached gave me a smile that was just as wrong as her partner's, locking eyes with me as she began to speak in a sugary-sweet tone, like a mother offering her children an extra slice of cake at dinnertime, "Hello, dear. Would you be so kind as to answer some questions for us?"

---

Next nine chapters available at Sadguychet | Patreon

 

[Phraxius]

Hah, that feels like Lisa, all right.

I wasn't Yosei right now, I was Yuko. I wasn't going to risk outing myself by transforming right now, not unless I had no choice, at least.

Click to shrink...

Kaiser, upon realising that he's accidentally complicit in an assassination attempt on the civilian identity of Brockton Bay's most powerful Cape: "My decision was calculated, but man am I bad at math."

Coil: "This is great. Normally I have to work to set things like this up!"

 

[Hasenpfote]

why didnt she read the traitor's memories? She just did with Bakuda....

Just binged it. Very good so far.

 

[Sadguychet]

Lisa honestly wasn't even really sure why the hell she had come to the mall. Especially not on a Saturday of all days.

She grimaced as she slowly but steadily made her way through the massive throng of people walking around her. There was a veritable hoard of bodies filling the mall, dozens of people mingling around her, some of them chatting, some of them staring into a store and debating whether or not they could actually be bothered to go inside, all of them an annoying pain in her ass.

The Thinker did her best not to stare directly into the crowd, keeping her eyes wandering around to different places so that her power didn't try to focus on the hoard and give her an instant headache from the information overload.

She really should have known better than to come here. Malls were like an all-you-can-eat buffet for people with powers like hers and while Lisa absolutely loved learning about how a guy didn't know how to tie his shoes by the way he walked or discovering the fact that some chick hadn't taken an actual shower in a week thanks to the way she was scratching her head, she would have much preferred some actual peace and quiet. That was why she had left the loft in the first place after all, otherwise she would be nice and cozy in her bed right now, browsing PHO or trolling some other forum for fun while she waited for the next set of orders her boss was inevitably going to throw her way with little-to-no explanation at all.

"But I can't do that, now can I? Not while Alec's playing whatever gorefest shooter caught his attention this time." She muttered to herself as she practically pushed through a group of teenagers who somehow still hadn't learned that standing in the middle of the floor wasn't proper social etiquette. "For a sociopath, he really enjoys pissing other people off. I should just stop paying the electricity bill or something. Then he'd learn to keep the volume down so that it doesn't blast through my headphones."

Almost immediately after she said it, Lisa discarded the idea. Alec probably wouldn't give a shit either way and even if he did, he'd literally just leave. It wasn't like there was much keeping him there in the first place. Lisa was not telling Coil that she'd lost a teammate just because she didn't feel like dealing with random strangers yelling at him through their tv speakers.

"Especially when I'm not even sure how much longer Taylor's gonna stick around. That girl is so hard to read sometimes. That bank job really rattled her though. " Lisa muttered to herself as she turned into one of those little alcoves basically all malls had in them, the ones with those three or four stores that practically nobody went into because they weren't on the main path, "I might have laid it on a little thick with Glory Hole. Pushed some buttons I didn't know about. I'll have to make it up to her somehow. Don't want her to rat us out just because I hit some trauma without even knowing about it."

It was much less crowded down here, with barely anyone actually standing or walking around outside of the shops, and Lisa breathed a silent sigh of relief as her power stopped trying to tell her about anything and everything around her, before that relief instantly turned to dread at a familiar voice.

She turned towards one of the nearby stores, hoping that she had been mistaken, and wanted to scream in frustration when she was met with none other than Victoria-freaking-Dallon standing just inside the store, holding up a powder blue tee with a cute panda on the front. Putting it against her chest, the blonde hummed in thought as she looked at herself in the mirror, before turning to shout deeper in the store.

"Hey Crystal, do you think this one would look good on me?" The superheroine asked and Lisa's heart sank even more as another blonde walked into view, looking the shirt over and humming speculatively.

"I'm not really sure, honestly. That color would look really good but it looks kinda small, doesn't it? The design will probably stretch when you put it on." Crystal Pelham aka Laserdream told her cousin.

"True. Give me a sec, I'm gonna go try it on."

Glory Girl turned to head towards the fitting rooms that were probably held just out of sight of the window. She luckily turned around in the opposite direction of said window which meant that she luckily missed Lisa staring straight at her like some sort of stalker. Rolling her eyes, Laserdream followed after her, "You know you'll have to pay for it if you stretch it out, right?"

"Pfft, since when?"

"Uh, since always?"

The two of them disappeared out of her sight and Lisa immediately did an about-face, heading back towards the crowd behind her. She may hate crowds, but she hated the idea of being seen by the two of them even more. She may call Glory Hole a bimbo, but she wasn't stupid. She'd definitely recognize Lisa's voice if she talked to her this soon after the stunt she pulled.

Unfortunately, just as she reached the crowd, Lisa was met with a sight that was confusing and slightly ominous. An Asian girl, walking completely on her own through a crowded, predominantly white mall. In Brockton Bay.

This wasn't exactly the racist part of town, but it wasn't far from it. Most people who weren't explicitly white knew better than to wander around alone just in case someone decided to pull some shit. Safety in numbers and all that.

This girl though, clearly didn't give a single shit about any of that. She walked through the crowd like she didn't have a single care in the world, gently nudging people out of the way and not once breaking her even stride as she continued towards her destination. Her confidence was unshakable, and Lisa couldn't help but use her power on the girl, wanting to know exactly what made her so fearless, all the while a suspicion tingled in the back of her mind.

Isn't worried at all about the people around her. Gaze indicates that she is completely focused on her destination.

Clothes are extremely expensive. Walk and steady gaze indicates a confidence in her own abilities to defend herself even in a crowd like this. Shoulders are relaxed, indicating a lack of worry.

Girl is likely an experienced parahuman.

An experienced female Asian parahuman, huh? There had only been two of those in the Bay in the past six months and one of them had shown up on the front steps of the psyche ward a few weeks ago, completely out of her mind. That meant this girl was…

Oh that was just fan-fucking-tastic.

Lisa's eye twitched as she watched Yosei pass by as she walked deeper into the mall. It looked like she was alone and Lisa couldn't see anyone who might be affiliated with her following but that didn't make it any better. Why was she here in the first place!?

'Me, Glory Girl, Laserdream and now Yosei? Is this bring your cape to the mall day or something!?' She thought furiously.

Lisa was completely baffled as she watched Yosei disappear into the crowd without a care. She would have thought that a literal gang leader would have better things to do than browse Hot Topic or peruse the local H&M or whatever, but apparently she was wrong.

Biting her lip, Lisa debated whether or not she should just call the trip a bust and head back to the loft and deal with whatever particular brand of bullshit Alec would be on today. There was an emergency exit only a few feet away and it wasn't like she wouldn't be able to pay the fine for it. She could just leave.

As always, her curiosity won out, though. Right here was the perfect chance to get a read on one of the most powerful capes in the city, pretty much completely risk free. How could she waste the opportunity?

That was how she found herself tailing the leader of the ABB through the mall as the woman went about her business, just observing in hopes that she could get a read on her next moves in case the Undersiders might happen to be included in them. Lisa had heard rumors about how fanatically loyal the woman had been towards her father and she wanted to know just how big the target on their back was for being the ones technically responsible for getting him put away.

Her investigations were… Not very successful. Not at all really. It turned out that even with her powers, there wasn't all that much you could extrapolate of a gang boss's next moves from the way that she sniffed candles from a kiosk outside of the Spencers shoved in the corner of the mall, go figure. The crowds certainly didn't help.

That wasn't to say that her investigations were a complete bust though. Sure, she got basically zilch on anything Yosei might have been up to, but she had found something else to pique her interest. It seemed someone had taken just as much of an interest in Yosei as she had. Though, probably not for the same reasons.

He looked just like every other teenager wandering around the mall looking for something to do. There was something off about his posture though. He had his hands shoved into his pockets and was slightly hunched over as if he wasn't trying to be noticed. Most curious of all was the fact that he was staring directly at the back of Yosei's head as if he was trying to burn a hole through it. Even through the massive crowd of people around them, he kept his eyes locked onto her, only looking away as she turned into an art supply store and disappeared from sight.

The moment that she did so, the guy pulled out his phone and dialed a number, saying something into the receiver that she couldn't hear as he turned to walk away from the store, and it didn't take a genius or a thinker to figure out who he was probably talking to. Though he may not have been an actual skinhead, her power had him pegged as a member of the Empire from the moment that she had seen him.

Which meant he probably saw a 'defenseless' Asian girl walking around the mall and called a couple of his buddies or something to deal with something he saw as an issue. Now, this was a problem in multiple senses, and one of the least concerning was the fact that she had witnessed the beginnings of a hate crime about to happen in broad daylight. What exactly was going to happen if the literal boss of the ABB was attacked by some random Empire mooks? Probably nothing good.

Biting her lip, Lisa debated leaving it alone and just letting things take their course. It wasn't like Yosei couldn't defend herself and interacting with the girl in any capacity was probably a bad idea when one of Lisa's teammates had technically helped put her beloved father away. Especially considering that, given everything that her power had sussed out on the ABB leader while she was researching her, she was absolutely willing to put heads on platters if it came to that.

But then she had a thought. Yosei had no way of knowing who Lisa actually was. Unless her powers granted her some sort of super intuition on top of all the other bs she was able to do of course but nobody was that lucky. To her, Lisa would just be some random teen shopping around the mall just like everyone else her age; there was nothing strange about that at all.

But if Yosei ever did find out who she was when she inevitably came after the Undersiders like her dear old dad did, then right here might be a way to possibly convince her not to kill them instantly. Lisa was no stranger to sucking up to prevent a bullet in the brain, and giving her possible future killer a little heads up on her stalker situation would probably help smooth things over in the long run. Or at the very least it would be a start.

It was a pretty big stretch admittedly, but it wasn't like there was a reason for Lisa not to tell her that she was probably gonna be jumped on the way home, or at least give her a bit of a heads up. Nothing too overt of course, just a little suggestion that might set off those instincts that everyone carried that something might be wrong.

She mulled over the decision for a long moment, before mentally shrugging and following the extremely dangerous cape into the art supply store.

At the very least, what she was doing might prevent the inevitable blood bath that would occur thanks to the idiots who decided to fuck with one of the strongest capes on the east coast.

~~~

Only a few minutes later, Lisa almost stood corrected. Almost.

"At least the mall won't be a bloodbath." Lisa corrected herself emptily as she stared out of the side of the massive hole that had been blown into the side of the parking garage. Around her, around a dozen other people who didn't have the good sense to run away when they heard the massive, fuckoff crash that had happened just a few minutes ago.

The air around them all was frigid enough that she could see her breath in front of her face and she shivered lightly, regretting not wearing a jacket despite the fact that it wasn't even supposed to be that cold out today.

As she stared out into the street just outside the mall, Lisa cursed herself for her lack of perception. If she had known that it was a fucking cape that was after Yosei and not just some random idiots without a brain to share between them, she would have worded her warning a little bit differently!

At least they took it outside. Lisa looked down at the rim of the hole, staring at the fist-sized shards of ice that littered the ground. Moving her gaze upwards, she could see a clear trail of ice and damaged concrete that led away from the mall and down the street. It looked like some sort of wild animal had wandered through an ice storm. Claw marks littered the street and surrounding buildings, windows were broken and light poles had been sliced clean in half as the trail progressed down the street disappearing into the bank of fog that was hanging around the block and only growing thicker by the moment.

Leaning down, Lisa picked up one of the chunks of ice, only to immediately drop it to the ground with a hiss as it practically burned her hand on contact, "Fuck! That's cold!"

"Yeah, no shit." Someone said behind her, and she turned to give the guy a glare, only to stumble as the very ground underneath her began to rumble.

Screams of panic resounded from the crowd around her as the entire parking garage seemed to shift underneath them. Concrete cracked and car alarms wailed just as loud as the people around her, nd for a heartstopping moment, Lisa thought that the damage was far worse than what they were seeing right now and that it was actually going to collapse. She fell on the ground, bracing her hands on the floor to stabilize herself while trying not to touch any of the ice littering the ground as she did her as her heart raced with adrenaline.

Luckily, the floor didn't collapse beneath them all and soon the shaking actually stopped. After a moment of making sure that it was over, Lisa breathed a sigh of relief, slowly getting to her feet alongside a few others, before pausing as she heard several gasps come from behind her. Worried someone had fallen out of the hole or something, she turned around, only for her eyes to widen at what she was met with outside.

Only a few blocks away, a massive spire of gleaming ice jutted high above the buildings around it, revealing just what it was that had caused all of that shaking earlier. It was sharp and jagged, yet almost chrome in just how brightly it shone in the light. It was also clearly just as cold as all of the other ice that was littering the ground outside of the mall as the very moment that it appeared, a dense fog began to waft off of it, slowly drifting towards the ground as the very air condensed around it due to the sheer difference in temperature.

While the rest of the crowd oohed and awed at the site, some of them even going so far as to pull their phones out so that they could take a picture, Lisa turned her full attention towards the spire and let her power take over as she tried to gauge exactly what was going on aside from the obvious.

Yosei is still fighting unknown empire cape. Likely multiple capes given that the conflict hasn't ended yet. Placement of the spire indicates that the battle is taking place in the nearby park.

Spire is deliberately overt and shines much more brightly than the other ice. A signal to other capes in the area? No, a signal to everyone.

Trail indicates that the battle was deliberately led there. Spire was made to keep people away from the area. Yosei is trying to minimize civilian casualties.

'Well that's good at least. Maybe it won't be a bloodbath then.' Lisa thought to herself as she slowly backed out of the crowd and away from the giant hole in the wall. She'd done her good samaritan act for the day. She didn't want anything to do with whatever idiot decided to poke the sleeping bear.

Unfortunately, Lisa made it exactly three steps away from the ongoing observation before her phone began buzzing in her pocket. Her heart sinking, Lisa pulled it out, somehow already knowing exactly who was on the other side before she even answered it.

"Hello, Tattletale. I have a job I need you to do." The slimy voice of Coil swam into her ear, filling her with disgust and dread in equal measure.

"Right, got it." She said, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice, "I'm out shopping right now so give me a second to head back to the loft. You can fill me in on the way."

Her heart sank even more as a chuckle rang out from the other line, "Oh, you don't need to do that. As a matter of fact, I think you're in the perfect place to perform this task as it is. I take it you are within view of the fight just outside the mall?"

So he was spying on her. Of fucking course he was. Knowing it was better than to lie, Lisa swallowed her fear and spoke shallowly, "Yeah, I can see it."

"Wonderful. I need you to get into a position with a good view of the fight. This is the perfect opportunity for some data collection on your end."

Lisa's expression went blank, "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. Because I know you did not just ask me to get within view of the same person who fried Hookwolf like a goddamn egg. I don't even have my costume!"

"You won't need it. I merely require your assistance in trying to figure out any weaknesses in Yosei's power that we could possibly exploit. You don't even need to be seen." He said, utterly unconcerned by her extremely valid concerns.

Lisa's eye twitched, "Weaknesses? That bitch has more powers than I have fingers at this point. What makes you think there even are any weaknesses? And even if she did, do you really think it's a good idea to put me in the same place as her and whoever's lasting long enough against her to actually be a problem?" Lisa really didn't want to go out there. She had run from Lung, why would she hang around his daughter who was arguably just as strong?

Unfortunately, like always, her 'boss' didn't give her much of a choice, "That was an order, Tattletale. I expect you to contact me with the results by the end of the day." The asshole said in a tone that clearly indicated he wasn't willing to argue about this.

Still, Lisa opened her mouth to try, "But I don't even-"
Her words died in her throat as the dial tone rang in her ear. Lisa stared blankly at the wall before slowly lowering the phone, doing her very best not to chuck it straight at one of the many breakable windshields around her as she came to terms with the fact that she was going to have to head straight towards the carnage instead of away from it like usual.

"This is it. This is how I die." She said as she stared down at the phone she was clenching in her hand. Eventually she sighed and loosened her grip, shoving it into her pocket, "Fucking Coil."

Turning around at the sound of even more gasps and excited chattering, Lisa almost felt like crying as she caught sight of Glory Girl soaring her way towards the ongoing battle, both Laserdream and Shielder following close behind their cousin. She hadn't even known that Shielder was even in the mall but she guessed it made sense. That family was always doing everything together. At least the adults weren't here. Yet.

She groaned as she headed towards the stairs to get out of the parking garage. The leader of the ABB fighting one or more Empire capes, New Wave was about to get involved and she would bet this month's rent that both the Protectorate and the rest of the ABB were going to hear about it soon enough. Even if the heat from this battle died down, it was definitely going to have ramifications on the politics in the Bay no matter how it went.

"This is going to be a fucking mess."

Maybe she should call Rachel or Brian. At least then she'd have a little bit of protection against the goddamn force of nature she was supposed to be spying on.

---

Get chapters early at Sadguychet | Patreon

 

[Sadguychet]

"Hello, dear. Would you be so kind as to answer some questions for us?"

I didn't respond to the words at first, too busy trying to wrack my brain on who exactly these two could be. They were clearly Empire, that much was for certain, but I couldn't recall ever seeing them before.

Deciding to play it safe, I gave the two of them a scared look slowly backing away as they leered at me, "Uh, I-I think you have the wrong person." I said, acting like a normal scared teenager, "W-Who are you two? What do you want?"

The woman gave me a gentle smile, or at least the facsimile of one, "Oh my, how polite, asking our names first. I am Night, and this is my husband, Fog. And you, my dear, have information on someone very important to us."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about." I said, continuing to feign ignorance. As I spoke, I searched for any sort of escape from this situation but it was no use. The two of them had me cornered, blocking the only exits in what was likely a deliberate move, "I don't know anybody like that."

Night tutted, "Now now, hasn't anyone ever told you about lying to your elders. We know you've been spending time with Tammi. We've seen the two of you on your little outings and we would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to tell us where she's been. Her family has been worried sick, you know?"

So this was about Tammi. I should have suspected as much. I hid my reaction to their words, instead shaking my head and cowering in fear, "I don't know what you're talking about, I-I promise. Please don't hurt me!"

It rackled me to act like this, even as a precaution, but I needed to figure out exactly what they planned to do with me. Was this just some random hate crime, or something more? I wouldn't put it past Empire capes to corner a minority in a dark alley just to have some fun with them, but something about these two made me think they weren't the run-of-the-mill racists.

Fog eyed me consideringly, "I believe that she is lying to us, dear."
"I believe you are right." Night agreed. She smiled as she stepped forward, beginning to approach me, "It seems we'll have to do this the hard way, then. That's too bad."

Her words, combined with the sinister look she was giving me, told me everything I needed to know about these two. These two weren't like Tammi, they were more like Hookwolf or even Alabaster. They were killers, through and through, and though I didn't know exactly what they had planned for me, it was clear that they had no intention of letting me live through it.

With that realization, came a choice that I had to make. I could continue this charade and see where they took me, banking on the possibility that I might be able to fight back further down the line wherever I ended up, or I could take care of them now, ending the threat to both mine and Tammi's safety as early as possible.

The choice was obvious.

I threw my facade out the window, drawing myself up with a confidence that was clearly noticed by the two of them as Night stopped walking towards me and instead eyed me curiously, "Your organization is truly detestable." I said, my voice lacking the fear it once had, "I had thought that you would not stoop so low as to kidnap one of your own and return her to an existence tantamount to slavery, but it seemed that I was mistaken."

I looked Night in the eyes, "I will not be going anywhere with you, I'm afraid. As a matter of fact, neither of you are leaving this garage alive."

Night didn't react to my threat beyond a raised eyebrow. She turned towards her husband, "She's quite well-spoken, isn't she? I could barely detect a hint of that reprehensible accent in her words that time."

"It's just a facade, dear." Fog answered, "Like an animal mimicking human behaviors in order to fit in."

"Well it's a clever ruse, either way. She almost seems like a normal, upstanding citizen!" Night said as if I was some modern marvel.

My lips curled in disgust at their words and Night saw this. "Oh please, don't make that face. It doesn't fit a pretty young girl like yourself."

"I thought I was an animal." I said as I finally decided on the form I would take.

Night smiled, "Well, everyone has had a cute pet or two in their lives. It's a wonderful conversation starter when you're having trouble relating to guests."

Disgusting.

Mist burst out from under my clothes without warning, obscuring the two of them from my view. As I transformed, I could hear an odd noise, like something being dragged across the concrete away from me. I ignored it in favor of raising my hand and letting out a blast of frigid cold so powerful that it blew my now snow-white hair back like I was in a wind tunnel, clearing the mist around me and revealing my new form at the same time.

Fog was unprepared as my attack caught him in the chest, blowing him backwards with frost and ice crystals forming all over his outfit. Curiously, I didn't manage to hit Night despite my attack being more than wide enough to catch both of them, as was made apparent when the residual fog from my attack faded away to reveal that she was standing in a completely different place from before.

She stared at me, eyes slightly widened in surprise, before looking towards her partner who was lying on the ground a few feet away, "Oh dear. Honey, are you alright?"

"Of course." I was mildly surprised as Fog responded immediately. His body faded into white and rose up, the frost covering him falling to the ground behind him as he regained his composure. As he became human once more, he gave me an analyzing glance, "But this is interesting. It appears that our information wasn't quite as good as it should have been."

"Yes indeed." Night agreed, turning towards me, "If we had known that you were Yosei, we would have taken more precautions before hosting this little meeting."

I sneered at her, "Yes well, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Your regrets won't save you from my wrath, I can promise you that."

Night seemed to find something amusing, and she ignored my words in favor of turning towards her husband, "Though, this certainly makes things easier, doesn't it? Now we won't need to run around the city searching for her."

Fog nodded, "Yes. Agnes will be happy that we managed to find her so quickly. We'll be killing two birds with one stone this time."

Agnes. My lips curled at the name. I had thought Kaiser was responsible but of course she would be behind this. It seemed that Tammi had been correct that her aunt simply would not let her go.

"You won't be killing anybody." I proclaimed angrily, clenching my fists.

"Oh I wouldn't be too sure about that." Fog said, stepping in front of his wife, "It is our favorite part of the job, after all."

Fog's body split at the seams, dispersing widely just like his namesake. And that's when the problems started.

He drifted towards me ahead of his partner, spreading thin enough that I couldn't see either of them through his body. Not willing to let him get close, I immediately blasted him with a burst of cold wind, sending him flying away. As he disappeared into the darkness, I heard movement and whirled around to find that Night had somehow transitioned to standing behind me in that tiny instant that I took my eyes off of her. Startled at her appearance, I collected moisture in my palm and flung a spike of ice straight at her face.

Night stepped around the attack and something clattered to the ground where she had been. I looked down to find that she had dropped one of the flashbangs attached to her belt and immediately closed my eyes and slammed my hands over my ears. That was a mistake.

Something hard yet flexible slammed into my torso hard enough to knock the breath out of me and make my ribs creak from the force of it. I was knocked off my feet and tumbled backwards towards the wall of the parking garage. That wasn't the end of it though, as the moment that I landed I was set upon again, something incredibly sharp scraped across the side of my cheek, clearly aiming for my neck judging by the angle and narrowly missing the mark as I ducked my head in panic.

I was hit in the stomach again, and this time I could distinctly hear the sounds of something cracking inside my chest, followed by an incredible amount of pain. Said pain caused my eyes to fly open and I was met with a curious sight.

Night was standing a few feet away from me, just watching as I did my best to recover from the sudden assault. She had clearly been the one responsible for my current state judging by the oddly satisfied smile on her face, and I snarled in both anger and pain as I shot a cone of frost at her smug face, missing completely as she ducked back into the dark.

I stood up with some difficulty, looking around for any sign of either of the Empire capes. The flickering lights around me illuminated practically nothing. Long shadows hid my opponents from view and the only reason that I even knew that I was not alone was by the sound of skittering limbs hidden in the darkness.

Forming another spike of ice, I sent it flying towards the origin of the noises. The spike did hit something, but judging by the resounding metallic crash followed by a dying car alarm, it wasn't what I was aiming for.

I looked to my right as a thud sounded out and was met with Fog beginning to stand from a crouch, as if he had fallen from above. My eyes widened at his sudden appearance, and without even thinking about it, I struck out at him with a closed fist, aiming for the center of his costume. Instead of hitting him however, my fist went through him as a hole opened in his chest, full of the same misty vapor that he had been turning into throughout our battle.

It hurt. Whatever Fog was made out of was not anything natural. It was as if my hand had been dipped into acid and I could practically feel the skin on the limb begin to dissolve from the moment that I put it inside of his body.

With a pained noise, I jerked my hand out of his body and brought my uninjured hand in front of me in a warding gesture, blasting him away with another torrent of wind. He floated backwards much more slowly than he had before, before disappearing into the smokey darkness once more.

Panting both from the pain in my hand and chest, I eyed the darkness warily as I came to one simple conclusion. The parking garage was not the place for this fight. There were two of them and one of me, and unlike them, my power wasn't designed for surprise attacks. They used the shadows to their advantage, making me feel like I was fighting ghosts.

I needed a change of scenery.

Keeping one eye out for any attack, I pressed my hand to the wall behind me and focused. I immediately found what I was looking for, moisture trapped inside of the porous brick surface of the wall. Using my power, I turned those tiny fragments of water into ice and commanded them to expand, heedless of their limited confinements.

The wall erupted outwards in an explosion of ice and stone, and looking through the hole, I could just barely spot the green of the nearby park, a much better battleground than a cramped parking garage.

I jumped out of the hole without hesitation. As I fell, I held a hand out, blasting wind below myself to slow my fall so that I could land softly on the ground without issue. The moment that my feet were under me once more, I began running in the direction of the park, wanting as much of a head start as physically possible. Ice gathered on the ground below my feet, allowing me to keep all of my momentum as I began skating down the street towards my destination.

As I moved, I held my hands out behind me, blasting powdery snow and wind out of my palms to propel me even faster. The move had the added effect of providing some semblance of a smoke screen which would hopefully make it a bit more difficult for them to discern my exact location should they choose to follow me. The few people still on the street after I blew up the wall of the parking garage scattered to the wind at my actions which was good. There was no need for them to get caught up in this.

Only a few moments later, it was clear that they hadn't simply decided to let me go. I heard a crash behind me but I ignored it as best that I could, speeding up and skating along even faster. The sounds of destruction behind me were just out of reach, but it was clear that they were steadily growing closer even as I sped up.

Something hard and small smacked into the back of my head and I had to stop using my power to propel myself to keep from falling on my face. Recovering, I turned around, wondering what that was, and saw a massive chunk of concrete had been gouged out of the ground where I had just been.

Night was also standing in the middle of the street, just staring at me. Scowling at her, I aimed a hand back and fired a plume of frost at her which she dodged by ducking into a nearby alley, disappearing from sight once more.

I kept my eyes peeled for any more attacks. Night was gone, as far as I could tell, but I didn't dare believe that she had given up the chase so easily. She was likely waiting for me to let my guard down before attacking again, just as she had every time before.

With that thought in mind, I continued skating down the street towards the row of buildings barring me from my destination. As I approached, I gathered my power and jumped as high as I could, using my power to propel me up and over the buildings and into the grassy field just beyond.

Hopefully here, I might be able to turn the tides of this battle in my favor.

~~~

Tammi scrutinized herself in the mirror, her eyes gazing intently at her reflection as she tried to decide whether or not her current outfit was good enough for her impending date. It wasn't anything too fancy, more the type of thing you'd wear to a party instead of a fancy dinner, but she still wasn't sure where they were even going and she didn't want to overdress.

Eventually, she shrugged, deciding that she looked fine. It wasn't like she had many options at the moment. She still hadn't replaced her wardrobe and all the stuff that she'd left at her parents house. Though it wasn't because she was out of money or anything, she just hadn't bothered to go shopping yet. Being in the ABB paid way more than the Empire.

"Guess it only makes sense she pays well with how much money she has." she mused to herself as she grabbed her eyeliner pencil from the sink, "I could definitely get used to living in this suburban mansion, too. I've never had a bathroom in my bedroom before. It's fucking awesome."

As she began applying her eyeliner, Tammi mused to herself how strange it was to be doing her makeup right now, or at all really. She never would have imagined prettying herself up like this for a date before; it just never seemed worth the effort. All of her previous boyfriends would have told her she looked good no matter how much effort she actually put into her outfits and that just made the whole idea of dressing up seem kind of pointless.

With Yuko, it was different. Even when they were just friends, she had always felt a little underdressed when the two of them hung out. Yuko made being pretty look effortless. No matter what she was wearing, it was as if her attire had been meticulously picked out to suit her perfectly.

Tammi wasn't like that. She actually had to try to look nice. But she wasn't one of those preppy girls who would spend hours picking out the perfect outfit for an occasion. Dressing up for her normally involved a nicer-than-usual jacket thrown over her usual outfit and maybe putting on some light makeup if she had time or cared to. Usually she didn't.

With Yuko though, Tammi actually wanted to try. She remembered how Yuko had looked at her when she had worn a skirt to their last date, how it made her feel. It was nice, much nicer than anything she had felt before. She's like to feel it again.

Putting the pencil down, Tammi stepped back and admired her work. She smirked at what she saw, "Oh yeah. She'll love this."

Satisfied with her work, Tammi turned her attention to her hair which was currently hanging just above her shoulders. She ran her hands through it, pondering whether or not she should tie it up or just keep it down. After a moment, she shrugged and decided to put it up. It wasn't like she couldn't take it back down if she didn't like how it looked, her usual hairstyle was pretty low-effort in the first place.

Just as she went to put it up, her phone began buzzing on the sink in front of her. She gave it an annoyed look at the interruption, before putting her hair tie in her mouth and lifting it up to her ear, holding it there with her shoulder as she resumed her work on her hair, "Hello?" She answered the call.

"You are needed." The voice that came through the speaker was one that she didn't recognize, raspy and slightly gravely, as if the owner didn't use it often, "Our leader is in trouble."

There was an odd sound in the background, a soft thudding undercut by the rushing of wind. Was he running? It sounded oddly loud for it just to be that.

Tammi paused at the words, not sure she had heard right. She put her hair tie down, focusing on the phone, "What? Who is this?"

"It is Lee." The voice responded, causing her eyes to widen.

"Wait, Oni Lee? How the hell did you even get my number!?"

"That is irrelevant." The man said, though Tammi felt the need to disagree with him. She didn't want that psychopath to have any of her personal information! "Yosei-sama requires our assistance. Prepare yourself and join me downtown to assist her."

The line went dead before Tammi could respond, leaving the girl in a state of confusion and growing panic as she processed what had been said.

Yuko was in trouble. Oni Lee hadn't explained shit to her besides that, but that was really all Tammi needed to know. She put her hair up into the quickest pony-tail she had ever managed in her life to keep it out of her face, before beginning to strip out of the clothes that she had spent so long debating over whether or not to wear.

As she went to grab her costume and gear from her closet, Tammi's mind wandered to exactly what might be happening with her girlfriend. Oni Lee had been frustratingly vague, but it didn't take a genius to guess who might be responsible. There were only two organizations in the city that would even think about fighting Yosei, and the heroes had been leaving them alone so far.

"Fucking Kaiser! Can't you just fuck off and die already!?" Tammi growled as she wrapped her scarf around her face. She pulled her hood over her head, making sure that her hair was hidden under the bright red cloth, though there honestly probably wasn't even a point anymore. It wasn't like they wouldn't know it was her.

Tammi glanced at herself in the nearby mirror to make sure that everything was good to go and nodded, before turning to the next and arguably most important issue she currently had. How was she going to get downtown?

She could find a dumpster with a broken lid she could use but that would take too long. So would calling Kon to come pick her up. She needed to be downtown now.

Searching her room for something, anything she could use to get there faster, Tammi paused as her eyes caught on something that she had completely forgotten about.

Hanging on her wall above her bed was a longboard, or at least the deck of one. It was a gift from Kon to quote 'spice up her boring bedroom'. Tammi didn't know how he knew that she didn't have any decorations in her room since he had never been in it, but she wasn't going to refuse such a cool gift. She'd skated a few times before the Empire and was kind of good at it, so something like that was right up her alley.

Now, as she stared at the design on the bottom of the board, Tammi got an idea. A horrible, horrible idea. The kind of idea you get at two in the morning and immediately throw away because it's so bad.

…Maybe if she kept it low to the ground she'd be fine?

"I'm going to fucking die." She muttered as she grabbed the skateboard off of her wall and made her way to the window, shoving it out. It hovered in the air just in front of her, only a few feet above the ground. Tammi only hesitated for a moment before stepping onto it.

It bobbed slightly under her weight but a quick mental adjustment fixed that and soon she was balancing on it well enough that she felt comfortable moving.

She rose into the air high enough that the fall wouldn't hurt her too badly, but also high enough that nobody would be able to bother her. Then she began moving, slowly at first, but gradually beginning to pick up the pace as she grew more and more confident with her ability to do so.

Soon enough, she was flying just as fast as she always did. Her power helped her stay perfectly balanced even in the rushing wind as she made micro-adjustments to the board underneath her as she flew to her girlfriend's aid.

And as she reached the edge of downtown, her eyes locked onto a massive spire of ice that was jutting out above several buildings. Snow swirled underneath it, a localized storm centered entirely on that single point, and Tammi knew where her destination was.

Tammi's scarf whipped in the wind as she picked up the pace even further as she flew to her girlfriend's aid, not caring in the slightest that she'd probably be completely useless in a fight against her former colleagues. She had just started living her life the way she wanted to. There was no way in hell she was going to let them take that from her.

~~~

I had vastly underestimated my current opponent.

Wind whipped around me at a nearly deafening speed, flurries of ice and snow circling me in a constant blizzard centered entirely around my very being. I slowly turned around, keeping my attention on the woman, the creature, that I could feel moving inside of the growing storm that my power was steadily creating.

Night's power was more than it appeared. Before, I had been baffled as to exactly how she was able to do all that she had done to me in that parking garage, but here, the cause was made swiftly as I felt the thing that she had become stalking me in the blizzard.

Said storm wasn't of my own making, unfortunately, or at least not intentionally. It would seem that a passive ability of the Yuki-onna form was to create a perpetual blizzard around myself without conscious effort. It was as if the very air around me was reacting to my presence, recognizing my power as the supreme force of nature and reacting in kind.

I suppressed the feeling of pride that reared up in the back of my head at the notion. This form had a bit of an ego it would seem, a sense of pride that was only enhanced as mother nature herself bent to my very will.

Even now I could feel the storm growing, beginning to steadily encompass the entirety of the park around us in torrential winds and frosted squalls. If there was anything good to come out of this entire situation, it was that I hadn't needed to try very hard to evacuate the park.

A burst of motion had me whipping around with a snarl, a blade made of the ice forming in my hand as I struck out at the monster that had lunged towards my unprotected back. Only instead of a monster, it is once again the woman who had become it. Night bent backwards at the waist, dodging the swipe of my sword.

My frustration continued to build as she skipped away from my follow-up strike, "Oh dear, you nearly had me that time!" She said with a laugh as fake as her smile, before backflipping back into the depths of the storm with a surprising amount of agility.

The moment she was out of sight, I could once again feel her form shift monstrously once more. The creature with far too many legs stalked around me in a wide circle, utterly unaffected by the icy wind as she prodded at my defences like she had been doing for the last several minutes.

I couldn't stop the growl of frustration that escaped my throat. With a mere gesture, the snow in the air solidified around Night, deadly daggers of ice shooting towards the woman with the intent to skewer her and put an end to this farce. Like every time before however, they were effortlessly evaded or even deflected by the woman's incredibly hard limbs. I scowled at my failure and the storm around me seemed to grow even wilder in response to my rising emotion.

This was how things had been going for the past several minutes, and one thing had become apparent above all else. I had chosen my form poorly.

It stung my pride but I was smart enough to realize what was happening, why Night was being so careful despite having the upper hand in both speed and strength. Any time I laid eyes on the woman, the monster that she had become ceased to be, replaced once again by the flesh and blood of a human being. It happened every time without fail, and it didn't take long for me to recognize the pattern.

Her power only worked when she wasn't being actively observed with the naked eye. The only reason that I could even see the form that she had taken was because I wasn't technically 'seeing' it, I was feeling it through the disturbances it made in the storm around me. The same storm that kept Night hidden and me reacting to her assaults.

In other words, my power was actively working against me in this scenario. As long as I remained in this form, the storm would continue and Night would remain hidden, free to poke and prod at my defences until she found the weakness she was looking for.

The only silver lining to this situation was that Fog had seemingly not joined her in chasing me, though I wasn't exactly sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. I couldn't feel his presence anywhere within my storm, human or otherwise. Was he somewhere outside of my range, waiting for an opportunity to strike while I was distracted? Or perhaps he had gone for reinforcements while his partner kept me busy. Should I expect more Empire capes to show up and assist the woman in her task of dealing with me?

That wouldn't be good. I already had my hands full with Night alone thanks to the unintended consequences of my power. If more capes showed up or one of them managed to circumnavigate my senses, I wouldn't last. If I wished to get through this alive, something would have to change.

With that thought in mind, I raised my hands and concentrated on the air around me. Sheets of thick ice materialized around me as the moisture in the air solidified, blocking me off from her storm and the monster lurking inside of it. Not intent to let me hide away in my fortress, Night immediately set upon the walls, clawing and scraping at them to get to me inside. Her limbs cut through my ice with the barest effort, proving just how sharp and deadly they were, as if the cut on my face wasn't evidence enough.

I disregarded her as best that I could. Placing my hands on the ground, I ignored the pain in my burned hand as I focused, sending a seed of my power far down into the earth. I needed to make it deep enough that my creation wouldn't simply fall or collapse under its own weight. As I worked, I could feel Night growing closer. The woman was doing an impressive imitation of a buzzsaw, constantly grinding and chipping away at the ice as she slowly but steadily made her way towards the center where I was. If this continued, she would be upon me in mere moments.

Luckily, a few moments was all that I needed. The ground rumbled underneath my feet as my power expanded, the earth splintering before erupting outwards as a spire of ice as thick as I was tall emerged from below. The force of its emergence cracks the very ground underneath me, causing deep fissures to spread and threaten to swallow me up.

As the spire rose, I could feel Night pause in my storm, clearly curious as to what I was doing. She got over it quickly though, and resumed her assault on my fortress. She was close enough now that I could hear the disturbing sounds of the woman's clawing over the rushing wind, but that didn't matter. The proverbial beacon was raised.

If Fog had truly gone to get reinforcements, then I would need some of my own. Unfortunately, I had no way to contact my men as my phone had disappeared with my transformation and even if it hadn't, I doubt I'd be given the time needed to dial them for assistance. That was fine though, I didn't necessarily need my men. I just needed another force on the battlefield to take her attention long enough for me to switch form.

Now I just needed to keep her at bay long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Whoever they may be.

With that thought in mind, I turned towards Night as she finally broke through my ice. LIke always, she was back in her human form the moment I laid eyes on her, smiling serenely at me. In one of her hands was a long, slender stiletto.

I sneered at the weapon just as much as the woman holding it, "Do you intend to stick me with such a miniscule blade? I had thought you were too cowardly to engage me in a head-on battle, much less with paltry weaponry such as that. You won't manage much, I assure you."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, dear." Night smiled serenely "All it takes is one good thrust between the ribs. You won't even feel it. Trust me, they never do."

I scoffed at her words, "You won't get the opportunity!"

The icy walls around us melted and froze again in an instant, and I sent the resulting chunks of ice hurtling towards Night at incredible speeds. The woman saw my attack coming however, and ducked out of the way of my attack. As she moved, she brought her hand to her waist and another grenade fell from her belt, spewing a thick smoke that quickly obscured Night from my sight once again. The smoke was swiftly swept up by my storm and carried away, but by that point Night had already disappeared back into the snowy depths.

And as I once again tracked her through my storm, waiting for the next time she would try her luck, I settled in to continue this game of cat and mouse, hoping that assistance would arrive sooner rather than later.

---

Get chapters early at Sadguychet | Patreon

 

[BEARiiKADE]

I think this is the first fic in a while that I've read where Night and Fog are actually paid attention to, gotta admit they're terrifying.

 

[Simplexity]

She definitely needs to switch to something with more personal power and observation abilities... That might give her enough time to kill her opponent before reinforcements arrive.

 

[Natman717]

Night's lines give me the heebie-jeebies. Also Yosei taking a humanoid form is strange, kept making me double take and go wait is she a creature or just a human with ice powers now. Either way nice fight thanks for the chap