Crystalized Munchkinry - Act VI - Chapter 81 (Patreon)

Vicky was bored.

Her parents were still arguing about Amy, or more like Carol (she refused to refer to the woman as her mother until she apologized to her sister) was arguing with anybody who tried to talk some sense into her. So, instead of going over and watching Amy sulk, which got boring really fast, she decided to go on patrol.

Beating up a few druggies was just what the doctor ordered!

So, she left a note and donned her new awesome bracers, shoes, and tiara, then flew off into the rapidly darkening twilight.

Sadly, in her haste, she forgot that, thanks to Dragon, the parahuman crime level of the city had plummeted and even regular criminals tended to be much more careful nowadays.

It definitely wasn't her awesome new accessories that scared away everybody. And she would swear on it!

As she drifted over the city, just going where the wind was taking her, contemplating calling up Dean for a quick and romantic patrol, she heard an enormous crash.

By the time she located the origin of the sound, she saw a giant plume of smoke over an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Without hesitation, she turned around in the air, and a second later, she was flying at maximum speed toward the commotion.

Arriving at the site of the explosion, she took a moment to look over the situation and figure out what had happened. Though, thanks to the smoke in the air, she could barely see anything, she could still clearly hear the sound of weapons fire and metal clashing with metal.

Then a familiar roar.

"Hookwolf…"

Vicky narrowed her eyes, and without a thought, she charged into the cloud, heading for the mass murderer and trusting her new shield to protect her.

Arriving in the area where the warehouse had previously stood, she saw a truly surprising scene. Hookwolf was fighting with Kaiser, with the latter trying to nail the former with columns of sharp metal, while some gangbangers were taking shots at them. Although she wondered where the other Empire parahumans were…

On second thought, she decided it wasn't important now that she had a perfect opportunity to take out two of the biggest players in the city.

She flew up a little higher to get enough space to execute a move she had learned from Taylor's power. Though why he insisted on wearing green spandex to realize the full power of the move, she didn't understand….

So, she extended one of her legs and waited patiently until Hookwolf stopped. She knew he could take it, and there was no need to get blood on her uniform. Then she charged while yelling what Admin had told her to.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Hookwolf had exactly half a second to realize what was happening before the full force of a kick from Glory Girl hit him and sent him flying into the one remaining brick wall, which collapsed onto him upon the metallic wolf's impact.

Vicky turned toward the owlishly blinking Kaiser and punched her palm with her fist, trying to project as menacing an aura as she could.

"Surrender. Or don't. I like both options."

As Kaiser processed her threat, and she saw he was about to answer her (probably not surrender, but a girl could dream), a furious roar interrupted them.

She whipped around to witness Hookwolf exploding out of the giant pile of bricks that had fallen on him, only to charge directly at her. At the same time, she could see in the corner of her eye as swords emerged from the ground, aimed directly at her.

Knowing that Kaiser was probably familiar with her old power and was probably hoping to get some distance from her, she simply didn't dodge.

To Kaiser's incredulous look (thank God Taylor had insisted on making her a pinhole camera that she could hide in her costume), she let both the sword and the raging metal wolf hit her.

The swords simply shattered, while Hookwolf had his face flattened.

There was a pregnant silence, then everybody moved at once.

Hookwolf shook his head as if getting rid of cobwebs as his metallic jaws reformed, then pounced once again at Vicky, while Kaiser took several steps backward, raising a giant wall of metallic swords. Vicky was also in motion, kicking Hookwolf away negligently while simply charging through the wall, then continuing the motion by giving Kaiser a beautiful uppercut.

Watching as Kaiser was launched into the wall of a nearby building, knowing that would take him out of the fight for at least a little while, she turned toward the impotently raging Hookwolf.

Thanks to the training she and Amy had received, her fighting techniques and power usage had improved, but that didn't change the fact that she only had her fists (and legs) to fight with. No fancy capturing powers like her cheating sister and Taylor. And she didn't think people would be happy with her if she beat Hookwolf into a pulp. Well… some of them would be happy. He was, after all, a mass-murdering Nazi.

Absently punching the charging Nazi parahuman back, she looked around for some inspiration.

There!

One of those boxes that industrial places have that do something with electricity. She didn't know their name, but she knew there were an awful lot of warning signs on them…

She looked over the Nazi and glanced back at the rubble, which was starting to shift around, and made a decision.

As fast as she could, she flew up, then curved around so as to put Hookwolf between her and the box. The villain had a second to note her bloodthirsty (and somewhat giddy) face before a super-powered fist launched him in a very nice arc toward the box.

It was the same moment when Kaiser got out from under the rubble, coughing and hacking up dust.

"Miss Dallon, I don't think-" he started to speak but was interrupted by a coughing fit. "-you understand what you have done!"

The yowling coming from Hookwolf drowned out her answer as he impacted the box and the electricity began coursing through him.

Kaiser took a look at the man he had been fighting previously, and Vicky saw him visibly shrug, then turn around to leave.

"We shall see each other again, Miss Dallon!"

Vicky snorted and immediately flew after the man, who saw her coming and began bombarding her with increasing amounts of metal swords from all directions while trying to leave the area.

She either powered through them or swatted them away contemptuously.

After a brief struggle, she managed to punch through a wall and came face-to-face with the biggest Nazi in the city.

Giving the man a brilliant smile, she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and began to rocket up toward the clear night sky, while tendrils of metal composed of swords tried to grab her.

After she reached an altitude which she suspected would be lethal to the man if he were let go (and out of the range of those icky tentacles), she raised the man so he was facing her while he was trying to get her to let him go, with swords emerging from his armor.

She ignored them and spoke up in her chirpiest voice possible.

"Surrender, Kaiser!"

His answer was a growl and more swords.

So she let him go.

Vicky watched him fall for a while, then flew after him, caught him, and asked again.

"Still don't want to surrender?"

"You will pay for this, girl! You and your sister and your entire family will pay for this!"

"Wrong answer!"

She watched him fall toward the rapidly approaching ground and wondered how many repetitions it would take for the man to give up.

This time, she deliberately caught the man by his legs, just to increase the humiliation.

"You know, I have aaaaall the time…"

"I will make you watch as I kill your precious sister, then-"

A fist burying itself into his stomach interrupted Kaiser. The punch was strong enough to shatter the metal on him, and thanks to Vicky's hard-fought control, only drove the air out of his lungs (and bruised him like nothing else, but nothing was broken).

She was about to punch him once again when she heard a voice speak from behind her.

"How about we take over from here, Glory Girl?"

She whirled around, still holding the wheezing Kaiser, to see Dauntless hovering not far from her, while on the ground she could see PRT cars flooding the area.

With a sheepish face, she held out Kaiser, holding him by one of his feet.

"Sure, here you go!"

Finishing his last checks, he made sure the addresses to Path to Victory and Zion were correct before he took a second (which, thanks to his processing power, were days to him) to think about his targets.

He could go after Path to Victory, but then Zion could go on a rampage. And while he could stop the depressed Entity, it would still cause untold damage. Or he could go after Zion, but then Path to Victory would have another opportunity to do whatever it wanted.

Or he could do both at once.

It's not like he didn't have the processing power.

He was leaning toward Zion, because as of now, Path to Victory was only dangerous to him, while the remaining Entity was dangerous to all the dimensions of Earth.

As he was about to make a final decision, warnings began blaring. As he turned toward them and looked for the source, he was just in time to watch a giant, brilliant beam of energy annihilate the rebuilt body of the Administrator Shard, along with a good chunk of the planet beneath it.

Tracing the attack took ridiculously little time, as Zion had simply fired directly at the Shard.

It seemed the decision had been taken out of his hands. He quickly put his Network Security Shard on high alert, then began his counterattack.

Soon, another giant fuck-you beam flew through dimensions (though for now, he wouldn't use Sting since he wanted the Data from Zion), impacting Zion's considerable defenses.

Thanks to his improvements, this attack put the Entity squarely on the defensive. So he kept up the bombardment, just strong enough to almost break Zion's shields while doing a few things in tandem with the attack.

Using the communication channels still open, he began sending all sorts of viruses, some overt, some so stealthy he shuddered to think about, while also bombarding Zion with trash data, trying to overwhelm his processors.

Also, now that Zion was actively hostile toward him, he activated his own scanning Shards, finally completing his own Network, while setting a few of his processors to start taking over the old scanner and central Shards and downloading all the data from them.

During this Zion wasn't idle either.

As soon as he realized that the attacks wouldn't break through the shields, he resumed his own bombardment, obliterating more and more of the fake body and the planet it was on.

He could practically smell the Entity's confusion.

While he continued the 'fight' with Zion, he also made sure to keep an eye on Path to Victory. Which was a good thing, because as soon as his first attack hit Zion's shield, the Network Security Shard reported an infiltration attempt.

While predictable and easily defended against, he didn't let his guard down. He increased the resources going toward the defenses while giving the Shard instructions to delay the attacks as much as it could.

Thankfully, his viruses, improved by the knowledge gained from Eden and the Butcher, infiltrated Zion, so he immediately started the by-now well-practiced routine.

He isolated the mind, and while Zion impotently raged behind bars, he turned off the weapons and defenses and began draining the data, while still keeping an eye on the ever-changing infiltration attempt.

Making sure he had everything he needed from the last Entity infecting Earth and its alternate dimensions, he sent over one last communication.

[DATA]

In it, he described exactly what he had done, how he had done it, and what he would do after Zion died.

Zion's one last desperate and furious roar was drowned out by the roar of a beam of energy, coruscating with every hue of light possible, emerging from the between-space and obliterating its crystalline body, silencing him forever.

Stefanie was a journalist. Granted, some called her a blogger, but dammit, she published actual news about parahumans, not stupidly regurgitated events or articles from other news sites like most blogs did.

She did her own legwork and research and posted nothing she didn't have at least one reputable source for.

So, she called herself a journalist.

Even now, she was doing research for her next piece about Scion, the first and greatest hero. So, as the golden man floated leisurely through the streets of Edinburgh, she followed him with at least three different cameras, one of which uploaded everything live to a cloud server.

One never knew what could happen!

She was about to try to talk to the golden man for her research when everything changed.

The floating man stopped abruptly in the air, and Stefanie had an excellent view of his face.

At first, it was the usual blandness, then surprise, and then a deep-seated rage flashed across it before the hero's entire body vanished into thin air, like a bubble that had just popped.

Stefanie stood there for an entire minute, just like everybody else in the surrounding area, before her brain rebooted itself.

She had to get home and post it!